Ep. 892: Ryan Callaghan on Public Lands and Conservation

Summary

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The MeatEater Podcast – Ep. 892: Ryan Callaghan on Public Lands and Conservation

Date: June 22, 2026
Host: Steven Rinella (SR)
Guest: Ryan “Cal” Callaghan (RC) – President & CEO, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA)

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OVERVIEW

This episode dives deep into the realities, challenges, and philosophies of public land conservation in America, featuring a lively and candid conversation between longtime friends Steven Rinella and Ryan Callaghan. Cal, newly minted as both a father and the head of BHA, reflects on the state and future of public lands, the nuances of conservation work, evolving access and stewardship, regulatory debates, corner crossing, and how individual responsibility—and community action—are critical for the outdoor legacy. The episode pulses with good humor, earnest engagement, and real-world stories from the wild edges of policy and landscape.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS AND INSIGHTS

1. Personal Updates: Cal’s New Roles

• Becoming a Dad

  • Discusses the transition into fatherhood and its relative ease so far
  • Praises paid parental leave as “the thing that makes this doable,” acknowledging how challenging it would be without it (04:00)
  • Jokes about not picking a name for his newborn son; pressure mounts as time passes and discarded baby names are moved to the new puppy (07:39)

• New Leadership at BHA

  • Cal steps into the President & CEO role at Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
  • His career has long circled around finding conservation stories, but now:

    “That’s what I’m doing as my job every minute of the day.” (12:28, RC)

  • BHA stats: 36 staff, over 30,000 active members, 44 North American chapters (13:14)

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2. BHA’s Mission, Scope, and Realities

• “What does BHA actually do?”

  • It’s a broad-based organization supporting public land, water, wildlife, and access
  • Notably holistic, unlike species- or tool-specific orgs such as Trout Unlimited or RMEF (14:38)
  • Focus is building a new generation of conservation leaders, and “people who show up and want to do stuff” (15:05, RC)
  • “Hands on, dirt under your fingernails” stewardship—projects include trail improvement, juniper removal, and migration corridor work

• Notable Achievement

  • BHA awarded Bureau of Land Management’s Conservation Partner of the Year, punching far above its weight for a small org (16:59)
  • Wildlife-friendly fencing and direct habitat improvements, often using volunteers
  • Emphasis on community: bringing together hunters, birders, non-hunters, BLM staff, and ranchers on volunteer stewardship projects (22:09-24:11)

  “Our job... is to empower whoever wants to show up to do the work... you have this sweat equity in your public lands.” (21:37, RC)

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3. Conservation: From West to East

• While many issues—fence removal, migration corridors, juniper encroachment—are “western problems,” BHA has strong chapters in states with less public land
• In places with limited public land, stewardship can be as simple as trash pickup, combined with education and community-building (28:00)
• “We got to get this stewardship ownership mindset, like, indoctrinated into people in as young as we can get them.” (28:55, RC)

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4. The Big Picture: Regulation, Access, and the Social Contract

• Shifting Attitudes and Knowledge

  • SR and RC reflect on growing up without an understanding of public lands’ origin or stewardship
  • The “social contract” around hunting and fishing regulations is more about internalized respect than enforcement, as the chance of being checked by a game warden is “nonexistent” (43:09)
  • Need for a cultural shift:

    “If everybody just gives a shit. And it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this is ours. It’s a national treasure.’” (32:55, RC)

• Regulations and Deregulation Debates

  • Winners and dangers of deregulation, especially as politicians who idolize TR often forget that “he was a regulation guy because lack of regulation had brought us into the dark ages of American wildlife.” (46:44, SR)
  • The nature of political swings (“pendulum swinging”), especially around Roadless Rule and OHV access
  • Importance of distinguishing between removing outdated rules and dismantling effective protections (50:52)

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5. OHV Use and Roadless Rule: What’s Really Changing?

• OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) Orders
  • Recent executive orders changed the posture of OHV use from “closed unless posted open” to “open unless posted closed” (67:51)
  • Media coverage often overstates changes, causing confusion and sometimes leading to illegal use and resource damage
  • SR: “Any changes that actually occur are forthcoming... it wasn’t something that all of a sudden announced ‘from now on…’” (70:10)
  • RC emphasizes need for on-the-ground knowledge and public messaging about responsible use (76:32)
• Roadless Rule
  • Recaps the “political ping pong” around road-building in national forests
  • Debate over repeal/maintenance not just about timber but broader deregulatory goals and some specific mineral extraction projects (79:40)
  • RC: “We haven’t gotten there yet. I will tell you that there’s legitimate gripes on the roadless rule because it’s open to a little bit of interpretation.” (80:27)
  • Both hosts express the need for nuanced, case-specific solutions rather than absolutism (91:38)

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6. Corner Crossing: The Ongoing Debate

• Definition and Recent Legal Developments

  • Recaps the “checkerboard” layout in the West and legal ambiguity about moving from public to public land at a corner without touching private
  • Recent federal decisions have clarified legality (in the 10th Circuit), but confusion persists in many states
  • Practical wrinkles: should adjacent private landowners be compensated; can you cross from federal to state land; marking corners and increasing understanding (106:18–110:34)
  • RC predicts:

    “I think that we’re capable of coming up with a state solution that... prevents a federal case that prevents an escalation.” (116:57)

  “If you’re on the private side of that fence, you’re a public landowner, too...” (108:33, RC)

• Hunter-Landowner Relations & Education

  • RC advocates for a “hunting around agriculture” program to educate hunters about proper etiquette around working lands (124:16)
  • Suggests making educational courses standard for license holders

  “If we can just educate a big group... that’s gonna be a big impact on the landscape.” (125:59, RC)

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7. Conservation Culture: Ownership, Absolutism vs. Practicality

• The Problem with “Just Being the No Guy”

  • Discussion of how conservationists must know what they support—not just what they oppose
  • Importance of compromise, engagement, and being “at the table” for pragmatic decision-making (130:20)

• Community Responsibility

  • If users of public resources don’t take proactive, respectful action, loss is inevitable
  • Need for cross-user advocacy (e.g., motorized and non-motorized communities)
  • SR: “I think our country remains in a strong enough position where we can continue to afford to have wild places in this country... because we decide to let it be there...” (135:24)

  “None of this is luck. Right. It is all here because people before us made real choices, sometimes very unpopular. And that is why we have the luxuries that we have.” (136:19, RC)

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8. Looking Ahead: Concerns and Priorities

• Hot-Button Issues Coming Up
  • Ambler Road in Alaska—potential major impact on wild caribou, fisheries, and expansive wild places (133:25–134:48)
  • The fragility of hunter access, shifting laws, and threats of access loss due to bad actor behavior among hunters and the public
• What BHA Needs
  • Membership is the “lifeblood” of BHA, keeping the organization independent and enabling proactive action
  • BHA offers involvement in hands-on stewardship, education, community, and policy advocacy. Information and action alerts are direct ways to engage (140:52–145:00)

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• On parental leave:
  “I cannot—paid parental leave. How did people manage this without paid parental leave?” (04:40, RC)

• On BHA’s real purpose:
  “That widget would be conservation leaders... public land, public water, public wildlife. And the access word would be like access to those things.” (15:05, RC)

• On volunteerism:
  “You have this sweat equity in your public lands.” (21:37, RC)

• On stewardship culture:
  “Got to get this stewardship ownership mindset, like indoctrinated into people in as young as we can get them.” (28:55, RC)

• On regulation and legacy:
  “There’s not a politician alive today that wouldn’t like to be favorably compared to Theodore Roosevelt... I’m sorry, he was a regulation guy.” (46:44, SR)

• On individual responsibility:
  “If everybody just gives a shit. And it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this is ours. It’s a national treasure.’” (32:55, RC)

• On public land appreciation:
  “We viewed it and treated it as though it fell from the sky... always had been there, always would be there. And there was no sense of personal ownership.” (35:52, SR)

• On the value of hard-won wildness:
  “None of this is luck... it is all here because people before us made real choices, sometimes very unpopular.” (136:19, RC)

• On community:
  “You’re not just a fundraiser, you’re a doer. I want to go out and do stuff.” (140:52, RC)

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IMPORTANT SEGMENTS & TIMESTAMPS

• [03:19] Cal on new baby and parental leave
• [11:26] Cal’s transition to BHA, what the org does and how
• [16:59] BHA gets BLM “Conservation Partner of the Year” award
• [25:45] Discussion of public land patterns, East vs. West
• [32:09] Building a stewardship “ethic” in young people
• [43:09] Social contract versus enforcement in hunting/fishing regulation
• [46:44] The importance of regulation, legacy of TR
• [67:51] OHV order analysis: rhetoric vs. reality
• [79:40] Roadless Rule: What’s really going on?
• [102:23] Corner crossing: definitions, legal status, living issues
• [124:15] New push for “hunting around agriculture” education
• [130:18] The pitfalls of being only the “No guy” in conservation
• [133:25] Ambler Road and Alaska’s untrammeled places
• [136:19] Foundational message: wildness is a gift we must choose
• [140:52] What BHA needs from its community

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FINAL CALLS TO ACTION

• Join BHA to support grassroots, boots-on-the-ground conservation (140:52)
• “You’ll be a part of an awesome community. The ripple effects of that community are going to turn everybody into stewards from this tall on up.” (142:55, RC)
• Stay educated, take action when called—BHA’s alerts connect users to real opportunities to make an impact in their home states

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TONE & TAKEAWAYS

This episode fuses humor (“Homemade. You have a two and a half week old baby and you brought a dog into the house?” 11:05, SR), humility, and real talk about the hard work and compromise needed to keep public lands wild, accessible, and healthy. There’s a strong sense of optimism: stewardship and advocacy work, and an American outdoor legacy isn’t an accident—it’s a deliberate, sometimes difficult choice that everyone, from volunteers to policymakers to parents, can help make and keep.

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For more:

• Visit backcountryhunters.org
• Listen to “Cal’s Week in Review”
• Get involved; become a member, show up, speak up, and get your hands dirty!

Transcript

[Steven Rinella]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Steven Rinella]

good Lord. It's Ryan Callahan. Back from the dead.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Or back from fatherhood. You had a baby?

[Ryan Callaghan]

I assisted in having a baby.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand. How long ago we.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So the Friday is the birthday, so it's very easy to keep track unless you're in between Fridays like we are right now.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So it's. Oh, two and a half weeks.

[Steven Rinella]

Two and a half weeks?

[Ryan Callaghan]

No, three weeks.

[Steven Rinella]

First child ever.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Three and a half weeks. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

First.

[Ryan Callaghan]

First child ever. And baby boy came out 7 pounds, 5 ounces. And that, that, that's a stat that

[Steven Rinella]

people share, but I don't think that mo. That's.

[Ryan Callaghan]

It's all relative.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't know that that means a lot to people.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Everything perfectly average. Like the, the doc said, like, perfectly average. Big hands, big feet, you know, but might grow into those type of thing.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And it was kind of hilarious.

[Steven Rinella]

An average little baby.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes. Yep. Perfectly average. But you're like. Oh, kind of like clown hands and clown feet, which was funny. And then definitely my hairline, which is a bummer for that kid.

[Steven Rinella]

The baby has your hairline? Yeah, it's like high up.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Widow's peak. Comes back real far.

[Steven Rinella]

Born with a widow's peak.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

What's your biggest takeaway so far? Being a dad,

[Ryan Callaghan]

I, you know, like, the biggest thing is I'm like, it's not that big of a deal as like, I think we're, we're blessed for the fact that it's not. We don't fall in any of like the horror story categories.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah,

[Ryan Callaghan]

it is a hands on thing, but the thing that I just keep coming back to is I'm like, oh, my God, I cannot. Paid parental leave. How did people manage this without paid parental leave? Oh, I'm like, that is such a. An un. Like, that is the thing that makes this thing doable.

