The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 542: Trump, Biden, and Wildlife: How Elections Shape Conservation

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Becky Humphries, Suze Orman, Ryan Callaghan, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: It's Tax Day; bigger is not better; when two ladies in a small boat beat all the boys; from "Money Lady" to the "Fishing Girls"; the incredible expense of a fishing; you can donate your tax refund to conservation and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; a Michigan-pissed hunter; your last chance to attend MeatEater’s Live Tour and BHA x MeatEater Trivia Pint Nights; the wolf that was killed in southern Michigan and how coyote management has changed in the state; the incredible challenge of finding common ground; how elections shape conservation policy; and more. Outro song "Huntin' Land" by Emmy Lou Howard Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com okay everybody it's damn near tax day and we're gonna do there's two things are gonna happen on this episode we're gonna get into two things you never want to bring up to anybody we're gonna talk about finances and we're going to talk about politics. But we're going to start with, we're going to talk about politics, kind of.

Politics and the intersection of politics and conservation with Becky Humphries, who's been on the show a couple times before. And we're going to dig in with her. She's here in the studio. But joining us from not in the studio is Susie Orman. And she just was saying that we need to change, start a podcast called Money Eater. And we wanted to catch up with her for a couple reasons. One, because it's tax day and we want to get some financial advice. And two, because there's some things I became aware of. Now, if you're wondering or if you've been out of touch or you're a little youngster,

Susie Orman is an American financial advisor, of how many books a lot of books 10 10 10 number one new york times bestseller and i am just not a financial advisor sir i am a financial icon of america and you youngins if you don't know about me, that's why you're financially screwed. Yes. If you don't have a big old boat, if you don't have a big old boat yet, it's because you haven notoriety with the Suzy Orman show, which ran on CNBC for 13 years and does a podcast.

I'll tell you my brief history, which is two-time Emmy Award winner, twice named by Time Magazine as the 100 most influential person in the world, recently just named as one of the 50 over 50 women who have changed this world. And I could go on

and on, but who cares about that? You are not over 50. No, it's true. I actually said, what took you so long? Because I'm about to be 73. Are you really? What? Yeah, look it up. Google it while you're sitting there. Corinne, this is part of your research.

Well, no, I might have known. I might have read that and thought that's impossible because she looks too great. it up you google it while you're sitting there corinne this is part of your research well no i might have known i might have read that and thought that's impossible because she looks too great but uh that's what happens when you have a lot of money i haven't had any work done but that's besides the point as well now uh okay you might be wondering like well how why this show because i found now i've known once upon a time uh suzy and i for a brief period overlap with our book publishers but uh she's a the reason she's on the show right now is she's a mega fisherman like i got photos here of uh her with a stack of wahoo, manages to live in Bahamas, which I need to ask how that goes down.

And when I first reached out to her about coming on the show, I see a picture of her where she's standing next to an electric reel, like a deep drop reel. Now, normally if you meet, like, you know, when you're talking to a famous person and they fish and you get their fishing picture, you're going to get a picture of them holding a fly rod with a rainbow trout in Big Sky, Montana with a guide holding the net. Or it's a marlin. Yeah.

But I was like, hold on. She's standing with a deep drop rig. And I was like, this is a legit fisher person. Have you always fished? No. So when I was 65, many years ago now, I had decided what would Susie Orman be if she didn't have the number one show on CNBC for 13 years or how many ever years it was, if she didn't have standing ovations of 50,000 people at a time, if she didn't have, you know, standing ovations of 50,000 people at a time, if she didn't have this, that, that, that, that, what would I be if all of that went away? So one day I decided to sell five homes, quit my show, stop writing for Oprah,

stop being on TV, bam, and we got a boat. And then we started to go all around on the boat. And our captain of the boat, because the insurance company made sure that I had a captain. They wouldn't let me captain it myself, which I could have, which did not go well with me, but I didn't have a choice, was an avid fisherman. Okay. And so he would sit on the dock with us and we'd have these little fishes. And that's all he thought these two women could do. So finally finally we fired him. We got him out of there, right? I started to take over everything myself. And little by little, we had moved to the Bahamas, this little tiny island where we would watch everybody bring in these big fish. We didn't know what they were because we wanted to also fillet

our fish ourselves. We were like, we are not going to be women who the help does this, the help does that. We're going to do it ourselves. We're going to fish. We're going to captain our boat. We're going to clean our boat and we're going to, you know, clean our fish. And little by little I we would be asking questions like how do you catch a wahoo what's a wahoo and before you know it we we got the equipment and we went out and we would try and before you know it we started to catch and at first we didn't know the difference between a barracuda and a wahoo so we'd have to bring the fish in and ask somebody on the island is this a barracuda and a wahoo. So we'd have to bring the fish in and ask somebody on the island, is this a barracuda or is this a wahoo?

And little by little, we got it down really well. And it was, I think it was just a few years ago, maybe 2018, whatever it was, but a few years ago, there was a Wahoo contest on the island. And there were nine boats that went out, huge fishing vessels with captains and all these lines. And we had our little, you know, 32-foot Boston whaler with just two poles. That was it, the two LPs. And we won not only the contest, but we won the largest fish as well.

Oh, I love that. LPs. And we won not only the contest, but we won the largest fish as well. And now all the men were, and who have been Wahooing and everything for 30 years, we became their target as if they wanted to catch us. They never quite have, but we've now, well, I'm no longer known as the money lady, which was my nickname. We're now known on the island, KT and myself, as the fishing girls. And when we go out, you see the boats start to follow us because they want to know where are we going, what are we doing, and things like that. You're like the birds. Yeah, right? They're watching for us. Or we'll be somewhere and they'll come up

just to kind of say, hi, and I know they're marking my spot. So I'm always like, really? You have to pretend? You want my numbers? You can have it. You're still not going to catch here. I love it. I love it. Right. Right. But anyway, and that's how it started. Little by little. Now I have a massive massive lure collection a massive rod and reel collection um and we use them all the time and how are your fillet skills are you are you good at cleaning fish yeah it's actually kt that cleans them right because that's what she wanted to do i didn't care one way or the other to tell you the truth. She is magnificent at it. She does like clean, you hold up the thing and you could see through it. She's fabulous at it. And then we cry back

it. And then we also share it with all the other people on the island, the islanders that work there. Oh, excellent. Now I got a question for you. You mentioned getting up to a position where you got a nice boat. Now, one of our colleagues, Chester, we used to call him Chester the Investor. His plan to get a walleye boat was to throw in on Bitcoin. Yeah, good. I hope he did. Well, he did. And he got out.

Got out a couple years ago. What was wrong with him? Right? Well, tell him there's still time for him to get in a little bit now, because on April 20th, there will be a halving of Bitcoin. So we should see it, if the technicals stay the same, for Bitcoin to probably go up into the $80,000 or so area. Obviously, it's in the $70,000 area now.

It might be a little bit expensive to get in for a lot, but he can always buy the ETF I-BIT, I-B-I-T, and make some money, not what he would have made if he had gone in when it was at its low not that long ago at $20,000 a Bitcoin. Well, let's make sure he tunes in. How do you, what's your take if someone um how do you advise someone like corinne had found a segment where a guy was trying to figure out if he could justify the purchase of a twenty thousand dollar fishing boat when it comes to fishing boats how do you how do you instruct people to think about what's too much yeah he should go on my can i afford it segment on the Women in Money podcast,

because at the end of every podcast, we have that, and I'll tell him. First of all, there is nothing that is more expensive, and I don't care what size it is, than a boat. Your engines are either breaking. Everything on a boat today has a three-year lifespan. That is it. Your batteries will go, your switches will go, everything will go. And so it's hard to look at a boat with something not breaking on it as you're looking at it. So it's not, can you afford to buy a boat? Can you afford the upkeep on the boat? Can you afford the insurance on the boat? Can you afford the insurance on the boat? Can you afford the gasoline on the boat to really do things? Because gasoline now is far more expensive than it was years ago. So where are you going to house the boat? Are you living like in Florida or someplace

that a hurricane could get the boat? So there's all these things that go into it. However, bottom line, you better have at least an eight to 12 month emergency fund of what it would cost you to live and pay your must pay expenses, your mortgage or your rent, your insurance, whatever it is, so that if you got sick, you were in an accident, you got laid off, you would be able to pay those for eight months. You better not have any credit card debt whatsoever. You better be fully funding your retirement accounts to the max. You better be really so good when it comes to money. And then if you have that, you already bought a home, whatever it is, all right, you can have a boat. Good luck. Man, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of boat owners in that. That's not what we want to hear, Susan.

