00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode one, sixties seven of The Hunting Collective. Phil I've totally forgot the episode number. We had to start over. I apologize. Yeah, I mean that happens is probably every other episode, so that's fine. I'm used to it. We're just talking about this. Can I blame stuff on my kids? Or is that me being a bad dad? I think using your kids as an excuse to get out of something you don't want to do, I think that's fine. But like they're throwing them under the bus for your or you know, short stupidity or irresponsibility. I think that's kind of taking it too far. Well, they keep me up a lot. I'm tired and I just forget things, and uh, I can't blame it on them. I'm not gonna blame it on them. Goot, wonderful little humans. We're joined by the great and powerful Kayla rasa, Hey, Kayla, Hey, the great and powerful. I appreciate that. Yeah, at least like the melodic uh Kayla. However, hopefully we know you will um So, I gotta tell you it's been about two or three months that the song White Claw Wasted is stuck in my head. I was just singing it. I just walked into my studio here at my house and I was just going in and going to get why. Just my wife said, what are you singing it? Said, well, it's a long story. Um, But I think a lot of listeners this podcast love that song. So you gotta tell us, tell us how you decided that was the thing to sing. Uh. That that's cool. I'm having like a lot of own influx of of your folks coming, which has been pretty cool because of that. But I've played at a place there's a little dog outside of Omaha, Nebraska called Books. It's in Venice, Nebraska. It's the only I think it's like also the post office and maybe like the town hall of Venice, Nebraska too. But I played a gig and I dude drove a long way to come hang out for the weekend, and we all had a large time, but he had a larger time than most. And you know, the end of the night, everybody's you know, playing black Hawk's greatest hits on the jukebox, you know, and they're like, I love that, you get it. It's so great, you know, And then this dude proceeded to fall asleep on the bar. We gave him a hard time, but it was the best part about is that he was drinking white clothe the whole evening and so you know, we did all like the college age things to do, like we wrote on his face, and you know, he was he was he was pretty sick. Anyway. I was challenged to write a song about him being white clothe way so, but I got to feel kind of bad about it because we choosed him pretty good and he came a long way to come to the show. So I thought maybe I would do some plot that men who are secure enough to drink white clothe or maybe a little more heavily and down than others, and um, so that's I really didn't. I love that you'll found that because it's definitely his cell phone recording that we put on YouTube. You can hear my dog eating food in the background. It was it was a grown up thing. You know. It was perfect. That's why it's perfect. And I love the backstories even makes it more perfect because we you know, I just started telling people that I like white cloe like two summers ago. I started, you know, I can't fire in the backyard. I drank this thing. I thought, well, this, there's no way I can get drunk off this. I'll have about six or eight of them. And then next thing, you know, and I was like, Wow, it's this. Everything's feeling great, everything's feeling good, music sounds better, the world is clear. And since then, we've talked a lot about white claw on this show. Phil thinks that natural lime is the best flavor. Bullshit. We all know that that it's mango. We all know that it's Mango's good. That's good. No, that's not terrible, that's not terrible. But you appreciate a man like me who might drink a mango flavored Seltzer water drink, yeah, me and secure enough to do that, you know, ID hurt so much. I have to drink Jameson and water, you know, because I approved. So if you're confident enough to walk around the white closet, that's one way. That's very kind of you. It's a very kind way to put it. That's very Yeah. One time I was actually went to the Jameson Distillery one time in Dublin and they were serving I was shocked that they were serving cranberry. Jamieson's at their little bar. I thought, what self respecting irishman walking here? They must it must be for tourists. They must do that just for the tourists. I'm like, what self suspecting irishman will walk in and have a Jamieson and cranberry. That can't be a thing. There's no way. That's that's the washout process, right, Like that's how they pick off somebody that. Yeah, they would slide that across the table and if you put your hand towards it, they're like, oh I no, no, no, you're out. You're just qualified, You're just qualified. All right, Well, listen, I got we gotta explain the artistic process because what ended up what we called it a contest in the beginning to write our new theme song, but it became kind of like an art project in a way. We had people. I told everyone not to send me cordings of them singing there proposed lyrics, but people did anyway, So then I had to listen to these awful renditions of these wonderful poems and songs that people sent in. So we I counted we had a hundred and three people submit things, which is almost as many. Kaylee, you won't know this, but we had once had people draw Phil's face based only on his voice. That was a contest. Yeah, that was a contest to see. Yeah, he likes it, He's into it. Uh, we have, we had We had like three hundred of those that that people actually sat down with their families and to draw Phil's voice face. So we didn't quite get the three hundred, but in terms of like people writing poetry, we got a good track record. Ranny, right Phil, Yeah, Yeah, too many people enter these contests. I've said it before. Yeah, he thinks people are wasting their time, but they're not. I don't think they're wasting their time at all. Um, So we got so what Here's what I did. I read them all and there were three or four of them that were my favorites, and I couldn't choose between just one of them. And even though that this might be something that offends the artistic sensibilities of our listeners, I kind of like Frankenstein some stuff to get to what I sent Kayla. Then this included lyrics from Brett Russell, Ryan Savie and Costa Gus Phote m D always want to see if I'm saying that wrong. But Gus who writes it all the time, who wrote who wrote basically the bones of this doctor guess Dr guess Um. And so that's how we got here. I took all these lyrics and I sent it to Kayla, and Kayla, when you first read this, you thought these guys are idiots or possibly geniuses underappreciated in their time. What did you what? Do you feel absolutely that they're either idiots are possibly your genius geniuses that are underappreciated in their time. That was exactly it. Yep, it's good. Yeah, we're driving all right, And so you spent some time over the weekend putting it to a melody? Did you? Did you not? I did I tread? I had, I have to say that I did have. I called my my dad, and then our buddy Josh Nimar, who's like an avid listener, because I just really don't want to come on here and sound like a chump, so ahead him like back check me, you know, on a couple of couple of rearrangements here. So you know, yeah, well that's goods. It's good that you have somebody, uh in our little cult here that like can inform me what it's like to be around. Um, all right, well, unless you do you want to give us any any thoughts prior or just plays a song Because Phil, he's can He's been texting me about all week and he can barely contain himself to hear this. Well yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, I hit my data cap. Uh. I want to hear the song, but also, Ben, I kind of want to do a rewind after we hear the song and hear about Kayla's origins and stuff. I want to know her story. I don't know anything about Kayla Ray. I think it my sterious. I think we should keep it. I mean, it's up to you, Phil, it's your show. But truth, I feel like the story about White Claw Wasted is enough to keep me. All I need to need to do is now know like what the tour schedule is, and then that's all I need to know, trust to you. Uh. Well, let's let's hear the track. Let's hear it if kaylea if he was ready, right, let's see. I'll try so there are lots of like hmm, same here, you know with the pickup note, so we'll see. Okay, this is like I've been in I've been in the industry for ten years and this is like a culmination of ten years of work to get to this point. So no pressure, thank you pressure, appreciate it right, all right, your gun, Junior Mo. We're glad to show Colin Hunters new and no we're not on collective show working pick and shovel working, paining and hand We congregate nows lovers over, I play with focus. We're just living for the search, dreaming on the fire with salted deil burn. Ain't come back and till it's golden lane. Taking in slow so we can shoote straight, clean your gun, jing your bowl. We're done galact to show calling Hunter's new and old lane. No cold, I'm toll. We're knowing to you good. We're all good enough. We got filthy engineer calling any shooters blow. Are times I'm calling and bitter begins crying. Just remember there's always been ruling barries. Are gonna let the taking it in slow so we can shoote stream ah, jan your gun, Janior B. We're gleected show call and Hunters now and oh ain't no where fans or facs and opinions are subjective. You're listening then, Oh yeah we did it? Phil, Are you clapping. Oh, I'm clapping yeah. And then I just like to point out that we didn't do anything. That was all Kayla Ray and and our listeners. So I that was that was that's too good for this show, right, that is way too good. I was thinking that too. I'm like, this is too good for this show, and maybe we all get famous together. I don't, I don't. I mean, it could have happened, Kayla, Kayla, that was bad. That was bad. Yeah, I'm glad. I knew. I wanted to give you no instruction, just to Gonta let you. Let you play it now, Phil, Phil thinks that's too long to play at the beginning of every show. I don't think it's too I think people will listen to all however long that is, Phil, I was going to agree with you. I think that they are like some potential for like some little like a you know, like the out of time tagline or like just like a hook or something. But you know what do I know? I don't know, No, you know a lot. So we got a workshop this Phil, Uh, here's the here's my idea. I think we put some in the beginning of the show, some at the end, and then a little interstitial. That's good. Yeah, we could do like the first verse, the first verse in the in the beginning, and maybe the second in the for the out trail or something. Yeah, well, we'll work on it. We've got plenty of options. Caleb, I just wanted this badass is the only thing I was thinking when you were As I was dancing and clapping, I was thinking, this is the most badest thing that ever happened to me. Uh, I've done some some particularly badass things. So thank you. And please tell people where they can find your music, where they can see you. I know you said you were like back to torn Live when when the world uh well, I guess now and then also when the world gets back to normal. But tell people where they can. They've already found you up by searching White Glove Waiste that I think probably on YouTube. Where else can they find you? Yeah, my YouTube present Sacket's six. I really gotta work on that. This was a good awareness of that. But kaylor Ray music dot Com is the website and that's where most of the tour and stuff is. And you know, Facebook and Instagram and all that, but it's all under kaylor Ray Music, Apple Music, Amazon, the Audiota all of it. Phil, I think I'll let you will close out. You can ask a few origin story questions since you're you're so interesting. I don't want to. I don't want to leave that off the table. No, I'm just curious because you're talking about touring. Clearly you've been doing this for a while. When did you get started? How did you get started? I've been at it about ten years, like as a grown up, you know, Um, I'm really dig it. I grew up in White Coo, Texas, and I got a gig pretty early on, and I was already playing and writing and stuff, but tour manage them for a guy named Jason Eaty. So I was slefting deer and running around and just learning. Really, I mean, I didn't know it at all what I was doing. He just really through me a bone. But um, he produced my first two records and I've just been at it, at it ever since. I really I did it. I wouldn't trade it. It's crazy, but I would. I wouldn't trade it. Great. Yeah, that's awesome. We'll get back to my kids. When I think of like what I want him to be, I think of man musician as crazy as it would be as hard as to succeed as a musician. It's just I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest for both of them, like try to find a way to get your art out on that you know, and that's in that setting, because man, it's great. Tell him to stay in school and like do everything. But like this shot, I shouldn't have said that word. Sorry, guard your credit, scool, don't be ridiculous for your growing up, like all the things. If they were my children, I would tell them the opposite. But I appreciate you. Say do your taxes. Yeah, I'm with you. I feel you well, Kayla. We appreciate it. This is a life change for us. I'll have Phil connect with you and get all the particulars on the music and if if you don't mind, we'll use that every time we post a show from now until they cancel us. Yeah, thank you for that. I'll have to record a version of it that doesn't have all a bunch of blips in it. But I appreciate you a lot. This is fun. No, this is so good. I appreciate I had at least three or four listeners email me. The link to White Claw wasist and I'm glad they did. I'm glad we can connect with you, and we'll have to have you back on or Be and Phil I have to come to one of your live shows. You every close around uh Montaney for sure. Hey, I would love to do that. I get up to Bozeman putting often. I used to, so I'm ill let the killer you let us know. Alright, Kayla appreciate it. Alright, thanks, thank you, Philip T. Engineer. That was awesome. Dude, I keep saying awesome and badass. I don't. I can't really articulate how excited I am stupendous. I just don't. I felt like I was even bumbling over my words with Kayleb because I was a little bit starstruck by her awesomeness. Yeah, it's it's I gotta say. It's very cool for her to agree to do this. And I was telling you when we were off Mike that you were it was the right call to to follow up with her after we heard that White Claw song. Well, that White Claw song has been embedded in my psyche for about three months. Every time I pop open a white Claw, I like I sing a little little little bit of it. But yeah, I was I was a little for clemmed. I was so excited to hear that song and talked to Kayla. I don't apologies, I felt. Yeah, I gotta say I also did not expect such a great origin story for the song too. I thought it was yeah, I know that's I mean, the whole thing, man, the whole thing is exciting. Um. Well, again, thank you to Kayla ray go check her out, man follow her. She's done something for our show that she didn't have to do. And I am a little bit taken back by how great that song wasn't And I can't wait to have you guys, force you guys to listen to it before you get to the podcast forever and ever and ever. Um. But you know, we've got a lot to get to. But I will