December 3, 2023 • 30 mins
This week Cal sits down with Doug Duren to talk about conservation co-op, Sharing the Land.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
For the first time in one hundred years, a grizzly
barry has been photographed in prairie habitat along the Missouri
River breaks. The conservation organization American Prairie formerly American Prairie
Reserve APR, first reported back in October that grizzly tracks
had been found in this area of central Montana along
the Judith River. The group set trail cams and hopes
(00:43):
of capturing photo of the grizz and their efforts paid
off earlier this month. While grizzlies today occupy mountainous regions
out west, they historically lived in prairie ecosystems as well,
which everybody knows why that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio is
kind of because although the grunting and the pain and
(01:03):
the dragging and the what nots that happened did look
very realistic, the landscape was not. That's a prairie story,
not a mountain story. But I digress. Grizzly bears are
well adapted to life on the prairie, which offers abundant
(01:23):
food sources such as fleshy roots, berries, fresh prairie grasses,
and forbes, rodents and carrion. They were driven out of
these areas by settlers, but as their populations have expanded
in recent decades, they're beginning to reoccupy the American great planes.
And speaking of big old grizzly bears, I'm sitting here
with Douglas Durhaan sharing the land, Famous Doug durhan This
(01:46):
is what's happening in the My Week segment of this
podcast and really the rest of the podcast. As you know,
we've been highlighting conservation organizations because I get so many emails, messages, texts,
smoke signals. What have you saying? Hey? What groups should
I get involved in? What should I show up for?
And I like to tell people sign up for newsletters
(02:07):
and decide for yourself, But a lot of those people
then reply, well can't you just tell me? So this
is another step down the road of doing things the
hard way, the Callahan way of learn it and make
a decision on your own. You're an adult, so this
week we are highlighting the Sharing the Land project or
just Sharing the Land, headed up by my good friend
(02:30):
Doug Duran. Doug, what is sharing the land?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, Sharing land is as the idea is as old
as the bartering system. It's a conservation cooperative network of
people access seekers and landowners who get together. The access
seeker provides some contributions to conservation of the landowner's property
(02:55):
or some other conservation contribution that the landowner is interested in,
and in exchange for that, they're allowed to access that
land for whatever arrangement the landowner and the access sacre
agree on.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But for our purposes, what we'd be interested in is
like the hunting, fishing, maybe foraging aspect of getting the
trapes around somebody's private property.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
You're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Most of this is based around the kind of stuff
that the folks who listen to you and a little
bit to me like to do. We've had even this week,
some access here, some hunters here, deer hunting. There's really
no limit to what kind of access that that a
(03:42):
landowner can provide or that people can look for. But
ninety nine percent of what we're doing is hunting, fishing,
a little bit of camping and yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, So I guess the short version would be tell
people right now where they can find sharing the land
and how easy it is to find somebody right because
there's two sides. There's the people with the land and
there's the people who want to get access to that land. So,
(04:17):
if you are somebody with land and you're interested in
having people come out or contribute to that that property
value or conservation value of that property, how do they
get involved with sharing the land?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, both sides, both the folks who want to access
and the landowner do the same thing. You go to
Sharing the Land dot com and you'll see on the
website some drop down fillable forms. One is for filling
out a conservation resume. If that if you're an access seeker,
and that is exactly what it sounds like. You are
(04:53):
putting your best foot forward and telling telling the landowners
who you are and what you about and the things
that you're interested in. And that's a like any resume.
You can build on that resume, And if you're a landowner,
you go on there and there's a drop down fillable
form called a Cooperating land profile, and there you can
(05:14):
fill out information about your land, what you're interested in
having help with, and what access hunting, fishing, camping, foraging
you're able to provide the folks, and then that information
comes to the sharing The Land World headquarters here in Casinovia, Wisconsin,
(05:35):
with our satellite office and the state of Washington, and
we put those two groups of people together. I will
say this as you might as you might imagine, we
have a lot more folks who are filling out conservation
resumes who are access seekers, and we have landowners who
are filling out cooperating land profiles. There's more access seekers
(05:59):
in our landowners, and of course the landowner has you know,
they have to think about their own interests and if
it's something that's for them. So we've been recruiting landowners
and it's been a real interesting process listening to what
(06:20):
landowners are concerned about and then addressing those concerns and
access seekers are, you know, continuing to put stuff in
and their information in. We have thirty properties in nine
different states and we have over three hundred access seekers
and as you might imagine, we have access seekers and
(06:42):
places where we don't have land, and we also have
land in places where we don't have access seekers. We
just had one in West Virginia that we put a
call out on Sharing the Land Instagram page. You can
find that through Doug Durhan at Doug Durhan but at
Sharing the Land on Instagram. We put a call out
and we did get some folks responding to that. And
(07:04):
we also had a piece of property in New Mexico
that landowner we didn't we didn't have anyone there. We
put a call out and we got a couple of
folks and that's working out.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
What kind of recent examples of sharing the land in
practice can you give? I know, you know I'm here
because I'm buddies with you and got to hang out
for the family and extended family friends opening weekend rifle
(07:40):
here in Wisconsin, which was super cool, and I know
you were getting some text messages of the program in action.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Oh yeah, so our pharm Aside, which has been part
of the model, right, our pharm a Side. We have
four properties in Wisconsin and being opening weekend. One property
about seven miles from here. The landowner had reached out
and said, I'm really interested in doing this and I
(08:08):
can take a couple of deer hunters and it's like, oh, well,
we kind of like to have folks do work first,
and he said, you know, if it's the right people,
I'll work that out with them later. So I actually
had a father and two sons who I introduced them,
