September 7, 2020 • 19 mins
In this short bonus episode Clay talks with James Brandenburg from the AR Backcountry Hunters & Anglers about the Pine Tree Research There is a proposed sale of this public land to a private party could eliminate more than 6,000 acres of high-quality public hunting and fishing in North East Arkansas.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
you by Interstate Batteries. Whether you need a battery for
your truck, or a battery for your trail camera, or
a specialized battery for your range finder, or a crazy
toy that you bought for your kids, Interstate Batteries has
got you covered. Stop into a local Interstate Battery retail store,
(00:22):
talk with a specialist, get the battery that you need,
and go on about your day. Interstate Batteries outrageously dependable.
My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
(00:42):
the world of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness. There,
we'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country off the planet
chasing battery. Hey, this is the baritege Colby moorehead. Today,
(01:04):
Clay is joined by James Brandenburg for a bonus episode
of the of the podcast. They're gonna be talking about
a land issue that's pertinent to Arkansas and the setting
of public lands. Uh just real quick, stay informed, have
a good one. I am here with James Brandonburg, the
(01:25):
chair of the Arkansas chapter of the back Country Hunters
and Anglish Association, and you brought me, uh pop tarts,
big league to peanuts and coke at my I texted
James when he was coming over and I said, I
tried to make this like really obscure list of things
for him to bring to the global headquarters. And it
(01:48):
was a joke and he brought it. So we're we're
like having a feast right now. So James, I wanted
to get you on here to talk to us about
what's going on with the Pine Tree Experimental Station over
in eastern Arkansas. So it's a essentially you're we're gonna
get into all the details, but essentially what's happening is
(02:11):
that there's been a piece of public ground over there.
It's been a piece of public ground for a long
time and it's owned by the University of Arkansas. It's
been managed about the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and
right now they're trying to sell off about six acres.
That's just I don't I don't know why, Maybe you do.
They're selling it off and basically it's just public land
(02:34):
that's gonna be turned into private duck lease, duck lease
or something, and so, um, so how long has this
piece of ground been public land. It was acquired by
the federal government sometime, let's say in the probably in
the nineteen forties or fifties, so for like eighty years
(02:56):
that's been public long time, yep, yep. And so the
way that this came back to the federal government is
that there's an act passed during the depression that's called
the Bankhead Jones Farm Tenant Act. And one of the
provisions of that act was, you know, authorized the Secretary
(03:19):
of Agriculture to acquire submarginal farmland and take it out
of production. Um. And this would be places that were
that either weren't good farmland to start off with, maybe
they'd been degraded or damaged. Maybe they were along watersheds
and needed to be needed to be taken out of
production so that, um, you weren't worrying about quality of
(03:43):
the water things like that. It says in the law,
you know, it talks about conservation and habitat and for
the benefit of the public, that they would take this
land out of production. Okay, So sub marginal farm land
end is usually a great hunting land yeah, exactly, especially
if I bet that's a good place to hunt. Yeah. Well,
(04:07):
and it's been out of production for a long time,
so that's the other thing that's been rehabilitated. Right. So
it also provided for the Secretary of Agriculture to dispose
of those lands, provided that that land remained in public use.
And if you think about this, Clay, would you want
(04:27):
the federal government or anybody to come in and say, um,
buy up property, buy up distressed property from at that
time in the in the depression era. I mean, let's
let's face it, it's probably farmers that were not doing well.
Buy that up from them and then turn around and
sell that either for a profit or sell it to
(04:51):
land barrens, or you know, however you want to describe it.
Back then. You know, people who were wealthy back then.
One of the key things that was going on during
the Depression. I've done a lot of reading on this.
They were trying to figure out how to get share
croppers and tenants off of those situations where they were
(05:12):
just living hand the mouth every year, get them started
with a piece of land where they could build a
life for themselves. So by taking this land out of production,
they were they were trying to help with that situation.
