EP 71: Mule Deer Recovery with Ryan Benson of Big Game Forever

Right now we're over 375,000-year-old deer. It's the highest levels they've been at in 40 years. Deer improve. They can respond quick if they have everything in their favor, and that's what this is enabling. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here with the Epic Outdoors podcast. Before we get started, we'd like to thank Under Armour. They sponsor all of our podcasts, and a super great partner of ours and supporter. Of course, we're affiliated with them in many different facets, so I appreciate them. I know they're working hard, Beckham Baltimore, on all kinds of new products. I've been involved with that a little bit. So anyway, everything's cranking there. I also want to throw a little plug in for Thompson Long Range. We've talked to them many times. He swears he can have you a gun in one week with a couple boxes of shells, and you can shoot as far as you dare to shoot. And so anyway, we did have a guy that drew a couple of tags, didn't even own a rifle. And I told him, hey, call Thompson and get a gun.

It's the most affordable gun that can actually shoot any kind of yardage, whether it be 500. You need to have a gun that can shoot. And Mark did the job for him, and he went out and he freaking killed some deer and elk both. So on tags, we drew him in the license app service. He's like, I want to go this year. Boom, got him two tags. And so anyway, great guys, very affordable. I went through Mark's course. You know, it was the first time I ever shot 1,000 yards with Mark Thompson, and a gun I had that I got from him. So anyway, don't believe everything he tells you. You know, he does like to throw a few little pointers and tidbits out there about people here in the office, and it's just not true. But anyway, ThompsonLongRange.com, 435-713-4248. So I appreciate them and their support of Epic. Anyway, as we get started here, we're sitting here with Brian Benson.

He's the president and founder of Big Game Forever. First time we've ever had a podcast with you. Ryan, how you doing? Good to be with you guys today. Doing great. Good. Anyway, there's a lot we want to dive into. Ryan, I guess I don't know where to start. Tell us a little bit about Big Game Forever, and then we'll dive into all the fun things that we want to dive into. So Big Game Forever is an organization founded eight years ago for the purpose of restoring abundant wildlife populations across the West, across America. And we have a passion for wildlife, and there's some tough issues out there. We tackle those. We're the bigger, the harder, the more involved we are. Yep. And so how did you guys get started with Big Game Forever? Whose idea was it? Whose brainchild was this? So back in 2010, I was hired by a sportsman for Fish and Wildlife. Just a little bit of my background.

I'm a Harvard-trained attorney, and I have a background in doing a lot of political work. I was working at a big law firm, a big national law firm, working on difficult corporate and merger and acquisition type issues. And I was approached by one of my clients, which was Randy Brooks from Barnes Bullets. Okay. Oh, yeah. And we just helped Randy sell his company to the Freedom Group, which is Remington, of course. And he said, hey, we've got this really important issue. We need to delist the gray wolf and save our elk and moose and deer herds up in the northern Rockies, and we think you're the guy. And that's where it all started. That's where it started. Gee. Wow. So at the time you were – so how did it go from that idea, that pitch from Randy, you know, a private – you know, I guess he sold his business, but, you know, a private businessman, so to speak, to, you know, forming a –

Organization. I don't think – yeah, you guys aren't a 5-1 C-3 group, but forming the organization of Big Game Forever and founding it and starting up the mission of Big Game Forever. So Randy, he put up the cash to get me started. Now, the funny part about that story, and this is a little anecdote, but I think it's an important one. When Randy told me that, I assured him that I was absolutely the wrong guy. He said, look, I'm a corporate attorney. I do intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions. You know, this isn't what I do. Endangered Species Act isn't what I do. And he said, Ryan, we're losing, and we need a new approach. And I've worked with you and seen your abilities and your passion for the outdoors. And you are the guy, and I'm going to put up the money to get you hired.

Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife put up the rest of the money, and they hired me, and we were off to the races. Lured you back to Utah. You weren't in Utah at the time, or were you? No, I was living in Salt Lake City. Oh, you were at the time. You were back here then from all your east coast schooling and maybe work and whatnot. So that's kind of where it got started. And within a few months, and looking closer at the issue and looking at the Endangered Species Act, I came back to Randy and to Dom Pei and to my friends that I worked with at SFW. And I said, look, in my opinion, if we stay in the courts, we're going to lose. We've got to go to Congress. We've got to get an act of Congress to fix this. Can't just be on the defensive. Can't be on the defensive. We've got to change the law.