and I.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Know both sides of this equation.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Pretty well, both the landowner and this access seeker and
put them together and they've already worked out a deal,
and lo and behold, twelve year old young man went
out and shot his first deer, nice little buck on
that property on Saturday, and they've already made plans for
what they're going to do to help the landowner.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
So that's a great one.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We have a property up in the Stevens Point area
that a couple of people have been working on for
Gee says. Last spring they did a little turn hunting,
but they just started deer hunting and sounds.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Like they had great success.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Another property south of here that has one person on
it and very actively managed property, and this person happened
to have the access seeker happen to have skills and
background in prescribed fire and chainsaw safety and that sort
of thing. So it was a perfect match because it's
(09:27):
an older couple who need who've done a lot of
that kind of work but are getting to the point
where they probably shouldn't be swinging a chainsaw and they
need help.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
That's been fantastic. We have two properties in two.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Landowners with three different properties in North Dakota, and they're
out there. Folks have been pulling wire out of the
ground and helping him, helping them plant. You know, they've
been rolling up fences, but they've been also helping him
plant wildlife shrubs and that kind of thing. And they've
been doing prairie chicken and pheasant hunting out there. So
(10:00):
those are some of the ones that I can just
reel off off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So what is is all the vetting being done by
sharing the land.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So what we are doing is getting the resumes together
and we'll look them over and see which one might
match the best with with some of the landowners from there.
We don't we keep the landowners information private. We send
them the people who've applied and that we think are appropriate.
(10:34):
Then they like any job, kind of look through the resume,
see who they like to talk, and what we tell
them to do is to start out slow, have a conversation.
If we've got multiple access seekers. Talk to half a
dozen again, just like it would be a job interview,
talk to if you if you have room for two,
(10:55):
talk to.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Four or five.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
See which ones you feel you know the best about.
So start out with that and then start out with
a small project and and then move forward. And so
the vetting is really done by the land owner as
the and we as the if we were using the
employer employee thing as the employer, you know, looking into
that person. We have some suggestions, frequently asked questions about
(11:20):
vetting and if there's concerns about you know, backgrounds and
that kind of thing, that can be done. And but
really where it really starts is those people having that
conversation and developing a relationship sort of like a door knocker.
We're kind of providing a door knocker opportunity right where
we're matching people up. We then uh provide a agreement
(11:45):
form and they that they can use for you know,
for their own purposes and and make changes to it.
There is insurance that's available through for an insurance provider outdoor,
you know, insurance hunting insurance and as a part of
(12:07):
the agreement, there's a whole harmless part of that and
at the end of the day. Most states have a
recreational access law, which if you're allowing someone to hunting
your property and as long as what they're doing for
you is sort of hunting related or conservation related, there
you can have in exchange. Wisconsin has one. You can
(12:27):
actually take up to two thousand dollars in money or
value and still be covered under the recreational access law.
A lot of states have very similar laws. And there's
actually a website that we direct people to and we
provide as much information that we possibly can to both
the landowner and the access seecret so they get them
you know, they know what they're getting themselves into.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
What I guess is the most common from what you've
seen so far, what's the most common labor trade that
you see? What are people really needing out there on
the farm or ranch?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
You know, it's usually really simple stuff. We're fixing fence,
we're taking down fence, maybe we're limbing trees. Prescribe fire.
If you've done I know you've done burns. You need
two things when you do a prescribe burn. You need
people and water. And if it gets western, you need
(13:28):
a lot of water. So but that's a really great thing.
So that's a skill that people are learning too. So
those are those are some invasive species control. I think
I may have mentioned that. And then it becomes a question, well,
what skills to these people have? And in some cases
(13:49):
I've had landowners, including myself, just have people come out
and help with simple chores around the farm. Shovel a
little maneuver for me. You know, it's a you uh
you weren't you earn some favor, but you know, picking
stuff up. We've some carpentry work is another one. People
(14:10):
have done lawn work for people, Trimming some apple trees
have been done.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So usually the skilled labor is always great, but the
reality is is many hands make light work, and uh,
if you're just willing to show up and be open
to a little bit of sweat equity, they can find
a job for you.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
The old the old thing was hey, hey, come and help
you bail Hey. Well we don't really bail hay like
that anymore. The square bales and stack them on the
It's sort of that idyllic idea, right, but we don't
really do it that way. Anymore, we roll them up
and move them around with skid steers. I've had people
come and just help like shuttle equipment around and get
you know, get things in places where we need them.
(14:53):
What we like to do is to say that the hunting,
the work of getting ready for hunting is not really
a part of the sharing a land agreement. That's you're
going to do that no matter where you go. So
you know, the contribution to conservation. One of the projects
that we did here, and I know that one of
the landowners in North Dakota did something similar. We actually
(15:13):
had conservation stewardship and one of North Dakota had equip
projects that they needed to get done. My CSP work
was limbing pine trees, limbing and thinning. Well the limbing,
sure it would go faster with chainsaws, but you take
a half a dozen or eight people up there with
you know, with some of those nice steel loppers and
(15:35):
start cutting limbs off or or with the electric pulsaw.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
You know, you have a nice.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Quiet time in the woods kind of lopping limbs off
trees and talking and kind of explaining what we're doing.
