Bear Grease - Ep. 249: BONUS Render - Save the Hunt

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In this bonus episode of the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb invites Dan Gates from Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management back to give an update on the ballot initiative in Colorado to ban mountain lion and bobcat hunting. He's also joined by guests Lake Pickle of On X, Brent Reaves, Bear Newcomb, and Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker. This initiative is a movement away from science-based wildlife management and the North American Model of Wildlife Management. Listen along to hear how you can get involved and help stop the anti-hunting lobby. Visit savethehuntcolorado.com to learn more and make a donation to help protect your hunting rights. And…take Brent Reaves up on his challenge that the first person to donate $1,000 gets a Case Knife. Send confirmation to [e-mail]. wildlifedeservebetter.com If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be, versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Here we are on a special bear grease drop.

Like we're giving the people what they want more. I'd say. The people say more. We give them more. We say how much. Yeah. This is going to be a good episode. We've got with us multiple special guests, but Dan Gates from Coloradoans for responsible wildlife management.

You've been on here before. Yes, sir. A friend of ours. And we're going to talk about this. Colorado mountain line deal. So welcome. Appreciate it. Thank you coming to Arkansas.

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Welcome to the global headquarters. It's amazing. I mean, everybody knows who Clay Newcomb is down here. I know that. Well, I don't know that's true.

In some spots. In some places. Yeah. No, we appreciate it. He's definitely a legend here within the, you know, 100-yard radius. 100-yard radius. Yeah.

We've got Bear Newcomb. Good to see Bear. Glad to be here. Yep. Probably need a haircut. Like. Lake Pickle with OnX. Moving on.

Lake, tell us what you do. I know what you do, but tell the world, what do you do for OnX? So I guess the easiest title to put on it is I'm like, I'm a marketing manager. I work a lot on the Waterfile side and then work pretty much on our social media strategy and our YouTube and everything. Yeah. But you're not from Missoula, Montana. I'm not. You are from a state that starts with an M though.

I think that's how I confused them. I just, yeah, the MI kind of threw them off for a second. But, yeah, no, it's been fun. I've been with Onyx for a little over two, well, two and a half years now. Okay. Yep. Lakes from Mississippi. Right in the center of it.

I will say when I got here, it was the first time I met Bear in person. And his hair over social media, it's not done justice to. He's got like a mane. It's impressive. It's like a groomed lion. Yeah, yeah. I was a little envious, right? I was like, man, that's impressive.

Groomed life. Yeah. We got Josh Lambridge Spillmaker. Good to see you, Josh. I'd be here. We got Brent Reeves. Hey, pal. Good to see you, man.

I like that this country life shirt. I had to get up for breakfast. Come up here today. Yeah, yeah. Early start. Yeah. Man, these things are people really digging them. Yeah.

They look good. Yeah, they do. I got mine without the muscles. You order them with. Dan, I saw it. interesting headline today in the New York Times about a group of the fox hunters in England are petitioning the government. There's a, they're the lobbyist group of the hunters that are fox hunters, which fox hunting

was banned in England in the early 2000s, just like straight up banned, the wild fox hunts. Now they, they still got dogs over there and they do like scent drag hunts. And this is the kind of hunt, like in my picture up here on the ceiling, you know, where they're using horses and following the dogs. It's like very traditional European hunt. And this guy is building a really strong case that the world is kind of perking up their ears towards about how they are basically a cultural, not an ethnic group, but a people group that have this deep cultural heritage that should. should be protected like many of these other very protected classes of people with specific beliefs. Which I've actually said something similar to that for a while. That I mean like all over the world in these modern times when we're protecting everybody.

I mean like if you have a belief, don't mess with me about my belief, my faith and whatever. and it's like I thought it was pretty interesting. And they didn't laugh him off the stage. And I don't know the specifics, but it was in the New York Times recently. Have you heard about any of that? I have. And there's been a growing enthusiasm to be able to turn around and categorize ourselves in some classification that we are who we are from a cultural tradition and heritage perspective.

Yeah. And when you start talking about that, people start to pay attention on some sides of the aisle. Now the anti's are never going to pay attention to that, you know, the extremist. But other groups... But they're interested in protecting everybody else. Exactly. Yeah.

But other groups are like, I never really thought about it like that. I didn't really understand it. It was cultural to you. Yeah. Or that was from your background or your family tradition and genealogical heritage. I mean, it's something to where it would be interesting to see how they look at it over there. Yeah. I know that it gains traction over here as soon as you...

start mentioning a specific ethnic group. But in Colorado, we're being attacked at different levels right now on what we have a fur ban that is a ballot initiative. And the thing that's been centric to people to pay attention is the Native American side of it. As soon as you mention Native American, they're like, don't mess with the Native American. But when you just mentioned fur, they're like, oh, yeah, get rid of fur. And then you said, well, it has to do with cowboy hats. Well, okay, well, there's an exception. Well, it has to do with fishing lures. Oh, well, well, we shouldn't mess with a fisherman. As soon as you mentioned Native American,

all of them are on board to say, no, we shouldn't mess with it. Just yesterday, I was doing some research for something and was reading a source material document by a guy named John Lawson that was written in 1709, published in 1709, you know, 215 years ago. And he was, he was, that was good math on my feet, man. They should get him on the podcast.

He was talking about bear hunting with hounds in Virginia. I mean, like very, it was very detailed. And, I mean, that was 70 years before America was America. I mean, like, there's deep, deep, deep cultural heritage for hunting with hounds and hunting predators on this continent. that is undeniable and to this day we still have all these predators in especially in the west with lions with thriving numbers i mean i think we i i really think that that's a direction that we should go as a hunting community and and the specifics of it we're not an ethnic group it's not and that's not what these guys in europe are trying to do but but a protected class of people with specific beliefs that are congruent with

just their identity. Well, it's interesting. It's interesting that you say that about, you think about what you said, Dan, about how as soon as Native Americans are mentioned, it's hands off when 100 years ago, it wouldn't. It wasn't like that. Right. 150 years ago, they were absolutely, they didn't care what they thought. Yeah. So I think there's room from what you're talking about there.

If we can get enough folks together, maybe we can. have that same level of respect. And I'm not comparing hunters to Native Americans what happened to them by any means. I'm just saying, obviously, there is room for change. If we can do that and see natives in a different light than what they were seen 150 years ago, maybe there's room for growth on this side. Look at what they just did last year in New Mexico. The New Mexico legislature banned the use of traps on public land except for Native Americans.

Now, I mean, we're not talking about reservation land. We're not talking about anything other than wildlife management and the opportunity to go out and harvest game by a particular method of take. When they gave an exemption to a cultural component ethnic otherwise, but to public land. Well, the public land is public. But to specify who can use the public is where, you know, the NTA and the FTA and Sportsman's Alliance and those guys are looking at lawsuits,

but and trying to figure out how to do that. But to your point, you know, considering people's perceptions about the way things should be done, but as soon as you throw in a specific culture, a specific sector, then it starts to, you know, I guess get attention of a lot of other people out there. And I don't see why there's sportsmen and women and hunters and anglers can't turn around and do the same thing. Yeah. You know, the way I think about it is, should the earth persist, I think about generations of newcoms down the line

and it's like could you be could you be a nukem and not have access to the kind of hunting that we have today like it feels like it's that important to our cult to my culture you know and I don't know I think I think we need some it's not just a recreational issue

it's a lifestyle yeah It's what we've expressed to people, and I've gotten on a hot mic in front of commissions and legislators, and say, it's not what I do, it's who I am. And I live it, and I breathe it, and I eat it, and I sleep it, and I drink it. And it's everything about me. That's who I am. And when you say that to them, you can see that there's a light bulb that comes on, and they're like, they just thought it was something you did occasionally.

