Corey Mason, Dallas Safari Clu‪b and Wildlife Conservation

Ramsey Russell: I’m your host, Ramsey Russel join me here to listen to those conversations. Welcome back to another podcast of ducks season somewhere. Got a question for anybody listening? What is Dallas Safari Club? What is it, why should you care what it is, if you’re a duck hunter? Anybody listening to my previous podcast before knows that going to convention at Dallas Safari club and elsewhere is a big part of what I do, it’s a big part of my year. If you’ve been listening to our Monday episodes, some of the interviews rerecorded at Dallas Safari club with different exhibitors and key people we know just some fun conversation. Think of, it’s kind of a face of Dallas Safari Club, you may have asked yourself what is Dallas Safari club? Who is Dallas Safari club and why does it matter if I’m just a duck hunter in central Mississippi or northern California? Today’s guest is Corey Mason, he’s executive director, of the Dallas Safari Club. I’ve had him come on to, maybe shed some light on all this for us. Corey, how are you this morning?
Corey Mason: I’m Great Ramsey, thanks for having me buddy, I appreciate it.
Ramsey Russell: I’m glad to have you all. Dallas Safari club truly is a very big part of my year and my business and my life. Real quickly before I get into you’re part of it. But real quick I’ll just tell you a really good friend of mine from Mississippi Mr. Greg Kitchens the late Mr. Greg kitchens, I met him in a very small show in Mississippi 15 years ago and we came to know each other, he became a client and I never forget the day he told me Ramsey, you need to go to Dallas Safari club. I said, well what is it? He said it’s a great show. It’s a big event, you need to be there. And that put me on the path to initially come into Dallas Safari Club as an exhibitor, but becoming a member and then becoming a life member. And this past January was our 10th year as an exhibitor and 50 years life member. And I’ve gained an awareness that I’ve developed a bunch of friends. You know, part of going to convention is not just clients coming in to ask about going duck hunting somewhere Korea. Its friends, its clients that have been with you for 10 years or people you’ve known and friendship you built. It starts out in the back parking lot with your volunteers. I’ve got Dallas Safari club, volunteer friends, I stay in touch with all year long. And I always look forward to, I skip breakfast on set up dates because I know I’m thinking eating barbecue for breakfast about eight o’clock in the morning. So thank you for being here. Thank you for your time Corey. Tell me this. Let’s start this way. Who is Corey Mason? Who are you? Where are you from? What’s your background?
Corey Mason: But I appreciate you having me Ramsey. Thanks for that. And I’m going to kind of take it off there with sort of, who am I? I’ll start that off with I am a Christian. I’m a hunter. I’m a certified wildlife biologist. Father, husband, all those attributes. But I was born and raised in the southern panhandle of Texas to farming ranching oil family out there and grew up behind bird, dogs, chasing doves and ducks and quails. And had a great influence of a father and grandfathers that really loved the outdoors and everything about it. And that really shaped my life in the sense of growing up with one grandfather that was a farmer and rancher and that formed in me a very strong and personal relationship with the land and land ethic and wildlife and land stewardship. And the hunter and a father that hunted all over the world since. And I’ve had the great privilege of trailing behind him, and get into hunting a lot of unique places. My formative career really, it really pushed me with the desire to spend my life in wildlife conservation and pursue that through undergraduate and graduate school. So my life and I know we’re talking about in more detail in a bit, but my life has been dedicated to wildlife conservation from a very early age.
Ramsey Russell: That’s incredible. So, what did you grow up hunting and when did you grow up hunting in the southern panhandle?
Corey Mason: Yeah, So I grew up hunting quail and duck. And some of the dove hunting out there in that part of the world is some of the best anywhere, you know, you get around a little livestock pond an hour before dark, the duck comes just pouring in and it’s a great time. And my grandfather had a farm and still does in Scurry County, which is for those that are quail hunters know that, that part of the state is obviously quail populations are up and down as they are anywhere else. But that’s part of the state of Texas is known for great bobwhite quail hunting and so we got to spend a lot of time to hunt behind bird dogs out there. And so that was in the early 80s and hunting was really good. A lot of land conversion from large mass producing cotton and soya room farms out there to more started to see a transition in that landscape and to recognizing the value wild life habitat and the value of those quail is all of a sudden influence in what that landscape looked like. And it’s a different world now than it was 20-30 years ago, for sure.
Ramsey Russell: And you got into wildlife management, did you go to College for Wildlife Management?
