EP 501. Under the Big Tent with Australia Duck Hunting Antis

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I got a great story for you. Great storyteller. Great story. My friend, Natalie Krebs of Outdoor Life. Did I say your name right? Krebs, isn’t it?

Natalie Krebs: Yep. Said it right.

Ramsey Russell: Good. I’m terrible with names. Natalie, start like this. Where are you from, and what do you do?

Natalie Krebs: Sure. So I’m originally from Missouri. I live in northwest Arkansas right now, and I am the executive editor of Outdoor Life.

Ramsey Russell: You are from Missouri? Which part of Missouri?

Natalie Krebs: Just outside St. Louis.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. Okay. Well, that’s duck hunting country. Did you grow up, I kind of sort of know you as your duck hunting before this latest thing you went on. I can remember you went on a media hunt with us down in New Zealand. That’s been a while ago. That’s been a long time. So did you grow up a wing shooter?

Natalie Krebs: I didn’t, no. I actually didn’t even grow up hunting. I grew up in a hunting family, but, short version, I’m one of three girls. My mom wasn’t crazy about hunting, and so my dad would kind of go off to a family farm in Indiana and hunt. I would go with him sometimes, but really, I always liked the outdoors. Being in the woods for somebody who didn’t hunt, I knew a decent amount about deer and turkeys and stuff like that. But I didn’t buy my first license until I was in college, and it kind of was a chicken-and-egg situation because I started working for Outdoor Life as a journalism intern. I wanted to go work at a hunting publication just because I had that background. And once I got there, I was like, why the hell haven’t I been doing this all along? So I really fell headfirst into it, and I’ve been doing it ever since, like shooting deer, hunting turkey, hunting a little bit of everything.

Ramsey Russell: How did you actually fall into hunting in college? Where were you going to college? Were you going to college in Missouri?

Natalie Krebs: No, I was going to college up in Illinois, actually, just north of Chicago on Lake Michigan. But I would drive down to the family farm in southern Indiana. And, I mean, really, it was, I interned at Outdoor Life in the fall. It was a graduation requirement to graduate from magazine journalism. And so I went to Outdoor Life, which at the time was based in New York City, which also is a little, you know, it wasn’t like I was just going out of the office and going hunting there. But, you know, I wrote stories about it. I interviewed deer hunters. I just applied my journalism to the hunting world, and on Thanksgiving break, I was like, I want to go deer hunting, like, this is, you know, I was a little annoyed that I’d had sort of the opportunity there for so long in my life, but I didn’t quite make the connection until I really just got into this world and was like, I want to do this.

Ramsey Russell: What led you into journalism? Not writing, but journalism?

Natalie Krebs: Sure, that’s a good question. I’ve always, you know, it’s probably photography and photojournalism. I was the photo editor of our school paper in high school. I mean, I started shooting photography film when I was in middle school. I just took my dad’s camera and shot a bunch of photos. And then I really liked the photo side of things. I wanted to study photojournalism, but it wasn’t a major in college, so I did a bunch of sports photography for the online student publication in college. Yeah, and switched into journalism. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I went to college undecided, didn’t have a major, took a bunch of classes. And the journalism classes felt like I was actually learning skills I could apply in the real world. Like, you know, I took an English class here, whatever, a Spanish class. I took classes, but I was like, I don’t even, how am I supposed to make a living doing anything? And I know journalism is a funny choice because it’s such a volatile industry, but basically what you do is you talk to people who are fascinating and who know way more than you do about a specific topic, and you get to pick their brain, and then you get to translate all that to people to understand. And for whatever reason, I just really enjoyed that I didn’t have to pick a specific topic. I could learn about all kinds of things by talking to people who do those things. So I don’t know if that answers your question.

Ramsey Russell: No, it does. It does. Because you know, as somebody that talks a lot, by necessity, in front of people, like this show we’re at today, I really enjoy listening and hearing stories. I used to love reading books when I was a kid, and now when you meet with people and you talk to people and interview people, you hear these stories. It’s kind of like reading a book real time. And that’s always fascinated me, and I just wondered how somebody gets into this. So you were going to school up near Chicago, and you would, I guess, weekend down in Indiana, and you fell into this duck hunting, this hunting organically on a family farm. I get deer hunting. Was that your nexus into this thing?

Natalie Krebs: Was deer hunting. Deer hunting and then turkey hunting, yep. And I had been before. I just had never been, you know, the one behind the trigger or the one who had bought a license. So once I started that, I was just like, yeah, this is it.

Ramsey Russell: Tell me about your first duck hunt, your first wing-shooting hunt. Or do you identify as a duck hunter or a hunter that just kind of does it all?

Natalie Krebs: I identify as a generalist hunter. I love to duck hunt. I have a duck dog, lying right here. So, like, I don’t feel qualified to identify as a duck hunter just simply because to me, it’s the most complex of all the different types of hunting you can do. You know, there’s calling, there’s gear, there’s strategy. And I’ve just, it feels like one of those things that I’m always still learning stuff from.

Ramsey Russell: So everybody I know that’s a serious duck hunter is still learning. Yeah, we all learn.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. But it’s like, I wouldn’t feel comfortable, like strolling into a group of, like, guys standing at the boat ramp and being like, yes, I am a duck hunter. Which is not what you would say if you walked up to a group of guys at a boat ramp. But the point being, like, I love to duck hunt, and so I keep doing it. So I guess that makes me a duck hunter.

Ramsey Russell: Let me ask you this, just the small talk parts of the conversation. What is it about duck hunting that you like as compared to deer hunting? Is it the social aspects?

Natalie Krebs: It can be. That part can be really fun. Especially, It can be. But I also really enjoy solo duck hunting or just sitting with one person, like, those are my favorite. Pit blinds are fun, and there’s a lot of, like when you get into a good field hunt in a bunch of layout blinds with a bunch of people, that is really fun. But also, just like, my most memorable hunts so far have been just one other buddy with me. So I think the thing that I love about it is just, like, when it works, when everything works perfectly, which, as you know, does not always happen, but just getting ducks right in front of you. And I love running my dog. He has made me want to figure out duck hunting more, and he just makes everything, I don’t know, that much more, I already want it bad. I want two ducks and to have a good time and have a successful hunt. But, man, him sitting next to me, being like, where the hell are my ducks? Like, shoot me something. That part just brings it to another level of satisfaction and personal challenges.

The Special Bond Between a Hunter and Their Retriever.

I wish I could be for them what they are for me. Because they had Char Dog. She’s the one. She adds a lot to it. I’ve had some great, great duck dogs, but it’s something about her that just makes me want to be better.