Yeah, yeah. And we do everything. I mean, look at this room here. It's not playing tennis or golf. No, no. Gary. Well, the way that I think about it is, is like a lot of those species, especially game animals, the reason that they persist today is because of the sustainable practices that were put in place.

And then you look at something that threatens it, looks at sustainable hunting as a reason that it's going to get wiped out. It's just not. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. They just hadn't done their homework. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard for me to sit and try to not argue, but educate a specific sector of our population that is not familiar with our lifestyle. And I say our lifestyle is consumer sportsmen. I mean, any more to be legal in the United States, you have to buy a license to be able to go do something. But that's the funding component of the North American model of wildlife conservation. And every game agency has that component available to them. The average person, that middle of the road,

sector, the 80%, some of them don't even realize that we have to purchase licenses, that we have to have hunter education, that they're special permits and their special seasons and methods of take and quotas and restrictions and a lot of, they just don't realize because they've been force-fed this lies and these fallacies and this smoke and mirror game to, we are the enemy, we're the evil, we're out there just creating vast destruction on the land state and landscape and extirpate and every species we come in contact with. At the late 1800s, early 1900s, that was the case. But that wasn't a regulated hunting structure. That was individuals trying to supply a market. Hence, one of the tenants of the North American model. Yeah. And that was,

that was for a food source to be able to turn around and supply food to the general public with a vast expansion to the West. The general public, that 80 percent, sometimes don't realize that. And if they do, they don't fully comprehend it because they don't understand the 125 years to get to where we're at right now in the transition to be able to do that. And that, That transition is one of the most remarkable things for sure in terms of animal management on planet Earth since time began. Because usually when people make big mistakes, they never recover from it. Right. I mean, you look at the other continents and you look in other places, that 125 years of conservation where we absolutely turn the tables on market hunting,

over extension of killing animals, habitat destruction, I mean, like the varieting. appetite of America for westward expansion. Yeah, if that was still going on, that's bad. But that switch. And I think that's something that most people, most hunters don't realize, is that for human nature to be able to revert and fix some of these big time errors that we've had as civilizational errors is so incredible. I mean, it's just a story.

it's a story that ought to be celebrated by all. And now, you know, the thing, the component of that story that is hard for people is the killing of animals. Right. I mean, that's just it. It's like, but again, that goes back to just, golly, I mean, there is a movement, I think, in the world today where even non-hunting, non-rural urban people are beginning to understand, you know, where meat comes. from that animals have to be farmed, animals have to be killed. You know, there's, so there is, there's, there's, there's logic and reason behind what we're doing.

And, uh, I mean, I think we've got a leg up in society, maybe more than we ever have. And it just feels like we've just got to keep telling a people story that shows a culture. Like, that's a deep passion of mind inside of what I do with the Bear Grie's podcast. It's a, it's a people podcast, really. I mean, it's this overlap of, of humans and, wild places and wildlife and rural living. And it's like telling this story of, yeah, this is a deep, deep culture that is positive, you know. And it's powerful stuff to me.

Well, when you can when you can look back, you know, 125 years at the beginning of the early 1900s and look at just a human population. And then, you know, fast forward to now and look at the amount of people on the landscape, the way cities are growing, you know, the early. urban rural divide, the habitat loss. And we still have more wildlife now and better managed wildlife now than what we did as we started then. Some of that was from the decimation of the Western expansion. But if you look at what we've accumulated and what we've accomplished, Canada and the United States combined, the North American model, I mean, it wants to be emulated around the world. You know, other organizations and other countries and other provinces are trying to do something

in different capacities. But we have the best model, and it has worked so efficiently and effectively, that if you could just get that point across to what we have now is a lot better than what it was, and it's continually getting better with less and less habitat, more and more restrictions and prohibitions on the landscape, and more people. We're not going to quit breeding as far as people. but we still have the wildlife resources that we didn't have, but the Roosevelt's and those guys strive to turn around and recover. Yeah. What's been your biggest? Do you have three points that have been the biggest hurdles to overcome

and explaining, getting somebody a non-hunter or somebody that's not familiar with our way of life or our culture, get them to understand the importance of it, and is there anything that you could name? That would, this may be too, I may, big for my brain. Yeah, well, no, I may, I may need to narrow it down some. What questions or what concerns do you get the most from people who are against it? Is it the idea that we're killing animals or is it this is not culturally important enough?

They don't see it the way we see it. I think the biggest, and I appreciate that question because so many questions that we ask from the media and from some of our opposition and some of the unknowing general public. But a lot of times one of their biggest questions is, or statements and then a question. We don't need to be barbaric any longer. We've gotten out of that culture. Well, depending on how you look at it,

whether it's from domestic or wild, there's a component of ignorance from the general public because they weren't raised around it. I don't know if you guys know a gentleman by the name of Craig O'Gorman. It's a big trapper in Easter Mon. Montana, O'Gorman Enterprises. And Craig has a different philosophy, and I really appreciate his perspective on things. But looking from a trapping side and the predator hunting and the fur harvesting side of things,

you know, Craig mentioned the difference, the way society changed from the Great Depression into World War II and then how it started to expand out from the industrialized side of things, the recreationalized side of things, the entertainment side of things. and it became more politically oriented about 1950 to 1970 and then it just expanded on all levels. The average person that went to war in World War II, they remember if they weren't intimately involved, they went to Grandma's house on Sunday

and they went outside and grabbed a chicken and they killed it for dinner. They went out and grabbed the eggs. They milked the cows. There was still this connection point. When you got out of World War II, there was still a hunting deal, But that's when like your sports of field, outdoor life, fur fishing game, field and stream magazines came out and it became more of a recreational deal.

When you started taking the life side out of these components of daily life, like living, breathing life out of daily life, you started to see a cultural change. Well, the way Craig explained it to me, and this was probably 15 years ago, the average person before World War II understood death for human subsistence and destruction. I mean, it's our lives depended on destroying something else so we could survive off of it, whether it's a cow or a chicken or a pig or a deer or a turkey. By the time you got into the 70s and then you had the Vietnam War, most of those guys that were involved, the first thing that they ever had to do with death is a person standing in front of them. They didn't know a lot of that stuff that was going on.

And then as our population, our human population, grew substantially. By the time you get into the 80s and 90s, when we talked about this the last time, I was here in June, that in 1900, there was 90% of the population that lived rural landscape type of life, 10% lived in the city. By 1950, it was a 50-50 split. And by the year 2000, 90% of the people turn around and live in the city and 10% live in the countryside. When you talk about a food source, whether it's for somewhat recreational but lifestyle living, what we do, or you talk about domestic side of it. That's a big, in a hundred years, that's a major change in philosophy about where your food comes from and how you supply something because people can't connect the dots.