Corey Mason: I did. I went to college in east Texas at Stephen F. Austin State University. I got a bachelor’s degree in wildlife management. Masters in animal science and biology. And one graduating with my undergraduate degree, I went to work out west to Mexico primarily in far Western Texas for an outfit and a landowner that controlled and a lot of property out there was a big woman. And I guided hunts for a few years in New Mexico was a licensed guide for elk and deer and bear a little bit all that pronghorn. And then stayed in touch with my graduate professor and went back to graduate school there at Stephen F. Austin and with my focus there again, remaining pretty true to my background and lots of bird hunting and focused and graduate school on waterfowl project from my grandfather.
Ramsey Russell: Wow. Did you have a lot of ducks growing up? Did you all shoot ducks with some of those stock tanks that you hunted doves onto?
Corey Mason: You know the stock tanks that hold huge numbers of ducks in the winter months and we hunted Waterfowl some growing up. But waterfowl hunting became an addiction in mind more through college now, through my adult life. Early in my life it was mainly dove and quail that I hunted out soon.
Ramsey Russell: What your thesis your graduate research on specific to waterfowl?
Corey Mason: Yeah, it was on recognizing from sort of an observational standpoint from parks and wildlife mid water waterfowl surveys. That there appeared to be sort of a changing shift in waterfowl and wetlands use specifically. More specifically on that was waterfowl use increasing use of artificially created weapons like livestock ponds and in large treatment of weapons like that. And so my specific project was on waterfowl use livestock ponds and which we discovered and learned a whole lot about the use of those. There was a lot of speculation that the birds were using those strictly as loafing areas, which was completely incorrect, we learned in subsequent studies, it was part of multiple projects that food availability and all livestock bonds were tremendous and that they were satisfying many of their wintering needs from body development as well. And those birds went great body condition and it actually subsequently led to changes in strategy for serving waterfowl in Texas. So it’s pretty fundamental research.
Ramsey Russell: That’s surprising to me because when I think of just the average livestock pond, I have said they were drinking or loafing or you know, I wouldn’t have thought they were getting that much benefit out of it myself.
Corey Mason: Yeah. What’s interesting too is whenever you insert cattle in a system as well, all of a sudden those livestock bonds now are full of invertebrates. And so those invertebrates obviously provides an important source of food for those birds as well. So yeah, maybe they’re not loaded with traditional wetland foods. Like people think about the water fowl, you know, grains and corn and those kind of things, right? But they are high invertebrates.
Ramsey Russell: Wow, you’ve opened up the door to me. So I’ve got a quick question. Was it primarily mallards? Was it a wide spectrum of dabbler, dabblers and divers? I mean, were they specific species that were keying into these ponds for that, or?
Corey Mason: Yeah, there were and I focused primarily on dabbling ducks, specifically mallards, wigeon, gadwall and teal. But there were traditional used that you see as well, you know, stropping that acciaccatura. But I focus specifically on, like I mentioned, you know, mallard, gadwall, wigeon to some extent, but a lot of white teal as well. Ramsey Russell: Wow. That’s some great research. I find that interesting. And what next, where do you go from grad school doing that kind of waterfowl research?
Corey Mason: Yeah. So it does build into career really well. So I was actually working off the Silver River up sort of northeast Texas on this project covering large landscape and some of these livestock ponds were half acre and some of them were 3-4-5 acres as well. So they were pretty diverse systems with large watersheds and lots of influences and dairies in those systems as well, of course, which influenced grain and inverse as well. But that project ultimately lead, it was a Texas parks and wildlife funded project that led to a pretty natural immigration into Texas parks and wildlife. So parks and wildlife fired me right at the end of that project and I went to work actually on the management area that I was working out of the office from, from my graduate project. So it worked very well for me and I was one biologist on 10,000 acre wildlife management area that was nearly solely focused on waterfowl. So I got to play with a beautiful complex system of moist soil management units there. Now some green three reservoirs as well. I Duck hunted just about every day of the week in the morning before the day started. Single guy living up there on the prairie hunting ducks. It was a pretty good way to live for a while.
Ramsey Russell: I also went to Mississippi State. I went to Mississippi State University also got a degree in wildlife management, which Mississippi State was Fourth Street with a wildlife option. And back in those days it’s been a while ago. I’m 53 years old. This was over 20 years ago. Most of my classmates grew up like you and I did hunting and fishing and we were, what was then thought of as a hooking bullet biologists did. I guess you just pretty much say you followed the same trend. You were that guy that grew up hunting and fishing, had an appreciation for wildlife and wanted to work in that field. That’s pretty much how they ended up. Would you say it’s pretty fair your trajectory also?
