Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back. I'm Dr. Mike Brasher, and I'm going to be your host on this episode. And I'm enthusiastically welcoming in a guest host here, Adam Putnam, our very own CEO. Adam, it's great to have you join us.

Adam Putnam: Well, I'm glad you finally let me on. I don't really trust me with this thing very often, but I'm glad you brought me in to be a pinch hitter today.

Mike Brasher: Well, there's a little bit of a twist here. You're not necessarily the guest, but you are our guest host. And there's a very special reason for that. You know, one of the, I get to travel to a number of places to do the podcast. And one of the unfortunate things is that people can't see where we are. Because today we're in a most incredible location and we have a most incredible guest here with us as well. So I'm going to pitch it to you to kind of tell people where we are and introduce our guest.

Adam Putnam: House Office building here with the Chairman of the Congressional uh… House of Representatives Resources Committee uh… Arkansas very own Bruce Westerman and uh… Bruce's we're in his office and we're surrounded by gorgeous recognitions by all of our uh… brothers and sisters in conservation Safari Club Turkeys Ducks Unlimited uh… Bruce throughout his time uh… in in Congress has just been a champion for hunters and anglers and for the entire sporting community.

Bruce Westermen: Well, Adam, welcome to you and Mike, and thanks for coming by to do it. I would argue that there's better places to do a podcast than in Washington, DC, like maybe in a duck blind or out in the turkey woods or something like that.

Adam Putnam: We'll get you back to a duck blind in flooded timber later this year if you want to do it.

Bruce Westermen: We might get run out if we start talking in a duck blind doing a podcast though.

Adam Putnam: Well, that is the problem. Yeah. People get grumpy about, you know, doing too much talking when we're supposed to be running that duck call.

Bruce Westermen: Yeah, great to have you all here, and I'm looking forward to visiting.

Adam Putnam: Well, thank you very much. A little bit about yourself. Most people probably don't realize that you are both a Razorback and a Bulldog, but not a Bulldog from Athens. Tell us a little bit about your football career.

Bruce Westermen: And not from Starkville, either.

Adam Putnam: Why did you leave Starkville out of that? Well, fair enough, fair enough. You know, I was just, I'm a Gator, and I just, you know, have a particular rub. particular burn my saddle about Athens, but anyway, back to our special guests. Tell us about your background and playing ball for the Razorbacks and then moving on to get your advanced degree in forestry.

Bruce Westermen: I got to do what I think every young man's childhood dream if you grew up in Arkansas and that's go play football for the Razorbacks. It's not because I was good enough, I was just gritty enough. I loved playing football and got a chance to be a recruited walk-on and wouldn't trade it for anything. Everything you see in the movies about glorifying walk-ons. Uh, we, we did take a beating in practice and, uh, did it all for the, uh, for the team and for the glory of being there and wouldn't trade that for, for any experience. But, uh, while I was there, I studied engineering and met my wife. So I was called a pretty successful career getting graduating and four years of football and a beautiful wife, all, all from the same place.

Adam Putnam: Amen. That's fantastic. What came after that?

Bruce Westermen: Well, I actually went to work doing engineering work for a few years and decided to go back to graduate school. And you mentioned the Bulldogs. These were the Boodle of Boodle of Bulldogs, the Yale Bulldogs, the original Bulldogs. And I think they actually have more national football championships than any other team, if you go back to the 1890s and early 1900s. But I didn't play football, didn't use my last year of eligibility at Yale. Just studied forestry and had a great time up there learning about how our natural forest ecosystems work. Never imagined in a million years that I would someday be in Congress and be the only forester in Congress and didn't realize how much federal land there is and how much management needs to be done on it. So it's something that's benefited me very well serving in Congress, just to have that basic understanding and knowledge of how forests work and how we can take care of them. how when we make a decision not to manage them, that is actually a management decision because forests are dynamic and changing. And they're important for many, many reasons. I always say there's no downside to a healthy forest. You get clean air, you get clean water, you get wildlife habitat, you get places to recreate. Teddy Roosevelt called forests the lungs of the earth. I'd also say they're kind of the kidneys of the earth because they clean the water. But it's something I'm passionate about. And it's also because I grew up hunting and fishing and spent a lot of time out in the outdoors. And any kind of wildlife you look at, whether they're species we hunt or they're endangered or listed, they all benefit from good habitat. And most of the time that means a healthy forest. And you know, in Arkansas, we like to hunt ducks in the woods too, not just turkeys and deer and some great duck hunting in that flooded timber.