We have people that move into Colorado, for instance, which, you know, Colorado is expanded from 2.9 million people the last time we had a ballot initiative that took anything away to 5.9 million people this go around. They don't understand that without snow, we have no water. We don't drill wells. It all comes from the top, not from the bottom. And they say, well, you have all these water commissions and these water boards and water rights and you fight over water and there's water court and there's all of this. It's because water is a valuable resource. And other parts of the country, it's just as valuable, but people just take it for granted because you don't get snow where it comes off or something. You actually get it out of the ground or it comes down from some river from some other place that likely had snow.

The same with our food source. The general public doesn't fully comprehend holistically, not just where domestic food comes from, but they darn sure don't understand it where we're, we're, we're, wild food comes from. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting, too, that it's mentioned, you know, we don't have to be barbaric anymore. Take someone to a slaughterhouse. You know what I mean?

Take someone to a stockyard and say, you know, this isn't barbaric. Chicken slaughter plant. Yeah. Tyson Foods is up here. Oh, yeah. Big Tyson food country. Take them to a farm where they're spraying for bugs. I mean, they're killing millions every day.

Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests,

right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did

and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Dan, give us give us an intro to what just

a lot of people that would be watching this would know it but some don't like what's going on in Colorado with this with this just just give like something like we didn't even know that it even existed. Like surprised. What? I can't believe this.

Just hold on. You'll be right there. The current issue is Initiative 91 which, as I preface this in the earlier conversation, it won't be this in several weeks. So by the time this errors, hopefully we'll have a number from the Secretary of State. It'll be propositions, something or other, but we're waiting for the Secretary

of State to give a number. But what it is, it's an attempt to ban the harvest of Mount Lions, Bobcats, and Lynx. And links are federally and state protected, so you can't kill them anyway, but they threw that in there as a catchphrase as a talking point to make sure, and as they said in their testimony during the Supreme Court hearing, if links ever become delisted and harvestable, we don't want them to. And so they're already preemptively thinking down the road, if they were, which they probably won't. But it's an attempt to ban the harvest.

Now, when we started this process, it was a trophy hunting ban. But we got trophy hunting out of it because trophy hunting is defined in the measure as intentionally killing, wounding, stalking, pursuing, or entrapping a mountain lion bobcat or links. Well, intentionally killing, wounding, stalking, pursuing. I don't know anybody intentionally wounds.

Hunting. Yeah, it's hunting. That's the definition of hunting. And that's what pursuing Wild Game is. But they defined it in the measure, but we did get it taken out of the title itself. So in several weeks, about 75 days, the general public will vote on a hunting ban. And it is a total hunting ban. The caveat to that is to get people to understand because it is a hunting ban and because of the statutory definition and the precedent, the case law it could set,

is you could take Mount Mines and Bobcats out, put Mallard Ducks and elk in because of the pre-executive. previous court rulings or applications of the language. Those are the things that we're trying to convince the general public about that whether you're a bird hunter, you should not vote for this. Whether you're a deer hunter, you should not vote for this. And even if you're a non-hunter, you shouldn't vote for this because it's not about Mount Lions and Bobcats. It's about 78 game species in the state of Colorado and most other states that can turn around

and have interpretation of that law. And we're fearful that if it passes, it'll be. be the catalyst or a preemptive strike from the opposition to go, well, we got it over here, how they're going to argue it over here because there's no way they can because we already set the precedent. We already made our preemptive strike. The ballot, the election is November 5th. If it goes into effect, which we're trying diligently to make sure it doesn't, but if it goes into effect, January 1st, everything will be banned in the state of Colorado when it comes to Mount Lions, Bobcats. There's been language within the legislature that we've already defeated

multiple levels at the Colorado General Assembly and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. But some of those legislators that we've defeated previously said on a hot mic that if this goes through, it's our opportunity to turn around and try to do something legislatively as well. And what they've mentioned, although there's not been a bill drafted as of yet to the best of our knowledge, what they mentioned is maybe we should go after the banning of cow elk and do deer because of the potential orphaning of calves and fauns because that language is in this measure about how we're we're orphaning kittens and cubs and mountain lions and bobcats. It's a camel nose under the tent is what it is.

And once you explain a lot of these caveats and nuances to the general sportsmen because they think, well, I already, you know, Gates, I already harvested my mountain lion or I don't want to harvest a Mount Lion, or I don't think you should harvest a Mount Lion, whatever they might be. These are licensed buying women and men and women sportsmen. But when you explain and say, just read this. Read about the dogs. It doesn't say hounds. It talks about electronic collards, tracking devices, GPSs.

They don't want you to use any of it. Those are things that people don't read into it because they see the title, but then they get into the two and a half page language in the measure. And it's easily decipherable that you could take any one of those things out and put it into some other category, just like what those legislators are talking about now for cow elk and do deer. What, I'm trying to put this into context for myself just to understand, because what remains a mystery is how to really engage and get other people interested in stuff that's not directly,

directly firsthand applicable to them. Right. You know, like how do we truly unite the sportsmen of America? Guys that will never mountain line hunt in Colorado. How do we get them to be, you know, engaged in this? And Bear, I'm sitting here looking at my son, Bear. Bear, what if they, what if there was right now a ban on hunting squirrels with dogs in Arkansas

or Coonhunting. And here we have built all this and it's just something we love and it's like literally on January 1st, we may never be able to do this again the rest of our life legally. I mean, it's like that to me just feels like it just culturally,

it would be a butcher knife to the lineage of something. And it's just, I mean, obviously, we think that because we love these. things but I mean I just I implore all of us to like think about like what this would be like because I mean every you look generationally and every generation has had stuff taken away and I mean there's a lot of stuff that you could it's time just rolls by and we don't realize what we've lost but unfortunately that the folks that are hearing this

the people that are against it, this is not going to, we're not. Yeah, we're preaching to the choir. We're not going to tell them, but the folks that can do something are the folks that are hearing this that haven't. That's where it's got to come from. It's got to come from.

I may be the only guy in here that plays softball. Nobody else plays softball. But they're fixing the band softball, but all you guys like sports. You like to watch it. Like, should I get involved or should I not? Should I help him out? because y'all like soccer

which I'm pretty sure you do but weirdo weirdo but just by looking at you just by looking at him but I mean it's all the same thing we all got to do it it's like squirrel hunting and and mountain lion hunting

it's hunting and if they can ban one they can get the other but if all of us get together the folks that are listening like well that really don't affect me because I live in Louisiana and I'm not going to be able to hunt mountain lines or I live in Arkansas where I live and I'm not going to be able to hunt mountain lines it will affect you yeah eventually down the road it's the low-hanging

fruit thing yeah well and and there's there's two organizations so cats aren't trophies is the state organization it's the state issues committee but it was formulated by out of out of stateers non-residents but the two national organizations that are supportive of this that are They're both run by former HSUS Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pacelli. The one is Animal Welfare Action, which is a 501C4, which is just like our organization in the Coloradoans for responsible wildlife management. But then the center for a humane economy is their 501c3.

Those are based out of Maryland. They are national, but they went to Colorado because the legislative and political landscape is more favorable. They're looking for a crack in the armor where they can put their tentacles in. They'd come here if they could. Oh, yeah. They can pry my five squirrel dogs out of my cold dead hands. Put that on a T-shirt, Steve Ronella.