say, of all of you that wrote in that, thank you for writing in the The poetry and lyrical abilities of our listeners are I would say, unmatched in the hunting podcast space. I feel like our listeners are the best lyrical artists of any of the many thousands of podcasts in our category. So thank you for that. Specifically thanks to Dr Gus Ryan everybody that that I'll be saying you guys an email specifically, but we'll be calling you out in every episode. Thank you for that song, and also thank Kayla Ready for putting into music. So another wonderful, beautiful chapter of t C. Let's come to a close down. We have a theme song. Let's say it this way, Phil, I think we're the first Mediator Network podcast to have its own theme song. Can we say that that's a fact? You can say that many will copy us after this, but none will be able specifically. I think Bent will copy us after this, but none of the other podcasts are as cool as us. I think this cements it. If you didn't already know we are are the best. So we got some stuff to get to today's podcast. If we didn't fill you in at the end of the last week show, well enough. There's a little bit of a response to I mean, I want to say responses it's been a while, but a continuation of the conversation and a little more clarification of the conversation around animal rights and the conversation we had with Paul Basher. So if you haven't listened to that Paul ba Sheeter episode, head back and do that now, and we're back. Thank you. For spending that time doing that. Uh. And we're gonna go through a little bit of of what happened in that conversation and explore a little bit more about animal rights, animal welfare, all those things in this episode with our favorite non beatle, Paul McCartney. Paul McCarney. Phil, Yes, he's he's one letter away from being one of the most prolific songwriters of our generation. And what I didn't know that Phil was telling me about before this, and I've founded it this out as I was googling Paul McCartney to read his articles, is that Paul McCartney is an avid uh vegan and anti hunter. Yeah. I don't know. I mean you would assume because he's such an outspoken vegan, he's probably an anti hunter. I don't know about the anti hunting thing though. I I just know that he does not eat meat and is very he likes to tell people about it. Um. But yeah, there there there was a rumor. I think this is true. Good fact check me. Uh. Weird Al Yankovic um wanted to do a parody of Live and Let Die the Paul McCartney James Bond song and call it Chicken Pot pie and Paul McCartney did not give him permission because he did not want to have a song about meat consumption, even though it was a complete parody. And I don't know if it was actually endorsing eating chicken pot pie, but I can tell you that I endorse it, if that means anything. Yeah, how about wild turkey pot pie once we get this going. But so you're saying that Paul McCartney is a rabbit anti hunter, calling him out rabbit anti hunter famous Beatle did not say that, but living legends possibly. Well, if you're if he's listening to this, you're welcome on the show. We'll give you the we'll give you the Paul A Sheer treatment. And yes, please please, Paul McCartney, if you're listening, I'd love to have a chat. Big fan. I've seen him in concert multiple times, have you? Oh yeah, oh wow, I didn't know that. I could have guessed. I could have guessed video games, beatles, it's all that's all together, Yeah, it's all at all tracks. Hey, Phil, you know last week you made a mistake, a big mistake. And yeah, I know you did. Yeah you said that you were making you said sarcastically, I think I think it was sarcastically. I'm not sure that you were making membership cards to the THHD cult. I said that it was sarcastic. I aggrestion. You did receive several notes from people asking you where here's my address? Please get the card in the mail. I'd like it to be laminated. This is true. And did you reply to those people? Nod them. I forwarded them on to you. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna apply to your emails, Phil, I mean, listen, I was mostly offended that this person somehow found my email. I mean, it's not like it's that hard to figure out. I'm not going to say it on the air right now, but but I was mostly just buddy, now you're opening it up. He just just caught off guard, being like, who is this schmuck? And how did he find out my email address? People are right now thinking in their minds, what is Phil's email and how could I figure it out. I'm not going to help him because I can get in trouble. But I know you're thinking about it now, and you're thinking about sending him an email. Uh, And I'm not I'm not going to dissuade you from thinking about it actually do in it. That's up to you. Let me just say that sending me any an email will not get you a th HC membership card. So you're not making just just as like a public service and as when you're not making th HC membership cards at all. No, unless you allow me to design them in any way I want you get no notes, no no no fit, no feedback, no feedback. Uh, and then I can send them out to whomever I want. All right, we can do it. It's fine. I'm so desperate to be liked. Um. All right, well we're gonna get into the animal rights anim welfare. But with the other mistake we made last week is we mentioned that our Blue Ridge contingent that's all going to take out our our new Hunter uh, could be the first regional chapter. And so lots of people wrote in that they want to also take part in regional chapters and their neck of the woods. Um, specifically Ben, our buddy will just say his full name, Ben Upton, who has written in before. He and he said, uh, but when you and Phil were talking about it, you somewhat jokingly mentioned there would be a regional chapters of the cult, and even though you weren't necessarily serious, I think that this could be kind of cool. I moved to Denver in September, and since moving I've had a really, really, really hard time meaning anyone to hunt because of COVID. In fact, the only new person I meant to hunt was Hayes Hile, who I found through the podcast if you'll remember back in November. I am so passionate about hunting, and I'm the type of hunter that wants to work hard, hike far, and really get a good suffering before it's all said and done. He likes to hunt turkeys, elk, mule, deer, grouse, but the idea of going into these places alone is a bit intimidating. So it's been pretty frustrating to not have meant anyone that wants to go do these things with me, especially because I know there are plenty of folks that like those things around here. I think having some way for cult members to reach out and find each other will be really cool way for people to find hunting partners in the times of COVID, even if it's a forum or Facebook page or something like that. Um, I'm fairly confident that most of the people that listen to your podcast, especially the ones that would email honestly, would be interested in regional chapters. And I got pretty excited myself as the possibility of having a way to meet like minded people to hunt without there. Okay, Phil, what do we what do we do? Do you have the time to manage this program? If I do not have the time to make ten thousand laminated membership cards, I don't think I have the time to to somehow oversee this, uh this expansion of the THHC coult. But I think that's why we have Barry Gilbert on the board, right or not? Barry Gilberts excuse me? Wow? Wow, you may want to cut that. Eric All may never listen again. Uh yeah, we may have to approach Air Call about this. See if he's got any extra time on his hands. Um, I I gotta tell you, guys, I got absolutely no extra time with my answer to run something like this. But what I will do for all of you out there, just very quickly, is if you email me and you're in the situation where you'd like to meet new hunters, we will put you, We will read, you will do a little segment on the show, and we'll read your name and where you live, and we'll ask people to email in and I'll do and I'll make sure I connect you. This is in the short term to solve the problem with the t HD CALT. I don't want people to think that I don't care. I certainly do care, but it's cool to see it go this way. And we want to help guys like Ben and our emergent hunter from a couple of weeks ago find people that go hunting in the field just like we do. So, UM, if you're desperate out there and you need a little help, email us and we will help of that, I can promise you. Um, I think we've got in our in our Blue Ridge Chapter, Phil our our in inaugural Blue Ridge Chapter of the th HD colt at least at this point fifteen people in that little bucket. So I'm excited about that, and also excited to talk to Paul McCartney again, the most unfortunate name in Googling history, Paul McCartney, who is out of Newfoundland. He's a PhD up there and done a lot of conservation work and writes very beautifully about the issues in the Hunting Space. I wanted to have him on to talk about a specific article he wrote. That's the point of that of the conversation with Paul McCartney. Appreciating nuance. That's what hooked me at The type of the sub is appreciating nuance, and I'm like, oh, that gets I'm done. I gotta read it now. The difference between animal rights and animal welfare. Now, this goes back to our conversation with Paul Sheer, but it's it's interesting to think of hunters possibly as animal where welfarrests rather than um. The opposition is animal rights folks, and so in this in this article, Paul sets it up this way. He quotes David Peterson from Heart's Blood, a wonderful book if you haven't read it. Animal welfare quote supports the humane treatment and responsible care of animals that ensures comfort and freedom from unnecessary pain and suffering. By contrast, the animal rights movement dictates that the use of animals by any human for any purpose is wrong. So as we go through this conversation with Paul McCarney, you'll you'll want to key in on that. We get get to that down the road in the conversation. But that's that's really kind of the point that I wanted to get to as we move away from you know, the Paul but Sheer conversation last year and start to think about this critically. The other point um from that Paul Bisher episode that came up was was large scale agriculture, plant based agriculture, and how much death can be applied to that actual activity. Now, that is a hard thing to pin down on a large scale. On a macro scale, it might it might be easier on a micro scale. Certainly when you're talking about this tangential or empirical evidence, we can find a lot I've seen a lot of vultures hovering over combines and harvesters across the Midwestern in my travel, So we can put the empirical evidence around the fact that large scale agriculture, planned variety kills a lot of things. They're just not the things were used to see and die. So but we've had what really kicked all of this offer me was a fellow named Jack Henry reached out to me online and he is a biological science student at California Polytech San Luis Obispo SO at California Biology student, and he does some of this work for a living. He's he recently graduated. He says this summer and into December that he worked at a biological consulting firm in Bakersfield, California, which performed biota surveys pre construction surveys on some of these large scale farms. And although he said he's by no means an expert, he said, it gave me a solemn understanding the mortality that results from construct and agricultural efforts. Eventually, I quit this job due to some ethical concerns of the biological consulting industry in which we were recouraged to break the law to make developers happy during monitoring of endangered threatened species. That's not good. But then he goes on to explain what he learned there. He says, whenever you have a plot of land, almost anywhere you can think of, there's a sensitive micro climate of animals living underground. I'll try to simplify some of these animals to specific population densities, to individual acres. Voles, moles, gophers, kangaroo, rats, mice, rats, fence, lizards, snakes, and much more may lay underground at any point. For example, one acre of land may contain up to eight to twenty individual pocket gophers. A typical meadow vole populations are regularly between fifteen to forty five per acre in old field habitat. Deer mice population densities regularly occur up to fifteen mice per acre, and according to Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for listing Threatening and dangerous species, estimates kangaroo rat densities in some grasslands from two point five to two point seven five individuals per acre. Reptiles, on the other hand, might even be harder to qualify because their metal metal box needs and the detection probability involved with detect detecting accurate densities are more rare. It's really really hard, he says, to visualize these densities because so many of these species are nocturnal. Unfortunately, people care much less about these individuals since they are not charismatic megafauna that opponents of a carnivore diet care about. It's much easier for people to care about large animals like elk or deer. Prior to construction of a building or conversion of a lot to agriculture, a field will be disc during disking, animals in a given area do not flee. Usually generally, the noise of attractor performing the disking will drive rodents back into their burrows, where they eight will be inevitably killed. The aforementioned animals will be deleted from the landscape, either by the blunt force that occurs by suffocation and collapse burrows. It doesn't take a mathematicition to quantify the death per acre individual animals into the hundreds or thousands. Of course, that brings us to the ethical considerations of whether or not large charismatic animals are worth more in the eyes of vegetarians or vegans than the sheer number of small animals slaughtered, many of which may be classified as protected by the Fish and Wildlife Service. There's also a dangerous chain of events that occurs when all life is simply deleted from the landscape. For example, many eagles, hawks, falcons, coyotes, foxes, weasels that relied on this source of food have now lost an important part of their diet and are now displaced. Some raptors may make do and predate on the land, but most will never be the same. He goes on to say, I think it's important to come to terms with mortality involved with development, agriculture and even livestock, because of course livestock feed requires agriculture, and my position, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that hunting being the most ethical choice people may make to do the calorie content equivalent per individual. Although I haven't had the chance to hunt during the Corona pandemic, your podcast has encouraged me for my close friends to get our hunter education classes done and get our hunting licenses, which we all have now. Unfortunately, it's really hard to scale up. Hunting is a feasible way for the majority of American to get fed, but it's important to understand the course of agriculture and livestock. At the same time, it casts a great shadow of doubt over the ethics of veganism versus the ethics of eating meat. I know that was very long, but thank you Jack Henry for that. What Jack is sharing really it has some concretion to it has some data and really also personal experience as to how much death goes into large scale agriculture, and that was really the crust of the situation. And