Now, to put this in context, the Endangered Species Act had not been touched in 40 years to protect big game, to delist a species. And we had a lot of people say, look, we don't think that's possible. Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, if we're going to protect our elk, if we're going to protect our moose, if we're going to bring back these decimated herds, we've got to try. And to do that political work, we needed to start a 501c4, and that's where Big Game Forever started. Tell us about that in itself. We're a lot more familiar with the Mule Deer Foundation, Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife, being long, well-established 501c3 nonprofit wildlife conservation groups. Tell us how that organizational structure of Big Game Forever, why it's different. So Big Game Forever, yeah, Big Game Forever is not a habitat charity.

We are a brass knuckles political organization that does advocacy to fix tough issues. You know, the gray wolf is what started us, but we've tackled some really other important issues. As people saw the success that we had getting an active Congress passed, they came to us and said, hey, look, have you thought about mule deer?

Great, great story. I was in southern Utah. My son had run in a track meet, and we were going to go and build a guzzler, build a fence around a guzzler down in southern Utah for his Eagle Scout project. Oh, cool. And so while we were down there, we stopped in and saw Ryan Hatch, and I had never met him, so I just wanted to say hello and see his collection of giant mule deer. And while we were down there, he said, Ryan, I know wolves are important. Have you thought about mule deer? And I said, well, tell me about that. Well, my business relies on it. Yeah, he says, you know, mule deer are the most hunted species probably in the West. They're a species we're all passionate about. We all love to hunt. Everybody dreams about killing a giant deer, and they're on a 40-year downward trend. And so, but we were hearing that a lot. We were hearing that.

And so Dom Pei, Byron Bateman, Troy Justison, Ryan Fouts, we climbed in a pickup, and we visited, I think, 15 different towns. Wow. And we got people together and said, tell us what you're, how you feel about the mule deer population. They said, it's struggling. And we need to fix that. And so we hatched a plan. And, you know, Dom Pei, give him the credit for the idea. He said, look, we've done a million acres of habitat work. We've got perfect mule deer habitat. Let's fill it. With no deer. Oh, no. And habitat's not the problem. Nutrition's not the problem.

And we said, well, what's left? Well, we started looking at the numbers. Fawn production was so low. Recruitment. Yeah. Recruitment. And so we said, well, there's only one way to fix that. We have got to control more coyotes. And so that's where it started. Wow. And so you hatched the, what's the official term? The Mule Deer Recovery Act? Is that the proper term? That's right. The Mule Deer Recovery Act. So, you know, the group that had been doing a great job, but controlling coyotes, but not, you know, not enough. Not enough coyotes harvested was wildlife services. So we sat down with them and they were, you know, it's expensive to run helicopters, expensive to do the work that they were doing. And we said, look, what if we can. And government's only going to allocate so many funds to that. That's right. And we figured that we needed to harvest between 10 and 20,000 coyotes a year.

And at $500 a coyote, it was just cost prohibitive. So we said, look, what if we can focus you on the important stuff, the Mule Deer fawning grounds, the places where they're getting hit the hardest. And let's get the sportsmen out there and give them an incentive to increase the harvest. So trappers, hunters, collars, you name it. And the problem at the time was you had about half the counties that had a program, an incentive program. And it was anywhere from $10 to $25 a coyote. So we said, let's up it to 50. Let's do it statewide. Let's put a million dollars in a pot for hunters to go out and do the work. And guess what? They showed up. Yeah. They showed up big time. A guy named Steve Sorensen, the year before we started this, we said to Steve, hey, we'll pay you $50 a coyote. Is that enough for you to work on this full time? And he said, watch me work.

So by the end of the winter, he had harvested, I think, 50 or 60 coyotes. There's this great picture of him with his buddy. They've got two mules. They're up in the mountains. And these are packed high with nothing but coyote pelts. Yeah. I've seen that picture. Look, if we can do, if one guy can do this, imagine what if we had 200. Steve Sorensen. 500. Steve Sorensen's out there working. And you know what? It's worked. And we are now, instead of harvesting 4,000 coyotes a year, it's 14,000, 15,000 over the last four years. Wow. And the mule deer have exploded. A little shout out to Hilleberg. Hilleberg's been with us for a long time since inception of Epic Outdoors. The Hilleberg tents, the tent maker, they are awesome. The first great tents we ever had were Hillebergs. And you could just roll them out on tundra and you wouldn't even get wet inside. It was like monumental.