And if you get to a point where folks really
need to when we when that project needed you know,
heavier work like chainsaws and like tree termin here and
that kind of stuff, we just planned to do that
(16:02):
at a different time. What I liked doing here and
with with my friend brock And who was running a
lot of this stuff, is that we would plan for
an hour on the front end of talking and explaining
what we're doing, three or four hours of work in
an hour on the back end, and oftentimes we'd end
it with a you know, with a little shooting or
(16:25):
or a little bit more of a walk on the
farm to look at other things and maybe what the
next project is. Another project that's I'm real excited about
and in fact I'll be going down there next week
to do some filming is one on a prairie seed production.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Farm.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And last summer we did a bunch of work on.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
The guy's property.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Six people showed up and Hoxy Seeds, who's one of
our sharing land cooperators or landowners. We went down and
did a day's worth of work helping them big blue
stem out of Indian grass, and then we did a
bunch of hand collecting of seeds that are best hand collected.
(17:09):
And now next week we're gonna go down and to
do a day hunting with the same folks and on
extissending the film crew and they've been, you know, documenting this,
so we're trying to tell these stories as well. But
that and that's a great story the Hoxey seed folks
and what they've done and how they're how they need that.
It's real simple. I mean, it takes five minutes to
learn how to to dig out a big blue stem
(17:32):
out of indian grass, and it takes shorter to learn
how to hand collect faults indigo or butterfly weed.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And you're really helped the.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Figure out like what you're glossing over from uh, somebody
with a lot a lot more knowledge than I have,
is you know, a huge benefit to me if I
was to come out and do that labor would be
to learn what that stuff actually is, yeah, and why
why animals like it? Right, And then when I head
(18:04):
out into the fields looking for birds or looking for bucks,
I can identify that good native habitat that puts a
lot of good fat on wild animals. One thing that
I want to talk about here before we wrap this up, Doug,
is another just kind of cool experience that you help
provide here. You had a group from can Am come
(18:26):
out and can Am brought three first time hunters to
the ranch where sorry the farm and yeah, first time
hunter experience is so interesting. This area of Wisconsin is
(18:49):
known for really big bucks. Your perspective on managing for
wild deer, trying to make wild deer as big asssible,
has really changed over the years. So even though they
were coming out to a county that's known for big
white tails, the speech that you gave was, you know,
(19:10):
we're not selecting deer here. We're trying to remove about
sixty animals this year. Most of those are going to
be does or do fonds because that's just how it.
You know, nobody walks out to a field full of bucks.
But the takeaway was if you were happy with that animal,
(19:30):
we're going to be happy with you. And that's kind
of the management practice. It's a total population objective versus
very selective individual animal perspective.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah. You know what's interesting about that is for the
last for about seven years now we retired to Sombrero
and we have not been doing buck management. Per se,
let him go so he can grow. I don't tell
people you have to shoot the first buck that comes
in front of you, you can make that choice, and
you're right whatever a will you choose to shoot. If
(20:03):
you make a good ethical shot, take a good ethical shot,
be happy with that animal, and we will be happy
with you. And it makes it so much easier to
manage the whole thing. We've been providing as of some
of our other landowners been providing learn to hunt opportunities
with our partners. National Deer Association is a great example,
(20:24):
and they really have that healthy deer management attitude. We
want a healthy ecosystem, we want a healthy deer herd,
and we want to provide opportunities for hunters to get
out there. And so all these things sort of wind
together into the idea of sharing the land.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And what was interesting to me is, you know, we
had people who were very aware of hunting things. They
may not have been aware of them in the I
go out and shoot deer perspective, because that's not what
three quarters of the group, but they were all trained
(21:04):
somehow some way to say what are we allowed to shoot?
And what you know, like if you get a hunting
license here and you select this county, you get a
buck tag and four dough tags right, right. But everybody
was like, Okay, well, what what is the you know,
what is it? How old does the deer have to be?
(21:25):
Or how big does it have to be? And what
I saw was honestly a pretty collective ease of tension
when it was you know, if you want a deer,
I suggest you take the first deer that steps in
front of you. That provides that good ethical opportunity. And
then as we started taking these first time hunters into
(21:46):
the field, they were ecstatic with the dough or the
small buck that they had the opportunity at, you know,
and they were ecstatic in the field, and then once
again when they kind of got back to the farmhouse
else they were like, is this is this something I
should be proud of? Or how cool should I be?
(22:08):
And then you kind of had to re talk again
about dude, that is your first deer. Yeah, that is
a big deal. That is awesome, right, And.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
As we as we demonstrated sincerely, we were happy for them,
we were happy with them. And but it is so
interesting that you brought that up. This there was some
preconceived notions with these folks, and I'm happy that we
were able to to knock those preconceived notions about a
(22:41):
deer has to be so big, or we only want
to do this, or and boy I should be happy
with that.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
There's just.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It's it's so vital, I think, especially as we.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Welcome more and more folks to the to the the.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
World of hunting, that we're just clear about that. Let's
we're all in this together. Let's be happy about the
deer that we harvest and and be supportive of that.