Corey Mason: Yeah. I’d say that spot on. I was that guy that grew up hunting and grew up farming and ranching. So I knew how to drive a tractor, I knew what it meant to put fire on the landscape or to draw the line or whatever it was and understood the influence and the importance of the people that manage those properties and the influence of the wildlife that use them. So yeah, that hooking bullet was my upbringing as well.
Ramsey Russell: That’s fantastic. So, now as a young man out of grad school go you’re managing weapons and hands on plus you’re getting to go out and duck hunt almost every morning during duck season that’s heck that’s the dream job.
Corey Mason: It was a great gig and along with that, I had the opportunity to implement needed research on these properties from everything from waterfowl, and if we continue down to monarch butterfly research and then I moved back forward and then I took my next step in my career with Texas parks and wildlife. And moved to another waterfowl century property that was off the Trinity River that had this incredibly well managed and developing system of water reuse wetlands. And what that was, the concept was is that the Trinity River is essentially wastewater effluent coming out of Dallas FortWorth. And this concept actually lifted water from the river ran it through a large series of several 1000 acres of well managed wetlands. And then at the end of that, using the wetlands is a filter to clean that water, re-lifted the water back to be FW. So that it was essentially the concept no net loss of water. And so it was ecologically efficient, biologically sustainable. And importantly it created thousands of acres of really high quality waterfowl and essentially just wetland habitats.
Ramsey Russell: Man that’s incredible. It is win – win for everybody, isn’t it?
Corey Mason: It’s a great project and it was actually served as a model of projects around north America and we got to give that tour of that project to obviously lots of school groups, lots of college groups and a lot of people that we’re looking at it to adapt that model and using around the US. and it’s become a kind of a poster top project. Really proud of it.
Ramsey Russell: Very good. Well, you mentioned monarch butterflies. Now look, I know what a monarch butterfly is. We all we all do, man. A little orange and black butterflies flit around here in Mississippi sometimes and gets on certain food sources. But way back when I was in wild I program I worked down in on a big ranch that straddled them at LaSalle Webb county 1990 was the year. And sometimes during that fall maybe it’s October or early November. It was the weather was pleasant. It went from hotter than Haiti’s to pleasant outside. But a phenomena happened at this monarch butterfly migration came through the property. And it was like every single monarch butterfly on the world was on that ranch at one time. Like I can remember driving a pickup truck. It was just the soil was damp. I wouldn’t say wet, it was just damp where a little moisture had created. It was damp in this little low lying area in the shade and I can remember driving my truck up through there and stopping, and could not see the hood ornament for all the monarch butterflies flying. Is that, can you speak to something like that? Because a lot of people haven’t seen that I’ve only seen at one time, it was in Texas and against the Mexican border. We all experiencing that kind of migration coming through back in those days.
Corey Mason: I have not witnessed something that’s spectacular. And our project was sort of aimed on the inverse of the back end of that in the sense of that prairie up there where we were doing our work on our WMA. And again, we had a lot of prairie stools and of course we, we applied a lot of prescribed fire, but really addressing the fact that a lot of these pollinators are decreasing and sort of a significant scale. And so we were addressing some of those indicators in which we could influence essentially things like milk wheat production. Yeah, I mean we were looking at some of those indicators that could also be to the detriment of monarchs. You know, all those influences what your pesticides, fire ants and all those things speculatively thoughts and trying to get a large scale that essentially the landscape level, trying to provide a habitat again with monarch sort of being the poster child. But many other pollinators as well and recognizing the role ecologically that they play in the pollination of essentially nearly every floral species that’s out there.
Ramsey Russell: That’s right, that’s right. And we kind of alluded, we kind of got off into that subject before we started recording, talking about the value of hunting and stuff like that. How it fixed more than just a game animals, how interconnected the whole ecologically and how interconnected everything is. We think of wildlife to think of game animals, but it’s not just game animals. It’s other wildlife too such as butterflies. Very important.
Corey Mason: Absolutely.
Ramsey Russell: Well, so how did you make the jump from this job here a long of the Trinity River to Dallas Safari Club executive director?
Corey Mason: I even had a couple of more steps in there. That’s even more migratory bird focus. So when I finished that time on the WMA, then I actually served for a few years as the east Texas, waterfowl and wetlands biologist. I was in that position for a few years and then actually served as the migratory shore and upland game bird program leader for the state of Texas. And worked on from banding projects to working closely with the Fish and Wildlife service and flyways and tech committees and all those kinds of things. Then ultimately I was the director for the eastern portion of the state working with partners from all over, you know, from Delta’s to Ducks unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation. So I’ve spent a lot of my career working on partnerships, lots of partnerships. At that point in time I worked for the state for about 16 to 17 years and love the relationships that were made there, just strong conservation focused. And but at the same time was looking to maybe move outside of state government work. And that’s what landed me with the opportunity of Dallas Safari Club.
