Episode 1-We are Hunters-Our Heritage is Deep

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Here at the Pennsylvania Game Commission, our passion is wild. Tune in to our podcast, Call of the Outdoors, as we discuss all things related to wildlife, hunting, habitat, and conservation across the Keystone State. Hear from men and women who have a passion for the outdoors and who value and work to preserve our state's wildlife resources for current and future generations. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Good morning, and welcome to Pennsylvania Game Commission's inaugural podcast. We're here at an undisclosed location on the edge of turkey season this spring. Birds are chirping, it looks great outside, and we're so excited about wildlife. My name is Matt Morett. I am the marketing director over at the game commission. And running the keyboards today is Tyler Hawk, who does all of our digital production at the Game commission. And our first guest on our first podcast is none other than our executive director, Mister Brian Burhans. And you know, the goal of what we want to do is just reach out and touch a lot of folks that are outdoor enthusiasts that love wildlife and just to see some of the inner workings of what we do and spread the great word of being outside and enjoying all of God's creation that's out there, and from tweety birds to black bears and so on. And the game commission's mission is to protect and make sure there's wildlife for future generations to come. And without further ado, good morning, Brian. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Good morning. [00:01:33] Speaker B: It is a beautiful day outside. And I know you're like me. Spring is around the corner. It's like a new life out there. Well, you know, we're just going to get right into it. And, you know, the game commission has so many different facets. There's so much going on. You know, me personally, I came to work here almost a year ago and had no idea what happened behind those walls. And I'm sure it was a lot like you because we came similar backgrounds. But what brought you to the game commission? Why did you come to work for the Pennsylvania Game commission? [00:02:02] Speaker A: You know, I've had a blessed career my whole life. I mean, I've been able to do and work in some really amazing places. I've lived up and down the east coast of the United States, traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, you know, but it really goes back to my roots. I'm from Pennsylvania. As far as I can remember, as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to come work for the Pennsylvania gain commission. That had always been my aspiration. That always been my dream. I can remember my first hunter safety course I took when I was probably eleven or twelve. And I enjoyed it so much. I actually came back the next year and took it again. And I can remember distinctly to this day asking my dad, I think it was, I can't remember how much money it was, but I distinctly asking him for money because I wanted one of those orange sport hats. Remember the old sport program? And I'm tell you what, I wore that hat, I mean, wore it out for I don't know how many years. But you know, for me, I'm a pennsylvanian and when I lived out of state and worked out of state, you know, I always wanted to come back and I figured, you know, how could I eventually come back to this great state and had an opportunity here about six years ago and, you know, and having worked for other state wildlife agencies and worked in the private sector, had some insight of what it was going to be like. But I got to be honest with you, it's exceeded any expectation I've ever had. I'm so excited about this podcast because I can't wait to introduce to so many more people what we have in Pennsylvania as far as our wildlife resources, the great staff that we have out there, the great rich hunting traditions we have here in Pennsylvania. You and I are both turkey hunters. Well, turkey hunting tradition doesn't get any deeper than right here in Pennsylvania. And those are stories that not many people know and I cannot wait to share and really celebrate the conservation successes, the hunting traditions that we have here in Pennsylvania. [00:03:54] Speaker B: That's awesome. And you know my stories, just like that, you know, being from Pennsylvania and getting to travel the country and work in the private sector, you're all, this is always home, it's always burning and you're flowing through your bloodstream and, you know, you hit on something real quick about the turkey hunting tradition in Pennsylvania. A lot of folks don't realize, you know, Perry County, Pennsylvania, you know, just outside of Harrisburg, is where a lot of that started. I mean, there's so many famous people in the turkey industry that their roots are there. For me, it was where I wanted to live and reside nowadays because of the past. Cause that's where my heroes were from. But you know, that's one of the things that we want to discuss too, is, you know, I hear this a lot. Just going to put it out there that the game commission, people at the game commission don't hunt. And that's the craziest thing ever to me because, I mean, when hunting season comes around, it's like a giant hunting camp in there. [00:04:47] Speaker A: It absolutely is. In fact, there's a lot of empty offices and vacation days taken during hunting season. You know, our guy, every single one of them men, ladies in our agency, I can't think of too many that don't hunt. And the ones that don't hunt, they're very passionate about wildlife. But, yeah, we're a bunch of hunters. I mean, we're just like anybody else out there. We're just like the public. We love to hunt, we love the outdoors, and we love getting out there and doing as much of it as we can. You know, I heard one guy say, you know, he's a business entrepreneur, and he said, you know, if you really like riding bicycles, you shouldn't work in a bicycle store. Well, there's some truth to that. If you really love to hunt, working for a wildlife conservation agency is tough because your busy time is the hunting season. So it can be a real challenge, no doubt, for many of us to get time to get a feel. But, you know, we made our, we make our priorities and we find a way. For me, you know, I really, really love spring turkey and fall turkey season. So I make sure I try to make that priority and make sure I spend, you know, as much time as I can out there and enjoy it. I was out scouting this morning, and, you know, just can't wait for that spring season to be coming up here. [00:05:53] Speaker B: And I tell everybody, whether they're a hunter or non hunter, especially in the springtime, you know, we're in that, that almost April timeframe of the year, and just to watch a morning unfold, just to go out there and listen to it as the sun comes up and everything comes to life, it's a pretty spiritual experience. It's not just, you know, going out there and hearing a turkey gobble. If you're a turkey hunter, when you, when you realize what's happening out there, it's one of the coolest things in the world. And, you know, I try to recommend to anybody out there that if you can set your alarm clock before the sun comes up to go out and listen to that morning awake, you know, come, come alive no matter where you're at in this state, it's pretty cool. Yeah. [00:06:32] Speaker A: I've always felt that, you know, as human beings, part of our DNA is we are hunters. We may not hunt. There's many people that don't believe in hunting, but you can't escape the reality that deep in our DNA, we're hunter gatherers. That's just who we are, you know, but I think as hunters, we get to share an experience with wildlife that's far more intimate than non hunters because we're interacting with wildlife in such a personal way. And I think it's something we gain as hunters and appreciation of love with wildlife, which we're blessed to have because we do hunt, that we get to understand and see and feel, and we know what the thunder of a wild turkey sounds like at 30 yards. We know the spit and drum. We know what it's like to have a deer come up from behind us and those leaves crunch, or which turns out to be a gray squirrel anyway. We live with wildlife in their habitat, in their home, and we learn a lot about them. We are privileged to have before us, you know, this tremendous show of conservation and wildlife that not many people get to experience. [00:07:34] Speaker B: And that brings us to a great point. And, you know, with the game commission, there's so many things that are not understood out there, you know, and I'm just going to speak from my own experience as well. You know, for years, the first line out there that you see are game wardens. People are out there to protect wildlife and, you know, enforce the game laws out there. But the game commission's way bigger than that. And if you could just take a few minutes and discuss the mission of our Pennsylvania Game commission. [00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Our mission is to protect all wild birds and wildlife and wild mammals for current and future generations. And I think what's really important there is that, you know, future and current generations, because, you know, as Teddy Roosevelt once says, you know, it's not just those that are now alive, but those in the womb of time. Those in the womb of time far outnumber those that are here today. And it's a really important mission of the agency is not to not only to provide the opportunities to conserve wildlife, to make sure we have healthy, robust wildlife populations, but to make sure we can do that for the long term so those yet not born to can enjoy the same things that we enjoy today. And, you know, as a mission, as an agency, you know, we have to deal with a lot of complex issues. Some of them are scientific issues. Some of them are social issues. The social issues, the people part is probably the hardest part of any agency faces. The science part is really not that difficult. You know, we have highly trained biologists. It's not to say what they do is easy work. It's hard work, and it's very technical work. But it's the social aspect. It's the people part of what we do, which is just as important, but probably the most complicated part of what we do. You know, we service all 13 million residents of Pennsylvania. And there's about 13 million different opinions of how we should manage wildlife in Pennsylvania. That's the challenge. [00:09:31] Speaker B: It really is. And, you know, of that 13 million, you know, closing in on a million of us are hunters. And a lot of times we don't realize that hunting is a huge tool in conservation. To game animals, it's the tool. It's just like prescribed fire or timbering and making habitat better. Hunting is a tool that's used for conservation methods. And so many of us that load our shotguns and go out there, turkey hunting or deer hunters don't always understand the full purpose of conservation and what hunting is all about. And without keeping those herds healthy and in the population balance, you know, the wildlife as we know it would be in a deep threat, especially the game animals. