Ep. 892: Ryan Callaghan on Public Lands and Conservation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
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When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First
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(00:29):
field longer, no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it
out at first light dot com. That's f I R
S T L I T E dot com. Good lord,
it's Ryan Callahan back from the dead. Yeah, you're back
from fatherhood. You had a baby.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I assisted in having a baby.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, yeah, I understand how long ago?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Uh we So Friday is the birthday, so it's very
easy to keep track unless you're in between Fridays like
we are right now. So it's two and a half weeks,
three weeks, first child, three and a half weeks. Yeah,
first first child ever and baby boy came out seven
pounds five ounces.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
And that's a stat that people share. But I don't
think that.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's it's all relatively Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Know that that means a lot to people.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Everything perfectly average, like the doc said, like perfectly average,
big hands, big feet, but might grow into those type
of things, and it was kind of hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Average little baby, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, perfectly average, but you're like, oh, kind of like
clown hands and clown feet, which is funny. And then
definitely my hairline, which is a bummer for that kid.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
The baby has your hairline. Yeah, it's like high up.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, widows peak comes back real.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Far born with widows peak.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
What's your biggest takeaway so far being a dad?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I you know, like the biggest thing is I'm like,
it's not that big of a deal. Like I think
we're blessed for the fact that it's not. We don't
follow in any like the horror story categories. It is
a hands on thing. But the thing that I just

(02:26):
keep coming back to is I'm like, oh my god,
I cannot paid parental leave. How did people manage this
without paid parental leave? I'm like, that is such an
like that is the thing that makes this thing doable.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Like just you know they give you in the military,
the dad three days. Oh yeah, you got three days. Well.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I was talking to my buddy Kyler, who I used
to build houses with, and he's like, two days per kid.
That's what we do, you know. And I'm like, I'll
just like so blown away by like I get a
focus on this as my job and get through that
initial learning curve. It's all a learning curve, but and

(03:10):
will be forever I suppose. But I'm just blown away
by that, like this is and I just feel like
it's got to like make for better relationships with you know,
between the parent and child bond.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
It gets to be there and help a little bit
at first. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
You know. I took note that you somehow managed to
get the baby out of the hospital without having a name. Yeah,
And when we had our kids, I felt that by
the time we went away, they had a name.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
How how did you What did you have to say
to say that I don't know the name yet?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
You know, the thing that I think got us out
of there without the name is the fact that somebody
was like, well, I thought you legally had to have
a name him, and I said, no, you don't, and
the hospital admin person kind of pauses for a second.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
You get you guys discussed.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It, yeah, yeah, because we were fully being like, oh, yeah,
we're going to see the little nipper. This is how
the whole thing's gonna go and by the time we leave,
we'll have the name.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
He looks like a chucky exactly.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
And You're just bugged non stop to the point where
I'm like, hey, Sam has got to get some rest,
you know. But every shift change, there's vitals and then
all the things, and and so we just got to
the point where, like, we have got to get out
of here. There's no rest, there's no time to actually
just like sit with this and figure things out. And

(04:48):
then yeah, I will tell you that we are still
nameless here at three and a half weeks in, but
we are very very close to about three names right now.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah. Yeah, now the mother ye shared I heard his
second hand. Sam shared with another friend of ours that
she said it took Cal months to name his dog.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
So I don't know, Maybe it's gonna take a while.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
A lot of it might be a generational thing, or
it might just be certain people. But I've a lot
of the folks in my extended friends and family have
been like, oh yeah, none of my kids Nate came
home with a name.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Oh really.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
I felt like, I don't know why, I don't know
where I got the idea, but I just came away
thinking that it was like like it was like an
edict from God that you name before they come out.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh yeah, now that I'm learning, it's not it's too late.
They all got names.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
My grandpa passed away like three months before. He had
like this this series. The complications that were like, you're
gonna have to go in and get your chest drained
and all these things in order to stay alive to
meet this baby. And he was in perfect mind and

(06:14):
and you know, so his bummer ninety one or ninety two,
ninety one, ninety two and and uh and you know,
he's a James. And so I was like, you know,
I can't get the name James out of my head
because I was so excited for this, for Grams to
meet this kid. And then you know, I was like, hey,

(06:36):
you got to stick around. He's like, well, how long
is that going to be? It was like three months,
and he's like yeah, and didn't make it. Yeah, He's
like I'll see him later technically, yeah, yeah, because he
just was he had you know, he's an old doc
and stuff. Didn't you know, do not resuscitate some of
the things. Sure, he had his plan laid out of

(06:56):
like that one.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
I didn't know it so he passed away. Yeah yeah,
maybe I can't. I don't think I knew that.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, it's like three and a half months ago, now,
you know so, but that was like and I think
James is still in the running.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
But now we're like so far down the name rabbit hole.
There's like the social pressure of being like, oh, you
guys waited three months and you came up with Jim.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah. No, yeah, they're expected some real razzle dazzle now, man,
they're expecting like something crazy, you know, exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, And a bunch of folks were like, Snort was
such an awesome name for your dog. We're really really
can't wait to hear what you name the kid.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, yeah, well you could take Snort, give that name
to the kid, and then think of a new name
for the dog, Yes, if you needed to do something
like that.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, but we also kind of already did that because
I had gotten in a panic about getting the new
puppy to give Snort some backup prior to the kids showing.
That didn't happen. But the breeder that I got Snort
from her, the Snort's sister, the same litter was having

(08:08):
her last litter, and uh, I was like, oh my god,
I got to have one of those dogs. And I
just just got that dog yesterday. Oh so that dog
got one of the kid names right away, So we
name named the puppy roll.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Like you took a discard and gave it to the dog.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh, you you have a two and a half week
old baby and you went and brought a dog into
the house.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, but the dog's way more advanced than the kid.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Is.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Dog's eight weeks.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Old because they're living in dog years.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, well, man much. I love babies. I want to
talk about your other big life change. So, uh, A
lot of your listeners know Cal from Cal's Weekend review,
and a lot of you know that Cal recently went
over not even what I don't know if you months ago,

(09:00):
six months ago, six months now, six months ago, Cal
took over as I believe that.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Is it CEO as president and CEO president.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
And CEO of the conservation organization Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.
What's going on. How's that been?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Oh? I mean it's been awesome. I mean, as you know,
like I found like every which way to make all
my previous jobs harder than they needed to be because
I was always trying to find good conservation stories or
angles or or ways to make bigger impacts. And that

(09:43):
gets it's a way more complicated job, but it's also
in a way more simple and focused because it's like
that's what I'm doing as my job every minute of
the day.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yeah, and you're leading a team of how many people.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Right now? We are thirty six? Yeah? Yeah, So membership organization,
active membership, you know, we got it like a bunch
of members that aren't active active membership. We're a little
over thirty thousand right now growing, which is great to see.

(10:24):
And then forty four chapters active chapters across North America,
you know we have they're not chapters anymore because they're
officially standalone nonprofits in Canada at Alberta and British Columbia
and which is you know out here we have a

(10:44):
lot of cross border issues, conservation issues. And then yeah,
we have everybody kind of works on everything, but it's
like a stewardship, so like hands on dirt, underneath fingernails,

(11:06):
side of the house policy, and and I kind of
break it down into like community building, right.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
So people know like people that follow these things, people
that support the organ know that BHA, as it's commonly known,
the BHA stands for public lands, But like, like, how
do you describe like a layer deeper? How do you
describe BHA to somebody when you say, like, our mission

(11:38):
is to what?

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot because the
scope of the organization and I'm not beating up on anybody, right,
but it's like trout unlimited okay general yeah, yeah, and
then people are like, well, what does it at BH?
What is it there?

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, exactly our em EF Yeah. And intentionally, the scope
of BHA was really broad because they wanted to fill
all these gaps that were kind of getting left out
of some of these species specific hook and bullet organizations

(12:24):
and oftentimes that it would just be like b A
lambland Okay, wilderness. Uh, And there's wilderness organizations out there,
but there weren't any that were really like firmly pro hunt,
pro fish.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
They may have been at one point and they work
on similar issues, but it's not like the masthead and Uh,
that idea is sound, but it makes the mission huge.
I think the benefit is we can think a little
more holistically. But the negative is we get spread really thin.
So by and large, if we were a like a

(13:05):
for profit business building the widget, as they say in
the business world, that widget would be conservation leaders, and
it's like people who show up and want to do stuff,
and that is advocate for their issues, which you know,

(13:26):
if you're working on behalf of BHA, it's our issues too.
But public land, public water, public wildlife, and the access
word would be like access to those things, and that
can get kind of nuanced on the wildlife side of things,
but it makes the organization a little more swift and adaptable.

(13:49):
And then on stewardship, it is literally coming out in
augmenting landscapes, so habitat work, which for us would buy
and large be trail improvements and juniper removal, some planting,
but our migration corridor work is really really significant, and

(14:14):
again because of our scope, nobody really knows about it.
But we just got the Bureau of Land Management's Conservation
Partner of the Year award, really which like we just
punched so far out of our weight class. There are
a lot of really big organizations get this, that have
hundreds of employees and dealing in many, many millions of

(14:37):
dollars of federal grant work to do this stuff. And
so yeah, really incredible that that we got this award.
And we almost exclusively remove or augment fence within migration corridors,
which basically you have your big.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Grazing is doing like the physical the physical work, so
people might use GPS collar data or car crash data
to know that these are problematic areas along migration corridors
and do the physical hands on work of removing barriers.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, and oftentimes it's it's your grazer on the ground
who has their allotment and they're like, you can't keep
a fence up here. Oh, like we build them in
the spring and winter migration comes and they all go
down type of thing. And so we'll go in there
survey those fence lines. And so you have like your

(15:38):
your allotment fences, which kind of by design of the
BLM are always firm, like they're always up, non negotiable,
and we'll go in and augment those those fences to
wildlife friendly. And then you have your interior fences that
basically create pastures within that A lot those ones are negotiable,

(16:01):
so if they there's a lot the US used to
produce a lot of sheep, and there's a lot of that,
you know, uh, square fencing out there on the landscape that.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
I don't know if you're supposed to call it. And
just for people listening, like everybody can picture a barbed
wire fence, and you'll talk about whether it's three strand
or four strand whatever, And and for wildlife friendly fencing,
there's considerations about how low the bottom strand is, meaning

(16:43):
can prong horn or whatever get under it. There's considerations
about how high the top strand is, like can it
well it stop stuff from being able to jump it? Right?
Does that have barbs on it that could hang stuff up.
Then there's this other question of when you put these
these panels in that have like eight inch squares, yeah,

(17:06):
which no big games getting no big games getting through
that by going under right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
And and it's a small game thing too, or at
their hell on sage grouse and like if you can
picture an animal on the landscape, you can find it
dead in one of those fences somehow, some way, mountain lions,
bobcats everything. But so go in, cut that stuff down,