Paul but Sheer, the other crux of it is what we just talked about animal writs an animal welfare. So we're gonna get you in to this conversation with Paul McCartney right now in JI, Paul, how are you, sir? Doing very well? How are you good? I cannot complain. I wanted to first address something with you that we hadn't talked about previously. When I try to google your name, Google really wants me to watch Paul McCartney videos and listen to man. I could do anything I want, and I'm anonymous on the internet. Yeah, there's there's no way to find you. I put like Paul McCartney hunting and conservation, and it was like, did you mean Paul McCartney. Well, and what's great about that is the kind of stuff that comes up. You're like, oh, hell no, no, no, I didn't mean that because he uh, we do not share Paul McCartney and I do not share similar perspectives on hunting and especially It's sort of funny because I did my I studied seals for my PhD and spent a lot of time in the North studying and well eating and hunting seals. So it's it's actually it was a good icebreaker when I would get to communities and introduce myself and kind of go, no, not that one, not that one. He'd be here for a different reason. Yea. But yeah, if you if you put in Paul McCartney hunting, it comes up with all of the anti hunting quotes from Paul McCartney. Able to compete. Yeah, until then, you're just kind of in a weird internet search paradox, which actually probably benefits you. As you mentioned there, it's good. I actually don't mind being well, tell people a little bit about your background. I already already learned something I didn't know about that your PhD work with seals and seal hunting. But give people, uh a little bit of the background where you grew up, how you got into this and and you know how you got into more of the scholarly work and writing and and things that you do. Right now. Yeah, so cut me off when I'm when I'm going on too long, Let me just tell you that was like an eight part question. Just start at the beginning. We'll work from there. So, um yeah, So I grew up in Ontario, just outside Toronto, um so you know, suburbia. Um So, and this is I'll kind of dropped this as a bit of an maybe easter to the later conversation, but definitely did. I did not grow up in a hunting household. No one I no one I knew hunted except for you know, one person at school UM, and had no exposure to it. I mean spend a lot of time outdoors UM and got into you know, backcountry canoe tripping and hiking and things like that, but um, never with a gun in my hand. UM. And sort of came to as I was going through university, came to uh studying and being being very really directly involved in a lot of environmental movements and environmental UM issues UM So things around resource extraction UM and major hydro electric dams and sort of movements and issues like that. UM and sort of started studying ecology and wildlife science and biology UM. And that's what really brought me around to the hunting world. I mean I had fished growing up, UM, but never but never put it together as as a type of UM that as a type of activity that was part of um, you know, consumption and and kind of hunting and angling. It was just you know, kind of going fishing sort of thing. M UM. So as I started to really I So I really kind of came to hunting and sort of through a lot of the academic and post secondary work I was doing UM and had a couple of really great mentors at the university who who hunted and sort of I mean into it that way and from the sense of really wanting to get a more personal understanding and connection with some of the stuff I was studying UM and connect to it on on you know, on a different level. When I say connected, I mean you know, collegy and natural processes and wildlife and things. So that's so that was what really, UM, what was really what brought me to it is it started out as a as a way to kind of put into practice for myself personally what had really solidified as a as a moral and ethical and kind of academic passion. UM. Yeah. So and then and then then that's that led me to it, UM to a PhD on UM and I and I, you know, I worked with a really great guy at York University studies polar bears and seals UM, and so that was sort of a perfect world for me to be in because UM, it was hunting, hunting and fishing and biology in that sense were inseparable. Um, they were all part of something, part of it together. So UM was super I was really drawn to that. Yeah, I mean I think of your writing. You know, what brought me to to want to chat with you was some of the writings of yours that I've read. You don't necessarily remember where I was keyed onto it, but I was, and I started reading and you could just tell, um, I love to just explore different people's perspectives and approaches and connections with hunting, and I could tell yours was you know, at least maybe had its origins in academia, and it kind of have kind of splintered out into different subject matter in different ways to approach things. But you know, a lot of these tough topics we get into are are a lot easier to understand when they're taking, you know, from an academic perspective or broken down using no dog about no emotion, just trying to get to the heart of the matter. So I did. I did appreciate I think that last point, like getting to the heart of the matter. I think some of the tough topics that we've really delved into on this show. Um, You're writing kind of gets to the heart of them in a really pragmatic way. So I give you that. I guess that to to butter you up right right out. Okay, man, Well, thank you, and I mean that was I think that was I appreciate that because I think I'm would I'm drawn to writing much more around um. I mean, I like absolutely and fascinated by the scientific topics and academic kind of digging and around these things. But putting it into him when we were talking about this earlier, putting it into a way that is written for a more kind of popular consumption and discussion is what really interests me. And that's where you know, we were talking about valarious guys who took his science writing and kind of deliberately tried to force himself to to write for a more popular audience. And I think that it was absolute success. So it's people like that that that really kind of I go, you know, there is a way to do this. There is a way to like take a real academic obsession but make it hopefully something that is useful. Yeah, And an academic world, I mean in conservation really embodies that in a lot of ways, right. I Mean I was read an article that I just pulled up that you that I had read and you led me back to that was it's called the companies we keep politics and inclusion and hunting. And I know you know are at least aware of Lydia and Jimmy from Hunters of Color. You know, we had them on last week and went went through what they do and what they believe is kind of like the pathway to reel and lasting diversity. Um and you touched on that in this article a little bit. But I think it's also a crossroads of what you just mentioned where we're able to then take a look at at hunting and I'll just read you a little bit of what you what's your road back in September. Hunting is wonderfully complex. It is a social activity that brings us together with friends and family. Hunting is also deeply embedded in conservation politics. I think that point right there is is kind of how that academia and even the social aspects of hunting kind of cons vation needs all that stuff to work, right. I mean, it really needs um each approach and it needs so I think where you come in like a good understanding of the two things of how the scientific and academic studies work and how that relates to the more social and even political side of things. Yeah, I totally agree, And um, you know that's that piece was something that I had that had been the idea had been sort of just sitting in my head since, you know, since I started hunting, But I did not think of it as a as a topic deliberately to write about, because I know, I mentioned I kind of came to hunting through some of my own like being involved in environmental movements and things, and before that, I was I grew up like this thing, like you know, in the Toronto punk rock scene, and that scene is completely embedded in in you know, movements around social justice. So that was where I kind of came from, was that world. So when I came to hunting, it was really about, um, those two worlds around social justice and political justice and environmental justice and then bring it into hunting was sort of a seamless transition for me, and they've always been together in my head, but I didn't I hadn't sort of found a way to express them that way. And one of the and one of the ways that I that I started to think about was was in the same way that we that I think about companies and purchases and that I make in my everyday life, which is, what are the companies that I'm wearing and purchasing and supporting, what are the values that they promote? And what are they doing to make the hunting world um better, more and more just um and And so I you know, I came to and I didn't really I didn't really think that there were a lot to be honest, and I came. I came to find companies like Hunt to Eat for example, who um, in my mind, are just are sort of forging the way in that way and bringing having these discussions and really meaningfully and directly saying, you know, hunting is part of all these other discussions. It's embedded in these and vice versa, and we need to we need to explore them, and we need to have those conversations and and do what we can. And so that was where that one came from, was I kind of finally I sort of found a company then that thought, well, you know they are doing that. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think you're right in here. We are actively, we are active on important conservation issues while allowing passive passificity around social issues. Right, we are passive in the social sense and active in the conservation sense. But again they're connected. Um and we I said last episode that when it comes to you know, most people hear the word social justice these days and they go running for the hills or they have up baked in thought that you know, sometimes it becomes this, um, you know, very imperiled way of seeing the world. But I don't, I don't necessarily look at it that. I think it's pretty simple, um, that what you said is true. That are social The way we socially relate to hunting, our society and both how we relate to each other can be improved and can be communicated in the same way as to relate to the ecosystems and habitats and manage wildlife. So it's those things have to be connected, right, I mean you feel like they're you know, where I came from was different than you. Um, those things were never connected until I actively connected them myself. Um. And I think a lot of people are hungry for to just explore that where it hasn't been explored in the past. Yeah, I think so too, And I think I think in a lot of cases what it is also is a m It's it's sort of pulling the covers back on some of the narratives that we're um, that are that are popular in the hunting conservation world and seeing that there are that there are historical corners of this narrative and this history of hunting that in which these things have always existed where um, you know, I think I talked about in that one that you know, we like they wouldn't have the water fowl populations we do today without the without women activists at that time, UM, and um, you know, we we wouldn't have I mean, people can sort of disagree on the political movements that are going on, but we wouldn't know and think the way we do in a lot of cases about about certain environmental and conservation issues and things without um, many indigenous leaders and thinkers throughout history. UM. And so I think that these things have been there, but we you know, UM, they kind of get missed, and in some cases they kind of they get deliberately missed. UM. But yeah, I know I agree, people kind of go running for the hills and I and I and that's something that um that I also tried to kind of confront and challenge is is is the kind of the cliches and stereotypes within the hunting community that I think we do more damage to ourselves with UM then then anti hunters could ever do to us. Where we we divide and we we put, we categorize, and we compartmentalize our lives and our thinking, and we kind of create more division within UM. Yeah, I say that all the time. And when I get into conversation with people about anti hunting, and we're gonna we're gonna break into a conversation here, We're gonna go as deep as we possibly can go on animal rights and here in a minute. But part of what people often say to me is that it's it's this anti hunter you must defend yourself against. It's it's this like you need to build a partition between you and them. And I often say I get less divisive commentary from anti hunters than I do from hunters. It's almost it's like one, if I'm being honest, I get yeah, absolutely, man, I get um. I get that, I get called all kinds of things about about being a lefty and a social justice war and all of that stuff, And it's it's it's people it's from in the hunting community. Um and uh, And I say, like, you know, you're I am being You're accusing me what of being willing to think about these things and being willing to do into them? And I mean guilty? Then you know, yeah, me too. That's that's a good way to put it. I think a lot of people listening hopefully can agree that, like if it's if willingness to look at these things objectively and then also look at him personally to be like, you know, what do I believe? Well? But what I what do I think it objectively is good for the community? Um, I think that those two things are are integraling and to not be too you know, to avert about this each You have some examples in this article about companies and how they express their value systems. Right, So if you were to if you were to take justice, environmental justice, social justice, the hunting community does this and signals this in many ways. You give examples of for example to you, right, and they they have they put sheet back on the mountain, and do you think when they put sheet back on the mountain they don't talk about that is like a part of the shared set of values that we have in the hunting community. UM First Light talks about sporting heritage, they talk about UM public lands, they talk about UH, they have a women's line. You know. All these companies, Sitka they do the same thing. They have a grant system for the outdoors where they talk about funding really important habitat work and ecosystem work and things of that nature. And so exactly all these companies are taking part in some sort of value based activity that we can all agree on. And yeah, and that's exactly, and I think it's that's then that's where I kind of then go, Okay, now what's the next step. And I you know, I saw as an example, you know, UM, when Sitka came out last year and said, you know that they that they do not support UM, you know, opening out the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. You know, it was like they're kind of that that was an environmental issue for sure, but they knew full well that they were going to be taken a lot of political heat from that, you know. UM. And I saw and I kind of mentioned it in there as well that I UM in June when the continent really started to talk in a very UM in in a really