Ramsey Russell: When did you start there Corey?
Corey Mason: So I’ve been here with Dallas Safari club now, just shy of three years, august will be my three year anniversary with them.
Ramsey Russell: Congratulations. It’s a wonderful organization. Well, how would you describe, I know how I describe Dallas Safari Club, how would you describe, what is Dallas Safari Club?
Corey Mason: Well, I appreciate that opportunity to really hit that. I’m a very focused individual and kind of very goal driven and that’s one of the things that really pulled my eyes to DSC. When I look at what the organization is and I’d say with 100% confidence that it’s probably one of the most focused conservation organizations out there and maybe when you look at a gamut of projects and when I say focused, you think, well how could you say focused? You know, because when you look at the conservation footprint of an organization like DSC and it’s extremely broad and it varies from very strong support built the waterfowl projects to pronghorn restoration out Western US to black bear and grizzly bear research and litigation to anti-poaching and blind work in Africa. But the point of that focuses that we focus very specifically on needed conservation and that’s conservation projects and conservation delivery of habitat that needed conservation in the sense of needed science, its education. That education obviously is a very broad term that’s not just singularly focused on youth, although there is a strong focus on that. It’s also a strong focused on the education of the general public. When you talk about that a little bit more. But essentially the voting public more specifically and kind of the last tenant of our mission is conservation education with the last of advocacy. And advocacy is what many people think it is, essentially it is getting in front of those that are making decision policymakers. And more specifically, we can look at it as a state House legislature or the US Legislature or maybe the EU Parliament or the Canadian parliament or many places around the world in which we very actively work for them to really empirically clearly understand the role of the conservation through hunting model and the role of hunter and conservation.
Ramsey Russell: Wow, that’s a big job. That’s a big undertaking Corey. It is as an understatement. When was Dallas Safari Club started?
Corey Mason: It was started in 1982.
Ramsey Russell: You all have come a long way since I graduated high school.
Corey Mason: Yeah. We have and we talked about, people ask about DSC, Dallas Safari club and the emphasis on Dallas, and I address that question a lot. And you know what, I kind of relate to people from 1982 it started in Dallas Texas and now Dallas is our headquarters and our footprint is all over the world.
Ramsey Russell: Yup, Is it just one chapter Dallas in Dallas, you’ve got other chapters around the country, other chapters forming?
Corey Mason: We do. So obviously Dallas Safari Club, DSC proper is the parent organization, but we have about 12 – 14 chapters. Our chapter system is essentially, they are not quite brand new but it’s close to say a fair to say brand new. We have again about 12 – 13 chapters and another one in queue right now that are across North America. We have purposely self-regulated and not build any international chapters yet to make sure that we built a really solid framework here so that we can provide a really close level of care and support to our chapters. And that’s really one of the things that I think makes this organization really unique in the fact that it’s built really strongly on relationships, trust, partnership. You know, we do not have a large staff, we have a staff of 15, but our conservation footprint is comparable to those organizations that have 5 and 10 times that number of staff because we work and leverage our partnerships and we do what we do best and we rely on those around us to do what they do best and work in concert with them. So we’re not redundant and effort.
Ramsey Russell: Right. You all generate conservation dollars through convention?
Corey Mason: We do. Our annual fundraiser occurs in early January. And that convention is many things and you’re right in the middle of it, so you can keep me honest here. But I think one of the things that people appreciate when they come is it’s really a celebration. It’s a celebration of a lot ways, the celebration of a way of life. It’s a celebration of conservation and the hunters’ role in conservation and the camaraderie that comes from our community, the hunting community, and the outdoor community. And during the convention, we bring in people from all over the world. We had ministers from 8 or 10 countries. We have obviously Federal Legislature that participate in our convention and we have the ecological footprint of what’s in that room, has every confidence is represented, every way alive many languages and many flags, that’s for sure that are represented. But it is our annual fundraiser and from that, that’s what funds are conservation efforts for the year. And just sort of as a benchmark this last year we granted about $2.5 million in conservation focus grant.
