Episode 12 DWP- Hunting in a CWD World w/ Stephen Ziegler from Rack Junkies!

Stephen Ziegler is the creator of Rack Junkies, an independent hunting media platform focused on whitetail hunting culture, hunter advocacy, and commentary on wildlife policy. He has built a large following by openly discussing controversial issues within the hunting community, particularly Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and government wildlife management policies. 

Ziegler has been involved in the outdoor industry for decades. He has written hundreds of hunting and fishing articles and is also the owner of DeLong Lures, a long-standing fishing tackle company. Through Rack Junkies he has developed a grassroots media presence that resonates strongly with hunters who feel their concerns are not always heard by wildlife agencies or traditional outdoor media. 

https://www.facebook.com/RackJunkies 

This podcast is built around real-world experience, collaboration with producers and veterinarians, and nearly three decades of hands-on work across North America. The goal is simple: provide practical insight that helps producers make better decisions for herd health, genetics, and long-term success. 

Facebook- 

Cervid Health Management- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... 

Deer Wizard Ranch- / redridgedeer 

Instagram- Cervid Health Management- / cervid_health 

Deer Wizard Ranch- / deer_wizard_ranch 

Email- deerwizard64@gmail.com 

Website- www.fusionanimalhealth.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Deer Wizard Podcast. Conversation shaping the deer industry. I'm your host, Josh Newton the Deer Wizard. Through interviews, advocacy, and industry news, we deliver field-proven insights to help producers build better herds. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Deer Wizard Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I'm your host, Josh Newton. For nearly three decades, I've worked in the servant industry with deer and elk producers across North America, really focusing on herd health, management, and science behind raising and understanding these incredible animals. This podcast is where we bring people together from all aspects of the deer world, hunters, farmers, biologists, industry voices, to have honest conversations about hunting and deer. Today's guest is someone many of you know already. Steven Ziegler is the voice behind Rack Junkies, one of the most outspoken and widely followed independent platforms in the Whitetail hunting community. He covers issues from land access and management to the ongoing debate around chronic waste and disease. He's not afraid to ask the tough questions and engage on wildlife policy.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Talk about how rack junkies came to be, the current state of deer and deer hunting, and we'll dive into chronic waste and disease, the disease and the policies surrounding it. I hope you enjoy the show. Steven, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so I uh I had come across uh rack junkies. Um I I had seen it for the past couple years, and then I started diving into it. And of course, you've had some uh some outspoken stance on on wildlife management, specifically in the the CWD space. And I I want to dive into that because um you've been doing a lot of good work, kind of uh uncovering a lot of the we'll call it the behind the scenes nature of of what CWD looks like, not the disease necessarily, but the policies that are instituted around it. And I I I want to take a deep dive with you on that. But if you would first, can you just uh give the audience a little bit of background on yourself, kind of, you know, maybe your your your young childhood days kind of growing up, where this this basis for the the love of the outdoors came from.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

So basically, I grew up hunting with my dad and my grandpa. My grandma taught shooting safety sports and she shot taught me how to shoot. And then we just went out, you know, squirrel hunting, rabbit hunting, and then it turned into deer hunting and all that kind of stuff. So it it was just kind of a because of doing it, family tied all around it, is how I gave into love hunting. But what happened with the how I got into the social media side was we just tried to become famous rabbit hunting YouTubers, just like, you know, just recording stuff, having fun. And then I filmed a video of my grandma at 80 years old, uh, shooting a deer with a crossbow. That went kind of viral. Ted Nugent shared it. You know, we started a whole website, thehuntingnews.com. And it was just a hobby that we were hoping to make enough money to like buy our rabbit hunting shells. You know, uh from there, we had it was Wax Star Hunters, which was kind of a shout out to Ted Nugent at the time. Sure. And my business partner, he got a um, he had a raccoon stuck upside down in a tank. Now, this this video today has like between all platforms, like 100 million views. Oh wow. Yeah, he like he yanks it out and just launches it because you can't hold on to an angry raccoon. And uh, you know, it went viral. And you know, we we ended up having you know 30,000 people that loved raccoons following us and 6,000 hunters. And so it destroyed our page. And that's when we started Rack Junkies and the hunting news, and then my my business partner, he actually runs the Sportsman Party on Facebook. So we have a series of pages and we've kind of figured out the algorithms and you know, over the last, that was about 10 years ago now. So we've been doing this for 10 years. I, you know, we film, you know, hunting companies, we film hunting products, and I basically just sit around reading research, talking to people and writing about it. Um, it's way better than working in a factory, you know. So now that we understand the algorithms and, you know, I've had the opportunity now to go hunting places, you know, and just you get to hunt a lot more. And this is what I do full time along with my uh my fishing lure company, DeLong. Um, that was actually the guy who invented the rubber worm for fishing, was David DeLong. And he was from Akron, Ohio, like I am. So we taught this business, brought it back four years ago, and now we just, you know, we run a fishing lure company and we, you know, we read and we write all day long, kind of like I'm in school, but it's about things that I like.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, it it's interesting. I uh I'm curious your take. You know, uh social media is like integrated into the the fabric of our lives, right? Like uh people just get their news in different ways now. Um, how how has that taken on uh new life in in your case? Like what does that look like? Kind of we'll call it pre-Facebook, YouTube, etc., even though those are are pretty old platforms. Um they've definitely expanded uh reach and and and scope of things. What's that look like for you?

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Uh it's kind of crazy because now back in about September, October, our pages went from about 80 to 100 million views a month to around 300 million views a month. So when you start getting that level of reach, you start ruffling some feathers. And here's one thing that like I don't take any sponsorships. Like nobody, nobody pays me. Uh, I mean, I get like Facebook content pays, but I don't make any money from sponsors. I I get some stuff for free that I test out, but I've avoided that because I have a real problem with authority in general. Like, I don't like anyone telling me what to say or what to write. So I want to write about whatever I want to write about. And that's kind of how the CWD thing took off, was just because I noticed, I was like, uh, I don't know a lot about this. I know just kind of the vague talking points from both sides, but I'm not like I'm not an expert on it, but something didn't make sense to me. I was like, this is there's there's something isn't right. So that's when I went and started reading all the research papers, you know, the Wyoming study, you know, like um, I think we talked right before we started about Illinois and stuff like that and um the Arkansas study. I started just diving in um because I I actually the the first post I did on this, very interesting. I I knew something didn't make sense. So I took a picture of um that famous deer from the I think it's New York Times article where they said the deer zombie disease is coming, and they posted a picture of a deer with EHD. I used that picture and wrote EHD. And then I Googled healthiest deer ever. And I just took a picture of it and wrote CWD on it, and then wrote two paragraphs. Yeah, it listen, admittedly, it's a little bit of a trolley thing, but I was like, this doesn't make sense. It reached like, I think 13 or 14 million people. And I was like, oh, this is something that I'm not the only one that thinks this now. So I kind of took a step back and just that's when I really dove into the research, was at that point. Because, like I said, I'm not a biologist, but I also know that what I'm seeing and what the the average everyday guy is seeing doesn't make sense to us.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah. What what do you think motivated you to start kind of speaking out about these these kind of hunting issues?