(17:35):
roll it up, pack it out, also installing virtual fence,
so there's yeah, there's big grants out there for the
actual producer to trial virtual fencing. Right, so we'll put
up the and then it's vents is the working, Yeah,

(17:57):
put up towers for the creates the connectivity for each
individual collar kid. And so there's a bunch of cool
stuff happening out there. And the BLM uses their own
math to like measure impact on there and depending on

(18:20):
where you are in those migration corridors, you can you know,
it's all hard. But we had one project last year
that was a one day fence poll two point one
miles and the impact because of the location was over
thirty thousand miles of positive impact within that migration corridor.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Help me understand that it's.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I think it's because of bottlenecks that animals are moving
through and dispersing too, got it? And then and then
some of them are six miles and way less too.
So our job, the steward teamship team's job is to

(19:06):
look at these projects. And then because most of what
we do and this is like the doing things the
hard way, but I think in the long run the
better way is were trying to empower whoever wants to
show up to do the work. So volunteers because we

(19:27):
want people to have that sense of ownership in their
public lands and resources. So and then they're all mixed groups.
So you have a lot of people who will because
we'll put up signage at like riis and and try
to get people from all slices of the pie to
show up, and they're in this mixed group. And we

(19:50):
try to get people to camp out on a Friday night,
so you leave work with your car, camp and stuff,
ideally show up Friday night. Oftentimes we try to have
some sort of wild game food there for the volunteers,
and then we get to talk about wild food and
where it comes from and and everybody gets a taste

(20:14):
of that. The next morning, you get a brief on
what we're going to do that day, you get tools,
you get team leads. We get lots and lots of
repeat volunteers on these things, so they get you know,
you kind of have like crew chiefs that are volunteers too,
and then you're out there rubbing shoulders with hunters, non hunters, birders, whatever.

(20:39):
You know, people who just thought it was was neat
and certainly people at all across the skill level spectrum,
and then you have this sweat equity in your public lands.
You have Bureau of Land Management professionals out there. Oftentimes
you have the grazers out there too, And it's really

(21:01):
the secret sauce, right, because you have people who are like,
nobody gives a shit about this stuff, and then they
kind of get blown away by.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Like, oh yeah, man, he's.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Are really random people.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
People showing up and doing it.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Care about this stuff. So we've gotten two thousand volunteers
out on the landscape right now. And you know, the idea,
right is like there'll be like a little ripple effect
within those communities and and they get it to be like,
oh my gosh, this is really hard stuff, but it
has an outsized impact and rub shoulders with new people

(21:37):
tried wild game for the first time. And so our
stewardship coordinators have a really hard job because they're handling
a lot of logistics and trying to find these projects
where you can conceivably draw from a bunch of population
centers to get people out and then make sure that
you have people on the ground too that are supportive

(21:59):
of the right because you have a lot of burned
out folks on the landscape who are like because these contracts,
some of these contracts don't get bit on. Some of
these contracts get picked up by groups that are well
intentioned but just can't get things done on the landscape.

(22:20):
And we want to have a stellar reputation, right, and
so far it's working right. So we got got that award,
which is you want.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
To get like if you say you're gonna do it,
you're gonna do it. Yeah. Yeah, Now you guys here,
you brought me this shirt, Phil, can you see this? Good?
Cal brought me this shirt. So Michigan says this land
is my land, but it's like them I Michigan and
it shows an orange, it shows public land.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Thank you buddy, Phil.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Tell me why you can best see this? Sucker. Okay,
here's Michigan. Those public land in orange. Okay, this is
all public land in Michigan. And you were saying the
point of the shirt is show here's a stick like
we Oftentimes a lot of guys, especially people out west,
associate public land with out west and I'm just taught you.

(23:15):
You mentioned big gain migrations, juniper encroachment. Okay, these are
like these are sort of like Western things. But then
you got forty four forty four chapters all over in
the east, right, what like help me understand that? So Michigan,
I get it. Like, man, there's a boatload of public

(23:36):
land in Michigan. But if you go south of there, Ohio, Indiana,
right much less. Right, you get up in the northeast,
you get more. But you got these pockets where there's
not much, but you got chapters there, and you got
volunteers there. If what is the what is the eastern
equivalent of pulling fences? What is the Eastern equivalent of

(23:59):
improved grasslands by removing junipers in areas where junipers are
encroaching on Western grasslands? Like what does that look like
somewhere else?

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, the juniper like the green glacier thing that I
know we've covered on meat Eater before. That juniper encroachment
into our grasslands is a major issue throughout the whole
prairie states. And we'll do some of that work in Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa,

(24:30):
and and then there's there's a lot of burning you know,
out out in most states too. And then just low
barrier to entry, right like what BHA has been doing
well and and really My dream right is, is to
have an accessible conservation group to where it's like, if

(24:52):
you don't have a bunch of money, we still got
plenty of things for you to do. If you don't
I want to go to a banquet, we got stuff
for you to do if you know. I want the
whole political spectrum, the whole working class spectrum, to be
invested in their public land, public water, in public wildlife,

(25:14):
even if you never step foot or interact with those things.
I got lots of arguments as to why they should matter.
But if you show up to these community events, you
get to meet these people firsthand, and you may not
have a thing in common other than the fact that
you appreciate this stuff. But turns out that's a lot right.

(25:36):
So stewardship in some areas may never get beyond a
public land trash pickup, but oftentimes we'll make them. You know,
it's like what we talk about a lot, right, It's
like you can have a really strong mess message as
long as it's like eighty percent fun. So we'll have

(25:59):
a biologists come out and talk about turkeys, uh, and
why what you're doing picking up trash in this area
is a good thing for that resource or talk about
burning ecology stuff like that. Have giveaways, but make it
like a family friendly event because you know, one of

(26:19):
the things that I'm very convinced on is like we
got to get this stewardship ownership mindset, like indoctrinated into
people in as young as we can get them, because
you know.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
That's some Aldo Leopold stuff man like that being an
active participant. Yeah, out on the landscape, man like his
thing of like the you know, the the person wielding
the person wielding the acts or whatever. You know, like
like the person out working on the landscape as a conservationist,

(26:54):
you know.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
And and I would ask.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
I mean, I love going down and winning. I love
going down and bidding on auction items at the banquet
as much as the next guy. But like there's more
to it.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
There's this thing that I think has gotten us in
trouble over the years, which is like somebody else will
do it for us, and that that is part of
the benefit of a membership organization. Like we have people
at the state House at the capitol because you have
a job and you cannot be there, but we work

(27:27):
our asses off to empower volunteers to be there. Too,
and get that feeling of empowerment and and ownership of
I get to represent myself and my community at the
Fishing Game committee or in front of Congress even, Right.

(27:48):
But I feel really strongly that we kind of got
in this like oh, the ranger will come by and
pick that up type of mindset. The government's going to
do it for me. And it's like, now we're in
this crazy political football age where you can take whole
programs of the government doing it for you and they're

(28:11):
gone in the blink of an eye, right, and then
it's like, Okay, well, everybody gonna get so pissed that
we're gonna be like, okay, sell it. Right. Well, there's
all sorts of ways that we can try to prevent
that through working within the political spectrum, but the surefire

(28:33):
way to prevent that is if everybody just gives a
shit and it's like, oh my god, this is ours.
It's a national treasure. We're invested in this, and I
learned about this in kindergarten in grade school, and you know,
we are invested as Americans in our natural resources, and

(28:53):
so much so that they go on beyond the next administration. Right,
we're talking about these things in perpetuity. And that's part
of what community building will do, is you go, oh,
the burden's not just mine, it's Steve Vanelli's and Fill

(29:16):
the engineer and all these people from across the spectrum,
like we all are invested in this. It is ours,
it's our American right, and it's you get away from
some of this this kind of politics stuff, this choosing
side stuff, because this stuff is squarely in the middle.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
There's a level of realizing about public lands and public
land resources and in a personal responsibility to them. There's
a level of maturity that is required to see those
places that way. And I say this from my own experience,

(29:56):
and I've mentioned I've talked about this a bunch before.
I grew up near what was that Manistee National Forest.
I think it's got a slightly more complicated name now,
but it's time the southern end of Manaste National Forest.
We hunted on it, hunted rabbits on it, trapped it,
recreated on it, had bb gun wars on it. It
was like we viewed it and treated it as though

(30:23):
it fell from the sky. It was just that it
was there, always had been there, always would be there.
And there was no sense of personal ownership right, And
it would be that you'd go to Keger parties and
the Keger parties, he'd be on the National forest and

(30:45):
you'd burn tires and burn palettes and you know, tenth
grade whatever and then walk away because it's just here.
Someone will get it, do you know what I mean?
And it was like it took and I don't know
if I if I had someone telling me the conservation

(31:06):
history of those spaces and someone telling me what is
required to maintain these places and the deliberate actions that
took place to make them here and to make them
available and make them public, even if you told me that,
it might not have clicked. That I was a certain
age anyway for sure, But I think that it would
have definitely helped if someone had articulated it to me.

(31:29):
But I don't think it was really even known or
recognized by our elders. Yeah, like people didn't the turn
like this is in Michigan. The vocabulary wasn't there, yep,
do you know what I mean? No one even are
the grown ups. If I'd have said why is this here?

(31:52):
No one would have said, oh, it was because of
this act of Congress or the actions of this president,
and like here's the all all the deliberate steps that
took place to make it what it is, And here's
the management strategy, and here's what does happen and doesn't happen,
and here's the work that goes into it. It was absent.
It was absent. I don't know what I'm telling you.