real way about racial justice. And I and I sort of looked to the hunting community and saw where do I see this leadership? And I didn't own anything by hunt to Eat before then, Um, and I bought a T shirt that day when I when I saw them come out and say, you know, we're gonna be We're doing better, We're going to do better for this and and so yeah, exactly, I kind of look um to to our community just to say, you know, um, how are we going to infuse are the things that we already know how to do because we've been doing them for so long around wildlife and conservation, how are we going to do those socially as well? Yeah? And it's like I said, it's like the well has been poisoned by our politics. But if you just say, look at look at the look at the way that people on social media, as hunters is influencers and companies that are influential, like leading members of our community speak about conservation and how to work in it and live the life of it, um, you know, and and to add to the experience of hunting through you know, making sure there's healthy wildlife. I think it's it's as simple as saying, we want to make a diverse you know, we want to make this a diverse community with that is inclusive and welcoming and understands that it needs that to thrive because hunting, because I'm sure you probably agree, and needs social acceptance to thrive, you know, just you know, and social acceptance requires acceptance from lots of perspectives, communities and races and creeds. So to me, it's just like an objective thing. But I know you're just like me. When I try to just make it objective, it becomes it kind of gets a little bit pulled decoupled from that when you get yeah, and it and it is objective. But I also think, like nothing could be more personal either than hunt than than hunting, And I think, so I think, and this is then, this is why, this is why when I when I came to hunting in my twenties, it just consumed me because it it um to me there's no other part of my life that so fully exists in in the most personal way and also in the most intellectual kind of objective academic way. Um, and that space right there is what is what I find so compelling and consuming about it, Because yeah, You're right. It's like it's it just seems so self evident what we need to do. Um, and at the same time that it can be there's nothing more personal that we could do than than then take this activity that is that is so meaningful to us and and kind of be critically reflective about it, you know. Yeah, And I think, yeah, fortunately, um, because I before the Black Lives Matter riot's really last summer kind of got fired up. The previous November, we had done a podcast on the subject of diversity and hunting and how to really look at it critically, and I got a lot of pushback, more than I expected, and a more just vera like verocity, like people just the people that didn't like it just couldn't understand why I would even entertain such an idea. And then as time went on, um, even just you know last week's episode with with Lydia and Jimmy from Hunters of Color, it was almost like a non issue. It is almost like everyone that didn't run for the Hills back then that hung on sees this just as something we talk about. It's not something you know, there are little intricacies that people disagreed with in a very constructive way. But there wasn't any inflammatory hate hate speaks around you know what we talked about. And so that's movement. Man, We'll get movement on this, UM. But it's just you know, keep talking about it, and you know it's from you to be you know, growing up in the different country, in a different you know, pretty far away from where I grew up. Um, to come to that same kind of idea. I think it's in and of itself kind of analogy for where we got to do for the rest of them totally. And and these and these connections, I mean, um, you know, I've chatted with Jimmy since they first launched Hunters of Color and it's like, you know, I didn't even know where he lived at the time. And then then you find out that people are now connected on this, their their platform has connected people across the entire continent around this, and it's and you realize, this is not a this is this is a topic that UM is not as loud as others, but it's not niche. It's not it's not sort of tucked away in the corner somewhere. And I think, like what I try to get it across to other hunt hunters I talked to, and you know, when I try to kind of get across and writing is these things are tough, they're complicated, they're frightening, um, and that is something. Those are things, and those are feelings, and those are challenges that the hunting community and hunters and conservationists have dealt with since the beginning. Nothing that we no success that we've ache has not been heretical at the time. I mean like did you like, do you think do you take these big stories that um, and you think when people wanted to stop market hunting in the early that that was a popular opinion among hunters. Like, so it doesn't at all concern me. It concerns me greatly that that we have people as part of a community that I'm part of that don't feel that everyone belongs here. That that that concerns me greatly. But it doesn't. It doesn't deter me because I think that we just know that we're onto something. You know well, and if you it's funny how this works too, because you go back to like when they had the first ever National Wildlife Conference, When you start looking at the who was there, who was really the gathering around conservation? There was garden clubs. There was a much more I guess you could say diverse, but much more varied stakeholder group back then. It seems, um. And maybe it's just how politics and our society and sociology has moved, but it just kind of seemed back then that there was you know, there was there was John Muir hanging out with Teddy Roosevelt like that. That that did happen, um, and it even back then was very publicized. So well, yeah, and I mean this is I think, you know, you know, Ralph Waldo Emerson was you know, eventually spoke out against hunting, and we see him as one of the great naturalists, right, we see um, sorry, I'm sorry, Henry David Threau. Rather and you know, we see we see Walden as um as one of the greatest environmental texts and that that taught us so much about how to think about living with nature. And in that book it speaks out against eating meat, and it it it doesn't seem to take away from what we've learned from him in terms of relating to the environment and being steward of the land. Um, because he didn't do it in a way that was meant to polar eyes. He didn't talk about it, he didn't demonize and villainize people. Um. It was still towards the same the same goal, the same kind of thing that we that we all agreed on. Um. And so I think that's instructive just and how, you know, how we interpret things now and how we how we don't see things or how we do see things from the past, and we kind of when we kind of question that, we realize there are some lessons there, you know, and how we maybe should be doing things differently. Yeah, I always I'm telling you, I look back at that, you know, FDR and that Wildlife conference back in I've studied that and kind of read some of the reports that came out of that, and you get this idea and maybe it's maybe it's idealistic. Maybe I don't. If I was there, I wouldn't feel this way. But I when I look back at that that you know, two thousand conservationists. There was farmers, hunters, anglers, like I said, garden club members, outdoor enthusiasts. There was a General Wildlife fetter Acian idea, and also a group called the General Wildlife Federation, which changed two years Two years later, to the National Wildlife Federation. Um, that that really felt like that, you know, because there was so much of a threat out there, such a general threat to wildlife and wild lands, and just kind of our ability to go there, um, that we could gather around that. So I think we're there now too. I mean we're there now too. I think if we just look hard and dig into it. Um. But yeah, I appreciate. I appreciate where you are on that. I really do. Yeah. Thanks, I'm glad. Yeah, it's cool that you had them on that. That's great. Yeah, like I said it, I mean, like so the first time we really broached this subject. And I'm not I'm not naive. I understand that there's a wide swath of America that's tired of of tired of hearing about it, and wants to just talk about turkeys. I'm with them too. I would love to just talk about turkeys. But I have a disposition that doesn't allow for that. I don't think. Um. But you know that for us, like I said, for us to be able to push push that forward and simplify it um on a broad level and personalize it on on you know, like a micro level, I think is is just the way in for for people to be asking. We had some good emailers from last Kudos to these folks that emailed last week about that episode, and they were just it felt like they were nitpicking some of the points made, and I was so happy to see people nitpicking some of the solutions for the problem rather than the problem. Yeah. Absolutely, that's a good way to put it, for sure. And I think, um, well, you know it won't surprise you that I found that your discussion with paulish you're really interesting for that because because of that, I found, um, there was a different focus sometimes, um from his perspective on on the problem versus the knitpicking of the like the ideas and and and um what he chose to focus on. Right, So yeah, yeah, I'm glad you. I'm glad you listened to that. I can't listen back to it. I don't have it's you know, like those things become just to get one of the reasons, I'll just will start at the beginning here. One of the reasons I wanted to have Paul on was Paul McCartney who we're talking to, not Paul the sheer Holly different reasons. Yeah, and not Paul McCartney because he would probably have to come with Paul the Sheer. They'd have to come on together. UM, as you wrote a piece called up the difference between animal rights and animal welfare around appreciate the nuance between in the history of of animal rights, and I'm sure i'd love to get you know after you listen to that. It's been a while since I talked to Paul the Sheer, and it's been a while since I really kind of went back to that episode, but we did. UM also have a listener of our podcast send us a bunch of answers here recently about uh large scale agg and how many animals that kill and we we've talked about that already in this episode, but we're getting you know, this is kind of a good time to take a reset and respond to that because they're so much that happened. I fired. I laughed because I just fired a lot of people up. UM. But what's you listen to that? What What did you take from that UM conversation? Yeah, Man, I took us so much from it, Um, I took it so I I specifically focused on the concept of appreciating nuance, and I did very deliberately when I wrote that piece of animal rights and welfare, I very deliberately did not position it as animal rights versus animal welfare UM. Because I did, I don't see them as as I see them as as a as a contrast and as having specific, nuanced differences. And one of the things I took from that conversation is the importance of language and exactly what I was sort of trying to highlight my pieces around and what I took from that was and how language can be used, um and in some cases misused UM two in presenting a perspective that U that kind of mobilizes certain you know what's called in the literature, It's called moral framings, so um, you know, packaging something up into a set of kind of framings and ideas that certain people are going to respond one way to and other people are going to respond a different way too. And the animal rights movement is phenomenal at this. They're incredible at doing doing this effectively. And so that was something I took from that because I felt that it, I mean, I was pulled out of the conversation and it when when so, and I mean, I don't know, I don't want I don't want it at all. Um. You know hang Polish show to dry it all. It was a great conversation and I enjoyed listening to it. Um. But you know there were when when they use when he used his language like like murder and violate and things. Um. That's that's reference to very specific legal and ideological ideas and frameworks. Um. And so that something that that really stood out to me, is it it pulled me out of the bigger topic and and sort of had me focusing too much on that stuff. Let me just let me just say that that is something I've run to almost I actually did another podcast with a gentleman um, an animal rights activist, and I went to his house or this animal rights house called the Dingo Den, and Uh, this gentleman is is I just don't like to say his name or his group anymore because they've just done some stuff since then that I just I don't even want to promote even as as a listening tool. Um. But I went there and immediately was struck me. This is the first time I've really seen it. And then I've seen it and heard it every other conversation since. As we start to get into animal rights is kind of like the civil rights movement as kind of like the right, you know, the movement to end slavery is kind of like And so then I end up having to be in the uncomfortable sometimes position of semantics trying to decouple slavery from hunting. And that I feel, I feel, if it's not deliberate, it's certainly tactical. Right, It's certainly like part of their training to get you to to become uncomfortable with your own argument, because you have to then you have to set those two things beside each other. So I think that goes to your moral framing comment. Yeah, and it and it and it is deliberate. Um and and hey, look, I mean you know, as a hunting community, we have strategies and tactics that we use as well, many of which I think are great and many of which make me cringe. Uh. And I understand that different movements have different approaches and tactics, And I think this is the thing. This is sort of the rub to me, is, um, how do we peel back those those specific strategies and tactics and get to some of those underlying ideas and um and uh And in some cases I mean, in some cases that will be strategic for us, because at the end of the day, no one is letting go, no one's letting go over their long term goals, and so in some cases, I think, you know, one of the things to me, I think is is that this is strategic to us if we can be a little more measured, a little more careful, and even some cases more sympathetic to to these other ideas. Um, the worst case scenario, we're gonna have a better understanding of our own perspective, in our own directions, in our own language, and in best case scenario, we're going to have better connections with people that, um, we didn't have before. You know, well, I mean your article gets into the history I want to get into the history of animal rights and then comparing it to animal welfare. But you bring up a good point that maybe we can work through if you don't mind. Prior and I didn't really think of it this way, but there are these kind of constructs in our own head about hunting, how we argue hunting. Um, I always try to first start by peeling back our own dogma and saying, like, what am I really trying to say here? And that's led me to kind of like a conversation about death that is pretty infallible when when you start thinking about animal rights, you know, because then you start to then you start to compare death to death um, and it