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, and hunting serves so many purposes for overall benefit of society. You know, and it's really how hunting in North America was set up is to benefit the most amount of people. You know, it's not a certain class of people. It's, you can't just be a landowner to enjoy hunting. And there, I think there's many reasons why the forefathers who set up wildlife management set up our system that way. But when you look at hunting as it is about being able to manage populations at a level, for example, white tailed deer, if we didn't have hunting, this deer population would do what it typically does in an unhunted population. It would skyrocket, destroy all their habitat, and then you'd have mass die offs. Pennsylvania, not too many decades ago, did run through that. The population, especially in the north central part of the state, which is really where you only had deer at that time, went through those booms and bust cycles. And so, you know, not only, you know, when you look at disease management for chronic wasting disease or, you know, there are other things that hunting and trapping serve a purpose to do, but it's also about the funding. And I think when we look at funding for conservation agencies across the country, and really in North America, it's been the license buyers that have, you know, paid the lion's share of the conservation price tag because, let's face it, it does cost money to manage wildlife. You know, I have to have a highly skilled scientists out there that can defend the decisions that are made by the agency. There are folks out there who would like to shut down hunting season because they don't agree with hunting. However, with good scientists, we have the data to support that. The decisions we make and the management actions that we make are justifiable and data driven. That's key to the long term ability for us to have hunting and trapping in Pennsylvania. It also pays the bills for things like game wardens. Look at our game wardens out there and the work that they do. A lot of people think of game wardens. They're just out there writing citations. But when you go out and you work with them and you see the diversity in their jobs, they're doing so many things that you wouldn't even think about. For example, our game wardens in many parts of the state contribute to our bear research project. They trap bears, then they tag the bears and they release the bears. And that's part of the way we estimate our harvest of bears is the number ratio of tagged, untagged bears. And we can look at that in harvest, but not to get too far into details there, but our wallet. Our game wardens are out there doing help with supporting our research. They're doing support for hunter trapper education. They're doing education programs at schools, at fairs. They really are the face of the agency that most people see as our game wardens out there. And they're just a tremendous, highly skilled, you know, one of the things I went through, you know, I'm trained as a wildlife biologist. I didn't come up through the law enforcement ranks, but when I came in with the agency, I said, you know, I want to go through the deputy game warden school so I can learn more about what they do. And it really opened my eyes as to how technical their job is and how skilled and proficient you have to be to do a good job. And I'll tell you what, we have a jam up bunch of officers out there in the field every day doing their job, and, you know, couldn't be more proud of them and all of our staff and the work they do. [00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, when I first came to work, I was always intimidated by game wardens, and we shouldn't be like that. There are friends out there, and they're our number one line of defense out there. And there are number one folks for the game commission that attract new people to hunting and to the outdoors because they're doing shows and, you know, in their local communities, and people look up to them and they're such an important part of what we have on. And you hit on the this a little bit. But, you know, a lot of folks out there aren't sure how the Pennsylvania Game commission is funded. And there's a lot of different facets and if we could just hit on the high points on how we do fund the game commission and conservation in our state of Pennsylvania. [00:14:14] Speaker A: It's really one of the biggest misconceptions about the agency is how we're funded. We receive no state tax dollars to run this agency. Absolutely zero. So if you're not buying a hunting license, you know you're getting your wildlife management done for free. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:29] Speaker A: You know, that's. That's the way our agency is structured. And, in fact, it's the way many state wildlife agencies are structured, is they have a hunting license and trapping license. And that's an important revenue for the agency. The other two revenue sources that the agency has is one is natural resource extraction. So that's oil, timber, gas. So those are a major revenue source for the agency that's put back into conservation. They don't go into any other coffer. They don't go back into anywhere else except they're reinvested for wildlife management. And the other area is the Pitman Robertson Fund. So this was a federal piece of legislation that was passed in 1937. Pittman Robertson has, there's an excise tax and arms and ammunition and other such equipment that it goes back to state wildlife agencies, and it's basically appropriated back based on the number of licensed hunters in the state and the size of the state. So every state receives an allocation of those PR dollars, which are very specifically identified of where they can be spent. So those are the three main sources of revenue that the agency uses to do the wildlife management activities out there across the state. [00:15:37] Speaker B: And if you look at Pennsylvania, we talked about tradition and all that a little bit earlier. A lot of it is the amount of licensed hunters. And I'm proud to say that right now we're number two in the country. We're next to Texas, which, in my opinion, is not really fair. Texas is about the size of a country. But the other thing that's really cool about our state and our forefathers is the amount of public owned, game commission owned ground that we have state game lands that's open to the public for activities and hunting being the main priority out there. And we manage that. But it's almost 1.6 million acres, and that's hard to fathom for, you know, for me, especially for people that don't know what an acre is. But it was told to me not too long ago that's the same size as the state of Delaware. And that's. That's freaking awesome. [00:16:28] Speaker A: We are so lucky to have, you know, to steal a tagline from backcountry hunters and anglers. We are public landowners, and we are so blessed. In Pennsylvania, not only do we have the game land system, and, you know, one of the things that unique about the game land system is these lands are managed specifically for wildlife. That is the number one goal is hunting, trapping, and, you know, wildlife viewing. So our lands are managed for wildlife, and that's the way our, all of our management goals are oriented. So if you're. You're harvesting timber, which is actually, you know, people think, well, you're just taking revenue off of there. That's why you're harvesting timber. Actually, timber management is the number one habitat manipulation tool that we have available to us. It's not food plots. It's not anything other than timber management. So, you know, I've always said, if you really want to be thankful and show thanks for the abundant deer and turkey and rabbits, whatever you like to hunt, go hug a forester, a PGC forester, because they're making a ton of habitat out there on the ground for us. They're helping us doing our prescribed burning. But, you know, we also have so many other public lands. You know, I lived in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida. And in Florida, I had some public areas that I could take advantage of, but I, you know, the other states I lived in had to write a check to go find a lease to go hunt. And it was expensive. You know, if I wasn't paying $800 to $1,200 a year for a lease with, you know, with a bunch of other people, it was more crowded than you could ever imagine. [00:17:50] Speaker B: That's a cheap lease. [00:17:51] Speaker A: That's a cheap lease because that's all I could afford, you know, and we had about 1000 acres and about 25 people on it. That's a lot of people here in Pennsylvania finding a place to hunt. You know, heck, from Harrisburg, I've got, you know, 53,000 acres roadless area, you know, within 40 minutes drive of my house that, you know, I'll never, even if I hiked it every day for the rest of my life, probably never see every square inch of that game lands. So, you know, the opportunities from public lands. You know, the other thing is really interesting. And I get to spend a lot of time because of my job on game lands. I get to, you know, get down deep into these game lands and look at the habitats, meet with staff, look at the projects that they're doing, and, you know, there's this misconception out there that, you know, the game lands during hunting season, are shot out. Well, there are smaller game lands maybe in the southeast and the southwest that, hey, let's face it, deer don't like to be shot at. And turkeys, when they're pressured, they get quiet and they will move. I mean, they don't want pressure. But for the most part, you know, you get, you get away from the roads a good bit, you're going to find plenty of game in there, a lot of wildlife and a lot of opportunity. So, you know, myself, I stick to game lands. You know, I have one small piece of private land that I have access to, but I usually go to the public lands first because the hunting is typically better because of the management and habitat management that's going on. So, you know, we are so blessed in Pennsylvania to have so many great places to hunt, to hike, to fish, to trap, to look at wildlife. It's just amazing. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Well, to me, it amazed me. You know, one of my first trips was to a forestry meeting and to watch 50 or 80 guys and girls get excited over what's coming up in regeneration to feed the animals. And when we say management, when we say, you know, timber, when we say habitat, a lot of people, including myself, don't understand what that means. And if we look at a lot of species, not just in Pennsylvania but across the country, habitat is such an issue. And if we don't continue these methods and to create new habitat for everything, not just deer, turkeys, bear. I'm talking about the, you know, the time that I went to state game lands in north Central in 100, and they showed me a habitat project that the correct me if I'm wrong, wild bird conservancies, that they were conservancy, they funded this habitat project, which was hundreds of acres that benefited everything out there. And to see the sign of animals that I know that I, what I'm looking for converge on that habitat project was pretty amazing. And when you really get down deep as hunters, you know, our grandfathers, our dads, whoever got us involved taught us a lot about the woods and the business that I came from in the hunting industry. A lot of times you said about food plots, they think that's the only way to hunt a deer, that you got to have a clover field. When in all essence, we forgot about where we came from as hunters and we got to get back to those roots and learn and teach what deer and turkeys eat and what we can do even on our own quarter acre, half acre, whatever that you live on, things that we can do to improve habitat to improve conservation for the future, whether it's pollinators or. I mean, the list is long, and we're going to get into all that as we broaden this podcast reach. But I'm so excited to see where we're heading right now. It's every day at the game commission for me is a new challenge. And I've had the coolest jobs in the world, personally. This is the coolest job I've ever been a part of. [00:21:23] Speaker A: I'm with you, Matt. Same thing. I mean, I've been so blessed to work for some big conservation organizations and other big state wildlife agencies, and there is nothing better than what I mean, I've been on that same project on game lands 100 with the forester that was out there and his supervisor, you know, when you talk to this forester and that passion that he has for the wildlife, completely where he's focused on, and it's interesting on that project, too, with the american bird conservancy is looked at an area where they actually had to put deer fencing up to keep the deer out. And, you know, we do hear a lot of issues with Hernanzer. So why are you doing that? Just. You're just blocking out the deer from their food. The problem is when you walk across the road where it's unfenced, there's nothing growing. So what happens is you don't have a forest to grow in the future. So that's the idea of, one of the key concepts in forestry is that as we remove a forest, because we do need young forests. Young forests are very important for various wildlife species, but you gotta have the right forest growing back. There's many parts in north central Pennsylvania where you'll look at, and there's pole stage, you know, maybe eight, nine inch diameter trees of just solid red maple. Why? Because at that time, the deer population was so high, they ate all the oaks. They love the oaks. Not that they won't eat maple, but they really like the oaks. And now you're stuck with the maple forest, and you know, how product, how much productivity is that forest going to have for deer and turkey in the long run? You know, it's going to be fairly poor. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Right. And it's one of the things I go back to a lot with people that I talk to, to, you know, we've lived through a day where the deer herd was through the roof, you know, and you could go to a red maple forest and see starving to death deer and quite a few of them. But as we look at it today, our deer herd's better than ever, but they've adapted to find the right places to eat. It's just like us. If we were going to go out tonight with an unlimited budget to get something to eat, most of us wouldn't go to McDonald's. You might because you're pretty cheap. But we're going to go have a filet. I'm teasing, but I'm just saying you're right. But they're not out there for sport eating either, casual eating. They're out there to fuel their bodies to live. And it's so important. And we're going to break all that down. We're going to get some of our staff on here eventually and talk about that and talk about how everybody can do their part in conservation and creating habitat from the smallest to the biggest stuff out there. And I'm excited about that as well. You know, there's so many things and bureaus at the game commission, and I'd just like to take a couple minutes and break some of it down. And, you know, the bureau that we're in, and we're a new division in marketing, is I and e, information education. If you could just, you know, tell our listeners about some of these bureaus, like information education, we'll start there. [00:24:04] Speaker A: And you look at information education, you know, in any business, you know, because Matt and I, we both come from the private sector and where we build business based on marketing communications, that's how you build a business. If you don't do those two basics, you're not going to survive. Well, in government, it's no different. You know, being able to communicate to the public is something we've been really focusing more efforts on to expand our opportunities to reach the public, to inform them. Transparency, the whole, every buzz word you can think of, we got to tell our story. At the end of the day, we have the most amazing story to tell. But if you don't tell the story, nobody's going to tell it for you. And, you know, educating the public about what you do and engaging them in those conversations and helping work through those tough questions that you get, those are so critical for what we do. So the information education handles everything from your hunter trapper education program, your r three, which is your retention, recruitment, reactivation of hunters, and how do we get more hunters? National Archery in the schools program. So there's a number of different programs in the I and E, you know, and you look at the other three big bureaus. Now we have what I call service bureaus, like Bureau of Administration, so they're handling the budgeting and things that nobody else wants to talk about, but they're pretty critical to what we do, you know, bats or it bureau. I mean, we couldn't function without them, and the technology wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for what they do to support our efforts. But some of the more visible bureaus that you'll see are the different program areas within the agency. One is land management. So, you know, 1.6 million acres of game lands. About half of our employees are habitat management employees that are out there on the ground, boots on the ground, turning wrenches, putting prescribed fire on the ground, laying out the roads, maintaining the gates, the boundaries, all the million and one things that a habitat management crew member does. You know, about half of our employees out there are out there managing our game lands to make sure we have really good, abundant wildlife. And we're really fortunate in that bureau. And that also within that bureau is where we handle oil and gas and forestry and all those things that deal with habitat and the land base that we are there and have the privilege to manage. So land management is a big part of what we do as an agency. Obviously, law enforcement. We call it wildlife protection. As far as the bureau, we have game wardens throughout the state that are working every single day. And again, we talked about it before, but it's a very highly technical field and there's a lot that goes on there. And finally, wildlife management. When most people think of a state wildlife agency, they do think of the wildlife biologists, our deer biologists, duck biologists, turkey biologists. So their job is to gather the science that we can use, that we can build our seasons in bags, we can build restoration programs. We can make sure we're dealing with wildlife disease. You know, we have a number of diseases in the state that we're currently dealing with. White nose syndrome, CuWd and there's a number of things that really take that scientific need to deal with these different issues. So there's a lot of different disciplines. You know, we have engineers, foresters, biologists. I mean, you name it, we have those accountants, you know, you name it, we have those within the agency. It's very diverse out there. And not to mention then you have our six regions. So we're broken up into six regions, and every region has, you know, law enforcement, biologists, forester, and then down into the field from there. So, you know, it's more of a corporate structure, the