Felt like a major discovery. Exactly. So one of the first tents we had, Jason and I, and we still have them, is that one-man acto tent. Solid wall. You know, you don't have to share a tent with somebody. Pretty roomy for a one-man tent. And they make all styles of tents. We've had a podcast. If you're interested in some more of the specifics about the tents that Hilleberg offers, you can go back in the podcast archives. Listen to that with Petra. But also you can visit their website at Hilleberg, H-I-L-L-E-B-E-R-G.com. You know, it is one of those factors that, you know, since the, I believe the 70s, 60s, 70s, 1080 and other weapons. Weapons of mass destruction. Yes, that's what they were. They were weapons of mass destruction. And they were too effective. And so everything got killed. And that's why they were, you know, banned. But, yeah, that's a major toolbox.

And there's a correlation that same period of time as when green chaining of pinion juniper and all the different things in the 50s and 60s that went on. And you get into the 70s, 80s, it stopped, as did the predator control. And it just, mule deer are a more sensitive species, sensitive to change, sensitive to habitat, you know, conversion. Elk, you just put them on concrete and they'll somehow make a living. Well, here's what we proved, okay? So we showed that predation matters, okay? Everyone knew that back in the 20s, 30s. When we lost 1080, and we can talk about that probably another day, but when we lost 1080, we lost an important tool of conservation. And we needed to replace that somehow. Sportsmen filled that void. And just to give you a sense of this, for 20 years, you know, we stopped the decline eventually.

But for the last 20 years, deer have been cycling in the state of Utah between about 280,000 and 320,000 mule deer.

Today, we finally are over 350,000 mule deer for the first time in 20 years. In fact, right now, we're over 375,000 mule deer. And it's the highest levels they've been at in 40 years. And we did that in four years with predator control. Wow. That's a conservation success story. And does this Mule Deer Recovery Act, tell me the basics. How much, how much, we're talking Utah here. And I know there may be other states that you can talk about in a minute. But we're talking about this effort was in Utah. How much annual allocated funding was legislatively appropriated for this? So it ended up being $1.25 million a year. So that's $12.5 million over 10 years. It was put in the state's base budget. So it's been there every year. This past year is the first year that they ran out of money. So we're actually back up at the legislature this year saying, hey, let's fund this adequately. Okay.

We're doing the work we needed to do. We actually bought a second helicopter for wildlife services, gave them the funding to run that. So they're doing more work on fawning grounds. Sportsmen are doing more work in the field. And, you know, there are places we still need to do more. But the point is, on a statewide basis, this most important species has totally bucked us nationwide 40 years ago. Seeing results. And, you know, we've talked about over the last eight years, six, eight years, we went to unit by unit draw. And all the things that these sportsmen said, we've got to do something. You know, we understand going to Walmart, buying your tag, and hunting the whole statewide didn't work. Those days are over. And then the five region thing, we just don't think that lacked the control necessary to manage on a deer herd basis. And, you know, they've given up.

They've given up their ability to hunt a fifth of the state and go to one specific unit and one specific weapon within that unit. And then, you know, add that on to removal of additional predators. And, fortunately, some good moisture years and recruitment. It all lines up perfectly. And you can deer. Along with what you guys are doing. Yeah. Deer have improved. They can respond quick if they have everything in their favor. And that's what this has enabled me for. Well, I'm glad you said that. And let me just maybe bring that full circle. This is about multidimensional conservation. Yeah. If you look at the complete recipe for mule deer restoration, you talk about the 30 units. Yeah. That was key. Yeah. The habitat work was key. That had to happen. All of those created a dynamic, but there was still a missing ingredient. And that was the predator control.

So we need to continue to do all that work. These are partnerships. You know, they all work together. And not everybody wants to talk about predator control. We take that. Adam and I do. We like killing them. We've killed a couple of wolves. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, you guys started, you basically started off in the political arena dealing with the wolves. And now it's morphed into, I guess, somewhat conservation. I don't know. How involved are you in the political arena? Are you continuing to fight that fight? Is there something to do with coyotes in the political arena? Or is it more just appropriation of funds and fighting for those funds? Grizzly bears. We're talking grizzly bears now and that whole delisting process. I'm sure, you know, you're going to at some point. You got to go after that as well.

