Episode Transcript
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0:03
Fish on hey radcast is on
0:06
and welcome to the show mr jim zumbo gentlemen i
0:09
am pleased to be here and i use that term loosely when i say
0:12
gentlemen al winder i just want to welcome you to the show thanks for uh taking
0:18
time out of your busy schedule to hang out with us on a podcast for a little
0:22
bit i am looking forward to it there's nothing makes me happier than a cold
0:25
in minnesota If I can't be out fishing, I should be talking about fishing.
0:30
Hailing from Wisconsin, Jana Waller. Thank you so much for having me. It's Radcast.
0:36
Hunting, fishing, and everything in between. Powered by Bow Spider.
0:40
Brought to you by PK Lures and High Mountain Seasonings. And now,
0:44
here's your hosts, Patrick Edwards and David Merrill.
0:52
All right, welcome to another episode of Radcast Outdoors. I'm one of your hosts,
0:56
Patrick Edwards, and I think we have David here with us. David, are you there?
1:00
I'm here. All right. So today, we're going to have some guests on that we've had on before.
1:06
The last time we all hung out together, we had Mr. Jim Schake on with us, which was fun.
1:11
But I have Blake Fegler and Rowdy Anderson with me from the Muley Fanatic 10
1:16
chapter here in Fremont County. So welcome, fellas.
1:19
Thanks, guys. It's another year, and you got another banquet that you're planning,
1:24
and I know it's a lot of stress and it's a lot of work, but why don't you guys
1:29
tell us what we can expect out of this year's County 10 Muley Fanatic Foundation dinner and fundraiser?
1:36
All right. So we got a heck of a night planned. It's going to be March 16th.
1:41
It's going to be at the Lander Community Center. We've had it there for the
1:44
past several years. Good place to have an event, super nice facility.
1:48
And it's going to be good. We've got a special guest coming this year,
1:51
Cody Robbins from on the hit TV show, Live to Hunt.
1:55
He's going to come down and along with that, he's going to bring some of his
1:58
fine Canadian trophies, world record type stuff for people to look at and put their hands on.
2:04
He'll be there just like Jim was last year. People have the opportunity to get
2:08
to visit with him, ask him questions throughout the night.
2:11
We've got a heck of a selection of firearms. We've got bows.
2:16
We've got lots of one-of-a-kind items for people to have an opportunity to purchase
2:20
there that night. And yeah, it's going to be an exquisite evening.
2:24
Like we always say, we're trying to offer up for the evening and evening.
2:29
People won't forget more of an experience than just a banquet.
2:32
So that's what I've got for that. Whatever you think you should add to that, Blake.
2:37
Yeah, I think everybody that came last year, I think really enjoyed it.
2:40
And I think good as it was, I think we had some things that we can definitely improve on.
2:45
So any little hiccups we might've had last year, we've got all cleaned up.
2:49
So it should be even better. Yeah. And with them hiccups, I know last year there was a little bit of complaints
2:54
about the line getting in the door. We've fixed that now. When you buy your
2:58
ticket, you'll be issued a QR code. And as long as all your information is filled out there, when you get to the
3:02
door, we'll have some people out there scanning your QR code.
3:05
They'll scan it and boom, you're right in the door. So we should cut the time standing outside immensely. For people to sign up
3:12
for the event, where do they go to get that information and just see what all is available?
3:16
Available so we should have this ready if you go to the website you're going to want to go to is.
3:25
2024 10 the letter c n
3:28
t r y b a n q dot give smart.com and if you go to there it will take you to
3:36
a portal where you can go buy all your tickets and everything that we have available
3:40
at this time you can purchase right there perfect so what's the food going to
3:43
be like because Cause everybody always wants to know, Hey, if I'm coming to this thing, what kind of food am I going to get?
3:49
That's Blake's department there. Once again, we went with our buddy, James Bunker.
3:55
Bunk's Barbecue will be there again doing dinner. And I think we changed a little
4:00
bit from what we did last year with him. And I think we'll, same thing, we'll be even better than last year.
4:05
That's awesome. Bunk's Barbecue is delicious. So I'm looking forward to that.
4:09
And what's the cost per person to attend this event? So if you buy a singles
4:13
ticket, we've got the singles tickets right now.
4:16
They're $150, and then we have two different table options.
4:19
We've got a VIP table option that's seating for eight.
