Journalist Jimmy Tobias started out working on backcountry trails for the US Forest Service and Montana Conservation Corps. Since then, he has become one of America’s hardest-hitting investigative reporters specializing in public lands, conservation, and the outdoors. Tobias’ story about the link between ecosystem disruption and tick-borne illnesses, “How Lyme Disease Became Unstoppable,” was published in June 2022 in The Nation. That story was the original inspiration for this interview, but Hal and Jimmy range far afield, from ticks to endangered species protection and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which promises to dismantle federal public lands and their management once and for all.  Join us.

Ep. 175: Outdoor Investigative Journalism: From Lyme Disease to Endangered Species with Jimmy Tobias

Join Hal and BHA North American Board Member and CEO of the Orianne Society Dr. Chris Jenkins for a fascinating conversation about everything from public lands and local hunting and food to Dr. Jenkins' specialty: venomous snakes.  An episode you don't want to miss!

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 174: Venomous Snakes, Local Hunting and more with Dr. Chris Jenkins

The largest public lands conservation opportunity in our lifetime is at hand. The Bureau of Land Management is finalizing plans for the long-term management of an expanse of public lands in Alaska that is larger than the state of Ohio.  There are 28 million acres at stake, an unfathomable wealth of wildlife, big game, fisheries, waterfowl, and the headwaters of rivers like the Kuskokwim and the Yukon. These are known as the D1 Lands, protected from mining and energy development by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. In 2020, the management of these lands was thrown into limbo. Now, the BLM is asking for the American people to determine the future of these lands. Join us to learn more, as Hal interviews Alaskan Rachel James, of Salmon State.   And then be sure to comment through BHA's Action Alert.

Bonus Episode: The Largest Public Lands Conservation Opportunity in Our Lifetime

Learn more about what goes on in the halls of Congress as Hal sits down with BHA Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur to discuss the 2023 wins BHA played a role in achieving for the conservation of our public lands and waters. 

Episode 173: BHA 2023 Federal Policy Roundup with BHA Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur

Douglas Tallamy, Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, University of Delaware Any hunter, angler and/or student of the natural world is bound to be more than a little gobsmacked by the rate of development and growth that we see all around us: Bozeman, Atlanta, Boise, Moab, Salt Lake City, Huntsville, Austin, the Gulf Coast, Phoenix, Chattanooga, Asheville and beyond. Is there any hope for the wild places and the world we love? Hell, yes there is. And it will be done by each and every one of us – yard by yard, deck by deck, square foot by square foot. The possibilities are endless. Doug Tallamy, of the Homegrown National Park  movement is the author of  Nature’s Best Hope (with a  companion volume for younger readers and  Bringing Nature Home. Doug has a plan to create 22 million acres of native plant communities that will restore whole kingdoms of birds, insects, reptiles and other wildlife, at almost no cost, and with no need to beseech the government or beg alms of the powers that be.  Join us, for a damn good time, and learn about a work that anyone can love and a movement that everybody can be part of. If you hang around to the end, you’ll get outlandish insect tales, for no extra investment. And because this interview was so much fun, we’ve got another one scheduled with Doug to talk about his new book on Oak trees – all 600 species of them – and his obsession with the mysterious universe of gall wasps. Your mind will be blown. 

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 172: We Can Do This, One Person at a Time with Douglas Tallamy

Join Hal Herring and Mississippi State University environmental history professor and author of  My Work is that of Conservation, An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver Mark Hersey for a fantastic American conservation story that has never been more relevant than it is right now.  If you finished seventh grade in an American public school, you learned about George Washington Carver, who was born into slavery in Missouri and grew up to be one of America’s leading scientists and agronomists, working from his laboratory at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Carver was a friend and advisor to U.S. presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, and sought out as counsel by some of the best minds in agriculture across the world.     Carver was also one of America’s pioneers of the science of ecology and a cutting-edge conservationist who advocated for the restoration of whitetail deer, quail and fisheries, long before such ideas became mainstream. His conservation vision was forged in the fire of his own history and in his life’s work in Alabama’s post-slavery Black Belt and along the Fall Line, known then as “the most destroyed land in all of the South” -- a place where poverty, injustice and hunger were closely tied to the abuse and collapse of the systems of the earth. Don't miss Hal's fascinating conversation with Mark Hersey.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 171: The Conservation History of George Washington Carver with Mark Hersey