Between you and Jordan and I for sure, and then
the other guys who were here, everybody was happy for
all those folks, and you could there was that tension
(23:16):
easing again, just like it did when I said, you
know in our in our group meeting pre hunt meeting,
that whatever deer you're happy with, we'll be happy with
as long as you're taking good ethical shots. And then
every one of my other regular folks who were here
walked around and shook people's hands and patted them on
the back, and that was all very sincere, and you
could just see that tension or those concerns leave, and
(23:38):
it's so interesting, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it's like the hunting is this crazy thing. It's
so responsibility heavy. Yeah, but it's way more simple when
you're in the field, right, It's that that saying of
doing the right thing even when nobody's watching. But then
the social burden that we put on ourselves, the quite
(24:03):
bs social burden, especially when you're around media people and
writers and and things like that, where it's like, how
am I going to tell this story right?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And it's like, you just put awesome food in the freezer,
you made a great shot. You got to go experience
somebody else's place that you know, not a lot of
people get to go check out. One of the beautiful
things about hunting is going places that people who you
know take the scenic Byway or the ATV trail may
(24:37):
be near, but they've never been to, right, And it's
it's very simple once you relieve that social stigma, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So yeah, well that's part of what we're trying to
do with this and and and certainly I think a
landowner who's willing to meet people that most of the
most part they don't know, but then get to know
them and work cooperatively, spend some time cooperatively building a
(25:07):
community that's based around conservation. You know, everyone should feel
good about that. And really seeing that with the landowners.
These are the folks who are interested in that kind
of thing. If the access secret goes in with that
same kind of attitude or learns that same kind of attitude,
then great. You know, we have most of our landowners
who are well all of our landowners who are doing
(25:29):
this are very engaged landowners.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
So they're proud of their property.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
They're happy to show it off, they're they're they're spending
time on it.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
They like to share that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I think, if I may, that is something that
gets lost in these transactional models of land sharing, Like
as we try to make things more efficient and turn
them into vacation rental that has hunting available, it becomes
(26:06):
another Amazon purchase right, and the purchaser doesn't get to say,
Holy cow, I can't believe I'm here. This is beautiful.
How long has your family been here? You know? Was
the place always like this? What have you been doing?
(26:27):
I see this is in CRP, I see you burned
over here, I see you know, all of those things,
those little bits of like family history that come with
the stewardship and cultivation of the land kind of gets
tossed out the window when it's like, oh, here's the
available date. It's here's the nightly rate.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, yeah, well it can all be a part of it.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I actually we've talked about this. I have a lease
agreement with some bow hunters and they've been here for
a few years now. And you know, because I don't
I don't bohunt. And they've been here for a few
years now. And I remember Jack, the main guy, saying
to me, so, I want to get this straight. So
we pay X amount of dollars to come here and
(27:14):
do this, and we have the exclusive access from the
beginning of the season until this date in the season,
and the day after we leave, they're going to be
folks on here aren't paying anything. So they go, that's right,
he goes, Okay, Just so I'm clear. We've had a
seven year relationship with those guys. It's been fantastic. The
folks who are coming the next day have been making
contributions to conservation, either on this property or being volunteers
(27:39):
for our conservation Congress, becoming hunter safety instructors, doing all
those kinds of things, building a conservation resume, and that
has a lot of value to it to a landowner,
a person like me. So you know, again, this is
the kind of thing that you can kind of do
these different levels. But I know exactly what you mean.
(28:00):
When it comes down to when money's involved, it's different.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
It's just different, yep.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But at the same time, nothing's free, right, right, So
those volunteer hours, even though they may not have been
spent on this farm, yep, you've you've been around, you know,
you can see where those volunteer hours paid dividends. So
and how that can come back and affect you. So
as we talked about, which is a story we will
(28:28):
not get into. We're gonna sign off, but you know,
and we have the conversation about why it is that
the non resident rifle only conservation package went from one
hundred and sixty dollars a year to two hundred dollars
a year.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Okay, let's not get into that. We talked about that
some other times.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, but yeah, So one more time, Doug, where do
folks go to learn about Sharing the Land?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
You can go onto Instagram at Sharing the Land. You
can also go to my Instagram at Doug Durhan. But
Sharing the Land dot com very very straightforward and you'll
find all this information on there and if you're a landowner,
feel free to contact me and we can have a
conversation about it before you do anything. But if you
(29:20):
do go on there and fill out a cooperating land profile,
understand that myself and my able assistant Lindsay are the
only two that see that. It doesn't become public information
until you decide that it does. So Sharing the Land
dot com. And thanks very much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh, thank you, Doug. We'll talk to you later, I'm sure.
So that's all I got for you this week. Thank
you so much for listening. That's right in. Let me
know what you think of Doug and these conservation organization
episodes that we're doing spotlights, if you will by writing
into ask c a l. That's Askcal at the meeater
(29:58):
dot com and let me know what that's going on
in your neck of the woods. On top of that,
if you want to get out and do some cooperative
stuff like through Sharing the Land or stewardship volunteer hours
can't really hurt. Pick up a clean, quiet, battery operated
chainsaw at a local knowledgeable steel dealer near you. Check
out www dot steel dealers dot com to track one down.
(30:21):
They're gonna get you set up with what you need,
they won't try to send you home with what you don't.
And those steel oppers that Doug mentioned are great for limbs,
but they're also great for taking the four legs off
a deer or making those nice rib cuts too, So
thanks again, get out there, be safe, be courteous, and
I'll talk to you next week.