4:23
Obviously, the best seat in the house come with some special gifts and swag. Those are $2,000.
4:28
And then we have our reserve seating for eight, which also come with some little
4:33
special goodies on your table. And those are $1,500.
4:37
Good deal. And guys, this is something here on the podcast, Patrick and I always
4:42
talk about conservation, North American conservation model, giving back.
4:46
And I know this is your guys' one fundraiser for the year, but explain a little
4:51
bit of what you guys do the rest of the year besides working your tails off to put this evening on.
4:58
Yeah, we meet every month, sometimes multiple times per month.
5:02
But yeah, once we host these banquets and the smoke clears and we see what kind
5:06
of money to spend, we go to project allocation, which is usually a month or
5:11
two where we take in projects from the Fremont County and around the state.
5:16
We run them through our committee and then we choose them and we start granting
5:20
dollars and cents here and there. But we're always doing something. It seems every month, every couple of weeks,
5:26
we have something going on. Last year, just to name a few things, we started a scholarship program,
5:33
which the eligibility will be for students from Fremont County.
5:38
We'll award two of those. That started already.
5:41
We did a Sinks Canyon sheetgrass project. We funded that. That project actually
5:46
won't take place until summer of 2024.
5:49
We went ahead and funded that. that. We've put up some outdoor boards in our
5:54
local middle schools where kids can go in and hang up like a bragging board
5:58
at the hunting store. It's really cool. We thought that maybe give kids a chance to have something to talk about other
6:03
than playing video games. And that's been a big success.
6:07
But we still do the putting the ewe and hunt. Last year, we facilitated three of those.
6:11
We did a hunt in the Saratoga and Campman area and the Dubois area and then
6:15
Red Desert elk hunt. We're doing funding to the U.S. 26th crossing still.
6:19
It sounds like that's taken top priority now, so hopefully we can get that done soon.
6:24
We're working on a potential partnership on a large-scale CWD research project,
6:28
which would be done here locally in Fremont County.
6:31
We just recently finished up our mule deer summit, which we were taking public
6:35
input, trying to put some proposals together to go to the Game and Fish Commission
6:39
with, to let them know what the wants and needs of people here in Fremont County are on the mule deer.
6:43
And then I guess one last thing we did last year was we funded the grand prize
6:49
for the big bowl contest here in Riverfin for the youth category.
6:53
So I think we've been pretty busy. What do you think, Blake?
6:57
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think you really missed anything. And the biggest
7:01
thing is that we're actually turning around and spending people's money in Fremont
7:06
County back here in Fremont County. I think that's the biggest thing to reiterate on is that your dollars are being spent in your vacuum.
7:14
What's the number one priority for you guys going into this next year?
7:19
Obviously, the crossing up around Dubois is a big deal, but what are the top
7:23
priorities of your organization in the county?
7:26
I think that some of the top priorities that we see, especially after we had
7:31
our input meeting the other night, people are very concerned about CWD.
7:36
I think we need to take a different approach on that.
7:39
People want to be way more educated. They want up-to-the-minute details on what's going on.
7:46
I think that's going to take over. But that's the beauty of what we do. Like Blake said, we're spending money in
7:52
our own backyards, and we're doing projects that people find merit in.
7:56
Habitat projects is always a good one, and research.
8:00
We asked that question the other night to the people that came out to the meeting,
8:03
and there's a lot of people that still would like to see us do some research
8:06
projects. Yeah, talk a little bit about the cheatgrass thing,
8:09
because some listeners may be like, what the heck is cheatgrass for one thing?
8:13
But explain about cheatgrass, why it's important for us to remove cheatgrass
8:18
from the landscape and what you guys do in that project.
8:21
Gotcha you want to take that one blake oh yeah you look at how the landscape's
8:25
changed over the last hundred years or even 50 years cheatgrass is one of those things that has,
8:31
really taken over and it's a negative effect on the landscape just
8:34
due to the poor quality of forage for
8:38
the animals it likes to choke out any competition as well it's getting rid of
8:42
the good forage the native grasses it's a non-native grass that's taken over
8:47
and it really doesn't provide provide any benefits to the landscape at all from
8:52
wildlife or even livestock producers.
8:56
Really any benefit at all. And up to now, there's not really been a whole lot of solutions as far as how
9:02
to get rid of it and how to mitigate it. So that's some of the things that they started doing aerial spraying and trying
9:09
to get a hold on it before it gets even worse, because it is definitely a big problem right now.