They may not want to hear it. It's always a good idea to roll the dice on a big boat. No. Because you never know. Here's what's funny, you guys. We've had a 32-foot boat now since 2016.

We are going on eight years with the same boat, the men on the island. And of course they would, they think bigger is better. All right. So they have to go from two engines to three engines to four engines. They have to go from a 300 to a 450 to a 600, they're nuts. If one of them gets a bigger boat, the others all get a bigger boat. I have never seen anything like it. And then they say to me, why do you keep the same boat? Why? What is wrong with you? One reason I keep the same boat is one of the reasons that I think that we are so successful in fishing, especially catching wahoo, is the wahoo, in my opinion, like the wash off the engines of our boat, our engines. And you get to stay out of what we call a boat measuring contest. Right. But, you know, I also just love beating them in a smaller boat anyway so what's

the difference that brings up a great point though like when you go to invest in something recreationally do you measure in the the mental benefit of being able to go do something you love is that a factor yes and no no. It depends. Obviously, for somebody like me, I'm a seriously wealthy woman. And if I wasn't, I shouldn't be who I am to this day. So I don't measure bigger necessarily being what can I, cannot do. I like to buy exactly what I need, not what I can afford. Because I can afford more exactly what I need, not what I can afford. Because I can afford more than what I need. I don't need more than a 32-foot boat.

I don't. You know, it's just me and Kate. It's what I need it for. So just because I can afford it doesn't mean that I want to buy it. You used to be down. You used to advise people that eating dinner out was a real financial drain. Such a drain.

It was actually in 2009. I came out with a book called The 2009 Action Plan because the economy was a mess. I was on the Oprah Winfrey show with it. We actually gave it away for free. Millions of copies we gave away for free, but there were a few things that I asked everybody in there to do, and that was to stop eating out for at least six months. I thought the restaurant industry was going to explode. They could not believe that I said that. However, there was a white paper done

from Mint, which was a finance app. And the number one debt that people had when they had a lot of credit card debt, the number one thing they actually spent money on to be in debt was eating out. So that's when that started with me. For me, myself, sure, I'll eat out if it's a business thing or we're away and I don't have whatever. But even when we travel, it's very funny. Maybe we'll go somewhere to do a speaking engagement and we go on a private plane. Okay. And now we bring our food with us and we check into the hotel. And even though the sponsor will pay for our food, we cook in our hotel room. So we have a little hot plate. We do this. So I personally don't enjoy eating out at a restaurant just to go out and eat out only because I just, I don't know. I think the food's better at

home and healthier. Well, you don't even have to use a hot plate if you've got Wahoo with you all the time. Yeah. Well, we bring that as well because we love Wahoo sashimi. Yeah. So a lot, but if you're there for a long time, because sometimes you're a place for a while, then we had a little hot plate. We had a little, you know, fry pan, while then we had a little hot plate we had a little you know fry pan a little this and that and we'd go to the grocery store if we ran out of food and bring it so it was always people would always laugh at us as they would see us checking into a hotel suzy i saw a photo where it looks like you um i might be looking at it wrong, but I feel like there's a photo where you're sitting there with a rockfish with a lingcod that looks like it came up. You caught the rockfish, but landed a lingcod and a rockfish.

Yeah, so there we are. Because every year, we also like to eat salmon. So we usually go to either Alaska or British Columbia to catch our own salmon. Great. And so there we were and I was fishing and I was actually fishing. I didn't even, you know, we had caught our quota of salmon and halibut. So I was just kind of fishing and I caught something and I'm bringing it up and I'm like saying to KT, KT, this is, I don't know what I got here, but I don't think this is just a rockfish because we wanted a rockfish in order to make tacos out of it. And all of a sudden I bring it up and it's a lingcod that bit it, would not let go.

And so we caught both and we bought both home. Okay, give us a couple, give people a couple, we'll let you go after this, but give people a couple tips on how they should handle their tax refunds. I'm guessing, I'm guessing that you don't advise people to go with the play where you get the refund later. As good as that feels. Yeah, well, here's the thing, right? When interest rates were at 0% and nobody was making any money on CDs or money market accounts or anything, then I didn't have a problem with people getting a refund because they really weren't losing any money that way, truthfully. However, now that interest rates in money market funds, and this will change, are at about four and a half or 5%, or there's places that you can put money that are safe and sound and get a high interest rate, who wants to give the government an interest-free loan over a

year's period of time of about 5%? You have to be out of your mind. So you would be far better off now getting no refund, paying what you need to pay and not paying over it. So just come out so it's a zero. And in the long run, you're actually making more money. So that's how you make more out of less, to tell you the truth. So it's less of a refund, but in the long run, that extra money that they're keeping, you would just be able to take that money and put it in an account for yourself. Maybe buy some Bitcoin with it, just joking. All right, Susie Orman, thank you so much for coming on. Good luck on your next fishing trip. I really appreciate you joining us, and that's going to get everybody really pepped up

and ready to do their taxes. All right, sweetheart. Talk to you soon. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Thank you, Susie. Bye-bye. All right.

Oh, you know what's funny? So, Becky, how are you doing? I'm good. Did you learn anything there? No. No. I don't own a big boat. I don't own, just little boats. Okay.

And I try and balance my taxes so it comes out even at the end of the year. But I do have advice for people that do get a refund. Okay. And they need to donate it to conservation. Oh, there you go. Yep. And Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership would be a great place to put it too.

That's excellent. We're going to talk about that a whole bunch, but I got to run a couple of Michigan things by it. And then a neighboring thing from Wisconsin, a handful of things we're gonna talk about but uh just a funny letter that came in so pat durkin um he comes on the show a lot uh the last outdoor columnist um he wrote a newspaper column last week this is a while ago now i'm looking at an old line but uh durkin wrote a piece about the continued decline in wisconsin's deer hunting

population meaning the number of people buying deer licenses in wisconsin um is going down down down you might be sitting well why isn't my why aren't my permissions going up up up which is a very long complicated story but those things do not walk in tandem anyways he gets a letter from a guy who some of my favorite letters and the reason i like this letter so much it just so happens that i'm leaving in two days to participate in wisconsin's youth turkey season. But a guy writes in who's who right in response to Durkin's column writes in and it's signed Dave, a Michigan pissed hunter. He goes on to say. Though Wisconsin, just like Michigan, has the same problem. And I'll tell you what,

from a guy that has hunted all his life, when you turn over a gun to a kid, and they're allowed to shoot any bucks that they want, and I've been hunting for the past 40 years, and I have to settle for what's left over, and you wonder why people are quitting. You take all the hunt away before the season gets to the big hunt of the big opening day. Most of the big bucks are already gone you have so many hunts kids special hunts expo regular bow the regular opening day big hunt is a big flop kid hunts and they early hunts and stuff take the big bucks before the day gets here and you might think the big day is just about the meat and it's not it's the racks michigan proved that with giving doe tags 12 total but at a cost and hunters let them walk want more hunter cut the bull crap give the big bucks back

to the opening day big hunts you might start to see some other people come back if it might already be too late dave i'm here she Michigan pissed on her. I think I know Dave. I think I've met Dave. That is one impassioned. That is one. I assume you read it as it was punctuated. I tried to.

Pat was thinking it would be a great t-shirt. I had the same thought. I have this t-shirt on of the guy that wrote in the story just thinking about that one yeah yeah the guy that wrote in the story about the just some unseemly behavior he was seeing among turkeys in his neighborhood and i think that that might be a great t-shirt you've met dave i'm sure you've met dave all through your career all through my career his cousin there are more than one Dave in Michigan. Yeah. Big family tree. Yeah.

I'll translate that. I'll translate that and be that they've done so much. Do I need to translate it? I think it's fairly. A little bit, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Now you got the archery season and you got the the crossbow season, and you got the youth season. But it's really the kids. And by the time it comes down to opening day in Michigan, November 15th, the big hunt, I like he calls it, the big hunt. The big hunt, yep. By the time the big hunt starts, opening day of general firearm, the kids have killed off all the big bucks. So if you're trying to wonder what happened to all the hunters, that's it. By providing special experiences for everyone, you may be diluting a singular experience that used to be for everybody. There's that, what's that saying?