That that Act overall existed to help those help those
(05:33):
poor people, and a lot of them in the South
two get started with something better in life. There's tons
and tons of history on on that and it's fascinating
to get into. But for our discussion, this property in
nineteen sixty UM and I haven't found if it's the
(05:54):
Forest Service at that point or if it was the
Soil Service at that time, but eventually the property UM,
through the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service, the
University of Arkansas was deeded access to this property for
agricultural agricultural research. And this happened across the country, not
(06:20):
just here in Arkansas. There's many many places like this.
In fact, part of our National Grasslands System came out
of the same type of property. So in nineteen sixty
the University UM got access to it for agricultural research.
UM there's a deed from the Forest Service to the
University of Arkansas, and in that deed there's a clause
(06:43):
that states if the property ever ceases to be used
for the public or comes out of public use, that
property is to revert back to the Forest service. It's
about a four line clause in the deed. It's super
easy to understand. You and I can read it and
understand what it means. And so um. Fast forward to today.
(07:08):
You know, the university publicly states that they have a
need to fund some other obligations in the division of Agriculture. Um,
They've made commitments, they've got some grants that they need
to come up with matching funds for things like that.
And the way that they're proposing to do this is
by selling this property of it that they want to sell.
(07:31):
There's a force in its clause that says it goes
if they don't own it. It goes back to the
force pretty straightforward right now. The way that they would
get around that, of course, is the way that anybody
gets around something that they don't like in a in
a contract. They go they go to Congress and try
(07:51):
to get that work through US Congress. So take an
Act of Congress. The university acknowledges this, you will take
an Act of Congress to close that land deal. M Now,
the public of the university also states that they have
um that they have marketed the property extensively, that they
(08:15):
had extensive conversations with other agencies here in Arkansas Natural
Heritage Commission, Nature Conservancy, and Arkansas Game and Fish Commission,
and ultimately the Game and Fish Commission, they say turn
them down because they didn't have the money to buy it.
The Game and Fish has been kind of silent on that. Um,
you know, I haven't pressed him on that yet really
(08:38):
to to know how extensively that went on. Bottom line is,
right now, there's a there's a contract in place for
the university to sell this property to a private entity.
It's going to take away the best hunting property in St.
Francis County that's publicly accessible in a place where there's
not a lot of publicly accessible hunting property, and it's
(09:01):
gonna lock it behind the gate. And you know, you
you have listeners across the country, and I think that
people could ask themselves, like I live in West Virginia.
You know, why do I care about what's going on
in Arkansas. This is a situation Number one, it's going
to take u S Congressional approval number two. These types
(09:25):
of properties, these acres is a is a lot. But
in the grand scheme of all of our hundreds of
millions of public land to drop in the bucket. But
for the people right there in St. Francis County, that's
where they hunt. And I can't tell you how many
people I've heard from that, you know, kids, that's where
(09:47):
they learned how to hunt. Women have learned how to
hunt there. Of course, men have learned how to hunt there.
You know, they were kids when they learned, and now
they're grown ups taking their kids out there. If Congress,
and all that takes is some slick lobbying to say, hey,
look what we're gonna do with this seventeen million dollars.
We're gonna send fifteen million of it over here, and
(10:09):
we're gonna we're gonna spend a million of it over there.
And and Clay, that's not, according to what I'm hearing,
that's cheap for that land over there. Um should be
going for four thousand dollars an acre at least. Um.
(10:31):
But if that disappears, and if they set that precedent
for this place to disappear, what happens when they come
for four d acres over there that maybe maybe only
a couple hundred people use, or or whatever the case
might be. We've already got an access problem. We've already
(10:51):
got an Our three problem are we can't sell enough licenses,
two to take care of the habitat at work that
we need to do. And we're gonna make it harder
for average people, and especially in eastern Arkansas, where it
is quickly, in my mind, becoming harder and harder for
(11:16):
people of average means to have a place to hunt.
Because people want to go over there and duck hunt.
They're willing to. They will buy, you know, in private transactions,
which is fine. I mean, if you want to sell
and I want to buy, there's nothing wrong with that.