9:13
And it's for those of you who may be still wondering what it it is.
9:17
It's the kind of grass that if you walk through it and you have tennis shoes
9:20
on or socks that are exposed, the seeds of it get stuck in your,
9:26
the other thing about it is it's an annual grass.
9:28
So it grows back by seeding and it does a really good job of that.
9:33
And that's why it out-competes other grasses is that it'll sprout sometimes
9:37
even in the fall, like the seeds will fall.
9:39
You'll see a little green carpet start to appear where it was at.
9:43
And then by the time spring rolls around, it just shoots up and it takes over the area.
9:48
But I know it's been a concern not only in Sinks Canyon, but around the Whiskey
9:52
Mountain area and other places like that, because the Bighorn Sheep Foundation
9:55
has been dealing with it too. And I think everybody across the West is trying to figure out cheatgrass.
10:01
Talk about some of the other projects too, because it's always good for people
10:05
to know how they can get involved, because I'm sure you're always looking for
10:09
volunteers to come and help as well. We are. We're always looking for volunteers. And we do a pretty good job of
10:16
making sure everybody knows what our meetings are. We've been hosting our meetings on is it second Thursday night of the month,
10:23
second Wednesday night of the month. We changed that around a little bit, but if you watch our Facebook page and
10:27
our social media outlets like say we keep a good, we do a good job of informing
10:32
people on when we're going to be having meetings, what's going to be going on
10:35
at the meetings, what it's about. Yeah. And like back to the project and we're always looking for good projects.
10:43
Projects sometimes we get a lot of project proposals and
10:46
maybe they're not what the maybe they don't fit
10:49
what we're looking for at that time but yeah projects
10:52
so guys what does mule deer
10:55
mean to you that's a question truly i love conservation i love these organizations
11:00
and i think everybody needs to get involved in their communities with their
11:05
grassroots grassroots local organization right and this one's right in our backyard
11:10
i've been supporting you guys i've been coming for for years,
11:12
but I want to know, what do mule deer mean to both Blake and Rowdy?
11:17
Mule deer to me, I've been a mule deer enthusiast since I was a small child.
11:21
And let's be honest, for me, it started with big bucks. What's cooler than a big buck mule deer?
11:28
And 45 years later, I still love it. It has shaped the person I am.
11:32
It dictates what I do throughout the entire year.
11:36
I can already tell you that I have my calendars already full from September
11:41
through November with things based solely around mule deer.
11:45
And for me, like you talked about conservation, I have been a taker of the resource
11:52
for a long time and have been able to enjoy that resource for a long time.
11:57
For me, it's a no-brainer becoming
12:00
part of this organization because I wanted to give something back.
12:03
I have three kids. I want them to enjoy the same type of opportunities that I had growing up.
12:09
So, yeah, mule deer, it's made me who I am today. day. And I think that's a
12:14
pretty honest statement on my behalf. Yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but mule deer in their own way are very unique
12:21
and they're not like any other deer species.
12:24
And they're not like hunting elk at all. I think mule deer is by far my favorite thing to hunt.
12:29
And as Rowdy said, it's probably best as far as mule deer hunters.
12:34
We spend a lot of time and thought and effort into harvesting
12:38
a mule deer and this gives us a
12:41
great resource in a way to try to make sure that
12:43
they're still on the landscape in 50 hundred years
12:47
we've already seen a huge decline in just you can say five years not only hunting
12:53
but just total overall numbers period that things don't look like they used
12:57
to so the best time to start is now so on the numbers how How are things looking
13:03
2024? What's the outlook? I guess speaking from a non-scientific non-biologist standpoint
13:10
you guys you do the same thing we do we have these
13:12
conversations every day and when you talked just
13:15
about every everybody i don't think anybody has a really good outlook on mule
13:19
deer especially after what happened last winter our deer numbers are in the
13:23
they're in the tank just looking around here in our backyard look like area
13:27
157 with the not only did we have a bad winter last year but the cwd a D. This thing's real.
13:33
And where does it end? I don't think any of us know. It's scary.
13:37
We have these conversations all the time. And I'm almost scared to think that
13:41
maybe someday that being able to hunt a mule deer is going to be like hunting
13:45
a sheep or a moose. And now it's going to be extremely hard to get tags.