Ramsey Russell: And, and I’m sure you all are able to leverage some of that into and even more through some of these partnerships and relationships you’re talking about. You know speaking about the camaraderie that’s really, it that event in Dallas in early January draws a lot of hunters from around the United States. I meet clients from Las Vegas from California from New York, a very, very broad audience I met right there at that show. But you know, it’s always 7 hours down the interstate from Mississippi. It’s crazy how many people from Mississippi I only see at Dallas Safari club. If you see what I’m saying. I mean family members or friends from quite back wind I touch base with every year at Dallas Safari club and I couldn’t have said it any better than that camaraderie. It’s a great place. It’s a very nice event. There may be bigger hunting shows, but I don’t know of any nicer events. It’s a very nice event. It’s very quiet, anything in the world that you want is there. But I just black camaraderie hits home. Well tell me I’m trying to get my mind wrapped around anybody listening on how we go from this the great event. It generates dollars through a lot of different ways through auctions, through hunt sales, through booth feeds through entry fees through membership drive through everything else. Now where do we go around the world? What programs do we go into? What causes do we champion with those dollars? Where in conservation do we go from convention to the mission of Dallas Safari Club?
Corey Mason: Absolutely. So, we have a focused, we have a concentration advisory board that we used to help us prioritize and focus where we spend these dollars, but we also have a really good pulse just because of our very active work with organizations around the world. Hunting organizations, conservation organizations and our partners around the world have an understanding of longstanding needs, emerging needs, as well as just those long those long term projects in which we engage in and you know, those really become prioritizing. It seems like I mentioned last year we granted over $2.5 million in grants for conservation needs. And I think when someone has an understanding of where we’re spending those dollars and it may be kind of paints a little bit clearer picture of what our focus is and it’s a very pure conservation focus. And I know from a name like DSC, there could be an affinity for people to think, well this is an organization just represents international hunts. And you know what, that may be fair in some sense, but through time and scientifically as we address emerging and ongoing issues, we certainly spend a fair amount of our revenue in Africa on needed research, working with ministries there on anti-poaching. And one of the reasons is because it is a battleground. It is a battleground for anti-sustainable use and anti-hunting organizations that they see that as the opportunity as a battleground to start slowly taking those fights away from the hunting community. And if that’s why or elephant hunting were in those fights were present in the room, I attend the Global Conservation some it’s like the World Conservation Congress, and it was supposed to occur in June in France with the IUCN. Last year I was in Geneva Switzerland attendant sightings. And the importance of that is that we are that voice in the room to talk about the need for well-regulated legal hunting and sustainable use of the whole. And so we’re trying to be sort of the tip of that spear in those fights that are happening internationally as well as those that are occurring locally. For example, where the British Columbia government took grizzly bear hunting from them and not based on science based on essentially a political whim, if you will and emotional politics. Exactly. Right. So if you look at that scope of work from those types of things, again, back to the fact that we’re working with a landscape level scale, if it’s quicker restoration or maybe it’s a pronghorn restoration project that needs to take place in the western US. And we’re working with state conservation agencies and other partners. Maybe we’re partnering with the Wild Sheep Foundation on some projects right now in Mexico that we’re restoring sheep on the mountains and habitat that were formerly occupied by sheep that are no longer. And again, we’ve had a long standing relationship with delta waterfowl and a lot of their research as well, that we supported strongly through the years. And so we have a very diverse portfolio if you will, from the conservation perspective in which we engage in.
Ramsey Russell: Absolutely. Pursuant to just what I do. Like I travel a lot. I go to a lot of countries. I think, I always when I start thinking about those anti-hunting, anti-sustainable use type models. I think that only because I’ve traveled to some of these countries. Have I gained little inkling of perspective like everybody else listed like you, like a lot of us. I just grew up hunting in my backyard in my state and a lot of us still do just hunt real close to home. But it is a big world, as you travel, you start seeing hunting in other countries, but then you begin to put together the fact that hunting all over the world is kind of all the hunters in the same lifeboat. You know for example when I think of anti-hunting, I always think of Netherlands and I always think of Australia, probably I started thinking of South Africa, it’s unbelievable that the amount of anti-hunting vitriol that comes out of South African mouth. Not the guys that are after hunting and doing the concessions, but out of South Africans themselves. And it goes back to this anti-hunting. And it might be hard for somebody sitting here in the United States to consider that we have anti-forces at work that if it as hunting for rhinoceros as hunting for elephants or lions or something, somewhere, geese in the Netherlands, ducks in Australia as it becomes increasingly legislated. It’s like urban encroachment coming up to your little suburban neighborhood, it’s getting closer to home. And when you start thinking along those linesfor example, I’ll ask you this because you’re here right there on the front line fighting the fight. But we start talking about hunting African lions or hunting elephants there, you know, because there’s commodity value in wildlife, that hunting brings our recreational entries place commodity value, that commodity value. I mean it’s really why the North American biology, it’s really why we’re hunting and is valuable and a community anywhere in the world can look at this animal and say this is valuable to me into my community. So we’re going to manage for it instead of extirpated. Think of no value don’t last very long on earth. We hunters put commodity value on wildlife. I’d say that but in the instance of say Africa, I know that there’s a lot of American influences. Fish and Wildlife Service that are going to play and you know, and as I look at it, it’s a simple regular guys. I look and say, okay, my government precluding the import of trophies into this country, African trophies into this country, it displaces a lot of that commodity value. Is that a fair assessment?
