Everybody knows that wildlife in the United States is owned by all of us. Elk, deer and other species are held in the public trust, period. But what happens when publicly owned big game is commercialized – and when hunting opportunity for public wildlife is sold to the highest bidder? What happens when so-called “private land” licenses can be used on public land? Some Western states are grappling with those questions now, but New Mexico public land elk hunters have been living under these conditions for years. Hal takes a deep dive into the byzantine regulations of elk hunting in New Mexico with three local hunters – Joel Gay with NM BHA and Jesse Deubel and Ray Trejo with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation – including what lies ahead for New Mexico and what other states should consider before going down the same road. Tune in for this cautionary tale about the commercialization of a valuable public resource: elk.  0:01:52 Intro 0:04:01 Background 0:14:45 Anti Donation Clause 0:18:20 IPRA and Obfuscation 0:20:13 Responsibility to NM Residents 0:24:28 The restoration paid for by public 0:27:35 High Quality of NM hunting 0:31:31 The low draw odds for the public 0:35:57 History of the draw odds and guide set-asides 0:44:11 Marketing property with Landowner Tags 0:46:04 Privatization of Public Resource 0:49:21 NM Depredation Law 0:52:33 NM Depredation Fund 0:55:29 Conservation is not convenient 0:55:59 The NM draw system is privatized, complex and obscure 1:01:03 Entitlements and Politics 1:02:52 What would a solution look like? 1:12:33 What can people do? 1:16:32 NM Legislative Finance Committee Audit 1:20:37 RAWA and NM Landowner Tag Funding 1:24:04 NM Game Commission Politics 1:32:34 NM 2021 Hunting Plans

BHA Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring

Joel Gay with NM BHA and Jesse Deubel and Ray Trejo with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation

Dan O'Brien has been ranching for nearly 50 years and doing it in a way that improves wildlife habitat. Listen to this intense conversation with Hal Herring about the legacy he's helping to build with his herd and with his land. 

Dan O’Brien, Bison Rancher and Regenerative Agriculture Visionary

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), a hunter, angler, longtime conservation champion and BHA member, has introduced legislation known as the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (S. 2372). This bipartisan bill would dedicate nearly $1.4 billion annually to fund projects by state and tribal fish and wildlife agencies that benefit both game and non-game species. In partnership with a broad coalition of organizations, businesses and fish and wildlife management agencies that make up the Alliance for America’s Fish & Wildlife, BHA is working to advance this legislation, the product of decades of hard work by devoted sportsmen and women, conservationists and business leaders. In this special episode of the Podcast & Blast, Hal talks with Sen. Heinrich about why hunters and anglers have a major stake in the conservation of habitat relied upon by a range of fish and wildlife species. Learn more and take action in support of the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.  

Recovering America's Wildlife Act With Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM)

Ed Arnett is the hunting-est, bird-doggingest biologist in America, chief scientist for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership as well as host of the national conservation TV series This American Land. Hal and Ed have been friends and hunted together for more than a decade. In this interview they sit down to talk sage grouse, fire, public lands and the future of sagebrush ecosystems, which also means the future of the myriad species – from pronghorn and mule deer to pygmy rabbits and Brewer’s sparrows – that make up the incredible tapestry of the American West. BHA and TRCP, along with a coalition of other hunting and fishing groups, are working together to advance a legislative approach to conservation of grasslands habitats, including the sagebrush shrub steppe. Learn more about the coalition’s work, and take action in support of grasslands conservation.  

Ed Arnett, chief scientist, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership

Meredith and Tory Taylor have been outfitters, guides and conservation leaders in the wild heart of Wyoming’s Greater Yellowstone for almost 50 years. Over those decades, they have explored places few others have ever seen, shown generations of Americans the wonders of hunting and fishing and wilderness, horses, wolves, storms and stars, wildflower meadows and summer snowbanks, tumbling whitewater creeks and towering black-rock peaks. Theirs is a marriage and an adventure partnership, based in their modest home and native plant gardens and horse pastures on the Wind River, carried as far afield as Outer Mongolia. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of lives lived large, elk-fed, and mostly on horseback. 

Wyoming wilderness guides and outfitters Meredith and Tory Taylor

“I never found a place I belong, so I’m making one.” Jonathan Wilkins is the founder of Black Duck Revival, a hunting and fishing guide service and simple lodge – built by his own two hands from an old church building in Brinkley, Arkansas. Jonathan is also a father and husband, a next-level forager and cook, a writer and working man. As he wrote in an essay for Outdoor Life last winter, “I am a Black man. Actually, I am biracial, but I live in a place where that nuance of truth is, most often, not afforded me.” Jonathan’s story, and the story of Black Duck Revival, is an American journey, a reclaiming of heritage, a celebration of family, hunting and fishing in the beautiful and haunted lands of the mighty Arkansas Delta.    