But but access disappears all of eastern Arkansas. Well that's
an exaggeration. A ton of eastern Arkansas is a high
(11:39):
dollar lease land, that's for sure, you know, on the
Mississippi Delta over there, and there's also some some big
public tracks over there too, but it's yeah, it's big
money lease country for sure. Yeah yeah. And so so
back country Hunters and Anglers has gotten involved in this
um here in Arkansas is our This is our first
(12:02):
big thing to be a part of. You know, we
were a chapter in June. At the end of July, wham,
you know, we're we got confronted with this. Thankfully, we
have some some friends in certain places in state government
who are against the sale, and publicly, even the US
(12:24):
Representative Rick Crawford has stated that he's against the sale
as well, and so he's the rep over there. Yes, yep,
that's in his district. And so we have some some
friends in this in the legislature. But you know, to us,
things happened by majority, and so having one or two
(12:46):
friends doesn't mean that everybody's going to go that way.
So what we're doing right now, number one, we're raising
awareness about it. Of course our social media. We have
a petition out there at back country Hunters dot org.
Have enough people signed that petition. We've got about as
of today, around fifty signatures, and and that's a that's
(13:09):
a really good response on something that's kind of a
localized issue like that. And um, you know the reason
that we're doing that, like, Okay, what does a what
does it signing a petition do? Well, if we need
to mobilize to contact legislators at some point in the future,
we need to know who to contact who cares about this.
It also gives us a voice when we go to
(13:32):
speak to let's say, say people or two thousand people
that have signed a petition. Yep, we So you told
me earlier that this the sale was supposed to be
finalized in like October. But it looks like they're going
to push it off. They may well they might, they
might push it off. Um you know, nothing's set in
(13:54):
stone yet. And and there's not a lot of public
information coming from the university, which if you wanted something
to go away, you're not. You're not gonna your pr
machine is gonna say here's all the great things we're
gonna do, and we're not gonna We're not gonna address
these other people over here. We're not gonna we're gonna
ignore that. Um Man. I grew up in northwest Arkansas.
(14:18):
I love the Razorbacks, I love the University. This is
a situation where there's a better way. We need to
find a better solution to sell in this land so
they can do what they want to do with that
money and help the people of Arkansas. That's fine, but
don't penalize St. Francis County and then the people who
travel into to do that. So what what can what
(14:41):
can people do? How can we get involved? So the
first thing that we'd ask people to do is sign
our petition because that gives us a voice. The second
thing is share it with your friends, share it on
your social media. We've got some articles up there on
our Arkansas specific page at back Country Hunters out of
Work talking about the issue. And and then just the
(15:06):
main thing is if you want to contact your your
legislators right now, it's okay, but there's nothing for him
to do about it, so so be ready to do
that if we need you to do that in the future,
like if it goes to vote in Congress, the congressional level,
that's where uh, people in other states could get involved,
(15:29):
tell their their legislator, hey, vote against this happening, and
they know what it was. Okay, Well, I think, I
mean the premise of all this is right on is that,
I mean, we've got the public land that that we've
got right now, and these to state public land. I mean,
(15:51):
this is interesting, Like I never thought we'd have really
anything quite like this come up in Arkansas. I didn't.
Usually it's the Western states that have kind of these
uh you know, places where there trying to sell off
public land into private hands. And so this is just
a unique example of how it can happen, you know.
And um, yeah, if if that place was ten miles
(16:14):
from here and coon hunted over there, you know, true
or three nights a week in the wintertime, and I mean,
it would be something that I would be very interested in.
And we know that there, and that's that's just the
way the stuff works. Is that for for the voice
of hunters and anglers to have power, other people have
(16:36):
to get involved with stuff that doesn't affect them. Like
that's that's the way this works, is that we can
we know that somebody's hunting over there, some somebody has
raised their family hunting over there, and so it might
as well be us that you know. And so that
that's the way this stuff works. And I think that's
(16:57):
the that's the culture that we're building inside the Hunting
can comunity is one of Hey, we're kind of looking
out for each other. And that's why I like about
this is I've never been over there, just four or
five hours from here. It's over in eastern Arkansas. We're
in northwestern Arkansas. Um, but I think that's the way
that we've got to view it, and so you know,
we yeah, so just keep us keep us up to date. Yeah,
(17:19):
and where can they find you on social media? And
and updates on this and stuff at Arkansas b h
A on Instagram. That's probably the easiest place to find us.