Listeners to the BHA Podcast & Blast will likely know Erin Block from her brilliant short essays at MidCurrent, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Field & Stream, and TROUT magazine, where she is an editor-at-large. Some might know her books on the the art of making bamboo fly rods (The View from Coal Creek), or By a Thread: A Retrospective on Women and Fly Tying. Some might follow her Instagram, a powerfully understated immersion in foraging, wildlife and birds, hunting and fishing and gardening. Erin’s writing comes directly from the well-spring of her life, and like the chronicle of any real life, it is always about more than meets the eye.    Hal talks with Erin from her cabin in the Colorado Rockies, about her new book of poetry   https://www.middlecreekpublishing.com/how-you-walk-alone-in-the-dark ,  the ancient art of ekphrasis, which may be finding its truest heights right now, a special old Savage shotgun and a whole lot more.  Grab a cup of coffee and join us.   

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 170: Poet, Author, Hunter, Angler and Forager Erin M. Block

If you are an upland bird hunter with a yen for great writing and vividly lived experiences, you have probably been reading the Mouthful of Feathers crew --  Tom Reed, Marissa Jensen and Greg McReynolds -- on the internet since 2009. Whether you have or have not, you are in for a treat. Join us for a celebration of wild birds and wild dogs and their first publication, in a book that you can hold in your hands, of the best of the best of the  Mouthful of Feathers short essays and stories. The book is the perfect off-season reading: 20 writers from all walks of life and all over North America. It’s old friends and old and young dogs, venerable old double barrels and pawnshop pump shotguns with stocks cracked from a tumble down the chukar’s steepest basalt. It’s bobwhites and sharptails, Huns and timberdoodles and Mearn’s, from the southern longleaf to the rain-soaked poplars of Michigan, the Sandhills to the Madrean Sky Islands. And the conversation in epidode 169 of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers’ Podcast & Blast is one hell of a good time.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Episode 169: Mouthful of Feathers

The proposed Ambler Road is a proposed 211-mile industrial corridor through public lands along the southern flanks of the Brooks Range and one of the last and largest protected roadless areas on earth. The road would be built from the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District on the Ambler River, passing through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, bisecting the migration route of the embattled Western Arctic caribou herd and crossing nearly 3,000 streams and 11 major rivers including the Kobuk and Koyukon. Tune in to learn about this proposed project from three deeply concerned Alaskans while there is still time for hunters and anglers like you to make your voices heard.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 168: Paving Paradise: Alaska’s Ambler Road

Public Lands, Wild Game Cooking, Hunting, Angling and Conservation – Live from the Texas Hill Country with Chuck Naiser, Jesse Griffiths and Riverhorse Nakadate The Podcast and Blast has gone to Texas! Host Hal Herring takes the Podcast & Blast on the road to the sunbaked Texas Hill Country to record a live episode at Star Hill Ranch in Bee Cave. It’s a packed house at the Texas BHA gathering for a conservation conversation fueled by extraordinary food, ice cold beer and a rip-roaring good time. Riverhorse Nakadate is a writer, poet and musician telling the story of public lands, flyfishing and conservation from the Texas Gulf Coast to the Boundary Waters. Jessie Griffiths is a visionary wild game chef, forager, hunter and angler, restaurateur and author. Chuck Naiser is president and founder of Flatsworthy, a coalition of sometimes conflicting stakeholders committed to solving the major challenges of a booming Gulf Coast and has been a renowned fishing guide and a successful battler for conservation on the Texas coast since he took a leading and often dangerous role in the “Redfish Wars” of the late 70s. He’s as plain-spoken and passionate as ever, at a time when his wisdom and experience are needed more than ever. Join us for a conversation with the three recent Texas BHA Public Lands and Public Waters Leadership Award recipients.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 167: BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 167: Public Lands, Wild Game Cooking, Hunting, Angling and Conservation – Live from the Texas Hill Country

