The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 053: Seattle, WA. Steven Rinella talks with political communications PhD candidate Greg Blascovich and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew

Episode Date: January 11, 2017

Subjects discussed: how Janis's hair is going gray; Latvians and Croatians worldwide; varmint hunters; how politicians establish themselves as hunters to score points with voters; cognitive threat; "hipster hunters"; the Dingell-Johnson Act; the five arguments that non-hunters like to give, and which ones work; Keep It Public; Trump, and whether or not he's telling the truth about public lands; polarization in elected officials and the American public; Jeff Foxworthy; perch flies; squid jigging; and more.  Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. So Greg Blazkowicz just told a story, but he won't tell. He wanted to tell a story before we turned the machine on.

He might be able to pull it out of me. It was a family story. Yeah. I don't want to tell any more than that. I can crack right into it, actually. I'm feeling like I can share. No, you don't need to. Okay.

No, I don't want you talking. I don't want everybody to know what you tell about your beautiful wife's family. All right, well, now I got to tell you. You're very into it. And then we were commenting on how Giannis how gray Giannis is getting. He was saying it looks like if you took a picture of him it'd be like looking at pictures of Obama

on the inauguration day and now. And that you guys are on parallel hair paths. He's got a lot of hair, though. Yeah, I got more than he does. He's got a lot, yeah. But it makes you look like you look distinguished, though, man.

You got like that George Clooney kind of thing. That's what I'm going for. Yeah. Yeah, when I start getting all gray, I just hope I got like a big old thick head of hair. But I already got my hairstyle planned out, man. When I go bald and everything, I'm going to do, you know how dudes that are going bald, they just slick it back. That's what I'm going to have mine be like.

Like my dad does? No, not like that. Like long. Oh, long. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe not. Anyways, Greg Blass.

I haven't thought this through all the way. I brought it up a little prematurely. Greg Blastwich. Is that Polish? What is that? Croatian. Is that right? Yeah.

You're a Croat. I'm an American, but yeah. You're Croat descent. Yeah. Do you feel that it's bad? Are you still, you know, in our changing, you know, we're always changing the rules. Can you still ask people, like, if they're Polish? Well, I'm certainly not the person to ask about that.

I mean, were you surprised that I would have asked you that? No, not at all. People ask about my last name all the time. When I grew up, it was like, what's that, Russian? Yeah, Blazkowicz. Then they're like, oh, Yugoslavian. I was like, no, that's Croatian. So the Croatians, how long has your family been in the U.S. forever?

Are you like an American mutt? Oh, my mom's side, half of her side has been in here since, I think, before the revolution, the other early 1900s from England. My dad's side was mid to late 1890s from Croatia and Italy. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's the thing. I'm Italian by name only now my old man when he was born he was raised up by his grandparents and they spoke italian in the

home did he speak it he by the time he like but no i mean by the time he died i mean he was it meant it was nothing yeah i mean he he would like get like if you know if he was eating some spaghetti or something it might have like some nostalgic feeling or something but but no he it was like no real use for it but he carried with him um a lot of uh strange stereotypes about other ethnicities that you would have that he brought over the biases from the old country. It felt quaint. He would have these ideas that Hollanders, who he would call Hollanders, you would never go to a

yard sale that a Hollander was throwing. Because Hollanders, they tended to overvalue. The shrewd Dutch. They tended to overvalue the things that they owned. So he had a lot of things that are like... That's a pretty esoteric bias. Yeah, things that are like part, like he'd have like biases.

That's a pretty esoteric life. Yeah, but biases against, again, people who'd been in the country for so long, but he was raised in Little Italy in Chicago. So he would talk about going and getting beat up by the Irish kids, you know what I mean? So he had like a, he viewed American culture culture still like last names meant a lot to the guy yeah that's what i'm getting at well you know i uh i spent a lot of time over in croatia i'm the first one in my family to have like gone back you know it wasn't really like a going back trip but i always wanted to check it out because of my last name and so i did in college and then i just kept

going back got a good uh base of friends over there did a little little bit of work for a political party, that sort of thing. But I can't speak it. At one time, I could get around. Get in and out of taxis and order food. Couldn't have conversations. It's an extremely hard language. Yeah, the Latvian lover here has never been to Latvia. Really?

I would have thought you'd been over. I got to see this ring. There are more Latvians here in America than there are in Latvia. There are more Croats abroad than in Croatia. There's 4.5 million in Croatia and 7-something million abroad. Someone lied to me. It wouldn't surprise me. Maybe worldwide.

That's how it is in Croatia. There's tons in Australia, Croatia. All right. Now, Greg, set the scene for me. Tell what you do now. I'm a PhD candidate who studies political communication. At Stanford? At Stanford, yeah.

Now, what's the lab? I'm in the political communication lab. Yeah. So you want me to give a background on it? Yeah, but I want to ask this first. I think we might talk about this at some point in time. We're going to talk about what we're going to eventually get around and talk about here is some point in time. We're going to talk about what we're going to eventually get around to talking about here

is some of Greg's interesting work as far as public perception, public opinion about hunting. But did you and I talk about years ago when there was a news story that came out? I feel like it came out of Stanford where they were polling ahead of a gay rights initiative. This doesn't ring a bell. And they would poll neighborhoods to see how they felt about an initiative. And then they would have gay couples go and canvas the neighborhood. I know what you're talking about, but we didn't talk about that. I thought I asked about that.

You know about that? Yeah, just vaguely, but yeah't talk that wasn't i thought i asked about that you know about that yeah just vaguely but yeah but that wasn't united that wasn't a stanford thing we had we know we haven't discussed that oh yeah do you know that study well not well i know of it right and it was uh people respond differently obviously when the when the canvassers are gay yeah so you'd like you'd call up a dude's house and be like hey man how you feel about this uh you know the gay marriage bill coming up and And they'd be like, hell with that. And then a gay couple go to the house

and be like, hey man, just so happens this kind of thing affects us directly. We're your neighbors. Keep us in mind. Then you call that dude a while back, call him a while later and be like, hey man, how you feeling about this gay rights initiative? Oh, you know, I can see both sides of it. People change their, just like the smallest amount of exposure. Yeah, people know, I could see both sides of it. You know, people would change their like,

just like the smallest amount of exposure. Yeah, people got really excited about that. For some reason, I feel like there's another story. But I feel like it was discredited though.

Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what I wanted to ask you about. That's what I'm, I feel like I heard the same thing because part of me is thinking, man, I feel like there's another side of this coin. Like I heard it,

it didn't work out kind of exactly as I expected, but I don't know it. It made the news and was billed as this sort of breakthrough and then some more details emerged and it wasn't as revolutionary. It was kind of too good to be true to begin with. If it retains some credibility, I don't want to slander it, but it would be amazing if you could change people's

entrenched views simply by having them meet a member of a certain community. Right. Like, we could solve racism. Yeah, at your doorstep for a couple minutes. Yeah. I mean, that would, to have that effect linger for however long they had after the exposure would be incredible if it was like the two weeks you were talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So now break down what you all are about there. What's going on? Yeah. So originally I was in a PhD program in political science down at UC Santa Barbara. And so how traditional political science studies polarization, you know, like political polarization, how they've done that, they've never really been able to generate consensus on whether

American society is polarized. To a lot of people who don't study politics, that elicits kind of raised eyebrows, right? Because it's like, what are you talking about? Like, it's so divisive out there. But what they've done is, or how they've defined polarization is whether or not people's ideological viewpoints

are moving to the left and the right, devoid of partisan labels, right? It's like, how do you feel about issue A? How do you feel about immigration? Here's seven possible responses, you know, pick your favorite. And when you don't have party labels, you know, everyone just answers what they feel. And it's not a bipolar distribution. It's a totally normal distribution. We're a center-right country, kind of always have been. We're all capitalists. And essentially, it was, you know, kind of grappling with this idea of like,

well, it feels like it's certainly really heated out there, and it feels like it's polarized, but this isn't really capturing it. But back up, I don't understand. What do you mean by not capturing it? So if you had polarization defined by people's ideological viewpoints going farther left and farther right. Okay. You would see a bipolar distribution of responses, right?

You'd have like, oh, those must be the Democrats. Oh, I'm with you now. You're most Republicans. I'm with you now. But we have a normal distribution. We're a centrist country in terms of just our policy positions. Like if you were to ask people, you give them like one to 10, pick your favorite number. If half the country picked one and half the country picked 10, you'd be like, man 10, pick your favorite number. If half the country picked 1

and half the country picked 10, you'd be like, man, that's a bipolar distribution. But basically we still have a lot of 4s, 5s, and 6s. Yeah, that's where it centers around. It's only the tails where it gets really ideological fringe. Because I feel like that's the only story you've been hearing is about how

polarized we are now. Well, I think we are polarized, but we've been... I mean, I don't think that's a bad metric, but it certainly doesn't capture what a lot of us are feeling. So I got interested in the concept of what we now call affective polarization. I started studying this at UCSB, and it's basically taking a social psychological approach and saying,

you know, I think what we're seeing out here in terms of kind of the heated politics is more how Democrats and Republicans feel toward one another. Like, how do I regard Republicans or how do I regard Democrats rather than like, well, what's my ideological aggregate score on all the issues? And my now advisor at Stanford, Shonto Iyengar, has done a lot of good work on this and basically demonstrated that over the past 50 years, you know, this affective bias against our party opponents has skyrocketed. Is that right? Yeah. And that it's now just, you know, you can basically study it like social psychologists have studied race and ethnicity and religion, all these kind of in-group, out-group differences that we kind of think about classically. You can do the same with politics.

And so I'm in the political communication lab, and we're really focused around kind of this concept of affective polarization, or it's called partisan affect. But it's basically, you know, the biases between in-groups and out-groups. And I just happen to study folks who label themselves either Democrats or Republicans. You're only interested in people who label themselves that way. Well, the vast majority of the country does, right? And how we capture it... Oh, yeah. You're only interested in people who label themselves that way. Well, the vast majority of the country does.

Do they? Oh, yeah. And what's critical, though, is you have to include the independent leaners. So if I'm like, how do you identify? Democrat, Republican, Independent won't say. Most people answer. A ton of people say Independent. A lot of people who call themselves Independent tend to lean towards one party or the other.

If you had to choose, which way do you lean? And we offer them leaning Republican, leaning Democrat. We still offer strict independent if they really don't want to say. But that question gets most people to admit that they actually lean towards one another. Because I mean, we're all rational people. I think we look at the facts in front of us and just make like a,

we have issue specific positions, right? And then at the end of front of us and just make like a, we have issue specific positions, right? And then at the end of the day, we make a judgment about like, okay, well, I tend to lean towards this party because I've added up all my positions or something like that. Yeah. That's where I have a really hard time. I've never made the jump. I've never made the lean. Like if you get, if you, if you threw 20, 30 things at me, right? I feel like I'd be split. So if I put the, I said, Steve, you're deciding who's going to win this next election. I don't know, random election in Washington State, right?

And I would say, you're just going to pick the party. And I said, pick a party. If I did that 10 times, you're telling me five and five equal split? I don't think. It depends on the people. But you don't understand how in-depth I get about this stuff. I actually play because I like, as I, I want to get to the hunt part of this pretty quick

here, but I want to say this. I'm so averse to radical change. I am too. Coincidentally. I actually will look at like the tug of war. I'm like a guy that walks up to people playing tug of war, and they'll be like, oh, man, those guys are getting their ass kicked. And I want to jump and help them not get their ass kicked

because I'm always playing like – I know people like to complain about gridlock, but I like pretty slow measured movement. Absolutely. I don't like radical, herky-jerky movement because if you're any kind of a student of history, you realize that radical, when you take radical

departure from courses, it tends to veer wildly and have a destructive period and then get corrected slowly back the other direction. So to save all that, I kind of like things to move pretty slow and easy, but I always have my eye

on some issues that I'm inflexible about. Yeah, I think you're preaching to the choir there. I mean, I don't like unified governments. I like a split legislature. And yeah, I like change to come slowly. I think it's important, but I think if change can happen too quickly, that's where you get into trouble. So I guess I'm establishment in that. Oh, I'm way establishment. Yeah, in that sort of sense. I know being anti-establishment is cool as shit right now.

It's super cool. But I'm, yeah. It's not fun to be, it's not fun to describe yourself as establishment. It's certainly not at the moment, yeah. Yeah, but I look at- I'd have to move out in the Bay right now and be one of those elite establishment

folks exactly yeah so now okay get us around to the park to get us you can step away from it but approach the part approach the hunting stuff and then pull back away if you want okay just give a little teaser the teaser the hunting stuff all right so you know as an academic researcher i have a series of methodological skills right I tend to prefer the experimental method. I was like, let's run an experiment on people's perceptions of hunting. Specifically, I wanted to look at non-hunters. This question that kept coming up in my mind was generated by things like, hunters make up a tiny minority of the American public,

but the vast majority of the American public has generally positive feelings towards hunting in the United States. Yeah, lay some numbers to that. Five or six percent of Americans buy a hunting license. Yes. Now, people always like to then point out like, oh yeah, but there's all this hunting. Like you could, you know, you can go to,

remember when Mitt Romney was saying like, oh yeah, I like to hunt. And then people were like, funny, because he never bought a hunting license. Yeah, make that a deal. And then someone pointed out that, then people were like, funny, because you never bought a hunting license. Yeah. And then someone pointed out that, oh, you can hunt varmints in Utah without a hunting license. He walked that back.