But that's the thing. People say, well, who are these people? Well, they're all out-of-staters. They're all non-residents because they have a favorable landscape in our state to be able to turn around and try to maneuver through the minutia and get. what they want. People don't realize that this is not anything other than a national movement. And when you get the former HSUS CEO, who for a variety of reasons is no longer there with HSUS, this is an attack that they can gain ground, gain significant relevance,

potentially gain a victory, gain some funding, and move to the next level. Now, is the next level New Mexico, we don't know yet, or is it Iowa or is it Montana, but they have sectors placed in every one of these states building a repertoire up and some street cred. And they're just trying to figure out how they can manipulate it enough to where they get a victory. And then they turn around and continue moving forward. And maybe Colorado's again on the chopping block, but they build strength and numbers and money with a success and then they move to the next level. What gets me is that this is a business, and I don't even know specifically about this group,

but in general, I mean, it's not even, I mean, there's some of these people, these anti-hunters, that probably truly are passionate and are working from a position that they really believe in their mission. I mean, I assume a lot of them. But at the same time, it's a very profitable business. to be in the game of being anti-hunting. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's an incredible way to tap into, you know, to expel, you know, expose a philosophy about, and it's just, it's so trendy to be on that bandwagon and to get people's money. Well, it's easier for them to do because they lie. If you say enough lies, people start to believe it because they didn't hear anything else. And it's like in our case, and in most cases with the state game management agency, you know, people are griping and complaining. Why isn't Colorado Parks and Wildlife coming out? It's because they work at the pleasure of the governor. And the governor is an animal rights extremist and he said, don't say anything. I mean, that's the way most states operate. They're not

independent entities that they can turn around and just say what they want, no matter if they have the facts or not. They've got a plethora of different studies that have come out. They've got a ton of different information. And if you look at the first documents that came out 10 months ago versus the documents that are out now, the agency changed those documents because the governor's office, the administration said, cross this, strike this, put this in. Don't get rid of the science, but the perception or the opinion, you can alter that. You don't have those opinions. And that's why they force them to take no position, not a neutral position, no position. So there's no pro, no con, no none of that. And the average person doesn't fully understand the manipulation that happens

from the top to the bottom. And then when you turn around and throw in special interest groups and so forth, it makes it a lot easier for them to accomplish what they want to go with because they got people on their side helping to run the government side of it. Not Colorado Parks and Wildlife, but through the Department of Natural Resources and through the governor's administration and cabinet. Those are how they get so much significant traction because we don't have anybody to turn around and say anything unless we're going to say it ourselves or every other conservation group is going to do it. Well, it's Colorado. Were they the perfect storm for having a liberal administration as far as the governor's views on hunting and the huge influx of people that were

not new people to Colorado. Yeah, moving into Colorado that had no idea of the culture, the legacy or history. Yeah, and we're starting to see a little bit of a change of that, but Colorado's 100% blue state. I mean, you know, we're outnumbered in the legislature as far as Democrats and Republicans, 49 to 16 in the House and 23 to 12 in the Senate. every elected office is blue unless it happens to be a county commission somewhere. But the governor's appointments to different commissions and boards and stuff are 99%.

I mean, he might pick somebody that's more pink, purple, or red on one side, but knowing full well, they don't have a voice because they're one of 10 or they're one of 11 or whatever. And so there's a statutory obligation that they have to adhere to, but it's gotten to the point where you just look at who they pick to make sure they always have the balance of power or at least perception. And those are things that other states need to recognize. I mean, I've got guys in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho going, no, it can never happen here.

This is what they said 10 years ago. Now they're looking and going, you know, we got more Democrats moving into the state than we ever thought we would. And if you look at the makeup, some of those states, it wouldn't take very much to change them just because of the population breakup and the dynamics of different states. I mean, Wyoming's got 660,000 people. Look at representation for the state of Wyoming. specific sectors or districts would not be hard to change just because of the population makeup.

Look at the amount of people moving out of Colorado to go across the border to Cheyenne. They're still Democrats. They're still more liberally minded. But they got away from this because it was just so progressive. But they take those ideologies and values into Wyoming, even though they're living there and working into Colorado. It's a hard thing that we're going to have to deal with in some capacity nationwide. And I honestly believe that sportsmen and women are up to the task if they pay attention. if they understand the intricacies of what it takes to manage our wildlife resources.

And the general public, that 80% in the middle, they care deeply about it. They just don't know. So they're more likely to check a box when it's the wrong box as opposed to being educated to check the right box. The problem is that it feels like the key players in this thing are making decisions based out of preference and opinion, not based on science. No, it's not on. Because, I mean, you think about if you're going to ban president, predator hunting, what happens to the predators? I mean, it's just basic.

But that's what they want. Logic. Yeah. I mean, look at our wolf introduction. I mean, we just put wolves on the ground last December. They voted on it in November of 2020, and it was 50.9% that they ended up winning by. I mean, it was 50.9 to 49.1. I mean, that's good math.

I'm following you. I was already sitting here. Like, can y'all do math like that at an axe? And not without a calculator. But no, we lost that wolf deal by such a minimal margin. It was something like 33,000 votes in a state that's got 5.9 million people. Wow. So there's some people there that are voting.

I mean, there's a good chunk of people there. Not like this is 80 to 20 or anything. I mean, this is very, very close. But the funny thing that I see, Clay, is if you look at most national elections, pertaining anything unless it just happens to be so right or so left one way or the other. There's a lot of 52-48s and 53-47s and 49-51s. There's a lot of that. I mean, we are divided as a country.

And it's not because it's Republican-Democrat. It's because it's Republican-independent and Democrat. And the registered independents are growing substantially because they don't want to be affiliated with the wackos on the left or the idiots on the right. They just want to have their own group, but they still lean one way or the other. we call them the in the wind crowd. They just blow around like packing peanuts in the windstorm and they're trying to catch them with the catcher's myth.

I mean, they just listen to the first guy. I like that. They just listen to the first guy that resonates with them or they listen to the lie after lie after lie after lie because they don't hear any rebuttals. And when you have game management agencies that don't rebut because they're told not to, that's hard to realize and justify

that that's science, that's expert data collection that's 25 50 100 years of of compilation of studies and information it's so easy to find something that you agree with if you don't like a news story if you don't like a slant on a news story change a channel they'll somebody else will tell the same story and they'll tell it the way you want to hear exactly to your point so dan i'm sure you've seen it already but i saw it circulating around there was a it's like cbs colorado and there was a study that came out have you all seen this the study that that came out that said that potentially,

they're basically saying the premise of study was that mountain line hunting was excelling the spread of CWD in Colorado. Yes. And that just came out. And actually that study was done by the animal welfare action and the center for a humane economy. By the two groups. Explain what were the findings of this?

Well, no, it's, I mean, so CWD. And so basically it was like if you kill Mountain, Mountain lions are predatory animals, and so you're taking out predators, so they're killing less of your elk and deer. Was that a legitimate scientific study? No, that was done by those two groups that are running this cat's trophy. So my question was, is like I know the research I had done is there had been a regulated, you know, a regulated mountain lion hunt in Colorado since like 1965, right? Yes, sir. It was the population since then grown? Is it stagnant?