13:49
And you're not going to get to go yourself with your own tag very much.
13:54
And we talk a lot about hunting, but it's just sad not seeing the deer on the landscape.
13:59
I think we all enjoy seeing deer period whether we're hunting them
14:02
or not but no it's scary i haven't talked
14:05
to one person that has said anything different anywhere in the state how about
14:09
you blake what's your outlook yeah right here locally speaking on the cwd fact
14:15
numbers were extremely down as far as harvest rates go we had a good conversation
14:20
with lisa robinet at y code of meat meat processing.
14:24
She told us that she butchered less than 10 mule deer all year last year,
14:28
and zero came out of 157 right here in our backyard.
14:33
That's obviously very concerning. And then looking at CWD test rates,
14:37
upwards to 90% of deer tested in 157 were positive.
14:43
That alone is extremely alarming, and it's something that.
14:47
Hopefully we can get a handle on, but it doesn't look pretty at the moment.
14:51
A lot of people I've talked to say that 2023 was the perfect storm because you
14:57
have CWD and then you have the worst winter we've ever had.
15:01
And mule deer just didn't fare too well. And so it's a huge concern.
15:08
And there's a lot of us that grew up mule deer hunting here in Wyoming,
15:12
including myself. And I'm really sad to see that everything's plummeted,
15:17
especially now that my kids are getting to that hunting age.
15:20
And I was lucky enough to see my daughter harvest an elk this year,
15:23
but like mule deer, it's just, it's pretty bleak.
15:26
But that's why the work that you guys are doing is so important.
15:30
And that's why it's so important as sportsmen. And if we really care about that
15:33
resource to get involved and attend these banquets and do these fundraisers,
15:38
because the money doesn't just come out of thin air.
15:41
And that's why it's so critical for people to show up and step up and help out with this.
15:46
And as far as like deadlines and things like that, like when do people need
15:49
to be signed up? Ideally, what are you guys as organizers?
15:53
How can we help you as far as getting signed up in a timely manner and having everything ready to go?
15:58
Last year, we were sold out the first week of March, which that helps us out a bunch.
16:04
We can let our caterer know what we're looking at. We know exactly what we need
16:07
to have set up in the building that night to give everybody the best experience possible.
16:12
But I would say hesitate to get your tickets. Tickets are selling.
16:16
We just looked at ticket sales this morning and things are going well.
16:20
I would venture to say that by mid-February, end of February,
16:25
we'll be sold nothing. And back to where we were last year with just people
16:29
calling every day, wanting tickets to the banquet.
16:31
They're there in the month of March and we just we don't have them available.
16:34
So if you plan on going or you want to go, I would get my tickets sooner than later.
16:40
Good deal. I will be in Florida, so I won't be there, but I'm sure David's probably
16:46
trying to figure out how to attend. David, are you going to be able to go this year?
16:50
I've got to sit down with the scheduling boss and make sure,
16:53
but as long as my schedule's open, I plan to come every year.
16:57
And it's a great event. It's been a good time. I've been coming for,
17:01
I think my first one was 15, 14.
17:04
It's just a, it's a good night. It's a good time to get together and talk about
17:07
conservation and put some boots on the ground work and help support some guys
17:12
that are actually out there, whether it's deer crossing, whether it's fence projects,
17:16
whether it's youth on site and collecting this data.
17:20
One of the data points I want to talk on though, is I did go over to one of
17:24
Wyoming's premier units last year and hunted 12 days straight trying to break that 200 inch.
17:30
Blake and I have talked about this a little bit, right? right?
17:33
There was no deer there guys. There was zero deer there.
17:36
And by zero, I typically in a five day hunt, see 110, 120 bucks.
17:42
And we're, we're spending a lot of time class and judging.
17:45
We saw 12 bucks in 12 days. So I'm not going back.
17:50
I'm just not going to go back that premium year for a couple of years till I hear that.
17:54
Oh yeah, they're bouncing back. And is now the right right time to start looking
17:57
at suspending some doe hunts, maybe going to, you know, a different.
18:04
Style tag allocation, but I don't think it's pure hunter pressure.
18:08
The winter wasn't hunter pressure. CWD isn't hunter pressure, but how can we give these mule deer a boost?
18:14
Can we reduce some predators? Can we think outside of the box, habitat, feed predators?