So he's like, oh, yeah, but I hunt varmints. That's why I never bought a hunting license. You could be a rabbit and squirrel hunter in Montana and never buy a hunting license. I don't think you can. Randall Williams taught you that. Can you? I feel like in Montana, I don't think you can hunt small game without a license. It's non-game, but I think you had to be a license holder.

You had to have a conservation license? I hate arguing about stuff that's so easy to like. There's like a right and wrong, but very easy to check out. Anyhow, he had found, his people had found a way for him to sort of maintain, despite his lack of hunting licenses. He did walk back to varmint. Because first he went like, oh, varmint hunter. People are like, really? You're like a passionate varmint hunter? Strictly varmints? And then he was like, yeah, I only really went hunting twice.

Once was on the campaign trail and once was when I was with my cousins. And that's fine. It's just, you know, people are really desperate to show they're an every guy. Yeah, that plays into what you're saying. So, 5% or 6%, right, of the American population buys a hunt license. Yes. Twice as many. Twice, you know, about 13 million. Or no, about 13% buy a fishing license, I think.

Yeah, there's certainly a larger population of anglers than hunters. And hunting, but hunting still enjoys such a big approval rating that it's a thing politicians do is try to establish some hunting credential, which is weird because you're trying to forge a link between you and 5% or 6% of the American population. Yeah. But it's a potent symbolism that goes beyond that. Remember John Kerry even did that hunt? Oh, yeah. He did a goose hunt where he's trying to act like he's like Joe hunting. He did a goose hunt, but then they didn't want him to be filmed holding the gun too much.

So he had a guy next to him carrying his gun, which then he already had a problem with elitism. He's a bad option. Yeah, then here he was. He's already got like a big elitism problem and like being too patrician. But then here he is with some dude toting his gun for him out of goose hunting. I mean, it's ubiquitous. Every candidate tries to demonstrate themselves as a hunter. I mean, Paul Ryan's Secret Service codename was Bow Hunter.

But he is a hunter. He is. And I'm not saying that Paul Ryan isn't. He is a passionate hunter, but I just mean, yeah, lots of candidates try really hard to establish themselves as kind of this rural. Yeah, Paul Ryan's a big hunter. There's the right side of the aisle.

Martin Heinrich's a big hunter on the D side of the aisle. It's good to see. But it is funny when there's the totally urban establishment candidates trying to pretend they're a rural hunter. Oh, yeah, I like to shoot critters. All right, so there you are. Yeah, and I'm thinking about this divide, and it's like, well, it's an interesting question. Like, why is this happening? So there was that kind of aspect that made me start to wonder maybe I should-

You were curious, why is it happening that so few people do it, but it enjoys favorability? What about hunting is resonating with so many people who don't hunt? Yeah. And then on the side of that, I think, you know, I've only been hunting for a few years. I mean, I guess you could say I started in college, although I kind of wandered around the elk woods a few times, not knowing anything about what I was doing. I don't even think I played the wind. It was just kind of like trampling through leaves with a rifle.

Which sometimes works for people. Sometimes works. It didn't for me, unfortunately. And then, you know, when I would, I got interested in hunting because, well, I think it's always occupied kind of this nostalgic imagery in my head. You know, when I was young, I read books of like the hatchet

and, you know, stories of survival, Western stuff, trapping stuff. I loved all that. That's funny. I was just trying to read the hatchet to my kid, but he's not quite there yet. Not there? I just gave a hatchet plus the book,

the hatchet to my nephew for Christmas. He's 11. Yeah. I'd read it or I read to my six-year-old right away. It's like talking about divorce. And it's just like, I was supposed to just want to shoot too high with 11. Or you think that's no,

it's good. Okay. But here you're like, what the hell is divorce? I'm like, well, we're trying to read about a kid getting lost in the woods. And I got to explain like,

no, not a mommy and a daddy. Wild tangents. But yeah. So when I, when I talk about, you know, as a new hunter, I kind of feel like there's, or maybe it's just simply living near almost nobody who hunts, you know, like an urban Bay Area. But people are genuinely interested in it

whenever I bring up the fact that I am a hunter. And I found that listening to other people talk about why they hunt with whatever audience they're speaking to versus, you know, some arguments I may use, there tends to be different receptions sometimes, right? And so there was five that I test in the study that I've always been interested in or that I've kind of logged and be like, man, I wonder if that actually does anything. Right.

And one is hunting is tradition. Let me stop you. Sure. Okay. That was the teaser. Oh, man, I wonder if that actually does anything, right? And one is hunting is tradition. Oh, let me stop you. Sure, okay. That was the teaser. Oh, all right. Is this the main thing you work on? No. The main, okay, you want to talk about my dissertation.

But the hunting thing is a side project. It's a passion project, yes. Okay, it's a passion project to what? I don't even know the answer to this. I just know you for the hunting thing. So just like what I do in my day-to-day life is I study this affective bias between partisans.

And specifically, my lab has shown that, okay, there is this affective bias that exists between Democrats and Republicans. And how I'm kind of advancing the ball down the field is I'm wondering what happens to this level of bias when people are under various

cognitive states. So if you're drunk, no, no, no, not drunk. I'm talking about like psychological mechanisms. I'll tell you what happens when they're drunk. Get a lot more confident about it. Yeah. I study a concept called group threat as well as self-threat and self-affirmation. I mean, I don't want to get too, like, beyond the trailer. I'm tracking, though. All right. So I'll just lay out an experiment for you, right? So let me stop you real quick. The stuff you do with hunting, because that was the teaser I wanted you to give, just

to make sure people didn't think they tuned into the wrong program. I can see that. No. So you're dicking around hunting. But that's not the main thing you do. Nope. It's a side, it's a passion project. It's a total passion project, yeah.

A time-consuming side project. Man, you know, I love spending my time on it. Okay, so now, in a nutshell, explain what you do do. So I study the- The main thing. Yeah, so my dissertation is on the influence of various forms of cognitive threat on affective polarization. What's a cognitive threat? Like you think that something's going to happen to you? Yeah. So the two that I study are self

threat and group threat. Self threat in a nutshell case is, you know, you feeling bad about yourself in some particular domain and group threat is how you feel when your group is being negatively evaluated. So if I was like, hunters are a bunch of rednecks. That's group. That's a group threat. And if you say to me, you're a redneck. No, if I'm like, you lack integrity in some way.

You're a disloyal friend, Ianni. That's self-threat. Really? Yeah. Self-threat? Okay. You're internalizing some judgment on yourself. Self-threat? Okay. You know, it's, you're internalizing some judgment on yourself. Yeah, I'm with you.

I'm with you. And I can run you through the dissertation, but it can get a bit wonkish and dense. Well, just lay it out to me a little bit. I'd love to hear all about it, but it's in the interest of time. Okay, so in a nutshell, when people experience self-threat,

they lash out against political opponents in a totally unrelated domain. So I think it'd be interesting to talk about the dependent measure that I'm using to measure affective bias. It's an economic game known as the trust game. Have you heard of it? Nope. All right, so there's a player one and a player two, right? Like let's say you and Yanni right, you're player one, you're player two. Let's say I'm going to give you $10, right? Yeah. You can give some, none, or all to Yanni. Okay.

After you do that, I'm going to take the amount you gave and I'm going to triple it. Now, he will have the opportunity to give some, none, or all of that amount back to you. How much are you going to give to Yanni? For real? Sure. I'd have to sit and think about it. Five bucks. Five bucks.

Okay. If right now you gave me 10 and we're together, I'd be like, I'll give him five. Yeah. But just no reason whatsoever? Well, the interesting thing about the trust game is so you have the opportunity to both make more than $10, right? Like if you're really generous, it's like, let's say you give 10,

you know, and you triple it. He has 30. You can each make 15. But you could just give this guy 30 bucks, and you could come away with zero, right? You know Yanni. He's a nice guy. And so you probably feel comfortable laying yourself out there with the $10.

But if you see some person who's like, okay, this player two, you've never met him, and you're trying to size him up. But you're getting into that me and Yanni both know the rule. Yes. You present this to us.

Well, I feel like we would exchange a quick glance, realize we were onto something, and I would give him all the money. Yes. In the way that I'm doing it,

I'm not bringing two buddies together and having them play it, right? So you're talking me and a dude just coming down the road. Yes. In the way that I'm doing it, I'm not bringing two buddies together and having them play it. So you're talking me and a dude just coming down the road. Yes. They'll never see him again. And this one's over the computer, right? And there actually is no player two. We're only measuring the participants as player one. But they have to make judgments on how much money they're going to lay out.

And they only have a little bit of information about player two to craft their judgments with. And of course, we put in a party queue. So it's like age, race, annually, yearly income, party. And these are questions that the participants themselves have filled out. So it's not inconceivable that we created a profile for a player two. Yeah, so it's like it's a gender studies professor on their way to yoga. Right, yeah, yeah. I mean, we actually get a little bit more heavy handed.

We're like 41-year-old white male Republican who makes $90,000 a year, that sort of thing. Do you want to play with him? We're not like, yeah, we're not like absent-minded professor from Portland. Well, not do you want to play, but how much money are you going to get, right? Because if you're like, man, I just don't trust this guy.

You're not, you know, I'm just going to keep the 10 bucks. Or like, you know, you're going to hedge your, no, I'm just going to keep the 10 bucks or like, you know, you're going to, uh, you're going to hedge your bets a little bit. Um, and it's, it's a tried and true method for kind of demonstrating the biases that people have. You know, when you're just flipping one cue, you can literally see how much more people are willing to give to, you know, whether it's a co-partisan versus party owner. Can I guess, can I guess that people will tend to give more to someone who they're on the same team with. Of course, yeah, yeah. See, I'd game that stuff too.

Yeah, but you can think about it and beat it for sure, but people don't, right? Yeah, I wouldn't agree with that lady on anything, but I would give her some of the money. Yeah, but she might not give it back. All right, so that's what you mean like to do. So that's the measure I use for bias. And so remember, like it's latent in our society.

Like there just is affective bias at all times. People are always preferencing the in party against the out party. So usually, you know, in social science, or oftentimes in social science, when you're trying to measure whether or not there's some phenomenon occurring, it's like, you know, if I show people this picture, do they do some consequential action?

Why? If I show them A, will they do B? And it's against like in a control group where you're not showing them A, you're usually measuring any effect against null, like nothing happening versus something happening. But because we are a biased community right now, there already is this affective bias.

When I'm studying the impact of threat, and I'm talking about self-threat increases affective bias against party opponents, I'm talking about already, like it's an increase in bias over an already biased control group, right? Which I think is remarkable that we can, like we always think it's as bad as it can get, the political rhetoric, but we seem like incapable of, you know, not being able to,

or we seem like we can quickly kind of turn up how much more angry we'll get. You know, feel bad about myself, I'm going to lash out against this party opponent. And I also study, like, group threat, like what happens when people are, you know, when a credible source is passing judgment on Republicans or Democrats and that sort of thing. And then I also have a study, my third and final study of the dissertation is a real-world examination of whether or not electoral loss constitutes group threat. So we're looking at Democrats versus Republicans' responses to the presidential election. Now, I haven't actually analyzed the data for that yet,

so I can't say whether that's the case, but that's what I do on my day-to-day PhD study, I guess. Yeah, this is a tricky cycle, though, because the party is so redefined. The Republican Party just

got so redefined. So you have a lot of people who are like just discovering the republican party under its new form and excited about it and a lot of people who have been republicans for a long time who are a little apprehensive about what the party's up to so it'd be tricky and you've got democrats who are pissed about the primaries yeah on both sides um so yeah it is is tricky. I agree with you there, for sure. All right, so for the hunting stuff. Yeah, so I mean- You knew about, you isolated five arguments

that dudes like me give. Yes. I think you, Steve, give particularly good ones. But, you know, especially in like whitetail country. Hold on, can we get back to that? Because when you started this, when you're laying it out, you were saying that arguments that guys like we give,

not ones that you give as kind of a new hunter, right? You're saying the ones that are out in the ether. Okay. I think I presented that wrong because I don't want to say I've got this golden argument. Everyone should be making the same argument. But no, you just noticed that there was a difference in the reaction. Well, maybe it's even like the variety of arguments I give. Maybe I noticed that some people are responding to some better than others.