So one of the important takeaways from all this, and I'm glad you brought up, you know, going back to the wolf issue, these difficult projects. Wolf delisting. That was a huge lift by the sportsman community. Big Game Forever raised millions of dollars. We spent months in Washington, D.C. and built that support. But it was the sportsmen who were hitting the send button saying, we need wolves delisted. We got to save these herds. The sportsmen make all the difference. And the way that we run these programs, you know, I go back to 10 years of practicing law before I started this. And if we had a client that needed to win, we mapped it out. This is all the work that's got to be done. And we need to plan on doing that work. And it's a different model of conservation. It involves sportsmen raising, you know, voicing their concerns, asking for the support of their elected officials.

And we're in a time in America where we have to do it. We just can't get away from doing that. If we're going to save the future of what we love, we got to get involved. These fights are different than cattlemen and sportsmen get together in their county commission chambers. And all right, that's how we're going to do it. It's those grassroots things have to happen. And you have to have the support to turn back to. And you have to have the constituency base of 80,000 or whatever big game forever supporters that when you say, all right, talk to your state representative, your congressional delegation, about the wolf issue or about mule deer slash sage grouse habitat efforts and all that. You've got to have that. But tell us, you mentioned about raising money. Tell us how that mechanism works within big game forever. How are you raising money? How do we help you? How do we get involved?

Well, here's what I'll tell you. When you make a donation to Big Game Forever, 100% of those funds go into the fight. And I'm not talking about paying my salary. Well, that has to happen. I get paid out of grants that are given to us by the state of Utah.

We need lead at the target. And it does cost money. It costs money to hire lawyers, to hire lobbyists. We have some of the most talented, passionate sportsmen who also happen to work in the political arena. And we use these guys. And we say, hey. You're talking Western state congressional delegations and people that are sportsmen that already have a seat at the table in D.C. type thing. That's right. That's right. We have a full-time. We have a guy that's a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He's there every day. Hey, he's talking to our leaders back there, asking for support. And, you know, it's just a great partnership. It's the way that the work needs to be done. I had a director of one of the state wildlife agencies pull me aside and he said, hey, have you looked at what the other conservation organizations are doing? They're starting to hire lobbyists.

They're starting to encourage their members to send letters to Congress. And he said, you know why that happened? That happened because Big Game Forever got involved and showed people that that model worked. And that's what we love is that everybody getting behind it. I mean, I was, I don't want to say pessimistic because that sounds hopeless. But when we knew how overdue a wolf delisting was across Wyoming, Montana, Idaho. I didn't think it happened. And we grew up without them, saw them reintroduced. And grizzly bears and wolves were always the sacred, never touched, never to be managed again, supposedly, that mantra. And it took an act of Congress, you know, and a lot more. It took you, buddy. To get that done. And grizzly bears are next. And anybody that spent time in parts of Montana and Wyoming knows that they far exceeded.

And obviously the steps have been initiated to have that process fully done. We know by past experience with wolves there's going to be the legal wrangling and fight to make that stick and stand. And it's not about the recovery goals being met to some people. To sportsmen, it's a success story. I mean, having some grizzly bears still around, it's a success story. I mean, it's, they're back. But they far exceeded just like the wolves did to the point. They're far exceeded. To the point like wolves, they decimated some of the deer and elk populations and some of the core parts of Yellowstone National Park. The most iconic wildlife park in the United States. So, I'm digressing. But I guess all of that aside, it does take, it takes the right connections. And that's what your group's about. So, tell us, I guess, continue on about how a Joe Blow can help contribute to you guys.

But also how big donors. Yeah. Do you have membership where they feel like they can be a part of it? Or is it just strictly donations? So, let me just talk about one thing. Okay. We'll go back to getting involved. Well, the wolf story was a conservation success to start out with. But now it's a cautionary tale. Yeah. And that cautionary tale is that when we don't manage responsibly, when we let emotion and animal rights activism and overreach get into the equation, it can destroy a future of abundance. We want abundant wildlife. That's our mantra. No matter what state we're talking about. That's right. And, you know, if you're going to have wolves, what we know now is you have to manage them aggressively or else you are going to, in Yellowstone, here's a great story. Yellowstone, they had 20,000 elk. They got down to 4,000 elk. 80, 90% of that herd was gone.