He who is a friend to all is a friend to none. Oh. And our memory gets a little cloudy too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I have a deer on the wall of one of the bedrooms in my home that my dad's first buck my dad shot in Michigan. And it was a huge buck by his standards. It was a nine point about this big, you know. And the success rate back at that time when he shot that for firearm deer hunting in Michigan was about, it was below 30% for the entire deer season.

You know, Michigan has been over 40% for quite a while now for firearm hunters in terms of success. So, and our deer herd, you know, the antler size has also gone up. But, you know, the majority of bucks out there, you guys know this, are young bucks. I mean, we exploit deer pretty heavily in this country, especially in the Midwest where you have an open entry system. So people take a lot of deer. There's no doubt about it. But the majority of your deer are those younger deer. And I think sometimes our memory gets a little faded on the glory years and what it looks like.

Not that that happened to Dave or anything. But, you know, the other part of it is we are losing more and more hunters as a percentage of the population. And you guys know this. Yeah. And, you know, it threatens our acceptance out there. It threatens our clout in politics and voting and regulations. And quite frankly, I, you know, I'm more than willing to give up that big buck for a youngster. By the time you get to Dave's age, hopefully he's taken a few nice bucks.

I don't know if Dave has. I don't know if Dave has either. But hopefully you have, and you've had that opportunity. But it is about maximizing opportunity out there for a lot of folks. And, and Michigan during those glory years, Michigan had over a million hunters. They're down under half a million now. Uh-huh. And so with that, your, you know, your competition out on the landscape overall is down from what it had been. Yeah.

But I think greater fragmentation of the landscape, right? Which is. Yeah, greater fragmentation. We used to see in Michigan, Michigan carried most of their deer herd in the upper peninsula and the northern lower peninsula. And everybody had their little hunting camps and the rest of it. Now, the majority, we kill more deer in southern Michigan than the UP and northern Michigan combined. Wow. It's just, you know, we've seen this, you know, and not only Michigan, you see a lot of deer down in Indiana, Illinois.

The deer population, quite frankly, is much higher than it had been 50 years ago. Becky, I didn't do a good job of introducing you yet, but I'm going to do that right now. Becky Humphries is a long time biologist started her career at the u.s fish and wildlife service then worked her way up through the michigan dnr became the director of the michigan department of natural resources spent time at ducks unlimited ran um national uh ran nwtf as the ceo for how many years? CEO for five years. So five years heading the National Wild Turkey Federation. And then right now, and I owe you big thanks on this, has stepped in as the interim CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

And there's a permanent search underway but you very graciously at very short notice came on board to to run the organization during the interim so i owe you huge thanks there well thank you uh it's a great organization as you know we both sit on the board and um you know when we lost our ceo and, you know, short order last winter, it's one of those organizations you don't want to see flounder. You want them to have a great CEO and you want them to have great leadership. So it was an honor to be asked. And quite frankly, I was failing retirement pretty much anyhow. So I'm going to try again.

You know, try, try again. You'll get to retire again. Yep, yep. Last call on live tour tickets. So the live tour starts next week. You're listening to this right around tax day. The live tour starts on the 23rd. Live tour starts on the 23rd.

Hang on a second. Let me pull this up. Who's got the dates handy here I got it one minute one minute damn it okay ready April 23rd we're going to be in Mesa Arizona

for you people not from Arizona that means Phoenix but not April 24th San Diego California April 25th, San Diego, California. April 25th, Anaheim, California. April 27th, Sacramento. April 29th, Salt Lake City.

April 30th, Boise, Idaho. Then May 1st, Missoula, Montana. May 2nd, Spokane, Washington. May 4th, Portland, Oregon. And then closing out the show, Cinco de Mayo. Is that right? Yes. We know those trees. Cinco de Mayo, May 4, Portland, Oregon. And then closing out the show, Cinco de Mayo. Is that right? Yes. We know those trees.

Cinco de Mayo, May 5, Tacoma, Washington. Yeah. A couple of things for folks searching for tickets. Be sure to either go through the meateater.com events page. Yep. And hit those links or. The venues. The venues, only those two places. If you just type in, uh, these shows in the Google machine, you'll want to, uh, you want the resellers and it is grossly expensive.

So go, go through the meteor.com events page, uh, or directly to, um, the theater that is hosting the show. And then on top of that, if you want to try to win some tickets, there are pint nights hosted by BHA that precede all of these shows where you can actually participate in meat eater trivia. You can win a bunch of free stuff, including seats to the show. And including a seat on stage playing the game. Right? Well, yeah,

but we got to find, did we finalize the game? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Get on stage, match your wits.

Uh, Oh, also when you buy tickets, here's the art, here's the art tip, but I'll throw in the last little thing. You can see it both ways, but when you buy tickets, it comes bundled with the Meat Eater Outdoor Cookbook, Wild Game Recipes for the Grill Smoker, Camp Stove and Campfire,

brand spickety new outdoor cookbook that we have out right now. And I've been struggling a little bit, so I'm starting to put some pictures from the book up on Instagram. And I'm putting one up about, in the beginning of of the book we talk about all this ancient cooking methods. Stuff dating back to the Ice Age and ways people did things. So when you open the book, I realize that one of the first things you see is a marmot who's had all of his hair burned

off. Which is like how small, it's like how small a game was cooked at a time. You'd burn all his hair off and roast it whole and then its skin would turn like a case then you open it up and the meat inside was steamed and i wonder when people see that if they can picture that they're also going to eventually wind up later in the book reading about a charred lemon gin and tonic so they think they're like what in the hell don't judge your book by gin and tonic so they think they're like what in

the hell don't judge a book by its cover don't judge a book by the first spread don't judge a book by the intro photos don't judge a book by the singed marmot i've been thinking about i've been waking up in the middle of the night and thinking about those fish cakes we made last week from the cookbook and now i think i'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night and have this vision of a charred marmot well think about charred lemon gin and tonics washing that charred marmot back hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. 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. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can

be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of your membership you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-icked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Becky, what's your take on the gray wolf that just got killed in southern Michigan?

How's that for a transition? That's a quick U-turn. I don't know enough about that particular animal to speak to it. It took a hell of a walk, right? Yeah, but I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. We wound up having a gray wolf that we had collared in the Upper Peninsula that walked to Missouri. Yeah. So, I mean, wolves.

That sucker crossed the Mississippi. Yeah. I mean, it crossed a hell of a lot of territory between. Do you think it ran on a bridge? Probably swam. That's a big swim. Could be a big swim. But, you know, who knows?

You know, whether it probably, you know, they can swim well. We know that. And we know they cross ice bridges whenever there are ice dams. And we know they'll cross bridges, too, you know, when it's low activity and the rest of it so but um we've had we've had wolf sightings in the northern lower peninsula during heavy freeze over you know across the bridge yeah and so they come across the ice we just haven't been able to see find a den or anything you know in the northern lower while i was still there. So it doesn't surprise me. I mean, we've had black bear in Southern Michigan for, well, 30 years now. Yeah.

We've got a lot of black bears in central and Northern Michigan, you know. We do. We do. Um, the wolf was killed by a, uh, wolves killed by a, uh, this is odd. It was killed by a guided coyote hunter. There was a guy on a guided coyote hunt. Killed an 87-pound gray wolf. They're holding the body.

You know, gray wolves are federally protected. Yeah. In there. And they're holding the body for a necropsy. And I think someone said, I think that we'll find that it was shot, but also checking its, uh, parasite load and maybe try to get some idea where it came from. Yeah.

They'll probably do DNA testing on it too. Yeah. I'm sure there's a pretty good DNA database, right? So they can tell who's breeding with who and where the kids go. Before the show started, you and I talked about another Michigan thing I'd like you to speak to. And you said you were disappointed on it.

I've communicated with folks from Michigan United Conservation Clubs on this. Explain how coyote management just changed in Michigan. Well, the commission, Natural Resources Commission, just voted to close down the coyote season for several months of the year. Up until now, coyotes have been legal to be taken at any time. But how far back does that go? Oh, let's see. I probably, we probably made that change in the 80s or 90s. Okay. As coyotes moved into southern Michigan and populations, we really saw a big increase across, you know, most of Michigan and across most of the Midwest. Coyote populations took off and people were seeing damage from them, depredation.