Did you set out to be like, I'm going to make a list of five, or did you look and say like, here's what's out there? Oh, wow. It's five. The latter. Okay. And in some of it, you know, because it's not my usual area of expertise, I don't have this like literature review that I'm able to draw on. So some of it was just kind of like my best judgment, right? Yeah. So I tend to see a lot of, or if we want to get into the five, I tend to see a lot of hunting as tradition. Absolutely get into the five. Yeah.

So hunting is tradition. You know, we hear a lot about like, okay, my family's been hunting for generations, like traditional use in the woods and like it's our American heritage. What about how it's like, like about how humans hunted for so long? Does that roll into tradition too? Or don't you approach that way? It does, but I didn't,

that's not how I operationalized tradition for this particular experiment. I didn't get into You're looking more like family level, lineage level. Family level, for sure. And I see a lot of marketing appeals around that, certainly. It's used very heavily in marketing and that's why

I was kind of surprised what you what you found about that surprised me a teeny bit yeah um some of the other things you found didn't surprise me at all but that one surprised me a little bit just based on the fact that some people think it's such a good idea to approach it that way yeah i mean there's some caveats people like how the hell can you hunt and kill a deer be like well my family. Yeah. Yeah. It's, well, let's talk about the results after, I guess, I lay it out. So there's number one.

Because there are caveats, right? So first is tradition. The second one, one that I hear a ton, especially in whitetail countries, like, why do you hunt? Hunting is important to control game populations. Full stop. Like, I hear this one. This is the one I hear the most that has zero elaboration on it.

What do you mean? What do you mean control game population? Oh, full stop means they don't say anything else. Right. And that's like, got to control the game population. It's like, man, I can think of plenty of species that are worthwhile of hunting, but it's not necessary that we knock down their numbers.

It's just a fundamentally bad argument, I think. Because it implies that if you don't need to knock down a population that's overpopulated, that somehow hunting isn't viable or worthwhile. Yeah, that's the thing. When that comes up, the thing I always point out is when people say, oh, they're overpopulated, I always point out there's someone making an estimation here based on something.

So when someone says deer are overpopulated, I'd be like, you know what? The guys I know that are hunting deer in that area don't feel that way. But I know that the automobile insurers in that area certainly feel that way because they're paying out for a lot of deer car collisions. I know there's agricultural interests that definitely feel that way. Home gardeners. Home gardeners definitely feel that way. So it's always like when someone says overpopulated. The hunters are like, yay!

More dotents. They're like, ah, fishing game. I only saw 25 deer on homing day. Last year I saw 35. So that's the thing I've always had a hard time with. Not that I have a hard time understanding it because you can say like right now there's many people who are saying snow geese are overpopulated. One might say, by what measure are they overpopulated?

And then the answer would be by the measure of the carrying capacity of certain Arctic habitats where other birds have traditionally nested. By that measure, which affects you none, one might say snow geese are overpopulated. The guy hunting snow geese in eastern Montana might wish there was even more snow geese. Or the same way people are going to say carp are overpopulated. But then they complain when the carp shooting sucks. You'd think they'd go out and be like, we had a great night. We couldn't find any carp.

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all yeah i think the concept of overpopulation is uh you bring up a lot of really good points there but like uh but it also implies this sense of like okay whatever metric i'm going to use you tell me something's overpopulated whatever metric i'm going to use that's the benchmark i'm going to use for whether or not i think hunting's yeah because people know people say it all the time without probably thinking about to the level that we just discussed that i grew up hearing that all the time yeah you need to hunt them or they become overpopulated we've all heard it even though and it's just something you hear and it's only later after you like think about these issues look at them all the time

you'd be like overpopulated by what measure by the measure of the man raising sweet corn there are a lot of raccoons. By other people who go decades without laying eyes on a raccoon, not. So, all right, that's number two. Yeah, I mean, we hear about it all the time. And frankly, I was like, well, I certainly have an assumption

about how I think this will impact or not impact attitudes towards hunting. But it's an experimental method. Like maybe I'm wrong, let's test it. The third one was one that we hear all the time, hunting for food consumption, where we just emphasize the organic, clean nature of the food that we're harvesting, yada, yada.

I expected it to work. I don't think any of us are surprised about that. It's used quite heavily in hunting media. I think it's a good thing. It makes a lot of sense, but I just felt like I had to include it. Yeah, it's used more and more. Ten years ago, people weren't talking oh really no i mean it's like a new not they weren't talking about but it's changed a lot you know there's a you know you know the

historian randall williams yeah yeah he's looked at that a lot yeah yeah yeah i guess it's like you know and some a lot of media outlets have tried to tie it into like uh this new type of hunter you know like. What describes the uptick in the amount of local boars? It's so funny, the whole new hunter thing. It's always like people pushing the new hunter is always people who

want to be like, you know, the conscientious kind. The ones who cared. It's like, what the hell are you talking about? Unlike all the people I grew up with, all the depraved individuals that I grew up around. Not those guys. I've heard some forums on this subject.

You know, the new kind like me. We only just started caring, Steve. Bit care. They only just started eating the stuff they killed, too. It's like the same kind of people. It's like when people found out how bacon became fashionable in the media for a long time. Because like, oh, bacon is so good.

It's like, yeah, no shit. I mean, you know, my grandpa or whatever, you know, people have been eating bacon since the beginning of time. But all of a sudden, like, you discover it. And you can't just have it be that you discover it in the way that it's just like, people have been eating it. Like, there's certain segments of the american population never like discovered bacon has been eating like religiously consuming bacon but then there's like this new subset finds out about it and they want to act like their bacon trip is way different than everyone else it's like their bacon trip is more inspired yeah and like means more than the the bacon trip that the rest of the country's been on forever.

They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you think you like bacon. I really like bacon. I'm going to get a bacon shirt. No, man, I totally agree. I mean, that gets me. I think I heard some radio forum where they had representatives from, they got someone from like a professional kitchen to give their viewpoints on cooking. And then they were like, oh, well, we got to find someone from like a professional kitchen to give their viewpoints on cooking.

And then they were like, oh, well, we got to find someone from the country. And they got someone from the country to give their perspective on hunting. And they're like, but you know, there seems to be a rise in like real conscientious, like ego hunters. He's like, yeah, that's like how we've all,

like, I don't understand what you're trying to like tell me. It drives me insane. Yeah, so anyways, yeah. So food had to be included. And then there were two that I hear among certain populations. I mean, you guys certainly have talked about this, but there are two kind of pro-hunting perspectives

that I was particularly interested in, in addition to testing whether like, tradition I was interested in seeing if it worked or not. Hunting as population control. I was like, I'm not sure if it works, but I'll include it. Food, I had to include it. But then the regulatory structure and the revenue around hunting, I was interested in whether these arguments would change non-hunters' attitudes towards hunting. Because when you, I think a lot of non-hunters, like urban non-hunters, the majority of America, I think when you bring up hunting, a lot of them, honestly, in my own conversations,

really think it's like, well, I guess just like during the fall, it's tradition that you just like head into the woods with a gun. Like just no concept that it's regulated whatsoever. Yes. And when I start talking about state wildlife agencies and population monitoring, and then based on that data, allocating tags and season lengths, et cetera, and carrying capacity, yada, yada, yada, and how the decisions are made and the steps you have to go through to hunt.

It completely opens up a new world for people. Oh, my God, I had no idea. Oh, I've had dinner with many, many people when I was living in New York who had no idea. They thought, honestly, it was just like you go in the woods. Bring a gun. And you just shoot what you see and no idea that there was a Byzantine network of regulatory measures in place. And frankly, on the one hand, I'm like, wow, that's a bummer that that's how they're viewing hunting.

But on the other hand, let's say someone who thinks that way has a negative perception of hunting. It's like, I can't be that mad at them. Like, yeah, I wish they knew more. But it's like, if they honestly think hunting is just like showing up in the woods and shooting the first thing that runs across me, it's like, all right, well, I can see how they may have come to that conclusion. Like, certainly they're wrong, but yeah. So I wondered what the effect of laying out kind of in the simplest possible way, the regulatory structure of kind of state management would do to Attitudes Towards Hunting.

And then the last concept was the revenue generated by hunting. And this, I didn't use the full economic impact analysis that looks at outdoor sportsman jobs and things like that. I was just looking at the sales from hunting licenses, tags, and stamps, as well as the Pittman-Robertson Act and kind of that cyclical form of revenue structure, right? So the single largest source of revenue for state wildlife agencies is hunting, right? It's hunting licenses, tags, and stamps to the tune of, and this is a conservative estimate from a couple years ago,

$800 million annually. Yeah, 60 to 90% of their operating. So we have 50 states, obviously. We have 50 state fish and wildlife agencies. They have different names, but you call them like Fish and Game, Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, Wildlife, you know,

Association, not never Association, but anyway. Division of Wildlife. Yeah, Department of Natural Resources, all these different names. We've got one for each state. So across the country, those departments derive 60% to 90% of their funding from coming from hunting-related sources, not just like where the state government imposes taxes on the population and takes that tax revenue and distributes it around these different agencies. That's not how they're getting their money. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of staggering, the figures, really. But yeah, they're generating

most of their funding from tags, stamps, and licenses, right? And they use that money to do wildlife research, habitat improvement, access enhancement, enforcement of existing game laws. They do a lot of non-game work. So they don't just like, your Department of Fish and Game, despite the name, doesn't just work on game.

It works on non-game species. If someone, you know, if there's a problem with a great horned owl, that's as much that person's jurisdiction as any other animal. So they do an enormous amount of work with this money. Yeah. And I think what's what I like about

the structure so much is when you add in the Pittman-Robertson Act, right? So they have all this money. So break that down. 1937. So they got $800 to $1 billion from the state level licenses, tags, and stamps. 1937, the Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act gets put on the books, more commonly known as the Pittman-Robertson Act, and this creates an excise tax on hunting equipment.

So it's only going to impact hunters. If you're purchasing hunting equipment, 10% to 12% of that, depending on what you buy, is going to get put in this federal fund. Yeah, like a very select list of items. Yes. Firearms, ammunition. It doesn't stray too far into like... Like if you're not hunting,

you're probably not paying the sex. And there's a similar thing with fishing, which is very specific fishing products. Rods, reels, line, some boating stuff. Dingle Johnson. Dingle Johnson, yeah. Which is a great name. Hell of a name.

Great name. Dingle Johnson. Pull myself back from chuckling right there. Yeah, but this Pittman-Robertson Act, you have a federal fund that's hundreds of millions of dollars annually, right? Let's call it like $200 million to $400 million. And the way that it works is your state can apply for some of that federal fund, but you have to adhere to several stipulations.

One, and this is the most exciting one for me, is all that money that you generated from licenses, tags, and stamps has to be used by your state wildlife agency, whether it's Department of Fish and Game or whatever it is. Yeah, because they'll pilfer that money off. It would totally get spread around the whole state. So it's like, well, if you want some of this federal money, you can use it in many ways that you want to,

but it has to stay within the domain of the Department of Fish and Game. Also, the specific project that you're requesting, so that's the state money. You have to use that state money on wildlife. For the federal money that they're applying for, it has to be approved by the Secretary of the Interior, so it can't be just some totally unrelated non-fish and wildlife or habitat-related project. So it has to be approved. And then lastly, just to round out this, I really like this from a regulatory standpoint,

to round it all out, if you don't use that money that you've been allocated by the federal government, in two years, it goes to the Migratory Bird Conservation Act. Yeah, it's great. It's just a nicely functioning piece of regulation. With so much bad regulation out like, it's just a, it's just a nicely functioning piece of regulation. And with so much bad regulation out there, it's a, it's really nice to see. Oh yeah.

The story, we'll not get into it now, but the story of how that, that suite of legislation sort of came to pass, how quickly it went through, how much support it had. In such dire times. Yeah. The Affordable Care Act, I think think was it took 13 months the affordable care act took 13 months to make its way through i think that that and and during the great depression made its way through in 80 some days yeah i mean affordable care act really took over a century if you think about it so yeah yeah and people like the manufacturers who are

going to probably lose sales because the increase in prices of their goods supported it. The people who were going to be paying it, hunters, supported it overwhelmingly. And I'll tell you something, 1937, there wasn't shit to hunt. People have a short memory where they think that everything's gotten progressively shittier. Yeah. There wasn't. In 1937, you had states that there was no turkey and deer season yeah we were out of the game man we were out of game running and people were like

but from that moment of despair came this sort of like great piece of legislation so now you've run through all five right through all five okay now i want to just do something real quick okay just people who uh you know our friends out there who don't, who don't, don't follow things real close. Now, Greg tested five arguments that you can lay on a non-hunter. Let me jump in here.

There's a six, which is a control group. The control group. You know, control group, you know, so we can compare it to a non-hunting baseline. They just got a message about like household appliances.

Oh, right. You know, cause it has no impact on hunting whatsoever.. They just got a message about household appliances. Oh. Right. Because it has no impact on hunting whatsoever. You have to have a control group. Otherwise, it's like- How do you feel about hunting when you consider the attributes of this toaster? Yeah.