30 times. So it's grown. 30 times with regulated hunting. So the point is like how in the world is it excelling the spread of CWD if the population of mountain lines is growing? Don't you bring common sense into the sergeant. How dare you, like. Well, and I think that that's, you know, that you'll, and that's one of our biggest concerns is you start to see more and more lies and shell games and smoke and mirrors. And I, you know, I see it in other states as well.

And I'm sitting there going to somebody, somebody needs to turn around and come up with something. but they're not on the ballot. We need our own lies, Dan. Yeah, we got to get your job. That's your job. You start sitting there. Fight lies with lies. What's the best of us?

Fight lies with lies. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com.

I think you'll be glad you, did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Dan, I want to ask you a question earlier when you were talking. You referred to, you basically said that the 80% left of the general public that's more likely to check no than yes. Why do you think that that is? Why do you think that they're more tending to go the wrong direction of what you're wanting?

A lot of times historically, when ballots come up and there's either too much on the ballot, too much information for the one person to decipher, they either check the wrong box because they assume that that's the right way. They have to have some time to be able to educate themselves and to check the right box, which in our case would be to vote no, not vote yes. Most of those people don't do their homework until they open up the ballot and they go, yes, no, yes, oh, Trump, Biden, you know, Harris, whatever. whatever. And they jump on the key phrases, the stuff that they haven't paid attention to,

they just don't pay attention to. And I think that that's a detriment to us as a, you know, a republic, a democracy that is available to us to be able to turn around and say, we're going to vote and we're going to vote the right way. The blue book, the last language of the blue book, which is, I think in Arkansas, it's probably the same way. But you get a book that explains all the the measures or the judges or the ballot. We just went through the final draft of the blue book last week and that was sent to the Secretary of State through the Legislative Council legislative draft analysis. The language that's in there is available to anybody to read. But it's a two and a half page synopsis for the general public to be able to decipher about

this specific measure. Two and a half pages. Five percent of people are going to read that, if not less. Exactly. And so when you're looking at states, and that's a great point, Clay, when you look at it states that are 51 to 49 or 53 to 47, that 5% that you give them the facts that they really want to sit down and get into the nut cutting on stuff and make sure that they know exactly why and how to do it. Those are the 5% that we're really concerned about because they could sway this half a point or a whole point one way or the other that they just educate themselves and look at the facts. Well, you only got 33,000 out of 5 million plus.

us voting too. I mean, there's, and there is a sea of folks to educate right there. Well, we've had, we've had a tremendous amount of people because of the Wolf Deal. And one thing that's going in our favor, even with all the lies and the fallacies and falsehoods out there, there's a significant amount of buyer's remorse on what they did on the Wolf deal. Everybody thought that, oh, it'd be cool to hear a wolf. I heard a wolf in Yellowstone. I didn't know it was going to be on my back ports and eat my neighbor's cabs. But it'd be cool. Yeah. So, so they turn around and voted, but they didn't vote very much for 50.9%. And so there's a certain amount of buyer's remorse

because wolves are in the news every single day in Colorado that they're creating more depredation. They're creating more instances of havoc. CPW can't do what they want to do at this point in time. They can't talk about it unless it happens to be able to the science that the governor has agreed with or the governor's spouse the first gentleman. They can't do what they need to do to get the point out. I mean, CBW didn't want wolves. It's just that the voters voted all. on wolves and CPW has to uphold the law what the voters want and then the governor helps accentuate and enhance that position but the buyer's remorse is another component on top of that five percent to read the blue book that you look at and go well if you get a tenth of these guys

and two tenths of those guys and maybe we actually make a point and get two tens of these guys pretty soon we're at we're at a percent ourselves and the voters of people the the people of colorado would have spoken at that point in time because that's all we've heard for the last four years the people have spoken. It's like, you know, not all of them did. Dan, what can we, what would be a meaningful thing that people can do? Because all this stuff, I think part of the gap between action and inaction with people that aren't in Colorado. Like if I lived in Colorado, I know what I could do. I could vote. Right. I could talk to my friends. We can't vote there. What is really meaningful that we could do? I think the thing. The

thing that we're trying to do, and I've been working with Charles and Mike at Howell for Wildlife, you know, I've been on, this is my 76th podcast since January 1st. And you guys have allowed me to come on twice. I was on Meteor to guys twice. The message, the reason that we're talking to the choir, to the general public sports men and women is because it's coming to your state. We need your help to help defeat it there. And to do that, the biggest thing people can do is to get online and share the message. You know, when we get something that Cameron Haynes comes to our event and does something and there's 108,000 people that watch it in three days and there's 27 people that share it, but the message that he said, they all listened to it, but they didn't expand it out.

We have the power of social media before us to be able to get people to understand. This isn't about Colorado, not just about Mountaine's and Bobcats. I don't know anybody in the country has been dumb enough the last 10 months to turn around and run around and try to dedicate their life to podcast. I mean, I really, that's my son. I've got better things to do because of our business. But we needed to be able to get the message. We need to be able to feed off of everybody else's coattails. And we need the help to be able to expand that message. Because I would venture to say that there's a large percentage of every one of those podcast listeners that either hunt or apply to hunt in the state of Colorado. So you've got skin in the game. What are you going to do?

You can, you probably know people in Colorado, just like you're talking about Johnny Hamilton. which I'll ask Johnny to give me a plug when he comes on sometime. But there's an opportunity there to continue message building, continue ambassadorship, to make sure that we are part of the solution and not part of the problem. If you ignore it, I don't care if you're in Arkansas or Michigan or Maryland. If you ignore it, you're part of the problem. And the more states that they knock off, or the more groups that they knock off,

or the more individuals that they get to be downtrodden and just say, I'm not doing it anymore. Pretty soon our rank and file and our forces become smaller and smaller and smaller. We have a message capability in our social media outreach and the branding that we've got and the visualization, the optics that we've created in a hunting and fishing community to build something that is the most epic, monumental anti-anty hunting component you could possibly get. But we don't do it very well. A lot of people want to grip and grin. They want to show their white tail. They want to show their big fish.

People share that all over the place. If I was a really good looking at 19-year-old girl and had peanut butter in my belly button, the dog was looking it out, there'd be 9 million people. sharing that damn thing. But they're not going to do it me. They're not going to do it with me. Because I'm an old white guy who's trying to profess about hunting, trapping, heritage, tradition. And it's the livelihood of what we all believe in. But it's a lot harder for somebody to turn around and make a comment or to share. On top of that, the biggest trials and tribulations that we've had, even though it's been monumental, is fundraising. You have to be able to find out. You have to be able to fight the anti's lies, dollar for dollar,

punts for punch for punch and tit for tat. And to be able to do that, people have come out of the woodwork. I mean, I told you guys in June, 50 states we've gotten contributions and donations from. We've got organizations and entities and businesses that are building up either T-shirt sales or knife sales. You saw the thing that outdoor eds did for us.

I mean, they sold out. They're reordering because the general public said, I want to do that. Now they get a knife in return for it, but they can be part of the solution. as opposed to be a part of the problem. If you know people in Colorado, talk to them.