And so with that, we opened up, up you know the ability to take coyotes just about any time all year round and so this shuts it down for a period of the year now here's let me give you my two different ways of looking at it one hand on one hand i had a hard time getting worked up about it the change because i was thinking to myself, um, they are at, they are pursued as a fur bear by trappers. Okay. They are trappers and hunters. And if you go back any length of time, I mean, before the real big, big population explosion in the South, I mean, they were just like a staple furbearer and were viewed as such, right? That's true.

Uh, Red Fox, open, what, season opens October 15th, whatever the hell it is. There is a season, uh, raccoon, depending on where you're at in the state. You might have a, uh, November one opener on raccoon, uh, quick context. We have a beautiful coyote hide. Oh.

In prime condition, like 750 bucks on the auction house oddities right now. Yep. Right off this wall. But to the point that you were making, it's taken during a season where that hide is prime prime that's right full of fur because it's cold out december january was that yours from montana it's mine from montana from winter season from the wall of the studio here i think she realizes one of those is 750 good chunk of money right now they're one two they're like but there's there's a time how many are there i know corinne's gonna start no i four. But there's a time. I don't know how many are there. I know, Corinne's going to start. No, I'm going to start.

There's a time in the season where that hide is not prime because it's warm and it's much more thin and it would not command the same amount of value on like an open fur market. Yes. And so. I won't argue with you there. You don't want to degrade. Well, you got to let me finish making my two points. Okay. All right. Number one. That was the number one point. Yeah. I couldn't get worked you there. You don't want to finish making my two points. Okay. All right.

Number one. That was the number one point. Yeah. I couldn't get worked up about it because of that. But I, here's what I do get worked up about is I do get worked up about it of when, um, when I start, when people start changing rules and I don't necessarily agree with why they changed it. Meaning if it had been the trappers or hunters or

the fur people saying what gives um why are you guys killing coyotes in the spring when it's pop season and they're not worth anything to anyone anyways why not leave them for people that that want to utilize them or make a few bucks on them later in the year. But so in your explanation of this, who was pushing for the change? Like, was it coming from them or someone else? It was not coming from the hunters and the trappers. So, you know, it was coming from individuals who do not like the idea of year-round killing of coyotes. And I think the commission was uncomfortable with that.

But like you said, you held the same opinion I do. It's not coming from the segment that wants to have that population managed for maximum value out there. It's being taken because we don't like the thought of taking coyotes at that time of year. So what's happening now is for individuals who have chickens or individuals who are out there and have deprivation issues, now they've got to go through getting a permit in order to take those animals out of season. And I assume they'll be able to do it. But every time you do that, you're tying up a biologist, time and energy to issue a permit for what had been going on where they could be actively managing some habitat

so that you would have better habitat on the landscape, you'd have better population management. And it's a species that we really can't... Yeah, it's... Put a dent in. No, it's super abundant. And so, you know, let's be realistic about it. You know, it's one of those situations

where people might not like the thought of it, but it's part of reality that coyotes do get in trouble. They do cause depredation issues for people out there. Doug Duren points out correctly so that the pro argument for year-round coyote hunting is it's a super abundant resource. It is. Um, and the anti argument overlaps with that also, or it's like, it's a super abundant resource, uh, and hunting hasn't been proven to dent that resource.

So why are you hunting it? Hmm. Because hunting isn't managing the population. Whatever you're doing is not working. Right. I can see that argument. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the, that's like a little bit of a

tongue twister when it comes to coyotes is you'll often have people point out that that with when you're hunting coyotes you'll offset pack dynamics and it'll actually lead to fragmentation and more pup production meaning you'd have this this hierarchy that had some sort of limit on who's reproducing and then as you if you kill dominant animals you cause these like splintering factions and it generates more pup production so kind of being a smart ass you you might say, well, if you love coyotes, why would you not want coyote hunting? Because you love coyotes and it seems to be really making a lot more of them. You know, meaning I love deer.

If I found that there was something hunters were doing that was like producing tons of giant bucks, I would be like, please continue. Let's continue this. Because I love these giant bucks. But they're saying like, I love coyotes. Don't kill coyotes because it just makes more coyotes. Which is like I said, it's an intellectual tongue twister. I think it's less that they love coyotes than they don't love the idea of killing coyotes.

Yeah, I think so too. And it's not just coyotes, it's canines. I mean, we see it with the wolf population too. We've listed and delisted wolves over and over again in Michigan and the Western Great Lakes population. And, you know, the solution when we had deprivating or when we had problem wolves that were getting in and causing problems when we couldn't do lethal take, and there was a time when we couldn't, was to trap those wolves and move them. And where are you moving them?

Colorado. You're moving them into the territory of another pack. Got it. Oh. Where they're going to get brutally dismembered. It's basically like a death sentence. That's right. It's a death sentence.

It's a, it's a brutal death sentence, you know? Yeah. I think. That's interesting. What an interesting thing we just saw with this wolf that got killed in southern Michigan is the success of the anti-killing of wolf party is the death of an individual animal is a paper thin degree away from the extirpation

of the species as a whole. So when you talk to somebody, well, they just kill the wolf. They're going to kill all the wolves. Where it's like, you just whacked a whitetail deer with your bumper for the seventh time this year.

That doesn't equate to killing all the whitetail deer with your bumper for the seventh time this year. Yeah. That doesn't equate to killing all the whitetails. Nope. No, and those charismatic species are special. So who are you going to vote for for president? Oh my goodness. When you were at. Speaking of charisma. when you when you were at when you were charisma yeah when you were at uh when you ran the the fishing game department in michigan um in a role like that how do you grab

like in a role like that how do you how do you how do you got to handle partisan politics well you know first of all as a as a state employee which i was you got to be real careful you can't get engaged in partisan politics you can't do you know you can't do partisan fundraisers that tie your name into um you know advocating for one party or one candidate or another you've got to be really careful with the Hatch Act that you don't engage in advocating for certain issues that go to the public. Do you stop voting?

No. You still vote? No, I still vote, yeah. And I vote primaries the whole nine yards. Okay. And always have, always will. You know, it's my right to help decide who gets elected and um i think everybody should engage and vote how they feel most you know the

candidates that best represent their views but you keep quiet about it yeah you know when you're when you're in wildlife management at the state level yeah you really can't you know um well i'll be honest with you i worked for both republican and democratic administrations and you know it's tough because there's a lot of fundraising that goes on as you get into campaigns and get ready for election years and you and you wind up um having to be very careful i was i was lucky i had a commission that helped do fundraising for gubernatorial elections when it was expected that cabinet members would do that, which I was a cabinet member. But as an employee, I can't do that. I can't get into the partisan. So very much bipartisan.

You try and work with both parties. Unfortunately, that middle ground is disappearing and it's it's hard and i i tend to be a moderate in my political views you know i step on both sides of the aisle i tend to be fiscally conservative and a little more liberal on some of the social issues and so between those trying to find that common ground, you know, it's really hard because the parties have, we've lost the, we've lost the conservative Democrats and the, and the more liberal Republicans. They're just fading away.

Wanted something spicier than that, Steve? No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm not frustrated with anything you're saying. I just, um, I feel that they're faded away. They're faded away from the areas where you hear from people. I think they're faded away in our elected

representation. Sure, yeah. Because, you know. Yes, 100%. Yeah. I don't think, you know, and I think we hang with people that tend to share our views, you know, they share our activities. So I agree with you. I think there are a lot of folks out there that are like me, you know, when I talk to folks, they, they express similar views. And I don't think it's just because they're trying to impress me that we're so much alike. I think they probably do. But both parties have taken over such non-overlapping issues. It makes it really difficult.

I hang with people that share my activities, but then not the views. Oh, I will agree with you there. Yeah. Some of my dear, dear friends, I still have some just ridiculous viewpoints. I forgive them it because they like to fish. Well, it makes for interesting conversations. And the older I get, the more now when I hear one, I don't even like, I used to be like, I'd want to argue it.

No. Now I'm just like, oh, that's funny. Once you start that argument, it's ending the argument that becomes a problem. Yeah. No, I look for, um, I look for, uh, I sort of am running this thing in my head. I'm always like, when you cut all the bullshit out, are they a good person? And you know, I'm like, yeah, man, they they a good person? And you know, I'm like,

yeah, man, they're a great person. Well, do I trust them? Do I trust them to leave the country or the state or to make, to make wise decisions? Yeah.