Right, okay. Like, oh, look at this sponge. So about hunting again. Yeah. So took five arguments that folks like to give. Correct me if I'm wrong. Five arguments that you might give if someone were to come to you and be like,

you're such an asshole. How could you shoot a deer? You might say, hey man, my family's always hunted. You might say, that's what I eat. You might say, listen, me shooting that deer brings a lot of money to wildlife conservation. You might say, it's not like I'm just randomly going and shooting a deer. I mean, biologists have determined how many deer are out there, what the surplus is, what we're going to wind up having anyways, and they set this whole season, and there's 10 days, and we only have 10% success rates. And you might say, what was the other one?

Oh, hey, if I don't shoot them, they're coming for you. They're coming for you, and they're going to beat your door down and kill you with their deer hooves. And then disease is going to beat your door down and kill you with their deer hooves. Yep. Okay. And then disease is going to kill them all.

Anyway, we won't have any. So now, which of these are gold? Which of these are gold? And which of these are garbage? We got a series of non-result, like stuff that didn't work and stuff that did work. And I think there are interesting consequences for each. Hunting as tradition, what I'm calling the tradition argument. Yeah, me saying, hey man, my dad hunted.

Didn't do anything. Non-hunters do not care about it. They don't care if my dad hunted. That kind of makes sense, right? It's like, well, just because you guys have been doing it for a long time doesn't make it worthwhile, right? When I put that to, I put something similar to a,

I put something similar to an animal rights activist. I was actually interviewing an animal ethicist and I put that to him and his well rehearsed takedown of that line was we've always done everything humans have always raped humans have always had war

so just because we've been doing something doesn't mean that that's good yeah I agree with that assessment yeah no because i proceeded to then rip holes in that but anyways he had a well-rehearsed reply to that you you know that was a chip i don't think it's fundamentally compelling in a short package such as you would get in a conversation not fun yeah not fundamentally compelling now as part of a broader tapestry, it can become interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, I will give the caveat that when we talk about what makes hunting resonate so well with the American public, there are historical, sociological, lots of perspectives you can take that you would need to get a holistic picture, right? Yeah. And this first step by me was strictly isolating elements of various- And people weren't buying it. And what worked and what didn't in this very isolated environment.

Yeah, so... Now, why do you think it is that... You think it's because of what I'm saying, because just the fact that you did it doesn't make it right. Yeah, I just... Yeah, I don't really want to get into why because the data don't speak to that.

It just didn't work. But my assumptions are exactly what you're saying. Just because you've done it for a long time doesn't make it an inherently good thing. Humans have been doing bad things for a long time. They've been doing good things for a long time, but the length has no bearing on it. How big was the group?

The sample was 600 people. Did anybody be like, oh, okay. Well, did anybody? I'm sure there's one person, one of two people in that condition who were like, yeah, I feel more positive towards Sonic. But statistically, no. Statistically, no, okay.

Which is the important part. That's what I'm wondering, because it can't be binary, right? It's not like works don't work. It's like worked on Steve. Yeah, but say like, okay, so whatever the sample size, I mean, like how much didn't it work? I mean, it-

Like it really doesn't work? Well, then you get into a discussion of what significance values means, and you get into mathematical. Okay, what is insignificant? What does that mean? Well, the conventional level of significance numerically is a p-value of less than 0.05, which I guess has popularly been described as the relationship

you found has less than a 5% chance of having happened just by coincidence. Okay. Which I'm sure there's mathematicians and statisticians out there who are just losing it at the radio right now. But listen, have them send their hatred my way. Oh, it'll come my way too, I'm sure. Yeah, these guys are funny. No, but defer it to me then

because I'm putting you in an awkward position. I'm putting you to, I recognize- But it just did not meet, it didn't meet 0.5. It didn't meet 0.1. I mean, it didn't meet the conventional levels. And you, and it's not- I want to help you out here because I feel bad because like your whole training, right?

Yeah. Like I'm asking you to do things that fall way outside your comfort zone and way outside your training. And I find that when I'm talking to researchers, my brother's a researcher, so I'm talking to researchers, and I'm like, what did you hope would happen? It's like, you can't have hope. They're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, you know, right? Yeah. So, yes, I'm pressing you to, I'm pressing Greg, our guest,

I'm pressing him to, to, to, to, to, to, you know, put a shine on some things that fall outside. So, well, I mean, I can admit to like, I certainly had assumptions about what wouldn't, wouldn't work. Right. And, and hope is an interesting word. I didn't hope some would work and some wouldn't, but I, you know, I had my own guesses. I was like, I bet, I bet this one turns out right. But you know, if you use a scientific method, it should tell you the truth. It's not like,

Oh, I got an idea. I'm going to make this traditional one work. Yeah. And that way it's probably almost good to be a little bit aware of your biases because then you can help make sure they're not running away with you. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, it's good scientific practice. Okay. So, so you're not, but you're not going to speculate. You mean, it's good scientific practice. Okay. So, um, so you're not, you're not going to speculate. You don't want to speculate. It's just when you say like, why it didn't work, that falls outside of your research.

There was no statistically significant difference in people's attitudes towards hunting from time one to time two. So the population, I think during time one, I sampled about a thousand people. I got their attitudes towards hunting using kind of conventional survey questions. I recontacted 600 a couple weeks later, randomly assigned them to one of the six conditions, the five perspectives in the control group, and then used the same question to reassess their views towards hunting. So it's within subject in that you can compare this person's, you know, these individuals' answers at time two versus time one and see within the subject whether there was any change. And so for tradition, there was no statistically significant change.

Just dead or dead. That's what you put on your report. Oh yeah, nothing happened. It didn't go the other way. They didn't get angry about hunting. Because we would have picked that up too. Oh, you could have measured the bag. They could have been like tradition.

Backfired? Oh yeah. That'd be interesting. It doesn't backfire. It doesn't backfire. It just does nothing. Doesn't do shit. Just keep your mouth shut.

Rather than do that one. Well, it's a little bit early to talk about this, but it's like, I think using the tradition argument is good in certain contexts, right? So we're talking about perceptions of hunting from non-hunters. If you're BHA, you know, or you're RMEF, and you're trying to-

He's Backcountry Hunters and Anglers at Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. And you're trying to like generate donations or membership. Hell yeah, talk about tradition. Like, yeah, that might resonate with- There's a number of conservation organizations, some of which I'm involved in,

who when speaking internally for marketing, they push it very heavy because people within the hunting world do care so much about that. Yeah. I've talked about this with Landon. I mean, I'm one of those hunters who responds to it. Yeah, it works on me, but I'm not a non-hunter. And the reason that I'm interested in non-hunters is it's like,

if we are going to continue hunting and keep enjoying kind of the model we have in front of us, like we are absolutely going to have to rely on non-hunters. And it's really nice that they generally have a positive view of hunting right now. But we've constantly got to be vigilant. That's why I'm always- Dude, you're bringing up my favorite subject. I'm driven crazy by dudes that are like, I've had someone recently who was like,

dude, the anti's can kick rocks. I'm like, that's a ludicrous position. Kick rocks? They said kick rocks, yeah. Huh. I mean, like, Oh, yeah, I know. I get what it means.

Go pick mushrooms. I get what it means, but it's like so old-timey. You can pound sand. This is a pretty old-timey guy. Pound sand. But he was just like, yeah, I just don't care what they think. We have more expressive things.

Well, our privilege to hunt is really at the whim of non-hunters. Yeah, yeah. No, that's my favorite subject. So tradition didn't work, but I'm not saying it's a bad argument to use with hunters. I mean, I'm a hunter. It resonates with me, you know, for sure. But amongst non-hunters, in my sample, it didn't work. The next one, population control.

You know, we got to hunt. You know, many hunters, when polled, say that hunting is important because it controls game populations. Didn't do anything. That surprised me a little bit in that, as much as we just talked about it, because of this. I think most people in the country live in whitetail deer country. By far, whitetails account for, like, the most main hours of hunting time right um so i think when people say like game hunting a lot of people are automatically jumping to a deer hunting yeah oh yeah i think most people when you say people do live in fear and deer heavy areas it's a thing

where you're like driving along at night and you're hoping that you don't hit a deer. And everybody over time in these areas, which is the majority of the country, you or someone you're very close to hits a deer. It's a thing. I'm surprised that it doesn't mean more to people, assuming that what they're picturing when they hear the word game is deer and what they're picturing when they hear the word overpopulation is you hitting one of those deer with your car i think it's a i think it's a valid perspective to have and i mean but it just doesn't measure out it doesn't measure out even looking at the sample like isolating to white tail country which is which it's difficult but honestly if you're thinking like am i going to

do this by states if like where am I going to draw the line really? And I, and frankly, there's a lot of, if I run into people who don't hunt in the West, they're still thinking Eastern whitetail, like tree stand whitetail. If you polled heavy drinkers in rural Midwestern areas, who are dry, people who are driving home one, two in the morning,

I think you would find- Hard drinking gardeners in the Midwest. But yeah, I agree. And this gets back to my last point, which is like, yeah, there are definitely populations out there for whom these arguments resonate, you know,

but this is a, you know, kind of a wide sample. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. My point would be, I thought that like,

I would have thought that that would have, that, that those things would have just been basically you're asking people about their feelings about white tail deer and they would have answered based on their likelihood of crashing into one. That might be just a reflection of where I grew up, where hitting deer was a daily part of life. Yeah, I wasn't sure about that one, frankly. I didn't think it would work, but when I was actually doing the geographical controlling that I'm talking about, I was like, I bet it works in the Midwest, right?

And I couldn't find it, but who knows? At least for our sample, it didn't change attitudes towards hunting. It didn't make a negative, but it was just flat, like tradition. Now, another question. Go ahead. I was going to say, can you explain what it sounds like when someone's attitude about hunting changed when you asked the question the second time? What was the first answer and then what was the second answer? Well, so I'll give the, I guess I'll give the structure

of the experiment. So during time one, in addition to several demographic questions, we asked, how do you feel about hunting in the United States? And there was a sliding scale from one to seven, from really support to really oppose. And you could just pick a numerical value between one and seven. And then at time two two you were exposed to one of six arguments and this is actually interesting because you guys have seen them they're animations instead of like they're not people aren't reading about this three or four yeah they're seeing animations and the reason that i did animations was let's say you get the population control argument which is an inherently short argument

right i think the clip itself is like 15 seconds, and it's something to the effect of, like many hunters, when polled, say that hunting is important because it's necessary to control for game populations, and then the clip kind of ends, right? But if we're talking about Pittman-Robertson and we're talking about state wildlife agencies,

like those are inherently longer arguments. And so I thought, if this is going to be text, I'm going to show people text passages, what we're going to do is we're going to have people's eyes glaze over. If you're not hunting and you're reading about the Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act in 1937, you're going to be like, this is the worst experiment I've ever taken. Yeah, then you're more like studying

people's reading comprehension skills. And so I thought, how can I package these different length arguments in ways that will still be standardized in terms of digestibility. I thought, I'll make some animations. I have a buddy who's an animator. That's why we did that.

They're really clean, cut and dry animations. They're not meant to... There's not a B-roll and meant to look pretty. They're straightforward. It's for scientific purposes. They're straightforward. They're clean.

They're made to be digestible. There's no bias in them. They're not zippy. They they're made to be. There's like no bias in them. No, I mean, when you get into... I mean, they're not like zippy. Right. They're not trying to sell anything. I guess you could make the argument that when you get into making something like an animation, you're going to have some kind of implicit bias.

But I did my best as a scientist to make them as objective as possible and just reflect the text passages I wanted them to reflect in the simplest possible way. And then after they watch this, right, and remember it's been like two weeks since I asked them the first time, they get the same question. How do you feel about hunting in the United States from the one to seven scale? And so you can see like if they answered, you know, three, you know, slightly opposed, and now they answer five. That's an increase of two. And how much they have,

they feel statistically different about hunting than they did at time one. And the reason we have the control group is because something could have happened in the interim. You could have had Cecil the lion happen one week after I asked him. Was it Cecil? Cecil, yeah.

Whomever the lion. Could have happened in the middle and uh and yeah you know you could have had some outside influence that is accountable for uh for whatever uh kind of relationship you're finding which is which is of course the importance of the control group so that's so that's generally what it looked like um so yeah tradition population control just flat food like we all expect, statistically significant. I think it had the largest coefficient as well and that it was the most impactful argument, which doesn't surprise me.

I mean, I think we've talked about it kind of ad nauseum, so it's not like terribly interesting to me, but people generally, or non-hunters generally, respond favorably to hunters talking about going out and sustainably harvesting food and it's organic and you don't have to rely on factory ranching or farming.

People are generally amenable to that. I think people too are generally pragmatic, man. People don't like shit to go to waste. I think that when you explain to them it doesn't go to waste. In fact, it feels good to them.