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
For the first time in one hundred years, a grizzly
barry has been photographed in prairie habitat along the Missouri
River breaks. The conservation organization American Prairie formerly American Prairie
Reserve APR, first reported back in October that grizzly tracks
had been found in this area of central Montana along
the Judith River. The group set trail cams and hopes
(00:43):
of capturing photo of the grizz and their efforts paid
off earlier this month. While grizzlies today occupy mountainous regions
out west, they historically lived in prairie ecosystems as well,
which everybody knows why that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio is
kind of because although the grunting and the pain and
(01:03):
the dragging and the what nots that happened did look
very realistic, the landscape was not. That's a prairie story,
not a mountain story. But I digress. Grizzly bears are
well adapted to life on the prairie, which offers abundant
(01:23):
food sources such as fleshy roots, berries, fresh prairie grasses,
and forbes, rodents and carrion. They were driven out of
these areas by settlers, but as their populations have expanded
in recent decades, they're beginning to reoccupy the American great planes.
And speaking of big old grizzly bears, I'm sitting here
with Douglas Durhaan sharing the land, Famous Doug durhan This
(01:46):
is what's happening in the My Week segment of this
podcast and really the rest of the podcast. As you know,
we've been highlighting conservation organizations because I get so many emails, messages, texts,
smoke signals. What have you saying? Hey? What groups should
I get involved in? What should I show up for?
And I like to tell people sign up for newsletters
(02:07):
and decide for yourself, But a lot of those people
then reply, well can't you just tell me? So this
is another step down the road of doing things the
hard way, the Callahan way of learn it and make
a decision on your own. You're an adult, so this
week we are highlighting the Sharing the Land project or
just Sharing the Land, headed up by my good friend
(02:30):
Doug Duran. Doug, what is sharing the land?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, Sharing land is as the idea is as old
as the bartering system. It's a conservation cooperative network of
people access seekers and landowners who get together. The access
seeker provides some contributions to conservation of the landowner's property
(02:55):
or some other conservation contribution that the landowner is interested in,
and in exchange for that, they're allowed to access that
land for whatever arrangement the landowner and the access sacre
agree on.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But for our purposes, what we'd be interested in is
like the hunting, fishing, maybe foraging aspect of getting the
trapes around somebody's private property.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
You're exactly right.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Most of this is based around the kind of stuff
that the folks who listen to you and a little
bit to me like to do. We've had even this week,
some access here, some hunters here, deer hunting. There's really
no limit to what kind of access that that a
(03:42):
landowner can provide or that people can look for. But
ninety nine percent of what we're doing is hunting, fishing,
a little bit of camping and yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, So I guess the short version would be tell
people right now where they can find sharing the land
and how easy it is to find somebody right because
there's two sides. There's the people with the land and
there's the people who want to get access to that land. So,
(04:17):
if you are somebody with land and you're interested in
having people come out or contribute to that that property
value or conservation value of that property, how do they
get involved with sharing the land?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, both sides, both the folks who want to access
and the landowner do the same thing. You go to
Sharing the Land dot com and you'll see on the
website some drop down fillable forms. One is for filling
out a conservation resume. If that if you're an access seeker,
and that is exactly what it sounds like. You are
(04:53):
putting your best foot forward and telling telling the landowners
who you are and what you about and the things
that you're interested in. And that's a like any resume.
You can build on that resume, And if you're a landowner,
you go on there and there's a drop down fillable
form called a Cooperating land profile, and there you can
(05:14):
fill out information about your land, what you're interested in
having help with, and what access hunting, fishing, camping, foraging
you're able to provide the folks, and then that information
comes to the sharing The Land World headquarters here in Casinovia, Wisconsin,
(05:35):
with our satellite office and the state of Washington, and
we put those two groups of people together. I will
say this as you might as you might imagine, we
have a lot more folks who are filling out conservation
resumes who are access seekers, and we have landowners who
are filling out cooperating land profiles. There's more access seekers
(05:59):
in our landowners, and of course the landowner has you know,
they have to think about their own interests and if
it's something that's for them. So we've been recruiting landowners
and it's been a real interesting process listening to what
(06:20):
landowners are concerned about and then addressing those concerns and
access seekers are, you know, continuing to put stuff in
and their information in. We have thirty properties in nine
different states and we have over three hundred access seekers
and as you might imagine, we have access seekers and
(06:42):
places where we don't have land, and we also have
land in places where we don't have access seekers. We
just had one in West Virginia that we put a
call out on Sharing the Land Instagram page. You can
find that through Doug Durhan at Doug Durhan but at
Sharing the Land on Instagram. We put a call out
and we did get some folks responding to that. And
(07:04):
we also had a piece of property in New Mexico
that landowner we didn't we didn't have anyone there. We
put a call out and we got a couple of
folks and that's working out.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
What kind of recent examples of sharing the land in
practice can you give? I know, you know I'm here
because I'm buddies with you and got to hang out
for the family and extended family friends opening weekend rifle
(07:40):
here in Wisconsin, which was super cool, and I know
you were getting some text messages of the program in action.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Oh yeah, so our pharm Aside, which has been part
of the model, right, our pharm a Side. We have
four properties in Wisconsin and being opening weekend. One property
about seven miles from here. The landowner had reached out
and said, I'm really interested in doing this and I
(08:08):
can take a couple of deer hunters and it's like, oh, well,
we kind of like to have folks do work first,
and he said, you know, if it's the right people,
I'll work that out with them later. So I actually
had a father and two sons who I introduced them,
and I.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Know both sides of this equation.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Pretty well, both the landowner and this access seeker and
put them together and they've already worked out a deal,
and lo and behold, twelve year old young man went
out and shot his first deer, nice little buck on
that property on Saturday, and they've already made plans for
what they're going to do to help the landowner.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
So that's a great one.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
We have a property up in the Stevens Point area
that a couple of people have been working on for
Gee says. Last spring they did a little turn hunting,
but they just started deer hunting and sounds.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Like they had great success.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Another property south of here that has one person on
it and very actively managed property, and this person happened
to have the access seeker happen to have skills and
background in prescribed fire and chainsaw safety and that sort
of thing. So it was a perfect match because it's
(09:27):
an older couple who need who've done a lot of
that kind of work but are getting to the point
where they probably shouldn't be swinging a chainsaw and they
need help.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
That's been fantastic. We have two properties in two.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Landowners with three different properties in North Dakota, and they're
out there. Folks have been pulling wire out of the
ground and helping him, helping them plant. You know, they've
been rolling up fences, but they've been also helping him
plant wildlife shrubs and that kind of thing. And they've
been doing prairie chicken and pheasant hunting out there. So
(10:00):
those are some of the ones that I can just
reel off off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So what is is all the vetting being done by
sharing the land.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So what we are doing is getting the resumes together
and we'll look them over and see which one might
match the best with with some of the landowners from there.