Because we've got 5.9 million people in the state of Colorado, 84 million annual visitors. The majority of people that are listening to this have been or know somebody in Colorado, or they hunt, or they vacation, or they do business, or they have a second home, or they ski. Even though you can't vote somewhere,

do a little bit of effort and just say, hey, Joe, you live in Longmont. What do you think about this month, my deal? Who do you know in Colorado, Josh? I know some people. I know some people. I'll tell them. Yeah.

Are there any scheduled events coming up this fall? Like public events? The biggest ones we've got actually coming up this week. Oh, really? It'll be, I guess, a week and a half for two weeks before this actually airs. Where is that? In Denver. And Robbie Kroger with Blood Ords is premiering the Lionheart documentary about hound hunting.

Oh, really? And that's at the Paramount Theater in downtown Denver. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about that. Yeah. So that would be a couple days a week before this actually airs.

Oh, shoot. Yeah. But it's something, those are the type of things. Robbie went out on a limb, turns around and gets the Paramount Theater, has 12 or 1,500 tickets available. It's a red carpet deal. The media is supposed to be there. They're feeding wild game as like an hors d'oeuvre deal, and there's going to be some

silent auction and stuff. But that shows part of what I'm trying to talk about as far as. We should go to that, Brent. Yeah, for real. I like Ravi. It's a good thing. Community building and messaging and ambassadorship to say, it's not my fight unless it's your fight.

And if it's your fight, it better darn sure be your fight and be your fight. Because they're going to do it at some. Look, they're going after lead weights on fishing. They're going after lead shot on shotguns. They're going after pinned bird hunts for training your dogs. They're trying to get you not to be able to use tools to train your dogs. They're trying to get you to be. It doesn't matter what it is.

at whatever they can get at whatever level, they find the weakest chink in the armor in any single state, in any single level, that's what they go after. And that's the hardest thing to get people to understand is just step up. Just do something. Write a letter. If you read an op-ed, instead of turn around, which people get, like you just talking about the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, people see something and they don't agree with it. Just jot a note to the editor instead of saying, did you see that? And they talk about it for 20, you know, 20 minutes for 10 different people. Just jot a note down. Say, if you're going to do this, you know, very unbiased, make sure you cover both sides of the story. And you don't take a study from the people who are

trying to take away the hunting, who that's the team of the study. There's tools available to us, and I don't think that we've done a very good job, even though we've got the tools available. Now, this, what has happened, though, has been pretty remarkable. Yeah. With the support that you guys have had, led by you 100% and others too. But, I mean, I think this is the first time in the last decade, at least, that I've seen the eyes of the hunting community really pop open about a predator issue, which I think is incredible. Or at least at this level. Do you agree with that? Yeah, it's something to where, you know, I mentioned the guys at Howell for Wildlife.

And when I and a friend of mine started this organization, CRWM in 2016, we did it with the idea that we were probably going to get a very unfavorable gubernatorial administration in 2018, just the way the makeup of the land was. We didn't know we were going to get, you know, the anti-hunter Supreme. But starting preemptively at that point in time is the only thing that got us to the level to where we can be today. And seeing the support and seeing the outreach and seeing the messaging and seeing the funding and seeing what people are trying to do at every single level, it's inspirational. It's admirable. I mean, and I know that we're carrying a lot of the heat on that.

But, I mean, still, you've got to be able to motivate people to be able to turn around and do it well enough. and I don't care if it's a hounds organization in Ohio or Michigan or somebody in Arizona or in California, they're all contributing. I don't care if it's a Trappers Association where they're at. I don't care if it's a bohunter association, fishing associations, individual businesses, you know, tackle shops, kids with lemonade stands. I mean, I mean, not an exaggeration, but 9,800 individual contributions this year, not counting what we did the latter part of last year in September through December. I mean, that's a lot, especially when you start talking some of those are $100,000 and some them are $20. It takes millions of dollars to fight extremism.

You can't do it cheap and you darn sure can't do it on a presidential election year when everybody else is buying this for $50. And normally, well, you could buy it for $25 now. You cost you $150 because of the political scale. And so it costs you more money to be able to do it. But the more negativity, and you mentioned CBS, it was CBS. in Denver that covered it on that study with the chronic waste and disease. They won't sell us the advertising that we need unless it's at a very high premium.

I say, boy, that makes sense. Yep, because they see election year. Exactly. Yeah. So there's so many moving parts of this whole thing, Clay, that the average guy doesn't understand because it's not in their wheelhouse. I mean, just like what you were talking about, you know, softball. Kamala Harris and Trump both wanted to be here today.

I told them no, because Dan was going to be this. We only had six hookups. We took your side on this one. He won't let anybody else sit on his saddle. We'd put either one of them right there. Bear, do you have any questions? Do you do? So what do they need for the mountain line band to go into effect?

Is it votes or signatures? No, they need votes at this point in time. They turned in the appropriate amount of signatures, even with our decline to signatures. campaign. But they turned into signatures July 3rd. They were certified on July 30th, and now we've been in that wait game of waiting for a number to come up. And so it's going to be on the ballot. We just don't know exactly what number. And by the time that this podcast, theirs, will probably have an idea, if not know specifically what ballot number it is. Okay. So what are, like, how many, do you have an idea of how many votes they would need for it to go into effect?

Well, it depends on the registered voters. But if you go anything off the Wolf deal from 2020, you figure that, I mean, you're fighting for, you're fighting for hair on somebody's chin at this point in time. Or maybe hair on their head, depending on in your case. But you're fighting for very few follicles of hair because when you start talking about 33,000 out of 5.9 million with 4.1 million registered voters,

it doesn't take long to say, this is not insurmountable. It's just that you have to have the people show up. And we've heard stories from around the country, not just in Colorado, but since 2000, for instance, that 2000 and 2022, 2000 to 2020, that the sportsmen and women vote has declined almost 15%.

That's not because they've declined. It's just that they opted not to pull the trigger. They opted not to vote. So from 2020 to 22, that state, pretty close. If we have 15% of the sports men and women in the country that are really not voting at all because they don't think it's worth it, well, how does that, especially when you're losing by a half a percent or a percent, if you get those 15 percent just to show up, even if they didn't all vote the same way because they don't all see the same thing.

When you call somebody to action, they say especially digitally, you go past one or two pokes with your finger and you've lost everybody. They're not going to go beyond that. I'm talking to everybody out there and everybody in this room, except Dan, because I know you're going to do it. But we got to just decide we're going to put in the effort and take this thing back. Because it's laying there. We could do it.

It could be an absolute overwhelming smash by our side to take this back. If enough folks would just get the gumption to get up off the couch and get it done. Take the initiative. I had more people in 2020. that have told me since then that they didn't vote in 2020, ranchers, farmers, outfitters. You got to stop and think about two things that our side doesn't think about often. And November 5th is right in the middle of hunting season. It's right in middle of shipping season for cattle.

It's getting out of the high country and go to the low country and it's getting ready for winter. And in Colorado, you don't go to the poll. It's a mail-in ballot. It's sent to you. All you got to do is fill it out and put it in. you don't have to drop it off anywhere. It doesn't cost you anything to be able to turn around and do it. But I had many, many people since that time that said, yeah, if I known that was going to be that close, I would have voted.