18:21
It's all plays a key key vehicle mentalities. It used to be,
18:24
you guys know, driving from our warehouse into Riverton,
18:28
there was always a vehicle mentality on the side of the road around Kinnear,
18:32
around Pavilion, around Crow Heart, always want a fresh one on the side of the road.
18:37
And it's not that way anymore because we don't have the deer anymore.
18:39
So it's time to start having some of these conversations deeper about how do
18:44
we protect, honestly, one of my favorite species by far.
18:49
Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of the meeting that we held the other night.
18:52
A lot of these conversations came up.
18:55
People got to be more involved. We've been in the mindset forever that nothing's going to change.
19:00
They've already got their minds made up, but I don't believe that.
19:03
I know Blake don't believe that. I just think it's time that people band together. We band together as a group.
19:09
I know we have all these subgroups and we often find ourselves fighting amongst
19:14
one another, but as hunters, as mule deer enthusiasts, we all have to come together
19:20
with, well, I have the same goal. We want to see more deer on the landscape. And what is that going to take?
19:25
What's your thoughts, Blake? Yeah, you brought up some interesting topics.
19:30
And we all, Rowdy's mentioned this public meeting that we've had.
19:33
And all of those topics that you brought up has come as far as,
19:36
is general tax a good thing?
19:38
Do we need to move to limited quota? Do we need more research?
19:42
Is it predators? Is it highway fatality? We had probably a list of 10 to 15
19:49
problems and maybe four to five solutions to these problems come up.
19:54
And that we're very adamant at these meetings after we broke into kind of subcommittees
19:59
and we had more private in-depth conversations.
20:02
And it's difficult to say what's the clear-cut solution, obviously,
20:08
but the things that we control, highway fatalities, the Kemmerer project,
20:12
highway crossing project got funded.
20:15
So that's a great win for Mule there in that part of the the world.
20:18
And like Rowdy said, the Highway 20, 789, that is next on the radar for being
20:23
most important to get funded. So those two things right there are going to save a lot of deer.
20:28
I just wish we would have started funding these 50 years ago rather than 10 years ago.
20:33
We'd be so much farther ahead just because they're $19, $20 million projects.
20:39
That's not money you come up with overnight or even in two years.
20:42
And then winter mortality obviously took a huge hit. And I respect Game and
20:47
Fish for doing a lot of research as far as is feeding deer the right thing to
20:51
do or not the right thing to do, different things like that.
20:54
Because everybody has an opinion and a solution, but have they done the scientific
20:59
research to see if it's actually something plausible that will actually make a difference?
21:03
And I think Game and Fish is doing a good job at actually coming up with a lot of those solutions.
21:09
And we like to fund research projects that's not just with Game and Fish and go outside of that.
21:16
And work with some other people as well. So I think that's the best thing we
21:20
can do in what seems to be pretty bleak as far as what can we do.
21:25
Yeah, we just can't throw our hands in the air. I think that would be pretty
21:29
simple at this point to just throw your hands in the air and say a mule deer,
21:33
for all lack of better terms, are just in the tank.
21:38
But we can make this work. It's been done hundreds of years ago without all
21:41
the technology that we have at our fingertips today.
21:44
Man-made animals come back and flourish, and we can look at many different cases.
21:50
And not only do we have that history, but we have technology.
21:55
We can make this work. It's just going to teach people banding together with
21:59
one common goal and leaving behind their own personal goals at the end.
22:03
I think it's great that you guys are on the forefront. You're the tip of the
22:06
spear getting the work done, right? And you're actively out there taking your personal time and investing it in
22:13
Mule Deer and this organization that helps Mule Deer.
22:16
So again, I think it's great what you guys are doing. And hopefully we can get
22:20
a bunch of people to show up and help. But one of the things I wanted to ask you about is we had the fundraiser last
22:27
year and I think it was a big success.
22:31
But can you talk about, you know, how that went and then the things that happened since then?
22:36
Because I saw you had some youth hunts and different stories with that.
22:40
But can you recap some of the things that came out of the event last year,
22:43
the fundraiser last year and Jim Shockey coming? Yeah.
22:46
Yeah. Why don't you take that one, Blake? Oh, boy. Money-wise,
22:51
I think we did extremely well just in our live auction alone.
22:54
I think we grossed $90,000.
22:57
A big portion of that was for the Wyoming Predator Board.