SPEAKER_03 7:15

Um, so I like I said, I I'm very much like I'm even in the political world here in Ohio with like state reps and stuff like that. Um, so so I I kind of enjoy that world and I I hunt, right? Like I mean, I see these policies start to come to Ohio. And I know that at the beginning there was this whole, there's this whole push of like, oh, all the CWD is coming from these high fence deer farms. And I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. You know, they they've got the disease and they're spreading it. That's a problem. That was that was my thought. I mean, that was just the narrative. And then I looked into it and I realized like this positive CWD case that they found was like 40 miles from the high fence deer place. I'm like, oh, hold on. Like somebody's lying to me about something. And like I said a minute ago, I got a problem with authority. I don't like people lying to me. I don't like like if something doesn't make sense, I'm going to dive into it. And and one important note here about all this for me personally, if you follow my pages long enough, you'll see me. If I get something wrong, like I'll write about that more than anything else. I did this on um, because I also run the hunting news with uh koi dogs, where I wrote something and I was just wrong. And I had some biologists reach out, I talked to them for hours, and I spent two weeks writing about what I got wrong. Because I don't, I'm not, I'm not on either side in this case. I'm not on the side of the game agencies. I'm not on the side of, you know, a lot of these deer farmers, they they call me a lot because, you know, they're they're very passionate about this issue because it's it's affecting their businesses. You know, people are losing their businesses because of this. So it's it's more of me just wanting to get to the truth. And that's why I've really dove into this topic. And, you know, I'm not one to avoid controversy because like most most of these uh, you know, big platforms and big names in our in our community can't tackle these issues because they have, you know, they're making their money from sponsors. I'm not. So I have the unique ability to just go after what's right and what's wrong and not have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Un unbridled and unchained. I like it. Um what what did you have a an aha moment where you were like, um, the hunters are are really paying attention to this? Like, I like what what was that?

SPEAKER_03 9:20

There was two actually. The first one was that first initial post I wrote, but after I did that, I I put up a poll, and it's a Facebook poll. So it's not it's not an official poll, but you know, it can give you, you know, self-reported data. You know, they talk about epidemiological studies all the time. And if you see overwhelming data, then that's what you start looking into. Like um, they did this with cigarettes, where it was like, hey, there's like 10 times more cancer of people who smoke cigarettes than people who don't. So we need to study this more scientifically. I put up an unofficial Facebook poll, and it was just real simple. Do you support how your game agencies are handling CWD? And the answers were yes, no, and I don't know. I kind of went into it assuming, like, okay, I think I'm I'm betting you it's 60% are gonna say no, or 60% are gonna say they're not handling it well. Probably 30% will say they're handling it well, and 10% will be unsure, something like that. That was that was my that's what I said before I posted it. That's what I thought. A thousand votes, it was 96% no, 4% unsure. And out of a thousand votes, eight said yes. And I clicked on every one of those eight profiles, every one of those eight profiles worked for a game agency at some point. And I was like, oh, this is an official poll, but this is something that everybody is thinking and feeling, but it's not being articulated online yet. At least not in the the amongst the general, you know. I know inside of the high fence, you know, the deer farmers communities, like a lot of them were talking about it, but your everyday guy wasn't talking about it at all. Or, you know, they're just like, ah, you know, this is kind of a hassle, but it wasn't a popular issue. And I realized real quick, those were the those two instances I would say were the real aha moments for me.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Um, when you look at uh deer hunting, what do you think some of the biggest changes that you've seen over the past uh you know 15, 20 years um to that kind of average day guy that just he likes to go out and he he lives for hunting season each year? You know, he takes his week off work, he does the opening day, or he's a bow hunter. Um, what do you think the biggest changes have been?

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Uh there's been a couple. One, one, well, I'll start with a negative one. Um, you know, I live in Ohio. There's a lot of private land, not a lot of public land. There's there's been a lot of shift towards leases where guys are, you know, they're not not letting as many people hunt. And so it's it's a little bit harder to access. Also, there's better management for big bucks. Um, you know, it's you know, a guy leases out like this happened right by me. He leases about a thousand acres that we used to be able to hunt half of it, and now we can't. And it's just two dudes hunting a thousand acres, big bucks running everywhere, which actually does help our property because they come on to our property too. But, you know, I would say access is a big negative one. Um, on the for the average everyday guy, I think that there's been more of a push, and maybe I'm wrong about this. I don't know, but it seems, at least from the social media side, I see that there's more of a push towards bow hunting. Um, there's a lot more disagreements, and which again, I know a lot of people get mad at me when I say this, but uh I'm all for disagreements. You know, I think that that's how that's how you learn. Like let's let's talk about it. You know, I'm not worried about anti-hunters if we're talking about crossbows versus compounds, you know. Like no, no anti-hunter goes, oh man, look at those guys arguing about what bows they use. Let's shut down hunting. So, you know, it's it's so I'm not really worried about it, but I would say that there's there's more there's more information out there as well. So there's like a more dedicated group, like a smaller dedicated group of people hunting bigger bucks. Um, I don't know if that's good or bad. I think that the the only bad thing is it's harder to access land right now, at least in Ohio. I don't know how it is in Pennsylvania. Um, is it is it different there?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

You know, we're seeing um I think across the country you can you can say access is becoming more and more limited. And and I think a lot of that is through um situations like the one you just described, right? And and you have you have folks that are they're leasing up this ground or um in in our state public land continues to grow. So the largest land holder in the state of Pennsylvania is the Pennsylvania Game Commission. You know, they got two million acres of public ground. And so that's been kind of a a core of their doctrine. I mean, they're the largest timber uh contractor, they're the largest oil and gas holder, they're the largest land holder. That's a state agency, and so like they have a 600 million, I call it a slush fund, they don't call it a slush fund, but they have a 600 million dollar slush fund. 600 million dollars. Their gas leases last year were like 200 million dollars. They can that's power, they can do whatever they want with that, right? And so they do they do do a good job at trying to uh buy up land. Now, Pennsylvania is not like Ohio, right? Like Ohio has a lot more farm ground um than we do. 67, 68 percent of the state of Pennsylvania is covered in trees. Like it's a it's a pretty mountainous. You get outside of Southeast PA, and like there it's like the Appalachians just cut right through the center of PA. So developing what I consider quality hunting ground is hard. Like it's a lot of mountain hunting, and that's kind of built into the tradition here, but um it's it's uh public land access is not I wouldn't say limited, but private land access, like you you see that everywhere, right? Everywhere in every state, just more and more lands getting bought up. I mean, like you know, the old adage is they're not making any more of it, right? Yep. So um curious what you like, what do you think your biggest concerns for the future of deer hunting are?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Man, you know, obviously the easy one to say there is the recruitment, uh, you know, kids not getting into hunting. Um, I think that I think that's definitely a big one. Uh a lot of kids don't have the patience. And I I see that problem getting worse over time because, you know, like I've got a nine-year-old son, and you know, with I didn't grow up with social media, I didn't grow up with a phone in my hand. And the attention spans I don't see getting better, you know. So when you're hunting, you got to kind of sit there and be patient and you know, just sit. And I think that that will be will be a challenge. Um, I also think that like access is a bit of a challenge too. Uh I wouldn't, I would say that on the preventable side, and again, I'm not a hundred percent on where I stand on every CWD issue, but I know a lot of people are scared about you know, people, somebody contracting CWD and completely wiping out hunting. And and to the game agency's points, which I generally disagree with them, uh if somebody did contract CWD, they do have a point that you know everybody would be. I don't know what would happen to hunting at that point. However, you know, based on the science, we know that it the base proteins don't line up on that. Uh, so nobody's ever contracted CWD. So I'm not personally worried about that one, but that is if I know we're talking a lot about CWD here, so I wanted to kind of mention it. Um, other than that, I think that hunting has a good future. Like social media has a positive impact sometimes, if done right. And I try my best, and I fall short sometimes, to highlight some of the more fun aspects of hunting and how to get kids into hunting. And um, I actually did a video back in uh October. Uh my daughter shot a 10-point. And after she shot it, she's sitting there in the tree stand, curling her eyelashes, getting ready for her pictures. And I recorded the whole thing. She looks up and sees me, she's like, Dad, stop, dad, stop. Yeah. It goes mega viral. Like I said, like 14 million views. And uh, so I mean, you can have hump fun with with kids out there. And that's and this is an encouraging part. A lot of people reach out to me all the time. Your kids are into hunting. How do I get my kids into hunting? And I would say, for my, like, for example, my daughter, it was easy. She loved being around family, she loved going out. My son, he was just not interested at first. And then a year ago, I just handed him a BB gun. And next thing you know, like the kid just wants to, he's like, Dad, let's go hunting. Let's go hunting. You know, he just, you know, I mean, I had to have some conversations about, you know, possibly, you know, not shooting certain birds, you know. There's sure. I mean, uh, you know, not not admitting to anything, but I think a lot of us went through that. Yeah, um, we all a lot of us had that conversation from our parents. But um, yeah, to the concerns of the future of hunting, it's basically recruitment. That's the big one, I think.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, it's it's the societal shift away from like our our kind of I I it's like I think it's embedded in our DNA, right? Like um, I I've heard Ranella say many times, like, to not hunt um is a new thing, right? Up until just a couple couple hundred years ago. Um if you didn't hunt, you died, or if you didn't know a hunter, you died. And so that existence was for most of our existence on this planet. And um, it's a new thing. So I I I can definitely recognize, and like certainly the the wildlife agencies have uh they have a big challenge um with that recruitment and and trying to engage hunters and encourage you call it a behavior, right? Encourage that behavior and that tradition, right? And and I I don't I obviously I don't have the answers for it, but um it certainly seems like an uphill battle, you know. You got uh, you know, these things are are a blessing and a curse all at the same time, right? Agreed. But it's something I think we can all work on together, right? Like, because almost all the hunters I know, like they're passionate about it, right? They like they just like being outside. They like it's not about killing deer, um but they they just enjoy being out in nature. And so however we need to to support that, uh, we should as a as a community, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Um, all right. I I want to dive into this CWD conversation because I've I've enjoyed a lot of your your content. Um I saw your your interview with uh uh it's Jason Summers. Sumners, yeah. Sumners, um, from MDC. And I thought that was a uh an interesting con conversation. Uh it's it's always it's always kind of fun to watch how wildlife agencies interact with with media and and to get a long-form interview like that with him uh was really good. What do you think some of your your kind of key takeaways were uh from that?