(32:15):
I'm telling you something you already know. But when you
go out in the woods, you see where people like
just decided to like shoot trees down for target practice
and like trash a place. It is it's because it's
like they view it like a like a guarantee. Do
you follow me?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh? And there's that, and there there is just what
you said, like they don't know yeah, like when we
were Yeah, I'm having a lot of conversations with with
landowners here in the state of Montana, like like mid
level the large landowners in the state of Montana, and

(32:51):
there's a lot of just like for sure, and certain
things that come out and and it's like the percentage
of folks who display poor behave you're on private and
public land. The vast, vast, vast majority just do not
have a freaking clue at this point, sure, right, they
have no idea about agriculture. They have no idea about

(33:13):
a lot of whether it's in the regulation book or not,
the kind of like the Hunter's Code, the ethics of
certain things, the stuff that we talk about a lot
like just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right in
all cases type of thing. And and then there's a
percentage that are just doing bad stuff.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Right. But if I had, man, I feel like I
feel like when I was a kid, if it had
been that my old man dragged us out to go
do a stream project on the national forest, or in
some way instilled this idea that like, this is sweet

(33:54):
and it's here because people. It's not here by accident, yep,
it's here because people work for it and cherish it.
It might have set me off in a different direction earlier,
but I think a lot of places it's absent, Man,
it's absent. So what I'm getting at with that is
it like that kind of work of just even results,

(34:14):
like the labor that you're talking about, results in a
good result or sorry, it yields a good result moving
a fence and proving migration. But it's more than that
because it probably is very eye opening for people to
all of a sudden understand like, oh, I see what

(34:35):
this is. You know, I understand now what this is. Man,
This is like a thing we fight for.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Cash to go that grant money we can it's in
our power to use that cash to go pay contractors,
right and just third party of the whole deal.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Sure, But.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
What's the long term effect of yeah, right, it's like
I would say, not much in comparison.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
So yeah, to make it, Yeah, to build, to build
a generation of people who kind of who just are
invited to see it as a thing that you labor for.
You know, that's the thing that people labor for and
is the thing that took deliberate actions to create for.
You would make it a lot harder to go ship
it up.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
And I think we've had as a nation as a
buy and large like an ethos of serious reverence for
public wildlife for instance, right, Like there's all you can
research all sorts of articles that were in papers of

(35:44):
like saw a deer today, right, white tailed deer was
spotted on so and So's place out by whatever it
was in the in the.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Newspaper, like it was noteworthy.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, it was a it was a really big deal.
And and so there's this era of extreme scarcity that
came on the back end of an era of I
would say, like abundance to greed, which led into oh

(36:18):
my god, I better get it before it's gone. It's
going to be gone anyway. And then here comes this
overwhelming surge of again reverence and what we call conservation today.
And then I think your dad's era, right, it was like,
I really don't want to think about anything. By and large,

(36:40):
I've been through a lot. I'm more out here for
a level of independence and therapy of some sort. And
now I can point to, like many many examples across
Westerns dates, they're seeing a lot of hunter pressure relative

(37:04):
to the history of those states, or doll Sheep in Alaska,
where a hunter behavior anecdotally has really changed around that resource.
Where it used to just be like you'd get laughed
out of town if you shot a legal ram, but
now it's like a legal ram is what you're after,

(37:26):
because by god, if I don't get it now, yep,
it's going away anyway. Type of mindset. Right, And throughout
all of these changes in history, our federal workforce peaked
in the nineteen seventies, and the demands on that public

(37:46):
ground have only increased, and that workforce hasn't increased along
with those demands. And now we're dropping way back down.
And my only point here is that at the beginning
of the national parks or the forest system, the refuge system,
there was never a point in time where there were

(38:07):
so many wardens on the landscape that you were going
to get caught.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Right, it was a social contract out there that was like,
by god, you better respect this stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
It was the other users on the landscape that were
really enforcing these things, plus the idea of the super
sneaky woods wise game warden that was going to pop
out of nowhere type of thing.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Right. You know what's funny about that, man, ih We
hunted fished all the time. Because I was very little kid.
I never got checked by a game ward until I
was twenty years old. Yeah, and believe that twenty years old,
never laid that, not that I didn't lay eyes on one,
never got checked by one, You're right. I mean it
really is like a like speeding. You know, you kind

(38:54):
of don't speed because you don't want a ticket.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
But in fishing, game law there is a social contract. Right.
You don't go like, I better get a license because
I'll get checked today. You're just like you feel this
moral obligation to get your license.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Right, The math does not add up on getting checked.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
You do it out of some like because you do
it because you believe in the system to some degree.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
So yeah, I mean we were relatively small conservation group, right,
But I mean, if that is the goal, it will
never end. But I would sure like it too, right,
Like if we had a nationalistic pride in these resources,
and they are resources. Extraction is part of who we

(39:43):
are as well. But there's been many times throughout our
history where we were like, oh my god, we need
to self regulate, and that self regulation turns into it
a whole system of regulations because it has just got
to happen. And what's really interesting right now is like

(40:04):
I know through conversations, you know, from the White House,
throughout the Senate and the House, there there is a
drive right now for deregulation. Yeah, And a lot of
the people who are pushing for deregulation are not connected

(40:25):
to these resources at all. There are many degrees of separation, sure,
but they are running off of well, that's what the
people want, right, and our job, as is the job
of a TRCP and many other conservation groups, is to say, like, yeah,
there's changes that can be made, and there's antiquated things

(40:47):
out there that don't make sense. But the reason that
we're having this conversation right now is only because of
regulation and the adherence to.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Those Oh that there's anything left to argue about.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Yeah, on the hunt and fishing side of things, we
just wouldn't be having this conversation. Yeah, right, it's I.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Mean, you're yeah, you're bringing up a huge point. I
always like to bring up this point that there's not
a politician alive today that wouldn't like to be favorably
compared to Theodore Roosevelt. Right, anyone would be like, oh,

(41:29):
if you're going to favorably compare me to tr please
I'll accept. Not only that there are politicians that claim
the mantle of tr that are undeserving of that, but
they want it so bad they'll just take it for themselves. Yep,
they'll draw comparisons. It's like, I'm sorry, he was a

(41:51):
regulation guy. He was a regulation guy because lack of
regulation had brought us into the dark ages. Of American wildlife.
And so when we applaud when anyone applauds the North
American model, when they applaud tr or TR being up
on Mount Rushmore, what you're applauding is you're applauding someone

(42:14):
saying we are going to put limits. We are going
to regulate harvest, we're going to regulate sale of wildlife,
We're going to regulate timber extraction. It to then land
in the spot to land and then land in the
luxury of saying that the American way is to deregulate,

(42:36):
it's it's mind boggling. Memories are so short.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Memories are so short. You know, obviously there's an opportunity
here right now too. But one of the things that
is certainly part of our mission at BHA is like
we have got to get if if you love doing
anything on public lands, or seeing anything on public lands,

(43:06):
or seeing migratory birds, songbirds, whatever, it is like you
have got to get active here and you've got to
start associating with other groups and finding these big common themes.
Right So, obviously I know you guys have covered like
Roadless Rule a bunch the Executive order on OHV use
oil and gas lease sales. H deregulation through the big

(43:30):
beautiful bill list really does go on and on. That
is the theme that is happening here is broad deregulation,
because that's what the American people want, right, and we
have got to be like wait, wait, not that and

(43:52):
not that, and this could can be done better.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
And but there's a model of there's a model of
pointing to there's sort of a rhetorical strategy where you
go find examples of regulations that are antiquated, or regulations
that don't work, or regulations that are just goofy, and
maybe you always have been goofy right or excessive, and

(44:19):
you go, because of that, let's just ditch the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
You know. It's a point I bring up. Like a
way I think about it is is if you look,
if you go back to COVID COVID restrictions, you could
look and say and I saw people do it. I
did it. The minute someone's like, man, you shouldn't you
need to be scared of the boxes that were delivered

(44:47):
in your yard, like leave them out there for a
couple of days, you know, And then you hear someone
say like, well that that's that's ridiculous, and you're like
you get fixated on how dumb that was, and then
you get to where like, I'm not listening to any
of this stuff, right, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Like remember the box thing?

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Yeah, like the box thing there far off, I'm done
washing my hands. The box thing was crazy. That's like
a human way where you you find you sort of
see this category of things. One of those things seems crazy,
and instead of isolating out the crazy one, you get
where you're just done. Oh yeah, you're done. You see
it in friendships, you have a great friendship with someone

(45:26):
and they do a thing a couple of times. Eventually
you're just like, I know, I know he's got some
nice things. I'm done. Yep. You know I think that
there is We hit these in like regulatory stuff where
you'll hear about a crazy thing and then people get like, ah, yeah, absolutely,
we'll just go back to the old way, you know,

(45:46):
and you kind of go like you want to be like, well,
let's let's let's address the real problems, but let's keep
our eyes on what the goal is here, yep, Like,
like we agree that we want clean air and clean
water and healthy wildlife population, Like we agree on that,
and sure, let's talk about these things that are off,
but we don't. We just we jump to a radical

(46:09):
we jump to a radical thing. Absolutely there's some government
waste kill the whole thing, you know.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Uh, insanely diverse landscape that we have, right, like blessed
as an American with unbelievable opportunities that it can be
so wildly different from an edge of one state to
another state, or the end of a watershed to the
top end of a watershed. The people on the ground

(46:39):
understand that you can't like blanket manage all of this stuff,
Like it is complicated and it does take time, and
it takes real on the ground knowledge to inform how
that stuff doesn't needs to be managed and that complicated,

(47:05):
you know, time consuming approach to something that we will
never be able to recreate ever gets wrapped up in
this like, well'll see the government can't do anything.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Right, yeah, right, what this might be hard to answer.
What when you're talking about like you're you're talking about
doing work on BLM land, right, So you're coming in
and doing like you're you're coming in on there's federal
property and you're coming in and doing work on federal property,

(47:36):
So you have private people coming in and doing work
on federal property, or you could have private people a
private organization coming in and helping clear trails on federal land.
So there's jobs that need to be done on public
lands that aren't getting done, aren't getting done all the way,

(47:56):
and so there's a need for private people to come
in and do it. Have you seen in your time
and your role and you've been involved in BHA for
a very long time as a board member, but so
in your time there, particularly in your time in the
leadership position, have you seen like literal situations where doge

(48:18):
cuts have left things undone that then that then private
organizations have found a way to go in and get
taken care of. Or is it not or is it
not that literal?

Speaker 2 (48:35):
There's certain like staffing is a huge issue because like
it's not and like there was a time where there
just literally wasn't a person in the office who could
physically handle the check, couldn't write the check, sign it,

(48:56):
put it in a mailbox. Yeah, you just that has
to get done somehow, and there wasn't a backup mechanism
for that. When we talk about inventorying, a a fence
line for example. You know there there's a lot of

(49:18):
communication on the ground with with the people on the ground,
would be a rangeland ecologist or you know on the
forest service side, Uh, any any number of people, right,
h they get stretched in on a on a bunch
of things because they're not going out there to address

(49:41):
problem A, and they run across problem B and they
just ignore it. So there's gaps that I think the
private sector is is very capable of filling in. But
oftentimes it's that historical knowledge on a landscape. Sure, that

(50:03):
is the real conduit to making that private sector work
anywhere near efficient.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, Like you guys can't just roll up in the
truck and decide what fence you want to start working on.
I mean it's gotta go. Yeah, it's got to go.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
You're coming in on what road?

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Yeah? Yeah, I'll see that.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah, Well you need to drive three hundred miles around
and come in on this road and it'll be faster
and way less wear and tear on your equipment than
trying to come in on the road that's fifty miles long.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
So you find places where like just those there's gaps
and those pieces yep, like like pass through individuals aren't.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
There yep, yep. For sure, Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Can you think of anything from the last let's go
back to the beginning of the current administration. What are
things that happen in like Trump too, and a lot
of things get I want to preface that a little bit.
A lot of things get plugged to like the administration
that are probably well outside of the White the view

(51:05):
of the White House, right, Like you'll hear like you
know Trump is doing X or the administration is doing X.
You'd be like, yes, the administration, but many layers removed
from the White House, meaning in the White House, are
probably not aware of this is coming from downstream? Right,
But can you think of many cases or any cases

(51:28):
of things that have come out in the last year
and a half that that you can applaud, like, like,
what are you looking at that excites you?