Adam Putnam: no doubt your home state is a bucket list item for every water fowler in the world. They all want to have that flooded timber experience. Tell us about the health of flooded timber in Arkansas and some things that you and your partners in Arkansas are doing to make sure that future generations have that opportunity to put it on their bucket list.

Bruce Westermen: And so we, if you look at the history of Arkansas, they said at one time a squirrel could get on a tree out of the Mississippi River and not touch the ground until it got to Texas, way out into Texas probably. But a lot of that land was cleared and drained for agriculture, grew a lot of rice there that's super important to the migrating waterfowl, but we've also started creating man-made flooded timber again with dykes and berms and pumps. And when a lot of these green tree reservoirs were created, we didn't think you could leave water on trees too long, that you couldn't hurt a tree by floating it. And we know that that's different now that you've got to, you don't want to get the water on the trees too quick and you want to get it off quicker. But as a result, we've lost some of the key species. The nut all oak is very critical for duck food. Our friend George Dunklin, he says it's God's creation for perfect duck food because it just meters it out like a feeder when the acorns fall off. But we understand what needs to be done. There's a lot of work taking place. It's really water management is what it is. And also forest management in these green tree reservoirs. And I'll go back to George. He's doing a really good job of going in and thinning his flooded hardwood down there at his spot. And a lot of folks in Arkansas who are really into good habitat and good duck hunting. They're using all the resources to make the property that they've got control of the very best that it can be because a lot of our federal lands and even some of our private lands that are getting more efficient at water management And zero leveling on fields, you don't get as much water left on fields anymore. So we need all of the duck habitat we can get. And that's just in Arkansas where they're migrating in the wintertime. We also, up in the Dakotas and even in Canada, we've got a do a better job on the breeding grounds and on the potholes.

Adam Putnam: The theme of this already is emerging. It's habitat, habitat, habitat. Whether it's wetlands, forested, upland habitat, the key to balance and success and biodiversity and productivity is habitat. You and your committee have spent an awful lot of time and energy on some legislation related to habitat. Why don't you tell us some more about that?

Bruce Westermen: It's called the America's Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act. And the title is very descriptive of what the bill actually does. It conserves wildlife habitat. The Fill the Dreams movie could be kind of the theme song for wildlife habitat. If you build it, they will come. I've seen it over and over, whether it's ducks, turkeys, quail, deer, elk, you name it. If you do the management, the species will come there. That's true on fish habitat as well. And we've got such a wonderful land base here in this country, but much of it is mismanaged. So what we want to do is empower state fish and wildlife agencies to go in and do the management on federal land and on private land. And we'll seed those agencies with federal funding. We're looking at about $300 million. to be distributed out to the state so that they can implement their state wildlife action plans. Now this will do a lot of good for game species and for species that are listed, could be listed, or are already on the endangered species list. If we fix the habitat, that's the number one thing we can do for any of these species. But it's got a wrinkle to it that would allow these state agencies, if they do forest management on federal lands and harvest timber off, which that's what needs to happen on most of these lands. You need to open it up, let the cereal habitat, the early successional habitat come up under the forest canopy there. and sell those trees and put the money back in the fund to do more habitat management. And if they're doing management on private property, then they could go to the landowner and say, here's what you need to do on your property. We need to harvest some timber off. We're going to use these timber proceeds to pay for the management. If there's excess income, we're going to let the landowner have it. Or it may be that the landowner needs to pitch in some to do all the work that needs to be done. But, you know, I'll go back to Teddy Roosevelt. Early on, he talked about how conservation can't be up just to the federal government. It's got to involve the private sector as well. And, you know, in Arkansas and many states in the South, you've got a lot more private land than you do federal land. And that kind of is a gradient as you go from the East Coast to the West Coast. But the small landowners that have their land not primarily for timber production, but primarily for wildlife and recreation, they just need the expertise and the assistance to get the management going on their land. And we can make a huge difference in wildlife habitat. And we're seeing federal agencies go the opposite direction. Fish and Wildlife is pushing this BIDA rule where they're saying you can't use any kind of agriculture practices on a fish and wildlife refuge. So that's going to put more pressure on the public sector to be able to provide habitat. And I know I'm talking a lot. There's just so much in here that I'm excited about.

