Ep. 48: SB5 - The Wildlife Heritage Ac - Ahi Va

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the IVA Podcast.
Jesse Dubell here, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife
Federation and your host of the show. The New Mexico
Wildlife Federation presents the AAHIVA Podcast. I've got three close
friends on the show today as guests, and I'm really

(00:20):
excited to have this conversation because these three individuals represent
diversity of different perspectives and interests as it relates to
wildlife and as it relates to conservation. One of the
things we're going to be talking about today is Senate
Bill five, the Wildlife Heritage Act. This is the second
episode of the IVA Podcast that talks about this. The

(00:41):
first episode that discussed the Wildlife Heritage Act was published
before the legislative session began, so is before the bill
had actually been introduced. There were some changes, some adjustments,
some amendments, some purposeful and some out of our control
related to the final version of the bill. And we're
going to get into all of that. But before we do,

(01:02):
I'm going to introduce each of these guests and allow
them to talk a little bit about their organization. I'm
going to start with Matthew monhattas who's the president, founder,
and CEO of Impact Outdoors. I think that Matthew is
the individual who's been on the show more than any
other guest in the history of this particular podcast. So
super happy to have him back on again. And Matt

(01:24):
I don't actually remember exactly how we first met. I
should remember that, but I do remember that you were
at the very first cameo at the Capital that I hosted,
and you participated in a very significant speaking role at
that event. And so I'm going to let you talk
a little bit about Impact Outdoors and how you came

(01:48):
into conservation, what motivated you to start the organization, those
kinds of things. So Matthew monhottis floors yours.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, thank you for having me again.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Jesse.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I like being on here.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
It's always it's great talking to other people who are
concerned about conservation and education and our outdoors and hunting
and fishing. And well, I do recall that very first
came out at the Capitol. In fact, it was a
monumental moment for the development of my organization and also

(02:18):
for my direction. That same very year, I actually started
managing a property right north well south of Bernardo, north
of Sevieta, and it may have been the first year
that I met John as well, and we were out
there talking about goals.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
And I had all these.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Friends that came back from Iraq and Afghanistan that I'd
been kind of taken out on these different events. And
then I had, you know, just I had the passion
to go back to school for my elementary education degree.
And during that time, I was taking all these things
that I'm good at. I was taking all these things
that I was passionate about, and I was kind of

(02:59):
molding my program, which is Impact Outdoors, and speaking at
CAMO at the Capital gave me the kind of purpose
and the driven drive to take all these things and
really put them together get my articles of incorporation finished up.
We completed our articles of Incorporation for my five o'h

(03:20):
one c three nonprofit in twenty nineteen, and so Impact
Outdoors has been taking veterans, service members' youth, the community
into the outdoors. We do habitat improvements on state, federal,
and private lands all over the state. We primarily target

(03:41):
rural communities for our education as well as for our
veteran outreach. We work with landowners generally just on a handshake,
I see birds, or I recognize that there's habitat that's
conducive to turkey, or a friend of a friend who
hears about somebody who went out with me or with

(04:02):
my volunteers, and we approach landowners and then we work
with those landowners to recognize things that maybe their properties
are lacking or without a lot of them. It has
to do with like overgrazing, erosion issues, post fire carbon
along the Pecos, with the Hermit's Peak and the Cafe

(04:24):
Canyon as well as the Tecolote splinter, and we work
with these landowners to provide opportunities for youth to improve habitat,
and these youth come from those rural communities. All of
our education is completely free. You can come out as
a family. We have lots of veterans that come through
my program and then return with their families and their

(04:46):
kids to do these type of habitat improvements, whether it
be you know, at indicators of the marsh where the
kids are collecting different species of amphibians with master students
from New Mexico Highlands University our partners, or if we're
working down at Bernardo to work on eightya accessible blinds

(05:08):
or edge edgerow development, whatever it might be. We have
youth and families out to improve these locations and then
they return over a series of time. During that time,
we're learning about high frequency vocabulary, which we use as
an assessment of their learning in the field, and we
scaffold those engagements to finally put together a mentored hunt

(05:30):
or angling opportunity over the habitats that they've improved. And
last year we had five hundred and twenty seven youth
through my program for multiple engagements, all free education, and
we had a total of two hundred and sixty veterans
attend private lands and public lands all over the state

(05:50):
for successful harvest or at least attempted successful harvest on
anything from waterfowl to elk to anelope. We do several
different angling trips and fly fishing floats and all sorts
of different things that we do with the veterans and
then the youth. We try to keep them within their

(06:12):
rural community as much as we can so that we
have youth participating in resources that are found in their
own backyards. And I have found personally that we are
creating conservation minded leadership through our veteran engagements. There are
a lot of adult positions right now that need to
be filled in our communities that are conservation centered or driven,

(06:35):
and our veterans, service members, first responders, they're there to
fill those type of roles. While our youth are recognizing
the resources in their own backyards. It gives them pride
in their community, and that pride in their community mixed
with the opportunity to work with professionals that are in
the resource that they might be engaged in, or that

(06:58):
they seek or that they might like be interested in.
We found that if we can have them out working
alongside planning vegetation, looking at jobs with game and fish,
or looking at, you know, jobs at the hatchery wherever
it might be, that by having them fall in love
with the resource and then by giving them the hands

(07:19):
on experience with those type of professionals, we've increased our
retention rates in those communities. And so we work with
community a lot. We do a lot of stuff with
game and fish, and do a lot of stuff with
New Mexico Wildlife Federation with really I even work with
with ERSA has letter reached Stewardship Association in the Middle

(07:41):
Rio for Managing and kind of monitoring local access of
the river and different things like that. We really have
our hands in just about everything. And thank you again
Jesse for having me on. Well, thank you Mattin, thanks
for the great work you do. You know, I've been
fortunate to personally wit some of the transformations that have

(08:02):
happened on landscapes that you've essentially taken responsibility for improving.
You know, I can remember doing projects five years ago
of properties that were just in really really bad shape,
and then you had whole groups of kids out there
and you're teaching them about the habitat and teaching them
about the importance of stewardship and those kinds of things,
and then later going back for some incredible hunts. I mean,

(08:25):
I can remember doing a turkey hunt on one of
your properties where you actually had a turkey biologist that's
teaching all of the kids everything there is to know
about turkeys and about their habitat needs and habitat requirements.
And I'll probably talk about turkeys a lot on this show,
just because it's coming up on a turkey season here
just in two weeks, and opening day of turkey season
I think is like a you know, it's a holiday

(08:47):
for me, it's more exciting than Christmas morning, you know.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
So it's a big deal. But the impact that you've
had on these landscapes and on the people who've been
involved in improving them is really fantas and so many
young people. So thank you Matt for your incredible work
and allowing me to follow along and be a part
of it and participate. In fact, I'll be with your
team I think April twenty fifth through the twenty seventh

(09:13):
down in Glenwood. We're putting together a turkey workshop if
my day is right, and I'll be down there participating
in that. So looking forward to that as well.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
I actually my wife is back in Pennsylvania right now
introducing our brand new baby, Riley Riley. He's just about
eight weeks old, and Phoebe took him home to meet
Grandpa and grandma and her side of the family. And
I have my two oldest I have Carter and Parker
with me, and Parker's two and potty training and Carter's four.

(09:44):
And tomorrow we're taking off to Glenwood to go scout
turkeys and to check out and to meet with some
landowners for that event that you were referencing on the
twenty fifth of April through the twenty seventh. I'm going
to have eight youth mintees and we're also going to
have eight service members out for that hunt. We have

(10:05):
all sorts of different types of public speakers, a hatchery tour,
a habitat biologist is going to walk us through the
improved habitat.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Below the catwalk.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Kids are going to get angling opportunities, they're going to
get turkey opportunities. We got live bands. I mean, it's
going to be it's going to be a lot of fun.
I'm really glad that you get to come down and
do that. And also one of your good friends who
came through the program, Keenan, will be there as well.
He'll be down there doing a turkey hunt with Impact,
and this is Keenan's second engagement with Impact Outdoors and

(10:39):
it really allows us to build community. And another individual
who was on his hunt at the Butte with Justin
and Brandon for waterfowl this year, mister Wheeler, will be
there also and he's going to be doing some demonstrations
on calling and then also taking vets and youth into
the field and it's just going to be a lot
of fun and good stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Man, I really appreciate it. The second guest I'm going
to introduce is Jimmy Callman, and Judy's now with Audubon Southwest.
But I think Judy when and you'll have to correct
me if I get the title wrong. But when we
first met so many years ago, I think you were
the staff attorney for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, and
uh we meet it would have had twenty eighteen or

(11:23):
nineteen somewhere in there, and I think you were within
him one before that, Oh did maybe it was I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
I don't know when did you start?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Well, I started with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation in
twenty eighteen, but prior to.