Corey Mason: It is. It’s an even an imposition in the sovereign rights of independent countries where you have specifically you have a foreign government. In this case if it’s the US Government either imposed by the Fishing and Wildlife Service Department isn’t here or US Congress in which they try to legislatively imposed their wills and ideals on the way in which an African government should be able to manage its species. The same is happening right now in the European Union across much of Europe, in which you know, they have essentially taken up an effort to ban the import of legally taken animals from around the world. But this is the issue. They did not engage stakeholders, they did not engage those that would be negatively impacted in their conservation efforts, nor did they really choose to hear from them when African countries stood up and said this is the problem, or when countries and from Asia that set up stood up and said our mountain sheep populations will be negatively impacted. Why did you not ask those in which you are essentially impacting and they didn’t do so for one reason its arrogance. And I use the term Western arrogance a lot and I do that pretty boldly because it’s just the truth and in fact US Government or if it’s Europe in the sense of trying to impose their again their concepts of morality on someone which they cannot understand nor have they chosen to try to understand.
Ramsey Russell: And it’s almost like some of that decision making maybe more emotional based on science based.
Corey Mason: Oh it is.
Ramsey Russell: But it impacts that resource. You know I was in Africa last year and we were on this particular farm, they’re in Zulu land and beautiful tens of thousands of acres. Just it was just a little private estate we were staying on and the drive between the gate and the bungalow. We were staying in the camp house. It was like driving through Wild Kingdom like the real animal kingdom. I mean just had all these antelope from zebras and warthogs that just about reach out the car window and pet. Well this particular doctor also had five rhinos on his property. And I was surprised because you know when you’re in Africa and you’re at the bush and you hear a helicopter, people throw up their glasses to start looking at it because it could it could be a private landowner or a biologist out working. There could be a poacher coming in to shoot an animal. And I was just surprised that the adult rhinos on this property still had their horns intact because a lot of people have started sawing them off to remove the temptation for somebody come out there and kill that animal for the horn. And but this particular landowner, they were his pets. And it was amazing to me that we could step out of the truck and they would come up to us like cattle and they would get just 5 or 10 yards from us and look at it like a cow. They were just pets. And the male rhino had a fresh scar on his forehead. Where a local poacher had shot him with a 30 caliber gun. Didn’t even go through that thick skull. It just bounced off. It’s too small caliber. But it just it dawned on that, with that amount of money sitting on his nose, his days are numbered. But as I started thinking about it because it was disturbing to me, it bothers me. The megafauna like the rhinos eventually might become extinct, not because of hunters and the valid commodity value replacing them that is converted into conservation, but because of black market poaching and my feeble mind prohibition of export of that at a trophy almost feeds into the eventual extinction. Because we give value and we give life not to the conservation values of sport hunting but to the black market value. It’s almost like the actions of European Union or US Fishing and Wildlife Service that prohibits the legal import of those game animals just plays right into the hands of the black market. Is that a fair assumption?
Corey Mason: It is a fair assumption. And we have recently actually addressed that in the sense that we worked with the Fishing and Wildlife Service and a great partnership. You know, that is in our convention were in constant relationship with them that. So with anybody there’s points of divergence and this is one of them in the sense that we actually recently entered into litigation against the US Fish and Wildlife Service over this point in which they were not as for the statutes of the law, they were not in cross or not, I should say it’s the present term, not a past term processing uh the import of legally taking animals in this particular case from Africa. And so that’s actually scheduled will be going this summer up through the litigation route because they’re just not simply following in their own federal process. And that’s not a route that DSC normally takes. But this particular inaction just simply cannot be tolerated because we cannot at a whim decide which federal policy that we’re going to follow or not at the detriment of conservation efforts around the world, at the host country of that animal or the detriment of the hunters that spend a large sum of money to take that hunt. And further it even feeds the narrative to those anti-hunting organizations that are really the kind of the third leg of that threat. You know, these species around the world if it’s loss of habitat or our political influence. But it’s also the he’s anti-hunting organizations that we talk about that or maybe working in Africa. But this is one of those messages that I take you a lot of places of the fact that, why should the American hunter really care about what’s happening, say with an elephant or a lion or Karakorum in Asia or a species somewhere else around the world. And the fact is that it’s those organizations that are pursuing those routes are working very actively in the United States and complacency by the hunting community is their best friend for the anti-organizations like humane society or center for biological diversity or born free. I mean those organizations exist as anti-hunting organizations and they’re working in the US actively. They’re working to, you know, they want to take grizzly bear hunting. They’re working to take black bear hunting and they’re working to take mountain lion hunting. They’re working on wolves. And so for a hunter in the US to be complacent and think that somebody else’s problem is a very serious scenario.