Adam Putnam: Partnerships are essential to D use success and and with working with public agencies at the state and federal level and and with private landowners. when you're working on a big piece of legislation like that, and you mentioned this, there's a big difference between the land ownership in the Eastern United States, which is largely private, versus the West, where you've got some states that are 60, 70, maybe even 80% of their state is owned by government of some sort. What does that do for the dynamics of passing legislation like this? How does that affect people's views of what conservation is and how hard it is for you to accomplish the goals that you have for the committee.

Bruce Westermen: Well there's obviously something in it for everyone because this touches private land and public land and also as you get out west where you've got tribes we're also giving the tribes the same authority as we're giving the states to go in and do management on federal land and there's some I visited a lot of tribes that are doing a fantastic job of managing their property. Some of the best elk habitat I've ever seen was out on the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico. And it's just like being a forester and hearing about these beautiful ponderosa stands of timber with the savanna-type grasses underneath. And you go out there and it's like it came out of a textbook. go down the road to the Lincoln National Forest and it looks like a moonscape because it's been burned with fire and they can't even get get trees to grow back on it. So we want to engage the tribes in management as well and it is going to take federal, state, and tribal to get the we've got so much potential we're just not utilizing it and we want to utilize all those aspects to get better wildlife habitat, which means better habitat. I get excited because we've got two or three million acres in Arkansas of federal land, and if you just worked on 5% of that a year, so every 20 years you'll be working through it, and even take a third of that and work through it every five years, We could have so much more habitat, so many more places for people to hunt with a lot of game there. It would be a game changer, just with the small amount of federal land that we've got in Arkansas. But then you talk about doing it on private land as well, and it gets really serious then.

Adam Putnam: So when you think about the way that we generally fund conservation programs in the United States at the state level, at the federal level, hunters, anglers, shooters, through the licenses and duck stamps and excise taxes, they're really the fundamental drivers of this highly successful program to invest in conservation. Do you think the average member of Congress realizes that?

Bruce Westermen: I don't think so, and it bothers me that we keep pushing towards this model of just spend money that we don't have when conservation is something that can generate, it can pay its own way, and it's evident through Pittman Robinson and other programs that are out there, but This program that I'm talking about, we burn up millions of acres of valuable timber every year, that we could be harvesting that, reducing the forest fires, and putting the money back into conservation. And it's the gift that keeps giving, because if you work through it every 20 years or 10 years, some places you need to go every five or six years, it just keeps producing. It never stops growing. And that's the sign of a healthy forest when you've always got growth in it. And at the end of the day, you're actually storing more carbon out on the forest. Environment wins, the economy wins, and conservation really, really wins.

Adam Putnam: Forest management is another issue that there seems to be wildly different approaches between the Southeast, where prescribed fire is baked into the policy and it's welcomed and it's socially acceptable, and then the West, where it's the opposite. Tell us about that and how fire is a tool in healthy forest management and some of the things you're working on there.

Bruce Westermen: Well, the Native Americans were using fire long before Europeans ever got to the U.S. In my home state, in the Ouachita Mountains where I live, I read some journal articles from some of the first European explorers that went through the area, and they said you could ride a horse at full gait through the forest. So they were describing a forest with large, widely spaced trees with a lot of early secessional habitat underneath it. And that was produced by burning over time. And the same thing out west, the Ponderosa forest I was telling you about, that's a forest that can handle fire. You get into some species like lodgepole pine, you don't really thin lodgepole pine. It just it burns up and creates gaps. That's what happened in Yosemite back in the 80s. About a third of Yosemite burned, and it's going to about every hundred years. So you've got to know how to manage in each area. We're working on legislation for the sequoias, which they're one of the most fire-loving species that are out there, but we managed to kill about 20% of our giant sequoias in two years. because we had suppressed fire for so long and the undesirable species grew up in the understory and created lighter fuel to carry the flames up into the crowns of the sequoias. We know what to do, it's just a matter of doing it. And fire is like the most cost-effective tool that we can use to keep our forests healthy. But we need to do thinning and burning now because we've allowed these forests, we sequestered fire and allowed the forest to grow up too thick. I know you're from Florida, those beautiful longleaf wire stem grass stands of timber down there, they crave fire. You need fire to make those ecosystems work.