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Well, I mean I and I'm not.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Saying you have to provide something because I see I've
seen some.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Things, oh for sure, But well I do I want many.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Things to excite me as I've seen to depress me that.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
As you know, right, Like, if you're you're in a
leadership position, you have a lot of people providing you
with information and and some of those people may or
may not have agendas, but they do want typically to
make things go well, and they're probably outsourcing information too.

(52:19):
And we've come across many things here recently where we've
heard directly from high level officials, conversations like, well, we
were told that everybody wanted this, and you're telling me
that that's not true. And why are we getting so
much negative feedback on this thing that was overwhelmingly positive

(52:39):
And you have the feeling in the back of your
mind of like, oh, you were misinformed.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Give me an example. So let me I don't want
to leave you. I don't want to leave you trying
to struggle to understand my intents. Let me let me
ask it a little bit differently our our organization, like
like at Mediator, we've talked a lot about We covered

(53:06):
in Trump won, we covered a little bit during the
Biden administration. We covered again in Trump two of the
move and Trump two being the biggest move in this
direction was like freeing up hunting and fishing opportunities, refuges,
refuges something so yeah. In some areas administered by the
National Parks Service and we've explained it, applauded it, defended

(53:31):
the rationale. Okay, the today, someone sends me an op
ed of someone saying, like a lot of media organizations,
he doesn't name names, he's like a lot of media organizations,
a lot of wildlife organizations, a lot of conservation organizations,
refuse to acknowledge any of the positives, you know. And

(53:54):
I looked at that, and I'm like, man, that doesn't
ring true to me. Yeah, I've read about this refuge
system all over They expanded hunting and fishing access on
refuge systems. The New York Times attacked it unfairly, and
I addressed why I thought it was an unfair attack.

(54:16):
We applauded it when it happened the first time, applauded it.
Now like no one's ignoring this, But there has been
a in my mind, there's been an undeniable feeling of it,
of of cascading bad news. And so I just want

(54:38):
to I want to ask you from like a your
position to not be guilty of what the op ed
was saying, Like from your position, Yeah, what have you
seen this? Man? Like, what are you seeing lately at
the federal level that you're applauding or that you're liking, you.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Know, I mean several executive orders h and I brought
up the HB one. It's a good example. It's having
negative consequences right now, unfortunately. But many of the executive
orders are big statements that do at the end say
like unless there's currently a travel management plan.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
In place, yeah right, yep, Like I see, you know,
I was put in the idea. I was putting like this,
like if I said, let's say I said to my kids,
I'm like, don't even ask me. Don't even ask me
if you can spend the night at your friend's house.
I don't want to hear any requests about that. It's done.
And then later I say, I don't know what the

(55:38):
answer will be on an individual basis, but I'm okay
to field requests now, but I don't know what I'll say.
You can at least bring the request to me. So
some of these things have this like this, and it
gets put in the press like oh, it's all open now,
you can drive anywhere you want now, yep, you know,

(55:58):
But you look at me, like if you read it,
the fine print just says we'll see case by case
basis right, but something shifts.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yes, yeah, and when it comes time to have a
new travel management plan, it's going to be these things
are going to be considered. Right, But for the time being,
if there's a travel management plan in place, that is
the law. Yeah and yeah, A lot of a lot
of media, because of this need want for hyperbole, have

(56:30):
really really put a ding on our public lands because
they're saying, oh, all this stuff's open now, and that
is not the case. And I can go into a
bunch of work that we're doing right now to try
to help some positive messaging around that.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
So what really is in the what really is everybody
saw the headlines or not everybody, but there's a lot
of headlines like help me, help me describe the general
headline off road use? Like what would be the general
headline you saw about off road use?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Oh, the general it would be like Trump rolls back
bedrock travel management plans. It opens the paves the way
for off road use would probably be the thing.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Right, But what is happening there? Let's take this example,
like what is happening there? Well, so when I saw it,
I didn't get a I didn't get a feeling without
you know, my knee jerk reaction must be like, oh, yep, yep,
I don't like the sounds of that.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
First of all, off road on BLM and Forest Service
Land is kind of a misnomer because you can go
off road on these designated roads and trails, not cross
country travel.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yeah. When I say off road, they mean off of pavement,
off of designated highways, off of county roads.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Yeah, big thoroughfare er, main artery type of thing. And
then that's broken into single track motorized. Of course, there's
single track non motorized wilderness, no bicycles, right, And then
you have your fifty inch or less width restriction four

(58:32):
wheel and then you have your your full size like
jeep trail, high clearance vehicle roads, and that's like that's
where you do your off roading. And then there's certain
areas where there is a designated spot for ripping around

(58:53):
wherever you want, and it is visually the place to
do that. Hard to mistake it for.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
On some big sand dune or something.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah. And then so what the OHV order did was
it said this Nixon era executive order. And then I
want to say it's Carter, I'm a little sleep deprived, right,
now Carter Era OHV executive order, we're going to rescind

(59:23):
those they were you know, I would say like very
forward thinking as far as like, hey, as this user
group and technology expands, the impacts that we're seeing today
are only going to be exacerbated on the landscape. We
have a lot of industry out and this is something

(59:46):
that gets lost a lot, right, is we have a
lot of extractive use industry that's out there, and it
will be a danger to individuals and an impediment to
those industries if people are writing where every hell and gone,
and it will impact the return that we have on

(01:00:07):
our growing for us, for the timber industry, and it's
it's a bad look. It causes erosion, which impacts our
road systems and our culverts and our spawning habitats and
our streams and you know the typical cascading effects. Right.

(01:00:30):
And and then the thing that most people saw was
the switch from a de facto closed unless posted open
to open and less posted closed. And the way that
that works is every district has m v U M,

(01:00:55):
a motor vehicle use map, which I always thought was
a really sweet idea. It's you know, you can go
get an armload of them if you want, and they're
typically at gas stations that are selling off road gas
and they're at your ranger district offices and stuff like that.
But you have that map in your possession. It shows

(01:01:15):
the exactly what's open to what, and then it's supposed
to work. Is kind of like an affidavit in your
pocket too, to be like, oh, I know the rules
and then you know because of like years and years
and years of litigation, the way those things are posted

(01:01:36):
and signed. They all have open dates and closed dates,
and if you want to color outside the lines on
those for trail condition closures or whatever, if it's not
within the dates, you're not going to get ticketed. You
might get a talking to. But that's how that whole
system works. And the implication of those headlines being like,

(01:02:00):
oh my god, it's all doom and gloom, armygeddon, it's
all over a lot of people were like, oh okay,
and more.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
What do you mean when you say okay? What do
you mean?

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
So we've just get been getting a lot of reports
from districts all across North America saying like we're seeing
rampant cross country travel, motorized cross country travel and the
destruction of signs and gates, and as well as the

(01:02:36):
promotion of essentially fake news like that everything's open now
versus hey. Travel management plans right responsibly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Right, like any changes that actually occur are forthcoming as
they consider rule changes. But it wasn't something that all
of a sudden announced from now on, unless if it
doesn't say you can't go there, you can go wherever
you want.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Yep, yep, And you know there's all sorts of implications there.
But to go back to like the broader scale of management,
when you kind of get into the nuances of all
the tools in the toolbox of management, where you get
really ticked. That is like, well, why is this for

(01:03:24):
a service road? Buttery smooth and at the end of it,
there's a big maintained campground and nice toilets and potable
water or you know, frost free taps that you can
get instant water at your campsite. While as this camp

(01:03:45):
this road is full of potholes, you got to go
really slow, especially if you're towing a camper. And then
there's primitive sites at the end of that, and it's like, well,
they don't know what they're doing. Well, a lot of
times your travel management plan, your maintenance plan, those are
always to disperse the amount of pressure that you get

(01:04:09):
within your forest or BLM area. Right, So you're like, yep,
this one is you know, way more conducive to bringing
in big pump trucks to hit the pit toilets and
maintaining at a larger scale, and it's very family friendly.

(01:04:31):
We're going to divert a lot of people here. This
road over here is more of a pain in the butt.
The site's more remote, it's actually more sensitive to so
we actually want a little less human pressure up there.
So that is the reason that the road's a pain

(01:04:52):
in the ass.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Like no one's trying to make it a high traffic
area exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
And we also don't have the staff to maintain that
one on every single day basis like we do down here,
which is why we're diverting more traffic down here type
of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
What do you think what on the on that OHV
on the off road rule change or paving the way
for rule changes going forward, What is the real deep
down motivating factor? Like what is someone after?

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
I think it is another case of just like the
pendulum swinging really hard I think roadless rule is also
a case of the pendulum swinging really hard where and
we've gotten direct feedback as to I just want to say, like,

(01:05:53):
our communication at BHA has changed a lot, and I'm
adamant that we take an issue, we break it down
in a non partisan fashion, take it or leave it.
It is just what's happening. There's a page break. Here's
BHA's position and why yep. And we're a membership organization,

(01:06:13):
which is awesome because I get to say, like, this
is what the membership wants and we actually, yeah, we
just we've had some high level meetings because people have
been paying attention to our communications and saying like, hey,
thank you for not raking us over the calls on this.
Got it? We were told everybody wants this. No, like

(01:06:36):
we were told that why is it that we're getting
beat up here here, here, here, and here, And I say, well,
we represent a bunch of people who actually love this,
and it is not always congruous with that. And the
reason that we're in this situation is because you know,

(01:07:00):
certain we kind of divert certain people up certain trails,
and we divert other people up other trails. And when
you're riding really fast on a dirt bike. You don't
really want to be stopping for backpackers all the time.
And that's kind of how we have this system. And conversely,
you got to string of mules. You don't want mountain

(01:07:20):
bikes or or motorbikes ripping really fast, especially in spots
where there's no place to divert. Right so Capital w
Wilderness and some WSA ground and stuff like that. Right So,
there's just a huge burden of education that has to
happen here. And within the first Trump administration, this Trumpe administration,

(01:07:46):
they move incredibly fast, ye incredibly fast, and there's a
bunch of catchup that's happening. And I posted when this
OAHV order came out said, listen, I'm not worried about
the motorized use community at large. I'm not aware of

(01:08:06):
any motorized groups that want to see habitat destruction, that
want to see a decrease in wildlife populations that you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
No one has that policy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
They don't, they don't, that's not part of the mission statement.
But every single user group out there has people that
are more than willing to color outside the lines. And
I am worried that because of the way that this
is messaged, that we're going to see those people out
there representing the outdoor community, and it is it's a

(01:08:39):
burden on all of us. Right. It's like if you
get if you don't have folks who are out there
using public lands frequently, even just on like this is
what I do most weekends type of basis, you show
up and you're like, oh my god, the people that
come out to these places are total pigs. Right, Just

(01:08:59):
as I've been reaching out to a lot of motorized
industry folks and a lot of athletes right now to
say like, hey, let's work on some messaging that's on
responsible uset and the response has been like oh absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Really yeah, yeah yeah. Now take the Roldest rule and
you mentioned earlier, and the Roldest rule in very simple
terms for listeners to understand the road. This rule. It's
one of those political ping pongs that bounce back and forth.