Yeah. It feels better. I think there's this impression, it's just like, oh, you're cutting their head off, and you're hanging on a wall, and then the thing rots in a ditch. And when you explain to people, actually, that's illegal. And people go to jail and lose their hunting rights for doing shit like that. I think sometimes people feel like they feel sort of relaxed about the issue knowing that that's the case well i didn't talk about uh like game use regulations or like uh waste or anything like that it was it was more about um you know many hunters when they're hunting talk about uh how

they're you know they'd like to be able to come home give food to their family and that they describe meat recognizable terms such as like you organic, free range, and that they don't have to go to the grocery store and eat factory-produced meat. Very straightforward. And again, a lot of this is just an artifact of me running an experiment. I wanted to be able to isolate it. And if I joined that argument with the argument you're making about game waste laws, then it's like, ah, well, which is it? Yeah, not with you. Yeah, and so that one worked. I think it's definitely a great tactic to use with non-hunters,

and I think it's totally valid, too. Remember, these aren't just like marketing strategies. I think a lot of them have validity, and certainly sustainably harvesting your own food is valid. Now, the most interesting result in the whole experiment to me was the regulatory structure. So simply explaining the fact that hunting is regulated by state fish and wildlife commissions and that they have wildlife biologists whose job it is to monitor populations and then make decisions about what that entails for the hunting season. So theoretically, you could have a population that is so low

that they determine, hey, we're not going to hunt them, or so high that it's going to be like, hey, these are over-the-counter tags, or in the middle where it's like, okay, we're going to do a lotto. We're going to do a draw for this. And there is a feedback loop, a constant feedback loop on, hey, we're managing these populations. Oftentimes, there's a mandate for longevity or perpetuity. And the actual biologists are out there making decisions

about who can hunt, how many people can hunt, when they can hunt. And that worked. Just explaining that no like hunting is good because of ABNC, just like here's the regulation surrounding hunting. And we just broke down basically state fish and wildlife agencies.

And we didn't say anything about the esa or anything like that this is just state level management and people's attitudes towards hunting improved and i think that's really interesting and i guess on a really abstract level uh level it's like it's heartening right i love to hear that you know i was struggling for what it was yeah i was struggling for the right word it's heartening i think that it's easy to fall into this trap of being like oh anyone, anyone that doesn't agree with me, it's just that people are so dumb now. Yeah. And I'd be like, no, because oftentimes people have.

You don't know what you don't know. Yeah, people have an opinion, and maybe they're not totally married to it. Yeah. And then you present them with some information, and they're, oh yeah, you know, I feel better about that now. Yeah. It's a, yeah, it was definitely heartening to see if you just present people with, with some facts and, you know, people can only make deductions about what they're exposed to. If you present them with some facts that they will in fact, you know, ingest them and make

a, make a decision after that. And that it in fact does make people more positive about hunting was huge. And, and. Can I tell you a quick story? Sure. The other day I was walking down the road near here and some guy was handing out flyers about how he wanted to get a four-way stop

put in somewhere where there wasn't a four-way stop. I was initially resistant to the idea because I just, you know, just general awareness about more rules. Remember I talked about change? Dude, I have this, people with clipboards on the street. Then the dude told me this.

He showed me a bunch of stuff saying, in fact, four-way stop will probably speed things up at this intersection. Wow. And I'm like, all right, I'll sign your thing. I didn't know that. Oh, there you go. I didn't know that that was true. I wonder if it is.

I was swayed by data. I went from wanting to tear his clipboard up to sign him one of his pieces of paper. Well, it's compelling stuff. And I'm happy to hear that in my sample, a lot of people were like you, right? And it was also, this was by far the densest possible perspective.

It's why we had to create animations, right? And it still worked. Oh, for sure. Because, yeah, you're dealing with and you're not making any emotional argument about like my attachment to hunting it's like yeah i do have these you can do the food one in caveman language yeah me yeah it's just like here's the regulation yeah um so that was a really cool finding i think um and that was probably without explaining to him like how dense and how hard it is

to understand those freaking regulations books, right? Yeah, we just laid it out. I mean, we had little animations of calendars and licenses. Yeah, I think we might... It's not manipulative, but it's a great video, I thought. It's not manipulative. I would hope it's not manipulative. Yeah, I know what I'm saying. It's like, again, it's like you did a good job.

It's like, you're not like... If someone said to me, like, make a video like that, I would have taken a way different approach. But you're like, you were able to sort of stick to the mandates of your job and be like, how can I? I mean, just good experience. Yeah, how can I just like explain it without weighting it in one way or the other, you know?

Because I would have been like, these wonderful, really smart biologists. But yeah, I think I might try to repurpose them and release some of them to the public because I think, honestly, it's thrilling that just explaining the regulations surrounding hunting is making people feel more positively towards it. I think it's huge and it gives us another perspective

aside from food. And like I was telling Steve, we really need non-hunters. You know, hunters are at the whim of non-hunters. We really rely on kind of their judgments to give us the privilege of hunting. And so the last condition is the revenue surrounding hunting, right? And I broke it down earlier and that was interesting and that it worked when moderated by people's self-reported strength of environmental beliefs so there was another question right that was like i i had to ask it vaguely because i didn't want to go down rabbit holes of like trying to define what environmentalism is, because it is a loaded term, right? Yeah. I asked, how strong are your environmental beliefs?

I don't remember the exact words, but it was something to the effect of that on another sliding scale. And the higher your environmental beliefs, or the higher your concern for the environment, the less likely a revenue argument was to work for you. But if you- The less likely?

Yeah, so, but it's interesting- When you told me about this, I thought you meant the opposite. The less likely it was was to work for you. But if you- The less likely? Yeah. So, but it's interesting- When you told me about this, I thought you meant the opposite. The less likely it was going to work. So for people who are like- Like I'm a hard-hitting environmentalist. Yeah. But I'll tell you why. It's because-

I still feel like I'm getting you wrong. You're telling me that a hard-hitting, someone who identifies as a hard-hitting environmentalist, was less likely to be swayed by the financial impact of hunting and fishing licenses on wildlife conservation. Well, it's that last thing you said on wildlife conservation. In an effort to isolate the revenue argument, I tried to, I mean, in some ways, it's unavoidable to tie it into conservation, but the emphasis in that particular condition was not like,

all this money goes to conservation. I mean, I of course had to talk about it when I had to talk about it. But how do you say where the money goes? I did say this money has to be spent by the State Department of Fish and Game. But you don't get into what they do with it? I said things like habitat improvement, but I mean

the bulk of the video was very much focused on just like, here is the money generated. You've got $800 million in licenses tax stamps, you've got additional few hundred million dollars at the Pittman-Robertson excise tax, and that's like $1.2 billion. See, I would have showed a bunch of

panda bears and lions and stuff drinking out of a water tank. I think we had some trees and a couple of animals at some point, but yeah, if I was, if I took off my social scientist hat and I was trying to make a pitch around the revenue, I'd absolutely hammer the fact that, look, all this money is going into conservation.

And I think that that's a valid argument for sure. But I was just trying to isolate. I wonder if just a strict money argument surrounding hunting can actually affect attitudes. And for people who did not self-identify as an environmentalist or say that they were high on the scale, it did work, which kind of makes sense. I know you don't do Y. Why?

Well, all right, I'll get into this one. And I think it's because if you really care about the environment, someone's telling you, like, this activity generates $300 million. You're like, well, that's great, but does that impact the environment, someone's telling you, this activity generates $300 million. You're like, well, that's great, but does that impact the environment? Is it actually good for the environment? I don't care how much money it's making.

That sort of thing. I think that's what's responsible for going on. I'm making assumptions about that, but that's my best guess. If you really care about the environment, you're like, okay, listen, all this money generated is great, but you haven't told me about right? Is if you really care about the environment, you're like, okay, listen, all this money generated is great, but I'm not,

you know, you haven't told me about, you know, why hunting is good for the environment. See, that's a really tricky word too. Just environment, environmentalist,

because like in my own lifetime, early on, like an environmentalist was basically, that means you didn't like litter, right? Like the earliest part of the environmental movement was like, stop littering, was basically, that means he didn't like litter. Right? Like the earliest part of the environmental movement was like,

Stop littering. Was interpreted to be like, don't throw fast food wrappers out the window of your car. Which is just aesthetics. Like you think of Monkey Ranch Gang, the Edward Abbey.

Ed Abbey. Yeah. The guy throws beer cans out his car window because he hates the damn road. He's like, the road is the problem. It's not the beer can the problem it's not the

beer can i'm defiling the road which i don't like so that was one thing for a while then it was like for a while i interpreted the environmental movement as a young person to be that it was synonymous with animal rights which is like my interpretation right now i think when someone says like are you an environmentalist now it's becoming sort of saying like, how do you feel about human-caused climate change? It's almost like, you know what I mean? Like the word is... It's a proxy. Yeah, it moves around in creepy ways.

You know, creepy is not the right word, but just moves around. It attaches itself to things and forms these sort of like vexing relationships with certain issues but then and i used to always really like the word conservationist but now there's almost like a battle there because conservationists for a long time had a i feel that it was that it was tightly connected with basically like honey like honey and hunter fishermen based environmentalism would, would go under conservation. I still think that's too large to agree. No, cause they're stealing our word.

They're stealing our word because they know that their word has a negative, their word has a negative feeling in the American mind. I think there is a negative connotation of the world. So now environmental groups are being like conservation has a more measured practical, you know, things open on top of the table kind of feel to it. Yeah. And environmentalism makes people feel a little prickly.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. So they're hijacking our word. I mean, I strategically use both. Drives people nuts. Like, I'm an environmentalist. I'm a conservationist. Like, I think I really think the line. I do it to mess with people. People don't like to say that it's the same thing. No, but'm an environmentalist, I'm a conservationist. Like, I think, I really think the line, people don't like to say

that it's the same thing. No, but I do it to mess with people. I think the line is so arbitrary. It's just conservationist. I'm like, you know, I'm a hunter. You mean, meaning, I'm an environmentalist. Yeah.

Dude, I do the same thing. That division drives me crazy. Oh, no, I use it to mess with people. Yeah. Oh, I do too. Absolutely. I think, honestly, it's like, I think because I study politics,

it's like environmentalist, oh, you're a liberal. Conservationist, oh, you're a conservative. Yeah, exactly. It's a proxy for both. So I like to toy with it. I like to just use both all the time and tell people the division's arbitrary. When I'm talking to lefties,

I do use, I do try to speak of myself as an environmentalist as being like, I have way more in the game than you do as a hunter environmentalist. But yeah, but if I'm talking to speak of myself as an environmentalist as being like, I have way more in the game than you do as a hunter environmentalist. But yeah, if I'm talking to like some old- It's really adversarial tone you're taking here. But if I'm talking to like some old timers who might not know what I'm getting at,

then yeah, it's like, we all play little games. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've got to have source credibility with your audience, whomever it is, right? Yeah. And I certainly do that. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about how to wrestle with ideas, man.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, there's so many more things I would love to do in this domain and it'd be exciting to crack into more. So I wonder what the reception to this. So what will happen with your stuff? You're going to put it out there. So what I'm going to do-

Don't you think you should not put it out there? Just leak it to the proper people so we know how to tailor our arguments to win? Because once you put it out there, it's going to diffuse it. I don't think so. These aren't heavy-handed marketing appeals that I'm testing. It's not like I was doing these pitch videos. It's like, let's see which one works best.

They're just straightforward arguments, and I think people are reasonable enough to see that. All the arguments are actually, they're all factually accurate. The population control one being in some specific instances, it's actually accurate. In others, it's not. But they're all just like accurate assessments of pro-hunting perspectives. And you're going to publish this in a public-

An academic journal. But don't you want to do something for like a- So- Because you and I talked about doing something. When does this air? Whenever we get around to it. Okay. It's waiting in line.

Sometime within the next eight weeks. Eight weeks. All right. So I believe by the time. Around the time we got started. Probably January. Okay, perfect. So by the time this is aired,

the article will have been submitted to an academic journal within the realm of wildlife management. Oh, you're going that route. I'm going both routes. So, and here's why. So I'm submitting it to an academic journal. So it you're going that route. I'm going both routes. So, and here's why. So I'm submitting it to an academic journal so that it'll go through peer review. People see like, this is a legitimate study.

Yeah. Like this, I have a scientific approach. I like that shit, man. Like, you know, I know what I'm doing. It can stand up to peer review and it'll get published. And then I would love to do a popular piece surrounding this.