And you know how hard it is for me not to turn around and grab somebody by the neck? But you hear that over and over and over. And you're thinking, if that's just the people I'm hearing it from, how many people actually didn't do it? Because I'm not talking to everybody. But I understand how busy people can get, or I forgot, or I just didn't get. to it or I was waiting for my wife to bring it out or we were going to sit at the table and that something came up. I tell you what, those are the things that the opposition, the extremists are capitalizing on because they know that we're not as concerned about it is as what we

elude and we're not going to turn around and step out and gripe and complain about it until it's done it over with. So going into this one at this point, just talking about, you know, the residents of Colorado, how do you feel about it at the I mean, are you seeing still some apathy? Do you think they're motivated? What are you feeling around home? I'm going to give you some statistics, again, because I like statistics, but I'll tell you, back in 2020, the first poll that came out on the wolf issue, there was a 68% favorability rating that the wolf issue was going to pass. By the time that the company that we've hired now actually went through the trials and tribulations of that whole campaign with their polls and everything, and they finally went to the ballot, they knocked off.

But they knocked off 17 points. So it went from 68% to 51%. And that's exactly where it ended up as 50.9. The biggest problem is they didn't have enough money from the sportsmen community and the agriculture community to send it across the finish line. They just ran out of money.

We've raised three and a half times more money to date than both of those anti-wolf campaigns did combined in the entire time that they were doing stuff. That's a giant win for us. But if you remember 68% to start, with on that poll. The poll that we did on this last November when we started this campaign was 54% favorability rating. 14 points difference than what the Wolf deal first came out at. The poll that we got back two weeks ago indicated that it's 45-4, 44 against and 12 points

undecided. That's a major hit on the opposition. It's a major gain on our part because there's, so that 12% is what we're looking at right now. We know that there's 45% percent. We know that there's 45 to 44, we're looking at that 12. But we don't need all 12. All we need is seven of the 12. And so that's more math. You guys are killing. NASA.

I'll mess up somewhere here. What do you think about me and Brent on the freeway in Denver with big signs? Sandwich boards on the street. Yeah. Bologna sandwich. I'll get you a room. You tell me when you're, want to be there.

Dude, we should do a live podcast from the freeway, the state capital, holding our signs. I'm in. With a live mountain line on a chain. That may not work too good. Brent's got to let him spend that sign around like you see someone's going to go. I'm in front of the tax plate. We should have mountain lion hide laid out here. Yeah.

Yeah. We just, we did as much help as we can get for. people that don't think that they can do anything. And just because you don't vote in Colorado. And is it not, it's not too late. I mean, this is coming out on September 9th. Like these last two months are really critical. Actually, because we haven't had a number that's being given to us, you can't tell people to vote no on whatever it is because we don't have a number, even though people are still using the 91. It was initiative 91, but once it becomes a proposition, that number will change. So that's why you haven't seen any direct advertising. Subliminal

message. And on our part, you know, don't allow the hunting ban to happen. Make sure you support, you know, science-based wildlife management and the North American model. But that's still, for the most part, talking to our audience, once they start seeing the negativity and the display of the lies and the falsehoods from the opposition, and then we come up with the science-based stuff. And, you know, the lions attacking dogs and the lions attacking people. And the lions decimating deer and elk populations, they're not just taking the sick CWD deer out. You know, I mean, it's like they just pick them out. I mean, it's like. It's like that one right there.

That one's got fever. It's crazy how they do that. Let me swab your nose. I mean, you know, and I always wonder, I said, and of course, I'm in so darn many meetings anymore, but I always wonder that what if they run out of chronic waste of disease deer? I mean, they don't eat? No. Then they're eating toddlers.

Yeah, you know. I mean. You know, I think a point that's just as strong, and again, we're preaching. to the choir, but I think about this with predator hunting issues is that, like, yeah, you can make a case of all the negative stuff that lions are doing, you know, predating upon livestock and all this different stuff. But to me, the most positive argument is that we've been hunting them pretty hard for 50, 60 years, and the populations are still very strong. So the, you know, sport hunting is really pretty inconsequential to, you know, thriving mountain line populations.

Now, I mean, would you agree with that? Well, yeah, 100%. Because if you listen to some of the opposition's spokespeople, if we keep, and I've got recordings of it, it's on some of our social media stuff. If we keep hunting mountain lions at this rate, they're going to become extinct. Okay, well, we've been hunting them at this rate since the last 55, 60 years, and we've increased their population is 30-fold. And so...

To me, that's the message. The only animals, we ain't keeping in check are dumb people. That's my proposal. Okay, you don't want to come Colorado with a sign then. We're just... We're up against the wall to the point of the last 65, 75 days of this campaign. That's when it's really going to get into the weeds.

You're going to see a lot of name calling from both sides. And you're going to see a lot of facts from our side, a lot of data from our side, a lot of criticism from our side, and just lies and fallacies and falsehoods from the opposition. That's just, that's the way they play. And they play that it doesn't matter whether you want to talk about raccoon hunting in Pennsylvania or you want to talk about cooos deer hunting in Arizona. That's the way they play every single level of it. And they always come out with something that is more sensationalized than the last time that they did it

because they realize that their supporter is the one that turns around doesn't know, has no clue whatsoever. And as I've often said, if you've got 10% on the top that support hunting, avid hunters. And you've got 10% that are avid anti-extremists. You don't need to convince that 80%. You need to convince 41 of that 80. That's it. Because you're just trying to get to 51. It's 50 plus 1 or 50 plus 0.50 or whatever.

the average person doesn't understand just the intricacies of wildlife management. And I don't know what you got in Arkansas. But in Colorado, we've got 961 species of wildlife and 78 of those are game species. Those are so well appropriately managed and have been. Say that again. 961 species of wildlife and 78 game species. Now that's toads and salamanders. Okay, got it.

But 78 game species. So you figure, you know, ducks and squirrels and furberrying animals and big game and small game and all the stuff that's combined. 78 of those species, the licenses and the permits that go along with them, pay for the management of 961 other species, including the flipping wolf. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, term flipping wolf. Yeah. I'm trying to be politically correct here. So

Flippin's okay, I guess. I think, and this is kind of a broader appeal, which I think is a narrative that's stronger now in the hunting community than it's ever been, but there is a real need for hunters to be evangelical in a sense.

Of just, like, think about if every hunter was sharing wild game with their non-hunting, friends and neighbors that wanted meat. And all of a sudden, these eight or ten people have a totally different opinion about hunters than they ever had before when they understand that their neighbor is a hunter and how they're using this meat and how wonderful it is.

And, you know, there's groups of people today, groups of hunters today that talk about how, that, you know, this, you know, that we shouldn't be trying to spread. We shouldn't be trying to grow the hunting community. We're putting excess stress on the resource and stuff. And I just think it's just so, that is a perfect way for hunting to be dead in a generation. Oh, yeah. It's for us to all to hunt quietly. Keep it for you, sir.

And I just, I respect the passion that that group has. I just think it's dead wrong. And I think about like even in the future as we continue, and this won't go away. I mean, like, if we beat this, it's like the next thing's going to come around. It's like, this is a way of life. If we want to maintain this way of life in North America, we have to build a fighting culture. You know, when I first got into the national bear hunting scene in 2013, growing up in a state that's very favorable to hunting and rural culture and living, I was exposed to the Michigan bear hunters association of the Michigan and went up there and did a film with them.