Jonathan Wilkins, founder, Black Duck Revival

The remote Red Desert is a place of dreams, albeit dreams sometimes replete with choking alkali dust, freezing winds, gumbo mud, and the scattered, bleached bones of the unlucky or unfit of all species. But it’s a place of elk, toad mule deer, herds of pronghorn and the thunder of flushing sage hens, too – all of which have to be able to move long distances to range and water and shelter from the mighty elements, in the age-old way of desert dwellers, if they are to survive. Join us with Josh Coursey of the Muley Fanatic Foundation and Joy Bannon of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation to learn about the work being done to identify and conserve the most critical migration paths, habitat and heritage of this last, great empty place.   

Migration corridors, desert elk, mule deer and Wyoming’s Red Desert

Recorded in-person at BHA 10th Annual North American Rendezvous in Montana, join us today for an in-depth conversation between two certified gun nerds, Hal Herring and Nephi Cole. Nephi is director of government relations-state affairs of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s primary trade association. Nephi has a serious conservation, shooting and outdoors pedigree – in addition to currently representing America’s firearms manufacturers and retailers, he has worked for the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service and spent six years as the senior policy advisor to Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, where he specialized in natural resources, outdoor recreation, water issues, firearms and energy. Anyone interested or engaged in America’s long debate over firearms and the Second Amendment can tune in here to understand the position of the largest firearms industry advocacy group in the United States. 

Nephi Cole of the National Shooting Sports Foundation

Based out of Anchorage, Alaska, Heather's Choice is a backpacking food startup company dedicated to making delicious, ultralight, nutrient-dense meals and snacks for adventurers. Heather Kelly is an avid hunter, angler, backpacker and outdoor adventurer. Kelly launched Heather’s Choice Meals for Adventuring in 2014 to combine her love of sports nutrition and backcountry pack-rafting. Her emphasis has always been on high-quality, whole foods nutrition. With signature dishes such as smoked sockeye salmon chowder and blueberry buckwheat breakfast, Heather’s Choice has gained recognition as a healthy, delicious, portable food option for the backcountry.

North American Board Member And Heather’s Choice Founder Heather Kelly

Join Hal as he sits down with renowned chef, author and outdoorsman Hank Shaw as they discuss hunting, fishing, foraging and preparing the wildest of wild game. 

Wild Game Chef, Author And Outdoorsman Hank Shaw

Archeologist Dr. Larry Todd came home to Meeteetse, Wyoming, after a long career studying ancient hunting peoples all over the planet. Asked to do a quick archeological survey of some high-elevation public lands in Northwest Wyoming, he took a crew of students and headed out, convinced of lean pickings and a fast return to the comforts of home. After all, how many ancient hunters would choose to live at 11,000 feet, on barren ridges swept by winter snow and bitter wind, blistered by summer sun and relentless lightning storms? A week into the expedition, Dr. Todd and his crew found themselves in an unprecedented high-altitude treasure hall of artifacts, the record of thousands of years of habitation, drivelines and traps for hunting, ambush points, winter camps, kill sites of bison and bighorn sheep.

Archeologist Dr. Larry Todd

For more than 20 years, Eddie Nickens, a member of BHA’s North American board of directors, has been the premier storyteller and scribe of American hunting, fishing and conservation, writing for Field & Stream, Garden and Gun, Audubon and dozens of other publications. It’s a radical understatement to call him an outdoor writer, although the term fits the man who has published the best-selling behemoth of outdoor skills, Field & Stream’s Total Outdoorsman. In our conversation today, Hal and Eddie celebrate the publication of Eddie’s new book, The Last Wild Road, a collection of his all-time best stories from an unmatched life afield in the American wilds.

Legendary Outdoor Writer and BHA Board Member Eddie Nickens

On this second podcast focusing on the Eastern forests and upland game birds, Hal catches up to Mike “the Polish Hammer” Neiduski, the regional director of the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society, to talk habitat, public and private lands restoration, small scale timber harvest, and the heart-stopping explosion of wild birds flushing from dense cover, in front of the world’s best bird dogs- our own. The talk is public lands bird hunting from the Uwharrie National Forest to the Pisgah and the Nantahala, the Cherokee, and beyond. Join us for a conversation that springs straight from the wild richness of the southern forests, where there is a  path to a better future for these iconic gamebirds.

Mike Neiduski, the regional director of the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society

Jenna Rozelle lives in southern Maine, where she teaches classes on wild foods, forages, hunts, fishes and chronicles an existence spent close to the land. For her, hunting and fishing go hand in hand with foraging and land stewardship. A board member of the New England chapter of BHA and self described late-onset hunter, Rozelle tells Hal the story of her long and winding road to a gratifying relationship with harvesting wild creatures.

Hunter, forager, and wild food educator Jenna Rozelle

Join Hal and Todd Waldron, Northeast region forest conservation director for the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society, for a discussion of the rich history of Todd’s home territory, a life of hunting and fishing public lands – from upland birds to whitetails, smelt netting to flyfishing for native brook trout – and what the future brings as we confront and overcome the obstacles to re-establishing the biodiversity and health (not to mention upland birds) of this last great wilderness.

Todd Waldron, Northeast region forest conservation director for the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society

Hunting. Angling. Public Lands. That's the meat of what BHA's Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring is about, and we cover the gamut. With guests that range from outdoor writers to backcountry hunters to legendary anglers, we seek to uncover the stories, the truths, the controversies, and the epic conversations that our public land heritage provides.

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BHA Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring

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