And guess what happened to the wolf population in Yellowstone? It collapsed. Starvation, disease, big packs killing small packs. It got really ugly. And people who thought, hey, this is going to restore a pristine ecosystem. You know, these elk and moose play a role. They help manage the vegetation so you don't get those catastrophic wildfire we saw in the 80s. So how do you get involved? We actually, we need more. You know, these animal rights groups, they have tens of millions of dollars. They have hundreds of thousands of activists. And, you know, when we started, one of the most active anti-hunting groups, they had 75,000 members. And I had members of Congress say, you just never get that many hunters involved. Hunters don't get involved in politics. Well, today we're 80,000 members. Big Game Forever has 80,000 hunters that show up to the fight.

But when you get that message, if you're currently a member, hit the send button. If you're not a member, go to the website, sign the petition, and you'll be added to that nation of sportsmen who are fighting for the future of what we love. Awesome. And then, you know, if, and then become a member. Yeah. Our lowest membership is a $25 membership. It's designed for everybody to be able to afford it. But, you know, hit that $50 button or that $100 button if you care about the future of what we love. That's awesome. So what are you guys, what's your plans? I mean, you don't have to lay everything out, but we got the Mule to Recovery Act.

I don't know, it feels like a mission statement. I don't know, you guys call it an act, and it is obviously, but it feels like that's kind of your mission at the moment. But what's the future of Big Game Forever? So there's a lot of things going on. Now that we've, so, by the way, happy story, okay? 4,000 elk in Yellowstone, it just hit 7,500 now. So that population's coming back. There's people applying and killing big bulls on the park boundary, which haven't happened. Some of the units on the, I guess we'll call it the eastern flank of the park, which were the best Wyoming ever had. Back in early 2000s. They took it a hit hard. The outfitters, some of them, didn't know how they were going to stay in business. And the last two or three years, they're killing some giant bulls again. Some of the best units in the state. Are once again coming back.

And these are overflows when they leave the park and they come out to winter and all that, because most of the park is heavy summer range. You know, they have some key valleys on the northwest end. But a lot of it leave the park to winter, and that's on, you know, public hunting ground. And so, yeah. So we kept telling people, they're like, oh, okay, you got wolves delisted, we're done. And I said, well, why did we get wolves delisted? We got wolves delisted to restore the wildlife. There was an effort to cut 95% of the tags, which means no hunters out in the field, right? And we went to the Montana Fish and Game Commission. We said, you need to understand these hunters are the ones that are going to manage the wolves. Keep them in check. To bring back the elk. If you take them out of the field, we said, just be patient with it. Keep issuing some tags.

We're not going to kill off all the elk. Set your quotas and all that, yeah. And so now, to your point, it's working, right? And the hunters, again, are the role of that conservation. So, what's on the table? We've got to bring back the moose. The moose are way more sensitive than elk. And moose populations in Jackson, 90% gone. Yeah. There are no calf moose. Well, some years it's 10% of the calf moose. A couple years ago, no calf moose in Jackson made it through. Crazy. Jackson was the core of moose recovery. But Idaho, three of their four moose units, 50, 60, 75% of the moose are gone. Minnesota, Michigan, everybody's saying our moose are gone. The American moose is on the brink. To bring back moose, we've got to manage. We've got to control more predators. And so, moose recovery is an important one.

You know, we talked about some of the successes, but there's still more work to be done. Some of Utah's most important elk units, we've harvested too many cows. Yes, yes. The quality is diminished. So, there's still a lot of work to be done. Well, you and I talked about those elk there for a little while yesterday. And there's a lot that needs to happen to bring back a few of those giant bulls that we once had here not too long ago. We were killing 15, 13, 15, 400-inch bulls a year. Yeah. And the guys that weren't killing those were killing 375 bulls. And some of these units, it's hard to find a 340 bull now. Yes. Just restoring responsibility, you know, and making sure that hunters are playing their role. But, man, if we lose the American moose, that's a national treasure loss. We've got to bring that back. So, we're going to keep up the fight on coyotes.

We're going to kill everyone we can. Right. Which means 3%. You can't kill them all. You can't kill them all. They're the survivor. We're going to keep the fight up. The funds are going to keep pouring in for coyotes. We're going to maintain that predator control. You know, one of my favorite stories is the Friends of the Ponsagant. Those guys did it 20 years ago before we ever got started, you know. Friends of the Ponsagant, a group of guys, 20 guys, got in a room and said, our deer are gone. They started going out with wildlife biologists. They started advocating for fewer tags. They said, let's bring back this once great unit. And they're killing 250-inch deer on the Ponsagant again. Yeah. And it's not enough to say big national issues. That local involvement, taking care of our local deer herds, that's the foundation for conservation. You know, we need guys in all 30 of those units.