(01:09:35):
But it'll be like, are were cutting new roads onto
national forest lands. It became especially relevant to Tongus National
Forest where there was is remains a desire to cut
in roads on national forests that would lead to old

(01:09:57):
growth timber cuts, cut in roads where the government would
cut in roads on national forest land to facilitate mining activities,
and other things. The roadless Rule came out and said
that not constructing large scale roads and areas that are
through some formula designated to be like without roads, So

(01:10:18):
not tapping into areas that are that are enough of
a size to be regarded as an area that has
that is roadless. Right, doesn't prevent you from cutting a
little whatever driveway somewhere or something, but from building roads
to access new areas, and it would go in under
an administration and then it would get revoked or people

(01:10:40):
would attempt to revoke it. Right right now, we're in
process again of undoing the roadless ruling. Okay, So going
back to the time of being able to cut in
roads to facilitate mining, to cut in roads to facilitate
to cuts in some cases, the cut in roads to

(01:11:02):
facilitate timber improvement that isn't even related to mining, but
just to do timber improvement work. When I asked you
on the OHV thing, I ask you, like, what is
someone really driving at there? Like are they pursuing a
particular end? And you said, it's just kind of a

(01:11:23):
pendulum swing of trying to do a large scale reversal
of a of a restriction that was in place with
the roleless rule. Is it like, is undoing the roleless
Rule meant to drive a particular project somewhere or do

(01:11:43):
you accept it as just a more general movement or
is it tied to some like distinct thing that someone
wants to do somewhere, but in order for them to
do it, they have to undo the roleless Rule.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
You know, I think it's both that there's some you know,
real specific projects in mind. I really don't think it's timber.
I think I think it would be like mineral extraction,
and it is just part of this theme of like
broad deregulation. I think there's parts of the roadless Rule

(01:12:24):
that need to be like greatly reformed. We're talking so
every state could have had their own version of the
roadless Rule. Idaho and Colorado are the only states that
did that. So we're really talking about like forty five
million acres. And we've said from the very beginning, it's like, well,

(01:12:46):
tell us what you really want, because the timber industry says,
this isn't about timber, it's not going to be forty
five million acres, Like we're talking a few thousand here
here and here and and maybe a couple hundred miles
a road. Let's talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
That, like inviting the conversation to get down to like
if if this is about a thing, let's talk about
the thing. Yeah, yeah, got it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
And we haven't gotten there yet. I will tell you
that there's legitimate gripes on the roadless rule because it
is open to a little bit of interpretation. And there's
been areas districts for us where the managers decided that

(01:13:38):
they wanted to like a little extra buffer around their
roadless they're categorized roadless areas, right, And it's like, yeah,
I mean just think all the conversations we've had about
like the national park has got an end somewhere you
don't get a buffer or else just call it park
or don't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
You Yeah, just for listeners, what Cal's refering to is
you might have I mean, everybody in the world has
sort of Yellowstone National Park. Oftentimes there's wildlife management issues.
There's there's wildlife management decisions that are made along the
border where the park has a gray area, Right, there's

(01:14:20):
like if the if you imagine the park is black
on a map and out of the park is white
on a map. They create certain gray areas for wildlife
management and for other management practices to to create like
I said, a buffer Yeah, a buffer zone, meaning it
won't be that it wouldn't be that cities get built

(01:14:41):
up to the wall to the line, because you're trying
to you're trying to mitigate impacts on the edge that
might affect the interior.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
Yep, yep. And then from a wildlife perspective, red it's
like we have like wolf management zones in Montana that
are right against the park ye. Because socially it was
decided like, well, if wolves are gonna leave the park,
they're probably gonna get really beat up right on the

(01:15:11):
edge of the park, and then there's gonna be a
little education curve, and the further they get away, the
more wary they're going to be, their survivability is going
to be higher.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Yeah. So some wolf pack that spends seventy five percent
of the time in the park and they tend to
wander over to some little area, there might be some
extra regulation where they wander over in order to protect
the integrity of the of a popular pack, wildlife viewing
pack in the park. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Yeah, Well, on the roadless side of things, you know,
there's like viable sold timber projects that were tied up
in a lot of red tape because they were adjacent.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
To okay, right, and then it and that causes frustration.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Big time frustration, right, and it like I can see
how that leads to like it's totally flawed through the
whole thing out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Yeah, Like someone's saying, no, I get it, we can't
We're not going to cut in the park. But you're
saying I can't cut by the park.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
Yeah exactly, and not only not by the park, but
how far away from the park.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
No, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
And then the roadless rule as it's written, you can
build roads or reopen roads temporarily to go in and
do wildfire mitigation. You can go in and do like
habitat work. And oftentimes that stuff gets litigated to death

(01:16:43):
and tied up. And sometimes it's just not even a
conversation that people are willing to have because it will
get litigated and tied up.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Got it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
And so the proper implementation and this is where I
think concerts has a real all of us groups have
a real failure is we work like hell to build
something like the roadless Rule, and then the implementation part,

(01:17:15):
like we're in it for the sanctuary areas, Like, by god,
we got some areas carved out here where there's not
gonna be roads. It's human powered only, it's going to
exclude folks who aren't willing to do that. I'm going
to have a little honey hole and that's our focus.

(01:17:36):
Or we protected, like really protected these zones from anything
but natural erosion. We're going to have great chinook sakae
salmon boltrout spawning there forever type of thing. Well, we
don't show up when the litigation groups show up and say,
oh no, you guys can't do a habitat improvement project.

(01:18:00):
You guys can't go in there and do wildfire mitigation
as it's outlined within the roadless Rule. Yeah right, And
so you know, I haven't put my money where the
mouth is yet, but I've had a lot of conversations
to see, like how it would be feasible for a
group like backcountry hunters and anglers two way in on

(01:18:21):
those on behalf of proactive management. Yeah not, because I
think that's exactly why we're here. But I do want
to take that argument out of the quiver right and
be like, yeah, we came to the table, we signed
the dotted line. We agree that this is how the
roadless rule should function, So shouldn't we have some skin

(01:18:44):
in making it function that way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
It's so interesting you bring that up, because I was
discussing this with a friend of mine a couple of
days ago, and we were talking about the way the
conservation community will get activated around certain marquee very high
value around the protection of certain marquee very high value

(01:19:12):
areas and resist development on those places. We saw it
with a coalition of people from across the sporting and
outdoor and birding and commercial fishing spectrum in opposition to
developing a mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay. Right.

(01:19:34):
Everybody saw that. We saw not nearly as dramatic, but
a coming together around protecting the headwaters leading into the
Boundary Waters Wilderness area. Maybe even less than that, but
seeing a coalition of people questioning the idea of pushing

(01:19:55):
back against the idea of building a two hundred and
fifty mile industrial corridor into the range called Ambler Road.
And what we were talking about is is like when
it's a no, we come out to say no, right yep.
And if someone came to me and said okay, then okay,

(01:20:16):
I get it. You don't like that, you don't like that,
you don't like that, what is okay?

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
What is okay? It's a fault. It's like a negative
about me. It's a fault that I would say, I
don't know. I'll have to tell you when I hear.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
Because that's an argument that we use on their roadless rule, right,
It is like, okay, if you're talking about timber, what
about all this high alpine terrain where it's so highly
irrodable you can't build a road and there happens to
be no timber. Can we still call that inventory roadless? Yeah,
if you want the timber, right, Like, so it's the

(01:20:57):
same argument, yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
But I mean, like, but I sometimes wonder is if
you if if you are, if you're gonna come and
you're going to be in opposition to some things, at
what point do you have an obligation to go and say,
but here is what's okay yep yep? Or is it
morally okay to just be like, no, I'm the guy
that tells you when it's no. I don't know the guy.

(01:21:21):
I don't know the yes guy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
I I don't think it is. I think the answer though,
is like it is just complicated. We have a insanely
diverse landscape, a tree faller back when those were the
dudes really doing the work on the landscape, and there
still are are plenty. But it's a dye and breed.
They will tell you like, you can't cut the same

(01:21:44):
tree twice, meaning that the asspect matters, the slope, the
picture of the tree, all the things. It is a
tree by tree calculation, right, which is why it's it's hard,
and it takes skilled people with lots of lots of knowledge,
lots of practice. So I think people are capable of

(01:22:10):
being the yes person when it comes to a renewable
project such as you know a good timber project, right,
good timber project pays lots of dividends on the wildlife
side of things. But you're gonna have to wait, but
it you know, it will come back. Right. You're gonna

(01:22:32):
eat that cow elk tag for for that zone maybe
this year, but there's gonna be parts of it next year.
You can hunt and then there's more of it the
following year, yeah, right, and then it's probably gonna suck
for a while as once in fifteen years down the road,
depending on where.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
You'll be sweet for ten years after the cut and
then laying for a year and then like increasingly better
than eventually Yeah, go away, and you look forward to that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
But those areas also do their own job of spreading
out the pressure on public land, right, because we all
have those spots where it takes us years to be like,
you know what, this place used to be sweet, but
I've just been coming here and it sucked the last

(01:23:19):
three years. Time to go find a new spot. Well,
you've been sitting there pounding your head against you know,
a dense mat of trees. Somebody else is being like,
oh my gosh, this place is sweet. There's nobody here,
you know, on the other side of that block, right,
And so those changes in the landscape are always a

(01:23:41):
negative and a positive for all of us out there.
It's just like the game. So yeah, I do think
it is possible to be the yes person, but you
got to be involved enough to be like, oh, this
project's proposed, is there a mechanism for us to weigh

(01:24:01):
in on that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Yeah, Yeah, I think that that probably I think that
it would be a good pressure relief valve if the
for the conservation community to maybe get more involved in
what's more involved in pointing out and facilitating what's okay.