We don't we keep the landowners information private. We send
them the people who've applied and that we think are appropriate.
(10:34):
Then they like any job, kind of look through the resume,
see who they like to talk, and what we tell
them to do is to start out slow, have a conversation.
If we've got multiple access seekers. Talk to half a
dozen again, just like it would be a job interview,
talk to if you if you have room for two,
(10:55):
talk to.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Four or five.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
See which ones you feel you know the best about.
So start out with that and then start out with
a small project and and then move forward. And so
the vetting is really done by the land owner as
the and we as the if we were using the
employer employee thing as the employer, you know, looking into
that person. We have some suggestions, frequently asked questions about
(11:20):
vetting and if there's concerns about you know, backgrounds and
that kind of thing, that can be done. And but
really where it really starts is those people having that
conversation and developing a relationship sort of like a door knocker.
We're kind of providing a door knocker opportunity right where
we're matching people up. We then uh provide a agreement
(11:45):
form and they that they can use for you know,
for their own purposes and and make changes to it.
There is insurance that's available through for an insurance provider outdoor,
you know, insurance hunting insurance and as a part of
(12:07):
the agreement, there's a whole harmless part of that and
at the end of the day. Most states have a
recreational access law, which if you're allowing someone to hunting
your property and as long as what they're doing for
you is sort of hunting related or conservation related, there
you can have in exchange. Wisconsin has one. You can
(12:27):
actually take up to two thousand dollars in money or
value and still be covered under the recreational access law.
A lot of states have very similar laws. And there's
actually a website that we direct people to and we
provide as much information that we possibly can to both
the landowner and the access seecret so they get them
you know, they know what they're getting themselves into.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
What I guess is the most common from what you've
seen so far, what's the most common labor trade that
you see? What are people really needing out there on
the farm or ranch?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
You know, it's usually really simple stuff. We're fixing fence,
we're taking down fence, maybe we're limbing trees. Prescribe fire.
If you've done I know you've done burns. You need
two things when you do a prescribe burn. You need
people and water. And if it gets western, you need
(13:28):
a lot of water. So but that's a really great thing.
So that's a skill that people are learning too. So
those are those are some invasive species control. I think
I may have mentioned that. And then it becomes a question, well,
what skills to these people have? And in some cases
(13:49):
I've had landowners, including myself, just have people come out
and help with simple chores around the farm. Shovel a
little maneuver for me. You know, it's a you uh
you weren't you earn some favor, but you know, picking
stuff up. We've some carpentry work is another one. People
(14:10):
have done lawn work for people, Trimming some apple trees
have been done.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So usually the skilled labor is always great, but the
reality is is many hands make light work, and uh,
if you're just willing to show up and be open
to a little bit of sweat equity, they can find
a job for you.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
The old the old thing was hey, hey, come and help
you bail Hey. Well we don't really bail hay like
that anymore. The square bales and stack them on the
It's sort of that idyllic idea, right, but we don't
really do it that way. Anymore, we roll them up
and move them around with skid steers. I've had people
come and just help like shuttle equipment around and get
you know, get things in places where we need them.
(14:53):
What we like to do is to say that the hunting,
the work of getting ready for hunting is not really
a part of the sharing a land agreement. That's you're
going to do that no matter where you go. So
you know, the contribution to conservation. One of the projects
that we did here, and I know that one of
the landowners in North Dakota did something similar. We actually
(15:13):
had conservation stewardship and one of North Dakota had equip
projects that they needed to get done. My CSP work
was limbing pine trees, limbing and thinning. Well the limbing,
sure it would go faster with chainsaws, but you take
a half a dozen or eight people up there with
you know, with some of those nice steel loppers and
(15:35):
start cutting limbs off or or with the electric pulsaw.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
You know, you have a nice.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Quiet time in the woods kind of lopping limbs off
trees and talking and kind of explaining what we're doing.