We'll have regular updates there. Um. Of course we're on Facebook.
We have a have a private group on Facebook. You
has to join their um back Country Hunters dot org
are Arkansas chapter page. We'll have information on it as well. Cool. Well, Um,
(17:47):
is there anything else we haven't cover? I mean, I
know we could, we we could go deep into it,
but I think we've we've really done a good job
of hitting the high points and letting people know what's
going on. And we're just appreciative, you know, more than anything.
I know the people over there. I have been in
contact with with several of the people over there who
(18:10):
are really concerned about it, and and there they at
the risk of inviting the rest of the world to
come down and hunt their place, they are asking for
our help to save it. And um, and I think
that's a worthy thing. And so I appreciate the time.
(18:31):
Back Country Hunters Anglers mobilizes people better than any group
I've ever been a part of. That's that's what we do. Yeah,
that's what yeah, I mean, And that's and the and
the and the allies that we have. That's what I've
told them. I'm like, we will get the message out,
we will mobilize people to contact I mean. Part of
(18:55):
the way that this problem is going to get resolved
is finding an alternate way for the Universe City to
sell it. Because if they need to sell it, if
they need that money, well we let's help them find
it in a way that makes sense. Well and sell
you're saying, sell it to a group that would keep
it in public. Yeah. Yeah, if they can sell it
to Game and Fish Commission, if they for service and
whatever it is. You know, let's find a way to
(19:17):
keep this land. You don't have seen million you donate
to this. Oh man, I just built a big old
bear cabin out in the woods and not yet I'm
still working on my first billion. Well, thanks to James,
you've been um. Yeah, maybe we'll get We'll keep everybody
(19:38):
updated on this and they can check it out on
social media. That sounds good. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you,
thank you.
You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
you by Interstate Batteries. Whether you need a battery for
your truck, or a battery for your trail camera, or
a specialized battery for your range finder, or a crazy
toy that you bought for your kids, Interstate Batteries has
got you covered. Stop into a local Interstate Battery retail store,
(00:22):
talk with a specialist, get the battery that you need,
and go on about your day. Interstate Batteries outrageously dependable.
My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
(00:42):
the world of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness. There,
we'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. We will also bring
you into some of the wildest country off the planet
chasing battery. Hey, this is the baritege Colby moorehead. Today,
(01:04):
Clay is joined by James Brandenburg for a bonus episode
of the of the podcast. They're gonna be talking about
a land issue that's pertinent to Arkansas and the setting
of public lands. Uh just real quick, stay informed, have
a good one. I am here with James Brandonburg, the
(01:25):
chair of the Arkansas chapter of the back Country Hunters
and Anglish Association, and you brought me, uh pop tarts,
big league to peanuts and coke at my I texted
James when he was coming over and I said, I
tried to make this like really obscure list of things
for him to bring to the global headquarters. And it
(01:48):
was a joke and he brought it. So we're we're
like having a feast right now. So James, I wanted
to get you on here to talk to us about
what's going on with the Pine Tree Experimental Station over
in eastern Arkansas. So it's a essentially you're we're gonna
get into all the details, but essentially what's happening is
(02:11):
that there's been a piece of public ground over there.
It's been a piece of public ground for a long
time and it's owned by the University of Arkansas. It's
been managed about the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and
right now they're trying to sell off about six acres.
That's just I don't I don't know why, Maybe you do.