gets interesting. But but when I think of okay, here's one of the see, if you agree with with the analogy of the altruistic hunter, we often present ourselves, present the hunting community, this altruistic band of um animal welfare lovers and conservationists that are out there thinn and herds and and really that's like uh anymore a thin veneer on why we're really out there? My my philosophy or my thought about this would love to hear you talk about it a little bit. Is that you know, there's a game theory side the hunting. You know, you're you're pursuing a goal, right, a trophy in some cases are you're pursuing a goal and there's a lot of of different inputs and outputs that are very exciting UM on just a game level, Like the same way we play a video game, this same way we play a board game, where those things are pleasing to us psychologically and help us UM in a lot of ways. So while we might come off as alstruistic in an argument with an animal rights person, we have a lot to unpack there. Um. Have you done much thinking about that? Yeah, for sure. UM. And one of the things that have kind of come to a lot more recently is UM is being able to um to being able to adjust our presentation of things depending on the audience. And I think getting past two issues that we have with that, so we know, be often this is why hunt, and this is this is the narrative. I hunt because of A, B and C. And and then we have a tendency in a lot of cases or whatever. I mean, not not just hunting, but anybody, right, But UM, we have a tendency then to say, no matter what conversation I'm in, I'm going in like a ton of bricks with my A, B and C reasons. And a lot more recently, you know, in the last while, I've kind of released had to think about, you know, this kind of framing element to this and how do we how do we adjust what we're saying to the audience. And I think we have to get past a couple of things. We have to get past one this UM idea that we are somehow being politically correct or all these other accusations that I sometimes get in this while you're just pandering, right, and uh. And then the second thing I think we need to get past is um the idea that we need to be that we are being somehow dishonest by by doing that, by adjusting the way we frame things. And I don't think either of the two things are true. I think, um, I I hunt for many reasons, and it's very complex to me in my own head, and so too kind of pull at different threads at different times is not is not me. It's not it's not pandering, it's not bowing down or bending over to anyone. It's it's about saying, you know what, this is such an important activity to me, and this is so meaningful and profound to me that no matter what the perspective is you come from, I have a way to relate to that because hunting touches so many different parts of what I think and what I believe and how I moved through the world that I can I can find something to relate to on that. And then again, like you know, not feeling like we're being sort of dishonest to our to it by not saying, well, I don't know, I have to I have to cover the how much money we rate as well, because not everyone, not everyone is thinking about that. Now. People don't if you have them, If people are morally opposed to killing animals, telling them that you pay to kill animals doesn't make any sense to them, and understandably so in this guy, I think comes back to something else that I really took from your conversation with Paul that I that I found really sort of insightful in a way. So one of the things that I don't want to keep bring it back to this, but but it kind of connects here. UM is one of the things that you both talked a lot about was UM was getting closer to food and in this case, getting closer to the to the death that is inevitable in food UM and taking kind of taking that on right, carrying that burden. And to me, where where it went in my head when I heard you guys talking about that was sort of the flip side of that, which is that hunting to me is about taking control of the animal welfare part of things that I'm taking an active role in ensuring to the greatest extent possible that I am looking out for animal welfare and so yes, it's death, but I'm ensuring as much as I possibly can that I'm taking that under my own kind of wing. Um. And and that's and that's why I kind of come back to this animal welfare part of things, that that if as hunters, if we can kind of think about this and embrace this, I mean, you know, it's and not not be not shy away from the idea that is hunters, we are animal Welfare US and and we would extend that to probably say that we are Wildlife Welfare US and we are have tat welfares and we are you know, ecological process welfaris right. Um. And that's I think comes back to this idea about you know, we can adjust our messaging depending on who we're talking to and what we'll speak to that to them. Um. Yeah, I've always been and I've come to this through a lot of conversations like the one I have with paulish here, where there are the things I say I hunt, the reasons I say that I hunt, and then there are like the value that hunting brings to me personally, and that's like that's hard to understand even in your own mind. You know that I'm gonna say why on a broad scale hunting, Um, it's good for society, And then I'm want to say, on on my own personal scale, why it's good for me? And a lot of times it is, you know, a building skills and understanding UM, animals in a very intimate way, and those things are kind of they're very personal things. And what I saw that Paul does they do the same thing. They they have the same kind of micro macro reasons for being animal rights activists. UM. They want to save the world, they also want to save themselves in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the big I think differences between the animal rights kind of philosophy and subsequently the animal rights movement and UM where David Peterson, the writer David Peterson talks about you know, different kinds of hunters, and one of them he talks about is the nature hunter. Right, so people who would think about the landscape on on a bigger level, UM. And I think that's one of the differences is this is also the focus or not on to the the extent to which we focus on individuality UM and versus the go versus the whole or the or the you know. Um. And this is something we talked about his hunters, like I think about the herd, not the individual right um. And that can be in this case a bit of a metaphor as well, that I'm thinking about, you know, the welfare of the whole, not not the rights of the Yeah. And then you think of a lot of animal rights activists and a lot of the way that they decry hunting is to to look at a motivation in this singular sense. Right, the dentist that killed the lion, What was that dentist doing over there? Why would he be over there? Why does he want to do that? Right, It's and it becomes a straw man, um, and easily to kick over there. I've recently seen something going around in the animal rights community around um, coyote killing contests that makes hunters look like heartless bastards who kill um, you know, to notch their belts. Uh. And so those things, while those things are interesting conversations and in useful conversations in terms of like the fringe parts of hunting, it's it's nothing but a straw man when it comes to how we characterize each other. And I always encourage hunters not to do that the animal rights folks, Um, not every animal rights activist is pay Anderson right, And it's it's important not to decry that when it happens to us, but then turn around and apply that to the other. Yeah, And that's that is so important. And I mean, I think there's there's two things that come to mind to me there that's such an important point. And inasmuch as we talk about the hunting community being, um, being so different, it's made up of people that are that that disagree with some things and agree with some things, and um, you know where it's so complex. It would be a mistake to think that the animal rights community is one homogeneous is as homogeneous as the outward kind of billboards and slogans that the organizations put out right. And I and that's an important point to not kind of paint them with one brush. And I had a great conversation and again I won't I won't say his name here, but I had a great kind of private conversation with someone who's, UM, I don't know if he would consider himself an animal rights activist, but he's certainly advocate hates he certainly kind of advocates for anti trapping and in a lot of cases, um, what he would describe as anti trophy hunting activities. And anyway, we were speaking privately and he said, you know, UM, in some cases he would not consider this species to be a trophy hunter, a trophy hunts what quote trophy hunt species, whereas officially sort of in the animalrights community they would. And I got me to thinking about, you know, how comfortable would he be saying publicly, no, I don't think that that species should qualify for this kind of opposition to hunting, because he's just as much kind of pressured by his kind of community and in group as in some cases hunters are. And it makes me kind of then come back to the second piece there, which is that that I think hunters also need to be willing to um to demonstrate that that internal kind of difference. And it doesn't mean that we are you know, cracking the statue. To piece is it means that we're demonstrating that we can do for ourselves and within our own community. UM, we can have debates, and we can we can dig into things ethically, we can disagree on things, and we can we can occupy spaces of seeming contradiction, and we and and it it reduces the ability of those that would oppose us and anti hunters and I distinguished that from non hunters, but anti hunters. That reduces their ability to say, see, all of you hunters are the same. Because if we remove that ability and we show that we're that no, there is division and we are willing to have these debates internally in our own community. UM. I think that's that's an important example for I think that's that shows that, no, we're not all just blindly following one another. But it also allows us to connect with people who who say, you know, I disagree with kyote contests, but I don't necessarily disagree with hunting. And that's that's where I stand on the batter. I think presenting hunting is a contest. I find it horrible, but I don't wear kyote for I don't disagree without hunting and trapping. And so I can connect with people who are not hunters who might share that perspective. And you know, yeah, I've come to I've come to through conversations like those of paulish here and others I've had because I said before and I've said on this show many times, I try to strip away the dogma that I was taught when I walked into hunting at the age of twelve, Not that you know, my dad taught me any of this stuff, but just kind of the stuff that seemed like it was um baked into the industry maybe when I walked in like ways of thinking animal rights folks are all emotion, emotion and no facts, and they're all this and all that. And as I got through there, I really realized that a lot of that is true. But uh, it's true, and it's only a certain faction. So when I look at like animal rights, I see animal rights activists is way different than someone who tends to agree with animal rights rather than the you know, a hunting or conservation side of the coin. So in in an activist group, especially animal rights activists, there are a lot of very much emotional pan during that goes on. You saw with Paul Baser, Like you said, there's moral framing and involved and you get you you build an activist movement that's very hollow. It's kind of a thick shell, but it's hollow on the inside because the way that you recruit people is through emotion. It's through you know, slaughterhouse videos and you know the video I mentioned, and that doesn't last, right, Like, yeah, I can't last? So right, you you put a video up online of a bunch of coyoties that were killed in a kyote contest in you recruit somebody to your ideology that way, and they become an activist. They may get a year or two down the road and not understand why they believe what they believe. And you know what, I'm hoping that that I'm the person who gets to talk to them and say, hey, look I agree with you about the contest, but now let me tell you about another aspect of this. And and I don't need you. I don't need that person to become a hunter to to to like or a trapper. But if I can bring to them the same kind of complexity or that the idea that there is complexity to this um, then that's a that's that's success, right, Um, yeah, no it isn't. It's well, I think what you just described as what I hope can continue to kind of be the norm, and what I was trying to maybe what I hoped in my mind's eye, like may be displayed with Paula Sheer personally, is that hunting activism can be It can be agnostic. Hunting activism can be just us talking about what our value systems and and how we see conservation. It doesn't need to be emotional. Um, screw the anti screw the libs, screw the you know, hold onto. It doesn't need to be that. And in fact, it's very we have a better chance of winning over the non hunter, which is at some levels who we ultimately want to be talking to if we approach our own activism, you know, with with our whole heart and and and our heads and our emotions, our emotion, but also our objectivity. Yes, exactly. And that's and that's where I think like, if we can if we can start to um think about the specific language that we're using, you know, and as an example, animal welfare, if we can start to use that to the to the non hunting public who might respond to that and who might kind of have a have a more automatic um sympathy to that term then you know, science based wildlife management for instance, then that's great. Then then I'll use that term and I'll emphasize how how hunters are animal welfaress and and we'll use that all then I'll and and you know, the byproduct or the the kind of happy side effect is that of that is that we're kind of taking that narrative by the reins and we're saying, you know, we're going to use that word, that term, and we're not We're going to remove one more from from the lexicon of of things that can against hunting, because as you said, you know, most of the public is not against hunting. Yeah, and so I want to meet them where they are. It's it's weird, right, It's like one of those things we said a couple I said a couple of weeks ago on this show. People will already know I say all the times like hunting. You can you can get acceptance social successans of hunting just by skinning it differently, by by approaching the question differently. I mean, you can get You could say, do you like killing contests or hunters? Go out and people you know, you would probably get five percent yes and percent no. You could be like, what about somebody who lives in Alaska and kills coyotes by the dozens and wears their fur and eats their flesh. And you would flip that the other way in terms of and that's where the survey data. Um. That's what it's finding, right, is that when you ask people individual motivations for hunting, the approval ratings are far different. Um. And there was a recent paper and uh that came out in an academic journal around the social license to hunt. And that was what it was sort of getting at, was when that when the public perceives that the that the purpose of hunting, so both