[Steven Rinella]

You know what they give you in the military? The dad. Three days.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

You got three days.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I was talking to my buddy Kyler, who I used to build houses with, and he's like, two days per kid. That's what we do, you know? And I'm like, I'm just like, so blown away by it like, I get a focus on this as my job and get through that initial learning curve. It's all a learning curve, but. And will be forever, I suppose. But I'm just blown away by that. I'm like, this is. And I just feel like it's got to, like, make for better relationships with, you know, between the. The parent and child bond.

[Steven Rinella]

The dad gets to be there and help a little bit at first.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, for sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

No, I took note that you somehow managed to get the baby out of the hospital without it having a name.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And when we had our kids, I felt by the time we went away, they had a name.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

How. How did you. What did you have to say to say that? I don't know the name yet.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, the thing that I think got us out of there without the name is the fact that somebody was like, well, I thought you legally had to have a name. And I said, no, you don't. And the hospital admin person kind of pauses for a second, serious.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, you get. You guys discussed it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah. Because we were fully being like, oh, yeah, we're gonna see the little nipper. This is how the whole thing's gonna go. And by the time we leave, we'll have the name.

[Steven Rinella]

He looks like a Chucky.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Exactly. And you're just bugged non stop. To the point where I'm like, hey, Sam has got to get some rest, you know, but every shift change, there's vitals and then, you know, all the. The things. And. And so we just got to the point where, like, we have got to get out of here. There's no rest. There's no time to actually just like, sit with this and, you know, figure things out. And then. Yeah. I will tell you that we are still nameless here at three and a half weeks in, but we are very, very close to about three names right now.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Yeah. Now

[Sponsor Announcer]

the.

[Steven Rinella]

The mother.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Shared. I heard this secondhand Sam shared with another friend of ours that she said it took Cal months to name his dog.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

So I don't know. Maybe it's gonna take a while.

[Ryan Callaghan]

A lot of it might be a generational thing or it might just be certain people, but I've. A lot of the folks in my extended friends and family have been like, oh, yeah. None of my kids came home with the name.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, really?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I just felt like. I don't know why. I don't know where I got the idea, but I just came away thinking that it was like. Like it was like an edict From God that you name before they come out.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Now that I'm learning, it's not. It's too late. They all got names.

[Ryan Callaghan]

My grandpa passed away like three months before. He had like this, these series of complications that were like, you're going to have to go in and get your chest drained and all these things in order to stay alive to meet this baby. And he was in perfect mind and. And you know, so it was a bummer. 91 or 92. 91 or 92. And. And you know, he's a James. And so I was like, you know, I can't get the name James out of my head because I was so excited for this, for gramps to meet this kid. And then, you know, I was like, hey, you got to stick around. He's like, well, how long is that gonna be? It was like three months. He's like, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And didn't make it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. He's like, I'll see him later type video.

[Steven Rinella]

No kidding.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Because yeah, it just was. He had, you know, he's an old doc and stuff. Didn't, you know, had do not resuscitate some things.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

He had his plan laid out of

[Steven Rinella]

like not one I didn't know. So he passed away.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

[Steven Rinella]

I can't. I don't think I knew that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, it's like three and a half months ago now, you know, so. But that was like. And I think James is still in the running, but now we're like so far down the name rabbit hole, you know, there's like the social pressure of being like, oh, you guys waited three months and you came up with Jim.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, no, yeah. They're expecting some real razzle dazzle now, man. They're expecting like something crazy, you know.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Exactly. Yeah. And a bunch of folks were like, snort was such an awesome name for your dog. We're really, really can't wait to hear what you named the kid.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, you could take Snort, give that name to the kid and then think of a new name for the dog.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

If you needed to do something like that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. But we also kind of already did that because I had gotten in a panic about getting a new puppy to give Snort some backup prior to the kid showing up. That didn't happen. But the breeder that I got snort from her, the Snort sister, the same litter, was having her last litter and I was like, oh my God, I got to have one of those dogs. And I just, just got that dog yesterday. Oh, so that dog got one of the kid names right away. So we named named the puppy.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, you took a discard and gave it to the dog.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Homemade. You, you have a two and a half week old baby and you went and brought a dog into the house.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, but the dog's way more advanced than the kid is Dog's eight weeks old.

[Steven Rinella]

So. Because they're in dog, they're living in dog years.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Well man, much I love babies. I want to talk about your other big life change.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

So a lot of you listeners know Cal from Cal's Week in Review. And a lot of you know that Cal recently went over not even what, I don't know, few months ago. Six months ago.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Six months now.

[Steven Rinella]

Six months ago Cal took over as I believe they. Is it CEO?

[Ryan Callaghan]

It's president and CEO. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

President CEO of the conservation organization Backcountry hunters and anglers. What's going on? How's that been?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, I mean it's been awesome. I, I mean as you know like I found like every which way to make all my previous jobs harder than they needed to be because I was always trying to find good conservation stories or angles or, or ways to make bigger impacts and that gets. It's a way more complicated job but it's also in a way more simple and focused.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because it's like that's what I'm doing as my job every minute of the day.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. And you're, you're leading a team of how many people?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right now we are 36.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So membership organization, active membership. You know we got like a bunch of members that aren't active. Active membership. We're a little over 30000 right now.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Growing, which is great to see. And then 44 chapters, active chapters across North America. You know we have. They're not chapters anymore because they're officially standalone non profits in Canada.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But Alberta and British Columbia and which is you know out here we have a lot of cross border issues, conservation issues and then. Yeah we have. Everybody kind of works on everything but it's like a stewardship so like hands on dirt underneath the fingernails, side of the house policy and and I kind of break it down into like community building. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

So I think people know like people that follow these things, people that support the org know that BHA as it's commonly known, the BHA stands for public lands. But like, like how do you describe like a layer deeper. How do you describe BHA to somebody when you say like our mission is to what?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, I've Been thinking about this a lot because the scope of the organization and I'm not beating up on anybody, right, but it's like Trout Unlimited people, they're like, okay, general idea. Yeah, yeah. And then people are like, well, what does it bha, what is it that they actually do?

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, exactly. Rmef. Yeah. And intentionally the scope of BHA was really broad because they wanted to fill all these gaps that were kind of getting left out of some of these species specific hook and bullet organizations. And oftentimes that would just be like BLM land wilderness and there's wilderness organizations out there. But there weren't any that were really like firmly pro hunt. Pro fish. Yeah, they may have been at one point and they, they work on similar issues, but it's not like the mast head. And that idea is sound, but it makes the, the mission huge. I think the benefit is we can think a little more holistically, but the negative is we get spread really thin. So by and large, if we were a like a for profit business building the widget, as they say in the business world, that widget would be conservation leaders. And it's like people who show up and want to do stuff and that is advocate for their issues which, you know, if you're working on behalf of bha, it's our issues too. But public land, public water, public wildlife. And the access word would be like access to those things. And that can get kind of nuanced on, on the wildlife side of things, but it makes the organization a little more swift and adaptable. And then on stewardship it is literally coming out and augmenting landscape. So habitat work, which for us would by and large be trail improvements and juniper removal, some planting. But our migration corridor work is really, really significant. And again because of our scope, nobody really knows about it, but we just got the Bureau of Land Management's Conservation Partner of the year award.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh really?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Which like we just punch so far out of our weight class. There a lot of really big organizations get this, that have hundreds of employees and deal in, in many, many millions of dollars of federal grant work to do this stuff. And so yeah, really incredible that, that we got this award and we almost exclusively remove or augment fence within migration corridors.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Which basically you have your big grazing

[Steven Rinella]

doing like the physical work.

[Ryan Callaghan]

The physical work.

[Steven Rinella]

So people might use GPS collar data or car crash data to know that these are problematic areas along migration corridors and do the physical hands on work of removing barriers.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. And oftentimes it's, it's your grazer on the ground, who has their allotment. And they're like, you can't keep a fence up here.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Like we build them in the spring and winter migration comes and they all go down type of thing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And so we'll go in there, survey those fence lines. And so you have like your, your allotment fences, which kind of by design of the blm, are always firm, like they're always up, non negotiable. And we'll go in and augment those, those fences to wildlife friendly.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then you have your interior fences that basically create pastures within that allotment. Those ones are negotiable. So if they. There's a lot. The US used to produce a lot of sheep. Right. And there's a lot of that, you know, square fencing out there on the landscape that.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I always call it hog wire. I don't know what they, I don't know what they're supposed to call it. And like just people listening, like everybody can picture a barbed wire fence.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And, and you'll talk about whether it's three strand or four strand, whatever. And, and for wildlife friendly fencing, there's considerations about how low the bottom strand is, meaning can pronghorn or whatever get under it. There's considerations about how high the top strand is. Like, can it. Will it stop stuff from being able to jump it? Right. Does that have barbs on it that could hang stuff up. Then there's this other question of when you put these, these panels in that have like 8 inch squares.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Which no big games getting. No big games getting through that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

By going under. Right.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. And. And it's a small game thing too. Right. They're hell on sage grouse. And like if you can picture an animal on the landscape, you can find it dead in one of those fences somehow, some way. Mountain lions, bobcats, everything. But. So go in, cut that stuff down, roll it up, pack it out. Also installing virtual fence.

[Steven Rinella]

So there's.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. There's big grants out there for the, the actual producer to trial virtual fencing. Right. So we'll put up the. And then it's vents. Is the, the working? Right? Yeah, yeah. Put up towers for that. Creates the connectivity for each individual caller.

[Steven Rinella]

No kidding.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's a bunch of cool stuff happening out there. And the, the BLM uses their own math to like measure impact on. On there. And, and depending on where you are in those migration corridors, you can, you know, it's all hard, but we had one project last year that was a one day fence pole 2.1 miles. And the impact because of the. The location was over 30, 000 miles of, of positive impact within that migration corridor.

[Steven Rinella]

Help me understand that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

It's. I think it's because of bottlenecks that animals are moving through and dispersing to.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then. And then some of them are six miles and way less.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Too. So our job, the steward team, ship team's job is to look at these projects. And then. Because most of what we do and this is like the doing things the hard way, but I think in the long run, the better way is we're trying to empower whoever wants to show up to do the work. So volunteers, because we want people to have that sense of ownership in their public lands and resources.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So. And then they're all mixed groups. So you have a lot of people who will. Because we'll, we'll put up signage at like Reis and, and try to get people from all slices of the pie to show up. And they're in this mixed group. And we try to get people to camp out on a Friday night. So you leave work with your car, camp and stuff. Ideally show up Friday night. Oftentimes we try to have some sort of wild game food there for the volunteers. And then we get to talk about wild food and where it comes from and, and everybody gets a taste of that the next morning. You get a brief on what we're going to do that day. You get tools, you get team leads. We get lots and lots of repeat volunteers on these things. So they get, you know, you kind of have like crew chiefs that are volunteers too. And then you're out there rubbing shoulders with hunters, non hunters, you know, birders, whatever, you know, people who just thought it was. Was neat and, and certainly people at all across the skill level spectrum. And then you have this sweat equity in your, in your public lands. You have Bureau of Land Management professionals out there. Oftentimes you have the grazers out there too. And it's really the secret sauce. Right. Because you have people who are like, nobody gives a shit about this stuff. And then they kind of get blown away by like, oh yeah, man, these are really random people.