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Well, uh, you know, I I want to say this one thing to start it is that of all the on the CWD side, I've talked to a bunch of people that are against these policies and only one that's for them, and that's Jason Summers. And that's not because of, and trust me, I get this this comment a lot from the uh pro, we'll call it the pro game agency side, is them saying, Oh, well, you you're you're not talking to the scientists and you're not talking to these people. I've put out an open call in that video with him uh on Facebook that's reached millions of people saying, I will talk to anyone. If you disagree, I'm more interested in talking to you than anybody else because that's how I learn. And so far, I have a conversation tomorrow with one guy, and he's the first one other than Jason Sumner's to uh reach out and actually say he would talk to me. All these biologists like I get 300 million views a month. I'm I will I've even told them you can write whatever you want and I will post it on my page. I will post your side. I'm not one-sided on this, and they still won't take me up on it. And that's maybe the most convincing thing to me that they don't have uh science or they don't they don't have a compelling argument to justify the uh all the policies that they're putting in place. Even with Jason Sumners, when I talked to him, he only talked to me because I wrote that the um MDC had given half a million dollars to um the National Deer Association. And then an employee from the MDC immediately moves over to the National Deer Association as a deer outreach specialist in Missouri, pushing all of the policies that Jason Sumners wants. And and this is, and I'm not claiming this to be illegal, but it's corrupt. Like, you know, you're funding NGOs. We see this, and this is what's happening in this country. If you read the news, you'll see this all over the place. So I guess with with the CWD stuff, I I don't know how to even engage with the other side because they won't talk to me. And in and I mean, what am I supposed to think? What would you think if if everybody talking to you is on one side, it it really reeks of COVID, where you know, the science trust the science, believe the science. It's like, okay, well, talk to us about it. And there was no there's no conversation. And I and listen, if anybody's listening to this, it's still an open invitation. I will let the other side write their own articles and post it on my platform. I I again I will give them more leeway than anybody. And I even bet you after this and all the posts I've done, they still won't take me up on it. And that's probably the most frustrating thing for me. Um, as somebody who tries to be as, you know, I not even fair. I guess the better way is to say, I want to be right. So I I want to look into both sides to make sure, you know, I can't figure out where I'm wrong. And you know, I can't be more right unless I figure out where I'm wrong. And that's what I'm trying to find out, but none of these people talk to me. So what what what do you do here? You know?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Well, I I I've been in I've been in the deer industry for uh almost 30 years, and I live that reality. So, like wildlife agencies, so just for uh full disclosure, like I raised white-tailed deer, and like we have we have a stocking program, and that's all based around um genetics and hunting. Like, that's the backbone of of what I do. And for me, there has been 20 years of nonstop criticism, maybe hate. I don't know. It's hard to you know know someone's someone's mind or feelings, but they just they the wildlife agencies and and various, you know, we'll call them uh wildlife groups, they hate what I do. That's obvious because I can see it through the policies that are put in place or the public criticism. And instead of having a conversation and engaging on, you know, what those those call them truths are, right? Because there's new this this discussion, and we're we're gonna get into this. This discussion about chronic waste disease is full of nuance, it is it is in-depth, and there's two sides of it, right? You have the disease itself, and then you have the policy, and the policy is where almost all of the nuance is, or at least that's how how I see it, right? Yeah, I would agree with that. But the disease is used as a a hammer or a cudgel to beat down anybody that opposes it. It's it's and you you've mentioned COVID. It it does, it wreaks a lot of of COVID, and and we can say that with some confidence because it's easy to look back on things and see how stuff played out, right? Um, because you know, when COVID came out, I suspect like most people, you know, everybody was like, What what is this, right? We didn't know. Well, we know now, like it's it's obvious, everybody knows. So, what do you think the um the first time that CWD kind of popped up on your radar and really could kind of gave you a smack in the face?

SPEAKER_03 24:36

You know, it was the first time that it popped up in Ohio, and that was like eight to ten years ago, I think. I don't even really remember, but it was it was where I was like, ah, this is coming from game farms, and you know, that that was the narrative, and I just kind of believed it. Sure. Um, like, well, if they're coming from game farms, shut them down. Like, like I'm not, I'm not risking my hunting for for this. Yep. Um, you know, obviously I've learned since then that's not true, but that was the first time it popped up on my radar. The first time it really smacked me in the face was a couple years ago, I would say there was another, there was another instance where I saw it might have been Ted Nugent or, you know, some sort of big name talking about how it wasn't what people were saying. And I know I didn't I didn't tackle it at that point, but that was the next time. And then the third would have been when I really got into it, uh, probably about August or September of this last year. And then I wrote that post in October, I believe it was, uh, about CWD versus EHD. And it got 14 million views. And just going through the comments, I realized like, oh, this is something that nobody, everybody recognizes that something's not right here. That was the that was the big aha moment for me. Was that uh it was the comment section actually of that article, not even the article itself. It was me realizing, oh, I'm not alone on this. Like, you know, it was me realizing, I think that 80 to 90 percent of hunters are either don't know or like this doesn't make sense. I, you know, and maybe they maybe they still stand on the side of game agencies' policies because they're scared, but it doesn't make sense to people. That was the big one for me, was I back in October.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah. Why do you think CWD is such a controversial topic?