But then am I going to go ask them where I think, where they think COVID came from or whatever? And I don't know. Like I might ask them where that fish they caught came from. So in the, so now now right like you you've ran you ran a big national um conservation organization which everybody's heard of national turkey federation you're at the helm right now of another federal policy conservation group trcp yep uh how does an organization how do these organizations handle the partisan question meaning here we are

we're coming up on a an election cycle which feels like it's already been going on for three years oh my gosh i know but it's it's i guess starting it started starting it's going to heat up it's going to be the most well we're going to have the most expensive. It's just going to be a wonderful year. We're going to have the most expensive presidential election ever. And I don't know if that really says anything about, that just might say something about the fact that every four years it's more expensive. I don't know. Most expensive, hotly contested presidential election.

There's some records that I don't really pay much attention to. And when everything is like the most expensive we've had yet, I think that's sort of a function of. Yeah. Yeah. Advertising is expensive. In four years, it'll be the most expensive. It's every year. Everyone has been the most expensive.

I don't think we're getting to a point in my adult life where we're like, man, this election was half the cost of the last one. The least expensive election we ever had. I think though in state politics, especially some of these Western states that do not have large populations comparatively, that's where those, those numbers matter. Like I look at the amount of cash that's going to be spent and is being spent on the gubernatorial race right now.

Yeah. Relative to our size. Oh. Like. The dollars per person. The dollars per person the dollars per person and it's and they're going to spend it yeah it's dollars yes not portions not fractions of dollars and they're going to spend it which means we are going to get robocalls techs in you know just like those political ads are going to be served to us every which

way possible for an, in, in an increasing manner. Like it does not bode well for the mental health of Montanans. No. You know, when, uh, when Davy Crockett was running for Congress, he would do a little thing where if you came down and voted for

him, you'd get a shot of whiskey. You could, with the money they're spending, you could, they could hand out bottles of whiskey. Yeah. It is expensive. It is expensive. And, and elections and campaigns have gone to micro-targeting. So they've segmented, you know, they can tell now how you vote, you know, even if you're in a state that you don't have to declare your party. They can tell by your voting record when you vote, which party you're most likely to vote for.

And they know, you know, is it, you know, are you a big fan of police protection or not? Are you, where do you stand on right to life? They have all that information. So when they go out and start walking for candidates, knocking doors, which they do in hotly contested areas, they're pulling literature that pertains to your interest. That's really interesting you bring that up because the other day, one the we had a senate a representative from a senate candidate knock on the door wanting to speak to my wife and when i informed him that she wasn't there i thought well now i'm gonna get the pitch he just walked off that's amazing he knew he knew he was there to talk to. That's right.

So as you look at this, as you look at the landscape, like how do you guys, how does the game work? Because you're TRCP. Yep. Speak from that seat or the NWTF seat, whatever. No matter what administration comes in, you're going to need to go to the administration, right? That's right. administration comes in, you need to come, you're going to need to go to the administration, right? Or, or, or to appointees or however, you're going to need to go there and, and, and say, uh, let's work together. That's right. So, uh, but you can't, you can't make a big bet in one direction.

And then when they lose, you'd be like, I guess we're out of the game for four years. Well, you can't. So you're, what are you doing? Like, how are you, how are you doing this? Well, a couple of things, you know, first we and others in the conservation community, we being TRCP, sit down and identify our policy objectives. What are real priorities for us, you know, for the next administration, be it Biden to be at Trump to and write those up so that we can share those with those, those campaigns, because they are

this next year as they're campaigning, they're forming their policy planks for their administration. By the time they, they have identified candidates for those cabinet posts, they will identify people based on some of the objectives they want to achieve. So we want to get into them before they're elected. And we do that with both parties. You know, we share those information. We try and go over that information with those campaigns so they understand why it's important to us. And then as we move forward and you have an election and administration comes on board,

you need to get in there and build relationships. You won't always agree with everything. It doesn't matter what the administration is. You're going to disagree on certain things. But you need to have a working relationship. And you build that trust that they will share information on what's coming out so that you can prepare for it, you can look for it, you can let them know where you see that it's going to be problematic,

that it hasn't been well thought out. You can ask them to hold it over for more comment so that they can get a more robust view on some of the issues that you think have been not taken into consideration or even hold off on a rule or piece of legislation that you think is bad for it. And by doing that, you try and build that working relationship and trust with that administration. And then, you know, you're careful in terms of being true to your position so that if you disagree with something, you do it in a manner where you don't surprise them. You know, it's okay to disagree on stuff, but nobody likes being surprised.

So let them know why you don't like it and bring the information on why you think it hasn't been well thought out make the ask and then if you have to do editorials or sign on letters or you know um come out strongly on it they know they know that you don't agree with it they knew it was going to happen and they knew the thinking on it yep well do you run um you talk about like you have your plan for the next administration you have to run like parallel two paths right because you might be looking at like let's say you're looking at you're talking about biden too okay with that you'd say well um there's a clear pathway to climate issues there's a clear pathway to wildlife overpasses through infrastructure spending, right?

Yeah, but there was in the Trump administration too. Is that right? Yeah, Trump administration was very supportive of those migration corridors, and they actually dedicated some funding to it. So both administrations are on that. But like Biden, we're looking at alternative energy, but the BLM solar plan, this is one that we have an editorial coming out on. Joel's got an editorial on it. We're a bit concerned with what they're

identifying in terms of placement in those migration corridors for solar. Do you mind? Just talk to a lot of Idaho folks who are real fired up because the BLM plant in Southwest Idaho, the Owyhee down where Snort got bit, but there's also California bighorn sheep, super like the genetics for like that really wide ass mule

deer buck that down in that country and, and big old pronghorn, sage grouse, very sensitive area. We're not opposed to alternative energy by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, we need to move into alternative energy. We just want it to be carefully thought out. You know, we need working landscapes that provide great habitat, but also provide, you know, clean water, clean air, food that we like to enjoy an energy and so but it's about doing the pre work to make sure it's being placed in the appropriate locations that aren't going to have big big ramifications for some

of the species that we hold near and dear and I think there's a huge misconception that if you're supportive of alternative energy that you're supportive of it anywhere and i think like from someone who as a former trcp staffer like the the um some of the like the the sessions i remember of people really hand wringing and pulling their hair out or looking at maps of solar placement yeah and like there's people on the ground working for you know that were supportive of alternative energy but recognize the the threat and the danger of citing it improperly that's right and so i think like there's a lot of back and forth if you follow the the discourse about you know it's either one way or the other way and there's people

on the ground that are really diligently thinking about how do we stop this in places where it's going to have a huge impact on wildlife and how do we do it responsibly. And we can have both. I mean that's the thing when you look at the acreage requirements we have more enough acreage outside those corridors. Now there might be other species and concerns or landscape characteristics, historical significance, you know, a range of issues. But nonetheless, we need to take into account these really critical areas. We saw the same thing in Michigan with wind power. You know, when we were putting up wind turbines, the areas that had the greatest wind potential were right where birds migrated. And it was, that's going to be

problematic. I mean, if you're killing birds like crazy when they're, and we got wind turbines located all down the east side of the state, which is a major flyway corridor for migratory birds, that's a problem, you know. So we, you know, in that situation, it was about pulling the right expertise together, mapping it out and looking at those wind maps and looking at where those migration corridors were and finding solutions to it. So you're placing alternative energy where it's going to be beneficial and not harmful to those species. Let me back up on the thing. And I'm not trying to like drive you to give a drive you give an answer you're not comfortable with but i'm just not clear on it yeah when we talk about this this um like administration planning do do you develop two or do you

develop one and like you develop one plan for the next four years and you're presenting it to each campaign? No, we do two. I mean, for one thing, parties talk different language. They use different phraseology, even though they might have the same issue, but they talk about it in different terms. And so you want the particular party that you're going towards to embrace this and, and use it. I mean, you want it to be their recipe book coming out. So you want it to be put in terms that resonate with other parts of that party plank and what they're doing. And so, um, and there, there are certain elements that are going to be more attractive

to one party over the other. They just are. I mean, you know, by and large, you'll see more emphasis put on renewables with the Democratic Party and security with oil security that's talked about more in Republican. Now, in reality, we've just, we have produced more oil and gas in this country with each administration, despite the party in recent years. Is that right? Yep. It's been ramping up. Like at a record high right now in terms of oil produced in the U.S.?

