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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. 'Round the Fire was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
Can you be a real hunter or angler without also being a conservationist or environmentalist?
About 'Round the Fire:
Hunters and anglers sit around the (virtual) campfire to discuss conservation and environmental issues from the unique perspective of outdoorsmen. Sportsmen and women can be important allies in America's ongoing efforts to protect its landscapes.
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EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. 'Round the Fire was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
Can you be a real hunter or angler without also being a conservationist or environmentalist?
About 'Round the Fire:
Hunters and anglers sit around the (virtual) campfire to discuss conservation and environmental issues from the unique perspective of outdoorsmen. Sportsmen and women can be important allies in America's ongoing efforts to protect its landscapes.
EarthX & EarthXtra
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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TVTranscript
00:00Hello everybody, I'm Johnny Sane with Round the Fire on EarthXTV and I'm here with guest
00:21Ryan Bussey.
00:22Ryan is a lifelong firearms industry vet, 25 years, is that right, Ryan?
00:29Yep.
00:30Okay, he's also a hunter and angler of course, and he's been a conservationist and environmentalist
00:35for 25 years or longer?
00:37Since I can remember, I don't know how long that is.
00:40Okay.
00:41Our other guest is Rob Sisson.
00:42Rob is the former head of Conserve America and he's current commissioner of the International
00:48Joint Commission.
00:50He's also a hunter and angler, lifetime conservationist.
00:53Yes sir, Johnny.
00:54Would you call yourself an environmentalist?
00:57I would.
00:58Would you?
00:59Absolutely, yeah.
01:00Well, sometimes people get, you know...
01:03Well, Conserve America was originally called Republicans for Environmental Protection.
01:08Okay.
01:09So, the E-word was there for a long time.
01:12All right.
01:13Good afternoon, gentlemen.
01:14How are you guys doing today?
01:15Doing great, Johnny.
01:16Thanks for having me.
01:17Great.
01:18Thanks, Johnny.
01:19Good to be here.
01:20Both of them are in Montana, where I'm here in Arkansas, sweating out 93 degrees in September.
01:25I think they had snow last night.
01:29Got down to 20s.
01:30It's starting to feel like fall out there.
01:32It was 27 here this morning and I drove through snow from my bird camp last night, so yeah.
01:39I said, I'll be swatting mosquitoes out here on the patio.
01:44We don't see temperatures like that until January, maybe December.
01:48We'll get a few in November, but mostly December and January.
01:53Today, we're going to talk about hunters and anglers and we're going to ask the question
01:58to Rob and Ryan and get their responses.
02:01Can you be a hunter and angler and not be a conservationist or environmentalist?
02:06Healthy wildlife populations and fish populations are tied to healthy habitat, so it seems like
02:12there's no way you can get around not protecting this essential ingredient to be a hunter and
02:20angler.
02:22First, let's start off with Rob.
02:24Tell me your thoughts on that.
02:26Well, I wish you'd asked the question the other way around, that can you be a conservationist
02:30and a hunter and angler, because that makes it an easier question to answer.
02:36As you asked it, there's a lot of permutations of hunters and anglers.
02:42There's a whole spectrum.
02:43There's people that are just simply takers.
02:47They're out in the woods or out in the field just to take.
02:49They're not there to give back, even though they inadvertently do through license fees
02:54and taxes on sporting equipment that they might buy.
02:59You can be a hunter in this country and not be a conservationist or an environmentalist.
03:05I don't think you can be a moral one, but the work that people have done to restore
03:13the resources, the wildlife and resources in this country has afforded us a time of
03:18plenty, to be honest with you, and the folks that Rob describes, there are many people
03:24that can just wander around in the work that people have done and the past generations
03:29have done and just be a taker.
03:31I don't think that makes you a moral person, and frankly, just because you pay an involuntary
03:38tax, it's a voluntary tax for manufacturers, but you pay an involuntary tax when you purchase
03:43firearms or ammunition and you call yourself a conservationist.
03:47I don't think that's sufficient, and neither would the past generation, certainly our founding
03:53fathers of conservation like Leopold or Roosevelt would consider that sufficient.