Ramsey Russell: I’m aware of a piece of legislation several years old now. Corey it’s back during the old, it was a piece of Obama administration, Obama executive order. It’s like the anti-wildlife trafficking act. I mean who wouldn’t be against anti-trafficking of wildlife? Well, I mean it would be, sure we’re all opposed to that. But it was very generally written to protect Iconic specie. Well now, I can think of any animal depicted in an animal cracker box lion’s and rhinos and giraffe’s. I can see that as iconic. But in my world iconic is a mallard duck. And that’s what I hear you saying is if these agencies and these people and these laws can you know, if they can do something like mountain lions, elephants, it can eventually find its way into my world, which is a mallard duck. I mean that’s kind of where we’re getting with this. That’s where we’re all in the boat together.
Corey Mason: That’s exactly right. That’s where the hunting community has to stand shoulder to shoulder. And use a very current relevant example is this covid crisis in the sense of these organizations. And actually, I’ve seen a couple of pieces of federal legislation right now that are in the process of being developed to completely restrict and prohibit the trade of wildlife. And again, on the surface, there’s probably not a hunter out there that would say absolutely, you know, we’re the first in line to pay for anti-poaching initiatives or a state game warden or provincial government gamekeeper or whatever word you want to use around the world. But at the same time, these ambiguous terms, it can be applied in various scenarios when it fits the situation to now further restrict legally taken animals and that trade that’s regulated by society in which you have pieces of legislation that’s trying to impose. And so we’ve seen these organizations now use covid as an opportunity to try to cease wildlife trade working backwards from the fact that there’s suspicion that at least the root causes it come to come from what they call a wet market in china from a batch. And so now they use that as a giant springboard to say that wildlife trade should be prohibited across the world, that’s the problem.
Ramsey Russell: You know, when they first started talking this covid stuff, they were talking origins and pangolins, which it’s kind of like an Asian version of an armadillo. Pretty interesting animal. I’ve actually seen one in captivity and they’d roll up like a ball and you should push it along. I mean, the very docile animals, but it’s also pangolin happened to be the most poached animal on earth. And I wondered, I mean, that narrative could have been coming from some of those anti-organizations. Now that I think about that, now that if you put it this way, what, wow! You know, we’ve kind of danced all over about why hunting is important to conservation and how Dallas Safari club is involved. In fact, I will just follow up to say that I was only aware as a normal person that doesn’t read the federal digest and otherwise unaware of that kind of stuff. I was only aware of the piece of Obama executive order. Only because Dallas Safari Club publicized in their magazines, you all do get the word out on a lot of things. A lot of us may not be otherwise aware. Corey, how would you speak to the regular guy that the ordinary hunter, the guys like myself, you know that just for duck hunting back home or white tail deer hunting or just maybe we don’t travel this internationally. How would you speak them? How can people like us become meaningfully involved in protecting hunting and conservation? How would you speak to somebody like that?