Ramsey Russell: I think a great retriever, a ride-or-die partner, like a dog, inspires me to want to be better for them. You know what I’m saying? I wish I could be for them what they are for me. Because they had Char Dog. She’s the one. She adds a lot to it. I’ve had some great, great duck dogs, but it’s something about her that just makes me want to be better. And, you know, I grew up deer hunting and squirrel hunting, and I love to hunt. I like to hunt a lot of different things, but I don’t turkey hunt. I think turkey hunting would be the closest thing to duck hunting. I can’t hear well enough to get it. I’m busy that time of year. I told a buddy of mine I don’t turkey hunt ’cause I’m not mad at them. And he said, well, you just hadn’t hunted the right turkey, or you’d be madder than a hornet. But the truth of the matter is, the thing I like about duck hunting, besides the social and the food and the culture and everything else, is that direct interaction. Whereas deer hunting in my world is trying to intersect my path, cross paths at the right time, within 200 yards, pull the trigger. I got a deer. Duck hunting ain’t like that. Me and them gotta be there in the same conference room at the same time. But then the deal’s gotta be closed. I’ll never forget the first time I ever blew a duck call, and I was in college, and the duck reacted to it. That was it. I was hooked. Boom. I was tethered to that resource forever, and it was just that, boom, that relationship. Holy cow. And to this day, it still hooks me. I still get into it pretty good.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, that’s cool.

Ramsey Russell: What was your first duck hunt?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. It was one of my very first trips I ever took as a junior editor. I got hired by Outdoor Life as our assistant editor in 2014 after interning there. It’s like I got my foot in the door, and then I just never left. So I think I was, like, 23 or 24. And it was maybe the second trip they ever sent me on, to Kansas in December. It was a pretty short hunt. It was a pit blind hunt for mallards. And then the next morning, we had just, like I was talking about, ten guys in layout blinds in a field. And it was funny because it was honestly like the very first time we were in that pit blind, it was really loud. All the shots were echoing. I had to pop up out of the blind. You know, all the moving parts that go into that sort of hunt were brand new to me. I really, you know, I’d shot shotguns before, but that was my first time wing shooting ever, really. And I remember saying to my guide, who I’m now buddies with, we’ve been duck hunting since then, but I was like, I don’t know that I shot a duck. It was kind of the thing where everybody gets up and shoots, and people are saying, oh, you got that one.

Ramsey Russell: Good job.

Natalie Krebs: No, I didn’t like. I couldn’t have told you. There were just so many people shooting. And I was brand new. I was like, I don’t really know what’s going on. And the other thing I did, too, was like, it was also new to me that I asked if I could help set up decoys and if I could clean birds. And it was a fancy lodge where clients don’t normally do that, but it was also new and so fascinating. And so I asked this guy, my buddy Zach. I was like, hey, can I clean birds? And he was like, “What?” And so I went out in the morning and helped them set a bunch of decoys for a goose hunt. And I told them that at the time, I was like, man, I don’t think I shot a bird yesterday. And so one of the very first flights that morning, a lone goose came in, and I was at the end of the line, like, right next to him. And this one goose is coming in, and he yells, “Nobody shoot! This is Natalie’s bird!” in front of, like, ten people. And so I pop up, just me. And I shot, and I missed. And so I very clearly had, you know, feet down right in front of me. And so I corrected, and then I just dropped that bird. And that, to me, that was the moment where I was like, I see what I was doing wrong. I see what I did right. And that was awesome. And that was just, like, having that opportunity. And then we went on to shoot a bunch of geese. Like, it was a really, really killer morning. So, yeah, that was my first hunt. And it just helped to have somebody who was a die-hard duck hunter actually, like, listen to what I was saying and be like, hey, yeah, we can do that.

Ramsey Russell: It’s contagious. Enthusiasm is contagious. You know, you’re sitting here with Outdoor Life, and you all cover a lot of topics, all the topics, all the hunting sports. And I don’t know how you could be really, especially just starting kind of getting into hunting and doing this thing in college, how you could be or would even want to be an expert in all the different facets that are liable to come through the pages of Outdoor Life in the course of a year, let alone a career. And, you know, it always seems to be like this. Well, I’ve been hunting for decades, and I’m this expert, and I’ve done this, and I’ve done that, and I’ve been hunting more than you. And it’s almost like sometimes when you hear new hunters talk, it’s almost apologetically. And, man, you know, I’ll be honest with you, Natalie. I kind of miss the novelty. Somebody asked me one time. I get asked a lot of times. What’s your favorite hunt? Oh, I got favorite destinations. I got favorite species. I like a mallard. I like Argentina. I like Roosevelt pochards. But I always say the next hunt’s my favorite. And I think the reason that’s the truth is because I don’t know what the morning’s going to bring. There’s something new about it. There’s something new and mysterious about a sunrise, especially in a foreign place or a new location. And I’m reminded all the time of being a grown man when I had children that are now grown men themselves, and I had been bream fishing and bass fishing and doing this and doing that all through a college career and too much. But then I got busy. I got a job and had not probably fished in a while when I took my two- or three-year-old son out on his first little bream fishing trip. And in that instant, I handed him, I put a cricket on the hook. We dropped the bobber. We watched the bobber, and bloosh. That bobber goes under. And that little boy, my child, was connected to nature with a piece of monofilament. And it was like this rejuvenation. I was new and getting to see it for the first time again through his eyes and his experiences. And when I think about those times, I kind of miss the newness. I mean, you know what I’m saying? At some point in time, if you’ve done something a million times and you’re an expert, the spark kind of goes a little bit if you let it. You see what I’m saying? I think there’s something exciting about new and learning to do this stuff all the time. I feel like if I ever know it all, what’s the point? It’s got to be something refreshing to it.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. It’s like one of those things. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s what I love about it. That’s why I like the next hunt the best. You called me back this spring and started asking me about Australia. You were working on a pitch. You wanted to go to Australia, and you seemed keenly interested in a lot of the biopolitics, the anti-hunting, and all the stuff that’s been going on down there. How did that come up on Outdoor Life editors’ radar? What was going on when you made that first phone call?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I saw a post that you did. Maybe it was on Instagram from you that you were posting about this and what was going on there. And I just remember stopping and being like, I have never heard of this before. This is interesting to me, and I wonder if there’s a story there. So I did. I just called you to say, “Hey, Ramsey, like, what’s Australia like? What’s going on down there?” And, I mean, you gave me the full rundown of your experiences there, what you’d heard from duck hunters who put up with anti-hunters there. And, yeah, you put me in touch with the people I ended up staying with down there.