Speaker 5 (11:35):
That one maybe, But before that I was with the
United bow Hunters of New Mexico, and I wasn't as
involved kind of in this conservation community, but I was willing.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
I've known you forever.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
I know. It does seem like that, although we just
have time.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
I guess it must have been twenty.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Eighteen probably, but we just finished the sixty eight session
where we were together for a long time, like we
were all ways together every day as co expert witnesses
on the film coordinating outfits.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
It was that bad.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, it was pretty incredible. But Judy, why don't you
talk a little bit about the work that you do,
how you got into it, and what Audubon Southwest is
all about.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Yeah, sure, thanks for having me. Jesse. I'm Judy Kellman.
I'm currently the New Mexico Policy Director for Audubon Southwest,
which is the regional office of the Audubon Society, which
I can talk about for in a minute. But when
you met me, I did spend ten years as the
staff attorney at the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, which is
now New Mexico wild So I started my work at

(12:40):
the beginning. I've only ever had two jobs, like in
my whole life, which is ridiculous. I was doing a
lot of federal land protection and oil and gas work
and that kind of thing, and you know, working on
for service planning and BLM planning, and then shifted to
my current role, which is mostly focused on state policy
for the Audubon Society. Audubon, for those of you who

(13:01):
don't know, is one of the oldest and largest conservation
organizations in the United States. It actually started in the
late eighteen hundreds, so like about eighteen ninety eighteen ninety two,
something like that. I don't remember the exact year, but
it started initially as a response to birds getting totally
decimated for the fashion industry. And people probably don't know

(13:23):
that history too in depth, and I don't know that
history to in depth, but a lot of birds were
like completely exterminated by the billions just for things like hats,
and it was really making an impact on bird populations
across the world and especially here. And so the Audubon
Society was initially founded as a way to set regulations
about that practice, but over time it has expanded greatly,

(13:47):
and so now Audubon also does sort of all the things,
and so that includes things like policy work that I'm doing.
We do that federally and at the state level. We
do on the ground science. We have a lot of
scientists on our staff that do bird monitoring and bird
research directly. We also do on the ground restoration a lot,

(14:09):
so we work with state and federal agencies to do
things like riparian restoration projects. We do a lot of
water work. All of our work has sort of expanded
to doing anything we can do to help birds and
the places that they need, and so we do habitat work,
We do climate change work at this point, sort of
anything to address the crises that birds are facing, and

(14:30):
we know that they're facing quite a lot. Two thirds
of American birds are at risk of extinction in the
coming decades. There are some very steep declines happening in
New Mexico with species that are not yet listed on
the Endangered Species Act, but their decline is so noticeable
that they're sort of in peril here and around the Southwest.

(14:50):
And so those are the things that we try to
focus on. But we also do a lot of rural
landowner cooperation. We have a program called the Conservation Ranching
Program where we actually go and help ranchers set up
their beef productions in a bird friendly way with the
plants that they have and the plants that they don't have,

(15:11):
and setting up their ranching so that the ranch can
be a habitat for birds and conservation for birds, and
then their beef is actually certified as bird friendly beef.
So we do a lot of work like with private
landowners as well, in addition to the federal and state stuff.
And then the last part of our I wouldn't say
the last, just in case I forget something. But the
other big part of Audubon's work is education, and so

(15:34):
we do on the ground education of children and adults.
So Audubon all across the country has children's camps. Almost
everybody knows somebody who went to an Audubon day camp
as a kid. I want to send my kids to
an Audubon day camp. They're great. So there are week
long camps. We have them up in Santa Fe. If
people don't know about that, they can look it up.

(15:54):
But we also have a lot of adult programming, so
we lead bird walks to teach people about birds on
the ground. We have experts come in to the Audubonne
Center to give talks and things like that. So very
education focused in addition to all the policy and on
the groundwork.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Man, that's awesome, Judy, thank you for that. For anybody
out there that's listening to this that is not a
burder but would like to become one, or even if
you don't think you want to become a burder, what
I would suggest to folks is to download the Merlin app.
It's a free app, And if you've never been interested
in birding. The moment you get that app, you're going

(16:31):
to become a burder, whether you like it or not,
because it's one of the coolest apps out there, and
you can actually turn it on and listen to birds
that are singing around your location, and the app is
going to identify the birds that you're hearing, and it's
just it's spectacular. And one of the things about it
is that all of the data then is sent to

(16:51):
the Cornell School of Ornithology. Did I say that right, Judy, Yes,
So it's sent to this university where they're studying birds.
And the amount of citizen science that they're accumulating as
a result of the usage of this app across the world,
I guess is fantastic because they're finding species of birds

(17:12):
and places where they didn't know they existed, and all
kinds of things, and it's just I really have been
thrilled with my experiences out in the field having that
Merlin app on my phone. And I'll tell you when
I'm out in the field, I use my cell phone
generally for two things. On X maps gotta have on
X on the phone, and so I'm using on X

(17:33):
maps all the time. And then I'm using the camera,
so I have a phone scope case on the thing
and I'm putting it on my spotting scope and taking
videos and pictures and things like that. But now I've
added the third reason for my cell phone in the field,
and that is the Merlin app. I'm a huge fan.
It's super awesome and it's not just sound.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
You can also just plug in, like I am looking
at a small gray bird with a red spot on
its wing, and I'm standing at this location, and it'll
tell you, like which small gray birds are it's most
likely to be, So it doesn't have to just be
the sound. You can also just describe and say, what
is this bird I'm looking at? And it should be
able to tell you. So it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yeah it is. It's anyway. That's my little shameless plug
And I don't get thanks Jesse, but you know, I've
really enjoyed working with Audubon. Judy and I didn't really
work with Audubon very much until you went over there,
and I guess it was because we already had an
existing relationship. Then you went to Audubon and then that
relationship just continued. But the executive director of Audubon Southwest.

(18:37):
John Hayes is one of the greatest conservation leaders in
the state of New Mexico as far as I'm concerned,
and hopefully he doesn't mind me saying this, but John
is an active upland bird hunter. I think that sometimes
I doesn't mind you saying that.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
He said that in all of our testimony. Don't worry,
it's public.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
There's sometimes throughout this whole Senate Bill five debate, throughout
the legislative process, you know, I would get sometimes criticisms
for the organizations that were involved in working together on
this bill, And there were times that people referred to
Audubon as though it was some kind of anti hunting organization,

(19:18):
And I'm like, where are you getting that from. Just
because their primary focus is not hunting certainly doesn't make
them an anti hunting organization. And I really I just
I want the hunting community to be less quick to
label organizations as anti hunting. I mean, there's organizations that

(19:40):
don't focus on hunting, but that doesn't make them anti hunting.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Right There is an ongoing joke among Audubon staff about
all the birds that people have eaten. Oh have you
tasted a sandhill crane? Have you eaten a prairie chicken?
Have you eaten a whatever? Lots and lots and lots
of people at Audubon are hunters and anglers.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, so they they just like birds, which I mean
I would be concerned about people that don't like birds,
you know, I can't. I love turkey hunting, right, So
I'll say that probably another five times before this show
is over. But when I go out in the morning
before the sun comes up, you know, on April fifteenth
or April sixteenth, start of turkey season, when the woods

(20:25):
start to wake up, I mean, I'm certainly listening for
that gobble, There's no question about it. I want to
hear that tom gobble from his roost. But all of
the other cacophony of sounds that are erupting from those
woods make the experience what it is. And I personally
cannot imagine a situation where I would go into a
wild place to turkey hunt and the only bird that

(20:47):
I would hear is a turkey, and I wouldn't hear
all of the other species singing their songs and making
those beautiful sounds that really, to me make the experience
what it is. So I want hunters to start thinking
in those terms. I want them to be considering their
entire experience. I mean, if you're elk hunting and you're
sitting under a tree waiting for that big bull to

(21:09):
come in, and you've got opinion, Jay, you know that's
frolicking around in the juniper tree next to you. That's
part of the experience, and that's a magnificent part of
being out in the field. So Judy, thank you for
all of your work and for Audubon's work, and we're
going to talk a lot more about that as we
move on. But before we get to that, I'm going

(21:30):
to introduce our third guest. This is John Rudder. And
I've probably known John longer than anybody else on this
particular show right now, but this is his first appearance
on the podcast. But John and I have known each
other for a long time. We both have construction backgrounds.
We've worked together in the construction field. John and I
knew each other when I was the president of United

(21:50):
Bowhunters of New Mexico. He was one of the very
first people who signed up to follow the work that
ubn M was doing. John is also an unbelievable an
unbelievable content producer. He's produced amazing hunting content under the
brand High Desert Outdoors. I think I got that right,
did I, John?

Speaker 6 (22:10):
Yeah, you get it right.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
I guess. Okay, just making sure. And one of one
of the films that you produced years ago was with
Jpeth Singleton. I think it was called The Rookie Bowhunter
or something like that. Rookie Bowhunter. Such a fantastic film. So,
but John is a president of the New Mexico Houndsman Association.
And when SB five first came about, John had some

(22:34):
concerns about the bill, which were valid. They were valid concerns.
We worked to address those concerns and make improvements and
make adjustments, and throughout that process, John grew to support
the bill and actually submitted letters of support to legislators
and comments and support of the bill. And it was
it was pivotal. Actually it was, in my opinion, having

(22:55):
been closely involved, it was instrumental in helping many of
our lawmakers recognize the breadth of support that existed around
this legislation. We have the Audubon Society and we have
the New Mexico Houndsman Association. So, John, do you want
to talk a little bit about the New Mexico Houndsman
Association and also High Desert Outdoors if you'd like to.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
Yeah, I'm well, I'm John Rutterer, President of New Mexico
Houndsman Association. We were founded and basically about nineteen sixty five,
I believe it was in North Valley and Albuquerque, so
we've been around for what we're going on sixty years now.
I was voted in president approximately about five years ago.