[Steven Rinella]

People showing up and doing it, care about this stuff.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So we've gotten 2,000 volunteers out on the landscape right now. And you know, the idea Right. Is like, there'll be like a little ripple effect.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Within those communities. And, and they get to be like, oh my gosh, this is really hard stuff. And, but it has an outsized Impact.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And rub shoulders with new people. Tried wild game for the first time. And so our, our stewardship coordinators have a really hard job because they're handling a lot of logistics and trying to find these projects where you can conceivably draw from a bunch of population centers to get people out and then make sure that you have people on the ground too that are supportive of the work. Right?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because you have a lot of burned out folks on the landscape who are like. Because these contracts, some of these contracts don't get bid on, some of these contracts get picked up by groups that are well intentioned but just can't get things done on the landscape. And we want to have a stellar reputation. Right. And so far it's working. Right. So we got, got that award which

[Steven Rinella]

is you want to get like if you say you're going to do it, you're going to do it. Yeah, yeah. Now you guys here, you brought me this shirt. Phil, can you see this Good. Oh yeah. Cal brought me this shirt. So Michigan says this land is my land, but it's like the mi. Michigan. And it shows in orange. It shows public land.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Thank you, buddy.

[Steven Rinella]

Phil, tell me when you can best see this sucker. Okay, here's Michigan. It shows public land in orange. Okay. This is all public land in Michigan. And you were saying the point of the shirt is show. Here's a, like we, we oftentimes a lot of guys, especially people out west, associate public land out west. And even just talking to you mentioned big grain migrations, juniper encroachment. Okay. These are like, these are sort of like western things.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

But then you got 44, 24 chapters.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

All over in the east, right?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

What like help me understand that. So Michigan, I get it. Like, man, there's a boatload of public land in Michigan. But, but if you go south of there, Ohio, Indiana. Right. Much less.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Right. You get up in the Northeast, you get more. But you got these pockets where there's not much. But you got chapters there and you got volunteers there. If what is the, what is the eastern equivalent of pulling fences? What is the eastern equivalent of improving grasslands by removing junipers in areas where junipers are encroaching on western grasslands? Like what does that look like somewhere else?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, the juniper, like the green glacier thing that I know we've covered on, on Meat Eater before that juniper encroachment into our grasslands is a major issue throughout the whole prairie states. And we'll do some of that work in Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and, and then there's there's a lot of burning, you know, out, out in those states too. And then just low barrier to entry. Right. Like what BHA has been doing. Well and, and really my dream right. Is, is to have an accessible conservation group to where it's like, if you don't have a bunch of money, we still got plenty of things for you to do. If you don't want to go to a banquet, we got stuff for you to do. If, you know, I want the whole political spectrum, the whole working class spectrum to be invested in their public land, public water and public wildlife. Even if you never step foot or interact with those things. I got lots of arguments as to why they should matter.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But if you show up to these community events, you get to meet these people firsthand and you may not have a thing in common other than the fact that you appreciate this stuff, but turns out that's a lot. Right. So stewardship in some areas made. Never get beyond a public land trash pickup.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And, but oftentimes we'll, we'll make them. You know, it's like what we talk about a lot. Right. Is like you can have a really strong message. Message as long as it's like 80 fun.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So we'll have biologists come out and talk about turkeys and why what you're doing picking up trash in this area is a good thing for that resource. Or talk about burning ecology, stuff like that. Have giveaways, but make it like a family friendly event.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because, you know, one of the things that I'm very convinced on is like, we got to get this stewardship ownership mindset, like indoctrinated into people in, in as young as we can get them.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Because you know, that's some Aldo Leopold stuff, man. Like.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. That

[Steven Rinella]

being an active participant.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Out on the landscape, man. Like his thing of like the, you know, the, the person wielding the, the person wielding the ax or whatever, you know, like, like the, the person out working on the landscape as, as a

[Ryan Callaghan]

conservationist, you know, and, and, and I would ask.

[Steven Rinella]

I mean, I love going down and winning. I, I love going down and bidding on auction items at the banquet as much as the next guy. But like, there's more to it.

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[Ryan Callaghan]

There's this thing that I think's gotten us in trouble over the years, which is like somebody else will do it for us. And that, that is part of the benefit of a membership organization. Like we have people at the State House, at the Capitol because you have a job and, and you cannot be there. But we work our asses off to empower volunteers to be there too and get that feeling of, of, of, of empowerment and, and ownership of. I get to represent myself and my community at the Fish and Game Committee or at. In front of Congress even, right? But I feel really strongly that we kind of got in this, like, oh, the ranger will come by and pick that up.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Type of mindset. The government's going to do it for me. And it's like, now we're in this crazy political football age where you can take whole programs of the government doing it for you and they're gone in the blink of an eye. Right? And then it's like, okay, well, is everybody going to get so pissed that we're going to be like, okay, sell it? Right. Well, there's all sorts of ways that we can try to prevent that through working within the political spectrum. But the surefire way to prevent that is if everybody just gives a shit. And it's like, oh, my God, this is ours. It's a national treasure. We're invested in this. And I learned about this in kindergarten and grade school. And, you know, we are invested as Americans in our natural resources, and so much so that they go on beyond the next administration. Yeah, Right. We're talking about these things in perpetuity. And that's part of the. What community building will do, is you go, oh, the burden's not just mine. It's Steve or Ellis and Phil the engineer and all these people from across the spectrum, like, we all are invested in this. It is ours. It's our American right. And it's. You get away from some of this. This kind of politics stuff, this choose inside stuff, because this stuff is squarely in the middle.

[Steven Rinella]

There's a level of realizing about public lands and public land resources and a personal responsibility to them. There's a level of maturity that is required to see those places that way. And I say this from my own experience and. And I've mentioned. I've talked about this a bunch before. I grew up near what was then Manistee National Forest. I think it's got a slightly more complicated name now, but that's kind of the southern end of Manistee National Forest. We hunted on it, hunted rabbits on it, trapped it, recreated on it, had BB gun wars on it. It was like we viewed it and treated it as though it fell from the sky. It was just that it was there, always had been. There, always would be there. And there was no sense of personal ownership. Right. And it would be that you'd go to kegger parties, and the kegger parties would be out on the national forest, and you'd burn tires and burn pallets and, you know, 10th grade, whatever, and then walk away because it's just here.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Someone will get it. Do you know what I mean?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And it was like it took. And I don't know if I, even if I had someone telling me the, the conservation history of those spaces and someone telling me what is required to maintain these places and the deliberate actions that took place to make them here and to make them available and make them public. Even if you told me that it might not have clicked that I was a certain age anyway for sure. But I think that it would have definitely helped if someone had articulated it to me. But I don't think it was really even known or recognized by our elders.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Like people. Didn't you. The term like this is in Michigan. The, the vocabulary wasn't there.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Do you know what I mean? No one, even our, the grownups. If I'd have said why is this here? No one would have said, oh it was because of this act of Congress or the actions of this president. And like here's all the deliberate steps that took place to make it what it is. And here's the management strategy and here's what does happen and doesn't happen and here's the work that goes into it. It was absent. It was absent. I don't know what I'm telling you. I'm telling you something you already know. But when you go out in the woods, you see where people like just decided to like shoot trees down for target practice and like trash a place. It is, it's cuz. It's like they view it like a, like a guarantee. Do you follow me?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, and there's that. And there, there is just what you said. Like they don't know.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Like when we were. Yeah. I'm having a lot of conversations with, with land owners here in the state of Montana. Like, like mid level to large landowners in the state of Montana. And there's a lot of just like for sure and certain things that come out and, and it's like the percentage of folks who display poor behavior on private and public land.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

The vast, vast, vast majority just do not have a freaking clue at this point.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. They have no idea about agriculture. They have no idea about a lot of whether it's in the regulation book or not. The kind of like the hunter's code, the ethics of certain things. The stuff that we talk about a lot. Like just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right in all cases type of thing. And, and then there's a percentage that are just doing bad stuff.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, right. But if I had, man, I feel like, I feel like when I was a kid, if it had been that my old man dragged us out to go do A stream project on the national forest or in some way instilled this idea that like this is sweet and it's here because people. It's not here by accident.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Y.

[Steven Rinella]

Right. It's here because people work for it. And Cherish might have set me off in a different direction earlier, but I think in a lot of places it's absent, man. It's absent. So what I'm getting at with that is that like that kind of work of just even results, like the labor that you're talking about results in a good result or. Sorry, it yields a good result. Moving a fence, improving migration. But it's more than that because it probably is very eye opening for people to. To all of a sudden understand like, oh, I see.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

What this is.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, I understand now what this is, man. This is like a thing we fight

[Ryan Callaghan]

for and that's like we can protect it. Cash to go that grant money. We can. It's in our power to use that cash to go pay contractors. Right. And just third party the whole deal.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But what's the, the long term effect of that? Yeah, right. It's like I would say not much in comparison. So.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. To make it. Yeah. To be able to build a generation of people who kind. Who just are invited to see it as a thing that you labor for.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, as a thing that people labor for and as a thing to deliberate actions to create for you would make it a lot harder to go shit it up.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And I think we've had as a nation, as a by and large, like an ethos of serious reverence for public wildlife. For instance. Right. Like there's all you can research all sorts of articles that were in papers of like saw a deer today. Right. White tail deer was spotted on so and so's place out by whatever that was in the. In the newspaper.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Like it was noteworthy.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, it was a. It was a really big deal. And so there's this era of extreme scarcity that came on the back end of an era of I would say like abundance to greed, which led into, oh my God, I better get it before it's gone. It's going to be gone anyway.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then here comes this overwhelming surge of again, reverence and, and what we call conservation today. And then I think your dad's era. Right. It was like, I really don't want to think about anything. By and large. I've been through a lot. I'm more out here for a level of independence and, and therapy of some sort. And now I Can point to like many, many examples across western states. They're seeing a lot of hunter pressure relative to the history of those states. Or doll sheep in Alaska, where hunter behavior anecdotally has really changed around that resource. Where it used to just be like you'd get laughed out of town if you shot a legal ram, but now it's like a legal ram is what you're after. Because by God, if I don't get it now, yep, it's going away anyway type of mindset. Right. And throughout all of these changes in history, our federal workforce peaked in the 1970s and the demands on that public ground have only increased. And that workforce hasn't increased along with those demands. And now we're dropping way back down. And my only point here is that at the beginning of the national park system or the forest system, the refuge system, there was never a point in time where there were so many wardens on the landscape that you were going to get caught.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. It was a social contract out there that was like, by God, you better respect this stuff. And it was the other users on the landscape that were really enforcing these things. Plus the idea of the super sneaky woods wise game warden that was going to pop out of nowhere type of thing. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

You know what's funny about that, man? I. We hunt and fished all the time since I was very little kid. I never got checked by a game board until I was 20 years old.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. And believe it, 20 years old.