(01:24:26):
But a lot of it is there's just absolutism, yes,
and and and and there's been a lot of absolutists
that are very celebrated yep, and regarded as effective, you know,
like like like Edward Abbey was a desert absolutist to
the point where he's sort of to the point where

(01:24:48):
he not even tacitly, to the point where through fiction
he like glorified eco terrorism, right, Like, he was an absolutist,
And a lot of people would look and say, like absolutism,
anything else is you know, anything else is you're weak?
Anything else as you have cracks in the you know,
you have cracks in the fence. But I do wonder

(01:25:11):
about being more like like if and I don't even
know the answer to this, that if there had been
a greater effort toward negotiating certain things, we would not
be in this situation of talking about repealing the of

(01:25:34):
repealing the role in this rule you know, I don't know.
Another case of absolutism gone wrong in a different direction,
the wild Horse and Burrow Protection Act YEP. Is, there
was a time when there weren't that many wild horses around.
People thought they were being abused and thought they were
going to vanish. They made a absolutism case and now

(01:25:59):
it has generated enormous friction YEP with wildlife managers where
you're like, they just left no room. There's they left
no room for logical, meaningful corrections to a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
Well yeah, because you kind of get to this trap,
like we said in the beginning, right, like we got
to think beyond this administration, right, and so this OHV deal.
Like I'm I spend a lot of time, Like I
feel like everybody knows that I gravitate towards human powered love,
my wilderness areas, love big backpacking trips. You know, it's

(01:26:42):
just not like, certainly not a proficient motorized guy, but
I'm like, listen, every single trip I take starts with
a four wheel drive truck getting me to the trailhead, right,
So I can't be anti motorized use, right, Like that
is the thing that facilitates everything, you know, ninety nine

(01:27:06):
times out of one hundred for me. And so when
these headlines come out and it's like, oh, all the
motorized people want this, and I was like, no, they
really don't. I know that. Or it's all the motorized
folks or slobs and they're tearing the things up, and
I'm like, well, there's lots of different groups out there
that preach hard, responsible use all across the landscape, and

(01:27:34):
they are policing their own their own community, and you know,
that's like something that we have always done is like,
is that social contract? If you're going to represent single
track dirt bikes, do it in this manner. Don't do
it like this, right because there is the pendulum swinging

(01:27:55):
the other way. It's like, oh, you lose access to
all of it stuff, and access can be weaponized. Like
it was the first thing that I saw on this job,
right is like everybody you know, Dave six or seven
on the job. I went and testified in the House

(01:28:18):
Natural Resources Committee, which is pretty wild, you know, because
I did have like a moment of like, oh, I
could tank the entire organization right now, live on c
SPAM stressful, I can just say whatever and it would
probably just be done, no coming back. But you know,

(01:28:44):
everybody there was talking was like access, access, access, access,
And I was like, well, wait a minute, what do
you mean.

Speaker 1 (01:28:50):
I've run into this, right, it means different things to
different people.

Speaker 3 (01:28:53):
It means different things to different It's like you're like, oh,
if we're gonna if that's good, I'm going to define
how I want and know that everyone thinks it's good
because the word is good.

Speaker 2 (01:29:05):
Yep. And and then we have to have this more
in depth conversation of being like, listen, the thing that
you're after is only going to survive for so long.
If that's where we punch a big road in, if
we remove the seasonal closures that exist for wintering range

(01:29:31):
or calving areas. Like the reason that those regulations are
in place are so you can go have that experience.
It's just it's only going to be there if you
do it in this way.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
Yeah, that's a great point. What you want to, what
you're so dying to get to, is there because you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Yeah, in these fashions, right, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
This time of year or whatever. Right, what you're wanting
is your wanting to You're wanting to drive to a
thing that wouldn't be there if you could.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
And like I high country mule deer, right, I used
to just love spending so much time, uh early season
scouting for mule deer and and then archery hunting that
high country big basin mule deer. Right, And it's like,
if they see you one time, they're just gone, right,

(01:30:29):
and it can take them weeks to come back to
that spot. And yeah, you can go find them again somewhere.
But having this notion that you can create access as
defined by whatever, Like there's some things that just are
not going to tolerate no, Right, If.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
I could just drive in there and finally get them
big old bucks that are hiding back.

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):
There, yeah, yeah, And it's like, well you can drive
aways in there and then get really really sneaky and
hike off trail and you know, play the wind and
do all the things that you pick up over the years.
And then if you really have the mental fortitude at
the end of a long day, drop all your stuff

(01:31:10):
and slide on your stomach up there and peek your
head over like your good chance, like you're gonna see
one unless some jackass was there before you and stood
up on the ridge right, So, and those are tough
conversations to have because you know there's a lot of
folks out there too who are like, well, man, I'm
a disabled veteran. Are you against me having that experience?

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
Understand?

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
And it's like, no, I want you to have that experience.
I would love to help facilitate that. But as a
guy who's had that experience a lot, you just got
to trust me that like that, you just can't get
in there that way and have that experience.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
Like, and we pick and choose all the time until
if we go back to roadless or this OHV executive order,
Like I can be a big enough person to be like, Okay,
well what are we going to open up? But what
are we going to close?

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Because we we have to have that because there's just
there's too many of us doing too many of the
things to you know, point literally, like point that gun
of impact at these areas.

Speaker 1 (01:32:25):
Yeah, because.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
We know through our history that it will have this
adverse effect that we just can't think about when we're
so gung ho on the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:32:38):
Right. Sure, let's jump subjects and talk about the ongoing
corner crossing debate, and I'll put it to you this way, well,
just I hate doing the bat. We talked about this
so much, and it's such an important issue. We've covered
it so many times. It's always it's always changing. But
just a very quick, very very quick recap corn corner

(01:33:00):
crossing if you're just kind of joining our sort of
universe of shows right now. Corner crossing has to do
with imagine that you're looking at a checkerboard and the
black squares our public land? Are they black and white?
I don't know, black and red on the checkerboard, got of checkerboard.
The black squares are sections of miles mile by miles

(01:33:22):
sections of public land. The red squares are mile by
mars mile by mile sections of private land. When we
refer to corner cross and we refer to whether it
is legal or not to step from the corner of
a black square to the corner of another black square,
that's corner crossing, and so that your shoulder, your feet
are never leaving the black, but your body's passing over

(01:33:45):
the red. And this is a this has been a
debate that's playing out for a long time, particularly in
the American West, where you have what we call checkerboarded
landscapes that are laid out in that same fashion through
the sorts through federal court. Corner crossing was made legal

(01:34:05):
in Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico helped me out here.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Uh yeah, the tenth Circuit, tenth circuit. Yeah, the whole
the whole tenth Circuit. So and I wouldn't say made legal.
I would say confirmed.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Legal, confirmed legal, Yeah, okay, not mad Yeah, like yeah,
that's a great question. Was yeah, it was. There was
there was a there was a debate. It was never
It wasn't like a change in the law. It was
just defining the existing law and clarifying the existing law
because there was there was confusion about it. Yep. But
it's still a big swath of the American West where
it's up in the air yep. And different states have

(01:34:47):
different interpretations. Different states open interpret you know, put out
different guidelines. If you had to crystal ball it a
year or two years, where do you think things are
gonna where do you think things are going to land.
Do you think that we'll see more confusion, more obfuscation

(01:35:08):
of whether you're you're allowed to do this, or do
you think that it'll that we'll see more clarity about
what really is allowed and what's not allowed when it
comes to corner crossing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Well, I think the reason that we're seeing this debate
get more and more intense because it used to just never. Never,
it was a question. Certainly here in the state of Montana,
it was never an intense debate. There's many areas within
the state where it was just what people did.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
Yeah. For a long time, it was a question that
rolled around in the back of a small number of
people's heads. Yes, and then it became a question that
was in the front of many people's minds.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
Yes. Yeah. And you know the reason that that is
right is because, like we are just developing more and
more of the West and people are are planting their
flag permanently in places that were seasonal at most, right,

(01:36:10):
And you know, I think there is absolutely no question
whatsoever as to the legality. I think there's many many
questions right now that are getting played out. So, for instance,
back in the tenth Circuit in Wyoming, there's a push

(01:36:31):
to provide landowner compensation to people adjacent to corners. So
there's people walking from public ground to public ground without
ever touching private property. Can we monetarily compensate the landowners
who own the private lands that touch those corners.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
There's but but that's not that would just be help
help me understand that, but.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
Help that state question that's coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
But the state would be doing it as a good
will gesture that they're not doing it. They're not they're
not being legally forced to do.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Legally forced to do it. There's an ask as to
like a real legal one would be, can you corner
across from federal to state? Right? In states where we
have a kind of a de facto public access, we
use state ground as public ground. Well, this was a

(01:37:40):
federal decision I see, not a state decision that needs
to be figured out.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
I'll tell you it's it's interesting you bring that up.
I would never considered that. Like if I was in
a clarified corner crossing legal state and I saw where
federal land and state land were connected by corners, I
would never even question whether you were allowed to hop
that corner.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
Right, Yeah, And that that is like one of the things, right,
like the huge broad general public. You give them a
pop quiz on this. It is just pure confusion. They're like,
why in the hell would that not be legal? Right?
You're not touching private property. And then you get in

(01:38:27):
circles where people have really really gone through the grinder
on this and they've looked at case law and it
gets overly complicated. Like you you start start getting into
these conversations where you've kind of lost the the on
the ground fact a long time ago, where it's like

(01:38:48):
you're you're just walking from here to there. So no
question in my mind as to if it's legal. It
is legal, I think because kind of like we talked
about on your your motorized community or non motorized community.

(01:39:10):
I remind people all the time, like if you're on
the private side of that fancy, you're a public landowner too,
and you also have way better access to that square
that you're you're trying to get to. So it behooves
all of us to come up with common language assurances

(01:39:32):
that clearly define the private property, the public property, and
the access.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
But there is and I guess I can speak to
Montana where we're sitting right now, I can't speak to
other places there. There is like an uncertainty here where
the if you go and get your hunting regulation, there's

(01:40:04):
not a part of the hunting regulation that clarifies corner
crossing is okay, right, right, you get a mixed am
I wrong? No, you get a mixed signal yep.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
Yeah, it used to be if like ours are not suggestion,
different word are. What Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks would
like you to do is to contact the adjacent landowner
for permission to corner cross That was, and then if

(01:40:39):
if somebody were to try to get a warden out
there to cite you, the warden would then have to
contact the county prosecutor in order to issue that citation.
And then you know, that language ramped up to the
point where the state was implying, like this is illegal.

(01:41:05):
If you write the governor, you get a response back
that says it's illegal, and always has been. The secretary,
not the secretary of the state. The lieutenant governor, you know,
offered her opinion. A couple of our state senators said,
there it is. That's the law. It's illegal, which is

(01:41:27):
not how we create laws.

Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
In the They offered the opinion that it was forbidden.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
Yep, based off of case law, you.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Know like that. They offered an interpretation which was then
received as someone as the giving of the law.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Yeah, yeah, and it is I mean, it is tricky.
It's not tricky to read this stuff. It's not tricky
to come up with your own interpretations. But if you
were to listen to the Lieutenant governors kind of case
that she made, she's using all the same cases that

(01:42:06):
you would use to say it's legal. She's just using
different excerpt of those cases and a narrow, narrower interpretation,
which also is like how the law works a lot
of times. Right, So I'm not like bad mouth and

(01:42:27):
the Lieutenant governor at all, but it is just been very,
very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
What do you think will happen?