Ramsey Russell: okay. But you did a wonderful job with it. The link to your story, your in-depth, very well-articulated story, is in the link below, related links. What was it specifically okay, so you call me, we talk. What was it specifically that interested you? Because here we are in the United States of America, the home of the free and brave. What was it about going halfway across the world and getting involved with a bunch of Crocodile Dundee accents and their anti-hunters, you know?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. You know, it was twofold. I was fascinated by a type of hunting that looks very similar to what we do here. Their duck hunting is pretty similar in many ways to American duck hunting, with some caveats, but with the additional constant interference or battle with anti-hunters. So that aspect was interesting to me because I have never run into an anti-hunter here in the U.S., and I wanted to know more about that. But the second part is, and this is where it becomes an Outdoor Life story, is our readers are primarily based in the U.S. We’ve got some Canadian readers, and we have some Australian readers, but I needed to ask, what’s the payoff for American hunters? Like, yeah, sure, they could read a duck hunting story in Australia, but most readers are never going to be able to go there. But there are relevant lessons from what’s going on down there for American hunters. That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about, you know. You brought up and I found since going down there, is that some of the stuff happening in Australia is happening here, even if we can’t see antis in our decoys. They’re affecting hunting on a state and federal level.

Ramsey Russell: We’ll talk about that in a minute because, you know, I’m from the Deep South. There are snakes down here. Some of them bite you. I don’t worry about snakes. I can look at them and tell you what they are, you know what I’m saying? It’s the snakes. When you’re walking through tall grass, and you smell a cottonmouth, but you can’t see them, that’s when my palms get sweaty, you know what I’m saying? If I can see him, I can smoke his head, as it says in the Bible. But, wow, you know, at least you know what you’re dealing with. They’re out there in your decoys, acting a fool in Australia. Down here, they’re like carbon monoxide. They’re behind the scenes, and it’s like that cottonmouth in the high grass. I can smell him. I can feel him. I can see laws being passed, but I don’t know how to deal with him. I want to back up. You take the short flight halfway across the world down to Australia. You’re joined by my buddy Glenn Falla. You’re following with my three amigos down there. Tell me about your impressions. Tell me about the people that hosted you and what it was like as compared to your experiences elsewhere. Tell me what you were expecting, what you walked into, and how those people were.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, so Glenn works for Field and Game Australia, which is an NGO down there. They’ve been doing a lot of work on just the fight to keep recreational duck hunting alive in the state of Victoria but also elsewhere in Australia. So I think Gordon had to pick me up at the airport. I roll into Melbourne, and he had just gotten news that a bunch of wetlands had been closed right ahead of the season. So he’s juggling all these incoming messages and regulation changes and all this stuff, and now here he’s got an American tagging along with him for ten days or whatever it was. But I was really impressed with his knowledge, his fact recall, his grasp of hunting culture there, and then also just antis. He’s really plugged into the community, into the government area, and he was able to, just like, you know, any question I asked, he was able to answer it. He was very patient about that. And then the other thing, too, is just in general, Australians love Americans. So I felt very welcome pretty much everywhere I went. People wanted to talk to me, which is really helpful for reporting a story. Duck hunters usually, it’s like, I don’t know, I would say here, it’s like when I’m out hunting, I don’t want to talk to anybody. I don’t want to get stuck talking to a reporter at the boat ramp or whatever. But everybody there, so Glenn and then his buddies, Trent and Paul Sharp over in Westchester, like they were just happy to host me, to show me their spots, to really let me into their world. I was really impressed by that. It made my job easier, and it made it just fun to have a little peek into their world.

World-Class Australian Hospitality and Its Connection to Duck Hunting.

I think Australian hospitality is world-class. I think they’re sincere, honest, and fun-to-be-around people, which I think could be said about a lot of duck hunters worldwide. But down in Australia, it just feels so familiar.

Ramsey Russell: I think Australian hospitality is world-class. I think they’re sincere, honest, and fun-to-be-around people, which I think could be said about a lot of duck hunters worldwide. But down in Australia, it just feels so familiar. Glenn’s a third, fourth-generation duck hunter himself, and I knew him, met him, and began to hunt with him on my first trip down there before he was with Field and Game Australia. Everybody does what they can to deal with a problem. Glenn rose to the occasion and committed himself into a career to it. All three of those guys you named are deeply seated in the fight the best they can, but they’re just great guys to hang out with. I got to tell you, when talking about Glenn juggling a bunch of balls in the air, he’s an octopus, believe it or not. He can do it. He’s well-practiced at it. He’s done it ever since I’ve known him. I don’t remember what transpired, what kind of miscommunication happened, but I met those boys in Arkansas, Glenn and Trent in Arkansas, in a duck blind. We hung out and did some hunting together. They invited me to come down, so I did. And I show up, and long, long flight, you know, I couldn’t find anything on Netflix for six months after I got back from that round trip, just watching stuff on TV. I show up, and I text Glenn, “Hey, I’m here. We just landed, yada yada.” And he called me, said, I thought you were coming in late or something. He was dead asleep in bed, way off wherever he lived. I said, I don’t know, man. I’m here. Long story short, by the time I get through immigration, the cousins pick my bag, step to the curb, here comes Trent Lane in the fastest truck in Australia on two wheels, getting to a stop. And man, I’m telling you what, an hour later, we had eaten breakfast, and we’re heading to the duck blind. They are adept at it all. Tell me a little bit about where you all went and what you all did. Where did you all hunt? And tell me about the duck hunting itself and all that good stuff, some of the species, where you all hunted, and how you all hunted.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. So primarily, we were in Victoria for most of my time there. And honestly, we didn’t hunt for a little bit because I got there right ahead of the opener in Victoria, and Glenn had to work, which was fine because I wanted to see. I wanted to see what was going on with the antis, which we can talk about now or later. But essentially, we drove. I don’t know how many kilometers we did, but we drove all week all over Victoria. So it’s just like me and Glenn.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a big country.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. Just driving around. And so we were up in kind of northern Victoria, and the, oh, man, the names are all so funny and distinctive that I should remember them all, but, like, Bort and some of those areas around there. Donald, kind of where his dad lives. But northern Victoria, which is, have you been up there?

Ramsey Russell: Yes. Yeah.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, okay. So it’s like, what was surprising to me about that was, you know, there’s a ton of wetlands in Victoria, public wetlands that you can hunt, but they’re all kind of just, like, circular, around-ish shape, like lakes with really easy access all the way around. There’s like they’re ringed by dirt roads, and a lot of people just park and camp, and then they just walk in in the morning and stand out there and pass shoot. So there were wetlands like that all over, and that’s kind of where we were visiting with hunters and keeping an eye on the antis for the first couple of days of the season, driving around there. And that was, I mean, there’s these really cool, big gum trees and stuff that provide shelter around the edges of the wetlands. And then there’s some more, you know, there’s a little bit of variety in types in the areas where you’re hunting up there.