Adam Putnam: Yeah, in my previous role, and this isn't about me, but yeah, we were, the state of Florida was burning about two and a half million acres a year between the private sector and what we were doing on public lands. You know, it was very socially acceptable with neighbors and everybody else who understood it. And, um, we just don't, that's not necessarily the case everywhere. And I know that that's a challenge that you have.

Bruce Westermen: Well, you can put a little bit of smoke out occasionally, or you're going to get a whole lot of smoke at some point, but it's going to burn. You're either going to, um, thin it and use control burns or it's going to burn. in a very violent way, and it's going to do a lot of destruction when you get a catastrophic wildfire. And again, when we say we're not going to do anything, we're going to leave it alone, that is a management decision. You're leaving it to nature, but if you're putting the fire out, nature uses fire. That's nature's way of thinning the forest.

Adam Putnam: Those lands don't manage themselves, and autopilot is not an option. Back to birds, one of the crowning successes of certainly the rebound in waterfowl populations, and it's been recognized by the Bird Report every year, is that we manage the resource from a continental standpoint, and North American Wetlands Conservation Act doesn't recognize the borders because those migratory ducks and geese don't recognize the borders. Wildly successful, do you see any storm clouds on the horizon for support for conservation on a continental scale the way that we've done it with NACA?

Bruce Westermen: I don't think you can take anything for granted. You have to keep telling the story and showing that these are very wise investment of tax dollars. But you bring up a good point. You know, the critters don't recognize property boundaries. The forests don't recognize any wishes or wants here in Congress. They do what they're going to do. And we need to look at the landscape levels where we're not just looking at federal land or state land, but private land with it and tribal land and look at how the whole landscape and ecosystem works together. And that's why it's important to have conservation legislation that targets all of the land and not just saying we're going to go do this on federal land and everything's going to be fine, or we're going to do it just on private land and everything will be fine.

Adam Putnam: You bring up a great point. These policy issues for rural America, for the land, they don't occur in silos. You've got changes in the energy sector that are impacting land use in rural America. You've got ag practices and a farm bill debate going on that impact what that land looks like, conservation programs impact what takes place on that land, and kind of the basket of incentives and disincentives for those landowners. And all of that, you know, ultimately blends together and there's an impact. One example kind of ripped from the headlines of conservation world and ag world and public health world is avian influenza that we've been reading about. I'm sure your committee is being briefed regularly on that. Anything on that that you want to cover on sort of a timely topic here for what's going on in the headlines?

Bruce Westermen: Well, I mean, that's something we've got to be very, very cautious about. And we grow a lot of chicken in Arkansas, too. And if there's a detection of avian influenza, they will euthanize thousands and thousands of birds because if it gets out, it'll wipe them out anyhow. And you're right, it crosses conservation, agriculture, and all those lines. So we have to keep a close check on that. And also when we're talking about conservation, I say conservation is more of an ethic and it's something, whether you're producing energy, whether you're grazing, whether you're doing agriculture or straight wildlife habitat, you can have conservation in all of that. It's not like you can't have, it's conservation or, it's conservation and everything that you're doing. And another rule that this administration's putting out is they're trying to make conservation a land use, and it's not a land use. Conservation is an ethic that you should be putting into any kind of use of land or forest that's out there. So, it's an education process, even at the highest levels of our government. They get it mixed up sometimes.

Adam Putnam: Would you say that the number of outdoors people hunters, anglers, hikers, campers, active outdoors people. Is that number going up or going down in terms of members of Congress?