And if you get to a point where folks really
need to when we when that project needed you know,
heavier work like chainsaws and like tree termin here and
that kind of stuff, we just planned to do that
(16:02):
at a different time. What I liked doing here and
with with my friend brock And who was running a
lot of this stuff, is that we would plan for
an hour on the front end of talking and explaining
what we're doing, three or four hours of work in
an hour on the back end, and oftentimes we'd end
it with a you know, with a little shooting or
(16:25):
or a little bit more of a walk on the
farm to look at other things and maybe what the
next project is. Another project that's I'm real excited about
and in fact I'll be going down there next week
to do some filming is one on a prairie seed production.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Farm.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And last summer we did a bunch of work on.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
The guy's property.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Six people showed up and Hoxy Seeds, who's one of
our sharing land cooperators or landowners. We went down and
did a day's worth of work helping them big blue
stem out of Indian grass, and then we did a
bunch of hand collecting of seeds that are best hand collected.
(17:09):
And now next week we're gonna go down and to
do a day hunting with the same folks and on
extissending the film crew and they've been, you know, documenting this,
so we're trying to tell these stories as well. But
that and that's a great story the Hoxey seed folks
and what they've done and how they're how they need that.
It's real simple. I mean, it takes five minutes to
learn how to to dig out a big blue stem
(17:32):
out of indian grass, and it takes shorter to learn
how to hand collect faults indigo or butterfly weed.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
And you're really helped the.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Figure out like what you're glossing over from uh, somebody
with a lot a lot more knowledge than I have,
is you know, a huge benefit to me if I
was to come out and do that labor would be
to learn what that stuff actually is, yeah, and why
why animals like it? Right, And then when I head
(18:04):
out into the fields looking for birds or looking for bucks,
I can identify that good native habitat that puts a
lot of good fat on wild animals. One thing that
I want to talk about here before we wrap this up, Doug,
is another just kind of cool experience that you help
provide here. You had a group from can Am come
(18:26):
out and can Am brought three first time hunters to
the ranch where sorry the farm and yeah, first time
hunter experience is so interesting. This area of Wisconsin is
(18:49):
known for really big bucks. Your perspective on managing for
wild deer, trying to make wild deer as big asssible,
has really changed over the years. So even though they
were coming out to a county that's known for big
white tails, the speech that you gave was, you know,
(19:10):
we're not selecting deer here. We're trying to remove about
sixty animals this year. Most of those are going to
be does or do fonds because that's just how it.
You know, nobody walks out to a field full of bucks.
But the takeaway was if you were happy with that animal,
(19:30):
we're going to be happy with you. And that's kind
of the management practice. It's a total population objective versus
very selective individual animal perspective.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah. You know what's interesting about that is for the
last for about seven years now we retired to Sombrero
and we have not been doing buck management. Per se,
let him go so he can grow. I don't tell
people you have to shoot the first buck that comes
in front of you, you can make that choice, and
you're right whatever a will you choose to shoot. If
(20:03):
you make a good ethical shot, take a good ethical shot,
be happy with that animal, and we will be happy
with you. And it makes it so much easier to
manage the whole thing. We've been providing as of some
of our other landowners been providing learn to hunt opportunities
with our partners. National Deer Association is a great example,
(20:24):
and they really have that healthy deer management attitude. We
want a healthy ecosystem, we want a healthy deer herd,
and we want to provide opportunities for hunters to get
out there. And so all these things sort of wind
together into the idea of sharing the land.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And what was interesting to me is, you know, we
had people who were very aware of hunting things. They
may not have been aware of them in the I
go out and shoot deer perspective, because that's not what
three quarters of the group, but they were all trained
(21:04):
somehow some way to say what are we allowed to shoot?
And what you know, like if you get a hunting
license here and you select this county, you get a
buck tag and four dough tags right, right. But everybody
was like, Okay, well, what what is the you know,
what is it? How old does the deer have to be?
(21:25):
Or how big does it have to be? And what
I saw was honestly a pretty collective ease of tension
when it was you know, if you want a deer,
I suggest you take the first deer that steps in
front of you. That provides that good ethical opportunity. And
then as we started taking these first time hunters into
(21:46):
the field, they were ecstatic with the dough or the
small buck that they had the opportunity at, you know,
and they were ecstatic in the field, and then once
again when they kind of got back to the farmhouse
else they were like, is this is this something I
should be proud of? Or how cool should I be?
(22:08):
And then you kind of had to re talk again
about dude, that is your first deer. Yeah, that is
a big deal. That is awesome, right, And.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
As we as we demonstrated sincerely, we were happy for them,
we were happy with them. And but it is so
interesting that you brought that up. This there was some
preconceived notions with these folks, and I'm happy that we
were able to to knock those preconceived notions about a
(22:41):
deer has to be so big, or we only want
to do this, or and boy I should be happy
with that.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
There's just.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It's it's so vital, I think, especially as we.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Welcome more and more folks to the to the the.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
World of hunting, that we're just clear about that. Let's
we're all in this together. Let's be happy about the
deer that we harvest and and be supportive of that.