And people don't recognize that, but it's true. We have. It's part of our national security plan. Gotcha. I understand what you're saying with tailoring it and that yeah and there are also and there's probably cases where you're gonna there's probably cases where you're gonna drive at um there's probably cases where you're asking for the same thing but you're phrasing it as a different priority yeah and there are also issues. You know, the Republican Party tends to be a little more states' rights

than the Democratic Party looks for national solutions on those issues. So, you know, that's another way that you're taking a look at it. You know, during the Trump administration, we saw a nice expansion in hunting and fishing on national refuge lands. And not only did they do that, but speaking as a state director, one of the things I really liked is they put out a mandate that the regulations were going to be as close to the state regulations as they could be. So before you had, if you were going to hunt on, you know, refuge land,

you might have different shell limits. You might have different days of the week that there was hunting. You might have all kinds of different requirements that were a little different season requirements than what you had on the state land. And that just gets complex. You know that. I know that. And so they tried to simplify that

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Do you feel is there any rumor or anything around? Would Trump return to Barnhart as his interior secretary? Bernhardt Bernhardt. Sorry. Was it David? Yeah. I don't know. Interior secretary? Bernhardt. Bernhardt, sorry. Was it David? Yeah, David. Yeah. I don't know.

I do know that David has stayed very engaged in natural resource issues. And, you know, he was very loyal to Trump throughout the administration and even afterwards. So, you know, I don't know. But I would assume he'll have some role in the administration. I heard a person very involved in conservation. I'm not trying to be like, you know, secretive. I just don't want to take a private conversation and apply it to someone. involved in conservation um had said to me that what they what they liked about trump's interior secretary part two the second interior secretary was that he would save you a lot of time uh by saying uh buddy you're not going to get anywhere on this with me and it would allow you

to focus on the areas where he said let's have a conversation and would tell you what's going to happen yeah and then and then stick with that yeah and he said it was it just was it was efficient yeah i mean to to to spend time and resource there because you never wound up being that you wasted a bunch of time on something that you didn't know that all of a sudden you're going to read in the newspaper that things went in a direction you didn't anticipate. He was an honest broker in terms of telling you where issues were going if there was already a thought on it. And he had researched issues also. So he had a pretty good handle on a lot of the conservation issues out there in that administration. You know, one of the things people probably don't realize

is a lot of the staff support that comes in are the same folks. So you'll have administrations where, you know, a particular individual is in the administration, they're a staff person, and you might switch parties for four years or eight years, but then you'll bring back a lot of those people that had worked during the previous Republican or Democratic administration because they kind of know the party priorities.

Yeah. And also they are very helpful in getting new candidates and new administrations in place and off to an effective start to move that agenda forward. Because it's hard, especially if somebody comes in from outside government. You've got to make an awful lot of appointments. You've got an awful lot to do to have executive orders written. And we've all seen there are more and more things being done by executive authority now and administrations kind of flip-flop and reverse each other's executive order right out of the gate. And they

do that by bringing back people who are knowledgeable, know how to write executive orders and are familiar with the topic and have experience in it. We recently had a guest on talking about offshore wind, um, offshore wind, you know, electric electricity generation. How do you? Yeah. Wind power. Wind power. At the end of the interview, I said, so, you know, when Trump wins in November, where's all this sit? And he didn't have a great answer, but I felt like you could spend a lot of time working on something. If you weren't being shrewd, you spent a lot of time working on something and then just have the rug ripped out from underneath you every four years. Oh, yeah.

And that's why administrations work so hard to get reelected and have at least an eight year runway, because it takes, you know, it takes really a couple of years to get administration in and rolling to get all your appointments confirmed and in there and start to implement that policy direction. And by then you're into the next election cycle and you're campaigning, the administration is. And so, you know, and, and quite often what we'll also see is at the end of the administration, that's when the promises that were made when they came into office could get run through.

And some of those, quite frankly, can be quite ugly. That's what I was going to ask is when because both candidates would be their their last term last four yep right so that's typically when as you just said like you get a capitalize on the early promises some of the campaign promises they got them elected in the first place that's right or one that uh independent independent constituency, right? Um, where, like, is there going to be such a restart if Trump were to win? Would it hinder that last four years of getting shit done?

Oh, like is your, yeah. With, does the, does the four-year vacation sabbatical interrupt the momentum that you would have had your second term momentum well yeah because what we saw right was like uh i think like clean water act is always a great ping pong ball right like god forbid we have somebody be like yeah some of that was okay so we're just gonna return the pendulum to the middle but instead you watch that pendulum go yeah and it's it's and we're seeing more more of that yeah yeah so like that's what i'm i'm wondering right is like the first two years are just going to be like knocking those ping pong balls all the way back over to one side.

Yeah. You know, yes and no. I mean, they're going to, if a new administration comes in or even the current administration, they're going to have some individuals who do not, you know, cabinet members and other appointees, undersecretaries who will not persist through the second term of the administration. Or with the new administration, they'll have to name a whole new cabinet and all those other appointed positions. And quite frankly, that takes a lot of time and energy. So they'll— Or as we've seen in the past, not appointing positions. That's right.

Right. That's right. Not appointing positions is also a tactic out there. Having interim folks and acting folks. That's an interesting tactic when you have divisions. When you can't get somebody confirmed. Well, no, I mean that also, but when you just have areas in which you're not that interested or you'd like to see downsized, it's just don't make the appointment. That's right.

And leave lots of vacancies in the organization. with, say, renewables or energy production nationally, that both administrations kind of have more of an intersection or similar thinking on that you'd see as that issue might have national security concerns, for example, with solar or offshore or... Well, both administrations have been ramping up, you know, hydrocarbon production in the United States. So we're more self-sufficient there. So that has been an ongoing trend, as we talked about. You know, I think yes and no.

I think you're going to see both administrations wanting to get into market-based incentives that are out there. I mean, we've got to be able to make carbon part of the economy in order to treat it effectively. This is my two cents. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to have national forests that are going up in flames and burning fiber and causing tremendous degradation of habitats out there rather than removing some of that fiber, mimicking natural processes and using that fiber and actually storing that carbon. So we've got to find ways that we can rebuild these local economies to have working landscapes. And we've lost a lot of that local rural economy. I mean, we don't have mills in much United States anymore in order to even handle that fiber. Part of our problem with, you know, there's been concerns with prescribed fire on the landscape because there have been a couple of fires that have gotten away from the Forest Service or state agencies that have been using it.

But we're using prescribed fire sometimes in cases where it's very different today than it used to be. You know, you might run fire through an oak savanna or a pine savanna, and one day you know what the conditions are going to be. We can go out there and see what the humidity is. We have good weather satellite data. Now we've got big piles of logs that we have no mill to run it to. We've got no log haulers to haul it to. So you've got this huge pile of logs that have been cut and they're just stacked on the landscape. And we're using prescribed fire then to burn that pile of logs. What happens to that prescribed fire window? You know, anybody that's had a big bonfire, you know it goes from a one-day fire.

Right. Eventually you're standing around being like, oh my God, is this thing still going? It's a multi-day fire. And then your chance of having fire escape from that, you know, you have winds come up and unexpected weather situations. When you have a big, big inferno going like that, you can't just kill it, you know?

And so it's very difficult. You're talking about disposing of stuff from thinning operations because there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to use, there's no way to use it economically. it economically and put it to use so it just has to get torched. It might be a salvage cut that goes in. You might have a severe ice storm that comes in and closes roads and closes trails. You need to get that down material out of there. It might be wind throw. I mean, we have tremendous areas in the Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula, Michigan, where winds race across those lakes.

And they will, you know, certain events will throw trees down. Yeah, it's like an avalanche path on flat ground or relatively flat ground. You know, or it could be a thinning operation where you're degrading that forest, you're getting so much fiber and so much ladder fuel that's creating fire damage, you know, fire hazard and damage for the future of that forest. So at that point, you want to remove it. Yeah. But, you know, you want to remove it and be able to use that product if possible. And that's where we need to rebuild that infrastructure in some manner. How do you, as a federal policy organization or a conservation group with federal scope,

national level scope, how do you guys come in and, is it okay to come in and weigh in on appointments? Oh, yeah. I mean- We were talking about like interior secretary. An administration, when an administration picks its secretary of the interior, you're sort of like looking at just this hugely impactful appointment. It's going to be, that's going to be your enemy.