Corey Mason: Absolutely. You know, I think one of the one of the travesties that I see as I move around the US and around the world speaking and did various capacities is a complacency by hunters. And then I’ll address it there is an opportunity on the back end but it’s a complacency to think I only hunt waterfowl or I only hunt white tailed deer, small game squirrels, rabbits, whatever it might be. And so you know what that’s really not my problem. And I’ve done this for, you know, whatever fill in the blank 20 years, 40 years. I’m my way of life really isn’t under threat. And the complacency and that thought is one that’s just simply incorrect, in the sense of understanding that, those threats to the conservation through hunting model and our ability to go out and enjoy on a weekend or through the whole season with our trusted firearm. And hopefully our hunting dog with us, it’s constantly under threat and it’s under threat at the state level legislation like you mentioned, that’s currently in place in Connecticut and California, and in Florida in various places like that to get pretty close to home pretty quickly. Or it’s under threat by legislation that’s in Washington D. C. For the North American hunter and trying to further regulate your ability to take. And, and even things as small as legislation that’s involved with the ability for breeders to have that lab or that springer spaniel or whatever you might have at your side. You know, those threats from the humane societies of the world. And so just simply now, to answer the question is the need for engagement. And that engagement can come from a local hunting organization. Maybe it’s a Countywide something, maybe it’s a state level, something, maybe it’s ducks unlimited, maybe it’s DSC. But the point is to engage to know what’s going on at your state legislature from an agricultural side, from a conservation perspective, from an animal right side, all those different factors that can quickly touch the hunting community to be engaged to know what kind of legislation is going on out there. And I realized the natural response to that might be, well, how am I going to know that? And the response to that is? Is any organization it’s worth their salt if you will, will keep their membership engaged and knowledgeable of those threats that they’re coming towards you. For example, like you mentioned, if there’s a wildlife trade act out there, an issue that’s coming along an organization like DSC will engage their members whenever we see those things coming up. We have an active lobby in many states and clearly we have representatives and lobbyists in Washington, D. C. as well. So we keep our membership based informed of those threats. Again, if its mountain lion hunting out west or maybe it’s an emerging issue coming up in the East Coast, whatever it might be. And so then people are engaged in the importance of that is the ability to know what’s going on. You can pick up the phone and call your, maybe it’s a county judge or it’s a state representative member and tell them, you know what, I don’t support this or I do support this because that moves a needle more than any organization out there. Just taking something up with them and their constituent base knows what’s going on and talk to their local elected official it has a huge impact.
Ramsey Russell: It’s a simple as the phone call.
Corey Mason: It is.
Ramsey Russell: Thank you. I’m aware that like myself and like practically everybody listening right now we’re all sheltered in place or maybe not even that anymore. Maybe we’re just, life is normal life as we know it has been put on pause. So you’re probably working for home. A lot of us are, but Corey, how do you see covid 19 and a lot of the hoopla going around? How do you see it affected hunting and conservation moving forward? How is it going to affect Dallas Safari club? How’s it going to affect hunting? How’s it going to affect conservation?
Corey Mason: You know, one of the first big hit to those that are closest to the resource, it’s either to the landowner, to the community conservancy, to the provincial government, to the tribe, at least in their land. And the hunters not traveling right now. So if that loss of revenue and goes all the way back to the beginning of our conversation where you said, hunting creates an incentive over the landowner, whoever that landowner might be in the broadest sense to manage for that species or to continue to have white tailed deer habitat or beautiful wetland habitat instead of turning it into something else. And so those lack and loss of dollars for conservation right now. Now in one year term it may not roll the clock back a whole lot, but should that be sustained or should those operators or landowners not be able to take this essentially a one year loss recognizing the next year? Who knows what that’s going to look like as an economic repercussions of this year. You know, we do know that some of the outfitting business have already gone out of business. You know, they just said, I can’t sustain this for a year and they’ve already saw altered unemployment and sort of checked out. But those loss of dollars and we can look pretty locally if we look at the Western US or maybe let’s say Canada, that is the case point here that they lost their spring season for bear hunting, which was a huge economic hit to them because those outfitters have to leave those properties, many of them from governments or force products, industry or whatever it might be their out that money in the front. They lose those dollars and they’re gone. And so now those state game and fish agencies are not selling hunting license, they’re not selling fishing license as of yet and those local cafes, et cetera aren’t feeding the hamburgers to those people that are in the country and the local hotels etcetera. So has a huge trickledown effect through their system. But when those state agencies and provincial governments do not have the conservation dollars that come in through on the North American side, like state Pittman Robertson act number one, it starts crippling the game and fish agency’s ability to do their business. And so then we lose biological data, we lose the ability to work with landowners and work with partners. And that same model can be applied around the world. And so a very short term loss of dollars can have a huge impact. You know, maybe they look at tax reduction. Well then the next time you know, from that, now there’s last staff to go out there to work for the landowner or give advice and guidance to somebody else and how to manage their property. So it’s going to have a significant impact. Hopefully it’s for the short term, but it’s something that we’ll feel for the next few years.
Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, I’m sure we will. Corey, I thank you for your time. What the best way I can answer this. Gosh, Corey, thank you for your time. Guys, Go and check out Dallas Safari Club @official_dsc on Instagram and on Facebook. Of course you can check out with, keep on following us at Ramsey Russell Get Ducks. Thank you all for listening. Corey you have given everybody a lot to think about it. You certainly give me a lot to think about.
Corey Mason: Yeah, I’ll join you.
Ramsey Russell: Oh man. Look, I appreciate having you. And hey, I know you’re busy at convention time, of course but you get a chance to swing by the booths and say hello for a cup of coffee off. I look forward to shaking hand next time I’m down that way.
Corey Mason: That will be great I’d enjoy that.
Ramsey Russell: Thank you sir.
Corey Mason: Thank you.