Ramsey Russell: Those ancient red gums you’re talking about are the most magnificent. You know, we probably talk about the redwoods. We don’t hunt ducks in redwood trees. You hunt them inside those great big, giant, ancient red gums. You do. It’s unbelievable, walking into those wetlands with trees that take five or six people to hold hands and hug, you know what I’m saying? It’s just, it’s holy. And the sound of the birdlife is always amazing. I don’t know, cockatoos and parrot-looking birds and stuff like that. It’s just, it’s almost surreal, like a Disney movie or something. Like Lion King in a different country. Yeah, it’s crazy like that.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. And that’s what struck me, was just, like, opening morning, how many birds there were. You know, there were a lot of that, you asked kind of what species we saw. There were Pacific black ducks. We saw a lot of teal. I mean, teal are mostly what I hunted throughout the time that I was there. I’m trying to think if we saw the one duck I didn’t see that’s legal in Victoria, a pink-eared duck. I never saw one of those the whole time I was there that I, you know, that I know of or that was kind of close. But, yeah, there, I think I saw a little bit of everything. And, yeah, mostly, mostly black ducks, wood ducks up in northern Victoria.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You know, you’re talking about, I’ve been on those road trips with Glenn, that little white truck of his. And I don’t know about you, but how many times did you walk to the Australian driver’s side to get in the truck?

Natalie Krebs: I think I only did it twice. He counted. It was pretty funny.

Ramsey Russell: I do it every time.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, that’s impressive.

Ramsey Russell: He catches me before I even start walking to the truck, saying, “Get in on your side,” you know, to remind me. It’s just old habits die hard, But anyway.

Natalie Krebs: I bet he’d do the same thing when he’s here.

Ramsey Russell: So I hope he does. I’m going to catch him one time doing it. I saw you all hunting down in South Australia also. So you hunted in the red gums up in Victoria.

Natalie Krebs: Yep.

Ramsey Russell: You went down to South Australia, that great, biggest, gosh, so open, that flat out there where Paul hunts. It’s just unbelievable. And you know what the hunting there, how they hunt, reminds me of the hunting style they do on the Great Salt Lake proper, where the water is ankle-deep forever, you know, to the horizon. And they set up profiles that just create a black spot. And you just hunker down in them and hear the ducks come. And it’s okay to move a little bit because the ducks coming in, they think ducks are moving. They expect the flock to be moving. What was that like?

Natalie Krebs: That was wild. And it was funny. They told me this story about you trying out Paul’s hunting style for the first time. And, you know, he puts you out in the silhouette decoys, and you look at him and you go, “This will never work.”

Ramsey Russell: It’ll never work. Yeah

Natalie Krebs: But it did, it worked.

Ramsey Russell: It worked magic.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, we ended up in South Australia because we kept running into antis. And so we just left Victoria and went over to South Australia, where they had fewer hunters, fewer antis. And Paul, who, you know, Paul Sharp, he lives around there, just, like, set up everything for us. So we were like, I don’t know, got in the car, drove six hours, and showed up for an afternoon hunt. And he already had all the silos out. And he walks up to the truck, and he’s just in shorts and has no shoes on, like, splashing across the beach. And I’m like, this is new.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Natalie Krebs: And it was warm enough. I was like, I had started to get my waders out, and then I was like, no, I’ve never ducked on barefoot. I want to try this. And it was awesome. So I went, and I sat, we didn’t even sit. We kind of were just, like, in the middle of all of these silhouettes, which Paul has cut from beer signs, like, you know, kind of the, it’s like a real estate sign, right, like, cut those out, hand-painted them. And then he also hand-carves his decoys. So there were, you know, full bodies kind of out around the edge of the spread. And we just hunkered over two milk crates in the center of the spread, just kind of leaned over, like, talking the whole time, getting to know each other. And, you know, it’s kind of at an area where freshwater is trickling in from, like, the mountain, whatever, onto the beach of this really, really salty lake. And so all of these ducks, primarily teal, but we also saw some mountain ducks. One black duck flew over. There are also black swans, which are not legal to hunt. They’re all out on the water, and they just pick up throughout the day, and they kind of come over to where the freshwater trickles in to get a drink. And we were just, like, right on the X. And you’re on the X all day because that’s just where they want to be. So that was wild. It was really, it was especially rewarding after kind of getting screwed up by antis and, like, just having, like, these almost perfect setups where something kind of didn’t go right. And then we go over to West Australia, and it was just like, I mean, I will never forget that duck hunt. There were teal everywhere. So we did that in the afternoon, and the next morning, we came back kind of to a similar spot and had another hunt.

Ramsey Russell: Thirsty ducks. I like hunting thirsty ducks. The hotter it gets, the thirstier they become. Yeah, those decoys are looking good. I bet, you know, it’s like a mirage over there. So here they come. How would you describe some of the similarities and differences between Australian duck hunting and the North American duck hunting experiences you’ve done here?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, in many ways, they’re very similar to us. The culture is very similar. You’ve got different kinds of duck hunters. So many of the hunters that I talked to in northern Victoria on the opener, my impression was it’s kind of like the dove opener in Texas. There’s a bunch of people who come out once a year, camp with their families, have a good time. They do a lot of pass shooting, but they might not go out again for the rest of the season. But it’s a big cultural thing, cultural tradition. And so you’ve got those hunters, and then you’ve got your really hardcore guys who are setting up decoys. They’re calling. They’re using tactics that are very familiar here. Trent and Glenn both have mud boats. And we went out on a wetland near Melbourne, kind of near where Glenn lives. And that was kind of our big run-in with antis in our decoys. But that felt the most like home to me. It was like getting in at a marshy boat ramp and going out in the morning and setting decoys and, you know, getting ducks landing in the decoys right before shooting light. So there’s a lot of similarities. You know, there’s a lot of technical differences. So they have way more regulations to deal with than we do.

Ramsey Russell: Not just in duck hunting, but in life in general. They are a rule-driven culture.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, it is. A lot of Australians I talked to called it a nanny state.

Ramsey Russell: Nanny state. Yes.

Natalie Krebs: Yep. To me, it’s like a police state. Like, you probably saw these when you landed there, but all over Victoria, they’ve got government billboards that say the police can find you basically anyone anywhere, anytime. And they’ve just got these billboards along the highway. It’s just very Big Brother-y. And so a lot of that application applies to duck hunting. It’s also because Australia has very strict firearm regulations. And so for instance like just on a practical level, I was hunting with an over-under the whole time. Paul was hunting with a tri-barrel shotgun, which I had never shot before. So he let me use that. That was fun. But, yeah, for the most part, semis and pumps are banned there. You have to use break-action guns. Yeah, so there’s just a lot of regulations you have to deal with, I mean, shooting light was a big one. In Victoria, legal shooting light is 8:00 a.m., which stays fixed and has nothing to do with what time it actually gets light and what the ducks want to do. So one morning, Glenn and I were setting decoys, and it had been light for an hour. We still had to sit there and wait while ducks were landing in our decoys just because that regulation has been put in place, in theory, to keep duck hunters from shooting protected species. And so that’s kind of where you get into antis controlling regulations that are also directly at odds with what they say, right, like, it’s like, well, we want to cripple fewer ducks. We want fewer wounded ducks. Well, the best way to do that is to get them in the decoys and shoot them close. It’s really hard to do that if you’re not allowed to shoot until 8:00 a.m. and the ducks don’t want to be in the decoys so much anymore. So stuff like that, it’s really a lot of effort to go to set up your hunt and everything, and then you’re just not able to hunt when you want or when the ducks are doing what you want them to. Yeah, so those little similarities were frustrating. And also, I mean, frankly, they’re anti-hunter laws. Like in Victoria, anti-hunters are legally allowed to stand 10 meters away from you while you’re hunting.