They're selling it off and basically it's just public land
(02:34):
that's gonna be turned into private duck lease, duck lease
or something, and so, um, so how long has this
piece of ground been public land. It was acquired by
the federal government sometime, let's say in the probably in
the nineteen forties or fifties, so for like eighty years
(02:56):
that's been public long time, yep, yep. And so the
way that this came back to the federal government is
that there's an act passed during the depression that's called
the Bankhead Jones Farm Tenant Act. And one of the
provisions of that act was, you know, authorized the Secretary
(03:19):
of Agriculture to acquire submarginal farmland and take it out
of production. Um. And this would be places that were
that either weren't good farmland to start off with, maybe
they'd been degraded or damaged. Maybe they were along watersheds
and needed to be needed to be taken out of
production so that, um, you weren't worrying about quality of
(03:43):
the water things like that. It says in the law,
you know, it talks about conservation and habitat and for
the benefit of the public, that they would take this
land out of production. Okay, So sub marginal farm land
end is usually a great hunting land yeah, exactly, especially
if I bet that's a good place to hunt. Yeah. Well,
(04:07):
and it's been out of production for a long time,
so that's the other thing that's been rehabilitated. Right. So
it also provided for the Secretary of Agriculture to dispose
of those lands, provided that that land remained in public use.
And if you think about this, Clay, would you want
(04:27):
the federal government or anybody to come in and say, um,
buy up property, buy up distressed property from at that
time in the in the depression era. I mean, let's
let's face it, it's probably farmers that were not doing well.
Buy that up from them and then turn around and
sell that either for a profit or sell it to
(04:51):
land barrens, or you know, however you want to describe it.
Back then. You know, people who were wealthy back then.
One of the key things that was going on during
the Depression. I've done a lot of reading on this.
They were trying to figure out how to get share
croppers and tenants off of those situations where they were
(05:12):
just living hand the mouth every year, get them started
with a piece of land where they could build a
life for themselves. So by taking this land out of production,
they were they were trying to help with that situation.
That that Act overall existed to help those help those
(05:33):
poor people, and a lot of them in the South
two get started with something better in life. There's tons
and tons of history on on that and it's fascinating
to get into. But for our discussion, this property in
nineteen sixty UM and I haven't found if it's the
(05:54):
Forest Service at that point or if it was the
Soil Service at that time, but eventually the property UM,
through the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service, the
University of Arkansas was deeded access to this property for
agricultural agricultural research. And this happened across the country, not
(06:20):
just here in Arkansas. There's many many places like this.
In fact, part of our National Grasslands System came out
of the same type of property. So in nineteen sixty
the University UM got access to it for agricultural research.
UM there's a deed from the Forest Service to the
University of Arkansas, and in that deed there's a clause
(06:43):
that states if the property ever ceases to be used
for the public or comes out of public use, that
property is to revert back to the Forest service. It's
about a four line clause in the deed. It's super
easy to understand. You and I can read it and
understand what it means. And so um. Fast forward to today.
(07:08):
You know, the university publicly states that they have a
need to fund some other obligations in the division of Agriculture. Um,
They've made commitments, they've got some grants that they need
to come up with matching funds for things like that.
And the way that they're proposing to do this is
by selling this property of it that they want to sell.
(07:31):
There's a force in its clause that says it goes
if they don't own it. It goes back to the
force pretty straightforward right now. The way that they would
get around that, of course, is the way that anybody
gets around something that they don't like in a in
a contract. They go they go to Congress and try
(07:51):
to get that work through US Congress. So take an
Act of Congress. The university acknowledges this, you will take
an Act of Congress to close that land deal. M Now,
the public of the university also states that they have
um that they have marketed the property extensively, that they
(08:15):
had extensive conversations with other agencies here in Arkansas Natural
Heritage Commission, Nature Conservancy, and Arkansas Game and Fish Commission,
and ultimately the Game and Fish Commission, they say turn
them down because they didn't have the money to buy it.
The Game and Fish has been kind of silent on that. Um,
you know, I haven't pressed him on that yet really
(08:38):
to to know how extensively that went on. Bottom line is,
right now, there's a there's a contract in place for
the university to sell this property to a private entity.
It's going to take away the best hunting property in St.