You know, no one's going to go, oh, let me get on JSTOR and look up some academic article about this. But they will read something. I don't know, New York Times, WAPO. I mean, I'm probably shooting way too high, but I'd love to do a popular cover of these findings and write that up in kind of a more holistic approach. Because then we wouldn't have to be so kind of broken down into our social science hat,

like, oh, I can't talk about that. I can't make assumptions about why they felt that way. You really can do these things if it's an op-ed, but I want people to know that when I'm referencing my results, it's not like I just did, oh, yeah, I did some study on my computer, and now I'm going to write an op-ed about it. No, that's a legitimate study. I know it's controversial in your community, in the academic,

in the scholarly world, but I think there's great value in in learning how to sort of like translate some findings and help people make sense out of stuff it is controversial and i agree with you for sure i think like you know people like to burn on pop science yeah but people like to lambast like like if a paleontologist or an archaeologist is working on something, and then they come out and do a popular piece, and don't stress all the caveats quite enough, and stress how subject to error the radiocarbon dating might be, that then they get raked through the coals for overblowing their data.

Yeah. When it's like, what's the net goal? I feel, you might say, I feel my article made the public a little bit smarter. Now, sure, we could have withheld all the information, but isn't the end thing to sort of, like, enlighten people around you? I mean, in a strict... I've had this conversation with so many people, and it kind of drives me nuts when they have this aversion to being to people,

saying, like, basically, here's what I'm getting at. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, and, I mean, I've witnessed tons of arguments surrounding this. I happen to agree with you completely that it's... I mean, in a strict academic sense, sense you could say I am only here to further our knowledge. And it's like people want to read my stuff, they'll see that we have advanced human knowledge down the field.

But I agree with you that there's nothing inherently wrong and I see a lot of good coming from covering this in a more accessible popular manner. And that you can encapsulate your arguments and speculate maybe as to what that entails without, you know, delegitimizing science.

And someone's going to pick up on it anyways, though. Yeah. Like any kind of groundbreaking work, it winds up getting interpreted by journalists anyway. So if you could be in a little bit in the driver's seat and if you could see through the publication on your own and be a little bit in the driver's seat to help them avoid some of the pitfalls that are out there, all the better. Because if you have something earth shattering, people are going to write about it and mess it all up anyhow. I agree. I mean, yeah, I totally agree. And I read an archeology piece recently where it was like someone interpreting something in a

journal and I'm like, there's no way that the researcher would agree with the way you encapsulated the findings. Yeah. I think the tide's turning and academics a little bit that people are becoming kind of more friendly with op-eds about their work. I hear what's funny is that, is it true that most of the time you don't get to pick the headline? That the editor picks a headline?

Yeah, that's generally true. That one gets me, man. Because it's like people choose these clickbait, inflammatory headlines. Well, yeah, but different organizations have, some organizations really have, they have a system in place that keeps things like somewhat neutral. Right. And some of these just go for inflammatory bullshit,

but some places, you know, you wouldn't be able to pick it because they would be afraid you'd oversell it. Yeah. And in some places wouldn't, they would be horrified. I mean,

I'm not, you know, the conversations I'm hearing aren't from like click baity places, but it's probably people with their academic hats on being like, Oh, you didn't quite capture the caveats I was talking about in that headline. It's probably that tendency.

But I certainly have no problem with going into the public domain. And I think that's my ultimate objective. I think, which is, as an academic, that'll probably rub some people the wrong way, that the peer-reviewed piece isn't my ultimate objective. It's a way to demonstrate that what I've done is scientifically legitimate.

And then I want, yeah, I want to talk about it with people. I want to get it out there. And yeah, I hope the hunting community kind of looks at it and I don't know, maybe make some smart decisions with it. I don't know. I think they will. I hope so, yeah. It seems to be resonating with a lot of people

that I'm talking to, but I could be in our, you know, the modern loco or war, green hunter, who all of a sudden, the new kind of hunter, the one that now cares about wildlife, not those old ones. Not those, not those ones from last year.

Those ones from this year, man. They're the good ones. Um, I, I've told a couple of people about it, your stuff and, uh,

how they, how they react, like surprised, very interested, anxiously awaiting to, Oh really? Oh, that's great to hear no i mean a couple people within who work in the world you know marketing worlds and things and i told him that i'll be like wow you know i leaked a little bit but i said you have to you have to

check with him when he gets his stuff done yeah i mean i hope it's interesting i i think a lot of the organizations i naturally think of our marketing to mostly to hunters to retain membership or drive membership. So it might not be totally, um, you know, totally particular to them, but, uh, but I, yeah, I think more generally, man, we gotta, we have to make sure that, um, non-hunters really understand that it's not a bad thing. I'm thrilled they support it. And like, here's why there are legitimate reasons. It's not just marketing appeals. Regulation itself. The more you know. Hey folks, exciting

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Yanni, you got concluding thoughts? Yeah, well, yeah. On the heels of that, it's like we can't go around patting ourselves on the back and sitting around going, yes, we're going to raise our kids, hunting, fishing. It's going to be great.

Everybody's going to keep doing it forever. We got to get everybody else on board. So it's good to know how to talk to them. That's your concluding thought? Are we getting to conclude? And you've always said that, you know, venison diplomacy. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, that's.

Yeah, that was your number one. Okay, I thought you meant something different. I thought you meant something different by your concluding thought. No, I was saying that it seems like hunters are real good at hanging around and bullshitting with each other. Oh, yeah.

And being like, yeah, hunting's great. Yeah, yeah. We got to reach out. We can't just talk in the echo chamber. And then it's like you said, they're just like, yep, no, we're just controlling deer populations. Yeah.

And they have nothing more to add to that. Now you know. You can throw that one out. Yeah, and add something different in. Talk about food. But I'll point out, too, if you're going to use the food one, don't be a bullshitter, man. Take good care of your game meat. Don't just start talking about stuff that you have no organic interest in,

but you're just using it because you like the sounds or you know it works. What's riding your gears there? Who are you thinking about? No, I'm just saying, if you're going to talk, talk. How's that saying go? Walk the walk. Walk the old walk. No, I agree with you there.

There's a little bit of that going on in hunting social media. I don't know if we can, you know, how much. I'm not going to slam anybody in particular, but there's definitely some of that that goes on where I feel like. Oh, to a huge degree. I see a lot of like this, like, it's the only organic meat. It's all I eat, blah blah i'm like man like i don't think you've even broken down your own animal once yeah you know yeah every animal

you ever killed went down to steve's meat market and the whole thing oh i know i think i think it's i think it's rampant man um i recently was talking to someone who's talking about some person that you know killed an elk and they were able to roll it into the back of the truck. Later, they were headed to a butcher shop, or they were breaking it down in a meat locker. He took the leg out and put it in his backpack and went back out to do the pack-out photos. I've been there.

I've been there. I've driven a few mule deer around back to the truck to different precipices and nice vistas. You got out and you carried the deer up there and took a picture. Well, no, via truck, but to different locations. Was the truck- Oh, to do grip and grids.

No, no, no, we took them out of the truck. To do grip and grids in various places. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that's common practice. It's like that. For the guys that are really into grips. But that's different than going out to roll it in your truck and then later going out and doing your packout shots.

Yeah, that's just disingenuous. Oh, packout shots. No, no, no, not grip and grins. Gotcha. No, rolled it in your truck, took it into a meat processing place, grabbed a back leg, put it in a backpack, and then went out and did a photo series of packing the meat out. Nice. Yeah. It's like some of the folks packing out antlers in the magazines.

I'm like, what in the world is this guy doing? Oh, yeah. Some dude on top of a high, high peak with just a set of antlers. Oh, it drives me nuts. It's like, you mean to tell me, hold on a minute. You're telling me that marketing has lied to me? No. You mean you usually don't pack on antlers the whole time you're hunting and bugling?

You don't usually do the same? Yeah, yeah. That's another classic. It's a dude with a pair of antlers strapped on his back on a peak ripping a bugle. He's like, I got one. I took the antlers off it. Now I'm going to get me another one. Just poaching. I have a concluding concluder.

Just so I don't steal Greg's because he's going to get the final glory with Keep It Public. I didn't do mine yet. I've got several. I'm just going to stick this in here right now so that I don't have to say anything later. I'll add to something later.

But Greg's well aware of this little topic. Oh, my God. Yanni brought me the perch flies. I'm on it. I'm a guest for this, man. Those are unbelievable. I don't know how good they are. I was going to jump in the fire.

That is the exact perch fly. On air to see if they'd work. Now, you can see my daughter was helping me last night, and she saw the pink calf tail, and she's like, well, you got to tie up a couple with the pink. That is the perch fly. Think it'll work? Dude, it's the exact perch fly. Now, I had a couple guys.

I had a couple extremely generous people send me a couple of perch flies, and they were good. But these are the... Now, here's the thing. This is what my old man tied. The guy that invented this fly is a commercial bait fisherman named Ron Spring. Ron was my dad's fishing buddy and Ron made his living. When you went in and bought live bait, Ron made his living catching live bait. Unhook him on. No, no, no. All kinds of ways. He supplied crayfish. He supplied

waxworms. He supplied wigglers. He trapped leeches. He trapped shiners, minnows. He was a bait fisherman. He supplied live bait stars. And this was his fly. Now, my old man fished with them. These are guys that would fish 200, 250 days a year. And this was their mile man and his friends, Al Cole, Ron Spring. This was the fly they use through the ice for yellow perch. Exactly. Oh, that's through the ice. That's not for open water. Not just that. This was the fly they would also use when the big white bellies were out in about 100 feet of water in Lake Michigan.

That fly. Interesting. Now, that's calf tail, and I couldn't tell by the picture. Now, you know why you want the shank naked? So you can string a bait up on her, perch eyes or whatever. Like a lot of times we tip it with a perch eyeball. See, that's bucktail, and I was having a hard time keeping it short and sparse. I usually trim those.

Oh, you do? Yeah, you're not supposed to because people like the natural end, but I trim them. Well, there you go. I left the barbs on for you. After how many years now? It's about two. I'm stunned when I hear this.

Like, I don't know what to say. It's not a complicated fly. He just never got around to it. I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm a listener too. I think we were all following this saga. No, you should see now my little workbench in the basement. He just never got around to it. I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm a listener too. I think we were all following this saga. No, you should see now my little workbench in the basement. Looks like I'm practicing fly tire again. Man.

You know what's funny is I just gave my brother a giant bag of perch fillets too. So I need to restock. All right, what other kind of – how many more cocoon thoughts you got? I got no more. Unless I add in on what you guys were going to talk about. I was going to read to you about the definition of a sportsman. We can say that for another time. Oh, please.

Is it long? Not too long. But this is what Grinnell wrote. Well, and it just came to mind because I was reading this. Can we name this paper? Can anybody go read it? Technical Review, the North American

Model of Wildlife Conservation put up by the Wildlife Society. Yeah, man. Very informative. Everybody should go read it. Yeah, Greg, you should do a study where you call someone

and make them read that son of a bitch. Let's do a video. Make them read that son of a bitch and be like, you got a day? Yeah, it's good. It's good. I'll call you back tomorrow.

I'm going to have some hunters come to your door. Oh, you're looking for something right now? No, no, no. I was just saying that. Well, there's like six points that define a sportsman. And the final one was will not waste any game that is killed. Is that old? Yeah, this was written in the...

That's Grinnell. That's Grinnell, yeah. George, right? Yeah. George Bird. George Bird, Grinnell. So yeah, don't be a bullshit artist. You can talk about food.

Eat it. Yeah, live it up, man. Do it. People can talk about food. Eat it. Yeah, live it up, man. Do it. People can smell bullshit. My kids discovered the word bullshit. They love it, but they like it too much for their age. All right. Now, Greg.

Yeah. I don't have a concluding thought, but I do want to ask. So you've started a group, Keep It Public. Yes. So Keep It Public is basically dedicated to showcasing the diversity of individuals who support federal public lands, right? Because I think it's all too easy if you look at rhetoric on either side that it's like, oh, that's a liberal issue. Or, oh, that's a hunting issue. Or, oh, that's a liberal issue, or oh, that's a hunting issue, or oh, that's only for backpackers.

And it's like, okay, on the one hand, we need to show that support for federal public lands is cross-recreational. Everyone who recreates on it needs public land to kind of ply their pursuit. And then you've also got these political divisions. I think we were talking about earlier, and I think you were talking about on a previous podcast that it's in the GOP platform right now that we should divest public federal lands. But of course, there are plenty of Republicans. There are tons of Republicans who support federal public lands,

including legislators. And I think it's important to really showcase the bipartisan nature of the overwhelming support that the American public has for federal public lands. And I'm just, because I study politics, I think I'm really wary of this issue getting pegged into a left-right spectrum. Yeah.