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Um, you know, because people love deer hunting. I I think it's I and I think that both sides genuinely do love deer hunting. I think both sides want what's best for the deer herd. I put a post up on this um, you know, last week saying I'm on this, I'm not on the side of you know, the CWD policies and the game agencies, and I'm not on the other side either. I'm on the side of my kids and my grandkids that aren't even born yet. You know, and there's years before they're born. That's the side that I'm on. I want, I want to preserve hunting for them, which we talked about earlier. You know, one of the biggest threats to hunting is, you know, your recruitment. I'm on their side, even you know, future generations that, you know, I've, you know, my great grandkids, you know, I want them to have these opportunities too. And, you know, that's that's kind of why I think it's so controversial, is because people are passionate about protecting the deer herd on both sides. And I actually believe that these game agencies think that what they're doing is the right call. I I I never uh attribute uh malice towards them. I don't it but again, that goes right back to the thing that we talked about a minute ago. Why won't they talk to us? And I think that that's one of the frustrations on kind of my side of this um that makes me real passionate about it is that I can't get answers.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah. It it's interesting. Um the comment about them not talking to us. Like I've been to many uh CWD seminars for hunters by our our Pennsylvania Game Commission, where they do hunter outreach programs, right? And they just want to inform the local kind of community in a a county, and sometimes they're hosted by a representative, right? Because there's that uh political tie. And uh generally speaking, you know, it's a it's a well-attended event. There's usually between a hundred or two hundred kind of local hunters there, and it's a fairly intimate setting, so there's good kind of QA. But I I I watch it from my perspective, and I I'm sure that I generally speaking know a lot more about the whole landscape because I I have seen both sides, right? I've seen the the farmed industry side and I've also seen the wildlife side. So I have that context there, and I sit there and I I watch a game agency, you know, they'll put up a study, and the study will be hey, macaw monkeys are very similar in DNA to a human, they're probably the closest thing on the planet, and they get CWD. And and I go and I look at that and I'm like, you know, they were they were fed like brain matter from something directly and and then intercranial injected and a a prion formed. And it's like, are we doing that to humans? Why are you why are you scaring these people? Right? Because if if if what they say is true and they need to operate these call programs, which I am like not in favor of and incredibly skeptic of how they're implemented, one, and what the actual effect is, other than killing off the deer herd. Like, why is it that um why is it that we're we're driving hunters out of the woods? They are the the most important conservation tool they have. They raise the money, they keep the the population in check, all the things that the agency wants them to do, and we're like, hey, you know, don't eat those deer because you might get CWD. It's just so counterintuitive. Have you seen similar things like that?

SPEAKER_03 29:47

Oh, definitely. And I I even made a video of me eating some CWD positive um meat. Um, I was like, look, I'll eat it. Like, I'm and but but even the people who won't, I don't even think that's a good idea. I heard Steve Renella say this. I like Steve Ronella, but he's you know, I don't take people serious unless they're willing to eat the meat. It's like I don't think that's a very good um, I actually don't agree with that because these game agencies, like you said, are scaring people.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

And, you know, and it it's it's just because deer can have CWD and nobody's gotten it, I understand the fear because the fear has been pushed. And like you said, with that monkey study, when I looked into that, I was like, uh, why are we even letting them do this? Because it seems like a good way to uh uh you know Wuhan lab this thing. And like, you know, like if they're that close to us and we're forcing them to get CWD, uh, I I don't know why, like, shouldn't everybody, even the game agencies, be against even letting them do those studies? I thought it seems like gain of function research to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Sure. It's got that field, no doubt. I'm not I'm not a biologist, but I don't like that. And I guarantee you the everyday guy is pretty much against that too. Um, so that that's kind of where I stand on the the fear-mongering of this thing. But it is a political tool. And that's something that um this is that that was interesting. You brought up politics, you know, state reps and things like that. I'm actually here in Ohio involved with, you know, state reps and stuff. You know, they follow my personal page, I'm friends with them. I, you know, work on elections, um, you know, like Secretary of State guy I'm helping right now, uh, you know, state rep last time. And so I have I have their phone numbers. I can talk to them. And that is the one way that in that that things can actually be changed. Because you got to remember, these state reps are at these fancy dinner parties and they're at these fundraisers on rooftop bars in downtown. And those pull those hunting politicians, the people in charge of the DNRs and all that, they are at those events too. So the state politicians have uh the influence of the game agencies all the time. And I hunters always get mad when I bring this up, but if you want change, you have to be involved in the political process to some extent. You'd be surprised because look, I was a campaign manager and I'm gonna be this time too, um, for a state rep here, Portage County. Um, and she was, if if she got four or five messages on one topic, just Facebook messages, she'd be calling me. Like, hey, uh Steven, what's going on with this? What do you know about this? They'll call their legislative aides. Hey, is this gonna be a problem? What's going on? It doesn't take much to get a state-level politician's uh uh attention. And that's where I think the most effective way to fight this is saying, hey, you know, just message your state representative or your state senator and say, listen, the game agencies are doing things I don't like. Um, I know that you get to vote on these things and vote on budget bills and all that. Here's what I here here's my perspective. I don't like them pushing these policies in my area. And if it just you say it respectfully, even you don't even have to write them a letter. Just get on their Facebook page and send them a uh message. That's all it takes. And you'd be surprised how much influence that has.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

That's interesting I uh I have a very similar perspective. I I have been trying to engage in the political arena for you know about 15 years, and it's the thing that I enjoy least in my life. Um, I because I got businesses to run, I got a family to raise, like those are the things that are important to me. But um, to make that change to for the the things that you think are important to you, you have to engage in that political process. Um, I'm curious. Um I'm curious how the uh oversight goes in the state of Ohio for the DNR wildlife agencies on the political side. Uh, what is what does that look like? Because I know that's a a challenge or it appears to be a challenge. We see uh wildlife agencies, and I'll I'll use um this issue's kind of been uh close to me, even though it's uh geographically far away. Um Texas Parks and Wildlife, right? They seem to operate with near immunity um and independence. And while I I don't think that I'm not a ballot box initiative wildlife management kind of guy, right? Like we see we see what's going on in Oregon uh currently, we see Colorado just degenerating into I I don't know what because it's it's foreign to me, right? And what does that look like in Ohio?