[Steven Rinella]

Never laid. Not that I didn't lay eyes on one. Never got checked by one. You're right. I mean, it really is like a, like speeding. You know, you kind of don't speed because you don't want to ticket.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

But in fish and game law there is, there's a social contract. Right. You don't go like, I better get a license because I'll get checked today. You're just like, you feel this moral obligation to get your license.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. The math does not add up on getting checked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

You do it out of some. Like because you do it because you believe in the system. Yeah, to some degree.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we, we're a relatively small conservation group. Right. But I mean, if, if that is the goal, it will never end. But I would sure like it to. Right. Like if we had a nationalistic pride in these resources and they are resources extraction is, is part of who we are as well. But there's been many times throughout our history where we were like, oh my God, we need to self regulate and that self regulation turns into a whole system of regulations because it has just got to happen. And what's really interesting right now is I know through conversations from the White House, throughout the Senate and the House, there, there is a drive right now for deregulation.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And a lot of the people who are pushing for deregulation are not connected to these resources at all. There are many degrees of separation.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But they are running off of. Well, that's what the people want. Right. And our job, as is the job of a TRCP and many other conservation groups, is to say like, yeah, there's changes that can be made and there's antiquated things out there that don't make sense. But the reason that we're having this conversation right now is only because of regulation and the adherence to those.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh. That there's anything left to argue about.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. On the hunt and fishing side of things, we just wouldn't be having this conversation.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. It's like, I mean, you're, you're.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. You're bringing up a huge point. I always like to bring up this point that there's not a politician alive today that wouldn't like to be favorably compared to Theodore Roosevelt. Right. Anyone would be like, oh, if you're going to favorably compare me to tr, please, I'll accept not only that there are politicians that claim the mantle of TR that are undeserving of, of that, but they, they want it so bad, they'll just take it for themselves.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

They'll draw comparisons. It's like, I'm sorry, he was a regulation guy. He was a regulation guy because lack of regulation had brought us into the dark ages of American wildlife. And so when we applaud, when anyone applauds the North American model, when they applaud TR or TR being up on Mount Rushmore, what you're applauding is you're applauding someone saying, we are going to put limits. We are going to regulate harvest, we're going to regulate sale of wildlife, we're going to regulate timber extraction to then land in a spot. To land then land in. The luxury of saying that the American way is to deregulate. It's, it's mindboggling. Memories are so short.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Memories are so short. You know, obviously there's an opportunity here right now too. But one of the things that is certainly part of our mission at BHA is like, we have got to get if, if you love doing anything on public lands or seeing anything on public lands or seeing migratory birds, songbirds whatever it is, like, you have got to get active here, and you gotta start associating with other groups and finding these big common themes. Right. So obviously, I know you guys have covered like, roadless rule a bunch. The executive order on OHV use oil and gas lease sales deregulation through the big beautiful bill list really does go on and on. That is the theme that is happening here.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Is. Is broad deregulation, because that's what the American people want. Right. And yeah, we have got to be like, wait, not that and not that. And this could. Can be done better. And.

[Steven Rinella]

But there's a model of. There's a model of pointing to. There's sort of a rhetorical strategy where you go find examples of regulations that are antiquated or regulations that don't work or regulations that are just goofy. And maybe you always have been goofy.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Or excessive. And you go, because of that, let's just ditch the whole thing.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, it's a point I bring up. Like, a way I think about it is, is if you look. If you go back to Covid. Covid restrictions, you could look and say, and I saw people do it. I did it. The minute someone's like, man, you shouldn't. You need to be scared of the boxes that were delivered in your yard. Like, leave them out there for a couple days, you know? And then you hear someone say, like, well, that. That's. That's ridiculous. And you're like, you get fixated on how dumb that was. And then you get to where, like, I'm not listening to any of this stuff.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right, right. You know, I mean, like, yeah, remember the box thing?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Like the boxing dude, Pretty far off.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm done washing my hands. The box thing was crazy. Yeah, but that's like a human way where you. You find.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You.

[Steven Rinella]

You sort of see this category of things. One of those things seems crazy, and instead of isolating out the crazy one, you get where you're just done.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, yeah, you're done.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You see it in friendships.

[Steven Rinella]

You have a great friendship with someone and they do a thing a couple times. Eventually you're just like, I know, I know. He's got some nice things.

[Sponsor Announcer]

I'm done.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, I think that there is. We hit these in. In, like, regulatory stuff where you'll hear about a crazy thing. And then people get like,

[Ryan Callaghan]

yeah, absolutely.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's just go back to the old way, you know, and you kind of go like, you want to be like, well, let's. Let's address the real problems. But let's keep our eyes on what the goal is here.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, like we agree that we want clean air and clean water and healthy wildlife populations. Like we agree on that and sure, let's talk about these things that are off, but we don't. We just, we jump to a radical, we jump to a radical thing.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Absolutely.

[Steven Rinella]

There's some government waste. Kill the whole thing. You know,

[Ryan Callaghan]

insanely diverse landscape that we have. Right. Like blessed as an American with unbelievable opportunities that can be so wildly different from an edge of one state to another state or the end of a watershed to the top end of a watershed. The people on the ground understand that you can't like blanket manage all of this stuff. Like it is complicated and it does take time and it takes real on the ground knowledge to inform how that stuff needs to be managed. And that complicated, you know, time consuming approach to something that we will never be able to recreate ever gets wrapped up in this like. Well, see, the government can't do anything. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Right.

[Sponsor Announcer]

What?

[Steven Rinella]

This might be hard to answer.

[Sponsor Announcer]

What. When you're talking about like you're, you're

[Steven Rinella]

talking about doing work on BLM land. Right. So, so you're coming in and doing like you're, you're coming in on. There's federal property and you're coming in and doing work on federal property. So you have private people coming in and doing work on federal property. Or you could have private people, a private organization coming in and helping clear trails on, on federal land. So there's jobs that need to be done.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

On public lands that aren't getting done or aren't getting done all the way. And so there's a need for private people to come in, do it. Have you seen like in your time in your role and you've been involved in BHA for a very long time as a board member.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

But so in your time there, particularly in your time in the leadership position, have you seen like literal situations where doge cuts have left things undone, that then that then private organizations have found a way to go in and get taken care of. Or is it not? Or is it not that literal?

[Ryan Callaghan]

There's certain, like staffing is a huge issue because like it's not. And like there was a time where there just literally wasn't a person in the office who could physically handled the check, couldn't write the check, sign it, put it in a mailbox.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You just. That has to get done somehow and there wasn't a backup mechanism for that.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

When we talk about Inventorying a, a fence line, for example. You know, there, there's a lot of communication on the ground with, with the people on the ground would be it a rangeland ecologist or, you know, on the Forest Service side. Any, any number of, of people. Right. They get stretched in on a, on a bunch of things because they're not going out there to address problem A and they run across problem B and they just ignore it. So there's gaps that I think the private sector is, is very capable of filling in. But oftentimes, is that historical knowledge on a landscape.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

That is the real conduit to making that private sector work anywhere near efficient.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Like, you guys can't just roll up in a truck and decide what fence you want to start working on. I mean, it's got to go. Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You're going to come in on what road?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, yeah, no, I see that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

No, you need to drive 300 miles around and come in on this road and it'll be faster and way less wear and tear on your equipment than trying to come in on the road that's 50 miles long.

[Steven Rinella]

So you find places where, like just those, there's gaps in those pieces. Yeah, like, like pass through individuals, aren't there?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. Yep. For sure.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, for sure.

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[Steven Rinella]

anything from the last. Let's go back to the beginning of the current administration. What are things that happen in, in like Trump to. And a lot of things get, I want to preface that a little bit. A lot of things get plugged to like the administration that are probably well outside of the White, the view of the White House. Right. Like you'll hear like, you know, Trump is doing X or the administration is doing X. You'd be like, yes, the administration, but many layers removed from the White House. Meaning in the White House, they're probably not aware of this. It's coming from downstream. Right. But can you think of many cases or any cases of things that have come out in the last year and a half that, that you can applaud to me, like, like what are you looking at that excites you?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, I mean, I do and I'm

[Steven Rinella]

not saying you have to provide something because I see, I've, I've seen some things.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh for sure. But, but, well, I do, I want

[Steven Rinella]

to point out things to excite me

[Ryan Callaghan]

is I've seen it depress me that as you know. Right. Like if you're, you're in a leadership position, you have a lot of people providing you with, with information and, and some of those people may or may not have agendas, but they, they do want typically to make things go well and they're probably outsourcing information too. And we've come across many things here recently where we've heard directly from high level officials, conversations like, well, we were told that everybody wanted this and you're telling me that that's not true. And why are we getting so much negative feedback on this thing that was overwhelmingly positive? And you have the feeling in the back of your mind of like, oh, you were misinformed.

[Steven Rinella]

Give me an example. So let me. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to, like, leave you. Trying to struggle to understand my intents. Let me. Let me ask it a little bit differently. Our. Our organization, like, like at Mediator, we've talked a lot about. We covered in Trump 1, we covered a little bit during the Biden administration. We covered again in Trump, too, of the move in Trump 2 being the biggest move in this direction was, like, freeing up hunting and fishing opportunities on refuges. Refuges, yeah. In some areas administered by the National Park Service.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And we've explained it, applauded it, defended the rationale. Okay. The other day, someone sends me a op ed of someone saying, like, a lot of media organization, he doesn't name names. So he's like, a lot of media organizations, a lot of wildlife organizations, a lot of conservation organizations refuse to acknowledge any of the positives.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Huh.

[Steven Rinella]

You know?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And I looked at that, and I'm like, man, that doesn't ring true to me.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

I've.

[Steven Rinella]

I've read about this refuge system all over the. The. The expanded hunting and fishing access on refuge systems. The New York Times attacked it unfairly, and I addressed why I thought it was an unfair attack. We applauded it when it happened the first time. Applauded it. Now, like, no one's ignoring this, but it. But there has been a. In my mind, there's been an undeniable feeling of. Of. Of cascading bad news. And so I just want to. I want to ask you from, like, in your position to not be guilty of what the op ed was saying. Like, from your position. Yeah. What. Have you seen this? Like, like, what are you seeing lately at the federal level that you're applauding or that you're liking?

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, I mean, several executive orders, and I brought up the OHV one. It's a good example. It's having negative consequences right now, unfortunately. But many of the executive orders are big statements that do at the end say, like, unless there's currently a travel management plan in place. Yeah, right. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, it seems, you know, I was putting. The other day, I was putting, like this, like, if I said. Let's say, I said to my kids, I'm like, don't even ask me. Don't even ask me if you can spend the night at your friend's house. I don't want to hear any requests about that. It's done. And then later I'm, I say I don't know what the answer will be on an individual basis, but I'm okay to field requests now. But I don't know what I'll say. But you can at least bring the request to me. So some of these things have this like this and it gets put into press like, oh, it's all open now. You can drive anywhere you want now.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, but you look and be like if you read it in the fine printed just says we'll see case by case basis. Right. But, but something shifts.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes. Yeah. And, and when it comes time to have a new travel management plan, it's going to be. These things are going to be considered. Right. But for the time being, if there's a travel management plan in place, that is the law.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And yeah, a lot of, a lot of media because of this need want for hyperbole have really, really put a ding on our public lands because they're saying, oh, all this stuff's open now.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And that is not the case.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And I can go into a bunch of work that we're doing right now to try to help some positive messaging around that.

[Sponsor Announcer]

So.

[Steven Rinella]

But what really is in the, what really is everybody saw the headlines or not everybody, but there's a lot of headlines like

[Sponsor Announcer]

help.