way the gain commission is set up. And it works very well. It's something that's not broken. And, you know, we're lucky we get out in the field and we get to visit these regions and we're blessed to work with some of the most amazing, dedicated staff that you could ever imagine. [00:27:45] Speaker B: And our state's so diverse when you look from top to bottom, and it takes those regions to make it work where, you know, go to north central where it's, you know, all mountains and a lot of people, when you hear Potter county and things like that, that goes way back and that terrain and that habitat and just what happens up there is way different than southeast. So, you know, you got to have that diversity. And I always relate it to this. And when you really think deep and I relate all hunting experiences to human life, you know, when you're creating habitat, it's just like building houses and places to eat and to places to keep people safe. I mean, it's the same thing when you relate it back to humans, which in my opinion, and I'm not a biologist, I might be a little redneck biologist. You know, we are an animal and we're at the top of the food chain. And the greatest thing that we have as human beings is the ability to reason and figure out situations. And when you really look at the big picture, that's what all these bureaus are doing. They're figuring out these situations and trying to make it better for the future. [00:28:45] Speaker A: And of course, our bureaus are housed in the, primarily in Harrisburg. And what's interesting is they're really, the bureau's job is to support the regions. So the regions is where everything gets implemented. You know, that's where the rubber meets the road, you know, and I'll tell you, it's, it's an interesting culture within the gain commission. And, you know, as far as how passionate they are, you know, I've run, I've run against this with other agencies as well. When it comes to wildlife, you know, there's a lot of passionate people. You know, you get into this field, let's face it. You don't get into it for the money. You get into it for the passion. And you want to make a difference and you love wildlife. And I'll tell you, when you go around to our regions and you meet these people, you can see that they're just like us. They're here for the right reasons and just amazing, amazing people. When you look at the biggest asset our agency has, we say, well, game lands is a huge asset, huge benefit. It is. But the biggest asset we have is our employees because without those employees, nothing else can happen. And it's the quality and the dedication and the passion of our employees that make this agency what it is. And without them, we would have nothing. So, you know, my hat's off to them. I'm humbled every day when I walk in that office and. Or I'm out in the field and I'm meeting with them, we have some of the most amazing, you know, and I'm not just saying that just because you would expect to hear that from the executive director. I passionately mean it because, again, not that the people I worked with in some of my previous careers weren't passionate, but, boy, they ain't seen nothing till they come here. [00:30:12] Speaker B: It's all about heart. No matter what you do in life, if your heart's in it, that's the right reason. And that's something. Since day one of my employment, everybody's number one. Treated me like family, and I can see their heart bigger than anything for, you know, devoted to their specific plan or job or whatever you want to call it. They care about every facet of the Pennsylvania game commission, and that kind of takes us to the next subject. I want to get on that. I think we should get on. And today's world, with social media and so many news type things that are happening out there, I hear a lot of crap about the Pennsylvania Game commission and total b's, to be honest with you. I'm just going to be straight about it. And I want to talk about some things that we hear all the time as soon as we put a great post up on Facebook. And by the way, when you want to get the news about the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the issues that we're talking about, so on and so forth, come to our pages. The ones with the blue check mark. That's where the news and everything, you know, that we're trying to get out there to the public. That's where it happens. Don't listen to somebody down the street, because it's always easy to hear what you want to hear. It's hard to hear the truth sometimes. And sometimes we got to make hard decisions. But the first one that comes to mind is that, and I hear this all the time, and people, like, swear that they've seen this happen, is the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Stocks, coyotes. Exactly. That's. I mean, and I'll be honest with you. From my past experience, I've heard my family members say it, and I believed it. One of the first questions I've asked when I came there, I mean, let's go MythBustERs. Is that true? [00:32:02] Speaker A: No, absolutely not. You know, and it's a funny thing, because it's a. It's a common theme in just about every state I've lived in that supposedly the agency has these black, black op helicopters that swoop in, and I've heard of everything from putting rattlesnakes in a water balloon and dropping them from the air, which, if you think about it, I don't know how rattlesnakes supposed to breathe to coyotes, to mountain lions, to, you name it, when you look at all these different myths that are out there about any state wildlife agency, because we're not the only one. These same stories you see on our Facebook posts are the same, whether it's insurance companies paying for increased deer harvest because it benefits the insurance companies. All the other crazy conspiracy theories you hear, they're in every other state as well. And I think part of it, what it comes down to is what we call the mind's eye. You know, we see certain things, but then there's gaps of facts that we don't see. So, for example, if, you know, this is often referred to when people are making movies. So if you're going to film somebody and he gets up out of bed and he takes a shower, and he puts his clothes on, he grabs his key, gets in the car, he drives down the road, stops at a stop line, light goes right, goes down, gets in his building, goes up the elevator, you've got a three hour movie that you've just made of just somebody just showing up to work. So instead, what they use is the mind's eye, which is just how we're programmed as human beings to think where you'll see him take a shower, get in his car, started up, and he's sitting down at his desk, and you're done in just a few seconds. Our minds are able to fill in the gaps in knowledge between there to put that story together. And what's interesting, when you look at some of these conspiracy theories, there's these big gaps of facts that are missing that I think a lot of times our mind's eye puts some solutions in there or some reasons of why things are happening. So, you know, we may say, well, I never heard so many coyotes yelling, well, the mind's eye comes and said, well, somebody must have put them there. So I think that's a lot of what we see is the mind's eye that takes over and kind of fills in some facts. You know, you hear from deer hunters. You know, sometimes I, you know, I've only seen three deer this season, therefore, there's no deer left. And that's, again, the mind's eye, because when what we see doesn't match what we hear should be there, then we automatically assume something. There is either misinformation or whatever in there. That can't be true. And the fact of the matter in wildlife management, what we see and what is actually there is often much, much different, which is why we have the field of wildlife science. It's through data that we make those decisions, because we know what we casually see out on the landscape isn't always what we know is actually happening. So these, these conspiracy theories are, they're fascinating. They're not unique to Pennsylvania, but, yeah, coyotes have been around since the thirties in Pennsylvania, and they'll always be here. You talk about an amazingly adaptable animal. You know, they do eat stuff. That's what a coyote does. But they're very, their dietary needs are very broad. They don't specifically key in on any specific. Not keying in on just deer or rabbits or turkeys or anything else. They're opportunistic. In fact, they're not really good at catching turkeys. But they're out there and always be out there. They're in our cities, they're in our towns, they're throughout the state. And it makes a lot of people not used to hearing coyotes. It makes them nervous when they see them. But we don't really run into very much of negative conflicts between humans and coyotes. [00:35:24] Speaker B: And I hear this all the time. And obviously, getting to hunt in a lot of states where the population of coyotes is way bigger than Pennsylvania, three coyotes can sound like 100%, no doubt. I just, you know, I want to really get that, this stuff clear. And even though we're talking about it today, these things are still going to happen. But you kind of hit on the next one. I'd like to hit on, because I've heard this since I probably could comprehend, is that the car insurance companies are all paying the game commission off to get the deer herd down. And from my perspective, if that's happening, I'd like to see the check. [00:36:01] Speaker A: It's not there. You know, and if you really sit and think about it, the logic behind it, I mean, so you got an insurance company, and their job is they know the math behind it. They know the probability and statistics of saying the chances of your car hitting a deer has a probability of this, and the average cost is going to be this. Now, the company, if you decrease the number of deer incidents. It's not that it makes the company any more money because their competitors are looking at the same numbers and saying, hey, I can lower my rates because, you know, I don't. They're competing for that customer. It doesn't make any sense that they would ask us or pay us to reduce the deer herd