Listeners of the podcast will remember a number of dam-focused episodes over the past few years, Free the Ocklawaha (Florida) and Snake River Dams (Idaho, Columbia River basin) to name just two. But the issue of dams – the blocking of the arterial systems of the earth – is not about just a few high-profile cases. More than 800,000 dams across the planet have destroyed river systems, extirpated vast runs of native fish, displaced millions of human beings and drowned priceless farmlands, forests, prairies and wetlands. The delusion that we can plug living river systems and somehow turn them into money has perverted politics and economies and stolen the wealth of nations, hoarding it into the hands of the privileged and well-connected few. The story of dams – an incredible tale of careless hubris, blatant corruption and tragically bad ideas – is one [stevenhawleyauthor.com]Steven Hawley has been chronicling its unfolding for decades now, long enough to see a new clarity rising, and with it a growing movement to remove old dams and restore the free-flowing energies and arterial systems of our planet. Hawley’s new book, Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World, chronicles this history and future. Each success (and there are many of them) brings into stark focus the path forward, restoring rivers and fish runs and floodplains, reawakening the deep relationship between humankind and the waters that sustain us. Join Hal and Steven for a spirited exploration of one of the most critical issues of our time.  

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 166: Steven Hawley, Author of Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World

Coho salmon habitat, wetlands conservation, the removal of abandoned fences that kill hundreds of migrating mule deer, pronghorn and elk every year. Marine Corps helicopters and bighorn sheep, fish counts, bowfishing for alligator gar, restoring native plants on burned-over public lands. A ton of good work is getting done on our public lands and waters, and people are having a blast doing it. This is the reality of BHA’s hands-on conservation: projects done by real people; sweat, dust, sunshine and rain; like-minded folks coming together, seeing new country and leaving it quantifiably better than we found it. Hal joins Britt Parker, BHA’s habitat stewardship coordinator in Colorado, and Devon O’Dea, BHA California coordinator, to talk about the latest projects, check out the big future, and learn how you can get involved. 

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 165: Public Lands Stewardship in California and Colorado

Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles is a Minnesota fisherman, hunter and dog man, a former roofer, and one of America’s most profound songwriters and hardest-touring musicians. Hal and Dave spent a morning fishing Montana’s Big Blackfoot this summer, throwing spruce moth bugs for cuttbows and browns, and then caught up in the afternoon for a conversation at the KettleHouse Amphitheater in Bonner, Montana. Dave was getting ready to rock a sold-out crowd in the beautiful summer gloaming, with the river running fast and cold in the near distance. Sometimes, it just all works out. Join us.  

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 164: Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles

The longhunters of the 18th century knew it well. The Native nations of the Southeast knew it better yet, lived upon its bounty of bison and elk, and maintained it with fire and the deliberate cultivation of hundreds of species of plants. It was the Southeastern Grasslands Complex, known now only from the oldest maps. But remnants exist, of the most vibrant American ecosystem ever recorded, and Dwayne Estes and Jeremy French from the Southeastern Grasslands Institute are here to talk about the current successful efforts to understand it…and bring it back.  

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 163: The Southeast Grasslands Institute

There is a dire misconception these days that hunting and angling are somehow the birthright of Americans – and that these life pursuits and passions of ours belong to us by dint of benevolent magic or extraordinary good luck. American hunting and fishing do not exist because of magic or luck. We have what we have because our forebears raised relentless hell to restore our wildlife and protect our lands, waters and air. Ben Long, hardcore hunter, angler, conservationist, writer and longtime BHA leader, has produced The Hunter & Angler Field Guide to Raising Hell to re-awaken that spirit right now…when the need has never been greater. In the tradition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the epic of compression that launched the American Revolution, Ben’s Field Guide is a concise user’s guide to the institutions – from federal agencies to the courts – that help us protect that which we refuse to relinquish, and that which we will pass on to the generations that follow us. To whom much has been given, much is expected. Join us, in the fight, and for this conversation.   