[Steven Rinella]

Help me describe the general headline about off road use. Like what would be the general headline you saw about off road use?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh, the general. It would be like Trump rolls back Bedrock Travel Management plans. It opens the paves the way for off road use.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Would probably be the thing. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

But what is happening there? Let's take this example. Like what is happening there? Well, so when I saw it, I didn't get a, I didn't get a feeling without, you know, my, my knee jerk reaction was to be like oh, yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

I don't like the sounds of that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

First of all, off road on BLM and forest service land is kind of a misnomer because you can go off road on these designated roads and trails, not cross country travel.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. They all, they, when they say off road, they mean off of pavement.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Off of designated highways. Off of county roads.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Big thoroughfare or main artery type of thing. And then that's broken into single track, motorized. Of course there's single track, non motorized wilderness. No. No bicycles.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. And then you have your 50 inch or less width restriction, four wheel and then you have your, your full size like Jeep trail, high clearance vehicle roads. And that's like, that's where you do your off roading. And then there's certain areas where there is a designated spot for ripping around wherever you want and it is visually the place to do that. Hard to mistake it for anything on

[Steven Rinella]

some big sand dune or something.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah. Yep. And then so what the OHV order did was it said this Nixon era executive order. And then I want to say it's Carter, I'm a little sleep deprived right now. Carter, OHV executive order. We're going to rescind those. They were, you know, I would say like very forward thinking as far as like, hey, as this user group and technology expands, the impacts that we're seeing today are only going to be exacerbated on the landscape.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

We have a lot of industry out and this is something that gets lost a lot. Right. Is we have a lot of extractive use industry that's out there and it will be a danger to individuals and an impediment to those industries if people are riding wherever Helen gone. And it will impact the return that we have on our growing forests or the timber industry. And it's, it's a bad look. It causes erosion which impacts our road systems and our culverts and our spawning habitats and our streams and you know, the typical cascading effects. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then the thing that most people saw was the switch from a de facto closed unless posted open to open unless posted closed. And the way that that works is every district has mvum, a motor vehicle use map, which I always thought was a really sweet idea. It's, you know, you can go get an armload of them if you want. And they're typically at gas stations that are selling off road gas and they're at your ranger district offices and stuff like that. But you have that map in your possession. It shows you exactly what's open to what.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then it's supposed to work as kind of like an affidavit in your pocket too, to be like, oh, I know the rules.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then, you know, be because of like years and years and years of litigation. The way those things are posted and signed. They all have open dates and close dates.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And if you want to color outside the lines on those, if for trail condition closures or whatever, if it's not within the dates, you're not going to get ticketed. Might get a talking to.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But that's, that's how that whole system works. And the implication of those headlines being like oh my God. It's all doom and gloom. Armageddon. It's all over. A lot of people were like, oh, okay. And more.

[Steven Rinella]

What do you mean when you say okay? What do you mean?

[Ryan Callaghan]

So we've just been getting a lot of reports from districts all across North America saying, like, we're seeing rampant cross country travel, motorized cross country travel, and the destruction of signs and gates and as well as the promotion of. Of essentially fake news like that everything's open now.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Versus, hey, travel management plans ride responsibly. Y Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Like any changes that actually occur are forthcoming. Y as they consider rule changes. But it wasn't something that all of a sudden announced from now on, unless if it doesn't say, you can't go there, you can go wherever you want.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And, you know, there's all sorts of implications there. But to go back to like, the. The broader scale of management, when you kind of get into the nuances of all the tools in it, in the toolbox of management where you. You get really ticked, that is like, well, why is this forest service road buttery smooth, and at the end of it there's a big maintained campground and nice toilets and. And potable water or, you know, frost free taps that you can get instant water at your campsite. While as this camp, this road is full of potholes. You got to go really slow, especially if you're towing a camper. And then there's primitive sites at the end of that. And it's like, well, they don't know what they're doing. Well, a lot of times, your travel management plan, your maintenance plan, those are all ways to disperse the amount of pressure that you get within your forest or BLM area. Right. So you're like, yep, this one is, you know, way more conducive to bringing in big pump trucks to hit the pit toilets and.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And. And maintaining at a larger scale. And it's very family friendly. We're going to divert a lot of people here. This road over here is more of a pain in the butt. The site's more remote. It's actually more sensitive to. So we actually want a little less human pressure up there. So that is the reason that the road's a pain in the ass.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Like no one's trying to make it a high traffic area.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Exactly. And we also don't have the staff to maintain that one on a every single day basis like we do down here. Which is why we're diverting more traffic down here.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Type of thing.

[Steven Rinella]

What do you Think what on the, on that ohv. On the off road rule change or paving the way for.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Rule changes going forward. What is the real deep down motivating factor? Like what is someone after.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I, I think it is another case of just like the pendulum swinging really hard. I think roadless rule is, is also a case this. The pendulum swinging really hard. Where. And, and we've gotten direct feedback as to. I just want to say, like, our communication at BHA has changed a lot and I'm adamant that we take an issue, we break it down in a nonpartisan fashion. Take it or leave is just what's happening. There's a page break. Here's BHA's position and why.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And we're a membership organization, which is awesome because I get to say like, this is what the membership wants. And we actually. Yeah. We just, we've had some high level meetings because people have been paying attention to our communications and saying like, hey, thank you for not raking us over the coals on this.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

We were told everybody wants this. You know, like we were told that why is it that we're getting beat up here, here, here, here and here and say, well, we represent a bunch of people who actually love this and it is not always congruous with that. And the reason that we're in this situation is because, you know, certain, we kind of divert certain people up certain trails and we divert other people up other trails. And when you're riding really fast on a dirt bike, you don't really want to be stopping for backpackers all the time. And that's kind of how we have this system. And conversely, you got a string of mules, you don't want mountain bikes or, or motorbikes ripping really fast, especially in spots where there's no place to divert. Right. So capital W wilderness and, and some WSA ground and stuff like that. Right. So there's just a huge burden of education that has to happen here. And, and within the first Trump administration, this Trump administration, they move incredibly fast. Yeah, incredibly fast. And there's a bunch of catch up that's happening. And I posted when this OHV order came out, said, listen, I'm not worried about the motorized use community at large. I'm not aware of any motorized groups that want to see habitat destruction, that want to see a decrease in wildlife populations. You know.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, no one has that policy.

[Ryan Callaghan]

They don't. They don't. That's not part of the mission statement. But every single user group out there has people that are more than Willing to color outside the lines. And I am worried that because of the way that this is messaged that we're gonna see those people out there representing the outdoor community. And it is, it's a burden on all of us. Right? It's like if you get, if you don't have folks who are out there using public lands frequently, even just on like this, what I do most weekends type of basis, you show up and you're like, oh my God, the people that come out to these places are total pigs. Yeah, right. Just as I've been reaching out to a lot of motorized industry folks and a lot of athletes right now to say like, hey, let's work on some messaging that's on responsible use.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And the response has been like, oh, absolutely.

[Steven Rinella]

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now take the, the, the, the role this rule and you mentioned earlier and the role this rule in very simple terms for, for listeners to understand the role this rule. It's one of those political ping pongs that bounce back and forth, but it'll be like, are we cutting new roads onto national forest lands? It became especially relevant to Tongass National Forest where there was is remains a desire to cut in roads on national forests that would lead to old growth timber cuts. Cut in roads where the government would cut in roads on national forest land to facilitate mining activities and other things. The roll this rule came out and said that not constructing large scale roads and areas that are through some formula designated to be like without roads. So not tapping into areas that are, that are of enough of a size to be regarded as an area that has, that is roadless. Right. Doesn't prevent you from cutting a little whatever driveway somewhere or something, but from building roads to access new areas. And it would go in under an administration and then it would get revoked or people would attempt to revoke it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Right now we're in process again of undoing the roadless ruling. Okay. So going back to the time of being able to cut in roads to facilitate mining, to cut in roads to con. To facilitate timber cuts in some cases, to cut in roads to facilitate timber improvement that isn't even related to mining, but just to do timber improvement work. When I asked you on the OHV thing, I asked you like what, what is someone really driving at there? Like are they pursuing a particular end? And you said it's just kind of a pendulum swing of trying to do a large scale reversal of a, of a, of a restriction that was in place with the role this rule. Is it like is undoing the rolled this rule meant to drive a particular project somewhere, or do you. Do you accept it as just a more general movement or is it tied to some, like, distinct thing that someone wants to do somewhere, but in order for them to do it, they have to undo the role of this rule?

[Ryan Callaghan]

I, you know, I think it's both. That there's some, you know, real specific projects in mind. I really don't think it's timber. I think. I think it would be like mineral extraction. And it is just part of this theme of, like, broad deregulation.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I think there's parts of the roadless rule that need to be, like, greatly reformed.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

We're talking. So every state could have had their own version of the roadless rule. Idaho and Colorado are the only states that did that.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So we're really talking about, like, 45 million acres. And we've said from the very beginning, they will tell us what you really want. Because the timber industry says this isn't about. Timber is not going to be 45 million acres.

[Steven Rinella]

Like.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Like, we're talking a few thousand.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Here and here and here and. And maybe a couple hundred miles of road. You know, like, let's talk about that.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, inviting the conversation to get down to like, if. If this is about a thing. Let's talk about the thing.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And. And we haven't gotten there yet.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I will tell you that there's legitimate gripes on the roadless rule because it is open to a little bit of interpretation.

[Steven Rinella]

And

[Ryan Callaghan]

there's been areas, districts for us where the managers decided that they wanted, like, a little extra buffer around their roadless. Their categorized roadless areas.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. And it's like, I mean, just think of all the conversations we've had about, like, the national park has got to end somewhere. You don't get a buffer. Or else just call it park.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Or don't.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. Just for listeners, what Cal's referring to is you might have. I mean, everybody in the world has heard of Yellowstone National Park. Oftentimes there's wildlife management issues. There's. There's wildlife management decisions that are made along the border where the park has a gray area. Right. There's like, if the. If you imagine the park is. Is black on a map and out of the park is white on a map, they create certain gray areas for wildlife management and for other management practices To. To create, like you said, a buffer. Yeah, a buffer zone. Meaning it won't be

[Sponsor Announcer]

that.

[Steven Rinella]

It wouldn't Be that cities get built up to the wall to the line because you're trying to, you're trying to mitigate impacts on the edge that might affect the interior.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep, yep. And then from a wildlife perspective. Right. It's like we have like wolf management zones in Montana that are right against the park.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because socially it was decided like, well, if wolves are going to leave the park, they're probably going to get really beat up right on the edge of the park and then there's going to be a little education curve and the further they get away, the more wary they're going to be, their survivability is going to be higher.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. So some wolf pack that spends 75% of the time in the park and they tend to wander over to some little area, there might be some extra regulation where they wander over in order to protect the integrity of the, of a popular wildlife viewing pack in the park.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah. Well, on the, the roadless side of things, you know, there's like viable sold timber projects that were tied up in a lot of red tape because they were adjacent to. Okay, right. And then, and that, and that causes frustration, big time frustration. Right. And it, and it, like I can see how that leads to like it's totally flawed through the whole thing out.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Like someone saying, no, I get it, we can't, we're not going to cut in the park. But you're saying I can't cut by the park.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not only not by the park, but how far away from the park.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then the roadless rule, as it's written, you can build roads or reopen roads temporarily to go in and do wildfire mitigation. You can go in and do like habitat work.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And oftentimes that stuff gets litigated to death and tied up. And sometimes it's just not even a conversation that people are willing to have because it will get litigated and tied up.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And so the, the proper implementation, and this is where I think conservation has a real, all of us groups have a real failure is we work like hell to build something like the roadless rule. And then the implementation part, like we're in it for the sanctuary areas. Like by God, we got some areas carved out here where there's not going to be roads. It's human powered only. It's going to exclude folks who aren't willing to do that. I'm going to have a little honey hole. And that's our focus. Or we protected, like really protected these zones from anything but natural erosion. We're going to have great Chinook sockeye salmon, bull trout spawning there forever type of thing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, we don't show up when the litigation group show up and say, oh, no, you guys can't do a habitat improvement project. You guys can't go in there and do wildfire mitigation as it's outlined within the roadless rule.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. And so, you know, I haven't put my money where the mouth is yet, but I've had a lot of conversations to see, like, how it would be feasible for a group like backcountry hunters and anglers to weigh in on those on behalf of proactive management.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Not because I think that's exactly why we're here, but I do want to take that argument out of the quiver. Right. And be like, yeah, we came to the table, we signed the dotted line. We agree that this is how the roadless rule should function. So shouldn't we have some skin in making it function that way?