because it doesn't make them any more profits. You know, if there's less deer out there, they can reduce their rates, and the consumer is the one that maybe benefit from there. But there's no benefit to the insurance company for a lower deer population, because if the deer population is high and there's a lot of accidents, they just raise the rates. They're not making any more net profit. They're just raising their rates to cover that. So it's one of the most common things. But if you really think of the logic behind it, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. [00:37:02] Speaker B: That and the other fact that all of our finances are available for anybody to see. So I've never seen nationwide or state farms name on any of that pie shaped financial report that comes out every year from the Pennsylvania game community. [00:37:18] Speaker A: No, it's not there. [00:37:19] Speaker B: And these are. We kind of laugh because it's just every day we hear this stuff. Here's another one. Like all the game commission wants is we want every deer out there dead. And to me, we love deer. We don't want them dead. That's the holy grail to hunting, is people want to chase white tailed deer and we're doing everything we can to keep them alive for the most, you know, for the fact of that matter. [00:37:43] Speaker A: You know, and if you look at, you know, this is this phenomenon that we want all the deer. This goes back decades and decades. You know, back when we started hunting in the seventies and eighties, you know, people were burning doe licenses, you know, because they thought the gain commission was trying to kill all the deer. And then back in the seventies and eighties and up through the nineties, the deer population was just silly high. But there wasn't enough deer. And if you think about it, why, when we sell, most of our hunting licenses are sold for white tailed deer hunting. White tailed deer hunting drives conservation funding in Pennsylvania. There is no possible reason or benefit to the agency to get rid of all the deer, nor do we want to do that. In fact, it's completely counter to what our mission is. Part of our mission is to promote opportunities for hunting and trapping and outdoor recreation. So it's counter to what we do. But we do need to manage the deer population at a level that it can be managed within. What foods out there? You know, how many deer can you look at north central Pennsylvania, especially, where, you know, the amount of deer food that's out there in these forests are relatively low compared to, say, southern, southeastern or southwestern Pennsylvania, where you have much more farmland. There's much more food there for the deer to eat. So it's a matter of managing a deer herd imbalance with their habitat, because the deer, you know, there are keystone species. They do dramatically impact the habitat if their populations become too high. And they cause these boom and bust cycles in deer populations where, you know, they, and the research is pretty clear to show that, you know, eventually, if you let them eat out all their food, you get a hard winter or disease, it's going to naturally bring that population back down. But we use hunting to kind of level out that population, so you're not going through these boom and busts. And so we have, you know, you look at antler point restrictions. When they were put in place, the goal of antler point restrictions was nothing to grow trophy bucks. It was simply to move more deer into that two and a half year old age group. So you had, you know, you were hunting mature animals, big, healthy animals, and what we see now today. I remember when I got my first deer on bald eagle state forest is actually had gotten several deer with a bow several years before I could actually get a deer with go gun hunt, rifle hunting because I had always gotten one. Those are the years where you got one deer and you're done type of thing. And I finally went to bald eagle state Forest, where the hunting camp is that I belong. And I got a buck and I looked at it and I'm like, man, that deer is really, really small. And I remember the hunting club members at the time said, yeah, these mountain deer, they're genetically a lot different. Well, later, through my education and becoming a biologist, I learned, no, that darn deer was starving, he was hungry, and he was smaller because he just didn't have the nutrition to keep them going. So, you know, we need to manage our deer herd at a reasonable level. The problem with deer management is, what is that reasonable level? You got a million and one people have expectations of what that is. And a lot of the expectations is based on what they see, you know, and it's not necessarily a direct relationship between, oh, I have 40 deer per square mile. If I see at 30 Deer per square mile, I'm going to see just a couple less. Well, no, it's just deer know how to hide. As Commissioner Fox, President Fox, one of our board of commissioners, always says you can't spread them out like peanut butter. You're going to find deer where, number one, where they have food and where they can escape hunters. And if they find a place where hunters aren't, they will stay in that place a long time and until the hunting pressure is out of the woods. So deer don't like to be shot at. They're smart. They're not dumb. But, you know, we, you know, the fact that or the, the idea that we want to kill all the deer just doesn't make any logical sense at all. And nor is it. It's just wrong. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Exactly. Well, and, you know, getting back to your, your, what you said about, like, north central and something that's been brought to my attention lately, a deer needs five pounds of browse a day to survive, meaning sticks in the ends of trees. And, you know, when you see devastation of habitat, they're just trying to survive. And a lot of times why forests won't regrow because try to go out there and collect five pounds of browse in one day. And true browse what whitetail eats. That's a hard chore to do. I've tried to do it just as of late to see how much it takes for that deer to survive. And when you do that, reality kind of hits. But it kind of leads us to the next Mythbuster, if you will. And then we're going to get onto some, a little better, cooler stuff. I hear this all the time, and we hear it all the time at the office and coming through a lot of different channels is all the game commission wants is money. And that hurts. I mean, that hurts a lot when I hear that because for a fact, we haven't had a license increase since 1990. 919 99. That's a long time ago. [00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah. You almost take it personally. And it's like, you know, as an agency, we do the work we do based on our license sales, natural resource extraction, the PR dollars. It takes money to run an agency. I haven't found an employee yet that I can bring on. He's willing to volunteer his time, and we do have volunteers that, don't get me wrong, we do have hunter trapper education instructors that are volunteers. But, you know, I haven't been able to hire a biologist yet that'll work for free. Haven't been able to hire a forester yet that wants to work for free. And the fact of the matter is, you know, it does cost money to run a business. And we are. We are a state agency, but we're still a business. You know, there's no difference between a state agency and a business. And even look at the NGO community. We're actually from our governance structure, very similar to a nonprofit in many ways, because our Yden financial resources are dedicated directly back to our mission. We don't have stockholders or we don't have that type of structure, governance structure. As an agency, it does take money to run the agency and you cannot erase that fact. So does the agency need money to run it? Sure does. I don't know understand why, especially if you look, I think when's the last time we had a license increase in 19, 99? 99. You know, we have had a couple stamps that have come in most recently, the pheasant stamp. But when you look at the pheasant stamps, a good example, we had a program that was costing the agency about $5 million to run. And not everybody participated in the pheasant program. So during 2014, if you look at the game news and look at our budget at that point in time, it was very, very bad. We were in really bad shape financially where we were. So we completely retooled our pheasant program. We basically went from four farms down to two, but increased capacity at each of the two farms and did a bunch of other things. So basically we cut our costs in half and still produced the same number of pheasants. Then we brought in the pheasant permit into there. We still cost us more to produce pheasants than what we bring in with the tag. But now that at least we have hunters in there that are helping to support that overall program, it's a much more smart business move for the agency and a much more responsible for way to manage our business with that type of model. And what we have now is, I think, a Pheasant program. Based on the comments, we get more successful than it's ever been. People are really happy with the pheasant program. We provide a great service for dollar 25. Where else are you going to go where you can hunt two pheasants a day through a pretty long season? So it's a really good opportunity. But the reality is it takes money to run any business, whether you're a state agency or business. It takes money in order to run that business. But it's not all about the money because that's not why we do what we do. We do. We do what we do to fulfill the goals and mission of the agency. It's just the reality is it takes funding to be able to do the mission and goals of the agency. We're not here to raise money. We're here to spend the money on and make investments and good conservation projects to the benefit of wildlife and the citizens of Pennsylvania. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been there coming up on twelve months now, and I haven't seen the first Ferrari pull in the parking lot. I mean, that's, I mean, that's just a fact of the matter. And you hit on pheasants, and I'm just going to hit on something that I've really broadened my vision on. The pheasant population. Obviously, I've heard the stories when my dad was young, and when I was young, there were still lots of wild pheasants around. And, you know, you talk about a total habitat loss, you know, and really why the pheasants are pretty much gone. Wild pheasants. But, and I hear people talking about birds of prey and hawks and owls and, you know, predators, and I'm sure, you know, there's obviously they get their, their meals. But I lived in Iowa for six years when the pheasant population was really strong and wild pheasants and ten dollar a bushel corn came and all the CRP left the state. When that left, so did the pheasants, so did the turkey population started to dwindle. And obviously, in some areas, you know, it hurts. Hurt the deer population is because they lost that habitat, especially to birds that was so crucial. And, you know, if you've never been to a midwest state where the ground's really fertile, I mean, every blade of grass that grows has a lot of nutrients. Obviously, they grow, you know, 300 bushel to the acre corn in that part of the world because the ground's fertile. But once that habitat was gone, those animals that survived on it and needed it all the time, their populations decreased as well. [00:46:55] Speaker A: And you talked about misconceptions. The role of predators, especially avian predators like hawks and owls, is probably the biggest misconception and conspiracy theory that's really out there. And it's very commonly believed. And you hit on it. It's all about habitat. So we talked about the mind's eye and again, filling in missing facts to complete the story and our conclusions. So, you know, I grew up southeastern Pennsylvania. When I was growing up, we had a lot of wild pheasant hunting, and you could always kick out some rabbits. And some of my most fond memories of small game hunting in southeast Pennsylvania, you get down to those places now and you're not, you know, you can still find rabbits, but there's no wild pheasants down there anymore. But you can still find some rabbits again, if you find the habitat. But I think today, you know, as for the most part, agriculture's completely changed. We have roundup ready crops. You know, there's no cover left. And, you know, agriculture has to use that ground to produce crops. You know, they're in a business and they have to, they have families to support. It's not that the farmers are doing anything wrong. It's just agriculture today doesn't provide the same benefits to wildlife that it necessarily once did. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Fence rows are gone, fence grows are. [00:48:02] Speaker A: Gone, or they're grown up into big trees, which is not pheasant habitat. Or we used to have quail in Pennsylvania. And again, you can still, there's a lot of great rabbit hunting still left in Pennsylvania, but you have to find the habitats where there. So when we talk about the mind's eye, I think a lot of it is we notice we don't have wild pheasants at all, except in the wild pheasant recovery area, which we still have the same suite of predators. We still have avian predators up there, hawks and owls. We still have raccoons and coyotes and foxes and every other predator out there. But the populations are doing healthy. So, you know, that's maybe exhibit one, if you will, that, you know, if we have the habitat, we can have some of those species that are very abundant. Same thing with bobwhite quail. But I think the mind's eye, we go down the highway and we don't see the wild pheasants. We remember what it was like. Maybe those of us that are our age and can remember those days, but we see all these hawks in the trees along the highway. So our mind's eye says, well, we seem to see more hawks, so there, and we don't see the small game. Therefore, the hawks must be eating the small game. That's the mind's eye trying to fill in information. And when you look at what it's like to be a bird of prey, to be a hawk or an owl, they got a tough life. And, you know, they're eating a lot of, you know, small mammals, your white footed mice and meadow voles and things like that, they're getting what they can, but they're not the reason that we don't have some of the small game. Now, I would argue that we still have really good small game hunting populations, but I just go back to where I grew up in Montgomery county. All those old fields that aren't, that aren't farmed anymore, they're now trees. You know, they're trees that are seven, eight inches in diameter. That's not rabbit habitat anymore. The rabbits aren't going to be in there for the most part, so definitely not going to find a pheasant in there. The habitat has changed in Pennsylvania dramatically, and agricultural practice have changed in Pennsylvania dramatically. So, you know, will we ever see the restoration of wild pheasants in Pennsylvania on landscape basis? Probably not, unless there's a technological change in the way agriculture is practice. You know, can we bring back Bob boy quail? It's a species that we are trying to work a project on where we're trying to bring bobwhite quail, but we don't have expectations that we can make that statewide because the, the amount of statewide change required to bring back this native species to Pennsylvania would be, is much different than what we actually see on the ground today. [00:50:14] Speaker B: Well, and when you say that, when you talk about small game, I don't think anybody that from my generation didn't grow up. That was the first thing we learned, how to go out there and hunt. And, you know, what is abundant because of habitat changes are squirrels. [00:50:28] Speaker A: I can't wait this year with the early season opener. I cannot wait to get out there. [00:50:32] Speaker B: And number one, there's nothing better to teach you how to be a hunter than chasing squirrels around the woods. And number two, make pretty dang good squirrel puppies my grandma used to make. But, you know, and like you said, we have lots of changes. And, you know, a lot of our focus at the game commission is looking at opportunities to get more people involved. I mean, I'm proud to say that I'm from the Keystone state. I'm proud to say that, you know, I would love to see a million licensed hunters again. Number one, it's that we can brag about it and everybody knows. Number two, it helps fund conservation, not just selling the hunting license, but the match from the Pitman Robertson, the federal match. The more hunting license that we sell, the better it is. And whether you're a hunter or not, if you want to support conservation at this point in time, the best thing you can do is to buy a hunting license and to support the efforts, not just for the $20.90 for a general hunting license. It's the match that we get federally for having more licensed hunters for conservation. [00:51:33] Speaker A: And it goes back to, it's not about the dollars, but it's what we can do with those dollars to benefit wildlife, to benefit hunters and trappers and people who like to view wildlife, to benefit all of society. You know, I think one of the scary trends we see is, you know, more of this removal of society away from valuing wildlife. You know, I think most of us, you know, you look, 30, 40, 50 years ago, we who lived more in a rural landscape and, you know, wildlife, we were connected with it because we lived with it more every day. But as we've kind of urbanized a lot more and removed ourselves from that wildlife, you know, that disconnect is very concerning to me because then, you know, at what point does the public start losing value for wildlife? And I think one of the challenges for the agency moving forward is going to be how we can do a better job of reconnecting people with wildlife. You know, like, you know, we have Middle Creek Wildlife management area down there in southeastern Pennsylvania with hundreds of thousands of snow geese to come in and people from all over the world come in to see that. You know, that's a great way to reconnect people. We've got the elk range where people coming up in September during the, when they're in the rut and, you know, listening to those elk bugle and all the visitors are up there connecting them with wildlife. So, you know, that's a big part of our job as an agency, is to look for different ways we can reconnect people with wildlife. We have, you know, the cams of the eagles raising their young in their nests, again, trying to connect people with wildlife. And it's so vitally important, you know? And why is it important? Well, I know why it's important as a core value of mine, because wildlife is such a core value of who I am and what I believe in. It's why I pick this profession. It's why I get up every day, because my core value of wildlife, it's very important to me, and maybe I assume that it should be important to everybody, but I'm passionate about it, and I want to share that passion with everybody I touch because it is a just a beautiful and remarkable thing that we're blessed to have. [00:53:23] Speaker B: No doubt. And I, like the other day I came to you and asked you a question, and, you know, I've taken so many things for granted in my time in the wild. I was sitting at home working on my computer, and there was, the yard was full of robins, and I'm watching them catch worms. I've watched robins my whole life. And I never really took it that deep where I watched this robin, like, just feeling the ground and kind of turning its head and all of a sudden to get down there and catch a worm, and I'm like, how does that know that worm's there? And I came to you and you said, well, they can feel them. I wouldn't know if they could hear them or smell them or what was going on, but they were feeling that vibration through their feet. And that dang Robin knew exactly where to go catch that worm. And, you know, I'm taking it deep. But when you think about how amazing that is, that's as cool as it gets. [00:54:07] Speaker A: I know. And the bird that is probably the most overlooked songbird we have out there. I