the purpose and the outcome are certain things. And in this paper, I think somewhat problematically used the concept of trophy hunting, which has never been firmly defined, but they used that and found it was that Chris Dermot Yeah, and he's great. I mean, he's it's a super interesting paper. Um. Yeah, that's right. And you've had Kyle ortellon as well, I think, haven't you. Yeah, So it's great. Um. And that's exactly that's exactly what they're finding, right that depending on how you talk about it, um, people, you know, people respond to it differently, but in and I think to say that differently, people connect with it differently. Right, I try to think of, like, are there parallels in our culture where it's not like basketball. It's just it's not like there are a whole lot of like knitting, a whole lot of pastimes that a guy or might get into that he's thrust into this paradox or thrust into this more moral ambiguity where it's like, well, why do you It's cool with me if you do it this a way, but it's not cool. You know, if I play basketball and I shoot granny style, that's cool. If I shoot a hook shot, it's cool too, Like that's not Apple's apples that you're threatening their their entire philosophy of life because of that, right, And I think guns are that way too a little bit. I mean, it's all kind of a jumbalaya of bullshit in my opinion. But it's like it is for something that you can do as a pastime, which is a good explanation for like, well, how I spent a lot of my time. It's it's unique in the way that it's so madietable based on the way it's described. Oh absolutely yeah. And I mean maybe I'm sort of like a fly drawn to the to the lamp with this, but that's partly why I'm I enjoy it so much because it's it's difficult, and it's challenging and it and it um, it's it's not you don't just sort of untie your boots and leave it at the door when you come home. It chases you around all day and everything you're doing. And that's that's something that I enjoy about it, you know. And and why that I and they say why, I try to kind of figure out, well, how do I connect this with all different parts of my life, whether that's in my case, was my kind of academic pursuits or my um kind of social and political interests as well, you know, um, and and that that's, yeah, that is what kind of makes it really interesting to me. I think if it was, I think that's probably why I'm not interested in basketball or yeah, I mean that's probably why this podcast exists, because it's it's just infamite. Sometimes you just feel like you're you know, you're just talking in circles and it's just this intellectual game that you're playing with yourself just to to satiate your own need to explore things. Sometimes it feels like that I get that and some but sometimes you actually get somewhere where you may there is an epiphany and you do start to see your own activities in the woods differently. Yeah, and so I think it's probably fifty fifty half the time. At the time, I'm just spinning my wheels and trying to get there and sounded like maybe a little bit pretentious now and then, and half the time I'm you know, I'm getting somewhere. I'm digging in um and finding out why I think a certain way or why I react a certain way. Yeah, and I'm really happy. I mean, I don't know if this is I don't know to what extent this is, this is changing. I mean, I might talk to an eighty year old hunter who says no, no no, no, the honety. It's always been like this. There's always been pockets of hunting, the hunting community that have that have just fed off of this kind of um discussion and philosophical debate. So maybe it is, maybe it's you know, but I certainly am excited that that. I didn't think that I would be able to when I got into hunting, I didn't think that I'd be able to write, um, you know, things about the difference that intricate differences between animal rights and I'm a welfriend that if I did, anyone to read it. And I originally wrote this piece for them for Hunter Eats blog, and that was I thought like, oh, so there's actually companies and platforms out there that are that are moving this stuff along. And I mean then it was just it was just like I couldn't get enough of it, right, Yeah, Yeah, it's it's a different connection to hunting. You know, people ask, you know, what's this about, what's this show about? What's your you know, what angle do you take? I'm like, I don't trying. I'm trying. I just going. I'm going the way that's interesting to me. And that's the cool thing about this, that subject matter that you can't go just about. If you want to just get into the craft, go for it. Go go learn how to do every little intricate thing. If you want to get into how it affects our culture, jump there. If you want to get into how it affects our minds and the way we think about animals and think about values and why. I mean, you get you go any direction, it's there, and it's and it's all out that those discussions are all happening, right, um, and and I and I hope that, you know, as yeah, and we kind of um going off on a bunch of different tensions, but I was gonna get you. I was just gonna like we needed to explain rights versus welfare. Well, yeah, yeah, that's all I was going to kind of say. Here was that I hope that there's um, you know, I hope that somewhere out there people are writing about the history of the hunting the hunting conservation movement in the way that I dug into the animal rights movement and found when when I so to kind of go back to that, when I is this that a good time? We were driving on that, I was like, we gotta get back to that. How we went too far? So when I started looking into it, um the animal rights movement, I found that and I described as I found there was a pretty clear distinction in history between animal rights as a as a philosophy and animal rights that became what people now think of as the movement right as people associate with with Peter and um and he made society and different organizations and I didn't know that. I didn't know that they that they were kind of um distinct like that. When I look started looking into the history of the animal rights movement UM, because I was guilty of it. I used animal rights, animal welfare, all these things interchangeably. And I found that it emerged in the you know, in the eighteen hundreds M really as a way to focus on treating domestic farm animals better and as a way to end in many cases the live experimentation on animals for for scientific purposes. And I kind of looked at that and went and thought, who doesn't agree with that? You know, who doesn't who can't see themselves in that? And and so that was and then later it was it was as we kind of moved into the turned more into an organized political movement UM, and animal rights organizations at the time talked about that in the sense of that they needed to find some overarching moral argument that defined the whole movement, and that kind of moral argument became applying the concept of human rights to animals UM. And I find for me, UM, what I what I sort of take issue with more than anything I think is about the movement and the concept is that is thinking that we're going to apply what to me is an imperfect concept in human culture around rights and law to animals and that's how that's how we should define our interaction with animals. And I and I think, Um, I think I think that's missing something to me. I don't think that's that goes deep enough to be honest about how how we think about our interaction with animals. It's just it's just applying another kind of contrived idea, which is the concept of rights that can change and that has changed. You know, Yeah, there's so many you know. What was interesting to me in reading through your paper is that you kind of connected points in time. I guess in a way it kind of pulls the pulls away the veneer of this modern animal rights thought, that it's so sensationalized and it's so emotional, and it kind of grounds it into some really relevant places and time in our culture. I mean, you talk about UM in a in a book called from book called Second Nature the Animal Rights Controversy. There's a quote I'll say, this guy's his name is Alan hers Herskovi. Yeah, Yeah, he wins a he wins a Canadian organization called Truth About For Yeah hers Covici. UM suggests that after Biblical times, the first glimmers of concern for animals appear in the work of certain Greek and Roman writers who question the central role of man and creation. And this goes even further to philosophers like Pythagoras and and down the line to where they believe that humans have a fellowship with animals. So quote, if we kill them and eat their flesh, we commit injustice and impiety inasmuch as we are killing for our own kin. Right, So this is this is kind of deep in the way that we thought about our own humanity. Yeah, And and I think that one of the things to emphasize, and I think in some ways that comes back to how we started the conversation around um, the people now who kind of define the hunting community is that these ways of thinking. You know, he talks about Pythagoras, he was a Greek philosopher and Biblical times, and so a lot of the a lot of the knowledge and ideas that define that the animal rights movement kind of took up are very Western European. It became western, really Western European concepts right around the distinction between humans and animals or not, and the idea of of rights applying to you know, right, the rights of man that Thomas Pain's text, but but not all the and I won't speak to it because I'm not from any of these cultures, but there are hundreds and thousands of cultures in the world who don't have knowledge systems built on these concepts. And so at the end of the day, we also need to kind of realize that the concept of kind of animal rights is rooted in a very European way of thinking. Um that not all that, not all cultures share. Um. Well, when you connected to like said, Thomas Pain's rights a man, you you talk about how they explored this like emerging eagle concept of rights, you know, and then also how they apply that to the those same concepts to animals, and that again we still struggle with that today. I mean when you're talking about Thomas Pains of writing in but we're still looking at kind of like what's a human rights, what's an animal what's an animal right? How do we because we have basically dominion over animals, how do we apply our own morality to our interaction with them? These are all very real and very deserving topics. Um As you say at the end of this section of your paper that you know, anything that shaped over two thousand years deserves our consideration. Yeah, um, I think that's probably the thesis right here that Yeah, absolutely, yeah, totally and um and I think that that's actually a piece I wrote for truth about for at one point kind of was inspired by some of Alan's work sort of digs into this idea that a lot of the discussions that we have around this, including um, you know, you know, many discussions we have around these topics start from the place that killing is wrong and death is um some version of injustice, immoral, unethical right. And we start from that place that that death is by a definition harm and when we take time to actually question that, and and then of course we get into people, you know, could people who criticize hunting will say, well, you're just trying to justify killing. But when we think about that, it's not a it's not a universal truth, and it's not a even if you study ethics, that killing is wrong and that death is wrong, that comes from a very specific intellectual tradition around ethics. Do you know that the concept of doing harm to others and there if you take take a life, that's harm and therefore it's wrong. But I think we really have to go back further than that I think we really need to strip that back, like you say, take that veneer off of that, and as go back further on that and say, you know, is all death wrong? I mean this, and I mean maybe we don't want to get into this cancer. But that's the question, right, is it? Is it inherently again? Is it injustice and moral wrong? Whatever the word is that you would use, because I don't think. I think we do a disservice to the conversation by taking that for granted and starting there, because what we what we then do is we start to build arguments on a foundation that we haven't actually laid ourselves and don't understand ourselves. Um. And I think that's something that I that That's what sometimes bothers me about the animal rights discussions is it's it's not the idea, it's not the the intent, it's not the position. Is that I don't when people talk about violating the rights of animals, you know, I'm not. I'm not violating the right of an animal. I'm doing something far more profound. I'm killing it. Yeah, that's to me much more serious than violating its rights. And I think we need to better understand and and articulate are feeling understandings where those come from about about death and killing and those interactions. Right, Yeah, that's where I think when we talk about, you know, those conversations with folks like Paul, you've gotta start where they start, you know, But then you eventually just start peeling away the layers and get to the death conversation. That's just where it has to go. And to your point, you know, when you think about animal rights, what's the animal have the right to do? Right? The animal has really the right too, not a whole lot based on how we move around the how based on how we build roads, and based on how we fly in the air, and how based on how we move around we are the we apply, you know, to the environment our own based on our own needs. And so like you said, there, me driving down the road may violate that animals right to get it be in that road, Like the fact that the road is even there may violate in and of itself that animals right to move through that area with out some imminent harm from me. Right, Like that's and and it and it violates the habitats right to exist without a road peeling through it? Right, And I think that that's another way that I'd like to see And I won't pretend to be an expert on the animal rights history and movement at all, but that's something that I have not seen as much discussion. I'd like to see a bit more kind of discussion around that. Is it's what what about habitat rights then or habitat welfare and and you know, as it were like, how do we kind of then start to talk about the rights of clean water and and and there In fact, there are there are cases where in Australia, I believe communities are designating areas of land and water legal entities under the under law, and so they are then those areas of habitat are are very literally entitled to the rights that people would be. Yeah, and I think there's you know, there's discussion around well, isn't the rights framework still just as as flawed, But it's a fascinating approach to them to extending going beyond what is the common critique of the animal rights movement, which is that it's really focused on the dear and not dear and applying this idea to to habitat and to landscapes. And I think that's fascinating, Yeah, because they I think, you know it, some things are kind of spiraling towards each other or you know, careening towards each other here in ways that they that even they don't understand, because if you have you line up animal rights with environmentalism and the way that both of these ideologies are kind of just driving towards each other where they might soon crash, and also in