Francis County that's publicly accessible in a place where there's
not a lot of publicly accessible hunting property, and it's
(09:01):
gonna lock it behind the gate. And you know, you
you have listeners across the country, and I think that
people could ask themselves, like I live in West Virginia.
You know, why do I care about what's going on
in Arkansas. This is a situation Number one, it's going
to take u S Congressional approval number two. These types
(09:25):
of properties, these acres is a is a lot. But
in the grand scheme of all of our hundreds of
millions of public land to drop in the bucket. But
for the people right there in St. Francis County, that's
where they hunt. And I can't tell you how many
people I've heard from that, you know, kids, that's where
(09:47):
they learned how to hunt. Women have learned how to
hunt there. Of course, men have learned how to hunt there.
You know, they were kids when they learned, and now
they're grown ups taking their kids out there. If Congress,
and all that takes is some slick lobbying to say, hey,
look what we're gonna do with this seventeen million dollars.
We're gonna send fifteen million of it over here, and
(10:09):
we're gonna we're gonna spend a million of it over there.
And and Clay, that's not, according to what I'm hearing,
that's cheap for that land over there. Um should be
going for four thousand dollars an acre at least. Um.
(10:31):
But if that disappears, and if they set that precedent
for this place to disappear, what happens when they come
for four d acres over there that maybe maybe only
a couple hundred people use, or or whatever the case
might be. We've already got an access problem. We've already
(10:51):
got an Our three problem are we can't sell enough licenses,
two to take care of the habitat at work that
we need to do. And we're gonna make it harder
for average people, and especially in eastern Arkansas, where it
is quickly, in my mind, becoming harder and harder for
(11:16):
people of average means to have a place to hunt.
Because people want to go over there and duck hunt.
They're willing to. They will buy, you know, in private transactions,
which is fine. I mean, if you want to sell
and I want to buy, there's nothing wrong with that.
But but access disappears all of eastern Arkansas. Well that's
an exaggeration. A ton of eastern Arkansas is a high
(11:39):
dollar lease land, that's for sure, you know, on the
Mississippi Delta over there, and there's also some some big
public tracks over there too, but it's yeah, it's big
money lease country for sure. Yeah yeah. And so so
back country Hunters and Anglers has gotten involved in this
um here in Arkansas is our This is our first
(12:02):
big thing to be a part of. You know, we
were a chapter in June. At the end of July, wham,
you know, we're we got confronted with this. Thankfully, we
have some some friends in certain places in state government
who are against the sale, and publicly, even the US
(12:24):
Representative Rick Crawford has stated that he's against the sale
as well, and so he's the rep over there. Yes, yep,
that's in his district. And so we have some some
friends in this in the legislature. But you know, to us,
things happened by majority, and so having one or two
(12:46):
friends doesn't mean that everybody's going to go that way.
So what we're doing right now, number one, we're raising
awareness about it. Of course our social media. We have
a petition out there at back country Hunters dot org.
Have enough people signed that petition. We've got about as
of today, around fifty signatures, and and that's a that's
(13:09):
a really good response on something that's kind of a
localized issue like that. And um, you know the reason
that we're doing that, like, Okay, what does a what
does it signing a petition do? Well, if we need
to mobilize to contact legislators at some point in the future,
we need to know who to contact who cares about this.
It also gives us a voice when we go to
(13:32):
speak to let's say, say people or two thousand people
that have signed a petition. Yep, we So you told
me earlier that this the sale was supposed to be
finalized in like October. But it looks like they're going
to push it off. They may well they might, they
might push it off. Um you know, nothing's set in
(13:54):
stone yet. And and there's not a lot of public
information coming from the university, which if you wanted something
to go away, you're not. You're not gonna your pr
machine is gonna say here's all the great things we're
gonna do, and we're not gonna We're not gonna address
these other people over here. We're not gonna we're gonna
ignore that. Um Man. I grew up in northwest Arkansas.