23:01
Over $30,000 went to that. They sold a commissioner tag at our banquet.
23:05
And that money obviously goes to the Predator Board, which in turn helps eliminate
23:10
the predator issues, not only for the livestock people, but for mule deer,
23:16
which I think is a big problem that we're facing right now as far as mountain
23:20
lions and black bears in certain parts of the world that are really taking a
23:24
huge hit on mule deer and other wildlife as well.
23:26
The biggest things we did this year was we sat down as a big committee and we
23:31
looked at our bank account and said, what is the best bank for our buck?
23:34
And we got a lot of projects that were allocated to us that we did not fund
23:39
just for the point of, we looked at them and said,
23:42
I don't think this is worth our money as far as it's not going to have the biggest,
23:47
greatest impact for mule deer right now, or maybe not even in the long term.
23:51
So that probably sounds bad that we didn't fund projects, but the point was,
23:55
we wanted to treat this money like it was our own and we wanted to use it the
23:59
best way possible that we could. So a lot of the money we still have in the bank right right now.
24:04
And we hope to expand on that and make a bigger impact with it.
24:09
Like Rowdy said earlier, though, we did fund some projects like the cheatgrass project.
24:12
We did do some good things with that money, but I think the most important thing
24:16
we did with it was we didn't waste it. We're not, and I've said this a hundred times, we're not the government.
24:22
We're not just going to spend money or put timelines on when we need to spend the money.
24:27
Blake said, if it isn't the right fit or the right project, we'll hold onto
24:31
the money until that comes comes along.
24:35
I mean, other good things that we've done over the course of the year,
24:38
this committee has grown from literally five, six people to now 30 plus people.
24:44
We have a very active chapter. Everybody takes it very serious. Everybody's very in tune with the goals.
24:53
It's just, it's been an amazing past year and a half.
24:57
You hit on it. We've been able to fund three, putting the U in hunt for kids
25:04
with life-threatening illnesses. Those are amazing.
25:07
Not only is that an amazing experience for the kids that get to come out and
25:10
partake in them, but it's an amazing experience for us that get to go along.
25:14
And we're getting a lot of youth initiatives started with this chapter.
25:18
I think that's, you hit on it, I think earlier, maybe in a question that you
25:22
guys asked on your questionnaire. But yeah if we don't recruit kids into
25:26
this sport it will die and i
25:30
think we're trying to take a very active role in recruiting youth
25:33
to not only hunting but just enjoying wild things
25:37
on the outdoors yeah i think each generation has that kind of task of getting
25:44
the next generation involved so we're at that point all all four of us it's
25:49
like what are we doing to help get the next round of kids involved and actively involved,
25:55
in not only just the hunting aspect, but the conservation aspect and the stewardship.
26:00
And so I think that's what's really great about your organization is it offers
26:04
opportunities for people to get involved.
26:08
And be active stewards of that resource. Because a lot of times people are just
26:13
like, hey, I can just put money in the hat to help support this.
26:17
But what you guys have that's a little bit different, it's yeah, do that.
26:21
But also, hey, why don't you come help us with this project?
26:24
We need boots on the ground. We need people out there helping get these things done. Otherwise, they don't happen.
26:30
Just like stuff that I'm interested in, it's like fish habitat projects,
26:34
pond cleanups, river cleanups, those kinds of things.
26:37
Things they don't happen by themselves there's got to be somebody down there
26:40
doing it and that's what's really awesome about what you guys are doing and
26:44
so i'm pretty stoked about it i think you know yeah it is a bleak outlook but
26:50
we have people that care and to your point rowdy.
26:53
Hundreds of years ago what did people do they said we don't have enough forage
26:57
in these areas for the animals so let's you know get rid of some of this forest
27:01
and burn it down and the grass grows and guess what? The animals come back.
27:05
There's just, there's things that to your point we can do.
27:09
We have a lot more technology. Now we have a lot more research.
27:12
We have people that are actively paid to do this full time with the game and fish and wildlife.
27:17
A university of Wyoming has researchers that are working on it actively now.
27:21
And so how do we pull all those people together to get something done to save these animals?
27:28
And you guys, again, like I said, I congratulate you because you are the tip
27:31
of the spear because you're the people that are on the ground doing this, living this every day.