03:58I think being a conservationist requires a higher level of thought and a higher level
04:03of commitment than just involuntary taking.
04:07I think you brought up a good point there, and what you alluded to was the Pittman-Robertson
04:10tax, which is a tax on outdoor equipment or hunting and fishing equipment that goes directly
04:15to fund wildlife conservation, and you two, I know, have seen it as I have that a lot
04:21of hunters, I don't want to say hide behind that, but they carry that around as a banner
04:26that we're paying these taxes because we're buying these guns and buying fishing equipment,
04:32and it's not like they're voluntarily ... I thought you mentioned that.
04:36I don't remember if you said it was voluntary or involuntarily.
04:40It's actually written into law as a voluntary tax.
04:44No manufacturer considers it voluntary at this point.
04:46It is collected like a tax, but consumers do not consider it voluntary.
04:51Nobody goes to the store and says, oh, gosh, would you like to contribute an extra nine
04:55and a half percent on the box of ammunition so that you can save the wildlife down the
04:59street?
05:00No.
05:01That's not a conscious decision that's being made, and I think environmentalism and conservationism
05:05requires a conscious decision, a commitment from people who want to do the right thing
05:11for the resource.
05:12So, it requires some sense of sacrifice, giving back.
05:16Well, Johnny, you just mentioned something that I think is really important and something
05:21I've bumped my head up against for many years in the business or the profession of conservation,
05:28and as a lot of hunters and anglers, a lot of farmers will say, well, we're the original
05:33conservationists and hide behind that, and we can come up with a lot of examples where
05:39that's true, but we can come up with a lot of examples where it wasn't true.
05:43I think there are people who absolutely are not conservationists or environmentalists.
05:50There are people who are unconsciously good conservationists.
05:54I think like both of my grandfathers teaching me to fish or taking me fishing and throwing
05:59back breeding-aged fish so they could reproduce and add to the sport or add to the fishery,
06:09and just the little kind of unwritten rules of sporting ethic and hunting and fishing
06:15that we pass on from one generation to another, and then there are the conscious ones like
06:19Ryan and you and me and others who, every day when we wake up, we think, how can we
06:27pass what we've experienced on to future generations?
06:30I don't think we should expect all hunters to be our definition of conservationists.
06:37I think it's unreasonable to expect that.
06:40It certainly was not that way 115 years ago in kind of the modern era, kind of the rebirth
06:46of conservation.
06:47There were people that did more than others, and there were people that had time or more
06:50commitment or were just more involved in it, and that's the way it will always be.
06:56But for people to claim that they are something or want to have the credit for something when
07:02there's not a conscious decision being made when it's really an involuntary action, I
07:06don't know if that quite cuts the mustard.
07:08So would you say that, like you said, not everyone is expected to do this, almost if
07:13you were going to be an active conservationist or environmentalist and a hunter, it's a form
07:18of activism, really, and not everyone is cut out to be an activist.
07:23I think it absolutely is a form of activism, and if it's not, even in small actions, I
07:28mean, I grew up on a farm, and it required personal activism.
07:32It didn't require activism in the way we think of protesting in the streets, but it required
07:37activism from my grandfather and my father to do things like enroll land and conservation
07:42reserve program or leave field edges for pheasants and quail or not shoot every deer that
07:49walked onto the place to eat hay, or, you know, it's a quiet kind of personal activism, too.
07:54Yeah, I'd agree with that, and Rob touched on that.
07:57We're talking about, you know, releasing fish, catch and release angling, being selective
08:03on your harvest when you're hunting, and I've heard that, you know, around here, quail
08:09hunting in the South used to be almost a religion.
08:12Of course, quail populations have been decimated and they're coming back with habitat
08:16restoration, but one of the mantras that I heard from the old quail hunters is they
08:19never shot a covey out.
08:21They would, if they found a covey of 15 birds, they would take five or six of those birds
08:25and they would move on to another covey and they wouldn't even visit it again that year.
08:29So it was kind of a passive activism, and it was a sense of stewardship without, again,
08:39they didn't need to fly that banner around and tell everybody this is what we're doing.
08:43It was just part of being a hunter and angler.
08:45You didn't do that.