Speaker 2 (01:42:36):
Well, ideally we have a legislative session coming up that
we're going to see some some legislation that comes up
to clarify this. At a state level, backcountry hunters and
anglers we entered into a lawsuit with the state of
Montana after hitting this wall that you know, we were

(01:42:59):
just told flat out out said, hey, even if this
went back to the previous memo where it's like corner
crossing is a gray area, that's okay for right now
until we can get legislation through because the people that
want to do it do it, and the people who

(01:43:19):
don't don't. And you know, ranchers don't want to see
a bunch of people piled up at corners. Hunters don't
want to see a bunch of people piled up at corners.
We want this to be quiet. Yeah, is the best
thing for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:43:31):
But if if the state, okay, in Wyoming, you had
a case where it got moved to federal federal court, yep,
If the state, if state legislators were to come in
and say it's illegal, yep, wouldn't that then open a

(01:43:54):
pathway for someone to say, you're probi is in violation
of federal law. And that's a no no.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
Yeah, and yeah, I mean that that is a thing.
And that's why by and large, we're talking about broad
acceptance of legal access through the corners. We're talking about
extremely broad acceptance of if you enter or damage private property,

(01:44:30):
that's that's trespass. So there's a ton of middle ground here.
And I think that we're capable of coming up with
a state solution that you know, prevents a federal case.

Speaker 1 (01:44:49):
It prevents an escalation.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
Yeah, And and part of this is is totally out
of our hands, like that that could happen anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
But you know, it's a question I never thought that.
I never thought to ask, do you have any sense
if you went to Wyoming, Let's say there had been
a ballot initiative yep, and it was just very clear
and everyone's on everyone's ballot during a presidential election year.
It just said like corner like, should corner crossing be legal? Yes? No?

(01:45:22):
And you put it out to the voters in Wyoming
before all this happened, What do you think the answer
would have been? Like?

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
Overwhelmingly yes, do you think so? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:45:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
I mean you know, TRCP and BHA hosted listening sessions
across the state. Obviously not everybody shows up to those things. Yeah,
but I drove over and and sat in on a few,
and I was really shocked by how few people actually
wanted to talk about corner crossing because it was just
like a given. They were like, oh, yeah, this is

(01:45:57):
something everybody else is talking about. Uh, it's something we
do and will continue to do kind of regardless of
what everybody else comes to the conclusion of. So yeah,
I And then yeah, I mean there's a long there's
more paper history of corner crossing in Wyoming than there

(01:46:18):
than there isn't in Montana. There's there's a decent amount
of cases that apply in the state. There's you know,
no actual you know, anything that's really specifically corner crossing
in Montana has always been thrown out. It's never made

(01:46:39):
it to a judge's decision.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
That that's what that that blows my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
Yeah, for something that's always been illegal.

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):
Yeah, that there are not people out there sitting in
jail or whatever who got in trouble for it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
Yeah, but we do have, you know, several state programs.
We have a lot of money sitting in the Habitat
Montana Fund, which was you know, part of the marijuana
tax money forty one million bucks in counting that has
to be used for access programs or acquiring land. You know,

(01:47:21):
it's a little little broad on what, but it can
be used for habitat, building boat ramps, acquiring a new ground,
stuff like that, or else that cash sunsets and it
can go into the general fund. Some people speculate that
it's not being used.

Speaker 1 (01:47:37):
Because they wanted to go into the general to go.

Speaker 2 (01:47:40):
Into the general fund. But I mean, there's a lot
of tools in our tool belt that can make this
a state led initiative. I've talked to a lot of
folks long before we entered into this lawsuit, and then

(01:48:01):
after we've entered into this lawsuit, who are both all
of them landowners both for and against corner crossing. The
folks that are against corner crossing and willing to talk
to me, uh or asking asking me to call them
more more accurately.

Speaker 1 (01:48:21):
They do you make those calls?

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
Yeah, it's awesome. I mean I love talking to old
rancherws so, but uh, they get fed up with bad
hunter behavior, which I totally get. And most of them
have been working for years to do land swaps with
the BLM and and can't get them through. And you know,

(01:48:47):
so that's something that that where we've offered to help.
And you know, I just just talked with uh one
one fella just like this and and did some due
dealer jents on whether or not this was like an
actual good land swap and it sounds like it really is.
So we're trying to help accelerate that process. And then

(01:49:14):
we have a program where you can identify corners and
we can come out and mark those so people have
no excuse this is public, this is private. We can
augment fence so you can have an access point there that,
as one old dodger pointed out to me, he's like,
you know, I get that the lance public, but that

(01:49:36):
fence isn't. So we can augment that private fance and
keep it in good work and shape and allow legal access.
And then there are these corners typically called problem corners,
where there's just no way to legally access public to

(01:50:01):
public without stepping on private.

Speaker 1 (01:50:03):
Yeah, like just for people listening, picture that the pictures
that don't just it's a tree, yep, picture, there's a
there's a twelve inch tree at the corner, yep, right,
and you gotta.

Speaker 2 (01:50:17):
And you're supposed to do the right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:19):
You wiggle around that tree, you're off where you're not
supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
So yeah, So identifying those and and where the only
entity of any kind out there, we use r g
I S on the b h A website so you
can just punch in your lat long of where that
corner is. And then we have some surveyors that have

(01:50:44):
reached out that do this work professionally, that have offered
their services to to come out and mark corners. And
these are folks who have actually like worked with the
BLM to adjust corners to where they're truly supposed to be, yeah,
because some of them do migrate over the years because
they you know, people have moved pins where the pins

(01:51:06):
never existed, so they were going off of landmarks and
those change generationally sometimes. And then you know, we can
augment that that fence at the same time to wildlife
friendly fencing and and do it at no cost to
the landowner. As again kind of like our Stewardship project

(01:51:28):
idea is, I'm like, man, if you're fed up with
bad hunter behavior, I can't say I'm gonna fix all that,
but I will bring a crew of people out there
that you're going to be really impressed with that really
do give a crap, and at minimum, it's going to
give you a little bit of fuel back in the
tank that hopefully lasts you until your next bad encounter

(01:51:51):
and then which I typically do get a chuckle out
of that. And then I'm working like hell trying to
get some funding and some folks together to put together
a hunting around agriculture program that ideally states will want

(01:52:12):
to adopt, because we hear all the time that something's
got to be done because people don't know how to
behave around working farms. And ranches anymore, and they're drawn
like flies to them for hunting purposes. And just the
basic stuff etiquette, where to park, where not to park,

(01:52:36):
how to operate.

Speaker 1 (01:52:36):
Gates, driving on wet roads you shouldn't be driving on. Yeah,
driving across freshly planted fields, leaving gates not the way
you found them, yep, spooking, spooking the hell out of cows.

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):
Yeah, yeah, recognizing where you got a bunch of colcalf
pairs that just got moved in from the range. They're
super scared. Probably just leave it alone. Yeah, you know.
So not not hard stuff at all, but something that
everybody is getting direct asks for and it's not being

(01:53:10):
addressed unfortunately. And we can put together the program that
is built off of producer feedback. Right, the farmers and
the ranchers are then tell us what they want and
then you know, meat Eater will hopefully distribute that out.

(01:53:31):
But we really need states to adopt this as well
and use it in a fashion where people have to
pay attention. Right, So I want like, hey, you just
bought your big Game combo license. In order to complete purchase,
take this five minute tutorial, right, and and you know

(01:53:55):
people want to hunt in these places so bad. I
don't think that that's going to be a barrier to
entry at all. Hunters being hunters, we're going to complain,
but I think we're going to take the test. And
I really do believe like, if we can just educate
a big group, right like forty thousand hunters hunting Montana

(01:54:16):
every year, if we can educate them a one and
a half percent more, that's going to be a big
impact on the landscape. And if we're not working hard
to kind of hold up our side of the social contract,
we're going to lose access on the front range and
everybody's going to be in the back country.

Speaker 1 (01:54:39):
Man. Yeah, I like a lot of what you're saying.
I like it really rings true to me, and you know,
congratulations on viewing it this way. But I appreciate the
way you're willing to acknowledge and take responsibility for ways

(01:55:01):
that your own community could be working against their own
better interests. Meaning, you know, let's talk about bad hunter behavior.
Let's talk about people kind of exploiting this corner crossing
thing to feel that they can just get on that
land however they want to get on it right, and

(01:55:21):
kind of holding your own community up to like a
certain standard and acknowledging the people that are offended by
bad behavior that yes, this is true, what you're seeing
is true. I want to make that go away, right.

Speaker 2 (01:55:35):
Well, I mean what other choice do we have too.

Speaker 1 (01:55:37):
Right, well, just just ignore it, yeah, ignore it and
let the tensions faster.

Speaker 2 (01:55:43):
Let the tensions faster. And then what everybody's feeling, the
state agencies, the agricultural producers, the hunters in areas where
we're seeing this really big increase in hunting pressure and
demand and on the resource is like that scarcity mindset

(01:56:04):
creeps in and it's like I don't care. I gotta
get mine before somebody else does, right versus you know
so many times, you know, I had great hunting mentors
growing up, and really it was like, oh, well, Pard,

(01:56:25):
let's leave that one for another day. Somebody else is
already on it type of thing, right, And looking back
at those scenarios then, like it'd be hard to talk
some people into being like, well, there's only one truck
at the trailhead, why wouldn't we go type of thing, right,
It's like, well, somebody beat us to it, let them

(01:56:46):
have it. We'll go down to the next trailhead.

Speaker 1 (01:56:48):
You know, what do you imagine We've talked about a
bunch of things that are in the news now being
talked about right now, kind of hot, hot button issues
right that are on everybody's mind. What if we're having
this conversation a year from now or this conversation two

(01:57:08):
years from now, what do you think, what do you
think we'll be talking about, Like, what do you see
kind of lurking that's going to be jumping into the
that's going to be jumping to the front of the
line in terms of hot button issues.

Speaker 2 (01:57:22):
Well, I think there's just two broad themes that are possible, right,
And it's kind of like what you said about like
being the no no no. I'm just in the no guy.
I point out the things that that's wrong, and the
solution I don't want any part of that person is
real and they exist. And if everybody turns into that person,

(01:57:46):
or the majority of us turned into that person who
are like I don't want the hard work of being
at the table. I just want to sit back and
throw stones and tell you what's wrong. As I see it,
that it's very possible that there's a bunch of those
people who go Holy cow. I wish I would have

(01:58:06):
drugged myself to the table, because I never ever thought
the end result would be something like this God or
there's the opposite of like I dropped a bunch of
partisan bs. I really focused on the things that I
really value and I know I want other people to

(01:58:30):
see because they will value it as well. And I kicked, screamed,
claud drug myself to the table. And I was consistent
until like we turned the tide and people saw the
middle ground. Because what I'm seeing, and there's all sorts
of people who get ticked me for this is like
I do see a lot of people. There's some people

(01:58:51):
who just want their thing and they don't care about anything.
But I do see a lot of people who really
want to do the right thing, and they're just grossly
missing for And it takes big moments right now, like
we saw during the public land sell off budget reconciliation,
where it was just like every user group was getting

(01:59:12):
to the table and coming together and being like, yes,
this is valuable, we want this, we don't want it
to go away, how dare you sell it? And being
engaged even in the minutia in broad coalitions are the
things that's going to turn this thing around.