(23:40):
We were primarily a coon hunting club at Yukon United
Kennel Club stuff. They would have coon hunts, competition coon hunts,
you know, they just go out and you score the
dogs by their voices and you trium and you let
them just let them do their thing. And throughout the
years we kind of dwindled down, and in the eighties
we kind of went stagnant for a little while, and

(24:01):
and we had a couple other guys trying to lead it,
and they just they were just still more focused around
the whole raccoon hunting competition aspect of the club that
it was founded on. And then once I got ahold
of it, we I figured we needed to become a
different type of organization where we just don't stand for

(24:22):
raccoon hunters. We need to stand up for basically all
sporting dogs in the state of New Mexico that that
you know, work and help us enjoy our hunting and
our our out doors like we get out there and do.
So I've kind of focused on that, plus still trying
to have uk C shows and getting youth involved with
dogs and and doing other things of that sort. And

(24:47):
so we're we're doing pretty good.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Now.

Speaker 6 (24:49):
We're getting a little bit more involved with the legislation.
I'm trying to get more into the politics of things.
I mean, it's hard to get hunters out of the
woods and and somebody's got to come out and do
these things and speak on behalf of the sporting dogs.
We have a very close relationship with with our dogs
and our packs. I mean, I believe a true houseman
sees his dogs as partners, friends, or even family members.

(25:13):
We're a team when we're out there together. And even
some dogs, you know when you might see them out
there running with callers and they got GPS callers on,
so we know what they're doing, we know where they're
going to. The GPS callers don't help track bears They
don't help trap mountain lions or nothing. They help us
see what our dogs are up to. So they're there
for our dogs safety more than anything. And you know,

(25:35):
if they hit a road, we can turn them around
and bring them back because we don't need them being
in danger that way. And a lot of people find
them and think that they haven't eaten or nothing. But
you got to know, these dogs are like professional endurance athletes.
They're you know, they're your a thousand yard sprinters and
stuff like that. They have high capacity lungs and lean
muscles and big chests for pursuing game and that's why

(26:00):
they were bred to do.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, thanks John. You know it's interesting. For most of
my life. Even though I've been an avid hunter since
I can remember, my understanding of hunting with hounds was
kind of limited to what I learned from reading Where
the Red Fern Grows. You know, if anybody hasn't read
that book, Where the Red Fern Grows, that's a classic that.

Speaker 6 (26:19):
That was required reading when I was in elementary school
in seventies. That was a book we had to read,
Where the Red Fern Grows.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
It was a fantastic book. But then when I was
in my twenties, and I'll just tell you, as a hunter,
I always had this perception that hunting with hounds was
it was easy.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
I had it in my head that, well, what's what's
the challenge with that? You know, the dogs do all
the work and the hunter just has to show up
and then what so big deal? This thing's up in
a tree, and you know, it's just kind of not fair.
I didn't think of it as fair chase back then.
And then while I was in my twenties, I was
doing a lot of volunteer work for the Rocky Mountain
Elk found Foundation, and I was there was a whole

(27:03):
array of work. I spent an unbelievable amount of time
volunteering for that organization, and they had a program back
then where based on the number of hours that you volunteered,
you got entries into this like sweepstakes to win various prizes.
And I actually won a guided mountain lion hunt with
a legendary lion hunter of the time. He's no longer was,

(27:26):
he's passed away. He was eighty one years old at
the time. We hunted together, and his name was Orville Fletcher,
and kind of a legend.

Speaker 6 (27:32):
In the Arvel's a legend in the houndsman community.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
He is absolute legend. And we spent ten days together
on what at the time was the doubh Ranch. Then
it became the Torstensen Family Wildlife Center, and I'm not
sure what it is now exactly, but down in Unit
thirteen Game Management at thirteen in New Mexico, not too
far from Magdalena, and we spent ten days pursuing lions

(27:56):
and I never did, never did take the lion. Never
get along. Oh yeah, we saw them and we treat some.
Actually we had one big treed, but it was on
the Alamo Navajo Reservation. Yeah, so it was it was
not on land we were allowed to hunt, so we
had permission from the reservation to go and retrieve the dogs,
but we couldn't take a lion, you know, on the

(28:18):
reservation lands. So I never did get a lion. But
what I can tell you is that the amount of
respect that that I gained for the activity and for
the for the the dog handler in this case, Orville Fletcher,
the dog trainer, was incredible. And the difficulty of that
hunt is hard to describe. That was one of the

(28:41):
toughest hunts I've ever been on. For a while, we
were on mules. We spent time on mules. We were
staying out overnight with very minimal supplies. Because this was
before GPS callers. You know, this is how well, Yeah,
we used to have that like radio telemetry thing I have.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
I still have my telemetry. I still put my dollars
on and my GPS callers just in case my GP
callers give out. I have my telementary, my telementary callers
to tell me where my dogs are.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, it was. It was really interesting. But one thing
that that I that I quickly learned is that when
you're hunting, if you're a hunter and you're pursuing elk
or deer or whatever you might be going after, you
pick your own route. You know, you kind of go
the path of least resistance. If you're gonna climb the mountain,
you pick a route that looks like you can you know,
traverse it with some amount of successes. Yeah, when you're

(29:32):
following those dogs, I mean you you just first of all,
the lion goes through the roughest, nastiest terrain you can imagine,
and then the dogs are following the lion and then
you're following the dogs and you find yourself in some
incredibly precarious situations.

Speaker 6 (29:50):
I tell you what, I run the Middle Real Grand
Valley a lot, and uh, I mean we tree lions
on Theboski, and uh, I find myself army crawling through
stuff that's so thick to get to the dogs or
get through places that they have gone where they're when
they're after line or a raccoon. And it's just crazy

(30:11):
some of these places that you go to and you know,
I'll bellycraft for three four hundred yards sometimes through the
boss because and then then you're like you're going halfway
through there and you think, maybe SHU just turn them
around and have them come back. But yeah, line hunting
people think it's an easy thing. I mean, anything to
do with hounds, they think it's easy. But you don't
see the amount of time that we put into these animals.

(30:35):
You know, the amount of time we put hundreds and
hundreds and hours into these animals bonding and training them
and training them to do certain things and stuff of
that sort. And I mean, were you guys hunting dry
ground or snow? We got some snow.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
It was a ten day trip and there were two
days roughly where we got we had snow on the ground,
but the majority of the time it was dry ground.
And Orville he really kind of had had some negative
things to say about guys that needed snow to hunt.
He really prided himself in being someone who could track
a lion across dry ground. That was that was. That
was a point of pride for him for sure.

Speaker 6 (31:13):
Same for me. I don't I've never I think I've
put my dogs down on snow maybe twice. And other
than that, it's all dry ground, dirt stuff, and it's hard,
and you know, we put them up. But I mean, yeah,
I'll go hunting for three hundred hours, you know, a
couple of months before I even put up a lion.

(31:33):
You know, that's just the way they are. And then
along to Bosky, I mean, that's ancient travel routes for wildlife.
You know, that's how they move from point A to
point B within parts of our state. Like the wolves
that they are finding up on north of forty, well,
they went up through the real ground to get there.
You know, that's the best travel fair and through the

(31:54):
real grand. There's ancient travel routes that these cats have
been taking for probably hundreds of years, you know, and
when one's taken out, another one comes through within three weeks,
four weeks. You know, the spots always field and uh
and they're always in here and they're always moving up
and down. And then like the bobcats, when when cranes

(32:17):
and ducks and waterfowl start coming, the bobcats are so
thick in aboski. I don't think half these waterfowl hunters
really even know that there's a line or a bobcat
sitting there watching you guys quack quack, quack quack. And
but it's crazy, really when it's because the lines come through.
They like them cranes, they really do. And they're one

(32:39):
of the only animals that can eat porcupines, and we're
loaded with porcupines on a boski. You know, they're the
only one of the only animals that digests their quills.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
That's crazy. Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that. One
of the things that's also interesting about the raccoon stuff. Yeah, well,
a couple of things. One, Yeah, raccoons are an interesting species,
right because they they in urban sprawl like is habitat
gets degraded and populations of humans expand into wildlife habitat.
It has a real negative impact on a lot of wildlife.

(33:10):
But like coyotes and raccoons and some species just really
really thrive on it. It doesn't have a negative impact
on their populations at all. It tends to have the
opposite effect, and so raccoons can become quite the nuisance species.
But I know that, you know, the houndsmen are real
active in helping to manage that population. But also a
lot of times you're going out on coon hunts where

(33:32):
you're not actually harvesting any coons, right, You're just you're
putting them up in trees and not necessarily taking any
animals out of the field. Is that right, John, Yeah,
that's correct.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
I mean most of the time when I hunt, I
mean I run raccoons four days of the four nights.
Four days either with day or night, we can catch
raccoons and trees, and I probably shoot maybe two out
a year another that I'm just out there to listen
to my dogs and watch them work and see how
they're working through the forest. And I mean at night.