That's going to be your enemy. That's going to be your ally, right? Is it, is there a pathway to come in and say, hey, that, that choice ain't going to work? Yes, there have been in the past with the going in and saying, you know, this is just not an appropriate appointment given, you know, what this person has done previously or what they are saying publicly on it, or we have concerns about working with it. But typically what we try and do is weigh in early in terms of the types of expertise or major issues that we think are coming up that the administration should look at and consider for appointments out there. And quite frankly, most administrations coming in, they ask key partner groups out there, who do you know? Oh, did you?

Yeah. That's interesting. So you get a chance, you could like slide a resume over. Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah. Are you up for that job? No.

No? No. You're not looking to retire into the interior? No, no, no, no. You don't you up for that job? No. No? No. No. You're not looking to retire into the interior? No, no, no, no. You don't want to be that unretired? No, no. But, you know, I went in and interviewed for, um, director of the fish and wildlife service

years ago. Okay. And that, that's how it was. I kept saying I wasn't interested in it and it was like, we really want to talk to you. Just come in and talk to us. So I, I flew in, talked to him for come in and talk to us so I I flew in talked to him for a day and told him who I thought would be really good but it wasn't me you know we needed to make deep cultural change in that organization at that time and I really thought

it needed to come from somebody within the organization and and they did um that person came in Sam Hamilton came in and was very effective while he was there. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack, bleed too early in life. Oh, I got it. Uh, before we started recording, we were talking about, uh, we were talking about when you hit to, uh, that you ran the,

you ran the DNR in Michigan and then later were asked, would you like to be a commissioner? And you felt that that was, uh, inappropriate to have like a former, like a former department head sitting on the commission and having, I don't know, what's a confused power dynamic? Well, I think it's difficult. I think it's difficult for private organizations or nonprofits to have their past CEOs sit on their board of directors.

Your board of directors is your boss. And to have your predecessor be your boss puts you in an uncomfortable situation when you know there are key initiatives or changes that person made and you're recommending something different. I didn't have to deal with that when I was director. I didn't have any past directors. In fact, there haven't been past directors on the commission before until the person that followed me was named on the commission for a short time. And quite frankly, I talked to him about it. He said it was awful. Oh, okay.

You know, and the groups try and use you also. You know, I get called now on issues where the sportsman's groups don't necessarily agree with the decision and they want me to come out and publicly weigh in on it. And, you know, I'm not so sure my opinion at this point is any more important than anybody else's opinion out there. But the other part of it is, um, you know, I think those jobs are really tough and I don't want to make it tougher for that person. That, uh, I was more bringing that up to tee up to another thing is you had said before we started recording today, you were talking about what you're seeing in general. Um, I'll have you put in your own words, but like a general erosion of commission

authority. Can you, can you explain, can you real quick tell people, you know, speaking from that, you got 50 of these things, like what are commissions and what do you mean by commission authority? Well, commissions, natural resources commissions, and they sometimes are called fish and game commissions, but typically they are appointed positions appointed by the governor. And then they are the body that either hires the director of the Department of Natural Resources or Fish and Game

or whatever it's called in that state, or they are the decision maker on hunting and fishing regulations. So you've got this public commission with appointed people that help insulate the departments directly from the governor's office. So even though you're part of the executive branch, you know, you don't, you have a little bit of buffer in there. And they also provide some real transparency because typically those commissions don't pass regulations they don't hire directors without public input when i was hired my interview was televised so it was you know it was a a very public process um that went through in terms of selection did they ask what your spirit animal was no they didn't ask what my spirit animal was. They asked an awful lot of other questions, so I got to tell you. But that process of gathering public input on various

regulations is really important. And we are seeing now more and more directors are selected, not by the commission, but by the governor. They become gubernatorial appointments, which occurred in Michigan when I was there. I was the last commission appointed and the first gubernatorial appointed director. So the governor and the state passed an executive order that made that appointment her appointment rather than the commission's. Because they just didn't like what they were getting from the commission because they wanted to be just like more an instrument of the administration. Like, what is the push? I think, you know, I think they, you know, what I heard was you want direct accountability

of your cabinet members. But I really think when you get into office and you name your cabinet, you want to be able to name those cabinet members so that they're all people that are affiliated in helping move your agenda forward. And what the second thing that has happened with that, though, is the tenure of agency directors has shortened. Now the average tenure is on really short rotation. So, yes, I hear governors want that direct accountability. But having some transition and having directors that span various parties, it's not all bad. It's good, I mean, in my opinion.

And I think having the commission in there, and most of your commissions are required to be bipartisan. So they call for, in various states, commissioners either represent a geographic location or they represent political party. Yeah. Or factions of industry. Yeah. Meaning like guys and outfitters, commercial interests. Forestry, agriculture, you name it.

Where you're trying to strive for some level. And I've heard, and maybe it's just a tradition in Washington, but regionality. Yeah. Yeah, I washington but regionality yeah i think you specified regionality as well yeah because so many from the you know west of the cascades east of the cascades that's right yeah so oh sorry but with that what we're seeing is those commissions are both their authorities getting nipped back you know sometimes through state law, you know, sometimes through state law, but you know, legislators are trying to enact laws on taking of game and fish species or the method of take. And then the other way is they're losing their authority to appoint also. Appoint.

Appoint your directors. The director. Yeah. Got it. And, and you generally, um, are uneasy with this. I am. I think it creates more partisan politics into the natural resource arena. And I think it creates more of these shifts.

And just like we talked about with executive orders that swing so far one way and then the other way, you know, that's, that you waste a lot of time and energy. Yeah. Like, ladies and gentlemen, we're all in on renewables. Then ladies and gentlemen, we're all in on renewables then ladies and gentlemen we're all in on hydrogen slow down the pendulum a little bit yeah uh just i i got a last question for you that's a little more complicated but uh just an observation about the the wild pendulum swings on i mean people people like to bitch about gridlock, but I always like to remind folks that this is quite intentional. We could be like Venezuela.

Hey, we're communists. And then a couple months later, hey, we're ultra-right. Hey, we're back to communists. I mean, when people bitch about gridlock... It's going to have a little effect on your bank account when people bitch about gridlock and all this it's like it's this is intentionally constructed that we don't go down wild ass that you you can't harness the moment and go in wild directions all the time that's right and so i don't like i i get aggravated about the things that i want to happen that don't happen quickly, but in general, it's like some stability.

The other people's stuff is going just as slow. It's better. If I don't get what I want and they don't get what they want, then I feel okay about it. Our issues tend to do really well, though, during gridlock. But, you know, here's the other part of it is we might get frustrated, but we are usually highly effective when Congress or state legislatures cannot agree on issues. Our conservation issues usually do really well because. You can be the awesome person who says, hey, I got something that everybody will like. Yeah, that's exactly right. You're like, there's no, there's no like hot button social issue wrapped up into it.

Well, that's right. I mean, in DNR, we used to call ourselves the department of fun. Who doesn't want to support the department of fun? I mean, you have hunting, you have camping, you've got timber industry, you've got fishing and, and hunting and, and wildlife viewing. So, I mean, but most of our legislation, we work in a bipartisan manner anyhow to try and get things so that you have both sponsors of bills on the right and the left. And then introduce those and try and keep them fairly evenly matched. So those, we tend to be highly successful during periods of gridlock when Congress can't deal with the other stuff and they need to have something that's right they need to have something they can point to yeah they need to bring it back to their constituents you know i supported this bill and that's right yeah uh here's the one that's a little this here's one that's more

complicated it's not complicated answers it's complicated to ask uh everyone loves to talk to gripe about ballot box biology ballot box initiatives and also uh i find this is an area that really accentuates a lot of hypocrisy meaning um i'm very supportive of the ballot initiatives that guarantee the right to hunt trap and fish okay so i'll be like hell yeah vote yes this november for your state's right to hunt fish okay then the next time some a ballot initiative comes up that i don't like i'll be like there you go damn it ballot box biology right putting it to the voters that's not how you do it but a minute ago i was just avid you know i mean a minute ago i was just saying when you can get the uninformed masses to vote your way it's a great thing so people love right like everybody complains about it but they complain about it only when there's a ballot box initiative that they hate true and when there's ones they support they're getting out the vote well it's

like people don't really complain about judicial activism when the courts are finding in their favor sure you know yeah so here's the question that's just a that's just an observation is it really is there more of this now than there was or is it just always been this way i mean is there really more ballot box biology and ballot box what whatever life management yeah i think we go through waves okay to be honest with you i think there are periods you know when i think back through my career there were periods where we had ballot initiatives that we fought and that we supported. And then you'll have a quiet period for a while. And then it creeps back up again.