Between you and Jordan and I for sure, and then
the other guys who were here, everybody was happy for
all those folks, and you could there was that tension
(23:16):
easing again, just like it did when I said, you
know in our in our group meeting pre hunt meeting,
that whatever deer you're happy with, we'll be happy with
as long as you're taking good ethical shots. And then
every one of my other regular folks who were here
walked around and shook people's hands and patted them on
the back, and that was all very sincere, and you
could just see that tension or those concerns leave, and
(23:38):
it's so interesting, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it's like the hunting is this crazy thing. It's
so responsibility heavy. Yeah, but it's way more simple when
you're in the field, right, It's that that saying of
doing the right thing even when nobody's watching. But then
the social burden that we put on ourselves, the quite
(24:03):
bs social burden, especially when you're around media people and
writers and and things like that, where it's like, how
am I going to tell this story right?
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:16):
And it's like, you just put awesome food in the freezer,
you made a great shot. You got to go experience
somebody else's place that you know, not a lot of
people get to go check out. One of the beautiful
things about hunting is going places that people who you
know take the scenic Byway or the ATV trail may
(24:37):
be near, but they've never been to, right, And it's
it's very simple once you relieve that social stigma, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So yeah, well that's part of what we're trying to
do with this and and and certainly I think a
landowner who's willing to meet people that most of the
most part they don't know, but then get to know
them and work cooperatively, spend some time cooperatively building a
(25:07):
community that's based around conservation. You know, everyone should feel
good about that. And really seeing that with the landowners.
These are the folks who are interested in that kind
of thing. If the access secret goes in with that
same kind of attitude or learns that same kind of attitude,
then great. You know, we have most of our landowners
who are well all of our landowners who are doing
(25:29):
this are very engaged landowners.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
So they're proud of their property.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
They're happy to show it off, they're they're they're spending
time on it.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
They like to share that.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I think, if I may, that is something that
gets lost in these transactional models of land sharing, Like
as we try to make things more efficient and turn
them into vacation rental that has hunting available, it becomes
(26:06):
another Amazon purchase right, and the purchaser doesn't get to say,
Holy cow, I can't believe I'm here. This is beautiful.
How long has your family been here? You know? Was
the place always like this? What have you been doing?
(26:27):
I see this is in CRP, I see you burned
over here, I see you know, all of those things,
those little bits of like family history that come with
the stewardship and cultivation of the land kind of gets
tossed out the window when it's like, oh, here's the
available date. It's here's the nightly rate.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, yeah, well it can all be a part of it.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
I mean, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I actually we've talked about this. I have a lease
agreement with some bow hunters and they've been here for
a few years now. And you know, because I don't
I don't bohunt. And they've been here for a few
years now. And I remember Jack, the main guy, saying
to me, so, I want to get this straight. So
we pay X amount of dollars to come here and
(27:14):
do this, and we have the exclusive access from the
beginning of the season until this date in the season,
and the day after we leave, they're going to be
folks on here aren't paying anything. So they go, that's right,
he goes, Okay, Just so I'm clear. We've had a
seven year relationship with those guys. It's been fantastic. The
folks who are coming the next day have been making
contributions to conservation, either on this property or being volunteers
(27:39):
for our conservation Congress, becoming hunter safety instructors, doing all
those kinds of things, building a conservation resume, and that
has a lot of value to it to a landowner,
a person like me. So you know, again, this is
the kind of thing that you can kind of do
these different levels. But I know exactly what you mean.
(28:00):
When it comes down to when money's involved, it's different.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
It's just different, yep.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But at the same time, nothing's free, right, right, So
those volunteer hours, even though they may not have been
spent on this farm, yep, you've you've been around, you know,
you can see where those volunteer hours paid dividends. So
and how that can come back and affect you. So
as we talked about, which is a story we will
(28:28):
not get into. We're gonna sign off, but you know,
and we have the conversation about why it is that
the non resident rifle only conservation package went from one
hundred and sixty dollars a year to two hundred dollars
a year.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Okay, let's not get into that. We talked about that
some other times.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, but yeah, So one more time, Doug, where do
folks go to learn about Sharing the Land?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
You can go onto Instagram at Sharing the Land. You
can also go to my Instagram at Doug Durhan. But
Sharing the Land dot com very very straightforward and you'll
find all this information on there and if you're a landowner,
feel free to contact me and we can have a
conversation about it before you do anything. But if you
(29:20):
do go on there and fill out a cooperating land profile,
understand that myself and my able assistant Lindsay are the
only two that see that. It doesn't become public information
until you decide that it does. So Sharing the Land
dot com. And thanks very much for having me on.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh, thank you, Doug. We'll talk to you later, I'm sure.
So that's all I got for you this week. Thank
you so much for listening. That's right in. Let me
know what you think of Doug and these conservation organization
episodes that we're doing spotlights, if you will by writing
into ask c a l. That's Askcal at the meeater
(29:58):
dot com and let me know what that's going on
in your neck of the woods. On top of that,
if you want to get out and do some cooperative
stuff like through Sharing the Land or stewardship volunteer hours
can't really hurt. Pick up a clean, quiet, battery operated
chainsaw at a local knowledgeable steel dealer near you. Check
out www dot steel dealers dot com to track one down.
(30:21):
They're gonna get you set up with what you need,
they won't try to send you home with what you don't.
And those steel oppers that Doug mentioned are great for limbs,
but they're also great for taking the four legs off
a deer or making those nice rib cuts too, So
thanks again, get out there, be safe, be courteous, and
I'll talk to you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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