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Uh Ohio, it's kind of the same thing. They tend to not get a lot of pressure, and part of that's because uh hunters don't push back on hunters, they generally are the type of dude that just wants to be left alone, kind of like me. So they they don't they don't engage in the political process that much. And that gives the game agencies kind of you know a free pass to do whatever they want because there's no pressure on them. Uh also the game agencies are also very um uh I don't know how to say it, but they're they're they're a little shady with how they do things. Like here in Ohio, they send out, you know, letters to certain landowners giving them 10 extra tags in certain areas and you know, try in these CWD areas, but they don't put that on their website. They don't put that out to the public. And in fact, they just released just a couple of days ago their proposed uh tag limit changes and season dates and all that, and didn't say anything about the increased tags to depredation tags or to these out-of-season hunts for landowners and these CWD zones. They don't bring up any of that. It's just private letters to those people and they kind of hide from it. And if look, we're we're so distracted in our society today, anyway. There's constant, I mean, we got a war in Iran and you know, the Epstein files, and you know, there's you know, and then a lot of us just watching hunting videos. You know, we're not paying attention. And I think that a biggest reason why they're able to do that is because we're not paying attention. Not because not because they couldn't, we couldn't have influence. And I get it, and this is the hardest problem on the CWD side, in my opinion, um, to make any changes is that hunters just kind of want to be left alone and they don't, and in fact, Randy Newberg talks about this on his podcast, where he's like, you know, guys, listen, you got to get involved because I get it, you don't like this world. Like you said, you don't even like it, but you know, sometimes you gotta do things you don't like.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah. No, it it is interesting. I I generally feel and and the way you you mentioned Randy, um the the West and the the East, uh Midwest, East, are are very different, right? Like the culture's different, and that like it's what it makes makes America like just like the greatest place on earth, like especially from a wildlife uh management side. Like there's all these different interest groups um trying to keep America alive and well in the the the hunting sense, right? Because like it it's a core foundation of of our country, it just is, whether people like that or not. But you know, like like Reagan said, like freedom's just a generation away from being lost, right? Um paraphrasing he he said it better than I did. But like we see that in the hunting space. Um, and and you know, people just want to they just want to enjoy life, they don't want to have to consistently fight for a recreational activity or a lifestyle that is like I think to a lot of folks, just like morally and ethically good, right? Like there's so many bad things in the world, like hunting is not one of them. Enjoying the outside is not one of them. It's probably one of the best things you can do for your soul, you know, like go outside, get some sunlight, and enjoy, right? And um, it it's it's a little frustrating. Um curious what your just from like a CWD policy side of things, what do you think is that kind of one thing that you find to be most detrimental?

SPEAKER_03 37:41

Most detrimental is you know, and and I don't have a hundred percent proof if I'm right on this or not. I I find the the genetic side of this very interesting. Um, I've been diving into this a lot. I I know was it Oklahoma that allowed for genetically uh deer that are less susceptible to getting uh CWD? I think it was Oklahoma that let people buy them and release them. Um, I'm always a little skeptical of messing with genetics, you know, humans doing it. However, there was a study out of Illinois. I I was at the uh SCI show in Nashville, and I forget the professor's name, but he did a big study and showed that in areas where there was CWD for a long time, that the genetics that were less susceptible to getting CWD were at like 40% after like 10 years. And don't quote me on these actual statistics, but but you could see a huge increase. And he studied the alleles, he's a geneticist, actually. And you know, he was studying all these different markers and he said, you know, where the CWD's been for a long time, there's more deer with those markers. And with this whole kill the deer to save them idea, if there's prions in the ground, they can't we can't get rid of them. And what I'm most concerned about is that with these game agencies coming in and just killing all these deer, you're resetting the genetics. So those genetics can't take over time, but you're getting more and more prions over time. So even if the game agencies are right on this, what I would be worried about happening is, you know, when we finally go, hey, listen, this this policy is not working. They just let the genetics take over, and eventually CWD will kind of work its way through. My concern is there's gonna be so many prions. So many D are gonna get CWD so fast because none of them have uh, you know, any sort of genetic markers to prevent them from getting it, or very few do, but there's gonna be prions everywhere. And and I know the whole prion discussion is you know debatable as well. I I don't know anything about that, just so because I know there's people that have listened this, they'll be like, there's no such thing as a preon. Look, maybe I I've I've I've heard them, I've talked to them. I don't, I don't know. Um, but that would be my biggest concern is are the game agencies actually hurting us more than they're helping us. And I think that best case scenario for the game agencies, it's not doing any good. I think worst case scenario is long term it'll make it worse. You know, I don't see any, I you know, Jason Sumner said this to me. He said, it's like he's like, it's interesting. We're in a spot right now where we don't have a long-term solution. And I'm like, okay, so like, like that doesn't make sense to me. So what are you doing? Why are you doing it? Is is this going to harm things over time? I think there's just as likely that their policies harm hunting as much as there is that they're not doing anything at all over time. That's that's my opinion. You know, that's what I'm most concerned about.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yeah, it's it's uh so the the genetic conversation has been one that I've uh I've dove into real deep, right? And it's it's um I've paid as close attention to to that particular topic uh because it's uh at least a control mechanism for for my place, right? And and I'm able to to look at these genetics and you know, there's a couple, there's kind of like uh a couple misnomers with um you know what let's just say Oklahoma's doing, right? So when people say like we're we're messing with the genetics, no, we're just selecting for natural genetics, right? Like we're not we're not doing the CRISPR tack, right? We're not we're not yanking pieces of the the chromosome out and splicing something else in there so they they can't get it. Um these are just deer that are selected for a naturally recurring set of genes. And so like that's important, right? Like it's it's um it's to say that what's existing in nature, um, we're helping, right? So because we can select for it. And and Oklahoma, you know, there's two parts, right? So and and what this is this is one of the things that I have challenged with with the wildlife agencies because we've seen plenty of you know tenured professors say, okay, like this genetic thing's not gonna work. And of course, NDA has been beating this drum relentlessly. I've seen Lindsay Thompson over there and Kip Adams, oh, you know, if these animals are are less susceptible, they're just gonna they're gonna get the disease and they're gonna spread it around more.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Also, one thing, let me interject one thing here real quick. National Deer Association gets the vast majority of their funding from government now. Like it's they got five million dollars last year. Uh, they won't even release their actual um membership numbers. Like three years ago, it was down to 4,000 from 70,000. Um, so they've already lost 98% of the average everyday guy. So that, and that's what I talked with Jason Sumner's about. I put so little credibility into what National Deer Association says now because hunters overwhelmingly voted with their dollars to say they don't represent us anymore. So I just want to say that it I know they're beating that drum, and that's an important point to make, but I I wanted to I it just I got a real problem in the National Deer Association now. So sorry, I just wanted to interject that.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

No, I I I I appreciate that. And that that's um it's a great point. We're we're we'll get into the government funding of this whole apparatus because it it's super interesting how um I think the system's min been manipulated and corrupted to um favor wildlife and and game agencies. So we'll we'll we we we'll get to that. Um but the uh the Oklahoma uh thing is so interesting, right? And and like they the legislators said, hey, what what is this, right? And they they took a dive on it and they're like, oh, the genetics they're using are not these single individual alleles, they're a whole they're a whole suite. How do we how do we kickstart Mother Nature and and help her along? Because like if you look at almost any disease, specifically CWD, that the population um and fawn recruitment outperforms the prevalence or death loss from the disease, right? How do we because Mother Nature doesn't care, right? She she looks at a disease and she says, All I have to do is keep 51% of these animals alive. Well, that might take hundreds of generations to work through that, and then you're always dealing with this. This challenge. And so when we, you know, we as conservationists and hunters and and uh farmers look at this, we can say, okay, like number one, we don't want to wait. We want to keep the the prions off the landscape, right? Because they they do last for decades and they don't degradate easy. Um let's let's kick start this. And so we have these technologies now that allow us to do it. Um Oklahoma's still working. Like, I don't think a deer's been released in Oklahoma yet. I think the bill passed. Um, well, I know the bill passed, and they had like basically two years to kind of develop the program to see what that's like. But like that was a that was interesting because like the legislator said, you know what, this is important. Um ag, wildlife, farmers, you all have to work together to figure this out. We're giving you the tools to do it. And like I thought that only in Oklahoma, right? You got uh 66 counties there, they're all red, they're conservative, they care, right? They care about their their whole culture there. And they were like, hey, we're gonna work together on this big problem. And there's cooperation. Now we don't, it's rare to see that anywhere, right? Like it's just it's not something that that happens, and and right or right or wrong, um, the fact that they are working on it, um, I think is is a novel approach. So it's a it's a it's a good thing. I really encourage it though.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