(34:03):
I've taken people out have never been racoon hunting in
their life. They've come to some United Kennel Club Night
Hunts we had and we took them out and they're like,
how do the dogs see at night? So well, they don't.
They're using their nose, they don't use their eyes to
move through the forest at night and they're dark to
hunt them. And like for the competition Coonhuts, everything's UK

(34:26):
United Kennel Club Coon Hunts. It's a score system. Will
we go out and there's like three dogs per cast.
Say we've got six people or six dogs and six handlers,
will divide up into two casts and we'll have a
guide with each group and like I'll be like a
We'll have a judge and a guide and three hunters

(34:46):
or three handlers and three dogs and it's a time
two hour hunt and from that time we let them
go and they take off and as soon as they
go out, you cannot you can't bring your dogs back.
You can't talk to your dog, so you can't pet
your dogs up. And we don't allow GPS is when
we do our competition Coon Hunts. Unine, okno club, no

(35:07):
GPS callers allowed. It's all just by the voice of
your dog and what you know and what goes on
is when we cast our dogs out, they'll run out
and freeze. And when the first dog finds a coon
track or coon scent, picks up some scent, he'll he'll bark,
it's a locator bark, and he'll he'll back proof. And

(35:31):
then when you hear like the dogs running through the woods,
they're trailing. That's when they're trailing, and they're real choppy
and running. And so anyway, the first dog that that
strikes on the first dog that strikes, that's what we
call it, that barks on the cast gets one hundred points.
Second dog that strikes gets seventy five points. Third dog

(35:54):
that strikes gets fifty points. And then we keep going
and we let them go until they and then the
first dog thatt trees gets one hundred and seventy five points.
Second dog get trees, they get like one hundred points.
Third dog that trees will get seventy five. And you
can't go into the tree. You have to give your
dogs five minutes. And if we need the dogs leave

(36:15):
the tree within that five minute time span, it used
to be fifteen and it's a long time waiting to
get in there at fifteen minutes, so if they leave,
then your dog is minus out. So we do this
for two hours and at the end of the night,
we go back to our clubhouse and we tally up
the score and the dog and handler with the highest
score wins the hunt and they get they get notification

(36:39):
recognition in UKC to go. What happens you kind of
level up your dogs as you go. You know, you
got your Purple Ribbon champions, and you got your Night Champions,
and you got your Grand Night Champions. And so for
every hunt they win, like say, my dog Jack's, she's one.

(37:01):
We've won Arizona State championship, and we've won a New
Mexico State championship in best in State in New Mexico,
and she has won three UKC Night Hunts. So under
her belt she is a Grand Night Champion. She's the
only Grand Night Champion in the state of New Mexico.
And that's quite an accomplishment for in the competition. Coon world,

(37:23):
and like say, touching on raccoons and what they do
to bird populations and stuff like that, especially affecting ground
nesting birds. That's your ducks, your pheasants, your quail, your turkeys,
turkey seasons right here, I mean a couple of weeks away.

(37:43):
The biggest threat to them turkeys, you guys are hunting
out there is raccoons and skunks. I mean Kyle des Olertum,
but raccoons and skunks, believe it or not, raccoons have
had noses like hounds. A raccoon can smell a bird,
especially if they get wet. There's no problem for them
to find a wet bird because if if a turkey

(38:04):
gets wet, even a human can smell it, you know,
if you know the smell and uh so, the if
they can smell the birds and the hens when they're
on their nests and the raccoons find them, well either
most you know ninety percent of time that that female
hen is going to just flee and fly away, and
the raccoon's going to get the nest and he is

(38:26):
going to eat the eggs, which is loaded with nutrients
and minerals, and and the shell just itself is loaded
with all kinds of nutrients and minerals. And they'll eat
the shell, they'll eat the eggs, they'll destroy the nest,
and if they can get that hint, they'll kill that
hin and eat here too. And there's no really, there's
not a lot of population or management control on our raccoons.

(38:49):
And I know through the Albuquerque area on a real
grand there they're out at hand. I know, what is it,
Cisco Foods down there on Second Street. They have palettes
back there at night and you can go back there
at night when of my me and my buddies are
back there. He goes, you got to come and check
this out. And we went back there at night with
flash lights and there must have been seventy raccoons just

(39:09):
in that lot there on Second Street that was and
they were just out coming out there. It's like they
lived in the palettes back there, and we couldn't believe it.
I was like, wow, he goes, you bring your dogs
over here. I'm like, this ain't honey, you know. But yeah,
I mean they're they're the largest predator you know, of
our of our nesting birds, especially on Naboski, And uh,

(39:34):
they really need population control and some management, just as
any species needs. And I've actually done a clean up
with the Auto box of Saudi down here in Blenca
County once or a few years back, and uh, we
picked a lot of trash up and I took a
couple of dogs out and they were really impressed how
their dogs handling stuff. They thought that they were trampling

(39:55):
nests or chasing the birds or anything like that. And
our dogs don't chasers. Our dogs don't do nothing to nests. John,
I mean yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, sorry, man, I was just saying about that cleanup.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Was that with these letter reached Stewardship Association as well?

Speaker 6 (40:12):
Yeah as well?

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah down there at the by the airport or was
it one of.

Speaker 6 (40:17):
The buncle buncle Yeah, by the airport.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, we have a there's another cleanup actually with URSA
on the fourth of April Friday, if you're if you're interested,
I was thinking about maybe making it down there in
that and being available.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
As well April fourth.

Speaker 6 (40:34):
Yeah, I had just I just got that email they
send me that what's his name?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
From Paul or Todd or Casey?

Speaker 6 (40:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (40:44):
From Rich?

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh yeah from Rich. Awesome from Rich.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 6 (40:50):
I want to get down there and probably put our
contribution into that. Super interesting man.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
It's it's it's it's something that's not well understood, especially
because a lot of that active happens at nighttime. Everybody
else is sleeping when you guys are out doing your thing.
So these are things that a lot of the public's
not aware of. But you know, you're talking about management,
you're talking about population management. And I think that's a
really good segue into Senate Bill five, right, because people
should know that we have one wildlife management agency in

(41:19):
the state. There's only one management agency in the state,
which will now, following the passage of Senate Bill five,
be called the New Mexico Department of Wildlife, previously the
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. And you know,
we took a lot of criticism in hunting community for
supporting a name change, but the truth is it's really

(41:40):
more representative of what the agency does. The agency has
responsibility to manage wildlife across the state, and they already
do that. They already manage species that are not hunted
or fished for. I mean, they do work on prairie dogs,
they do work on the lesser shrew, they do work
on all kinds of things. But previously, before this bill passed,

(42:01):
it was kind of a gray area. The way the
statute was written, it was kind of unclear as to
the level of authorities they have. So Judy, I'd like
to pivot to you for just a minute. And see
if you could give us kind of a high level
overview of what Senate Bill five actually did to make
changes to our state wildlife agency.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Sure, and I think the place to start is maybe
realizing how long this conversation has been going on, because
that led up to this, and so, you know, conversations
about issues with the Department of Game and Fish and
with the Game Commission that oversees it have really been
going on for decades, and problems with the Commission in

(42:43):
particular have been known, I'm sure to you all more
than anybody else, for decades. And so for me, this
conversation started ten years ago when I was still at
my old job with the Wilderness Alliance, and at that time,
our groups and some supportsmans groups and other conservation groups
were starting to talk about doing just a Game Commission
reform bill, and we started working on that together. We

(43:07):
formed a coalition. I actually moved to Audubon because of
that coalition. It's how I met John Hayes, our executive
director that Jesse was talking about before. But some of
the other groups, the sportsman's groups especially, had focused on
some of the other aspects of Senate Bill five and
wanting to change some of those the license fee increase,

(43:29):
and then we had some random sort of other people
and other legislators who were also over the years attempting
to change the name to clarify this mission issue that
we can talk about later. And so over the last
I don't know, tell me, Jesse three or four years,
there's been more of a goal to sort of merge

(43:51):
all of these things together into one bill. I checked
actually during the session, and over the last ten years,
there have been ten bills introduced in the legislature that
dealt with at least a piece of what ended up
in Senate Bill five. So there were a couple of
Game Commission reform bills, there were a couple of bills
that changed the name and expanded or clarified the mission,

(44:13):
and there were a couple of bills that just died
the license fee increase. And there were a couple bills
that tried to merge two but not three of those.
And so the last couple of years, I think all
of us who have been working on different aspects of
Senate what became Senate Built five, realized that the way
to do this was in a more holistic approach, not
just merging the issues together into one bill, but also

(44:35):
merging the coalitions together into one coalition, which ended up
obviously being successful. And so we kind of brought together
everybody who was working on any of that to bring
all of those pieces together into one bill. And so
I mean this bill is really an omnibus sort of

(44:55):
package bill that combined all those things. So at a
high level, it it did four things. I would say
maybe five, depending on how you want to characterize them.
The first thing is it did the license fee adjustment,
and that's something that Jesse should probably talk about more
than me, but I'll do the high level version. The
license fees had not been those are set in statutes,

(45:18):
so that had to be done by the legislature, and
it hadn't been adjusted since two thousand and six, so
it was twenty years that the Department had not seen
any kind of increase in fees. The Department is a
little bit unique in the New Mexico landscape because it's
an enterprise agency. Most of you probably know that, but
I'll say it again, but they don't get general revenue

(45:39):
from HB two, which is our budget bill every year,
and so all of their money comes from federal funds
and from license fees. And so when you go twenty
years without any kind of adjustment, you have twenty years
of inflation and adjustment in salaries that you have to
account for, but not the twenty years of increased fees.
And so the Department has really been struggle for a