Ramsey Russell: That is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. You know, that is bizarre. And you were kind of sort of expecting that because I know when we talked, I know we set this up. That’s when all the crazies come out, opening day. You know, by mid-season, if they’ve got to walk too far and everything else, they’re back at the coffee shops or protesting fossil fuel or whatever else. They’re protesting against life and people being happy. But you kind of expected that. And I’d always said I wanted to go. I know I told Glenn, I said, “Glenn, I’d kinda like to come down here on an opener and really open-mindedly just walk up and talk to them, have a conversation.” They don’t want to have a conversation. He said, randy, if you walk up to them, they’re just going to walk away. They’re not going to let you talk to them. They’re not going to let you talk to them on film. They are not going to be interviewed. The minute they realize that you aren’t one of them, they’re just going to turn around and walk away from you. How cool would it be to have a reality show, a reality TV show where a bunch of those anti-hunters got in their kayaks and got their whistles and their flags and their cowbells and paraded into a duck hole at your favorite Arkansas flooded timber spot on opening day? That’s what I want to see. Because we don’t live in a nanny state. We don’t have those rules. In fact, we’re the complete opposite, you know, and boy, I would love to see something like that. But their demeanor, the hunters’ demeanor, is totally different than mine. It’s totally different than that environment. I mean, what they’re willing to do and put up with and how cordial they can be, I’ll tell you what, I respect it. I don’t know how they do it. It’s unbelievable.

Natalie Krebs: It’s incredibly impressive, you know, when I asked Trent about this specifically, I was like, you know, he dealt with two antis and bright fluorescent gear in like red sit on top kayaks, just paddling all around his black duck spread. You know, that morning kind of near Melbourne, just flaring ducks all morning. And I was just like, “How do you keep your composure? How are you so civilized?” Because he is. He’s polite. You know, he does everything right. And his answer essentially was, we basically have no choice. We can’t get angry. We risk losing our firearms if we’re seen to get upset or angry. And that gets filmed by the antis because that’s what they’re looking for. They only want to talk to hunters if hunters are getting upset so they can film it and then put it on social media.

Ramsey Russell: They want to provoke it and use it against.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. Yeah. And if you’re civilized and having a polite conversation with them to be like, “Hey, you are disturbing our hunt. You know, you’re hindering our hunt, XYZ,” whatever you have to do to kind of document and prove it and then turn that stuff over to a game warden, which most hunters don’t take the trouble to do. Trent did. Yeah, I mean, they just have so much more to lose, and the antis don’t really. So that’s part of it. But, yeah, that would not happen here.

Ramsey Russell: Recently, I was not too far, last trip over there, back this winter in America, back in January maybe or February, I went down there. Went down to Tasmania and spent some time around Victoria, up in that area, you know, the main city in Victoria province. And I had a little time, so I called. We took some scientists down, they were doing some stuff, so I took an Uber, went downtown, held a sign. “Duck hunting is good. Let’s talk about it,” just assuming somebody would say, “Let me give you mine. I’ll tell you what I think about duck hunting.” And the only two people that talked to me, like I’m here, I’m a crazy man sitting on a street corner holding a sign, begging for a conversation and the only two people that said anything at all to me were duck hunters. And one lady came by, and it looked like a wasp stung her in the face when she read the sign. I knew she was anti, and she wouldn’t slow down to have a conversation. But now you go over there, opening day, the white truck pulls up to a boat ramp. What was that like? I mean, could you see them? Were they around you? Were they taunting you? Were they throwing stuff at you? And it’s been my observation that women hunters draw more fire sometimes than men hunters from anti-hunters. Did you feel or sense that?

Challenges in Documenting the Anti-Hunter Perspective.

They’d go somewhere else. They knew I was there, and I was not on their side, and they didn’t want to give me any, which is so funny because they film everything. They film you all the time, whatever you’re doing. But then when you try and document something, right, they run away.

Natalie Krebs: I didn’t sense that, in part because they did just kind of what you described, which is they saw my big camera lens, you know, I had a 200 mm camera lens, and they just, when they saw that, they turned around. They’d go somewhere else. They knew I was there, and I was not on their side, and they didn’t want to give me any, which is so funny because they film everything. They film you all the time, whatever you’re doing. But then when you try and document something, right, they run away. So the ones that I tried to talk to, they wouldn’t speak with me. I was not able to get an interview with an anti-hunter, which I wanted to do. Just like you’re talking about. I wanted to have a conversation. Like, in any story, airport, I would like to give  whatever the opposing side or the counterpoint an opportunity to comment, you know, and they just wouldn’t do that. So, in part, no. And also because we weren’t hunting on opening day, Because Glenn was going around, like, talking to duck hunters. But I interviewed a ton of people who were harassed by antis. I mean, I saw a big anti camp that was there. And I did notice that one family I spoke to, it was a dad and a mom, and they had three girls, and they were camped, you know, on the edge of a wetland where they could just walk out. And they had their decoys out, which they didn’t use to decoy birds. And they just kind of, they said they used it to mark their spot, basically, and they would go out and kind of pass shoot. And they ended up, a big anti camp came in on opening morning and set up like 100 yards behind where they were camped. And they just, they were harassed all morning. You know, the mom told me that they had antis running from the police through their camp. They were being photographed, like, her girls were being photographed, which is against the law to photograph minors like that.

Ramsey Russell: It’s kind of creepy.

Natalie Krebs: It’s super creepy. You know, you’re just there trying to have a good time with your family.

Ramsey Russell: It’s legal to beat somebody’s ass for filming my underage daughters like a stalker. That has nothing whatsoever to do with hunting. But if that doesn’t deserve verb one, I don’t know what does. This ain’t got anything to do with duck hunting. They’re walking around and shadowing my daughter. They gotta beat ass. Come on, I mean, seriously.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. It’s just, it’s decency. It’s human decency.