Like, I think and I'm again, I'm not a geneticist, but I I do know that at least somebody's trying something that has potential to be a long-term solution because the game agencies aren't. So I mean, and and hopefully, and if if they get it right, I'm glad they're doing it, and I hope they do it quickly. Um, even though, even though like I'm always like a little, I'm I'm skeptical on a lot of things, though. Sure. Uh I I'm glad that they're doing it, and I want to see what the results are because then other states can copy it if it works.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Yeah, and and that's the that's the model moving forward. I I actually think um I think it puts Oklahoma in one of the best positions in the country for um this kind of flywheel effect, right? So the advantage of having healthy, disease-resistant animals to chronic waste and disease is there's also a tie to EHD. And so you're getting lots of natural selection. Like if you look at uh EHD spread over the years from south to north, the southern animals are far more resistant to that disease, right? Like when it pops up into Ohio. Well, you guys just went through one of the worst EHD years, right? So you know if you had, I'm just using South Texas, if you had a whole bunch of South Texas animals in Ohio, most of them would still be living. Because for you know, hundreds of years they've just encountered a disease and the the weak ones die, the ones that make it through the disease, they have natural immunity and they can reproduce and and and pass on that that genetic trait. So, like there's there's studies going on right now um that are are working to to kind of tie the genetic component of chronic waste and disease susceptibility or resistance and EHD. And so we're getting those metrics. And so the the the backbone of that Oklahoma stocking program uh was from uh Dr. Christopher Seabury at Texas St. M. He developed the the genetic work on that, and he's like he's the guy, right? He's like a world-renowned expert in genetics, like that's what he does. Like there's a read, like he's he's the guy that came up, good or bad, right? He's the guy that that allows um you know dairy cows to pump out 30 gallons of milk a day. He's the he's the guy that tailored those the the genetic testing for that. So he just took that over into the CWD space. Well, he's working on the EHD stuff right now. That's coming, like, and and so like all these things are happening behind the scenes, and I think it's gonna have a huge impact. And Oklahoma is gonna be a destination state because they're going to put themselves in a position to have the best deer, they're gonna have deer that are healthier, they're gonna have better antlers, they're just gonna be more of them because they live. And Oklahoma, like if you've been to Oklahoma, like it eastern Oklahoma is nice. I uh and I'm not knocking anybody in western Oklahoma, okay? But it's a it's rough country, right? It's like it's like West Texas. That's a pretty inhospitable place. If you're a deer and you can live there, my goodness, like kudos to you. Because like it's it's hard. So I'll I'll get off my soapbox on the uh the gin the genetic side. What um when you um when you look at at wildlife agencies, um uh what do you think? Why do you think that, or it appears to me, why do you think that there's a loss of trust in these agencies?

SPEAKER_03 48:48

You know, that's that was the one of the first questions I asked Jason Summoners. And I and I asked him directly, I said, I feel that there's a disconnect between you guys and the average everyday hunter. And at first, if you listen to that interview, at first he's like, Yeah, he's like, I I I agree with he agreed at first, and then I kept pushing on him. I kept pushing and pushing. He's like, No, I think that they, I think, you know, there's there's there's a lot of agreement here. I I don't see that in any way based on what I've seen. You know, obviously we get a lot of views, I get a lot of opinions, a lot of people call me. I think that I think it's twofold. And and part of it's not fair. You know, if if you've been given a ticket for poaching, um, you know, people tend to be against the game wardens and then in turn against the the politicians that are in charge of them. Um, and I don't think that's entirely fair if you made a mistake and you got a ticket. You know, being against the scientists isn't isn't necessarily fair. But but the bigger problem here is, like I said at the beginning, where they don't talk to us. You know, it's it's like they're in their you know elite tower up looking down on all of us as you know, ordinary everyday guys. And, you know, when when someone like me comes out and says, hey, any one of you can write on my platform, call me, tell me where I'm wrong, let's talk about this. And they just refuse to even have a conversation with us. Well, of course we're not going to trust them. If I don't trust people who are unwilling to talk to me, and that I think is the biggest. And and look, there's a guy he works for Pope and Young, uh, Justin Springs. I great guy. Um, he's he's a biologist too. And uh I I talked to him about this, and he was the first person to say it. He goes, Yeah, biologists and scientists have a hard time communicating with people. And and I agreed with that. I said, okay, that's fair enough. But what about like people that are running these game agencies? Those are politicians. They're great at talking to people, but they don't. Why not? And the the trust issue is completely, in my opinion, I mean, think about your own marriage. I mean, if you don't talk and nobody knows what's going on with each other, there's going to be a lack of trust. And I think it's the that's the biggest problem, is just a lack of communication to the ordinary, just the normal guy like me, like you, like like so many of us out there listening to this. Yeah, we're just like like some of us are super experts, and you know, there's probably biologists listening to this. I'm not talking about them. Just your ordinary guy that just, you know, like you said, takes a week off to go hunting. Like this was my dad. My dad was the ordinary guy. Took off one week, shot a deer with a shotgun, drug it in, you know, skinned it, quartered it up, and ate it. Right? Like that's like those people never having communication with the ordinary guy. What do you think is gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 51:19

You know? So that's my opinion. Yeah. I'm gonna swing that right back into the NDA conversation and the funding. So do you think the wildlife agencies looked at this and say, we don't we don't want to do the communication? Or or better yet, we need we need a we need another trust authority figure, if you will, to be number one, our bulldog, say things we can't say, and number two, try to promote our message.

SPEAKER_03 51:55

Like, do you think that's a a viable path that they presented, or do you think it's perhaps something more nefarious or or or I just I don't want to say I wouldn't say nefarious, but I think that there's no incentive for them to talk to us at all. I mean, what's what's the incentive? It's it's like talking to us doesn't do anything for what they want. So they stick with talking to the politicians, like we talked about earlier. They're at the fundraisers, they're at these fancy dinners, they're talking at those places with uh the people giving them money. And why, why, why come talk to me? What what's what's what's their incentive? I mean, to get the message out there, they're already getting their way. If they're getting their way, why talk to us? And I think that the the only way that that changes is through pressure, like the two things we talked about, you know, whether it's political pressure or just even like what I'm doing on Facebook. Like I know that one Facebook page writing about this or one podcast isn't gonna do it, but there's, you know, there's 10 podcasts talking about now. There's, you know, five Facebook pages. You know, there's there's a bunch of us that are saying, hey, you gotta, you gotta listen to us. You know, we have bigger platforms than you guys now. And it's causing enough social pressure that hopefully they do assign someone to be a communication. Uh, you know, I would like to see this no high. In fact, you know what? This is this is a really good, this is very interesting. I'm glad you brought this up. I I'm I'm gonna propose this to some of those state politicians that I know. Uh have a communication czar for the every average everyday hunter to talk to us. Somebody that where we can where we can be heard and we can directly see the results of you listening to us. Um, I'm not gonna hold my breath on it, but with enough pressure, they might have to listen to us. But we've got we've got to force the issue because there's just no incentives right now.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah. Uh you mentioned like uh your platform and podcasting and and you know, one Facebook page, you know, not making a difference. And uh I'm gonna push back on you because uh you and I wouldn't be having this conversation if it wasn't for your Facebook page or your writings um and your engagement on this issue. So I I appreciate it. I saw it, and and there's there's obviously millions of people that do see it. Um, getting them to speak up, like that's a different, different story, but um I can I can understand that.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Um that's the next step, though. The next step is getting people to speak up, I think. Because like I said a minute ago, five people message a state rep or a state senator, and they're gonna start asking questions right away. And so it doesn't take much from where we're at right now to actually getting them to listen to us, I think. So I think that you're right, you're right. It does make a difference, uh, but it takes a bunch of people to make the real difference that we want.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