Bruce Westermen: If you look at the big picture, it's probably going up, but I'm taking in all of outdoor recreation. I know we're seeing numbers of hunting and fishing license. We saw a boost during COVID, and now we're starting to see a drop in some of that. We've got to get more young people out into the outdoors. Hunting and fishing, that's extremely important. On the other side of it, we just passed a bill out of the House called the Explore Act. It was the first outdoor recreation bill, I like that, that my understanding has ever been done. A big bill, this isn't just, you've been in Congress, you know what a suspension bill's like. This bill had major bipartisan support. It passed out of the committee on voice vote, and it passed off of the House floor on voice vote. And it's got a lot of support in the Senate. So, people care about the outdoors. And again, when we have good wildlife habitat, that enhances all of those outdoor recreation experiences.

Adam Putnam: Well, congratulations to you on that. There's not a whole lot of bipartisan bills passing. So, for you to have led the effort to get that with such momentum, it sounds like it might actually become law this year.

Bruce Westermen: It should, but you know what they say about getting an act of Congress. That's a fact. Pretty hard.

Adam Putnam: That's a fact. Well, in the little bit of time that we have left, I want to turn the mic over to you. I mean, this has been a fantastic conversation, but When you think about the listeners out there for the Ducks Unlimited podcast, obviously, you're well-known as a friend of the ducks, but so much more a friend of hunters and anglers, a friend of conservation.

Bruce Westermen: Does that mean I'm not a good shot?

Adam Putnam: No, no, no. Those are a good shot, too. Although, there's a tom turkey that I hear might take issue with that.

Bruce Westermen: Well, he hasn't made himself visible yet.

Adam Putnam: But, you know, open mic for you. Anything that you want to say to our audience before we bring this in for a landing?

Bruce Westermen: I've just got such a great appreciation for people who are active in Ducks Unlimited. You mentioned a lot of the other conservation organizations out there. It's so important. You know, I know a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people. Everybody I grew up with hunt and fish. Not everybody's active in some kind of wildlife organization. I was, I got the pleasure to go to a banquet in my district just a couple of weekends ago. It was the Yale County Wildlife Federation. Now, Yale County, that's Tom Cotton's dad was putting on this And it was their annual quail dinner. And I was just so excited to see so many people from the community that came out to their little community center and had such a great time. And they were doing it all for wildlife conservation. And DU is a fantastic organization people can get involved in. But regardless of what your favorite hunting or fishing activity is, there's an association for you. And what you'll also find is is organizations like DU, obviously focused on ducks, but really looking at the broad conservation picture as well. So, first off, thank you to everybody that gets involved, that understands the importance of conservation. You know, it's not about us, it's about the future. there's this philosopher that said that a conservative is someone who believes in unchosen obligations. So as a in the word conservation is derived from conserve or conservative. So I believe that I've got unchosen obligations because I've been blessed to be in this country to hold true to the best traditions of our country but also an unchosen obligation to the future to leave what we have in better shape so that our as the founders would say, our posterity can enjoy the same things that we do. And when you're involved in these organizations, when you're contributing to conservation, that's what you're doing. So thank you to the people that are doing it, and a big challenge to those who haven't got involved yet to get involved.

Adam Putnam: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can't think of a better way to put an exclamation point on this wonderful interview. We're proud of our 30,000 volunteers who make it happen, but You're on the tip of the spear and public service is a service and what you and your family go through to be the champions for us, to be our voice on Capitol Hill, to work hard, to put together coalitions, to pass these things, to make a lasting impact. It doesn't go without sacrifice and I just want to thank you on behalf of everyone at Ducks Unlimited for all that you do for us.

Bruce Westermen: Well, I appreciate that, but this is the fun stuff. This is the stuff I love to work on, and I have a wonderful opportunity to do it. And I just appreciate all the support that I get from DU and others in the conservation world to get done what we need to get done. Thank you.

Adam Putnam: Amen. Thank you very much. Mike, back at you.

Mike Brasher: Thank you, Adam. A very special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Congressman Bruce Westerman, representative from the 4th District of Arkansas and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. We greatly appreciate his time welcoming us into his office and we greatly appreciate all of his support for conservation. Thank my co-host on this particular episode, our CEO, Adam Putnam. Adam did such a good job, we'll probably have to have him back on at a later time. We thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for all the great work he does on this episode, and the listener, we thank you for your time and support of the podcast and your commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.