(46:00):
long time just to stay stable, not even to do more.
So that those fee adjustments were worked out by different
sportsmen's organizations and with the Department over a long period
of time. So that was part of this bill. The
second piece was a Commission reform piece. We're going to

(46:21):
talk about that a lot because that has to do
with the governor's action. But you know, the Commission has
struggled for a long time with being unstable and too
political because it had just has been a seven member
board at the will of the governor. The governor can
remove commissioners at will, put on commissioners at will. There
wasn't much in the way of specificity about who should

(46:43):
be on the Commission. There were no term limits, there
was no process for getting on the Commission, there was
no process for getting off the Commission. And with every
governor we've ever had, that's been an issue of you know,
large swings and political differences, and each new governor has
totally gotten of the commission and put a new commission
on and gotten rid of commissioners as soon as they

(47:04):
disagreed with whoever the governor was, And so our organizations
all sort of recognized from any standpoint, we all had
an interest in a more stable, accountable commission. And so
we can talk about the details of what went into
Senate Bill five and how we tried to do that,
but doing that was a big part of what we
all wanted to do and was probably the most important

(47:26):
part to a lot of us. The third thing is
it changed the name to the Department of Wildlife New Mexico.
I think was one of only three left in the
West that still used game and fish, and only about
ten in the whole country that still used game and fish,
and might not be exactly right, but it's something like that.
So there really has been a shift over the last

(47:46):
couple of decades away from just focusing on game and
fish species and acknowledging, like Jesse said, that the agencies
really do a lot more than that already. And then
the fourth is that it clarified, It clarified what the
Department can do, and so in our statutes there is
actually a list of taxa that the Department has full

(48:09):
control over. That list does not include things like insects,
and so while the Department does do some projects that
incidentally benefit insects, they didn't really have direct authority to
do anything they needed to do on anything that wasn't
included in that list specifically, so we wanted to make
sure that they had clear authority that they could work

(48:31):
on any species they needed to work on. Like we
talked about at the beginning, there's a lot of species,
especially in the West, especially in New Mexico, as such
high biodiversity, where the species are in decline greatly, but
they're not quite at the level of being listed as endangered.
And as this is the only agency even capable of

(48:52):
working on those species, we needed to know that they
could work on any species in decline, even if it
was something like a bee with as we know, are
totally crucial for things like agriculture and our food, and
so to have no agency authorized to do whatever they
needed to do on those species was a gap that
we all kind of felt like it was important to fill.

(49:13):
And then the last piece Matthew McQueen always said the
last piece of the bill wasn't in the bill, and
I guess that's true. We wanted to sort of increase
the revenue for the Department in not just ways that
involved hunting and fishing licenses, but in other ways. I
think we all recognize that there's a large percentage of

(49:34):
the department's budget came from hunting and fishing, and all
of the people who use and enjoy wildlife feel a
responsibility to contribute to that, and so we were trying
to figure out how we could. And so the way
that we figured it out a little bit for the
last session in this session was that some money from
the Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund, which was created a

(49:55):
couple of years ago, does go directly to what we
call non game speed cheese work, so that is all
the species that are not hunted and fished, and they
did not have specific revenue before that point. So the
Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund gives about three million dollars
a year to the Department to do that work. And
then this year Chairman Small, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee,

(50:18):
put ten million dollars over the next three years into
the budget specifically for non game work. Two. So between
those two things, we did get about six six and
a half ish million dollars in annual new funding for
the department just for non game species work. And I
think everybody in our coalition is committed to expanding that more.

(50:39):
I mean, we know that the need is much larger
than that, but we'll keep working on it. So those
are all the things the bill did, but we should
talk about it more in detail.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, that was a great, great overview, Judy, and thank
you for that. So a couple of things I want
I want to just emphasize. I guess we increased license
fees because it had to be done. The department's working
on a twenty year old budget. What we didn't want
to do, though, is make it feel like to the
hunting and fishing community that we're increasing your license fee
so that we can work on species of greatest conservation need.

(51:13):
So we came up with these additional funding sources. So
it's like the license fee increase is necessary to maintain
status quo, but we also need the agency working on
every species in the state. So we're going to find
additional revenue sources to fund that work. So that it's
not on the backs of the hunters and anglers. I
think that was a really, really crucial piece to the

(51:34):
success of this bill, so that hunters didn't feel like
our fee increase was a result of the additional authority,
if you will, or the clarified authority that the Department
is going to have. The second thing, I think it's
really neat about the license fee adjustment. On average, With
the adjustment that happened in SB five, new Mexico residents

(51:55):
are going to see a ten to fifteen dollars increase
per license type on average. Now, there were some New
Mexico licenses that didn't adjust at all, so some fees
won't change at all, but on average they're going to
go up like ten to fifteen bucks. Nobody wants to
pay more, but we all recognize it's necessary to fund
our wildlife agency. And in the scheme of things, you know,

(52:15):
like fifteen bucks is not going to be a not
going to create a barrier for someone who's now unable
to participate. I just went to Cabela's yesterday because I
needed to pick up some turkey loads, and you know,
fifteen bucks was less than half the price of the
box of shells that I purchased to go turkey hunting, right,

(52:36):
So it's not the end of the world, but still
fifteen dollars is a noticeable increase to the people who
are purchasing these licenses. So what we've done now is
we've attached the license fee price to the consumer price index.
This way, every other year the licenses can adjust without

(52:57):
going through the legislative process. AIME commission can just adopt
the newly adjusted fees that would adjust in accordance with
the consumer price index, so that we might see every
other year, like a one dollar increase or something very
insignificant that you'd hardly notice, rather than waiting twenty years
and then feeling it in your pocketbook. So I think

(53:18):
that was a really important part of this thing, and
I'm really excited about the way that worked. And since
we're talking about fiscal responsibility and money, another thing that
I want to emphasize is that license fees were not
adjusted to pay for the name change. I heard from
a lot of people saying, I don't want to pay
more in my license fees just so we can change

(53:38):
the name of the department. And I think the coalition
Judy was really thoughtful in how we structured the transition
to the Department of Wildlife, and the way that works
is nothing needs to be replaced until it would have
been replaced otherwise. In other words, officers don't have to
go out and buy new uniforms, we don't have to

(53:59):
put logos on trucks, no signs have to be replaced.
But when a sign is replaced because the old sign
is worn out and needs to be replaced anyway, it'll
have the new brand on it. When a new pickup
truck is ordered and has to be outfitted with decals,
it'll have the new brand on it. So essentially, what
we've done is made this transition fiscally responsible so that

(54:21):
there's actually little to no cost of actually changing the
name because we're not going out and replacing existing stuff. So,
you know, just kudos to everybody that worked together to
come up with some of those solutions. Because it was
important to me as a person who buys licenses and
as a person who has a responsibility to thousands of

(54:41):
hunters and anglers in the state who trust in New
Mexico Wildlife Federation to look out for their interests, it
was important to me to be able to show these people,
we're not adjusting your hunting and fishing licenses to pay
for these other things that might not be your top priority.
So I felt really, really impressed, I guess by the

(55:02):
way that all of these nuances were handled during the
creation and ultimately the amendments that took place throughout the
development of this bill. So kudos to you and others
on that work, Judy, that was really fantastic. Matt, I'm
curious about your thoughts on the bill. I know you
were involved early on and spent a lot of time

(55:24):
talking with me and others about the bill. I know
you probably also heard plenty of criticisms throughout the legislative process.
There were probably some people who were not thrilled that
Impact Outdoors was supportive of the effort. I'm just curious
kind of what some of your takeaways or testimonials from
those conversations might might be. Well.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
I think my overall to takeaway was that a lot
of folks didn't really understand the system that was in place,
and then they also didn't really understand the importance of
what SB five did. So I found myself talking to

(56:06):
folks about big picture about the Department and also relating
it back to what we do for promoting biodiversity and
our youth. You know, something that we talk to our
veterans and our youth and our families about is that
it takes a whole picture to create a marsh, and

(56:27):
the importance of the marsh does not lie with the
duck you have harvested just the duck. You know, the
duck in most cases is only there for that moment,
for that that opportunity of migration, or for that feed,
for something that they need for eggshell development, whether it's
aquatic crustaceans or what it might be. And one of

(56:49):
our recently donated properties out in Santa Rosa has been
a big example of that, thres Lagunas, which we recently received.
You know, we've had a lot of youth out there,
We've had a lot of veterans out there, but Threst
Lagunas is extremely extremely biodivertse. I've harvested thirty two different

(57:09):
species of waterfowl at threst Lagunas, which is almost all
that you can harvest across the Nation of forty three.
You know, if you're chasing your swan as well, and
that some of those birds. Of course you would need
like the special tag and a whole trip and big
travel to get that the slam, the North American Slam.