(14:18):
I love the Razorbacks, I love the University. This is
a situation where there's a better way. We need to
find a better solution to sell in this land so
they can do what they want to do with that
money and help the people of Arkansas. That's fine, but
don't penalize St. Francis County and then the people who
travel into to do that. So what what can what
(14:41):
can people do? How can we get involved? So the
first thing that we'd ask people to do is sign
our petition because that gives us a voice. The second
thing is share it with your friends, share it on
your social media. We've got some articles up there on
our Arkansas specific page at back Country Hunters out of
Work talking about the issue. And and then just the
(15:06):
main thing is if you want to contact your your
legislators right now, it's okay, but there's nothing for him
to do about it, so so be ready to do
that if we need you to do that in the future,
like if it goes to vote in Congress, the congressional level,
that's where uh, people in other states could get involved,
(15:29):
tell their their legislator, hey, vote against this happening, and
they know what it was. Okay, Well, I think, I
mean the premise of all this is right on is that,
I mean, we've got the public land that that we've
got right now, and these to state public land. I mean,
(15:51):
this is interesting, Like I never thought we'd have really
anything quite like this come up in Arkansas. I didn't.
Usually it's the Western states that have kind of these
uh you know, places where there trying to sell off
public land into private hands. And so this is just
a unique example of how it can happen, you know.
And um, yeah, if if that place was ten miles
(16:14):
from here and coon hunted over there, you know, true
or three nights a week in the wintertime, and I mean,
it would be something that I would be very interested in.
And we know that there, and that's that's just the
way the stuff works. Is that for for the voice
of hunters and anglers to have power, other people have
(16:36):
to get involved with stuff that doesn't affect them. Like
that's that's the way this works, is that we can
we know that somebody's hunting over there, some somebody has
raised their family hunting over there, and so it might
as well be us that you know. And so that
that's the way this stuff works. And I think that's
(16:57):
the that's the culture that we're building inside the Hunting
can comunity is one of Hey, we're kind of looking
out for each other. And that's why I like about
this is I've never been over there, just four or
five hours from here. It's over in eastern Arkansas. We're
in northwestern Arkansas. Um, but I think that's the way
that we've got to view it, and so you know,
we yeah, so just keep us keep us up to date. Yeah,
(17:19):
and where can they find you on social media? And
and updates on this and stuff at Arkansas b h
A on Instagram. That's probably the easiest place to find us.
We'll have regular updates there. Um. Of course we're on Facebook.
We have a have a private group on Facebook. You
has to join their um back Country Hunters dot org
are Arkansas chapter page. We'll have information on it as well. Cool. Well, Um,
(17:47):
is there anything else we haven't cover? I mean, I
know we could, we we could go deep into it,
but I think we've we've really done a good job
of hitting the high points and letting people know what's
going on. And we're just appreciative, you know, more than anything.
I know the people over there. I have been in
contact with with several of the people over there who
(18:10):
are really concerned about it, and and there they at
the risk of inviting the rest of the world to
come down and hunt their place, they are asking for
our help to save it. And um, and I think
that's a worthy thing. And so I appreciate the time.
(18:31):
Back Country Hunters Anglers mobilizes people better than any group
I've ever been a part of. That's that's what we do. Yeah,
that's what yeah, I mean, And that's and the and
the and the allies that we have. That's what I've
told them. I'm like, we will get the message out,
we will mobilize people to contact I mean. Part of
(18:55):
the way that this problem is going to get resolved
is finding an alternate way for the Universe City to
sell it. Because if they need to sell it, if
they need that money, well we let's help them find
it in a way that makes sense. Well and sell
you're saying, sell it to a group that would keep
it in public. Yeah. Yeah, if they can sell it
to Game and Fish Commission, if they for service and
whatever it is. You know, let's find a way to
(19:17):
keep this land. You don't have seen million you donate
to this. Oh man, I just built a big old
bear cabin out in the woods and not yet I'm
still working on my first billion. Well, thanks to James,
you've been um. Yeah, maybe we'll get We'll keep everybody
(19:38):
updated on this and they can check it out on
social media. That sounds good. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you,
thank you.
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