some ways where they're connected. So people talk about, you know, meat and how meat just the commercial realization of large scale animal agriculture um contributes to climate change, and that also becomes we couple that together with animal rights, and then I've seen guys like Paul the Sheer trip over those things, like they don't understand the origins of both of those thought processes and how they came to couple them together. But they're just part of kind of the dogma. They're part of the playbook, and so they get connected in a way that really doesn't make a whole whole lot of sense, because all you have to say is uh, And as we've already discussed in this show, all you have to say is, well, if if you stop eating animals, you gotta eat something, and that means you've got to destroy habitat, and that means you've gotta kill a lot of animals, and that means you've got to displace a lot of other animals that will die of starvation or die by getting hit by a car. And so and that was actually something that I found really interesting. He mentioned he at some point he said, you know, he said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, um, you know, vegans aren't stupid. We don't we don't think that we would value that that that a single bug would be at the same value as a single elk. And that was so fascinating to me because I thought, but that's interesting because that's where I actually fundamentally disagree um as and as a concept that when I think, when I think about natural processes, you know, and you brought this up with that in that conversation around whether that's pollination or nutrient cycling, um, you know, the transport of pollutants on air currents, whatever the case is. I'm thinking about it on these process levels. And so I don't think about clearing thousands of acres from monoculture necessarily as only as the damage being measured in only the some of the bugs that are killed in the bird's nest, that are destroyed. But the interruption of processes um, and to me then it's um that ends up being primo profound. But I but I also don't like to get into this balance sheet thing of you know what, I killed an elk, Well, I mowed down a bunch of field mice. Well, I don't like to get into that because I think it's I don't I don't see that bringing us to better understanding. Yeah, And I think, you know, that's one thing when I listen, or I at least think back, because I can't listen back, but I think back to that conversation. I think all all you get there with with somebody like Paul as you say, like you get to admit that there are levels too things because it's not the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals depending, Like, that's not what it's called, because that would be yeah, yeah, it's like pe tad, you know, we should start selling called the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals depending, right, Like, that's not what they're saying, that's not what the social movement says. The social movement is absolutist and its nature and the way that it presents the conundru it's either you're a murderer or you're not. But then the the kind of the tip for tat that you explain there, all that does is strip away that absolutism. It just takes it away. It's like, there's no way that stands up to any criticism at all UM or any intellectual an intellectual debate. Most absolutism doesn't anyway. But yeah, and I and I think that that's like when I think, you know, what do we learn about because it should always be some takeaway for ourselves to right and what do we learn about our own community in this? And I think it's it's it's the same lesson. It's you know, absoluteist and you're kind of you know, and those those types of arguments. They're appealing to us because we feel like safer and saying something that we feel like can apply across every board. But it doesn't. And so I think for the hunting community it's the same lesson is it's it's let's not be if let's not shy away from um the intricacies and the complexities of these things, because we are capable of it. We have shown that for many, many years that we're capable of dealing with those things and meeting them head on. Um. And so let's not yet's not do that ourselves, right, Yeah, I think in your paper, I mean you can kind of like you can play mad Lives with your paper and just take the word animal rights out and put in hunting and you get the same. Ye, So you have in here. That's it, man. You can just it's interchangeable, but it is, like you said. By the nineteen seventies, animal rights advocates begin to recognize that they needed to move away from what her her Skevici describes as a focus on individual problems to develop a comprehensive moral argument for animal rights. Now, you could take away the word animal rights and say Ben O'Brien describes a focus, you know, describes a focus on individual problems, and we need to develop a more comprehensive moral argument for hunting. You could do the same thing. Because conservation is regional and its ecosystem based, and you know, kyote killing contests are different in different settings. Um. So it's either this comprehensive moral argument for hunting, or we address individual ecosystem problems and individual problems with wildlife management in the context of where they are. Yeah, yeah, and we've and this is this the thing that it might be interesting to hear you talk about. We we have gotten into this idea of guard the gate on this show before, which means we had a California bear band bill that came up a few weeks ago. And and I've talked about some of the logical fallacies around the slippery slope, and you know, whether you really think that's a fallacy is probably a different conversation. But I go back and forth, and I will admit to vacillating between guard the gate as as something as a philosophy of like don't let them take an inch, because they'll take it all in terms of animal rights activists and legislation, but then also within the within the conversation like we're doing here. You can't you don't want to guard the gate intellectually, but you do have you do have animal rights groups that will legislatively take an inch and then take another inch, then take another inch, then take another inch, And so there is like a paradox in there. I think, oh, yeah, there's totally a paradox. And I mean, and I do it all the time. Like I try to preface a lot of these things by saying, you know that I'll take full ownership of my own hypocrisies. Um, because that also allows me to just have them as much as I want, because I say I can, I can, I can own them. That's okay. Now, self awareness is good. Hey, Hey, you know, Paul, I'm an asshole, okay, And you know, I'll go to all kinds of moral acrobatic like like like acrobatics to justify why in this case it's okay for me to make a comprehensive moral argument, but in every other case you shouldn't do it right at all. But yeah, it is a paradox. And and I, you know, to just be totally honest about it, I found myself not identifying with the guard the gate kind of approach because um, and it comes back comes back to the framing piece a little bit. For me. I don't like the idea that of a sort of offense between us and them. You know, a gate necessary by definition, implies someone's in someone's out. Um. And I get that it's of course a metaphor, but but I think, um, but I mean, there there's also a lot of discussion out there about how the metaphors that we use are taken up by the public, and to me, I think that this idea that we are we are guarding and therefore um preventing or admitting depending on certain you know, criteria, I find that that's perhaps not the way to connect with with the people who are not trying to storm the gate, but they're they're certainly watching what's going on, and they're not coming in either because because we are presenting it as a as a as a gate, as a as a sort of a barricade to them. And I think, to me, I'm much more I feel like, you know s B two fIF two, that is the bear hunting bill in California that got struck down, and you know British Columbia they did ban the grizzly hunt. It was probably not the best move scientifically, but they responded to social pressure, you know. And so I feel that like, what are if I kind of think about the different approaches to this and what I think is a better way for the hunting world to go. I think that we can respond to things as they come up, and in many cases we've shown a real ability to respond well, and to prevent the inch from being taken. But I think it's important that I think it's worth doing it in that way and not risking the idea that we are kind of um dating or preventing, you know. I think it makes in two ideas that I've struggled with and openly because I think everybody. I mean, these are such broad topics that it would be hard not to struggle with them. But I always you know, I think of like guard to gate is a is a way to is a tangible way to guard against into heightening our awareness of what we would call attacks on our our the privilege of hunting, right banning something that we do based on you know, by people that do not do it basically. Um so, yeah, I want to guard the gate against that, and and how I guard the gate is not as probably it's probably a little bit more open than most people, so tangibly that that term works in that context. But if I remove it to and put it in a philosophical conversation or ideological conversations around hunting, it's useless. It's probably a harm more than a good. And so I like to have it. When somebody puts up a band you know, somebody in San Francisco wants to band bear hunting across the state. It becomes this thing, like, listen, we've got to guard against this thing fiercely so they know how much we value it. Um, that's a very gray area. That's very delicate thing to do without becoming an activist in the way that we decry Paul the Sheer might for being an activist. So it's a very delicate dance that one. But you know, in this conversation that's more philosophical, guard the gate is useless because you get nowhere. Yeah, that's a good point. That's that's a really good point and around and I think that is something and I think that was This is what you and I have been sort of saying for the whole time in a roundabout or like between kind of circling this is that it's okay because the conversation changes. In a philosophical discussion, we recognize that that's perhaps not the best analogy or metaphor to use. But when it comes to mobilizing hunters to take action and inspiring them to take action, um, maybe it is. It's instrumental in that way, and it shouldn't necessarily, And it comes back to this kind of comprehensive argument idea, right that it doesn't have to be relevant and perfect in every situation, every context. That's okay because it does what it's supposed to do and what we needed to do in some situations. And maybe that's and I think that what we just need to make sure we do is is emphasize that that is the case that we are using this particular framing or metaphor in this case and not in others. Yeah, well, and I just understand the pitfalls of that kind of that kind of like it becomes I guess, let me try to explain something I've seen in our industry, and this happens. This happens with the National Rifle Association. It happens with almost every every time there's a threat out there for something. People gather around things that are threatened and then they value and so it's you know, we this is this is true in our media, This is true in our society. You know, making someone scared makes them active. Often making someone angry makes them active. Um, and so in our attention economy and even in the conservation space. If I tell you public lands are at risk, every single day, every single minute. If you wake up not thinking about that somebody's taking your public land, you'll probably give me more money for my conservation group. You'll probably do more for me, rather than in the case of the bear band saying like this this not everything is bad, but this particular one, this one is bad. So fight like hell against this one, but be very you know, be very resident of reticent to fight like hell in other ways, like be a listener most of the time and a fight or what you need to be. So like one of the things that I think about that and I don't know, like interest in your thoughts on this too is And I'll to give some American examples, but there are many in Canada as well, and I'm sure you have Canadian listeners. But um, how do we then? Okay, how am I trying to say this? So we see just in the last of Ale while right we saw in the States tongas opened up and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge opened up, and in Canada, to give a ky example, we saw just yesterday or today approval of a of a sight sa dam in British Columbia. That's gonna have to devastating impacts on wildlife and lands, and how do we move to a point where you know, I think in a lot of cases that that that that issue, and we can think about the same thing with climate change unless unless a more kind of nebulous example. But those things are seen as well. But that's a that's a left wing that's a liberal issue, that's a liberal fight. And this I'm a conservative or a right wing and so people don't mobilize on that. But how do we get to a point where something like that, something like tongas or something like that, this damn British Columbia, that those are those become a guard the gate issue? Right? But how do we how do we get get past that? Like people are hung up on those, I think and some and maybe I'm wrong, but I think in some cases people are hung up on those because of perceived political affiliations of those. Yeah, because what happens is here's what it ends up happening. And I've been I've been trying to be as honest what I can on this podcast about this because I think it it is important. I've said, listen, I love the Second an Amendment, I love my guns. Um In some ways I'm I am in favor of constitutional carry, and I'm a libertarian in a lot of ways. But I also love the environment. I'm an environmentalist, I love public lands. I don't craft my ideology based on the buckets that have been you know, or the the containers that society has provided. I just don't, and that that opens me up to hate from both sides. Right, So you just have to be willing to say I've said publicly I voted for Joe Biden. Got a problem with less talk. Um, But if you don't want to be around me because I voted for Joe Biden, I probably didn't want to be around you anyway. Um. And so it's it's much bigger than I think it's. It's it's much much bigger than I think just the tongas or just um some bill to to ban air fifteens in Canada and America. I think it's being able to have, you know, really at some level, the honesty, the transparency, but also the bravery to say, like the here's a complex set of values that I hold and here's how I got there. Um. Some of these values are malleable, some of them aren't. Um. And being able to let that be what it is and not have to be uh, you know, cut up like a whaler cuts up a whale, you know, and and used wholly for one side or the other. When do you feel like your entire identity is threatened? Yeah, yeah, I'll fight for the tongus and I'll also tell you know, and I'll fight for my air fifteens until John. I mean, I I often say that I'm a I'm a political mess. I'm homeless politically. I've voted. I have voted for every party in Canada. Yeah, and then everybody will say to me, like your guy Joe Biden said, you know what, Listen, Joe Biden's