Ramsey Russell: Human decency.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. And, I mean, they were… she would try and take them off to, you know, go to the bathroom up in the woods, and they would be followed, you know, by people with cameras. She said that they were yelling at her, you know, her father-in-law and her husband’s brothers, you know, calling them fat pigs was one of the things she said. You know, murderers, all this stuff while they’re standing… You can’t shoot, you’re a bad shot, just while they’re standing in the water trying to duck hunt. And, I mean, they just put up with that all day. And most people in that area left. Most of the duck hunters went somewhere else. And that particular family stayed put because they were just like, we’re not leaving. That’s what they want, and we’re not going to do it. We’re going to stay here and try and make the best of it and show up for hunters and show that they can’t change our behavior, which was really admirable. But it also was nothing like the kind of duck opener that any duck hunter wants.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I can’t imagine. I mean, you look forward to it all year. You know, there’s a lot of time and money in habitat conservation and hunting equipment and just everything else that goes into duck hunting for it to be disturbed by people that don’t have any skin in the game whatsoever, that are doing nothing. Which brings me to my question. I want to ask you as somebody that deals with a lot of people, talks to a lot of people. How would you characterize an anti-hunter? How would you describe them to a police sketch artist or to a psychoanalyst or something? What is making this person tick?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, it’s a good question. From what I saw, I did not see that many young people. Trent and Glenn told me that they do a lot of recruiting at colleges, trying to get kids on holiday to come down and protest. I saw maybe one woman in her late twenties or early thirties, but for the most part, middle-aged women, older retirees, both men and women. They’re all white. And Glenn did mention that many of them were women. For the most part, the average anti-hunter is going to be a woman rather than a man. But otherwise, I mean, like physical characteristics, like, that’s it.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you know, like, my hunch is that they’re unhappy people. Misery loves company is the old saying. And I think they’re self-loathing people. Like, if you… anywhere in life, if you deal with somebody that is belittling you or talking about you or doing something, it’s probably not reflecting so much of who you are or what you’re doing as an outward projection of how they feel about themselves. That’s my take on it. You know, I’ve always believed that when people express a lack of respect towards others, it reflects a lack of self-respect. And I think there’s something psychological going on. I don’t think they’re hitting on all eight cylinders, is what I think. I think they’ve got some emotional damage or something going on, and it just makes them happy to project their unhappiness onto otherwise happy people.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I would also say it seems like there’s a lot of hardliners, right? Like people who cannot be reasoned with. So, for example, one of the paddlers in Trent’s decoy, she came through our spread, and when she saw my camera, she went onto Trent’s. But we ran into her at the boat ramp. Her name is Natalie Copas. She’s a pharmacist, kind of in the Melbourne area, which is a big metropolitan city in Victoria. It’s their biggest city. And she is also running for political office right now. And she had a sticker on the back of her car, which she parked right in the middle of the boat ramp turnaround, which Glenn asked her politely to move her car out of the way, and she said, no, I’m happy here. That was the only thing I heard her say all morning. But she had a bumper sticker on the back of her car that had the comedian Betty White on it. She was holding a little sheep or whatever. And it said something about, like, you can tell about a person by the way they put their hands on an animal. And to me, that like, it assumes that anybody who would shoot a duck is cruel to animals, which, like, to me, like reading that while I was standing there at the boat ramp, like, that’s not me. Trent’s over there petting his, like, twelve-year-old duck dog. Like, you know, it doesn’t reflect reality or, to me, an understanding of the natural world. So, for instance, all the antis moving around on the water trying to save ducks are disturbing a lot of ducks. They’re pushing ducks around; they’re moving ducks around, some of which end up getting shot by hunters. You know, they’re trying to rescue. If they find a wounded duck on the water, they want to take that duck to their veterinarian triage tent. And most of the time, they’re not able to rescue ducks because if a human…

Ramsey Russell: Government-funded, by the way.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, government-funded. And what they end up doing is euthanizing ducks. Not out on the wet… Like, they’re depriving ducks of a swift death by a hunter that would then eat and use that meat. And then they’re just euthanizing. They’re taking this duck; they’re making it live longer, only to euthanize it under these bright headlights and waste the meat. And to me, it just shows a fundamental disconnect with nature and with what’s actually happening and how hunters actually feel about wildlife and animals, which is respectful. And so, to me, just the idea, like, that bumper sticker just reflected, which, by the way, in the corner, there’s a tiny little logo for Hunt Saboteurs, like Melbourne Hunt Saboteurs. It was like that was her organization that she’s part of. Yeah, it just reflects that there’s no discussion to be had because she’s already made up her mind, and it’s black or white, there’s no nuance. So, I think that’s probably the mindset of many of the anti-hunters is you can’t reason with them.

Ramsey Russell: What do you think it says about Australia that this is going on versus what does it say about the United States that it’s different? That our anti-hunters are behaving differently? I mean, do you think it’s just a nanny state gone awry? Is that why this exists? Isn’t it crazy that, for example, coming back from Australia this year, I got clobbered? I posted up a goose, and boy, here they come, here they come, here they come on my social media. And rather than, you know, I ain’t going to delete them, I just engage them. I poke the bear, get more engagement. And at one time, it felt like 10,000 people coming at me, but it was probably just 20 or 30, you know what I’m saying? Very vocal, very no argument. And if you do try to pin them on one thing, if you dare, they flip to another argument. Well, it’s something wrong with you. It’s bad for the atmosphere. I mean, they’ll just flip and flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. Like trying to catch a greased pig. You know, they’re just not going to stick, they’re not going to argue, they’re not going to have a conversation. One of them actually called me on his cell phone. And you know what, I oughta post it in the caption below and let anybody listening call him up. But he called me up and yelled at me, and I took a deep breath and called back, “What, what do you want?” And we had a conversation until he realized I wouldn’t back down. So he hung up on me again. I bet he hasn’t changed his number. You think I ought to put that on this episode where people can call or text him? It’d be kind of funny, wouldn’t it? I thought forever, when the antis were hollering at me on the internet, about, well, call me and tell me about it. And giving them my local number, quote, and giving them this number. So the anti-hunters would call up. The anti-hunter, just yelling. But anyway, it’s something I’ve always thought about doing just to mess with them.

