Hannah Downey is the policy director at PERC, leading policy strategy and government affairs efforts to implement key policy reforms based on PERC’s groundbreaking research. She has applied her passion for the outdoors to advance lasting conservation wins since joining PERC in 2015. Hannah has testified before Congress and works closely with policymakers at the federal and state levels on conservation issues, and her work has been featured in media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and The Hill. Though she grew up in the Midwest, Hannah was lucky enough to spend her summers in Montana and worked as a backpacking guide in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness throughout college. Hannah now calls Bozeman home and fills her spare moments coaching youth mountain biking, serving on the board of the local ski foundation, and enjoying the wonderful outdoors every way she can.
If you enjoy the podcast, I’d really appreciate it if you drop us a review, share it with a friend, or find us on Instagram.
Topics Discussed:

• Dinner discussions with a politically-opposite spouse.
• How sportsmen's groups help or hinder the cause.
• Incentive programs that encourage conservation practices.
• Opportunities for Sportsmen to invest in conservation.
• Reforming the ESA.
• Upcoming Conservation Issues Sportsmen Need to Know.

You can find more about Everett Headley, your host, at his website or Instagram.

Intro Music: Jason Shaw- Back to the Woods
Outro Music: Bumy Goldson- Keep Walking

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Catherine Semcer has worked with the Sierra Club and federal land management agencies to reduce climate, ecological, and regulatory risks to their operations. After leaving the Sierra Club, she was part of the executive team of an NGO that provides training, advisory, and assistance services to anti-poaching units in Africa. Now as a research fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana and the African Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, she serves on the advisory board of the Game Rangers Association of Africa. Catherine is an expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group, and the Chair-Elect of the International Wildlife Management Working Group of The Wildlife Society. She is currently pursuing my Ph.D. at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom where her research focuses on the contributions of the private sector to conservation in Africa.

Topics Discussed:

• The African Model of Wildlife Conservation.
• BioDiversity Credits and investing in conservation.
• “Conservation is the business that enables all other businesses.”
• Giving non-consumptive users a seat at the table.
• The value of hunting to conservation beyond funding.
• Ivory and Horn Trade.
• Weaponization of “Trophy Hunting”
• Informed and Involved on African Wildlife Conservation.

Chasing Rabbits:

• Property and Environment Research Center
• Catherine's Articles
• Cries of Savannah by Sue Tidwell
• How to Talk About Hunting with Mark Duda

You can find more about Everett Headley, your host, at his website or Instagram.

Intro Music: Jason Shaw- Back to the Woods
Outro Music: Bumy Goldson- Keep Walking

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Elevate Your Ethics.
Because whether you’ve hunted for a single day or a lifetime, we never stop trying to elevate the hunt.
(These shorts will share new ideas, people, and issues within the larger topic of Hunting's Culture and Ethics.)
Where to start?
-An introduction to Jose Ortega y Gasset and his book. Make your experiences personal, relatable, and shareable.

“One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.”
“A Good Hunter’s way of hunting is a hard job which demands much from man: he must keep himself fit, face extreme fatigues, accept danger. It involves a complete code of ethics of the most distinguished design; the hunter who accepts the sporting code of ethics keeps his commandments in the greatest solitude, with no witnesses or audience other than the sharp peaks of the mountains, the roaming cloud, the stern oak, the trembling juniper, and the passing animal.”
~Meditations on Hunting by Jose Ortega y Gasset, Twentieth Century Spanish Philosopher.

Intro Music: Jason Shaw- Back to the Woods
Outro Music: Bumy Goldson- Keep Walking

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Dr. Jared Beaver grew up in North Carolina and received a B.S. in Biology from Wake Forest University, an M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Tennessee, and a Ph.D. at Texas A&M University. His research has focused on the various aspects of white-tailed deer population ecology and habitat management. Jared’s career ambition has always been a position allowing the opportunity to blend person-to-person extension work with applied research and teaching, and in April of 2020 he jumped at the opportunity to serve in the role of Assistant Professor and Wildlife Extension Specialist at Montana State University. While much of Jared’s career has focused on management of large mammals, particularly game species, his program at MSU is continually looking for ways to blend wildlife research with applied management by identifying conservation opportunities which have direct relevance for private landowners and wildlife managers. Jared is a Certified Wildlife Biologist and lives in Montana with his wife and their two young boys.

Topics Discussed:

• Defining and developing a land ethic
• Aldo Leopold as the father of land and wildlife management
• The “Bambi-Syndrome”
• Balancing the Wildlife Management Triangle: wildlife population, habitats, and human Need
• The “Tragedy of the Commons” and selfishness of humanity
• The Myth of the Non-Consumptive User
• Finding common ground to collaborate

Chasing Rabbits:

• Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
• Aldo Leopold Foundation

You can find more about Everett Headley, your host, at my website or Instagram.

Intro Music: Jason Shaw- Back to the Woods
Outro Music: Bumy Goldson- Keep Walking

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Mark Damian Duda is executive director of Responsive Management. Over the past 35 years he has conducted over 1,000 studies on how people relate to the natural world. He is the author of four books on wildlife and outdoor recreation and more than 150 published articles and peer-reviewed papers. He is a certified wildlife biologist and social scientist and holds a masters degree in natural resource policy from Yale University.
If you enjoy the podcast, I’d really appreciate it if you drop us a review, share it with a friend, or find us on Instagram.
Topics Discussed:

• Social science is why it matters for hunters.
• Negotiating a place for wildlife on the landscape.
• How to talk about hunting. (Book link)
• Words Matter, pictures matter, tone matters.
• Animal rights vs animal welfare vs animal dominianism.
• Communicating Effectively: Ethos, Pathos, Logos
• Hunting’s best arguments.

You can find more about Everett Headley, your host, at his website or Instagram.

Intro Music: Jason Shaw- Back to the Woods
Outro Music: Bumy Goldson- Keep Walking

Support the show