But I think, I know, and I remember one day when that was in there and that made it into the, that made it as a plank in the platform. And it was disheartening. Yeah. It was disheartening. Absolutely. And again, as much as I try to not look at, you know, plank in the platform and um it was disheartening yeah it was disheartening absolutely and uh and again as much as i try to not look at you know i i don't look at things in a real partisan way um it was disappointing to me that that made it in there um in the agenda of a party who i

who i support a great deal of their work but i just i have a real problem i have a real problem with the fact that that's uh part of the i do too and i really don't like at all that it's been attached like it's because it's now just entered the partisan realm right and it's now like well you know are you a bad republican if you support the federal land system and that absolutely shouldn't be the case i mean, I've hunted with a hell of a lot of Republicans on public lands. Yeah, absolutely. But there are lots of Republicans, of course,

who really care about this issue and are every bit as passionate about it. I mean, you don't have to be a Democrat to wholeheartedly love federal public lands, and I think that's what we're trying to show. Yeah, if you can battle to keep that from becoming a knee-jerk partisan issue. So our little niche is like, we've got all these great organizations that are becoming like a knee-jerk partisan issue. So our little niche is like,

we've got all these great organizations that are marketing to a base. You've got hook and bullet marketing to hunters and anglers. You've got the REI backpacking scene, as I like to call them, marketing to your liberal hikers, right? Yeah, but those guys haven't done shit. Well, we'll get into that.

But what Keep It Public is trying to do is we're not marketing to a base. Your job is to battle that sentiment. Right, to a degree, yes. And what we're really trying to do is show that, hey, the only official stance we have is that we support public lands under federal management and we oppose any land transfer to the states. So you support federal things that are currently.

We support the existing model. Yeah. Not the things that would be transferred or somehow seized and deprivatized. You're saying the federal public lands that we have right now should stay that way. Absolutely. And I think a land transfer to the states

will just absolutely lead to a net major loss of public land access, whether it's sold outright or whether it's managed in a different way and we're trying to show that this isn't just you know liberal Bay Area hiking and biking I want my public lands this is everybody and it's not just recreation either I mean we're planning on doing a piece with ranchers there are plenty of ranchers who support federal land I mean right now in Montana it's nine or 10 times cheaper to graze your cattle on federal public

land than it is the next private land. And a lot of them have no illusions about what will happen if federal land is transferred to the states. We've also got industrial perspectives. I have a friend who's a lawyer for an oil and gas company. And the way they talk about federal lands is, you might think from an industrial perspective, they just hate it and they can't wait for it to be privatized. But a lot of them are fairly happy with just how dirt cheap federal leases are. Is that right? It's a mixed model, right?

We're a bipartisan coalition building group and it's not just bipartisan coalition within recreation. We're also trying to involve ranchers and industry. And part of that is, I get so fed up with people looking at the Bundys, right? partisan coalition within recreation. We're also trying to involve ranchers and industry. And part of that is I get so fed up with people looking at the Bundys, right? And they'll be like, cowboy hat, Wrangler jeans. Yeah, they might be a little bit extreme, but they must be the extreme side of the position that I feel, right? Because look at me, I'm a rural Western American.

So they're a little bit beyond the pale, but they must be on the right side of this coin. And no, I don't think that's the case. I don't think we should let these people kind of capture the imagery of the rural American West because there are plenty of rural Westerners who support federal public lands. Yeah, but those guys stand for a lot more than that. I mean, I stand for paying what you owe and not exploiting contracts and owning up to your responsibilities. And they definitely don't. Yeah. Expand on that.

Well, I mean, if you go out and run cattle on land owned by the American people and rack up a debt of close to a million dollars and don't pay for what you did, that's just called an asshole. It for what you did, that's just like being, that's just called an asshole.

It's theft. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah, but I mean, at the same time. That becomes like heroic to sort of, that all of a sudden it's like, just like great American heroism to default on contracts. I think people are just like, oh, they're rejecting a tyrannical government.

But I honestly think a lot of people are. Yeah, in a way that benefits you financially. Now, if you're rejecting a tyrannical government in a way that hinders you financially, that's a lot different than the way that being like, I don't want to pay this money. How can I make it look like I'm on the right side of this? Yeah.

I just think like personally in this era of, you know, judging issues and articles by basically headlines, I think it's real easy for people to see some cue about like, I'm rural, they're wearing some clothing, or they're talking in a way that makes me think they're rural, therefore I must be with them. I think there's a lot of people who aren't just engaging with the policy or the issues, taking the easy way out,

or maybe just aren't as, you know, it might not be malicious. Like, frankly, I'm a nerd about this stuff, right? And like, they might just not be as interested in federal land policy. I can't really blame them, but it's very easy to look at some simple, you know, interpersonal cue and be like, oh, they're with my group.

You know, they're conservative Westerners. They're with me. And it's like, no, plenty of conservatives, plenty of Republicans support federal public lands. And so we're going to basically market bipartisanship and market kind of cross perspective support for federal public lands. Because we don't have a membership base that we're trying to retain or drive. We're basically just trying to remain viable. So we sell hats, shirts, stickers, vinyl decals.

They just say keep it public at keepitpublic.com. And 6% of all of our profits are split between three partners. So we've chosen the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and the Outdoor Alliance. The first two are, of course, I think the listeners will be familiar with those as kind of hook and bullet advocacy organizations. And then Outdoor Alliance is an umbrella group that has many, I guess we could call them non-consumptive recreational interests under it.

So you've got mountain biking and climbing and hiking. I'm not sure if birdwatching is under there, but you've got kind of the non-consumptive recreational interests. And so even when we're choosing our partners, we're trying to make sure that everyone is represented. We're trying to have a broad tapestry. So 6% of every purchase is going to go towards that. And we're not really looking at the company

as really like an income generator. We're not under any illusion that just selling hats and shirts is going to get us rich at all, but we hope we remain viable enough to keep doing things like, I'm working with the animator from my experiment to make a linear kind of historical overview of how federal lands came to be. Because I think if you just look at how federal lands evolved, I mean, from the 13 colonies through purchasing Alaska, and then how we've switched from a model of aggressive disposal to retention, if that's just laid out in a straightforward chronological history over the course of a couple minutes, it's really hard to come to the position that somehow federal lands are illegitimate.

Oh, that's the thing people try, though. It's like the guy you meet down in a bar who's like, you know, if you read the Constitution, you don't actually have to pay taxes i gotta talk about it you know you always find guys like that or guys who somehow like done this careful close reading of the constitution realize the federal government can only own washington dc yeah i'm gonna directly talk about that yeah so you guys might be like is that right okay i'm gonna make that my concluding thought get into the constitution go ahead get into the constitution for a minute. Yeah. So this is, my pet peeve is land seizure folks like the Bundys mentioning the constitution. Usually there is like legitimate gray area and debate about interpreting the constitution. Federal lands is not one of those

things, right? The property clause is unequivocal that like federal lands are constitutional. For over 175 years, the Supreme Court has never wavered in citing the property clause as making federal lands legitimate. I mean, that's a ton of different makeups of the Supreme Court. It's never wavered. They've never interpreted the property clause as meaning anything other than something that supports federal land. So just straight out, federal land is legitimate constitutionally. Now, they're not as relevant, but it kind of begs a response. These guys are always, like the Bundys are talking about the Enclave Clause and the Tenth Amendment a lot. The Enclave Clause, it doesn't really make much sense to talk about. They're talking about these federal enclaves that are like military installations

and things like that. Constitutional scholars are kind of baffled about why they bring this up because it does nothing but really offer kind of like tangential support for federal lands. It's just not really that relevant. Actually, what I think is happening, and this is really amusing, is that, and Snopes did a piece on this, I think they actually believe there are a few sentences in the enclave clause that straight up don't exist. Oh, really? It's written in a way that looks

constitutional. It'll say, no state should without its consent... But they're looking at bogus stuff. It's just information that isn't in the Constitution. And they cite the Enclave Clause, and people are like, why the hell are they citing the Enclave Clause? That doesn't make any sense. And as far as I can deduce, they're literally citing information that's not in the Constitution. We have a link up on snopes on the website

when people bring that up too i'm always wondering like like with those boys i'm always more like so if they didn't own it what makes you think you don't it yeah well if this 10 mile thing you're like you're like you're running cattle and you you're your old man you guys are running cattle on blM land. But if it wasn't BLM land, it wouldn't just be sitting there, come one, come all. It's some guy that owned it. And you still wouldn't be running cattle on it. I guess everyone likes to dream of themselves being that private landowner.

Yeah, but for me to be like, man, I wish my neighbors didn't exist, then I'd own their house. No, it'd probably just some other thing would own their house. It's a ludicrous perspective to have. Yeah, and then there's the 10th Amendment, which basically anybody using that to talk about federal lands is just ignoring the property clause.

It's not like there's healthy debate amongst the Supreme Court. Federal land is extremely constitutional. This 10-mile thing that I've heard sometimes is ludicrous. I mean, it's in the Enclave Clause, I believe. That's like the day on the own wash in D.C. Yeah, it's either in the Enclave Clause. I believe it's in the Enclave Clause,

and it's talking about the seat of government. It's just talking about how big D.C. should be. It's like, how did you extrapolate that to be a 10-mile? I don't think that that's such a fringe. That approach is a fringe approach. I think a lot of people look and they're like, sure, the federal government like, you know, legally owns its federal lands, but I just feel like it's too much and it's not administered in a way that's friendly to industry.

And however it came to be is fine with me. I just think we should change what it is. that's probably the dominant view i totally agree i'm just saying a pet peeve of mine is these people holding the constitution i'm like read the thing yeah no it's horrible it's horrible it's like it's just it's one of many things where it's annoying whatever side of it you're on it's just annoying because if you just get where you just like dislike misinformation because i'm perfectly comfortable'll debate. I'd love to debate him on it. But I'm perfectly comfortable with a guy who's like, no, I get it. It's all fair and square.

I just think we should do it differently. And we're a country that changes all the time. We're always changing our rules, reassessing our priorities. And right now, my priority is freeing up more of this land for extractive industries. I'm like, OK, you're entitled to that opinion. Now, hear me out. I'd love to have the conversation. But when a guy comes and says like, oh yeah, that they can't own it all anyway, I'm always

like, oh, I don't even know where to begin, dude. I mean, it's like, we're not even on the same planet. I agree. I mean, the former that you're talking about, these people who are engaging with it, but just have a different belief. It's not like keeping public is just straight up rhetoric. Like this is what we believe. And like, you're either with us or against us. We have a detailed policy statement

up there right now. And we talk about the three arguments we have is federal land is historically consistent, it's constitutionally protected, and it's fiscally advantageous. I think if you take a long-term view of economics and industry, you will see that this mixed model that we have is the most viable way forward economically. Like I always buck at the idea that it's like, but I totally agree with you. And you've said this on previous podcasts. I don't think that everything should have to justify itself

in economic terms. And I think this land falls into that. It just so happens it does that too. And I buck against some people who are like, well, it's just industry versus this mixed model. But a lot of states are, not a lot, there's some states, some very conservative states I'll point out, coming around saying that having looked at it, they're feeling that it's not advantageous for them to assume some of the

financial responsibility of management of lands. Yeah, I believe that was a fiscal analysis that was mandated by some legislation that the big time land transfer advocates were pushing for. And they're like, oh, don't want that. And the state's like, yeah, because you could have a cataclysmic wildfire, bankrupt your state. Yes.

And states don't have a lot of the fiscal elasticity of the federal government where they have to live within budgetary constraints. And they're like, we don't have, like our citizenry doesn't want to take on the responsibility of properly administering this land and administering it in these days comes down to fighting fires. Like most of the Forest Service budget fights fires. Shit's expensive. And I think some people now are looking at being like, as much as it's supposed to be a great selling point,

industry that's happening on these public lands as it is, is generating jobs. And they're getting dirt cheap leases. In our state. And it's like, we have a lot to gain and not a terrible lot to lose.

And it's a good system for us. Yeah. And I mean, even if there isn't a wildfire, it's expensive to manage this land. Plus, the federal government gives each state what are known as payments in lieu of taxes or PILTs. So if you transfer lands,

it's taxes that they would have made on revenue generated from the current industry on those lands. And yeah, I think the states are looking at it and like, wait, we now have to pay to manage the land that we're not currently paying for. Plus, we're giving up the payments that we're getting from the federal government.

And I think there's an argument to be made that, because some people would be like, well, I support public land, but this is all just fear-mongering. It'll still stay public when it's in state control. And I don't believe that's the case at all. Well, that hasn't been borne out by history. Right, and for them to keep, let's say, theoretically, that this happens, for a state to keep the current level

of public access, it would incur enormous expenses. And the only viable way to do it would be to jack up taxes on everybody. That's not going to happen. No politician is going to be like, I really jacked up your taxes because I want to keep all this public access.