27:37
I think hunters don't get enough credit for the stewardship and the conservation
27:43
that we do because really without us, it doesn't happen at all because nobody's
27:49
funded. And nobody cares. Yeah. The hunters are a very compassionate group of people, no matter what anybody says or thinks.
27:57
Yeah, I love what we do. The funding aspect of this deal is,
28:01
like Blake said, you come to our banquet, and guess what?
28:04
Them dollars that you spend at that banquet, they're going to get spent right here.
28:08
And if they're not spent right here in Fremont County, they're going to get
28:11
spent somewhere in Wyoming. So it's an amazing funding model.
28:16
We're super proud of how that works. folks, the people that do all the hard
28:22
work and put all the effort into making this happen, have a say in how that's
28:25
money spent or say how that money is spent.
28:28
And like Blake said, at that point, it almost becomes like it's your own money
28:33
and you don't want to waste it away on just frivolous things.
28:36
So I think we've done a very good job of taking care of the bank account.
28:41
We don't fund anything that we don't fully all agree on.
28:46
And at the end of the day, we're going to do great things here.
28:50
I agree. Is there anything else you guys want to cover or tell folks about what
28:54
you're doing or how they can be involved? Like I say, keep an eye on all our social media outlets. We're very good at
29:00
letting people know when we're going to be having meetings and when we're going
29:04
to be hosting things like the Mule Deer Summit. Like you said, if we need boots on the ground for projects, we'll let people know.
29:10
But yeah, if you're interested in making a difference here in and around Fremont
29:15
County with mule deer and lakes for all intents and purposes,
29:18
other wildlife, come and join our our team. It's a great team.
29:21
And at the end of the day, you'll be proud to be part of it.
29:24
So my two cents for anybody listening out there who's new to the conservation
29:29
model, new to organizations like this is what's really cool is the lion's share
29:35
of the money you guys raise goes right back into conservation.
29:38
You guys aren't employed making a living doing this. This is all holistically
29:44
for the benefit of mule deer. And if you're out there thinking about an organization to donate to,
29:49
certainly this is a great one by far.
29:51
Your dollars are going to go the farthest.
29:55
Picking an organization who does these, all the things you guys,
29:59
all your outreach programs. And as I think about it, Wyoming has mineral natural gas, we have farming,
30:08
ranching, and then we have tourism as our economies.
30:12
And, you know, people are coming to Wyoming to AC our our natural resources
30:17
and the beauty, but also the wildlife. And so without the wildlife, we don't have the tourism that we have, and we need to keep it.
30:25
We need to do everything we can, whether that's have these discussions about
30:29
where to put high fence areas, you know, road crossing, have the discussion about where to remove predators,
30:35
have the discussion about noxious weed removal.
30:38
I think having the debate and the discussion, being open-minded and doing that is beneficial.
30:44
But if you're wondering why you should or shouldn't donate to any organization,
30:49
look at the financial structure. And a lot of these that out there are claiming to be holistic and for the benefit
30:56
of wildlife, the majority of their money is going want to line somebody's pocket.
31:00
If instead of donating to one of those, pick these guys.
31:04
Yep. Because donating to a local organization is also a lot better because I
31:10
can go and see Rowdy or Blake and actively talk to them face to face about where
31:15
the money is going and have that conversation. So that's a big deal.
31:18
Yeah, we're very transparent. Yeah. And not only are we right here,
31:22
but, and we do this strictly volunteer, but we also have a great friendship
31:27
and relationship with the guys at headquarters.
31:30
We can text them seven days a week if we have any questions or concerns.
31:34
And there's not many organizations that are like that as far as people within
31:37
chapters of a main organization can talk to the CEO or the CFO really anytime,
31:44
let alone seven days a week. So we're pretty privileged at that aspect to have a great relationship with
31:50
headquarters and the right here in Wyoming. And if we need anything, think they're, they're more than willing to help and
31:56
they're great people. Very cool guys.
31:59
It's always a privilege to have you guys on. I admire both of you.
32:02
You're doing great work. Thank you for taking the time to be on here.
32:06
We'll get this out in the next few weeks and get, hopefully get you a full banquet
32:10
and get a bunch of money raised. Yeah. Thanks again for coming on the Radcast Outdoors podcast.
32:14
We always love having you. All right. Thanks a bunch guys. Yep. Appreciate it. You guys have a good one.
32:19
Stay warm out there. All right. We'll talk to you later. All right. See you guys.
32:25
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32:28
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