08:47You didn't take more than you needed.
08:50Do you think that there has been a shift as far as percentages of people that think that
08:55way versus more people that just come out there to take?
08:59I think this is like a lot of areas in our society, Johnny.
09:01I'm actually heartened by a lot of people that I know, a lot of young people in the
09:07sport that I know who are more ardent conservationists maybe than even a past
09:14generation. So I think on one hand, you see that.
09:17And on the other hand, I'm very dismayed at some of the commercialized taking social
09:27media, kill them all, let God sort them out kind of stuff that we see.
09:32And isn't that sort of what we deal with in society now that the radical middle is kind
09:38of gone and you have one side or the other that tends to be more influential on the
09:45edges? And of course, I side with the edge who's a more ardent conservationist.
09:51But I see both.
09:52I don't know what Rob sees, but I see both instances.
09:54Yeah, no, I see both.
09:55And I think a lot of people are surprised when I talk to them about my old hometown
10:03of our home county in southwest Michigan, you know, fairly industrialized, a lot of
10:10people there work in the RV industry in northern Indiana.
10:14But we did we did kind of an unofficial poll a decade ago or so.
10:19And about 60 percent of the population of that county lives a subsistence form, a
10:24lifestyle. They're fishing or hunting to put protein on their table.
10:28And, you know, I think you I think we run in there's a there's a spectrum of people who.
10:34They're going to they're going to put food on the table, no matter what it takes to get it
10:39done, and there are going to be others that maybe are sporting or conservation minded or
10:46have the luxury of not having to go out and procure food in the woods or on the lakes who
10:53won't won't take some of those steps.
10:54So there's and I suspect that's probably true in a lot of areas in this country.
11:00And it's something that, you know, the national media, the coastal leaders don't know
11:08about, about so many of so much of this, I guess, the people don't live in flyover country
11:14that there is still the subsistence hunting culture that can drive some of the bad things
11:21that we hear about in our among our sporting brethren.
11:27You know, where I live in rural Arkansas, it's that same mentality still prevails.
11:35People take from the land because sometimes because they do need to.
11:40And sometimes it's just tradition.
11:42This is how great grandpa and grandpa did it and dad did it.
11:46And, you know, I'm I have I know a few people that won't eat any meat bought from a
11:50grocery store. They have to get it themselves.
11:53And that that may mean some agriculture.
11:54And oftentimes, though, that means deer and turkeys.
11:57And sometimes that even goes beyond what the law allows.
12:01But, OK, besides the, you know, the differences in and you could you could even probably
12:10classify that as a difference in, you know, why people hunt.
12:16But talking about being a conservation and conservationist environmentalist as a hunter,
12:22this, you know, where we are today in 2020, we talked about I'm sitting out here in
12:26September and it's 94 degrees.
12:29I don't know if you can see the sweat beads on my forehead and the sweat dripping down
12:33my nose, but it feels like July here.
12:37I know out west it's been crazy.
12:40What were the temperatures just last week in Montana and places in Montana?
12:44Wouldn't it get up in the 90s?
12:46Yeah, I was hunting. I was hunting birds and high plains, high, you know, high elevation.
12:52Forty five hundred feet was ninety three on that.
12:55It was ninety three on Saturday.
12:57And then you got snow today.
12:59Yeah, so some crazy weather.
13:01So according to climate scientists.
13:05We're experiencing climate change is caused by man, industrial activities, too much
13:11carbon. That's probably, you know, one of the bigger threats, not only an existential
13:18threat for humans, but to hunters and anglers as it changes habitat, as it changes
13:23seasonal patterns of animal behavior.
13:28How can hunters and anglers address this threat that along with, you know, water issues
13:37that along with public lands issues?
13:39What's what's the best way for hunters and anglers to to meet these head on and
13:46influence change in policy?
13:48You know what? It's become a difficult, touchy sort of divisive political subject like so
13:54much else in our lives. I think it's sad.
13:57But the truth is, science and facts matter.
14:00They've always mattered to wildlife conservation and to conservation in general.
14:06And I guess the the the thing that I have found, because I've operated personally in
14:12circles and in cadres where there's a lot of doubt, just innate doubt.