Natalie Krebs: I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Yeah, I think, I mean, to your question, I think Australia, they have way fewer people than we do and way more regulations, just in general life, but also in duck hunting. And to me, as I kind of understand it or have seen it, they’ve almost painted themselves into a corner with regulations. So, like, many of the regulations that exist for duck hunters, for instance, the 8:00 a.m. start time or you have to, Well, let me back up. So many of them have been put in place to kind of mitigate anti-hunter-involved harassment of hunters. And then antis just find new ways around it, and then so they make more regulations. So it just keeps escalating, and it’s a colossal waste of everybody’s time and money. Yeah, so it’s like, for instance, they made a law that only duck hunters can be out on these public wetlands before 10:00 a.m. And so, in order to get out on the wetland, you have to take your waterfowl identification class or course and then get your hunting license. And that allows you to be out on the water. So antis are getting their licenses and they’re going out on the water. But by that same token, like that regulation, which theoretically exists to prevent harassment. And it kind of does, but it also kind of doesn’t because a lot of duck hunters there don’t have boats. They’re standing in areas where antis can harass them. It effectively prevents children from being able to hunt with their dads, even if they’re not old enough to be shooting. In Victoria, you have to be twelve in order to qualify. The family that I talked to who was being harassed, they had three girls. Two of them were not legally allowed to go stand near the water where their dad was hunting. They were not legally allowed to handle the ducks that he shot. They kept getting reprimanded by game wardens for allowing the kids to be too close to the water. And what they’re doing is they’re having to enforce the same regulation that was designed to prevent antis being in there. And what you’re doing is you’re just preventing kids from getting into hunting sooner or having an enjoyable time. And they’re enforcing a law that doesn’t make any sense, which is the dad wants his kids with him while he’s duck hunting. They want to be there. And just this silly regulation says they can’t stand there next to him. So how is that related? So I think that while we have some silly regulations about… you know, I can’t think of an example here in the US, but like, we don’t have that particular level of regulation to the point, at least in our hunting for the most part, that’s preventing the big-picture goals of being able to enjoy hunting, to have our kids with us, to… yeah, to just, like, participate in this big-picture thing that we care about. So that part is different. Well, let’s see, how do I phrase this? They have a bigger uphill battle in Australia because, as hunters, they’re also gun owners. And gun owners in Australia are often frowned upon or are considered dangerous people. It’s highly regulated there, but there’s just a culture of anti-gun culture there that is much more entrenched than in the US, where many people who don’t hunt are still firearm owners. And therefore, there’s more support for hunters in that community here, which I think also helps. But that said, there’s still… I think they’re a bit of a canary in the coal mine for the stuff that we could be experiencing here, which is not antis in our decoys, because, as we established, no matter what the laws say…

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. That’s right.

Natalie Krebs: Hunters aren’t going to let that happen.

Ramsey Russell: We’ve got this North American model. And thankfully. Let me ask you this question first, though, Natalie. They got a reprieve this time last year, this exact time last year. Glenn, Trent, Paul, every other duck hunter in Australia was literally on the ropes, wondering. I mean, it seemed imminent that it was going to close. There was no hope. What do they call it, special counsel or something, got proposed and started doing some stuff. But miraculously, in what, January, February, they got a lifeline. Can you speak to how, I mean, and it wasn’t common sense, it wasn’t science-based management, it wasn’t anything else. It was kind of political. But they, the duck hunters, got a lifeline, a great lifeline there over in Australia, where they, I sense when I talk to them now, they breathe a little easier. Even though they got to deal with some of this circus going on out in their decoys, they do breathe a little easier now. Could you elaborate on what happened since then?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. So, kind of what you’re talking about is there was a government inquiry in both Victoria and South Australia, in which the inquiry recommended a ban forever on recreational duck hunting. And it looked like that was going to happen. What stopped it from happening is that a bunch of unions in Melbourne got together. They might not all have been duck hunters, but many of them go off-road, go fishing, and have even managed to unite rock climbers and hunters to protect outdoor recreation in general. Those union members walked off the biggest construction site in Melbourne and protested the ban. That movement is what stopped the ban. Politicians who represent them were just like, I can’t support this, because our constituents are just like, you know, right?

Ramsey Russell: We need highways.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah we need a tunnel. That was really impressive to me. That was one of the big things. I haven’t heard of that happening here in the US, but just knowing that, yeah, antis have power, but so do hunters. Since then, they were able to have a duck season in Victoria this year. It was shorter, so it started later and ended sooner. There are several additional regulations. Glenn is hopeful they’ll be able to get some of that stuff back in the future. They were able to prove through this inquiry that duck hunting in Australia is sustainable and ethical. That was the big question on the table. They don’t have the science and funding we do around waterfowl management, but they’re starting to add that in. They were able to show that, which helped. Going into the season, though, the antis were really pissed. They felt like they lost, which they had. There was just more of a presence for longer throughout the season. Even Trent sent me a video recently where he was going to check on, I think, Reedy Lake. I think that’s the same lake where we were hunting when we had the people paddling in our decoys. They had put chains on the gates and spray-painted, like, “F off hunter scum” or whatever on the gate, while Trent was going in there trying to do habitat work for the ducks recently. His point is just that he never sees antis in there doing anything for the ducks. Anyway, I mean, that was the context going into it. Did I answer your question?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you did. You explained it much better than I could. I just knew it got political, but they got a lifeline, and they need the lifeline. It’s not like, “Oh, we got a lifeline, let’s go and enjoy life.” Heck no. As we speak, about a month preceding this episode’s release, I’m in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Delta Waterfowl Expo. I know for a fact that Trent Lane, board member of Field and Game Australia, and Lucas Cook are both here as guests of Delta Waterfowl. They’re on a fact-finding mission. It seems to me that they want to build out that science-based management. They want to work with somebody. They want to see how we’re doing it over here and apply it over there. Because at the end of the day, great, we get to go out and hunt. But there are a lot of places in the world outside of North America, which is to say, nearly everywhere, Natalie, where people hunt, but nobody benefits from that act other than the hunter, their family, or a local economy. If you start getting into some of these countries that have commercial activities like Argentina, you know, the great thing about this crowdsourced, funded North American model is that society wins, whether you hunt or fish or don’t. The hunters win, the habitat wins, the ducks win, everything wins. It’s all funded largely through the hunting force, and it’s science-based. Universities, state agencies, and federal government agencies all collectively work together for perpetuity. I see that with this lifeline they’ve got right now. Who cares about a bunch of crybaby anti-hunters? The Australians’ leadership is buckling down and going to make a go of this for the long haul so that everything benefits. One of the craziest things I became aware of is Field and Game Australia is relatively small compared to some of the NGOs over here. But what they do for hunters is incredible. I’ve actually been on some of these great big public hunting areas, and the management of those resources falls squarely on Field and Game Australia. They are tooth and nail onto this kind of stuff. So, I see a lot of good things going on, but I know they’re going to take this reprieve and move ahead. Do you think I summed that up pretty well, talking about the North American model, science-based management here versus there and elsewhere you’ve seen?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, I think so. For example, you’re talking about a lot of the management going on the shoulders of Field and Game. Their license dollars used to, as Glenn told me, go back into habitat and investment in the resource. Then what happened was somebody in government got the bright idea to take all that revenue and funnel it into the state’s general fund.

Ramsey Russell: General funds are where you keep the lights on and pay for new office equipment that’s not for conservation.

Threats to Funding and Conservation.

One, you just take those dollars away from conservation if it were to happen. But two, you risk your Pittman-Robertson funding. So, when that funding goes away, you don’t get the federally matched dollars that states would get to pay biologists and to do habitat work. Fortunately, so far, we’ve kind of managed to avoid that.