(57:32):
But when we talk about successful harvest of waterfowl, we
look at aquatic vegetation promotion, We look at the macro
invertebrates and water health, and we've also been able to
see firsthand, like things like carbon killoff and you know,
those type of experiences that occur with like silent rivers

(57:55):
post fire. So by relating back to experiences that we've
shared with our families and friends, if they had questions
about the bill, we obviously started to look at like
all the things that we do to promote biodiversity. And
earlier it was mentioned that, you know, people are sometimes
weary or we'll deem a group anti hunting, you know,

(58:18):
because their primary focus isn't just hunting. I feel like
Impact Outdoors often does the opposite. Like people look at
us because we're very successful with waterfowl and with our hunts,
but it's it's often like only through an interview or
through a discussion with some of these other groups that
they realize that we do marshland, you know, promotion that

(58:40):
we do so much for post buire. We do so
much for erosion all those different things, so we kind
of work the other way. I feel like often people
look at us as just a Hunt program, when the
reality is the Hunt is just the icing on the
cake that we build all year. So, yeah, we had
some hurdles with the bill. I'm excited about the name change.

(59:00):
I'm excited about the opportunity to bring in new federal
funding and different things like when mister Small's had done,
you know, to recognize everything from horn toads to bees
or dragonflies or all the other things that we really
value in that moment of experience in the marsh. So

(59:21):
it was a little bit of backlash. But in the end,
the sixty days came and went, and I did not
experience near the backlash that you did, Jesse, or the
fact that you pretty much just lived at the Roundhouse.
And every time I was there working with the Outdoor
Equity Fund and trying to raise funding for outdoor education,

(59:41):
I saw you. Every time we were there for public
Lands Day or the camera with the Capital, you were there.
It was just nice to see your face every time
I walked into the Capital.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
Jesse, and I clarify something I said really quickly, Yeah,
go ahead, Jude. Just for people who may not know
the bill backwards and forwards we fortunately or unfortunately do
after sixty days of that, I just want to make
sure that people understand that what we did was clarify
that the Department can work on all of those things.

(01:00:11):
That was an issue that kept coming up over and
over and over again. People thought what we were doing
was requiring the Department to work on everything, and that
was the source of a lot of people's confusion and opposition.
We specifically specified in the bill that the Department should
focus on species of greatest conservation need. That is a

(01:00:33):
list of species they update every ten years of the
species that are in decline in New Mexico. So we
were by no means saying that they had to work
on every cockroach out there. And I hope that people
understand that now. But like, we just clarify that they
can and that they should focus on declining species, not
that they had to focus on every species in New Mexico.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
That was a good clarification, Judy, And as you know
better than anybody, the opposition to the bill throughout the
process was almost entirely founded on a false narrative on
things that were simply not true. You've mentioned the Endangered
Species List a number of times in this conversation, Judy,
and it's important to note that the reason this bill

(01:01:18):
is so critical is because we're trying to prevent species
from being added to that list. When a species goes
onto the endangered Species List, then US Fish and Wildlife
Service and the federal government swoops in with their big, powerful,
overreaching government arm and creates a lot of changes for
people on the landscape who are living alongside these endangered species.

(01:01:42):
And if we can prevent those species from becoming endangered,
then we can really lessen the impacts, particularly on industry
and private landowners, that hosting an endangered species would have.
And so a couple of the information narratives that we
you and I dealt with throughout the whole session was

(01:02:05):
that this bill would a give the Department of Game
and Fish or now the Department of Wildlife, the authority
to add species to the federal Endangered Species List. Clearly,
a state agency does not have the ability, authority, or
interest in adding anything to the endangered Species List. It
simply can't happen. There's zero truth to that. Statement that
came up over and over and over and over again.

(01:02:27):
Another thing we heard a lot is all you're trying
to do is protect the coyotes. Well, theoretically, this bill
could give the Commission the authority to protect coyotes, but
coyotes are not species of greatest conservation need, nor will
they ever be. Humans are going to be long extinct
when coyotes are still running around feeding on our carcasses.
You know, coyotes are one of the most adaptable, resilient,

(01:02:50):
versatile species in existence. So the idea that this bill
was designed to protect a species that simply doesn't need protected,
it's kind of crazy. I mean, this bill is designed
to protect species that need the help so they don't
end up on the endangered species list. The third thing
we heard a lot of is that this bill was
somehow going to give Department of Game and Fish or

(01:03:12):
Department of Wildlife the authority to manage land use. In
other words, they could say, no, we're working on this
butterfly and you have that on your land, so therefore
you can no longer graze cattle on this BLM land
or this Forest Service land or whatever. And again, our
state Wildlife agency simply doesn't have that authority. They can't
affect the land use in those agreements, those you know,

(01:03:36):
lease agreements.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
And they don't that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
I can remember a floor debate where that question was yes, anyway,
it was so it was a little comical, but some
of those misconceptions about the bill kept coming up and
up and up, and we had legislators saying, I just
simply can't support this bill because of this thing, and
we would say, but that thing isn't real that I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
It's all. It's so important to note that there are
specific provisions in the bill that say that nothing in
this bill impacts private landowners' rights to do whatever they
want on their land, to kill species impacting their livestock.
Nothing changes any of that. Nothing requires the Department to
respond to nuisance complaints for a species it wasn't already

(01:04:20):
responding to. I mean, like, we made it as clear
as we possibly could, and there were still a lot
of craz misconceptions. So we tried.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Yeah, but those are important points to make. And one thing,
and then I'm going to go to John because we
had a very a very broad coalition supporting this bill,
and it's kind of interesting because, for example, one of
the organizations in support of the bill was Animal Protection
Voters of New Mexico, and Animal Protection Voters does not

(01:04:52):
support a lot of the things that the New Mexico
Wildlife Federation does support. Animal Protection Voters certainly doesn't support
a lot of the things in the Mexico Hounsman Association supports.
I can guarantee you that the probably has heard a
lot of the things that impact your supports. You know,
that's just the reality of the differences in these organizations.

(01:05:13):
But early on I had conversations with groups like Animal
Protection Voters and wild Earth Guardians and Sierra Club and
Defenders of Wildlife and so on and so forth, and
what we decided was the one thing we all agree
on is that we have got to do everything in
our power to maintain robust populations of wildlife for future generations.

(01:05:35):
And you know, the Animal Protection Voters and I, you know,
Jessica Johnson, Jessica Johnson, Shelton and I had a conversation
at one point privately, and it was like, look, you know,
I don't necessarily love the idea that you like to
go out and shoot the deer, but I want to
make sure that there are deer. Otherwise we have nothing

(01:05:56):
to fight about. So let's make sure we always have
something to fight about. In order for that to happen,
we've got to have robust populations of wildlife. So that
essentially was the glue that held the coalition together. Was
that common value. Why we all care about big populations
of wildlife, healthy populations of wildlife, robust biodiversity, all those things.

(01:06:19):
There might be differences amongst our organizations as to why
we care about that, but the fact that we care
about that is what mattered. And so John, I'm guessing
that you probably took some heat too. There were probably
some people that thought you were a little bit out
of your mind to join a.

Speaker 6 (01:06:37):
People think I'm out of my mind just because I
talked to you, Jesse.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Join the club.

Speaker 6 (01:06:43):
Yeah, I mean I did.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
I didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:06:49):
I didn't really let it be known a whole lot,
but it got around. I mean, trappers are kind of
upset with the houndsman here in New Mexico, I'm sure,
but you know, they didn't really do much of any thing,
even to the even get the prices decreased for their
own tags, their own licenses. You know, they you didn't
really hear much from them except for it was it

(01:07:09):
was kind of adolescent the way they act, honestly, you know.
And but yeah, I took some heat from that, and
the Houndsman Association table was taking heat from A two,
which I like you guys are mantioning. I don't think
people understand what the common good for the wildlife of
New Mexico actually is and what we need to do

(01:07:30):
to get to that point here. And the license fee
increases were totally needed, and they should be done, you know,
on a daily basis or a quarterly basis or something
like that. And the only thing that I really that
I had a problem with on that bill is that
the trappers license was a four hundred percent increase, and

(01:07:51):
that's much more than fifteen dollars. That was an eighty
dollars increase on a twenty dollars license, And the youth
trapper license went from nine dollars to fifty dollars. That's
a lot for kids and use to go out there
to pay to learn how to trap or anything. And
as houndsmen, we have to have that trappers license in

(01:08:11):
order to have our fur bears permit. And so I
mean that effects any houndsman in the state of New
Mexico who chases coons, whether you harvest them or you
hunt them for competition. You just like to hunt. I
see your dogs work, and now to fix every houndsman
in New Mexico that runs or harvest's bobcats and and

(01:08:33):
so that was our biggest concern with it, and we
were lucky enough then you guys are gracious enough to
actually kind of work with us and explain a few
things to me that I didn't understand about the bill
and h and we got you guys got We got
those prices lowered for the trappers and the houndsman basically,
and the other parts of the bill I basically we support.

(01:08:55):
And it's a lot of people to understand. I think
that that's what you were explaining, Jesse, is that they
think that the Mexico Game and Fish can designate endangered
species or whatnot. And I think a lot of like say,
you're elk hunters in September, bohunter one are worried about
losing elkhunting grounds to say the speckled bellied frog and

(01:09:16):
their water tank or something like that. But that's all
in the federal agency's hands, you know, and this was
needed too as well. Didn't we receive a federal wildlife
grant or something that goes along with this bill?