[Sponsor Announcer]

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Iconic summer moments deserve an iconic drink. It is Mountain Dew and American Original. From their beginnings in the foothills of Tennessee to the biggest Fourth of July yet, the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew is the perfect companion to your American summer adventures.

[Steven Rinella]

No matter where you go or who

[Sponsor Announcer]

you are with, bring Mountain Dew to amplify your celebration. When I was in college, Dew was the daytime beverage of choice for all things summer. Rope swings into the river, jumping off bridges into the river tube in the river, fishing the river, riding snowboards down the Lake Michigan sand dunes, right out into the waves and shooting off fireworks at night. You name it, we were powered by Dew. It's been tasting great since 48. That's right. Two brothers created Mountain Dew in the foothills of Tennessee back in 1948. The refreshing citrus kick is perfect for summer and 4th of July at the grill on the beach or right in the living room. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew in American original. Tasting great since 48. Look for American Dew limited time packaging or find it in stores near you@mountain Dew.com. that is Mountain Dew.com.

[Steven Rinella]

it's so interesting you bring that up because I was discussing this with a friend of mine a couple days ago and we were talking about the way the conservation community will get activated around certain marquee very high value around the protection of certain marquee, very high valued areas and resist development on those places. We saw it with a coalition of people from across the sporting and outdoor and birding and commercial fishing spectrum in opposition to developing a mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay. Right. We, so everybody saw that. We saw not nearly as dramatic, but a coming together around protecting the headwaters leading into the, the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. Maybe even less than that, but seeing a coalition of people questioning the idea of pushing back against the idea of building a 250 mile industrial corridor into the Brooks Range called Ambler Road. And what we were talking about is, is like when it's a no, we come out to say no, right?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And if someone came to me and said okay, then okay, I get it. You don't like that. You don't like that. You don't like that. What is okay?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

What is okay? It's a fault. It's like a negative about me. It's a fault that I would say, I don't know, I'll have to tell you when I hear.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Do you know what I mean? Because that's the argument that we use on the roadless rule. Right. Is like, okay, if you're talking about timber, what about all this high alpine terrain where it's so highly erodible you can't build a road and there happens to be no timber. Can we still call that inventory roadless? Yeah, if you want the timber. Right. Like so it's the same argument. Yeah, right.

[Steven Rinella]

But, but I mean, like, but I, I sometimes wonder is if you, if, if you are, if you're going to come and you're going to Be in opposition to some things. At what point do you have an obligation to go and say, but here is what's okay?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. Yep. And.

[Steven Rinella]

Or is it morally okay to just be like, no? I'm the guy that tells you when it's no. I don't know the guy. I don't know the yes guy.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I, I don't think it is. I think the answer, though is like, it is just complicated. We have an insanely diverse landscape. A tree faller, back when those were the dudes really doing the work on the landscape. And there still are. Are plenty, but it's a dying breed. They will tell you, like, you can't cut the same tree twice, meaning that the aspect matters, the slope, the pitch of the. All the things. It is a tree by tree calculation.

[Steven Rinella]

Right? Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Which is why it's, it's hard. And it takes skilled people with lots of, lots of knowledge, lots of practice. So I think people are capable of being the yes person when it comes to a renewable project such as, you know, a good timber project. Right. Good timber project pays lots of dividends on the wildlife side of things. But you're gonna have to wait. But you know it will come back. Right. You're going to eat that cow elk tag for, for that zone. Maybe this year, but there's going to be parts of it next year you can hunt and then there's more of it the following year. Yeah, Right. And then it's probably going to suck for a while, as once in 15 years down the road, depending on where

[Steven Rinella]

you are, it'll be sweet for 10 years after the cut and then, yeah, like lame for a year. Then like increasingly better than eventually, yeah, go away. And you look forward to that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But those areas also do their own job of spreading out the pressure on public land. Right. Because we all have those spots where it takes us years to be like, you know what? This place used to be sweet, but I've just been coming here and it sucked the last three years.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Time to go find a new spot. Well, you've been sitting there pounding your head against, you know, a dense mat of trees. Somebody else is being like, oh, my gosh, this place is sweet. There's nobody here.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, on the other side of that block. Right. And so those changes in the landscape are always a negative and a positive for all, for all of us out there. It's just like the game.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So, yeah, I do think it is, it is possible to be the yes person, but you got to be involved enough to be like, oh, this project's proposed. Is there a mechanism for us to weigh in on that?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, yeah. I think that, that probably, I think that it would be a good pressure relief valve if the. For the conservation community to maybe get more involved in what's. More involved in pointing out and facilitating what's okay. But a lot of it is there's just absolutism.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

And there's been a lot of absolutists that are very celebrated.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And regarded as effective. You know, like, like, like Edward Abbey was a desert absolutist to the point where he sort of. To the point where he. Not even tacitly. To the point where through fiction he like glorified eco terrorism.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

Like he was an absolutist. And a lot of people would look and say, like, absolutism. Anything else is, you know, anything else is your week. Anything else is you have cracks in the, you know, you have cracks in the fence. But I do wonder about being more like if I don't even know the answer to this, that if there had been a greater effort toward negotiating certain things, we would not be in the situation of talking about repealing the, of repealing the road in this rule. You know, I don't know. Another case of absolutism gone wrong in a different direction. The Wild Horse and Burrow Protection Act.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Is there was a time when there weren't that many wild horses around. People thought they were being abused and thought they were going to vanish. They made a absolutism case. And now it has generated enormous friction.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

With wildlife managers. Where you're like, they just left no room. There was, they left no room for, for logical, meaningful corrections to a problem.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, yeah. Because you kind of get to this trap, like we said in the beginning. Right. Like we got to think beyond this administration. Right. And so this OHV deal, like I, I'm, I spend a lot of time. Like I, I feel like everybody knows that I gravitate towards human powered love. My wilderness areas love big backpacking trips. You know, just not like, certainly not a proficient motorized guy. But I'm like, listen, every single trip I take starts with a four wheel drive truck getting me to the trailhead. Right. So I can't be anti motorized use.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. Like that is the thing that facilitates everything.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, 99 times out of 100 for me. And so when these headlines come out and it's like, oh, all the motorized people want this. And I was like, nope, they really don't. I, I know that or it's all the motorized folks are slobs and they're tearing the things up. And I'm like, well, there's lots of different groups out there that preach hard, responsible use all across the landscape and they are policing their own, their own community. And you know, that's like something that we have always done is like, is that social contract. If you're going to represent single track dirt bikes, do it in this manner. Don't do it like this. Yeah, right. Because there is the pendulum swinging the other way. It's like, oh, you lose access to all of this stuff and access can be weaponized. Like it was the first thing that I saw on this job. Right. Is like everybody, you know, Dave, six or seven on the job. I, I went and testified in the House Natural Resources Committee, which was pretty wild, you know, because I did have like a moment of like, oh, I could tank the entire organization right now live on C spam.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, yeah, it's a stressful situation.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I could just say whatever and it would probably just be done, no coming back. But you know, everybody there was talk was like, access, access, access, access. I was like, well, wait a minute, what do you mean?

[Steven Rinella]

I've run into this.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

It means different things to different people.

[Ryan Callaghan]

It means different things to different people.

[Steven Rinella]

You're like, oh, if we're gonna. If that's good, I'm gonna define it how I want and know that everyone thinks it's good.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Because the word is good.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

And.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then we have to have this more in depth conversation of being like, listen, the thing that you're after is only going to survive for so long if that's where we punch a big rod in. If we remove the seasonal closures that exist for wintering range or calving areas. Like the reason that those regulations are in place are so you can go have that experience. It's just, it's only going to be there if you do it in this way.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, that's a great point. What you want to, what you're so dying to get to is there because you can't.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. In these fashions. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

At this time of year or whatever. Right. Like what you're wanting is you're wanting to. Yeah. You're wanting to drive to a thing that wouldn't be there if you could.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And like I. High country mule deer. Right. I used to just love spending so much time early season scouting for mule deer and, and then archery hunting that high country big basin mule deer. Right. And it's like if they See you one time, they're just gone. Right. And it can take them weeks to come back to that spot and yeah, you can go find them again somewhere. But having this notion that you can create access as defined by whatever, like there's some things that just are not going to tolerate. Yeah, right.

[Steven Rinella]

If I could just drive in there and finally get them big old bucks that are hiding back in there.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, well, you can drive away is in there and then get really, really sneaky and hike off trail and you know, play the wind and do all the things that you pick up over the years. And then if you really have the mental fortitude at the end of a long day, drop all your stuff and slide on your stomach up there and peek your head over like you'll good chance like you're going to see one.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Unless some jackass was there before you and stood up on the ridge. Right. So. And those are tough conversations to have because, you know, there's a lot of folks out there too who are like, well man, I'm a disabled veteran. Are you against me having that experience? And it's like, no, I want you to have that experience. I would love to help facilitate that. But as a guy who's had that experience a lot, you just gotta trust me that like that you can't just can't get in there that way and have that experience.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Like, and we pick and choose all the time until if we go back to roadless or this OHV executive order, like I can be a big enough person to be like, okay, well what are we gonna open up but what are we gonna close? Yeah, because we, we have to have that because there's just, there's too many of us doing too many of the things to, you know, point literally, like point that gun of impact at these areas.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because it, we know through our history that it will have this adverse effect that we just can't think about when we're so gung ho on the opportunity. Right, sure.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's jump subjects and, and talk about the ongoing Corner Crossing debate. And I'll put it to you this way. Well, just, I hate doing the bat. We, we talk about this so much and it's such an important issue. We've covered it so many times. It's always, it's always changing. But just very quick, very, very quick recap. Corner Crossing, if you're just kind of joining our sort of universe of shows right now, Corner Crossing has to do with, imagine that you're looking At a checkerboard. And the black squares are public land. Are they black and white?

[Sponsor Announcer]

I don't know.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Black and red.

[Steven Rinella]

Black and red on the checkerboard count a checkerboard. The black squares are sections of miles, mile by mile, sections of public land. The red squares are mile by mar, set mile by mile, sections of private land. When we refer to corner cross and we refer to whether it is legal or not to step from the corner of a black square to the corner of another black square, that's corner crossing. And so that your shoulder, your feet are never leaving the black, but your body's passing over the red. And this is a. This has been a debate that's playing out for a long time, particularly in the American west, where you have what we call checkerboarded landscapes that are. That are laid out in that same fashion through the courts, through federal court. Corner crossing was made legal in Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico. Help me out here.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, the 10th circuit.

[Steven Rinella]

10th circuit.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, the whole. The whole 10th circuit. So. And I wouldn't say made legal. I would say confirmed legal.

[Steven Rinella]

Confirmed legal.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Not. Yeah, Like.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, that's the question was.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, it was there. There was a. There was a. A debate. It was never. It wasn't like a change in the law. It was just defining the existing law and clarifying the existing law because there was. There was confusion about it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Y.

[Steven Rinella]

But there's still a big swath of the American west where it's up in the air.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And different states have different interpretations. Different states open interpret, you know, put out different guidelines. If you had to crystal ball it a year, two years, where do you think things are going to. Where do you think things are going to land? Do you think that we'll see more confusion, more obfuscation of whether you're. You're allowed to do this or do you think that it'll. That we'll see more clarity about what really is allowed and what's not allowed when it comes to corner crossing.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, I. I think the reason that we're seeing this debate get more and more intense because it used to just never. Never. It was a question certainly here in the state of Montana, it was never an intense debate. There's many areas within the state where it was just what people did.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. For a long time, it was a question that rolled around in the back of a small number of people's heads.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

And then it became a question that was in the front of many people's minds.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, the reason that that is Right. Is because, like we are just developing more and more of the west and people are, are planting their flag permanently in, in places that were seasonal at most. Right. And you know, I think there is absolutely no question whatsoever as to the legality. I think there's many, many questions right now that are getting played out. So, for instance, back in the 10th Circuit in Wyoming, there's a push to provide landowner compensation to people adjacent to corners.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So there's people walking from public ground to public ground without ever touching private property. Can we monetarily compensate the landowners who own the private lands that touch those corners?