14:19Usually it's politically based out about climate science or climate change or about what
14:23the motivations of climate scientists are.
14:26And I think it's important to lay that stuff aside and talk about what could happen to
14:32the things that we love.
14:33So focus on the things that we agree on in many of these in many of these areas.
14:37Nobody debates that they want to have wild trout in cold water.
14:42Nobody debates that they want to have elk habitat that harbors elk.
14:46And nobody debates that they want to have cold winters that help shark tail survive
14:51parasites. Nobody debates those things.
14:53So let's start on what we agree upon.
14:56And then I think one of the more daunting things to people is and Rob's probably heard
15:00this is it's such a big problem.
15:02What the hell can we do anyway?
15:03Right. So why even like why worry about it?
15:06Let's just get on to something else.
15:07I think focusing on the idea that we created the problem and a problem that you can
15:13create, you can uncreate so we can have impact on this because we already have impact on
15:18it. So let's let's convince people that they can do something in their personal lives to
15:22make an impact and to have an impact.
15:25And then it doesn't have to upend every single thing you think about the way you exist
15:29today. I think that's a good place to start.
15:31I don't know what Rob finds.
15:33Yeah, I think I mean, this is kind of my mantra during my time at Conserve America was
15:40I met a lot of elected Republican officials, primarily at the federal level, a lot at
15:46state level across this country.
15:49And there are a couple of famous examples of people who denied climate science, but by
15:56and large, the vast majority of people I've spoken to believe the climate science,
16:00they'd like to do something about it.
16:02But there it is, I think Ryan alluded to, it's a political it becomes a political issue
16:07like, gee, can I get reelected or am I going to lose clout or am I going to lose campaign
16:14funding if I come out of the closet, so to speak, on this?
16:18And I think that's where sportsmen can really play a huge, huge role.
16:23And first of all, joining organizations like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, NWF, all
16:32the all the species oriented organizations that are working on on climate, particularly
16:37where it concerns habitat.
16:39But, you know, last week we had an eight mile long algal bloom in the Gallatin River, which
16:45is a cold, cold water stream, essentially rendering it unfishable for a good good
16:53section of the blue ribbon water.
16:56Back in southeast Michigan a few years ago, we had several mild winters that culminated
17:02with a particular little flea that likes to gnaw on deer and passes along what is called
17:10blue tongue disease.
17:12And it basically wiped out the deer herd in southwest Michigan for a couple of years.
17:17So hunters, hunters and anglers see firsthand the impact of climate change.
17:23And they can they can then talk to elected leaders without, you know, without being I
17:30think a lot of hunters and anglers are old school, you know, flannel wearing.
17:36They just want to go do their thing, come back, cook their game around, you know, and
17:41have their family around their hearth.
17:43They don't want to rock the boat.
17:45But I think reporting what they're seeing and experiencing outdoors to elected officials
17:51is a very non-threatening way, very comfortable way for anglers and hunters to get
17:57involved and help nudge our elected officials along towards these solutions.
18:02And we know the solutions are and we know the steps we can take.
18:05It's just it's it's building the political will.
18:09And I think hunters and anglers play a critical role in providing that support behind the
18:14scenes for elected officials to make those decisions.
18:18Well, I would agree.
18:20I just want to add, John, I think that too often on difficult issues, constituencies like
18:26hunters and anglers think, well, I'll wait for Senator X or Representative Y to take the
18:32leadership role on this and they'll stick their neck out there.
18:35Here's a little newsflash.
18:37Elected politicians are not leaders.
18:39Almost never are they leaders.
18:42Occasionally, occasionally there's a shining star that actually sticks their neck out, his
18:47or her neck out and leads on something.
18:48But in almost every case, in every important change in this country, change has bubbled
18:54up from the people who ask the representatives to do something.
18:59So if it's important to us, if the shark tail, the elk, if the if the trout, if the if
19:06blue tongue, if all these if it's important to us, then we need to ask our elected
19:11officials to be leaders on this or to lead with us.
19:14And and frankly, it comes down to the ballot box.