So on the CWD front, there's been almost I I call it uh cracks in the program or cracks in the armor, right? So you've had this united front of uh conservation groups and wildlife agencies pushing this kind of full-scale narrative of CWD and and that's a generalized statement, but the policies around it. And the two things that that I saw recently that gave me a little hope that uh you know guys like yourself are are making progress on was uh number one, like PGC here in our state lifted its ban on using natural urine products, okay, right? Like that's the first since 2012 when CWD showed up here in the state. It's the first time I've seen them walk something back. The second was MDC canceling their after season call program. And that was a big one. That's a huge one. You want to touch on that a little bit? Um, because like I saw that and I was like, I was shocked. I was totally shocked when they were like emergency meeting, we're canceling this. Like, what?

SPEAKER_03 55:33

Yeah, you know, I listened to what Jason Sumner's had to say about that. And he's he's you know, I mean, again, politician. He's trying to say that it's well, you know, it's it's because people weren't participating. And to me, it's like, well, there's two two cases. Maybe people weren't participating. Um, that tells me that people aren't willing to work with you on this anymore, which is even better sign for us.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 55:54

Uh, so we're so I mean, or it's just not working. It's one of those two. It's either not working or the hunters are going, nah, we're not, we're not buying into this anymore. And so they had to cancel it through pressure because uh maybe it was through, you know, I guess my page does get have some influence there, and so does your podcast. I think that, you know, that is a uh that that does show some cracks. And I know that uh was it um oh, what was the state? Uh uh Wisconsin, I think, reversed some of their policies as well. Um, so we're starting to see it go down that path. Uh, but you know, I'm just so skeptical of the government doing what I want that I worry that it's not gonna continue, you know?

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Yeah, no, it was I I see those things, and I I it's just encouraging to see like to me, I thought it was common sense, right? Like, yep, finally they backed off. And the hunters, my take was is the hunter said, You're not killing three to five thousand of our deer. We're already struggling in hunting season. We want to enjoy this. And if you kill these deer, we're not gonna have deer here in the coming years, right? And so I I think it's just the first time I've seen a major reverse course on a on a game agency in that kind of call after after hours call program, if you will, which I I still don't understand. Like, I I've seen the maps of the deer and the family group and the whole thing, and I just I don't get it. And you mentioned like if the genetics are changing, right? Like, why are we gonna kill the ones with the good genetic? Because you don't know, right? Like it it it it just doesn't it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

Um, I want to add one thing on this. I I think that in and this is to the uh almost kind of the defense of the uh game agencies a little bit is I think they're looking at this problem and going, look, if if we don't do anything and this is a problem, then we can look really bad, lose our jobs. I mean, we uh they get run out of their whole careers fast. Uh, if they do something and it turns into a big nothing burger, which it's looking to be more and more every single day, well, then they continue to keep their job. They can, there's there's no negative concept. Again, it goes down to incentives. People respond to incentives, and they have no incentives to uh listen to the hunters. And if they're wrong, there's no consequences. If they're right, then they're the hero. So I think that that's probably the driving, because I don't want to say that it's something nefarious. I really don't. I know a lot of people that the talking point I see all the time is they want to control the food, it's the uh uh the car insurance companies. Yeah, I don't I don't see that at all. I I don't either. Um, and and I don't want to, even if it's true, I'd I'm not unless I had proof, I wouldn't say it. Sure. So I I I just don't think that they have the incentives to to listen or to do anything other than what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Yeah. Um I'm gonna jump around because like this just popped into my head. Uh, we're talking about funding a little bit, and um, I hate to keep bringing up NDA because I I think to your point, their their relevance with hunters continues to to decline. But I look at that I'll call it ancestral nature of of how government agencies and uh these NGOs are are relating uh with each other. So like previously our our executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission was on the board of NDA, and that you know, like I see these I see these really nicely produced full feature videos on YouTube from NDA pushing like game commissioned policy, and like the logos are there, and I'm like, I know what it costs to edit videos, I know you do. That's the like to do really nice stuff is really expensive. Yes, tens of thousands of dollars one video, and I looked at that and I was just like, Where's that money coming from? And then I uh like that set me off, and then I started looking through the directors, and I'm like, these are all executive directors of the wildlife agencies, yep. So, like I felt like it was just this extension of wildlife agencies with no oversight. Did you see something similar to that?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:06

Yes, so that's what again back to Jason Sumner's. This is how I got the the interview with him. He's uh a board member for National Deer Association. So is the I believe it's the former officer of um Alabama, maybe he is one of the board members. Um, so so their board members are just a bunch of game agency people that are being put on the board, and those same game agencies are giving money to the National Deer Association. And you know, you run a podcast, you know, you you obviously want to grow it and those sorts of things. National Deer Association, I didn't even know they had a podcast. Um, they they do. Uh the Fed I got this through some FOIA requests. They got$200,000 for their podcast. Like, what? Like what what yeah, I can show you the government documents, it's it's public data. They got$200,000 just given to them to run a podcast for outreach. Now, is that wasted dollars that should be spent on things for uh for hunting? Absolutely. I mean, that that that didn't do any good. The podcast is it's like deer hunting 365, maybe. And I was like, so so you're trying the whole objective, because in and when you look up these government documents, they have to have measurables. The whole, and I'm waiting on these emails to come back um through my FOIA requests, but their measurables are getting new people into hunting. So I got$200,000 to get more people into hunting from a podcast that one does push CWD policy stuff and talks about the more intricate parts about hunting, like, you know, like a guy who's been hunting for a long time would want to listen to, even though there's a ton of podcasts out there that aren't getting government money. So why so it's it's just government funded, it's government people on their board, it's a propaganda wing. National Deer Association is a propaganda wing for these game agencies. That's what it is now. It's not it's not representative of hunters of the everyday guy anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:55

Um what what are what do you think some changes like if if uh let's just say uh Steven Ziggler's in charge of the US policy on chronic waste and disease and deer management. Um what does that look like for you? What are some of the kind of give me maybe three three of the big things that like you think, just based on your engagement with your followers, uh, that would be important and have significant change?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:22