Speaker 1 (01:59:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:59:32):
So that example, and I know I'm kind of beating
it to death here, is like I can talk about
motorized groups all day, and I know there's tons and
tons of good representatives out there. But the thing that's
going to turn the tide for motorized groups to be like, oh, hey,
travel managements plans are in place, practice responsible use, ride responsibly.

(01:59:57):
Are people within the motorized community saying, hey, I want
this cross country moto experience that we do every year
because of the fact that it's pristine and the solitude
and the gorgeous views and all this and the limited

(02:00:17):
use it gets. I don't want to turn this experience
into that true you're sand Dun experience, or like there's
this event every year called King of the Hammers where
it's like, you know, you get to really show off
what you can do on off road no road. It's
like that stuff can exist and this stuff can exist,

(02:00:41):
and because we like both doesn't mean we have to
turn this into that, right. So but again, like I
think a good step is acknowledging like, even though I
am not a representative of the motorized community, I drive
a four wheel drive truck to every trailhead, right, and
some of those roads are really long, you're real bumpy, right,

(02:01:05):
But that that is my I don't know my vector
for backcountry travel for the human powered stuff too.

Speaker 1 (02:01:13):
So what else has come? What other kind of issues
are coming down? You're you're catching wind of.

Speaker 2 (02:01:20):
I am very concerned about Ambler Road that seems to
be making progress. There's a lot of a lot of
the typical things that we've been seeing. We're like big
broad statements of like everybody in Alaska is for this,

(02:01:40):
all the Alaska tribes are for this, all the communities.
You know, I have a lot of calls every week
from guide outfitter communities saying like I don't care if
they say this road is not public.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
It is going.

Speaker 2 (02:01:57):
To create a huge impact on you know, caribou, moose trapping,
all all the things, the fisheries components. And and then
there's the side of like that road's not supposed to
be for us, it's a hall road, they're super dangerous.

(02:02:20):
People aren't going out there. Why is public? Why are
our public dollars being spent on this thing that the
public isn't going to use? And then there there's just
like all the like the real biological science things there,
and the fact that like I don't care what type
of mitigation we do out there, like it is not

(02:02:41):
coming back. That scars there forever, right, Like you fly
over the Arctic, the coastal plane up there and where
they were doing that seismic testing like in the seventies,
Like those wheel wheel routes are still there, you know.
And it's I think we're big enough to say, like

(02:03:02):
we have to have some car bouts for what always
has been and can always be, and like having that baseline,
that through line should be again of national importance to Americans.

Speaker 1 (02:03:18):
Yeah, I think we remain I think our country remains
in a strong enough position where we can continue to
afford to have wild places in this country. You know. Oh,
We're in a strong enough position where we can continue
to invest in that and practice restraint and some of

(02:03:40):
our biggest contiguous pieces of wilderness. And by saying that,
what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to recognize
it like that stuffs a luxury. It's there because we
decided to let it be there, and we have restrained
ourselves from certain activities. And that's why we have it.
Like you look at for a long time, we had
wilderness because we hadn't wilderness wild places. Wildlife was there

(02:04:02):
because we hadn't gotten around to destroying it yet. And
then there's a switch, yep, and we crossed like this
threshold and it became it's around because we choose it
to be around.

Speaker 2 (02:04:13):
I mean, And that's what every single person needs to understand, Like,
none of this is luck, right, It is all here
because people before us made real choices, sometimes very unpopular,
and that is why we have the luxuries that we have,
being able to float fish, you know, camp on public lands,

(02:04:34):
hunt game and take it home like that is an
absolute luxury. And you know, the world is full of
examples of places that went the opposite way, right, And
it's like I definitely like picking and choosing there, right,
But like if you look at Australia and the battles

(02:04:57):
that they've had just to have egal regulated hunting in
that country, because it's like it just got social, got
turned in such a way to where so few people
did it. What did it matter? Gun rights in the
UK few so few people, What doesn't matter? Right access

(02:05:19):
to wildlife in the UK for the purposes of hunting.
You know, it was always this thing that was for
somebody else and it was very exclusive. So what does
it really matter? Right, And you know, for the folks
who are on the private side of the fence, and
they might be thinking this another public lands conversation, what

(02:05:41):
doesn't matter. It's like, well, maybe not too much to
you right now, but if you just look at the
history of every other place on this planet, it's coming
for you. So you better you better keep other folks involved,
you know, have a little equitable access to while places
and wild things, or else it's going to cross the

(02:06:04):
fence and get you too.

Speaker 1 (02:06:06):
Yeah. You see that expressed, like in the case of
Washington State. I've seen it expressed where people actually say
they'll point out so few people engage in spring bear
hunting they shouldn't even be allowed to where it's like

(02:06:27):
that they pointed out yep, you know, yep.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
And I always this is all of extra active use.
But you know, we come up with fun arguments, right.
It's like, by and large we all agree that sex
is a good thing, Like we need to have sex.
It's how people are on the planet, it's how we reproduce.
It's just an accepted thing. At the exact same time,

(02:06:53):
we all kind of agree that sex shouldn't happen wherever, whenever. Right,
It's just like socially we're like, yeah, not on the
city bus.

Speaker 1 (02:07:04):
You know, we're open to nuance when it comes to sex. Yeah,
we take a nuanced approach.

Speaker 2 (02:07:11):
But when it comes to like in the case of
the boundary waters, right, by god, we need copper, we
need mineral extraction. Like you're either for it or you're
against it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:07:22):
I was like, well no, not necessarily. It's like, yeah,
I am a consumer of goods, but you're telling me
that I have to blanket before this type of operation
in all landscapes at all times.

Speaker 1 (02:07:39):
I gotta support sex in the airport, right, Yeah, to
remain consistent. Yeah. Yeah, you tell people how to tell
people how to get involved with BHA and like, and
what you need most? You guys want members I'm sure,
But what do you guys need most?

Speaker 2 (02:07:59):
Yeah, I mean membership is the absolute life blood, right Like,
if if you want an independent organization, membership is the key, right, Like,
if you don't want to be beholden to the changing tides,
a membership organization is a really nice thing to be

(02:08:19):
a part of because those membership dollars give you that independence,
meaning that you're not subject to giant government grants and
you may hold off on certain programs.

Speaker 1 (02:08:37):
Yeah you don't. You're not. You don't need to curry
political favor favorite at all times. And also your whole
program doesn't get shut down when when a grant doesn't
come through.

Speaker 2 (02:08:46):
Yep. Yeah, So members membership is huge, and and that's
that's really my biggest ask. I'm so the reason that
I'm in this position is because I have always just
been so blown away by the rank and file member
of the organization and how impressive BHA members are because

(02:09:08):
they are there to be proactive and do something. And
at this point, having been around the organization for ten years,
we have members that are in the Senate, in Congress.
They are fish and Game commissioners in many states. They

(02:09:30):
are community leaders for stewardship projects, water keepers. They're out
really doing good work. And they literally started because they
showed up at a pint night, very low barrier to entry,
have a beer, talk about conservation. Here's a couple of
the issues that we're working on. And you know, we

(02:09:52):
got the people in the door and they were like,
oh my god, I'm not just a fundraiser. I'm a doer.
I want to go out and do stuff and and
those are the that's what we want, we want to
make more of and we want to enable and empower
those people to step up and represent at that commission meeting.

(02:10:12):
Or go pull a couple miles of fence that benefits
thirty thousand miles in a migration corridor, and we can
give you the straight dope, the non partisan dope on
what's happening. And really we need to get to this

(02:10:33):
point where we're really providing the proactive legislation, right, like
the proactive policy that prevents some of these things from
being political footballs. So lots of ways to be involved,
will give you the tools to do it, and you'll

(02:10:54):
be a part of an awesome community, and the ripple
effects of that community are going to turn everybody into
stewards from this this tall on a ideal.

Speaker 1 (02:11:04):
So I don't get to see as much now and
I don't get to have as many laughs with you,
but man, I'm glad you're in that. I'm glad you're
in that role. Man. I think it's great. Oh thanks
to you over there. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:11:18):
Yeah, I mean it's it's consuming. And now with the
little nipper at the house, it's, uh, it's more powerful
in a lot of ways because I'm like, oh man,
I all the talking ad nauseum about like doing this
for my kid certainly is a little more impactful.

Speaker 1 (02:11:39):
Yeah, sure, yeah. Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:11:41):
And I'm like, I'm like, can I get he's you know,
almost four weeks old? Now can I get this guy
up to the Arctic in August? Like, is it like
he's gonna be able to see something? Right?

Speaker 1 (02:11:59):
I remember, all, yeah, I remember all those I find
that it's generally you can generally get a you can
generally pull off more than most people think you can
pull off. But I also have my ass handed to
me a couple of times taking kids to do stuff.
You'll figure it out, all right, ladies and gentlemen again,
Ryan Callahan, chief executive officer at Backcountry Hunters and Anglers,

(02:12:23):
a membership based organization. You can just go to BHA dot.

Speaker 2 (02:12:27):
Org, Backcountry Hunters dot org.

Speaker 1 (02:12:29):
Oh sorry, backcountry hunters dot org see what they're up to.
You can sign up for I find them quite helpfully,
and sign up for email. Keep your prize on stuff.
You'll get like Cal's take on things and other issues
and stay educated on what's going on, follow along and
hopefully hopefully find it a need to support the organization,

(02:12:50):
support the great work they do.

Speaker 2 (02:12:51):
Thanks Cal, and the action alerts well will you'll get
the information. Hit the action alert. It puts you directly
in touch with your representative or member and it's just
makes it easy. You can use the form letter, but
we want you to do it on your own, so

(02:13:13):
use the info. Say where you're from and what you
want review. Oh my god, Cal's wee can review. Lots
of good info there and it's it's.

Speaker 1 (02:13:27):
Yes, I'm looking at you like I'm looking at you
totally like the the b h A CEO right now.

Speaker 2 (02:13:32):
Yeah, man, life's not worth doing if you're just doing
one thing. You to spend those plates.

Speaker 1 (02:13:37):
Also here Cal's hot take on everything conservation related. Gets
and also get some of those laughs I was talking
about by tuning in Cal's week in review right here
on the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Thanks man, Thank you

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Host

Steven Rinella

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Dateline NBC

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 892: Ryan Callaghan on Public Lands and Conservation