mean, what bird? I know there's the blackwing blackbird that everybody thinks of and they think of spring, but to me it's the robin. And that, you know, when I think, when I get up in the morning and my windows usually open, and I hear that Robin out there in the early morning, it takes me back to my childhood as a kid, when I can remember in the summer, loading up my bike just before got light with my. For trout fishing and, you know, taking a bike ride for about 10 miles down to the creek. And that's the first sound I heard was those robins. In fact, one of my favorite shows I continue to watch is mashed. And if you listen close in some of the soundtracks in the morning, they're actually robins in the soundtrack. And it always, I could just close my eyes and put myself back in time when I had my ten speed bicycle on my, my fishing pole and my flashlight and my lunch, and off I went to go spend the day fishing. [00:54:58] Speaker B: So you just dated yourself really bad mash, ten speed bicycle, eight track tape. I mean, yeah, had that as well. But I've lived through those days, you know, let's, let's turn the tide just a little bit here and kind of get a little more personal. And in this, this day and age, you know, a lot of people don't understand why we hunt and why are you a hunter? I just. Just down and dirty. [00:55:24] Speaker A: It's who I am, you know? And I can remember my dad did hunt a little bit. I can remember before because in Pennsylvania, you know, they. Back then, they tortured you where you couldn't hunt till you were twelve. But what I did, because I couldn't hunt till I was twelve, I did trapdez. So I was a big trapper. I remember going, my dad dropping me off at the trapper rendezvous. And I'd spend the day learning about trapping. I went to the library all the time, read every book on trapping, and I'd spend my summers, you know, knocking on doors, getting permission for trapping season. And I think it was always just part of who I want. I always wanted to be a hunter. I mean, I, you know, I knew I loved a trap and learning about wildlife and loved to read and really got into it. It. But as I got older, my dad, you know, was very busy. He was there trying to support the family and doing what he could do. But, you know, I still maintain that interest and love and passion for hunting, and it's just who I am, you know? And again, I think being a hunter is in each one of us. It's in our DNA, because it's part of who we are as human beings. And for whatever reason, it was very strong. Doesn't mean I'm very good at it, but I really love it. And I spend a lot, as much time as I can doing, and I. [00:56:32] Speaker B: Tell this story all the time. And trapping is one of my favorite passions. You know, it got me through a lot of winters. But when you're a proficient trapper and you can make a coyote or a red fox step on an inch and a half pan, it's really the epitome of hunting, and hunting is a word. You know, we talked about deer populations. Hunting is going out there and figuring things out. It's not going out there and sitting by a tree and waiting for something to run by. You. You gotta. You wanna go out there and figure it out, and whether it's food or where they sleep or where they rest or what have you, you know, good trappers make really good, proficient hunters. No doubt. But what is your absolute. I know the answer, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, what is your absolute favorite thing to. To hunt or chase out there? [00:57:18] Speaker A: The mob? Wild turkey. You know, it's interesting, too. When I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, we didn't have turkey. And I was a bow hunter primarily. And I bow hunted as much as I could. I mean, I bow hunted everything. Groundhogs, rabbits. But deer obviously, was. You know, we had plenty of deer, still do down there, but I was always interested in wild turkeys, but we didn't have them. So I didn't see my first wild turkey till I was probably 21, 22 years old. But I remember, you know, when I was in college, I started my academics at Penn State Dubois in the wildlife tech program. And I remember going to the library, which is usually the answer to most things when you talk to me is I go to library, read a book on it, and I wanted to learn about turkeys and turkey hunting, so I had a friend of mine that I went to school with later. His name is Len Groszak. He's actually a land manager here in Pennsylvania. And he took me out to listen for turkeys the first time, and I was hooked. I mean, listen to him gobble. And after I graduated with my bachelor's, I actually got hired with the Virginia department of Game and Inland Fisheries to work on turkey research, and that pretty much ruined me. You know, number one, you're trapping turkeys, which means you can use bait and there's no limit, but you had to let them all go after you put transmitters on them. And, you know, being able to live with wild turkeys every day, tracking them, following them, watching what they do, I just became a huge turkey nut, and it's never gone away. [00:58:38] Speaker B: You still get goosebumps and little hairs in the back of your neck. Stand up. When one gobble. [00:58:41] Speaker A: My heart beats so bad. A couple. Sometimes I just lay flat in my black back trying to settle down, because it just. I can't do anything about it. It tears me up every single time. [00:58:50] Speaker B: I say this a lot. The people that don't turkey hunt, I don't know how they live. I mean, I just don't. I don't. I can't even fathom it because it was the. For me, it was the greatest thing. When my dad stuck me between his legs and let me yelp to my first turkey when I was six, it put something in me, like, I've never done drugs or anything like that, but it was an addiction that I just can't live without. To this day, every morning, I'm out listening. I just want to hear him gobble. And then we get to talk to him and call to him and try to fool that bird into getting as close to you as possible. And it's pretty. And that's one of the reasons as we recruit new hunters, and we're looking at it today, the female side of hunting is growing tremendously. Girls want to get involved, whether they want to do it with their dad, their boyfriend, or just because they want to get out there in the woods. I'm seeing it all over. But turkey hunting is the ultimate female sport. [00:59:47] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. And I've seen it. My own family, my one sister in law, she got into turkey hunting probably 1012 years ago, and I have another sister in law who wants to come up and try it this spring, so, and I cannot wait to get her and my brother out on a turkey hunt and introduce it to them. And I almost feel bad to introduce people to something that's that addicting, you know, because there's no anecdote for it. There's nothing you can do. Once you catch the turkey fever, you're just done. It's all you think about. But, you know, it is a great way. You know, when I look at how we introduce hunting, you know, my son was growing up, you know, we turkey hunted, we squirrel hunted, and we deer hunted. And it was very difficult for me, even in South Carolina, to get him interested in hunting with deer hunting because you were just sitting and it was like watching paint drive. For a young kid, deer hunting, such a, in my opinion, a very, very difficult way to get kids into hunting. But there's so much more to hunting than just sitting there waiting for deer. There's the scouting, the preparation, learning the woods, learning where the deer go. But oftentimes, what do we do as parents? We do all that and then we, we just want to get a deer in front of our kid. And I think that actually doesn't help get kids into hunting because they're so if, if hunting is just about sitting down and shooting deer, you're not going to really enjoy hunting. There's so much more to hunting than just the harvest that animals just a small, small, tiny part of what we do. But, you know, squirrel hunting, turkey hunting, you know, that, you know, with the pheasant hunting opportunities we have in the state, rabbit hunting, if, especially if you have somebody that has dogs, what a fun way to do. And if you don't, you know, still go out there and kick a bunny up. A fun way to do it. [01:01:24] Speaker B: But it's good exercise on top of all that. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. But, you know, turkeys, you know, I get probably just as much of a thrill of ticking off a hen with my hen yelping and having her fly up in a tree cutting at me because she can't see me and can't figure out what other as, as calling in a big gobbler because it's just that, that personal interaction with that bird is just so much fun and, you know, and that's why, you know, obviously, you knew how to use a mouth call. Matt, it's fun to continually challenge yourself to become a better caller, to fool those birds and talk to them and have fun with them. [01:01:53] Speaker B: Sound more like a hen, but, you know, as, as far as girls or females go, they make the ultimate turkey hunters, and I say this all the time, they're more patient than we are. They're way better shots than we are. Take, you know, a girl that's never shot a 22 and in ten minutes she's hitting quarters at 25 yards. But what other hunting related activity can they go out and talk sexy to a male species of something and then blow its head off at 20 yards? I mean, they love that. It's like revenge on the male species. [01:02:23] Speaker A: And what a wonderful tasting table fare. I mean, a turkey tastes wonderful. So does squirrel meat, by the way, but, uh, yeah, there's nothing tastes better than a. Well, there's a few things that come close. Grouse and quail are, too, but Turkey's pretty darn good. [01:02:38] Speaker B: We're going to have to get rich Palmer on here with some of his, you know, when we get to the video side of the podcast stuff which is coming, you know, one of our, you know, your colleagues, one of the deputy executive directors, is a chef on all wild game. [01:02:52] Speaker A: He is. [01:02:52] Speaker B: And I mean, he even can make wood