Well, I would I would take away all this money going to NGOs. I'd give it straight to um, well, some of it, straight to government agencies, not government agencies, uh uh, you know, studies. Like, let's let's do some studies. I'm I'm fine with that. Like, let's study the genetics, let's um do some real studies. I would make sure that none of the uh game agency officials are allowed to move onto these NGOs and get huge salaries, which is what's happening with the guy from Alabama. I wish I could remember that guy's name. Um, you know, as soon as he retires, he goes over and gets a$300,000 a year salary at a government, a government-funded NGO for hunting. And the whole, the whole, the measurables on that are deer outreach too. So I mean, this guy gets, you know, over a quarter million dollar salary plus all of his benefits. Um, I would stop all of that. Like hunter dollars should be going towards hunting policy. I would also eliminate all of the Pittman Roberts money that is being given, because our Pittman Roberts money is going to refunding these states for their testing of CWD. I'd eliminate all of that. Um, and as far as CWD goes, the the standard would have to change from, hey, you guys get to just make these policies to these policies have to be justified before you implement them. Like I there needs to be, you know, not just scientific consensus, but consensus among the average everyday guy too. Like you said earlier, I'm not for ballot box biology, but the hunters who are on the landscape, uh, we have a lot of information. You know, like I mean, I and you know, I talked to Jason Sumners about this. He's like, you know, well, you know, this guy doesn't see any deer. He thinks there's no deer, even though the deer population's up. And there's some truth to that. But there still has to be input from the hunters on this because they have a lot of good, valuable information. And I'd also bring in the deer farm association, those the people from there that I've talked to, um, and we'd all work together and we'd stop just funneling money to propaganda wings of these game agencies, like the National Deer Association. I'd eliminate that first. That'd be the first thing I would do. And then I would say, you know, listen, until you can justify these, we're gonna let nature take its course. And we're not gonna let the game agencies just kill all the deer to save them. Uh, those, those would be the things that I would do. Increase studies, eliminate the NGO money, and uh try to, and you know what? Let me add one more in there that you brought up earlier is have some sort of communication czar between for every state with the hunters. That'd be the other thing, specifically regarding CWD policy. Those would be the ones that that I would do right away.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

I like that. Um, you'll you'll you'll like this. You mentioned uh Pittman and Robertson. So I kept looking at the testing in Pennsylvania uh from PGC, and uh I was just like they keep every time like I I've testified uh for our Deer Association alongside of the executive director of you know Pennsylvania Game Commission. And so I listen and then if I need to add anything in, I can I can do that. And usually they just do their their normal bit, but every time they go in there, they're like, hey, we're broke. And then I I just chuckled to myself about the$600 million slush fund, right? And and they're like, We're spending, you know, a million to two million dollars a year on chronic wasting disease. And they they say the word management. I'm like, okay, yeah, management. What is management? You mean testing, surveillance, right? So you find out where the disease is. So I'm like, where's this money coming from? So I send over an RTK or a you know, a FOIA request, and they sent me their numbers. So I asked for all the funding in in Pennsylvania since CWD showed up in in 2012. And then I looked at And I was like, this isn't right. This can't be right. So they spent about$24 million. I said, how much, how much of that is federal and how much of that is state? Take a guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:14

Um, based on what I saw recently, I would say that probably 70 to 80 percent might be the federal, especially with Pittman Roberts' money. That's what I would have thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

22 million dollars from the feds and two million and two million from the state. Even more. They're not even spending their own money and they're claiming they're broke. So like I look at that and I'm just like, it's just so disingenuous to me, right? And like, if we were getting something for that money, like if we were getting something substantive, other than uh a map of Pennsylvania with a bunch of dots on it, I'd be like, cool. But all we get is that and call programs, and I just I I can't get behind that. I need something more, like, do something creative, try something novel, engage with you know, regional communities, right? Take a couple counties where CWD is, say, what do you want as hunters, right? Come up with a program. I don't know what that looks like. I'm not the guy on that, but like I could just imagine um, to your point, like a communications person to engage these people, it'd be it'd be incredible. Um okay, so I want to do some rapid fire with you. All right. Is CWD the biggest threat to deer hunting?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:26

No. It's it's recruitment, it's recruitment in our kids. That's I'm not too worried about CWD.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Are wildlife agencies listening to hunters? Absolutely not, and maybe worse now than ever. What's the biggest myth about CWD?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:43

Um, ooh, oh man, that's that's a little bit tougher. The biggest myth. Um that amongst amongst regular hunters, everyday guys, I think that CWD is just a myth in general. They just I I that they have a solution, that there's any sort of possible solution, maybe would be it at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

Uh what issue in hunting gets ignored the most?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:08

Ignored the most? Um I would say in Midwestern states, it's public land issues. Um, in western states, I wouldn't know. Maybe, maybe, well, yeah, I wouldn't know about western states, but the Midwest states, it's definitely public land issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Um I'm just curious. I'm I'm gonna get off the rapid fire for a second. How many do you know how many acres of public land are in like Ohio?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:31

I did at one point, it's like one of the lowest states. We have Wayne National Forest, and then we have um like that's the big one. That's like the only national forest we have. It's not it's not a lot, and it's mostly all in the south. Like the the the southern part of the state has almost if you're in the northern half of the state here in Ohio, I mean, it's little plots of land here and there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

They're like public parks you can walk in or something. Yep. They might even be locally owned. Yeah. Interesting. Um what what is um I guess should should hunters question wildlife policy often?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:06

They should, I I mean, they should question it often and push back on everything that game agencies should want pushback and we should give it to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

Yeah. Um so I want to close out with this uh question, and it's more of a it's a an opportunity for you to to engage with with uh the general audience. If you could send one message out to hunters across the country right now today, uh what would that be?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:33

It'd be to get involved. Uh get involved on the political level, and and it doesn't even have to be hard. It's the easiest thing. Just find out who your state rep or your state senator is. It's a quick Google search, find them on Facebook, send them a message, and tell them that you don't feel like you're being listened to. And if if if I mean it does not take very much to get these politicians' attention, I know that from working with them. As soon as they see any sort of pushback, they think if they think politicians trade in the currency of votes. Um, a lot of times money buys those votes, uh uh, volunteers buy those votes, you know, like that's that's their currency is how do I keep getting elected? And if they think that this is going to cost them votes, they will immediately because most of the politicians down in Columbus where I'm at are not hunters and they they represent the hunters, like even a state rep Piety Workman who I work for, she's not a hunter. I mean, she shoots and she's pro-wildlife, you know, but she doesn't know the more nuanced details of that. So when she has a question about wildlife policy, she calls me. So now I have some influence there because she trusts my opinion and she knows I'm gonna give her good information. And if people and and you find some politicians, they will they'll listen more than people think. A politician might not even message you back, but if you send them a Facebook message and you get five, 10 of them, they'll they're they're they're gonna be real hesitant to just give those wildlife agencies all the money they want. So that'd be the main thing I would tell them to really push. But that's where you can make the most difference. And also just keep pushing back on social media. That social media pressure, um, even if you just have a 100 followers or a couple hundred followers, um, or you know, a podcast that's growing like yours or my my pages, like everybody makes a bit of a difference. And it seems kind of cliche to even say that, but but it's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:14

Yeah, for sure. Um, where can people find more about what you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:19

Um, you know, you can check out Rack Junkies on Facebook. Um, most of my stuff is on, I I do have a YouTube page, but you know, we only got like 30,000 subscribers. I don't do a lot on there. Um, but you know, I have a Rack Junkies podcast to kind of go into more detail because, and this is something I didn't cover with with Rack Junkies. When I write, I write in one or two paragraphs at a time because people don't have attention.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:39

And uh there's a lot of people that want the details. So I'm bringing that up on the Rack Junkies podcast. I'm not really interviewing people, it's not, you know, it's not monetized, none of that. Um, so you can either follow me on Rack Junkies on Facebook, uh, the hunting news, the sportsman party. Um, and then again, I have I have DeLong Lures as a fishing lure company. If people want to check it out, they can.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:58

Steven, I really appreciate you uh coming on the podcast today and and sharing your insights. Um, I appreciate the work you do, and uh I hope you keep doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:08

I I'm gonna definitely keep doing it, and hopefully people on the other side will reach out and start talking to uh all of us. You know, hopefully they'll come on your podcast too.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

Yep. I appreciate it. And with that, stay tuned for another episode of the Deer Wizard Podcast.