Natalie Krebs: Right. And so that very thing has been proposed many times in different states here in the US. That’s a problem, like in Pennsylvania most recently. But it’s a problem for two reasons. One, you just take those dollars away from conservation if it were to happen. But two, you risk your Pittman-Robertson funding. So, when that funding goes away, you don’t get the federally matched dollars that states would get to pay biologists and to do habitat work. Fortunately, so far, we’ve kind of managed to avoid that. But politicians here keep getting this bright idea, which would not be good if it passed. So, you know, that’s fortunate. And we also have the duck stamp, which I think they are interested in doing something kind of like that as well. One risk we’re seeing here with the North American model is a couple of things. General approval for hunting in the US is on a bit of a decline here. If you’ve seen recent studies in the last couple of years, even hunting for meat, which has always had the highest acceptance rate in the US, is softening. That’s a big thing. Hunters have usually had over 80% approval. Recent study results show that the public is less on board with it. That general trend exists. Australia, to me, is just farther down that trend line. The public there has much less tolerance for it, even for meat. We’re kind of seeing that here. The other issue is management by science. In some states, you are seeing antis trying to work around that with management by emotion. A good example is the potential mountain lion hunting ban that might be on the ballot in Colorado this fall. If you read the language, an organization called Cats Aren’t Trophies, funded by big anti-hunting organizations, has been collecting signatures to get on the ballot in November. The ban would include mountain lion hunting, bobcat hunting, and lynx hunting. If you read the language, they suggest lynx hunting is legal in Colorado, but it’s not. You can’t hunt lynx in Colorado right now. They also claim there’s no value in allowing cat hunting in Colorado, that people don’t eat the meat, all that stuff. And that language, if basically they’re in review now to see if they got enough signatures to put it on the ballot. But only very small percentage of Colorado voters had to approve that to get that on the ballot. And then you get this really, like fiery language, could appeal to someone who might be okay with deer or duck hunting but think this sounds like a bad idea. That could end up on the ballot. If it passes, it will supersede scientific management in Colorado, despite the fact that there are healthy mountain lion populations in Colorado, you know, they’ve been hunted for a long time. Hunters pay, you know, all that conservation goes back into the management so that’s an example of just this one really motivated group is like, pushing for a fringe belief to show up in front of the public who’s not necessarily that informed or what they are reading on the ballot is not reality. I mean this happened in California. Mountain lion hunting was banned there in the 1990s. Mountain lions are still killed in California, the state is paying for it instead of hunters paying and utilizing the meat and hide. There’s many examples, but the last example that I’ll just mention briefly is Washington cancelled their spring black bear season recently, and that in the last couple of years, and despite the fact that there are thousands and thousands of black bears in Washington state, and part of that is antis are trying to infiltrate state agency commissions, and basically they’re going to the policy level and trying to change the composition of these boards that then set seasons and regulations. So all that’s to say, yes, we have a fantastic North American model of wildlife conservation, but it is not infallible.

Ramsey Russell: We’re not immune to it.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, we’ve got to be on our guard to continue to protect it. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s always going to be there. Erosion is happening.

Ramsey Russell: We’re not immune to it. That just brings it home. That’s why I wanted you on here. That’s why I wanted my duck hunter audience to hear this. Going down to Australia, it’s halfway across the world. It’s out of sight, out of mind, unless you flip on Netflix and watch old Crocodile Dundee reruns or something. But at the same time, I’m like, wow, this could happen here. Everyone I know who has gone down there, fallen into this, and seen it first-hand comes back home, looks around, and says, “Whoa, it is happening here.” Last question, Natalie. Just kind of an open-ended question, whether we’re talking about Australia, the United States, or anywhere, most recently Argentina, the Netherlands, anywhere there’s this green movement, it seems we hunters are always playing defense. Our defense consists of preaching to the choir. Here we are on a podcast, talking to hunters. Your story reaches hunters. Outdoor Life, Field and Game Australia stories reach hunters. Every hunting organization, everybody pro-hunting, our outlets are other hunters. We’re preaching to the choir. It seems to me that, somehow, to win this battle worldwide, whether in my backyard or yours, we need to run an offense. We need to somehow, be it documentaries on television or more mainstream outlets like Vogue or GQ, start reaching the gray, mindless mass that neither hunts nor is anti-hunting but is just content to go mountain biking or walk through Central Park. How do we do that? How do we hunters are at each other’s throats over who uses a mojo or who uses a mud motor or whatever. We’re constantly at each other’s throats over who does what and when. But how do we collectively organize and begin to affect real change, run an offense, and get the neutral ground. The battle is at 80% neutrality. How do we begin to influence them? Even if they don’t want to hunt, how do we help them understand the importance and value hunters bring to the table?

Natalie Krebs: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say, from an offense perspective, we hunters even if we don’t want to change or add anything to our plates could take a leaf out of Australian hunters’ book. Like, be very, very good PR reps for hunting. Like, they’re polite.

Ramsey Russell: Be good ambassadors.
Natalie Krebs: Yeah, good ambassadors. That’s a better phrase for it. Just be aware that you represent our community, whether it’s on social media, in person, or you’re talking to a hiker while you’re scouting somewhere. Every interaction a non-hunter has with a hunter will impact how they view all hunters and hunting in general. Unless you’re really the exception, a lot of people don’t know hunters. They’ve never met any. They live in urban areas. So I would say just keep that in mind. And then the second this is controversial sometimes in our community, hunter recruitment. Truly, we don’t necessarily need to recruit the most hard-core hunters who are going to be competing with you for your favourite spots and all that. But for every person we introduce to hunting, even if they never do it again, ideally, they will have a positive association with hunting or just know more about what we’re about. This is something I do every year. I know this isn’t good duck hunting, but I do a mentor deer hunt in Missouri. I’ve taken people who have gotten really into it and still buy licenses. I’ve also taken people who had a great time but either haven’t bought a license again or, for whatever reason, don’t do it. It’s not because they didn’t have a good time, it’s more of an access issue or other factors. But what they did walk away with was a totally different picture of what hunting is, what it means to kill an animal, and all that sort of stuff. We just need to keep bringing people into our world so they understand it a little bit more. Otherwise, I think they risk having the perception that antis in Australia do, that we’re just barbarians who shoot things and don’t take care of our environment.

Ramsey Russell: Good note to end on. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your experience down in Australia.

Natalie Krebs: Yeah, thanks for having me, and thanks for the help reporting it out, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: You’re welcome. The links below lead to the great story she wrote in Outdoor Life magazine. Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. We’re halfway across the world. It’s so different and yet so similar to what we’re going through. It goes back to that old snake we were talking about. You know, it’s one thing if you can see the snake, boy you can smite its head with a stick. But when they’re in the background, working in these wildlife commissions, working behind the scenes, working against everything that you and I stand for, they’ve got to be dealt with. Who’s going to deal with them if not you, me, and Natalie? Who? See you next time.

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