If your hunting area is in trouble, give us a call. Let's go and get organized and fix what's in your own backyard. That's the foundation of true success. Let's see. Let's talk about Outdoor Edge knives. We've partnered with Outdoor Edge. They've got some incredible knives coming out. We all like the razor knives. So, the Outdoor Edge, they do have the long, fairly stiff blade along with kind of a half blade that goes with it that you attach it to. And so, it makes it really sturdy. You don't have to worry about breaking your blades, razors, whatever you want to call them. If you're rejecting any of these knives and jabbing one into your leg or something like that and have a little more control on some of that and the easy to change in and out. Just been awesome. They're a great partner of ours. We really appreciate them and what a great product.

And so, anyway, you can check out the different knives they offer at www.outdooredge.com. Or ask an Outdoor Edge dealer at your local sporting goods store. So, anyway, you can go check them out. Super good guys at Outdoor Edge. And, anyway, I've got a little more coming out with a little Epic Outdoors special version of one. Stay tuned for that. We'll announce that full board later this year. Well, that's great. I mean, we can probably talk, well, not probably all day long about stuff like this. We're glad to be able, I guess, get your voice out there to our listeners and whatnot about Big Game Forever. Just, I guess, give a plug for the website. It's just biggameforever.org. Yeah, go to biggameforever.org. Sign the petition. We need to be involved in these issues. We've lost too long to people with an agenda that's more anti-hunting than it is pro-wildlife.

Hunters are the true conservationists. And it's time we're proving that a future of abundance is possible all across America, no matter what the issue. Get involved. Help us, you know, restore that future. And it's not just about us. It's not about my next tag. It's not about how big my next bowl is. It's about our children. It's about our grandchildren. Sustainability. We don't want these rapid peaks and rapid declines. You know, that's not how you manage wildlife, ideally. But when special interest gets involved, you often see it that way. And that's what we've seen. Well, let me just share one quick thing. And we can talk about this another day. You know, the devil's in the details. And four years ago, we heard they were going to change the way they manage sage-grouse. And I was asked to sit on a commission to write Utah's sage-grouse conservation plan.

And I started hearing people say, hey, you know the problem is mule deer. We have too many mule deer. And I thought, oh, this is... Okay, I'm glad I'm here today because... This is dangerous. And the Obama administration wrote rules. And guess what was in those rules? Too many mule deer. Too many elk. Wow. They're grazing on the sagebrush. That's what sage-grouse eat. I knew there was a good reason we didn't like Obama. And so, you know, we're looking at the trends. We're looking at the dangerous poison pills that are going into plans. And we started pushing back hard on sage-grouse. And it was all about saving mule deer. Yeah. And we're getting some of those things fixed. But the point is, is we can't have our eyes closed. We can't sit back and hope for the best. We need to engage. It's proactive. It goes back to not being on the defensive.

Incidentally, if you look at sage-grouse numbers, guess when they started to decline? Same time, probably. When they stopped using 1080s. Predators. When they stopped controlling, you know, the nest predators, which are ravens and crows. Yeah. Yeah. And so, again, we looked at the predation numbers on sage-grouse. Sixty to ninety percent of eggs are killed by predators. And they're saying it's mule deer. No, it's... Yeah, they never hatch. You've got to... They're never even hatching. You've got to be responsible. So, you know, again, sportsmen understand it. We understand that you've got to use all those tools of conservation. And we're going to protect that. Well, we sure appreciate you today here, Ryan. You've informed us and enlightened us on a lot of different things. Adam and I are a huge supporter. We've known...

We knew of you back when you were with Sportsman's for Fish and Wildlife. And now, obviously, Big Game Forever. And just appreciate what you're bringing to the table. Anything else you'd like to add as we wrap it up? No, just, you know, get out there. Be passionate and enjoy the great outdoors. And then when you get home, say, okay, what am I going to do to make it even better? And we'd encourage you to take 30 seconds, sign that petition. And once in a while, you'll get an action alert from Big Game Forever. Send in your message. Good. And you're protecting the future. Because we're all busy. We're all busy doing our own day jobs and families and whatnot. And so, you know, we do appreciate guys like you that are busy doing that. Well, we're busy working. So, anyway, we appreciate that. It's good to be with you. We love Epic Outdoors and enjoy your podcast. Thanks for having us on. Okay.

Thanks a lot, Ryan. Thanks, Ryan.