talk. Woodcock tastes pretty good, I hear. So we're going to have to get that done. [01:02:59] Speaker A: He's going to have to prove that. [01:03:00] Speaker B: One to me, you know, coming up here on the end of it. But, you know, a couple messages we want to leave and, you know, why is conservation so important as we head into the future? [01:03:13] Speaker A: Well, you know, because our challenges are going to become greater. You know, we have, you know, more people in the state of Pennsylvania. We're a global economy, which means we now bring diseases, wildlife diseases, in from all over the globe. And those challenges are going to be more. We have societal changes that, that we talked about earlier, that disconnection from wildlife. And maybe my fear is people become more disconnected. Where, for example, it was a time when Canada goose wasn't as many of them, we didn't see them. And there were different programs. People wanted to see more Canada geese. Now people look at them as vermin, that they're just crapping on the golf course and causing problems. And I think that's a loss, because when we look at wildlife as now becoming a nuisance, I think we devalue wildlife. We see it in white tailed deer in urban areas, too. You know, they're eating all the shrubs, and, you know, people put out their bird feeders and they're eating all the bird feeders. And then when deer are looked at not as the beautiful, amazing, wonderful wildlife species that they are, but now as a nuisance, I think it devalues all wildlife. So, you know, we're going to have a lot of challenges as the fact of the matter is society will change. It's how do we adapt as an agency to manage that, to be part of that change, to keep people connected to wildlife, to keep people connected with hunting and trapping and wildlife watching. So it's going to be really challenging. Conservation is going to be more problematic for us moving forward, especially with the technical issues. You look at disease issues alone. These are something that, you know, you look at white nose syndrome and bats as an example of something that was brought in and wiped out. Over 90% of our cave bats. It's 95% of our cave bats. These are serious problems. And bats, as everybody knows, have huge benefits to everybody out there. But our challenges are going to get steeper, they're not going to get less. And as an agency, we've got to continue to dodge and adapt and evolve as we move forward to meet the new challenges ahead. [01:05:12] Speaker B: It's kind of, and we look at today's society, you know, what's going on right now in this country. It's kind of like human lives. We have to adapt because there's things that are coming here that we don't, you know, we're not foreseen. And wildlife is the exact same way. And that's, you know, that's what we have to do. [01:05:28] Speaker A: Well, you know, I think it's part of the reason, you know, one of the goals with this podcast and the different communication strategies we can do, I think as we look into the future, I think as hunters, one of the things we spend too much time is arguing with each other, you know, and somebody who's on the outside that may have an interest in wildlife, why would they want to be part of something? When you hear all these conspiracy theories and all this stuff that's going on all the time, why would they want to be part of something like that? Because you got to remember what their perspective is, you know, and how as hunters, are we going to be willing to change, to integrate and welcome people who don't look like us, who don't have backgrounds like us, and welcome them into the hunting and trapping heritage? How, what are we going to do as hunters to make sure that we accept and are welcoming to new people into this, into this great activity we call hunting and trapping? Because it's core to what we do in court of who we are. So, you know, as I look forward to the challenges that we have, we're going to have to continue to reach out to people. And I think there's some internal changes amongst our own ranks that we've got. You know, you look at, you know, some of the issues we've been facing with some temporary closures of, of rifle ranges just because of the Covid-19 that we're dealing with. And we're following the guidelines that have been provided by the governor. Good guidelines, but we don't have people to maintain the rifle ranges. And then you see posts on Facebook that the agency is trying to take people's guns away. There's no logical connection between those two activities. So, you know, I think we need to settle down sometimes and refocus on where's the flag in the mountain? Where's the prize? Keep our eye on the prize, which is connecting people with wildlife, keeping our hunting and trapping heritage alive, and making sure that we have healthy and abundant wildlife populations moving forward. That should be our prize. [01:07:13] Speaker B: And I couldn't agree more with that. It's, we got to be one big hunting camp. We got to be, have one big campfire, and we all have to be friends. Whether you hunt deer with a bow, a rifle, crossbow, muzzleloader, truck, I don't care what season it is, we're all in the same boat, and we all got to be friends and be, well, nobody wants to jump into a fight. [01:07:30] Speaker A: We don't always have to agree, but we should respect each other. [01:07:33] Speaker B: That's right. Well, it kind of leads us into the last thing because we, we hit a bunch of stuff right there. But, you know, when you look at, you look at, there's 13, close to 13 million people in the commonwealth in Pennsylvania, roughly just under a million folks. [01:07:51] Speaker A: That do hunt and 2 million that identify themselves as hunters. [01:07:54] Speaker B: Right. But there's, you know, when we look at 12 million people in this state that enjoy wildlife, what can those folks do that don't hunt, that don't choose to hunt do to help in conservation? [01:08:07] Speaker A: You know, I think the biggest thing they can do one is to learn more about conservation, to learn more about the gain commission and what we do, the different programs that we offer for people to participate in. You know, like right now, we have, on Facebook, we have some educational programs from kids that are, you know, they're out of school because of Covid-19 and they're looking for activities to do. And staff have, you know, even though we're working from home, we've come up with some educational opportunities to do that, but to look for and learn about wildlife conservation and the history of wildlife conservation. But another great opportunity you know, when it goes back, because we talked about funding, it's not because of the money. It's what we're able to do with the money for conservation. If you don't hunt and you and say you don't even have an interest in hunting, that's fine. But what's one way you can get involved? Get a hunting license. Now, one of the things that requires is you do have to take a hunter trapper education course. Well, what's that going to provide to you? You're going to learn more about conservation. You're going to learn more about firearms, the safe handling of firearms, and you're going to learn more about hunting. Those are all interesting, important things to learn. Now, it's interesting right now through April 30. And this is 2020, in case this is being errored a couple years down the road. But you can take your online hunter education. If you're eleven years old or older, you can take your online hunter education right now, take that course, get your certification, and if you want to contribute to wildlife conservation, buy a hunting license this fall. That way it's also matched with Pittman Robertson funds and will help us put more habitat and more wildlife management on the ground right here in Pennsylvania. So that's, again, it's not about the money. It's about what the money does to help conservation and wildlife management here in Pennsylvania. [01:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I can't think of any better way at this point in time to help in conservation. And that's what hunters are, true conservationists. And we're going to close it out here on our inaugural podcast, which I think was awesome. I personally, and, you know, want to thank you for being so transparent about what's going on out there. And I know that's one of our goals at the game commission going forward, is to, you know, lay it on the table and be as transparent as possible. And just to encourage everybody that, that really appreciates wildlife to just take a look, open our books and see what happens in our agency and go encourage them to go meet the folks that are in their regions. And, you know, we're all in this thing together. It's called life. And like you said before, we gotta erase the lines in the sand. We gotta become better friends. And the biggest thing, our biggest goal is to leave it better than we found it. And I think that, you know, that's where I'm trying to look every day in my life, especially on the wildlife and conservation side. But anything that you wanna hit on before we call it a wrap here on day one, well, my concluder would. [01:10:53] Speaker A: Be what we mentioned earlier, what Teddy Roosevelt said. It's not only those here now, but those in the womb of time. You know, we all have an obligation to look out for the future. Those who will replace us down the road when we're not here, we either do the job or we don't. [01:11:09] Speaker B: I can't top that one. That's pretty, that's pretty stout. But we'll look forward to having you again here on call of the outdoors. And it's almost turkey season, so I would recommend that you probably, on your way home today, put your mouth call in and work on it. And I know every turkey hunter has one with them. But thank you, Brian, and look forward to the next time. On behalf of the Pennsylvania Game commission, thank you for tuning in. And we hope that every day of field is filled with memories to last a lifetime. We are committed to leave conservation and wildlife better for the future. And we hope you can tune in next time to the PGC's call of the outdoors.