All of Wyoming is now paying much higher taxes. It's not going to happen. No, I mean, if you just kind of generally pay attention, state-controlled lands, they're not as, state lands are just not as open generally as federal lands. To camping, hunting, ATV use, there's a lot of restrictions on it. And they carry a lot of financial fiscal restrictions where they can't run deficits and oftentimes have to sell land look at i mean texas got liquidated virtually all their school trust lands over the years yeah and i mean that's

that's the land that actually stays in state control i mean most of so it's i think a lot of people think that like the federal government is increasing its land ownership, and that's not the case. It's diminished by a few percent since 1990. The tap is going in the direction of from the feds to the states. And some of that's like there's land swaps that happen. I'm not saying that it's emblematic of a larger land transfer. What I'm encouraged by... But a lot of that land just gets privatized outright you know like the state lands that are open have restrictions but a lot of the federal land that's transferred to the states just gets sold outright yeah and again if people who want to talk about

how state land doesn't go private go look up elliott state park in oregon yeah selling a state park yeah look at how much land has been sold from Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada. I mean, it's a lot. It's staggering figures. Yeah. Yeah. Now, one thing that gives me a little bit of hope, and I don't know, because I think he's going to be, we brought this up a couple of times now, he's going to be under a lot of pressure from his adopted party. But I heard Trump speak in January of last year, and Trump said he has no interest in dumping federal public lands. Yeah, I want to talk about that. We've talked about it before. I understand he's going to be under a ton of pressure. I know that he also, in a lot of ways, doesn't have a lot of use for party orthodoxy.

He's been willing to butt heads with some of his fellow party members on a number of issues. I hope he can butt heads with them on this. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly our responsibility to make sure that he does. Yeah, on another podcast. He didn't mince words. No, he didn't. But the Trump campaign has made three statements about federal public lands in terms of if you separate their arguments. One has unequivocally been no interest in selling your federal public lands,

and we think it should remain under federal public lands. Which is the one I heard. That's the one I heard first, too. I read other ones. It was the first one that came about, and I'm like, great, both candidates support federal land management. The debate's over. My pet issue is at least I can focus on other things, because that's not

going to change. Then, there was messaging from his campaign that said, well, if it's under state management, we still support public lands. It's like, well, if it's under state management, you have nothing to do with the land anymore. Give me a break. And then the third one was he did have a meeting with DeMar Dahl in Nevada who's a big land transfer advocate

and spoke to a group there. And Dahl was kind of effusive in his praise of that meeting. So I'm not using that as a, like I'm just, because we're talking politics, I'm not using that in any way to say that's his because we're talking politics, I'm not using that in any way to say that's his true opinion and that these other things are just a charade. He's an opportunist, right? And I think

it behooves us to make sure that he hears the arguments in support of federal public land and that we hold him to the statements that he's made on our behalf, right? But they have been, it's tough for me because some of the statements have been in direct opposition, right? Yeah, I'm not naive enough to think,

I'm not naive enough to think that what anybody says. Yeah. During trying to win a, when trying to, at that point, trying to win a party nomination. I'm not naive enough to think that there's really that much validity with anyone says, but it gives me something to hang on to. It gives me something to refer back to.

Me too. And I'm hopeful. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I pray that because that it happens, he supported federal lands so early in the process that I'm hoping the

latter were just artifacts of going through the campaign. And I know that he has the ear of his son, who's an avid outdoorsman. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, I mean, this is a big thing that we're focused on at Keep It Public, because it's like we're not going to tout one party over the other at all. It's like, listen, the only official statement that we're going to make is that we support public lands under federal management. Oh, yeah, you can't tout one party party because the parties don't do anything for us.

Right. Right. Yeah. You got one party. They're great for clean air and clean water. Probably generally hostile to hunting and fishing type dudes. Yeah. You got one party, welcoming with open arms to hunt and fishing type stuff, but you got to keep an eye on them when it comes to clean air and clean water. Yep. It's like, we need our own party. You know what's interesting? The hunting party. Just reappropriate Bull Moose. We'll get 5% of the vote every year. But to go back what I said,

like earlier I talked about how political science couldn't show that we were polarized, the society. What they did show was that the elected officials are polarized in terms of their voting and their rhetoric. Yeah. And I think it's interesting that- Because the party system. Population, right. It promotes extremists. are polarized in terms of their voting and their rhetoric. And I think it's interesting that the population, it promotes extremists.

And I think it's our responsibility as the population to moderate the politicians we elected in office. That's the frustrating thing about the party system. And it's like a thing you watch again and again, whether it be politicians you really admire, and then they go to try to secure a party nomination. And you have to watch the very painful process of them morphing into, of their beliefs morphing

into this thing where like, oh, wow, all of a sudden, you mirror, you magically now mirror. Man, some of it's just pathetic. Oh, it's so sad, man. Let's just end on that, it's so sad, man. Let's just end on that. It's so sad. I need to go back to never talk about this kind of stuff, man. It's important, and I think there's a way to do it

where we don't have to be inflammatory, right? We're all fully functional adults. We all have our own political leanings and our own thoughts on issues. There's no reason why we can't find out where our avenues of agreement are and say, okay, we can set aside our differences on completely irrelevant topics and at least have a unified front

on federal lands or whatever other issue you might be looking at where we share a consensus, right? Yeah, yeah. I say yeah, but then I also realize that I'm in many ways- I'm just trying to put a positive spin on it i also realize that i'm in many ways i'm just trying to put a positive no i'm in many ways like i'm i don't want to say i'm a single issue guy but i'm focused uh i'm focused very heavily on wildlife issues and issues that affect hunters and fishermen

and it's it's like a self-fulfilling thing because those are the issues that I know most about and can speak to most competently. And I tend to view the world somewhat myopically, or I stay on that stuff. And so I always talk about how all this coming together kumbaya stuff. But by that, I always mean i hope you come together to think what i think yeah i mean on one hand it's like i hope you come together with me on what i want yeah i mean on the one hand i look at it as like man are we just like chasing like a utopia that doesn't exist with this keep it public stuff but on another it's like if we're just up front it's like listen the way the way that we're going to do this is we're not going to advocate for anything except this one stance.

You know? It's like, we don't even have to debate any of the other stuff. You know why we're going to win? Why is that? Because our guy is carved onto the damn mountain. Yeah. I like that. Roosevelt signed the mountain.

I like that. Every politician wants to liken themselves to Roosevelt. That's true. What did Roosevelt do? He was popular in history. Gave us the public. I like that. Every politician wants to liken themselves to Roosevelt. That's true. What did Roosevelt do? He was popular in history. Gave us the public land system. Yeah. So it's like, we're already winning.

You put up a guy that's going to piss on this whole system and flush it down the drain and make it that future Americans don't have access to public lands and national parks and refuges and national forests, and then get your ass carved down a mountain. Yeah, the GOP. Ain't going to happen. Ain't going to happen. That's why I think we're going to win. I hope so, and I think so too.

The mountain speaks, man. I mean, there's a lot of people who are fired up about this, right? And I think sportsman groups have been doing the heavy lifting for a long time. And I think it's time that the entire recreational spectrum gets its act together in targeting this federal land kind of avenue, right? Yeah. Like, I've noticed that a lot of non-hunting outdoors groups, their messaging seems to just revolve around the national parks. I'm like, the national parks are 13% of the public land.

They're like, come on, like they're not in danger. Oh, yeah, it's all part of the broader, I don want to get into it yeah okay let's go jigs and squid yeah we are going squid jigging tonight now yanni two concluding thoughts really you got more i got two i'll do one i'll do one and that is because i'm gonna do one all right it's because because Steve brought up this story we were talking about before the podcast and my in-laws, and I feel like I just can't let that lie. There's a very funny... Your wife would listen to this?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Why not? It's a funny story. I don't mind telling it. Jerry will get a kick out of it. That's my father-in-law, Jerry. So, when I... Early on in my wife and I's relationship, we went to school in Colorado and we were down visiting my now in-laws in Southern Colorado.

And we were, my now brother-in-law, my father-in-law and I were muzzleloader mule deer hunting. And we went out in this truck, an old F-250 with two gas tanks that we called Old Whitey. And it was bench seat. I was in the middle between my father-in-law and my brother-in-law. And we drove out to the national forest we were hunting.

Public land. Public land. And we got out there at Old Whitey and we're like crawling along pretty slow. And I figured like, all right, we're going to get to the hunting spot. He's just going to like drive along pretty slowly. Maybe we don't want to spook anything.

And I was a very new hunter at this time too. So I was like unsure of the procedure. Anyways, we're just crawling along and crawling along and just waiting to get to the spot. And you know, I'm thinking, God, this is taking forever. Like it's taking half the day. It's taking prime hunting hours. And I turned to the left at some point because I've been talking to my brother-in-law and we noticed that as we're idling up this hill, I was actually about to say what it was, but I don't want to do that to their hunting spot. As we're idling up this hill, we noticed that Jerry is just flat out snoring behind the wheel. And it looks like he's been

asleep for some time, man. And we just, oh, we just about died laughing, man. We were howling. He was going like a half a mile an hour. And yeah, so now I'm convinced when Jerry goes out there and hunts like half the time he's just taking a nap you know my dad's hunting stories um as he was older were always like and there was like and there it was under my tree yeah yeah because the reason your stories all start that way is because you periodically wake up and look around and just all of a sudden see deer there but they they never approached because you slept through the approach. I mean, they're very good at napping.

I feel like I have to up my napping game sometimes. Jeff Foxworthy has that great skit where he's in the tree and his buddy supposedly walks up underneath him. He goes, hey, Jeff, what are you doing? You sleeping up there? And Jeff like, wait, because he looks down. He goes, no, no, I was praying. I was praying.

Okay, what was your last one? That was your second to last one. All right, if you want me to do it. I don't want to ramble and take your listeners, too much time from your listeners. Let's just do it real quick. Yeah, so what I've noticed, because I didn't grow up in a hunting family,

what I've noticed as I've started hunting, it's kind of irrelevant to all the politics and stuff we've been talking about, is that I've gained much more appreciation for landscapes than I previously had. Like, you know, I think before it was very much in the line of like, yeah, I like the alpine landscape, right? Like go backpacking in the Sierra or the Trinity Alps. And I love going through sagebrush and like antelope country.

Like I just love it now. And I think, I don't think I appreciated it as much before I started interacting with the wildlife. Like, the nuance of the landscape. Every landscape I see, I'm like, oh, well, this is how it functions. Like, this is the utility of this landscape. Like, this is what lives here and this is how it lives. And it's really just increased my appreciation for the land in a dramatic way. Yeah. I hear you loud and clear on that, man. You learn to look at the land. Yeah, you read it. You learn how to look at it.

Like, I love driving through Nevada. Barry Lopez. Some people hate it. Yeah, Barry Lopez, who, if anything, is uneasy with hunting. But he writes about it. He spends a lot of time with indigenous hunters. And he has a beautiful piece he wrote where he's traveling with some Eskimo hunters, and they come across a bear, a grizzly out on the tundra. And he gets into what he sees when he sees a grizzly, which is he sees the moment.

There is a bear right there. He says his companions see the grizzly, and they see a long narrative that took place before their arrival, and they see a long narrative that will play out after their departure. It's like they see a timeline that they entered into. And I think that that's one of the things that hunting teaches you, is that when you're looking at something, you're catching it in a moment. Even things like successional forests.

When I look at a forest fire, and people are like, oh, the anchors were destroyed. I look at a forest fire, and I'm like, I'm already picturing that son of a bitch in 10 years. Oh, yeah. When it's crawling with deer and elk.

You know what I mean? Like, you learn to, like, see this thing that, you know, goes on and goes before. Yeah. And seeing elk out on your winter range is like, some people are like, there's an elk. But you see this thing playing out like how that thing uses the landscape now where it probably came from where it's going to go next there are many ways to get there hunting is just the way that forces you to get there i mean there are many ways to learn to see the natural world that way and we by no means have a monopoly on it um but hunting is

the way that gets you there very quickly. Yeah. It's powerful. Because it makes it relevant. Yeah. It makes it relevant to you. And earlier I said we're pragmatic beings.

We're also a little selfish. We like things to be relevant to us. Yeah. That's true. Yanni, concluding thoughts? Already gave mine. Already gave yours.

That was a good one though. But now that Yanni gave my purge flies, a lot of people write in frustrated they can't buy a meat-eater t-shirt, but you can go on to HuntEat. We have some. You guys are going to have some. Are we going to get more? Yeah.

Yanni's t-shirt company, who we boycotted over the purge fly issue, HuntEty sold us meat eater t-shirts yeah we made some for you and people bought them all yeah

how long ago how long ago the last one sold yeah probably a year really wow and you still got some

we've reprinted it's just like the people that write in because the meat eater store is a mess it's like dude you're right I used to try to defend it but it's just like the people that write in because the meat eater store is a mess it's like dude you're right i just try to defend it but it's just like a mess yeah but right now i know that we have some actually add the printer because i know we're gonna have shirts for wednesday

like you guys are making more yeah remember we looked at the proofs no but no i'm saying hunt eats gonna make more than oh i don't Eats. That order has not been placed. There's going to be more Meat Eater t-shirts at the Meat Eater store. But you're still, Hunt Eats still selling the Meat Eater Hunt Eats?

Yeah. All right. Was that long? That was long. It was good, though. I liked it. Good. You low attention.

Thanks for the invite, guys. You low attention, sons the invite guys low attention sons of bitches i hope you got through that hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada you might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law but hear this on x hunt is now in can. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.