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Right? Well, one thing that we've that we've done, which
which I think is critical, we didn't talk about it
a heck of a lot, just because it's based on
a federal bill that hasn't yet passed. But we're hoping
and expecting that in the not too distant we're going
to see success from the Recovering America's Wildlife Act and

(01:09:48):
that will have transformational impacts to our state wildlife agency.
But our agency wasn't prepared to accept the inflection of
funds that that that the passage of that bill will
provide ultimately to the state agency, and so we had
to we had to get the agency prepared to be
able to handle that. And I think SB five really

(01:10:10):
did that, or at least went a really really long
way towards doing that. And John, I think every I
mean you did, you did an incredible service for your
constituency and your membership in advocating to fix those those
trappers fees that were out of line with the other
fee adjustments. I mean, they simply were and there's no

(01:10:31):
good reason for it or no good excuse for it.
But you and I had conversations and you were you
were straight up. You said, look, this affects me, This
affects my members, this affects my.

Speaker 6 (01:10:43):
Constittion, my kids you know, out there, and me and
Matt had some long conversations about it as well.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
Yeah, it doesn't only it doesn't only affect that. It
affects private lands when you're trying to do legitimate trapping
to deal with those with the raccoons and church nesting
and different things like that. Like if you want to
teach strong education, you got to teach the whole picture.
And if you can't have kids out trapping on private
lands because it's too expensive, well then there's a whole

(01:11:11):
section of your lesson plan gone out of there. So
I felt the same way. We all really stood with that, John,
even I've never owned a trapping license, but I see.

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
I don't trap. I've never trapped anything. I will. I
live trap stuff for people off their property. Faral cats, raccoons, skunks,
you know, they call, hey got a skunk fun?

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
You know? Yeah, but yeah, then you know.

Speaker 6 (01:11:39):
And I only need the trapper's license to trap for
that matter. But I got to take a whole crazy
test that I don't hardly even know nothing about because
I've never been a trapper. I just I didn't need
that fur bear's license, and I kind of want to
work to getting trapping and fur bearers hunting kind of
needs to be separated.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Yeah, we talked about that a little bit, John, and
I think that was a really a really good point.
But I just you know, what you did, you really
stepped up in a big way. And I hope that
regardless of how people feel about SB five, I hope
that your members and every trapper in the state who
benefited from your advocacy and getting those fees reduced will

(01:12:19):
well appreciate your role in that, because I mean, you
were the You were the reason ultimately that those fees
were adjusted, and then when that happened, you got on
board supporting the bill, which I think was was a
fantastic show of good faith. It was unfortunate that the
trappers didn't. And I talked to trappers and said, what's
your issue with the bill? The number one complaint they

(01:12:40):
had was, well, just look at who's supporting it. Yeah,
and it's like suing it.

Speaker 6 (01:12:47):
They don't like you. They blame you for losing trapping
in New Mexico. I mean they really do, right, really
do you know? And it's just it's unfortunate that they're
they're blind of their own ways, and my words will
probably get some repercussion, but you know, it is what
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
Yeah, and I know that I know that they blame me,
and it's interesting, you know, it's interesting that they do
because despite the relationship I have with a lot of
people that supported SB five, any of the organizations that
worked to oppose trapping would be the first to tell
you that the New Mexico Wildlife Federation did more than
any other organization in the state to protect trapping. I mean,

(01:13:25):
we fought with every fight.

Speaker 6 (01:13:28):
You guys fought really hard to try not to try
to beat that. You know, you guys really did. And
it's kind of the trapper's own fault that they lost
trapping on public land in New Mexico. They should have
gave Sandy up. Yeah, where the battleground was a Sandy mountains.
All they had to do is stay out of the
Sandy Mountains. Which you're an idiot if you're going and

(01:13:49):
trapping and a rural place like that around a big
metropolitan city. You're just an idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Really. Yeah. Anyway, we lost trapping and I was on
the other side of it compared to a lot of
the people that were in the SB five coalition. But
one thing that's important for the future of conservation and
the future of coalition work, I think, is that we
have to be able to compartmentalize issues. You know, if
me and if the Mexico Wildlife Federation and a different

(01:14:18):
organization disagree on say trapping, fine, let's battle it out.
I'll fight with everything I've got to protect my membership
and the values that I stand for and the mission
statement that I was hired to uphold. But after that
battle's over and we move into something else, if our
values align and our goals are similar, then we need

(01:14:42):
to work together. And I can't hold a grudge. I mean,
what am I going to do not work with these
other organizations because they oppose trapping two years ago, three
years ago, whatever it is. That's ridiculous, And that's not
how you accomplish big things. That's not how you make progress,
that's not how you protect things that you care about.
And so the fact that you John stepped up and

(01:15:03):
recognized that and joined the coalition and did what you
could to help support this, it really means a lot, Man,
and I think it speaks volumes about, you know, the
conservation ethic of the New Mexico Houndsman Association. So I
really appreciate you for that. Thank you, Jesse. So, guys,
we've been going for an hour and fifteen minutes, and
I know it's a long time. I told you it
wouldn't go that long, but Judy, I want to We're

(01:15:24):
not going to be able to get off without talking
about the partial veto, so maybe we should spend a
minute talking about that and then anything else you guys
want to cover before we wrap up. But I'll just
I just want to be aware that it's it's late
and you've devoted a lot of time to this conversation.
I don't want to keep you all on here all
night long, but I also don't want to leave out
anything that's really important to cover. So Judy, do you
want to just mention the partial veto?

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
Yeah, it might take me three minutes, though I don't
know if I can do it in one. I'll try, so, Yeah,
the partial veto. So, you know, we may I lost
track of how many amendments we made during the session
to the bill, but it's something in the range of twenty.

(01:16:08):
I feel like it was a lot. It was about
that we have a long list of amendments. We took
amendments from all kinds of people, from the cattle growers
to people completely on the other side of that. We
took lots of amendments as long as they made sense,
and we took a few amendments from the Governor's office
when they were presented to us. So we worked with

(01:16:29):
the administration for a long time trying to figure this
whole bill out. One thing I didn't mention when I
was talking about the history of this was that we
did have a game commission reform bill that did pass
the legislature in twenty twenty three, and it got pocket
vetoed by the governor, and we structured the game commission
piece of this bill very differently from that twenty twenty

(01:16:53):
three bill in the hopes that we could address her
concerns with that twenty twenty three bill and have her
actually sign it. And so we worked with her for
a year. Our whole coalition met with the administration for
a long time, and the hang up seemed to be
the whole time this removal process for the commission and
that was one of the most important pieces to Jesse

(01:17:14):
and others, is that you leaving the commissioners is an
at well appointment without a removal process and without requiring
them to be only removed for cause, allowed that big
pendulum swing of politics that we've seen over many many governors.
And we did make a couple of amendments to the
bill specifically about that, but never really got a commitment

(01:17:37):
one way or the other from the administration and pivoting
to the legal wonkiness of it. The way New Mexico's
legislature works is that the governor doesn't typically have the
power to line item veto bills in New Mexico unless
it's considered an appropriation bill. An appropriation bill is a
bill that appropriates money from the state and gives it

(01:18:01):
to someone else. And we never thought that our bill
was an appropriations bill because the only money in the
bill was the license fee increase, and that was not
an appropriation from the state budget because that was a
license fee from individual people going to the department, and
so none of us ever really considered the possibility that
this would be an appropriation bill that might be line

(01:18:23):
item vetoed. We all including our bill sponsors, some of
which are in legislative leadership, And you'd think that if
it was normal to think of this as an appropriation bill,
they would have raised it, and they didn't. No one
thought that that would happen, and we all assumed that
the governor would either have to veto the whole bill
or sign the whole bill, and we didn't find out

(01:18:44):
until the very last minute, like literally three minutes maybe
before the seventy two hours were up, where she had
to either sign or veto it, that she argued that
this was an appropriations bill. It turned out she's our
doing that because part of the commission reform process that
we put into this bill creates a nominating committee that

(01:19:06):
has to give qualified candidates to the governor that she
has he or she has to choose from. And we
put in the bill that that nominating committee could receive
a per diem for meeting, and she said that because
we offered a per diem, that made it an appropriation
bill and made the bill line it vitoable. Whether that

(01:19:29):
argument would hold up or not if challenged. I have
no idea. It seems a little wishy washy to me.
But that's what she did, and what she struck was
the removal process for commissioners. So what ended up happening
with the bill is we did get everything we wanted
except that, and that is totally worth celebrating. There's a

(01:19:50):
lot of the commission reform piece that still stayed in
the bill, and I think that's worth noting. The nominating
committee stayed. All the different qualifications we put in for
different positions stayed. Even the sentence about they have to
be removed only for cause stayed. But the process for

(01:20:11):
actually removing a commissioner was struck. So that is what happened.
You know, it wasn't expected, It wasn't what any of
us really wanted. I think the upshot of it is
that we're all really committed to doing a standalone removal
process bill in the next year or two. I think
our whole coalition will do that together, regardless of whether

(01:20:33):
that piece was the most important to our organization or not.
I think we're all just committed to getting the whole
bill through somehow, So be prepared to see a standalone
bill I'm sure in the next year or two that
just deals with removal of commissioners, and we will try
again until it works. So, you know, it was a
good day. We were celebrating. It's a big win, but

(01:20:55):
it was a little bit bittersweet because that piece was
taken out.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Yeah, one thing to Judy that I think is worth noting.
While the governor can remove a commissioner without oversight from
district Court, as you said, it still has to be
for malfeason's neglect of duty or negligence, but of course
a governor could just say that they're negligent. But two
things worth mentioning. When that governor replaces that commissioner, they

(01:21:24):
can only replace them from someone on the pre vetted
list that's been provided to them by the nominating committee.
So historically a governor pulls a commissioner and then they
put their top campaign donor, or they put their best
friend or someone who's going to have a particular focus
on their specific interest, and that can happen now.

Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
So no, and we were very very deliberate and careful
to make sure that that nominating committee is completely bipartisan,
and so both parties of the legislature, the minority and
majority leadership get to appoint people to that committee. The
governor gets to appoint a couple of people to that committee,
but they can't be from the same political party, and

(01:22:05):
then there have to be some pretty non partisan sciencey
people on that committee. And the way we structured it
was that, yeah, they have to give her at least
three candidates, and she or he in future has to
choose from that list. So that is a big win.
I think. Also, the qualifications for specific positions is much

(01:22:26):
more specific than it is in current statute, so that
too will ensure that we have stronger representation of a
diversity of people on the commission. So both of those
things I think are still big wins that are overdue.
It's just, you know, I still think we all recognize
we still need a removal process at some point.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
We definitely do. But also because now a commissioner has
to be removed for cause. Even though a governor could
just say that that this is the cause, if a
commissioner questioned that, I think they'd have the ability should
they choose to to push back legally and say prove
it he said I was negligent, Well, I challenged that,
and so it's just the improvement over status quo is huge.

(01:23:07):
And speaking of the specific qualifications, I got a lot
of a flak throughout the process because there's one hunter
and angler seat on the Commission, and some people say, well,
why is there only one? Well, first of all, it's
a floor, not a ceiling. We don't just have to
have one. You know, Historically we have a lot of
hunters and anglers on the Commission, and I expect that
to continue. But for the first time in history, it's

(01:23:30):
guaranteed that we have a hunter and angler on the Commission.
That's never been guaranteed before. We've never had that that
I guess that confidence to know as a sporting community
that we have representation on the Commission. So that's a
big change to me. The other thing, and some people
have laughed about this. I was on the TJ. Trout
radio show just the other day and I mentioned to TJ. Trout,

(01:23:52):
I said, you know what's cool is is now every
single commissioner must have a knowledge of hunting and fishing
issues in New Mexico. And TJ. Trout laughed and said, well,
that's kind of a no brainer. Why do you need
to put that in there, and I said, have you
talked to some of our current commissioners recent commissioners, TJ.
I mean, I can tell you with certainty that we've

(01:24:14):
had commissioners that I've worked with recently who would not
be able to tell you the difference between a mule
deer and a couse deer. Right There's they that good call, Matt.
I love that. I mean, we've had commissioners that I
would not be surprised if if they couldn't tell you

(01:24:34):
the difference between the deer and an elk by looking
at a photograph. I mean, it's there. The qualifications that
Judy mentions aren't necessary, they're important and they make a
huge difference in ensuring that we have a functional and
effective commission. So big stuff, But I totally agree with
you Judy that ultimately getting a removal process is something

(01:24:57):
that's important and is something will continue to work on
real quick. John, Any any concluding thoughts, anything you want
to throw in there before we wrap things up, Man,
just want to give you an opportunity to cover anything
maybe we haven't yet.

Speaker 6 (01:25:10):
Oh geez, I think we pretty much touched based on
a lot of things. I mean, uh, no, I think
I'm good for the evening here, Jesse. I'm getting kind
of tired.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
I need to go.

Speaker 6 (01:25:20):
Look here, I need to actually I need to go
load dogs up. Awesome, John, Well, I won't keep you
much longer.

Speaker 3 (01:25:26):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
I appreciate you taking the time and joining us and
for all your help throughout this session. Is it's just
it's really been an honor working closely with you in
this capacity, Man, and I appreciate appreciate you stepping up
the way you did. Matt, anything from you, brother.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
Just as as a dad, you know, as a family
man taking my boys down to the Hila this weekend.
I'm really really proud of everybody who like tested their
character and stood up for the things that may not
all may not even have to do with you at

(01:26:00):
this moment, but the changes that we were able to
make and the direction that we were able to make
with this bill, I'm proud of being a part of it,
and I'm really happy that it's in the right direction
for my family and for education and for everything we've
really been working on.

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
So I appreciate it from everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
Yeah, thank you, Matt, and you should be proud because
this is this is the most important change to wildlife
management in the state of New Mexico for over one
hundred years. This is going to go down in history.
This is one hundred years from now. People are going
to be talking about this and talking about the people
that worked on this and why this mattered so much.
And we keep talking about turkeys. I mentioned this during

(01:26:41):
the session, and it's so true. We had legislators that
were complaining, like, I don't understand why you'd want to
be focused on bugs, and I'm saying, well, I'm focused
on turkeys, and that's all I could think about right
now as we approach turkey season, and I happen to
know that for the first six weeks of a turkey's life,
they rely exclusively on insects to survive. Turkeys aren't eating

(01:27:04):
vegetation until after those six weeks are up. They need
the protein to grow those little pulp bodies, you know,
into turkeys. And so if you don't have healthy insect populations,
you don't have healthy turkey populations then fly.

Speaker 6 (01:27:18):
They can't fly to their nine weeks old.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:27:22):
Therefore on the ground, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
And sand hills are ten weeks I believe till they
can fly and they're all reliant on spiders and flies
in the Rocky mountains. And I think that you can
just pick and choose what you you know, just on
its importance of harvest is crazy. There's so much that
goes into that cake.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
I mean, look at black bears. If you look at
the percentage of a black bear's diet that comes from
grubs and insects and things.

Speaker 6 (01:27:49):
Mas and a large, big, big majority of it. They
get a lot of their protein and a lot of
their fat just from insects.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Yeah, and you said it earlier, John, I think that
everything's connected. I mean this whole the circle of life,
I mean the ecosystem, It's all connected, you know, from
bumblebees to bison. This is critical, and SB five puts
the department in the position to be able to effectively

(01:28:21):
manage with that in mind. It's a holistic approach to
wildlife management that we've been lacking for a long time.
So Judy, you're the last one up before we wrap up.
I know we've been going for like an hour and
a half here. I appreciate you all being willing to
stay up so late and have this conversation, but I'm really,
really thrilled with all of your work on this bill,
So go ahead, Judy, you can finish.

Speaker 4 (01:28:42):
Us up just making me think that like Bumblebees to
Bears should be the department's new tagline, not Bison because
that's not really their thing, but you should suggest that
to them when they order the new shirts, that they
should say from Bumblebees to Bears. No, I just you know,

(01:29:02):
despite my slight sadness that it not going about it
not going one hundred percent. I mean, I think I
would just echo what everybody else has said, Like I
feel really really proud of us, and this is the
culmination of a decade of a lot of really hard work,
and I feel like it's mostly a win and we
should celebrate. And I'm very excited that the department can

(01:29:22):
soon hire an entomologist, which is an insect biologist, which
they have none on their staff, and I'm going to
bug them about hiring one, bug them about how hiring
one until they do it. So yeah, it's exciting, and
I think we're going to see a lot of good
things coming out of the department, and we'll keep trying
to get them more and more money so they can
do more and more things.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
Well, thank you, Judy. And speaking of bees to bears,
bees do like I mean, bears do like honey too too.

Speaker 4 (01:29:49):
It's like perfect for their new shirts. I'm going to
tell Mike Sloan tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (01:29:53):
I know here in Neboski there's a sal and cubs,
and she usually comes through every year right about this
time or no, maybe a little may bit closer to summer.
And she starts she's been coming for like five years,
six years in a row. And she starts in Bernardo

(01:30:14):
on Naboski and she works her way north and she
hits up the boys the boys camp or the boys
home out there, you know, and and vegeta boys ranch
and they got all them bee hives out there in
the back of their property. And she goes over there
every spring and tears them things up man every year,

(01:30:38):
and she's teaching her cubs to do it, so even
other bears are coming through. And then and she comes through,
and she goes through Bosky farms. A lot of people
in Bosty farms here, but all the way she comes through,
whoever has bees, she hits them every year because that
she hits that honey and tears up those those beehives.
Every single year.

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
Man, well, I think few people will know as much
about the wildlife in the Boski as you do, John,
between your nighttime adventures out there and your trail cameras.
I don't know if anybody has more trail cameras in
the world than you do. But there's not a there's
not a wild animal that can move through the Boski
without John Rudder knowing about it.

Speaker 6 (01:31:16):
I gotta keep a eye on them all, you know. Yeah,
you'd be surprised. Anything you can find in the mountains
and anywhere New Mexico you'll find on the Boski.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
You will. Man. Well, you guys are an awesome group.
Thank you so much for joining me, and thank you
for all the work on SB five. This has been
a great conversation and you should all be extremely proud
of yourselves. And I look forward to working with you
on more conservation wins in the future. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:31:43):
I'm looking forward to uh to a new Game and
Fish Department and moving forward on some better wildlife management
and state of New Mexico.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
Yep, and some more outdoor ed Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
All right, Well, happy happy turkey hunting gentlemen, and thanks Jesse, Judy,
thank you. I appreciate you all. You too have a
great right. Thanks for listening to the Yahiva podcast produced
by Driftwood Outdoors

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Ep. 48: SB5 - The Wildlife Heritage Ac

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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. 48: SB5 - The Wildlife Heritage Ac