[Steven Rinella]

Okay,

[Ryan Callaghan]

there's.

[Steven Rinella]

But, but that's not, but that's not. That would just be. Help, help me understand that.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But that state question that's coming up.

[Steven Rinella]

But, but the state would be doing it as a goodwill gesture. They're not doing it. They're not, they're not being legally forced to do.

[Ryan Callaghan]

They're not being legally forced to do it. There's an ask as to like a real legal one would be can you corner cross from federal to state? Right. In states where we have a kind of a de facto public access, we use state ground as public ground. Well, this was a federal decision.

[Steven Rinella]

I see.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Not a state decision.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah,

[Ryan Callaghan]

that needs to be figured out.

[Steven Rinella]

I'll tell you, it's interesting you bring that up. I would never consider that. Like, if I was in a clarified corner crossing legal state and I saw where federal land and state land were connected by corners, I would never even question whether you allowed to hop that corner.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. Yeah. And that, that is like one of the things. Right. Like the huge broad general public, you give them a pop quiz on this, it is just pure confusion. They're like, why in the hell would that not be legal? Right. You're not touching private property. And then you get in circles where people have really, really gone through the grinder on this and they've looked at case law and it gets overly complicated. Like you, you start, start getting into these conversations where you've kind of lost the, the on the ground fact a long time ago where it's like you're, you're just walking from here to there.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So no question in my mind as to if it's legal. It is legal, I think because kind of like we talked about on your, your motorized community or non motorized community, I remind people all the time, like if you're on the private side of that fence, you're a public landowner too. And you also have way better access to that square that you're you're trying to get to.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So it behooves all of us to come up with common language assurances that clearly define the private property, the public property and the access. Right.

[Steven Rinella]

But, but there is, and I guess I can speak to Montana, where we're sitting right now. I can't speak to other places. There, There is like an uncertainty here where the, if you go and get your hunting regulation, there's not a part of the hunting regulation that clarifies corner crossing is okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right, Right.

[Steven Rinella]

You get a mixed. Am I wrong? No, you get a mixed signal.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Yeah. It used to be if, like our, our not suggestion, different word are what Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks would like you to do is to contact the adjacent landowner for permission to corner cross. That was. And then if, if, if somebody were to try to get a warden out there to cite you, the warden would then have to contact the county prosecutor in order to issue that citation.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then, you know, that language ramped up to the point where the state was implying like this is illegal. If you write the governor, you get a response back that says it's illegal and always has been.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

The secretary, not the secretary of the state, the lieutenant governor, you know, offered her opinion. A couple of our state senators said, there it is. That's the law. It's illegal, which is not how we create laws. And in the.

[Steven Rinella]

They offered the opinion that it was forbidden.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Based off of. Of case law, you know, like they

[Steven Rinella]

offered an interpretation which was then received as someone. As the giving of the law.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And it is, I mean, it is tricky. It's not tricky to read this stuff. It's not tricky to come up with your own interpretations. But if you were to listen to the lieutenant governor's kind of case that she made, she's using all the same cases that you would use to say it's legal. She's just using different excerpt of those cases and a narrower, narrower interpretation, which it also is like how the law works a lot of times.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. So I'm not like bad, bad mouth and the lieutenant governor at all, but it is just been very, very interesting.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Steven Rinella]

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[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Steven Rinella]

what do you think will happen?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, ideally, we have a legislative session coming up that we're going to see some, some legislation that comes up to clarify this at a state level. Okay. Backcountry hunters and anglers, we entered into a lawsuit with the state of Montana after hitting this wall that, you know, we were just told flat out said, hey, even if this went back to the previous memo where it's like corner Crossing is a gray area, that's okay for right now until we can get legislation through because the people that want to do it, do it, and the people who don't, don't, and, you know, ranchers don't want to see a bunch of people piled up at corners. Hunters don't want to see a bunch of people piled up at corners. We want this to be quiet.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Is the best thing for everybody.

[Steven Rinella]

But if.

[Sponsor Announcer]

If the state.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. In Wyoming, you had a case where it got moved to federal court. Federal court.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

If the state.

[Steven Rinella]

If state legislators were to come in and say it's illegal.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Wouldn't that then open a pathway for someone to say your prohibition is in violation of federal law?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

And that's a no. No.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. And, yeah. I mean, that. That is a thing. And that's why, by and large, we're talking about broad acceptance of legal access through the corners. We're talking about extremely broad acceptance of if you enter or damage private property. That's. That's trespass.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So there's a ton of middle ground here. And I. I think that we're capable of coming up with a state solution that, you know, prevents a.

[Steven Rinella]

A federal case that prevents an escalation.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. And. And part of this is. Is totally out of our hands, like that. That could happen anyway.

[Steven Rinella]

But, you know, it's a question I never thought to. One that I never thought to ask. Do you have any sense if you went to Wyoming. Let's say there had been a ballot initiative.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And it was just very clear on everyone's. On everyone's ballot during a presidential election year. It just said, like, corner. Like, should Corner Crossing be legal?

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yes.

[Steven Rinella]

No. And you put it out to the voters.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

In Wyoming, before all this happened, what do you think the answer would have been?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Like, overwhelmingly yes.

[Steven Rinella]

You think so?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. I mean, you know, TRCP and BHA hosted listening sessions across the state. Obviously, not everybody shows up to those things.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But I drove over and. And sat in on a few, and I was really shocked by how few people actually wanted to talk about Corner Crossing because it was just, like, a given. They were like, oh, yeah, this is something everybody else is talking about. It's something we do and will continue to do, kind of regardless of what everybody else.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Comes to the conclusion of. So. Yeah. I. And then. Yeah. I mean, there's a long. There's more paper history of Corner Crossing in Wyoming than there is in Montana. Okay. There's. There's a decent amount of cases that apply in the state. There's, you know, no actual, you know, anything that's really. Specifically. Corner Crossing in Montana has always been thrown out. It's never made it to a judge's decision.

[Steven Rinella]

That's what. That. That blows my mind.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. Yeah. For something that's always been illegal.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Yeah. There Are not people out there sitting in jail or whatever, who, who got in trouble for it?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. Yep. But we do have, you know, several state programs. We have a lot of money sitting in the Habitat Montana fund, which was, you know, part of the Mariju money. 41 million bucks and counting. That has to be used for access programs.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Or. Or acquiring land. You know, it's a little. Little broad on what, but it can be used for habitat building boat ramps, acquiring new ground, stuff like that. Or else that cash sunsets. And it can go into the general fund. Some people speculate that it's not being used because they wanted to go into the general fund.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But, I mean, there's a lot of tools in our tool belt that can make this a. A state led initiative. I've talked to a lot of folks long before we entered into this lawsuit and then after we've entered into this lawsuit, who are both. All of them landowners, both for and against corner crossing. The folks that are against corner crossing and willing to talk to me or asking. Asking me to call them more. More accurately, they.

[Steven Rinella]

Do you make those calls?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. It's awesome. I mean, I love talking to old ranchers, so. But they get fed up with bad hunter behavior.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Which I totally get. And most of them have been working for years to do land swaps with the BLM and. And can't get them through.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And, you know, so that's something that. That where we've offered to help and, you know, I just, just talked with one. One fellow just like this and, and did some due diligence on whether or not this was like an actual good land swap. And it sounds like it really is. So we're. We're trying to help accelerate that. That process.

[Steven Rinella]

That's great work, man.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then we have a program where you can identify corners and we can come out and mark those. So people have no excuse.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

This is public. This is private. We can augment fence. So you can have an access point there that, as one old codger pointed out to me, he's like, you know, I get that the land's public, but that fence isn't. So we can augment that private fence and keep it in good working shape.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And allow legal access. And then there are these corners, typically called problem corners, where there's just no way to legally access public to public without stepping on private.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Like, just for people listening. Picture that. For the, the pictures. I don't know, just. It's a tree. Yep. Picture. There's a. There's a 12 inch tree at the corner.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

Right. And you gotta.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And you're supposed to do the.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

You wiggle around that tree, you're off on where you're not supposed to be. So.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So identifying those and. And we're the only entity of any kind out there. We use ArcGIS on the BHA website. So you can just punch in your lat long of where that corner is. And then we have some surveyors that have reached out that do this work professionally.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, that's great.

[Ryan Callaghan]

That have offered their services to. To come out and mark corners. And these are folks who have actually like worked with the BLM to adjust corners to where they're truly supposed to be.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because some of them do migrate over the years because they had, you know, people have moved pins or the pins never existed. So they were going off landmarks and those change generationally sometimes. And then, you know, we can augment that. That fence at the same time to wildlife friendly fencing and, and do it at no cost to the landowner. As again, kind of like our stewardship project idea is, I'm like, man, if you're fed up with bad hunter behavior, I can't say I'm gonna fix all that. But I will bring a crew of people out there that you're going to be really impressed with that really do give a crap. And at minimum it's going to give you a little bit of fuel back in the tank that hopefully lasts you until your next bad encounter. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then. Which I typically do get a chuckle out of that. And then I'm working like hell trying to get some funding and some folks together to put together a hunting around agriculture program.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay.

[Ryan Callaghan]

That ideally states will want to adopt. Because we hear all the time that something's got to be done because people don't know how to behave around working farms and ranches anymore.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And they're drawn like flies to them for hunting purposes. And just the basic stuff. Etiquette. Where to park, where not to park, how to operate gates.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Driving on wet roads you shouldn't be driving on.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Driving across freshly planted fields, leaving gates not the way you found them.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Spooking.

[Steven Rinella]

Spooking the hell out of cows.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Recognizing where you bought. You got a bunch of cow calf pairs that just got moved in from the range. They're super scared. Probably just leave it alone.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, so not. Not hard stuff at all. But something that everybody is getting direct asks for.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And it's not being addressed, unfortunately. And we can put Together the, the program that is built off of producer feedback. Right. The farmers and the ranchers are going to tell us what they want and then you know, meat eater will hopefully distribute that out. But we really need states to adopt this as well and, and use it in a fashion where people have to pay attention. Right. So I want like, hey, you just bought your big game combo license in order to complete purchase, take this five minute tutorial.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. And, and you know, people want to hunt in these places so bad. I don't think that that's going to be a barrier to entry at all. Yeah. Hunters being hunters, we're going to complain, but I think we're going to take the test. And, and I really do believe like, if, if we can just educate a big group, right. Like 40,000 hunters hunt in Montana every year. If we can educate them a one and a half percent more, that's going to be a big impact on, on the landscape. And if we're not working hard to kind of hold up our side of the social contract, we're going to lose access on the Front Range and everybody's going to be in the back country, man.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, I, I like a lot of what you're saying. I like and really rings true to me and, and you know, congratulations on, on viewing it this way. But I appreciate the way you're willing to acknowledge and take responsibility for ways that your own community could be working against their own better interests. Meaning, you know, let's talk about bad bun, bad hunter behavior. Let's talk about people kind of exploiting this corner crossing thing to feel that they can just get on that land however they want to get on it. Right. And kind of holding your own community up to like a certain standard and acknowledging the people that are offended by bad behavior that yes, this is true. What you're seeing is true. I want to make that go away. Right.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, I mean, what other choice do we have too, Right?