19:17Elected officials respond to the fact of their belief on whether you're going to vote for
19:21him again or not. And if we raise this to an issue that we vote on, it's important enough
19:27to us to vote on, then there will be action on policy.
19:30It's that simple.
19:33You know, and I think hunters and anglers are at the nexus of.
19:38The political grassroots in this country, by virtue of being gun owners and being
19:44conservationist and belonging to some of these organizations.
19:50They're uniquely positioned to talk to people on both sides of the aisle, politically
19:55speaking, and to be appreciated and respected by people on both sides of the aisle.
20:01And so I think hunters and anglers, again, one of the key constituencies to to make sure
20:07the United States or help the United States become a leader on climate policy.
20:12That's a good point, Rob. And that's what I was thinking.
20:14Most hunters and anglers tend to tend to lean conservative.
20:17And so you would think they would have a lot more.
20:19I think they do. They do have a lot more clout than they realize.
20:23And I've I'm often puzzled as to why that's not used as a bludgeon to get things done.
20:31Yeah, I'd like Ryan to weigh in on this because of his background in the firearms industry.
20:35But I know that people on the right side of the political spectrum have always taken hunters
20:42and anglers for granted because, gee, they're hunters and anglers and they own guns.
20:48But a mutual friend of ours who is a fairly prominent, I would say, outdoor celebrity told me,
20:57hey, Rob, any chance you get to talk to people back in Washington, you tell them that hunters
21:03and anglers are no longer a constituency for one political party or the other.
21:08We're going to vote for habitat.
21:10We're going to vote for climate policy.
21:11We're going to vote for public lands.
21:13I think that, sadly, over the last, say, 15 years, I'm just I'm just guessing 15 years.
21:21I didn't pick that for any particular reason.
21:22That's what it feels like for me being inside the firearms industry.
21:26I think that once kind of guns and the hot button social issues were wrapped up into the into the single
21:35issue voting block and gun owners kind of got pulled into that.
21:40I think that I think that gun owners and hunters and fishermen, fishermen have kind of been taken
21:46advantage of because they got pushed into voting into a block that's not that doesn't always
21:54represent their best interests on conservation and environmental activities.
21:59I've had this sense that that's starting to change.
22:03I know. I mean, I consider a lot of Rob's work to be changing that to essentially
22:09all we're really asking as I mean, Rob and I may come from different different political
22:16perspectives, but all we're really asking is for our constituency to vote their own self-interest.
22:20Right. That's it. Like just for the things that are important for you.
22:24And you have these outside social media, big moneyed influencers that try to convince people to
22:30focus on shiny objects that may be ancillarily important or may even be somewhat important, but
22:35they try to have them forget everything else.
22:37And too often, the stuff that is forgotten, conservation, environmental activities, you know,
22:45clean water policy, clean air policy, that's the stuff that gets pushed to the edge and it
22:51shouldn't get pushed to the edge.
22:53Yeah, I think one of the biggest examples and Ryan, you were at the center of this or as you
23:00were chair of a prominent national hunter and angler organization for quite a while, a couple
23:06years ago, there was a bill introduced into Congress to dispose of some public lands.
23:13And the group that Ryan headed up and a couple other groups organized these camo at the
23:21Capitol rallies in Helena and Provo and other capitals in the West.
23:28And boy, I mean, I'm talking in a New York minute, that legislation was yanked and hopefully
23:35will never be seen again.
23:36But we have to be vigilant to make sure that those interests are reiterated and reemphasized
23:44with each new class in state capitals and in Washington.
23:48Yeah, and I think we can do that.
23:50And I bet you know, that sort of success that was a Jason Chaffetz bill, former congressman from
23:56Utah, who introduced that and who pulled a bill without it ever being heard or voted upon, which
24:01is never done ever.
24:03So public pressure can be brought.
24:06And I see an emerging class of advocates, a lot of them young advocates, which is really
24:13exciting. Rob mentioned, I mean, I was chair of BHA and the average age of the BHA member is
24:20well south of 42 or 43.