doing a lot of stuff. I'm gonna fight him wholly against um he starts passing, he's gonna I know when I voted for him, he's going to pass uncontroled legislation. I know what. I'm going to fight him with all that I have. And I don't feel ashamed about that issue because that is that is me, how, having a complex set of beliefs that don't always line up with even the people I voted for. So it's like, I think that's an honesty if we can all start to have that um and if we can slough off the social pressures to adhere the self censorship that we all partake in, whether we like it or not. UM, if we can get away from that, then we can start to find ourselves in a position where maybe we can, you know, maybe like you and I can start to collect around ideas that are plucked from each side that we all agree on well totally. And I think, like I often try to spin it on myself and I go, okay, well, I'm asking this person, you know, whether the animal rights activists, I'm asking them to acknowledge that they see something from my perspective, and we might agree. And I think, like to use maybe a blunt example or a bit of a low hanging fruit, I go, well, can I understand the idea of right? So now it's a bit different me because we actually don't have the gun rights in Canada, But you see where I'm going with this that it's like, well, if we have, if we think of things like hunting rights and gun rights, I can understand the concept of the importance of rights and how how fundamental and profound that idea is. And so then I find, okay, I can I can see the the place that that person's thinking is in, right, um, and realize that, um, it's it's it's not a totally alien concept that they're coming from. You know, I have a frame reference for that. Yeah, I do too, And I can see why sometimes people get spun into, hey, are we gonna chop down some old growth forest in the the Tongas in Alaska? That's going to create jobs? And like, okay, well, like I can see, let's let's talk about that, um, And let's try to come to some at least some amenable way to approached the topic rather than just beating each other up with the polar polarized versions of of the conversation. Unfortunately, the discourse doesn't allow that most time. Well, no, and I think that that's one of the things I really try and do too, is that it doesn't work anywhere near half the time, probably, but is to kind of, you know, define the terms a little bit. And I said earlier, right, if you you tell someone who's opposed to killing animals, but okay, I pay for it, you know, and I kind of go, like, what are the terms we're discussing here, and let's make sure that we're not you know if if sometimes we talk about you know, apples and oranges, I mean sometimes we're in completely different food groups. And let's at least get to understand what is it we're talking about here, what is the and like you said, you don't find out where people are coming from. Let's start there then, and one of us has to be willing to to shift, um, And so let's figure out what it is we're talking about and where we're starting from, and at least make sure we're talking from the same place. Because you're right, if somebody is addressing an issue of land sale from the perspective of jobs and you're addressing it from the perspective of environmental justice, well the completely different things, and you're the approach might better be to talk about how, you know what it's actually not going to be that economically profitable. And this comes up in the climate change discussion all the time. You hear you talk about and I've done a lot of work and climate change research. You know, Um, if you're talking to conservative or typically people who would think of themselves as conservative or right leading political affiliations, you've got to talk about the economics and the rights element of it, and individual rights, individual well being, and not focus on so much of the environmental justice and morality of it because that's just not what they're going to respond to. And that's okay, you know, because that's a part of it is you can't you can't remove that from the conversation. But I I always in talking to a lot of animal rights folks, and I said this the thing with the interview of paulished here he started out. I'm sure you heard it. He was real prickly starting out, he didn't want to talk to me, and by the end we were having a conversation. And when he before he hung up after off air, he was like, I'd love to have that conversation again. I appreciate you, I appreciate the way you approach that. And that was it. That's all I really wanted out of that. I was never going to move him very far. And what I always tell people and what I would what I hope can be true one day, is that we can start all these these very necessary disagreements, like just imagine that we're standing back to back or standing face to face in the spot where we agree and then slowly walking away as we get digged deeper into the disagreement and also not being afraid to take a step towards the other person when they say something that you do agree with. And I think that that's super key too, right, is we know that we're probably going to end up on opposite side of him eventually, but we don't have to go running to those sides of the Well, most conversation on on in our society start with us at different sides of the room. Should we yell at each other on the other side of the room and neither of us It's like the game of I win if you take a step towards me. The way I like, the way I like to take those conversations is like I'm in the same place as you to start, and then let's walk away from each other, but talking as we go, and that way, at least if we get to the other end of the room were yelling at each other, at least we can stop and think, wait a minute, weren't we just in the middle of the room together. Yeah, that's a good that's a good metaphor for that or sort of analogy there, because I think where that also leads us to is it's okay to stop moving back at any point if we realize we're shouting a bit too much to be heard here, let's just let's just pause for a minute here, right, And um and the speed, I mean, we kind of feel pressured, you know, to get everything out in characters or less and to you know, um, but but this is this the speedy that we feel like we need to get through all these issues? Um? Is is it not doing us any favors? Yeah? Well that's it, you know, for me and you, I'm sure we would agree that one of the reasons we love this conservation and hunting is how quickly we can get to where we are right now. Like we can start from like we love animals, we like killing animals. What should we do animal rights? And next thing you know, you're at this very broad socio political conversation that has nothing to do with killing the turkey. Um uh. People will often say this is a hunting show, like, oh, only kind of maybe by name. But you say, like there's a you have there's a quote in the conclusion of your article when you're you're really talking about that disagreement is not the problem. It is that East Side digs in and clings tightly to this ideology. And there's a quote in there from uh, I think you said Fraser and priests, but I'm not sure what's that. Who those folks are? You probably reference them earlier in the piece. Yeah so they yeah, they exactly. They wrote a paper and animal ethics. Yeah so in that in that paper they said, lacking any agree even on an appropriate methodology for resolving the contradictions, it is hard to imagine that the current approaches will move towards consensus. I could have just read that quote would have saved us about ten minutes of podcast. But but that is that is it, And it is just at the end of the day. That's it's these kind of um back and force that that ours are you know, ours really is moving forward in agreement. But it's the same thing. It's really the same exercise that's talking to Paulish here it is and and you know, I took notice at the end when you said, okay, floor is yours? What do you want to say? And then that was the end of it. You didn't respond to what he said. And I don't know if this was just because the conversation is ending, or maybe I'm reading too much into this, but his whole tone changed during those During the closing, he said his last piece, and he changed how he said that. I mean, if I'm sure a linguist would have a heyday with this, but when you when you asked him, um, anything else you want to say, and he said, here's what I would ask hunters to think about this, and his whole approach changed there. He wasn't telling anymore. He was inviting and welcoming and asking people to think about something. And it totally changed the nature of of how he said it, but how I heard it as well. Um, and I was already interested in in in thinking about his perspective, but the way that he changed that, And I think that that's this sort of calling in versus calling out approach, and and I think that that's such an important way to do things. And I mean I've had similar experiences, Um, you know where I've been on Twitter and getting fired up with someone and one of us reaches out and message the other person privately, and immediately that the audience has gone, you know, the need to show off is gone. And I mean I have I've now I've now connected with people who would who would be on a totally different sides of a spectrum to me, and we realized that maybe there's not even maybe the spectrum is not finally anymore, you know, and that's that personal connection is super key. I've seen it, man, Performative outrage is is all? Is all the rage, I guess you would say, but yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it, and also in a way that it shapes like piling on. You know, somebody puts put somebody puts a negative thing up, and then somebody else feels like, oh yeah, I do that with them. Sometimes movie reviews, if I hate a movie, I will go to Rotten Tomatoes and if it's like it's got a ten and everybody hates it, I'll be like, yes, great, like everybody hates it and I hate it. But if I go there and I hated it, I will and everybody loved it, I'll go find the one star and I'll go, oh, yeah, that's good. That guy hated it too. So those are things that we all do. Man, It's like this a natural when it's happening to you. It doesn't feel natural when you're doing it. It certainly feels natural. So yeah, absolutely, um, I've seen it both ways. But man, I I really appreciate shape you're coming on and going through all this. It's weak bright talk for hours more. Maybe we'll have you you come back and and talk more about People can find your stuff everywhere. But where's the best place to find writing and find your social media? Just google Paul McCartney. I'll come. Yeah, actually google Paul McCartney. Hunting I just started writing. I mean that's right, yeah, yeah, So, I mean most of my stuff is up at it's the websites called landscapes and letters dot com. Um, I have a bunch of stuff I I on on the hunt to eat blog and untruth about for a blog as well. Um, but that's that's kind of where I don't most of my ramblings and and thoughts when no one else wants them scapes and letters dot com. But no, this is a great man. Thanks a lot for digging into this. I I've kind of keep saying to people like I, I, Um, I sort of sit. We gotta not only get out of our echo chambers, but break down the echo chambers. And I find I do feel sometimes I do worry sometimes sitting and just writing things on a blog is um, I'm just sort of sitting in my on echo chambers. So it is super nice too. Actually discussed some of this stuff you think about it in real time and be not be worried about that needed to be perfect. And I'd tell my friends all the time that if you call me, you got to talk to me for an hour, Like don't call me just to check in for like five minutes because I'm a podcast. Or if you tell me one thing, We're going to talk for a long time. But I've never written I've never written a five word blogs just so yeah, I understand that for sure. Um, we'll have you back on. I mean when I was looking at like the categories of your writing on your on that website, landscapes and letters, a lot of it was like, well, you know, practical matters, personal reflections, management and policy, ethics and culture, um, a lot of the things that I think of as categories for this year program. So we'll have to have you back on and get into some of those other categories. But I really do would be great. Yeah. I appreciate your thoughts on this and and appreciate you having some time for us. Yeah, you bet, Thanks so much for having me Ben, all right, Paul thanks of a toxing. That's it. That's all another episode in the books. Thank you to the wonderful Kayla Ray for making all of our dreams come true minds specifically, and thank you to everybody that wrote in and helped us with this theme song. It is better, Phil, would you agreed than you could have ever imagined? It? Actually is? I am it really is. I'm not even lying because I I we had not heard it before Kayle played it, and so you don't know she could have uh half asked it, which she didn't, but we didn't know it was as organic as it gets. And when I heard it for the first time, like, that's catchy. I want to hear that every week. And uh, sometimes things just work out the way they should, so we're all excited about that. We also want to thank Paul McCarney for coming in breaking some stuff down with us. We went on some tangents man on that one, but it was fun, fun, smart dude, critical thinker. Important to have him in our community, So thank you to Paul for coming on and chatting with us. Next week, me and Phil are having quite an episode here, uh in both senses. An episode of the podcast in an episode where I can't get the words out of my mouth, so hopefully he edits out all the ridiculous mistakes I've made on this episode. I think that Kayla A did such a good job that it just threw me for a loop mentally, and I can now no longer perform my duties podcast host. Would you agree with that, Phil? Yeah, she said such an example of professionalism, yes, and and coherence that now you just you're beer buckling under the pressure and talent. Uh that now I feel I feel like I don't even won't know what I'm even doing here on this spinning blue orb in the middle of space. Um. Anyway, it was good to get that out there, and we'll keep on keeping on. Next week, we're gonna look at something important to us. Wisconsin. We do love you because you have Pat Dirk and you got Duck during over there. We love Wisconsin, and we're gonna talking about the recent wolf fund over there. Um, wolves were killed on I always, I guess you could say on mass over the last couple of weeks and what is always going to be a controversial hunting however, brief hunting season over there. So we're gonna dive into that. I'm gonna look at it critically. I got a lot on the works all the way up until it's March, Phill and all the way up until April when hunting season kicks off for turkeys and we go full bore into Phil's first season as a hunter. Phil actually tags come out today in Montana, so we're gonna get your turkey tags and that'll be a ceremonial purchase for you. I'll even donate at least a dollar to the to the effort. Wow wow, thanks, if not five, ten, fift, any amount of money to get you out in the woods. So sorry that I sucked. Kayla Ray was good, Phil the engineer was good, and uh, I'll be better next week. I promise, say bye goodbye, you know, because I can't go a week without doing run, oh without doing run, dranking, out right drinking,