So it's usually when there's an action and a reaction that's out there. Oh, like I'll show you. That's right. I'll give you a ballot box initiative. But we have seen some of the national challenges towards hunting and fishing. We have seen those been direct campaigns that are now being fought at the state level. So I think you see more activity to try and restrict and also promote hunting and fishing at that state level than we used to do, where it used to be, you know, we had more national legislation and the rest of it. And so there's more activism at that state level.

Okay. So that is a thing. Yeah, I think so. Because you were saying earlier that big box, all the giant big box and no one after them might have been a bad, might be faulty memory. Might be faulty memory might be faulty but the days back when they weren't ballot box initiating wildlife decisions is new ish yeah i you know it's expanded you know i remember we had we had some back in the 70s but then really in the 90s it really came alive and then we've kind of seen it dying down and now it's, you know, we had periods across the country where there was a big push to, to do ballot initiatives to protect the right to hunt and fish.

Um, and now you're seeing challenges again. Yep. So, and we're seeing a big push right now in several states for trying to advocate for these commissions to have appointments that are non-hunters and even anti-hunters and anglers zookeepers yeah no we got a uh everybody's got an interest in the state's wildlife yeah we need to have those interests represented on the board uh unfortunately like never, you never get to ask the question, well, are there interests not being represented

currently by our current management plan? We never get to ask that. So what, what is the impetus, right? Well, yeah, I mean,

they're managing far more species that aren't hunted and fished than are. And have been for quite some time. Yeah. far more species that aren't hunted and fished than are. And have been for quite some time. Yeah. Let me give you one last question. And then these guys might have a last question. You're not going to do the, who are you voting for again, are you?

Who are you voting for? How do you handle that? I'm voting for my daughter. She's running for county commissioner again. See, there you are, partisan politics. Nepotismism how do you handle that question let's role play for a minute um uh okay i'm i'm uh running for president okay and and some we're having a meeting about agenda he said hey i want to hear from the big conservation groups about what you guys are thinking and where i'm crafting my thing and we we finished up the meeting and like you and I meet in the hallway and I'm like, well,

can I plan on your support this November, Becky? No, you do your part. I just did my part. You know. Can I plan on your support this November? If it's a candidate that I was already planning to support and I felt was the best candidate, I would probably let that individual know that I was going to support them personally, not as an organization. No, you've got to do it in the role play way.

Oh. No, Steve. First, I'm not. I don't have your vote. I don't have your vote, so do that. No, I'm still deciding, but at this point, I'm not leaning towards this. That's what you'd say?

It depends on the situation. You'd let them down easy if i was in representing trcp at the meeting i wouldn't answer it at all but how how okay how do you answer it that's why i'm trying to do the role play here we are you're representing trcp and i say i'd like to know that i could count on your support this november i'm just like how do you do it i i'm interim ceo of the theodore roosevelt conservation partnership which is a non-profit legally we cannot support partisan candidates hard to argue that trap me okay that's good that's good i'm just helping you rehearse because this might happen to you

oh i know uh here's the last one the last one i got from you where should people um where should people be paying the most attention in the next four years if we're talking about just conservation with a big c right like not not local not necessarily local issues like oh they messed with our elk management plan but like like big picture, your kids are going to feel the impacts of this. Where should people be paying attention? Well, a couple of things I think they really need to pay attention to. Number one is we talked about it earlier, those working landscapes. As this country moves into renewables and we have more and more pressure on the landscape,

livestock in close proximity to wildlife, the whole nine yards. We need to make sure that we are planning for that and putting together good overall policy and policy direction that accommodates both renewable energy, people, livestock, food, and wildlife, and great hunting access out on the landscape and fishing. The other part of it is, I would say on the accessibility issues, to making sure that our public lands remain public. And that the tools that we have in the toolbox for incentivizing private land management remain there and remain effective. We're trying to get a farm bill through. You guys know the last farm bill expired in September of 23.

It has a one-year extension. It's going to expire again in 24, later this year. And that is the biggest piece of conservation legislation usually that we ever pass. It's huge. Sixty percent of this country is in private land. And, you know, that farm bill provides tremendous incentives for people to farm the best and leave the rest. You know, it's kind of one of the catchphrases that we say out there. But it really helps people steward that landscape.

And wildlife, they don't recognize property boundaries. I mean, the bottom line is we need great public land management and we need great private land management. And I personally believe we need very good active management. We can't just draw a line around it, leave it alone, and call it good unless we're willing to wait centuries for, you know, restoration after major wildfires or, you know, for big storms and, you know, do huge blowdowns and you can't even use that particular land for a while.

Got it. Alright. Thank you for sharing. Are you going to vote for me? Can I count on your support this November? I won't tell anyone. You know what? You wouldn't do it for me, but I'm going to tell you right now.

You can count on my support. I hope there's monetary support. All right. All right. I hope there's monetary support. This November. Anything else, guys? Thanks for coming on and thanks for all the work that you're doing. Oh, my pleasure.

We've got a great team at TRCP, which you certainly know and all of you do. And they do great work. And they tackle the big problems. You know, I think that's the thing that TRCP, I feel most strongly about. A lot of organizations play offense or defense on laws and policies, but TRCP really builds this think tank model where they pull all the groups together and do the energy to try and build good policy direction and then build that campaign from the ground up. That's pretty special, and it takes lots of time and effort. Sorry, go ahead.

What do we gain by supporting a group like TRCP? Because it's not a membership organization. No, it's not. It's not a membership organization. Most of our funding, about two-thirds of it, comes through grants and foundations and then personal donors and family foundations that donate unrestricted revenue. But what you gain from it, I think, is the coalition, pulling the organizations together around common ideas, big picture ideas, and then doing the legwork to really invest

and figure out how we're going to solve those problems. Well, I appreciate the life you've spent in conservation, and I appreciate your measured, rational, well-articulated perspectives on things. So thank you. Well, thank you, sir. Yeah. Oh, that'll, that'll, this'll inoculate us from some of the nonsense that we're going to hear between now, from all directions. Oh, it's. Between now and nowhere.

It's already started. Oh, yeah. I know. I know. It's, it's going to be a tough year in that regard. It really is going to be a tough year. Well, hang in there. Well, maybe after the election, you can come back and then tell us what you think. No, I'm, I'm hopeful after the election, I'm going to be retired tough year. Well, hang in there. Well, maybe after the election you can come back and then tell us what you think.

No, I'm hopeful after the election I'm going to be retired. Oh, that's right. That's right. You'll be re-retired. You'll be re-retired. Re-retired. I'm going to get it right this time. We'll pipe you in like Susie Orman there from your 35-foot boat.

The boat. That's right. In the Bahamas. All right. Thank you very much, Becky Humphries. Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, I've been through a lot of heartbreaks, the pretty and the ugly.

But I've seen a pattern here lately. They always tend to love me All throughout the fall But when it comes to springtime They start dropping like their flies They only want me for my hunting They only want me for my hunting They only want me for my fishing hoes They only want me for the mallards and buffalos That come around every fall

They only want me for my hunting They only want me for the sandhill cranes They only want me for the white tail bucks And the green neck doves But the Rio grins They only want me for my hunting land Come the end of hunting season They always find a reason To love me and leave me For the next in line And they'll say that they're sorry

That they just don't have the time But boy, it's kinda funny Cause if I remember, I've always shot the buck I've been waiting for my entire life They only want me for my hunting life They only want me for my fishing boats They only want me for the mallards and butterflies That come around every fall They only want me for my hunting life

They only want me for my huntin' life They only want me for the San Diego Prince They only want me for the white-tailed dogs And the green-necked dogs The Rio Prince They only want me for my huntin' life I know it took me a while to finally catch on And after they tagged out, that day would be long gone But now I know. They're gonna miss my hunting land.

They're gonna miss my fishing boats. They're gonna miss those mallards and buffaloes. They come around every fall. They're gonna miss my hunting land. Thank you. You're the light in my life Oh, my holiday man Oh, my holiday man