24:22It's a very young organization and those sorts of people have fire in their bellies to do the right
24:27thing. And I think we need to encourage and multiply that cohort so that we have more of that
24:34kind of advocacy, because frankly, that's the sort of advocacy that that changes hearts and minds
24:40on on other issues of import throughout our lives, whether it was civil rights or whatever it
24:47was, when that young, motivated cohort rises up and decides to make their voices heard, things
24:55usually get done. So I know it can be done.
24:57Yeah, and you know, another trend that I find just exciting is the number of young women getting
25:05into this into hunting and fishing as well.
25:07Even when I was a kid, both were, that was a man's world and to see a woman out on the lake
25:14fishing or on the river fly fishing, or with a shotgun in her hands was so unusual. Now, it is
25:23the women I think are that that's the growth industry for the sporting, you know, sporting
25:29goods manufacturers, because they're coming on strong, they're coming in at a young age, whether
25:34it's dads or big brothers, or they're just paying attention to social media. I think women in the
25:41outdoors, pursuits are good are going to become the force to reckon with and a force of nature that will
25:47really expedite the things that we care about.
25:52Yeah, so we did. And I completely agree with Rob. It's a it's a fantastic trend, something that we
25:59should be pouring every bit of fuel to we can. And it's my belief and our studies while I was at VHA
26:06indicate this, many women, nothing has been better for the growth of women in hunting and fishing than the local
26:14board movement, the local food movement. The majority of women that we see coming to the sport come to it
26:21because they want to have hands on experience with the food that they eat and they feed their families. I
26:26mean, and I share that with them. That's, that's a very big passion of mine. So back to our subsistence
26:31discussion about how important wildlife is to people and why it's important to people. In this case, wildlife and
26:39healthy wildlife populations and the result of conservation are bringing people to hunting and fishing because it's a
26:44way to harvest your own food ethically and obviously organically.
26:49Wow, I did not expect the conversation to end up there. But it all ties together, though. It makes sense. So in
26:57conclusion, and all this after we've talked about all this, and Rob, you know, he's flipped the question on me.
27:03And basically by saying that the default mode of hunters and anglers is conservationists and
27:07environmentalists just because they do involuntarily pay the bill, foot the bill for a large portion of habitat
27:16and wildlife conservation. But that's not enough. Both you guys agree on that?
27:22Oh, yeah, I think the funding is fine. I think a funding source from Pittman Roberts is fine. I mean, it's great. I don't
27:27want to see it go away. But that alone, I mean, that's not going to fix climate change. That's not going to keep
27:35politicians from doing crazy things with public lands. That's not like, you know, that's not going to bring back a
27:41healthier CRP program. It takes advocacy to do those things. Not just funding.
27:46Yeah, you know, as population grows, the demands on our public lands are going to continue to grow. The number of
27:55people out in the field, I guess, you know, hopefully, the numbers of sportsmen and sportswomen will grow. But it's
28:03going to take active conservation to ensure that there is wildlife, there is habitat for future generations. And so I
28:12agree with both of you that to be a conservationist is going to, you need to turn it up a notch. It's not enough just to
28:20buy a license. It's not enough just to buy some ammunition every now and then. You actually have to have to do
28:26something. I think of an uncle of mine. The thing he did every year was volunteer to cook chicken at a conservation
28:33club chicken dinner to raise money. You know, that's kind of, that's kind of the minimum step we should ask for
28:40people who want to want to participate in our sport.
28:44That was a fantastic way to wrap it up, I think. Do either one of you have anything else to add?
28:52The only other thing I would add is I think if you love these things, if you love the places that you go, if you love the
29:02animals that you hunt, if you love the habitats that you find them in, you ought to at least love them enough to vote for
29:09them. To not let these things fall way down on your list of motivators for your voting activity. I agree, you should
29:21volunteer and cook chicken at a local banquet. You should donate to your local habitat or your local species
29:26organization. But do what you do with other important things in your life. Vote for it. Just vote for it.
29:34All right, I think that's going to wrap up this episode around the fire. I want to thank thank you, Rob and Ryan for joining us here.
29:42But okay, next time I'm in Montana, all three of us have to get together. Beers are on Ryan.
29:48Sounds good.
29:49Sounds really good to me.
29:50All right. Thank y'all. Have a good one.
29:52Okay, bye bye.
29:53Bye.