Like I made a film for them. And man, they, their whole, just inside of their hunting culture, if you're a bear hunter, you're politically active and you're a fighter. Like those two things go hand in hand. You're a member. There's multiple great bear hunting organizations up there. and it's just part of the culture. I mean, their kids grow up knowing that, yep, we're bear hunters, we're members of the association, we go to the banquet, we vote, and that has to become something that's stronger everywhere, not just in places. And in Michigan specifically, they have a referendum government where you can, just with the amount of signatures like Colorado, you can get stuff on the ballot.

That's not in every state. and they just know that they have to fight. They have to raise money. And it's so powerful. And I just think about how just as we continue to go forward, you know, we just have to be. And I think evangelical is the right word, stealing that term from, you know, like in a religious sense. But you also have to be meticulously calculated on how you do that. And I say that because from 2019, 20, and 21, we beat these attempts to take away the pursuit and the harvest of these animals through the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission.

We beat them unanimously with this governor's commission. And then 2022, they went to the General Assembly for the legislature to turn around and vote on it. And we beat them there. So we beat them at all forms of government. This is now, they didn't like the former government side. So now they turn around and go to the general public side thinking that they can. you know, befuddle and blindfold the general public to override two different entities of the governor, government, one from the governor's particular appointments and one from a very

democratic blue side of the legislature. If you're outnumbered with those colors, 23 to 12 in the Senate and 49 to 16, like I mentioned, and you still win four to one in the committee, you won with those Democrats. And then at the commission, you beat them 11 to 0, 11 to 0, 11 zero. They didn't like those things. So now they're turned around and going this way. That's part of the fight that the general public needs to be aware of because in 26 states where you do have the ballot initiative capabilities like what we have

in Colorado. And some of that's good. Just there has to be some sideboards and blinders put on it. But you can't have, you know, I don't want the general public voting on brain surgery. I don't want to, you know, I just don't think that that

would be a good idea. And we're talking about science. And to me, wildlife man is is just like brain surgery. You have to have experts. And we've got 350 bonafide scientists out of 1,200 employees in our game and fish, Parks and Wildlife Department. 350 scientists. Not some lunatics that just turned around and did a study for the Animal Action Institute,

or Animal Wellness Action, and the Center for a Humane Economy. We can all come. If we're going to do that, we can all sit around here and do a report and a study on our own and then turn around and release that. We should be the experts on it. Well, maybe we would be. But I don't think that that's the case when we're turning around and trying to take things away. And I think that that's, that shows, that shows the deceit and the lies of the opposition.

We don't like the experts that are doing this stuff. So we're just going to turn around and come up with their own stuff, although we have no backing, no money, no science to turn around and do it. We just say it. We just come up with a bunch of stuff and say it. Dan, should people give money to the Colorans for responsible wildlife management? You got two options that they can do it. And because in Colorado, you have to have an issues committee formulated, which we've done. The issues committee, which is actually running the grassroots part of the campaign, is Colorado Wildlife Deserve Better.com. They can go to wildlifedeservebetter.com. They can donate there.

Wildlifedeservebetter.com. Yeah. And then if they don't want to do that and they're already used to doing the Save the Hunt side of things for the Coloradoans for responsible wildlife management, then they can go to Save the Hunt, Colorado.com and donate there. Now, you said the other one first. Is the other one better? The other one, the other one is the one it has to do, Every single thing over the next 75 days. The CRWM Save the Hunt is the one that supports and creates all the working nuances. I mean, that's the one that paid for me to turn around and come here. That's the one that turn around and does the outside messaging, primarily to the stakeholder, talking to the choir. The wildlife deserve better is the one that we have to have to be able to talk to the target audience. So that's where we want to direct people to go.

Wildlife deserve better. Wildlife deserve better.com. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Wildlifedeservebetter.com. Man, go in. First person that sends me proof,

they donated $1,000. What are you going to do for them? I'm going to send them a case pocket knife. No way. Dang. More than $50, though. $1,000. $1,000 that sends a receipt that they gave $1,000.

I'm going to send a case pocket knife. Did you hear that, folks? With an autographed letter of authenticity? Sure. First person that proves to Brent Reeves that they donated $1,000. to Wildlife deserve better.

Wildlife deserve better.com. Gonna get a case knife from Brett Reefs. So Dan, one quick question. Other than the donation, is there any like a short list of things of say like a guy like me in Mississippi or somebody that's not, is there a short list of actionable things

somebody could do that's not living in Colorado that could be impactful? I think the biggest thing that I can see is if you're, following us on Instagram or Facebook, or you're seeing comments from other forums and other venues on any one of that social media outlets, as opposed to just reading it and going on and scrolling through it, look at what it is. And if you believe in that, then turn around and make a comment and share it and try to repost. Share it online. Yeah. It has to be more expansive.

It's got to be more institutional. It's got to be more in our community that I heard what what Lake said or I heard what Clay said, and I'm going to turn around and try to promote that message. I mean, if a tornado is coming and you know that the neighbor's down the road, I can speak about this in Arkansas, I guess. Speaking our language. Yeah. Speak the language. Exactly.

If a tornado's coming and you hear the siren and you know the guy down the road can't hear the siren because he's deaf, you're just going to watch his house blow away, I think that's where a lot of sportsmen and women are. They're just deaf. Do we like that fellow down the road? Yeah. They shouldn't make a difference. And in any case, it doesn't. No, I think that we're to a point where it's upon ourselves to make sure that we lock arms. I mean, you know, we talk about a well-regulated militia.

We talk about, you know, seeing eye to eye and making sure we sport our neighbor and stuff. That's what we've been doing. It's just that I think we've got away from a lot of that because it's easy because you can click a button. You don't have to worry about it. It's more important now to make sure that we're all part of one community. And that's the sports men and women community to support. hunting and fishing and conservation and then science-based wildlife management. Thanks for coming, Dan.

I commend your energy and your, just all the work you've done last year. Thanks. It's inspirational to us. Inspirational to me to see somebody that's putting their life behind their words, you know, you're out there doing it. And so, yeah, man. I just want us to find tangible ways to support and help this thing because it is bigger in Colorado. When we win on November 5th, the thing that I've already been asked by different groups and organizations is, will you come speak here and will you come present here, different conventions or shows?

When we win, it will be a culmination of a playbook and a roadmap that was created from some guys in California with Howl for Wildlife and ourselves. and creating a bond, and then outreach into every single person that we could possibly outreach to that has a voice and a message. And that will create the playbook on funding, on messaging, on outreach, on networking, on strategy building, the legal side of things, the logistical side of things. And that's something that we've missed from a nationwide perspective. Some states have been able to fight some of this stuff off. But when we win, we want to be able to turn around and take that playbook and hand it to somebody else in Arkansas.

or Washington, and say, this is what worked, and it didn't work on just a state level. It worked on a national level and a regional level and the local level. And this is how you can build an armament to future victories. That's good. Great. Blake, thanks for coming up from Mississippi. Thanks for having me here.

Yep. Appreciate it. Everybody else. Thanks for being here. And don't forget about Brent's case knife going out to the $1,000. $1,000. Thanks, Scott. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.

Just gear designed for the work that earns the season. Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new fieldwear gear. at firstlight.com.