[Steven Rinella]

Like just ignore it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, right.

[Steven Rinella]

And let the tensions fester, let the tensions faster.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then what everybody's feeling, the state agencies, the agricultural producers, the hunters in areas where we're seeing this really big increase in, in hunting pressure and demand on the resource is like that scarcity mindset creeps in.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And it's like, I don't care. I gotta get mine before somebody else does. Yeah, right. Versus, you know, so many times, you know, I had great hunting mentors growing up and it really, it was like, oh well pard, let's leave that one for another day. Somebody else is Already on it type of thing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. And looking back at those scenarios, then, like, it'd be hard to talk some people into being like, well, there's only one truck at the trailhead, why wouldn't we go?

[Steven Rinella]

Type of thing.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right. It's like, well, somebody beat us to it. Let them have it. We'll go down to the next trailhead.

[Steven Rinella]

Sure. You know, what do you imagine we've talked about a bunch of things that are in the news now, being talked about right now, kind of hot, hot button issues. Right. That are on everybody's mind. What if we were having this conversation a year from now or this conversation two years from now? What do you think? What do you think we'll be talking about? Like, what do you see kind of lurking that's going to be jumping into the, that's going to be jumping to the front of the line in terms of, of hot button issues.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Well, I think there's just two broad themes that are possible. Right. And it's kind of like what you said about like being the, the no, no, I'm just the no guy. I point out the things that that's wrong. And the solution I don't want any part of, yeah, that person is real and they exist. And if everybody turns into that person or the majority of us turn into that person who are like, I don't want the hard work of being at the table. I just want to sit back and throw stones and tell you what's wrong. As I see it, yeah, that's. It's very possible that there's a bunch of those people who go, holy cow, I wish I would have drugged myself to the table because I never ever thought the end result would be something like this.

[Steven Rinella]

Got it.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Or there's the opposite of like, I dropped a bunch of partisan bs. I really focused on the things that I really value. And I know I want other people to see because they will value it as well. And I kicked, screamed, clawed, drug myself to the table and I was consistent until like we turned the tide and people saw the middle ground. Because what I'm seeing and there's all sorts of people who get ticked me for this is like, I do see a lot of people. There's some people who just want their thing and they don't care about anything. But I do see a lot of people who really want to do the right thing and they're just grossly misinformed. And it takes big moments right now. Like we saw during the public land sell off budget reconciliation where it was Just like every user group was getting to the table and, and coming together and being like, yes, this is valuable. We want this. We don't want it to go away. How dare you sell it. And being engaged even in the minutia in broad coalitions are the things that's gonna turn this thing around. Right. So that example, and I know I'm kind of beating it to death here, is like, I can talk about motorized groups all day and I know there's tons and tons of good representatives out there. But the thing that's going to turn the tide for motorized groups to be like, oh, hey, travel management plans are in place. Practice responsible use, ride responsibly. Are people within the motorized community saying, hey, I want this cross country moto experience that we do every year because of the fact that it's pristine and the solitude and the gorgeous views and all this and the limited use it gets. I don't want to turn this experience into that true. Your sand dune experience. Or like there's this event every year called King of the Hammers where it's like, you know, you get to really show off what you can do on. On off road. No road. Yeah. It's like that stuff can exist and this stuff can exist. And because we like both doesn't mean we have to turn this into that.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So, but again, like, I think a good step is acknowledging like, even though I am not a representative of the motorized community, I drive a four wheel drive truck to every trailhead. Right. And some of those roads are really long. Yeah, they're real bumpy. Right. But that, that is my, I don't know, my vector for backcountry travel. Right. For the human powered stuff too.

[Steven Rinella]

So what else has come? What other kind of issues are coming down that you're catching wind of?

[Ryan Callaghan]

I, I am very concerned about Ambler Road.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

That seems to be making progress. There's a lot of, A lot of the typical things that we've been seeing were like big broad statements of like, everybody in Alaska is for this. All the Alaska tribes are for this. All the communities. You know, I have a lot of calls every week from guide outfitter communities saying like, I don't care if they say this road's not public. It is going to create a huge impact on, you know, caribou, moose trapping, all, all the things.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

The fisheries components. And, and then there's the side of like, that road's not supposed to be for us. It's a hall road. They're super dangerous. People aren't going out there. Why is public do. Why are our public dollars being spent on this thing that the public isn't going to use?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And then there, there's just like all the like the real biological science things there and the fact that like, I don't care what type of mitigation we do out there, like there's not coming back.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

That scars there forever. Right. Like you fly over the Arctic, the coastal plain up there and where they were doing that seismic testing like in the 70s, like those wheel, wheel routes are still there.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You know, and it's, I think we're big enough to say like we have to have some carve outs for what always has been and can always be. And like having that baseline, that through line should be again like of national importance to Americans.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I think we remain, I think our country remains in, in a strong enough position where we can continue to afford to have wild places in this country. You know. Oh, we're, we're, we're in a, we're in a strong enough position where we can continue to invest in that and practice restraint and some of our biggest contiguous pieces of wilderness. And by saying that, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to recognize that like that stuff's a luxury. It's there because we decided to let it be there and we have restrained ourselves from certain activities and that's why we have it. Like you, you look at. For a long time we had wilderness because we hadn't wilderness, wild places, wildlife was there because we hadn't gotten around to destroying it yet. And then there's a switch.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

And we crossed like this threshold and it became it's around because we choose it to be around.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I mean, and that's what every single person needs to understand. Like none of this is luck. Right. It is all here because people for us made real choices, sometimes very unpopular. And that is why we have the luxuries that we have. Being able to float fish, you know, camp on public lands, hunt game and take it home, like that is an absolute luxury. And you know, the world is full of examples of places that went the opposite way. Right. And it's like I definitely like picking and choosing there. Right. But like if you look at Australia and the battles that they've had just to have legal regulated hunting in that country.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Because it's like it just got social, got turned in such a way to where so few people did it. What did it matter?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Gun rights in the uk so so few people. What does it matter? Right. Access to wildlife in the UK for the purposes of hunting. You know, it was always this thing that was for somebody else and it was very exclusive, so what does it really matter? Right. And, you know, for the folks who are on the private side of the fence and they might be thinking this another public lands conversation, what does it matter? It's like, well, maybe not too much to you right now, but if you just look at the history of every other place on this planet.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

It's coming for you.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

So you better keep other folks involved, you know, have a little equitable access to wild places and wild things, or else it's going to cross the fence and get you too.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. You see that expressed, like in the case of Washington State, I've seen it expressed where people actually say they'll point out. So few people engage in spring bear hunting, they shouldn't even be allowed to. Where it's like, they point it out.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

You know.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yep. I always. This is on extractive use. But, you know, we come up with fun arguments. It's like, by and large, we all agree that sex is a good thing. Like, we need to have sex. It's how people are on the planet. It's how we reproduce. It's just an accepted thing. At the exact same time, we all kind of agree that sex shouldn't happen wherever, whenever. Right. It's just like socially, we're like, yeah, not on the city bus.

[Steven Rinella]

You know, we're open to nuance when it comes to sex.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

We take a nuanced approach.

[Ryan Callaghan]

But when it comes to, like in the case of the Boundary Waters. Right. By God, we need copper, we need mineral extraction. Like, you're either for it or you're against it.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

I was like, well, no, not necessarily. It's like, yeah, I am a consumer of goods, but you're telling me that I have to blanket before this type of operation in all landscapes at all times?

[Steven Rinella]

I got to support sex in the airport.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Right, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

To remain consistent.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, you know, tell people how to. Tell people how to get involved with BHA and, like. And what you need most. Yeah. You guys want members, I'm sure. But what do you guys need most?

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, I mean, membership is. Is the absolute lifeblood, right? Like, if. If you want an independent organization, membership is the key, Right. Like, if you don't want to be beholden to the changing tides, a membership organization is a really nice thing to be a part of because those membership dollars give you that independence, meaning that you're not subject to giant government grants and you may hold off on certain programs.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, yeah, you don't, you're not, you don't need to curry political favor. Favor at all times. And also your whole program doesn't get shut down when, when a grant doesn't come through. Yep.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah. So members membership's huge. And, and that's, that's really my biggest ask. So the reason that I'm in this position is because I have always just been so blown away by the, the rank and file member of the organization and how impressive BHA members are because they are there to be proactive and do something. And at this point, having been around the organization for 10 years, we have members that are in the Senate, in Congress, they are Fish and game commissioners in many states. They are community leaders for stewardship projects, waterkeepers. They're out really doing good work. And they literally started because they showed up at a pint night. Very low barrier to entry. Have a beer, talk about conservation. Here's a couple of the issues that we're working on. And you know, we got people in the door and they were like, oh my God, I'm not just a fundraiser, I'm a doer. I want to go out and do stuff. And, and, and those are the, the, that's what we want, want to make more of and we're, and we want to enable and empower those people to step up and represent at that commission meeting or go pull a couple miles offense that benefits 30,000 miles in a migration corridor. And we can give you the straight dope, the non partisan dope on what's happening. And really we need to get to this point where we're really providing the, the proactive legislation, right. Like the proactive policy that prevents some of these things from being political footballs. So lots of ways to be involved. We'll give you the tools to do it and you'll be a part of an awesome community. And the ripple effects of that community are going to turn everybody into stewards from this, this tall on up. Ideal.

[Steven Rinella]

So I don't get to see as much now and I don't get to have as many laughs with you. But man, I'm glad you're in that. I'm glad you're in that role, man. I think it's great. Oh, thank you over there.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Thank you. Yeah, I mean it's, it's consuming and now with the little nipper at the House, it's, it's more powerful in a lot of ways because I'm like, oh, man, I. All the talk and ad nauseam about like doing this for my kid certainly is a little more impactful.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, sure.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, can I get. He's, you know, almost four weeks old now. Can I get this guy up to the Arctic in August? Like, is it like he's gonna be able to see something? Right?

[Steven Rinella]

I remember all. Yeah, I remember all those. I. I find that it's generally. You can generally get a. You can generally pull off more than most people think you can pull off. But I also have my ass handed to me a couple times. Taking kids to do stuff. You'll figure it out. All right, ladies and gentlemen, again, Ryan Callahan, chief executive officer at Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, a membership based organization.

[Ryan Callaghan]

You can just go to bha.org backcountryhunters.org

[Steven Rinella]

I'm sorry, backcountryhunters.org see what they're up to. You can sign up for. I find them quite helpful. You can sign up for email, keep you apprised on stuff. You'll get like Cal's take on things and other issues and stay educated on what's going on. Follow along and, and hopefully, hopefully find any to support the organization. Support the great work they do. Thanks, Kell.

[Ryan Callaghan]

And the action alerts. Will. Will. You'll get the information. Hit the action alert. It puts you directly in touch with your representative or. Or member and it's just makes it easy. You can use the, the form letter, but we want you to do it on your own. So use the info. Say where you're from and what you want. Cow's weekend review.

[Steven Rinella]

Your podcast review.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Oh my God. Cal's week in review. Lots of good info there. And it's. It's.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, See, I'm looking at you like. I'm looking at you totally like the. The BHA CEO right now.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Yeah, man. Life's not worth doing if you're just doing one thing. You gotta spin those plates.

[Steven Rinella]

Also hear Cal's hot take on everything conservation related. Get. And also get some of those laughs I was talking about by tuning in Cal's week in review right here on the Meat Eater Podcast network. Thanks, man.

[Ryan Callaghan]

Thank you.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Steven Rinella]

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