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 162: Ben Long, The Hunter & Angler Field Guide to Raising Hell

Texas hunter and fisherman Jesse Griffiths is the author of Afield: A Chef’s Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish and The Hog Book, the definitive text – artwork is closer to the reality  - on hunting, butchering and cooking feral hogs. The Hog Book won the prestigious James Beard Award in 2022, a fitting tribute to a man on the cutting edge of wild game and fish cookery. Jesse is co-owner of the Austin, Texas, New School of Traditional Cookery and the restaurant Dai Due, whose name is drawn from the Italian proverb, Dai due regni di natura, piglia il cibo con misura: “From the two kingdoms of nature, choose food with care.” Join us for a conversation with one of the most visionary chefs in North America, talking hogs, turkeys, panfish, hunting and fishing and foraging for food, and a life defined by the earth and her seasons.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 161: Texas Chef & Sportsman Jesse Griffiths

Mitch Reid is a native son of the Alabama Wiregrass, where he grew up fishing and hunting his home country in the headwaters of the Choctawhatchee River. After a military career with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, he came home to raise his family and continue to serve his nation by working with The Nature Conservancy to protect and restore the lands and waters of the place he loves the most in the world. Alabama is No. 1 in aquatic species diversity, with more than 4,000 known species. It is also No. 2 in the nation for species extinction. The time for action is right now. Huge projects are underway in Alabama, from restoration of coastal estuaries and marshes to protecting some of the most diverse hardwood forests and most biologically rich and intact rivers left on Earth. One of the most important watershed restorations in the U.S. is underway right here – reconnecting the mighty Alabama River and its thousands of miles of tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico – Gulf walleye, sturgeon, vast runs of mullet and other catadromous fish … they were all here, all the way up the Cahaba, the Coosa, the Tallapoosa. And they can be again.     

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 160: Mitch Reid with The Nature Conservancy

Arizona game warden and author Sam Lawry is retiring from his second career as the executive director of the Teller Wildlife Refuge on the Bitterroot River of Montana. This BHA podcast is being released to honor Sam and in appreciation of his life as one of America’s premier conservation leaders. Sam served 23 years as a game warden in Arizona (the subject of his excellent and funny book, Stories of the Past: An Arizona Game Ranger Remembering the Outlaws), was chairman of staff for the North American Wetlands Conservation Council and the Pacific Flyway Council, western director of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, and has devoted most of his life to teaching young people about wildlife and conservation. Join Hal and Sam as they talk about outlaws, waterfowl hunting, Arizona, the Bitterroot, active habitat restoration, and a life spent completely immersed in hunting and fishing. If you have not heard of Sam’s Warden Wisdom on Instagram, now is the time to check it out.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 159: Game Warden, Author and Conservationist Sam Lawry

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 158: Hunting at American Prairie    American Prairie is 455,840 sprawling acres of Montana grasslands and breaks that represents one of the largest expansions of publicly accessible hunting opportunities in the West— and one of America’s largest public/private land conservation projects. A longer story deserves to be told about American Prairie – how their work began and also what their plans for the future hold. This discussion features AP’s Director of Public Access & Recreation Mike Quist Kautz and Director of Bison Restoration Scott Heidebrink, who are here to talk history, bison, cattle, grasslands, watersheds, and hunting and the logistics of getting 1000 pounds of meat and 150 pounds of hide out of the field. Listeners who want to apply for a bison permit on AP lands, or who might be interested in the Block Management Program hunting access opportunities on AP lands, won’t want to miss this conversation, recorded at AP headquarters in Montana.

Ep. 158: Hunting at American Prairie

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 157: Kevin Garrad, Founder of Wild Response Growing up in rural England, Kevin Garrad was a child of the wild moors, a ferreter and a trainer of lurchers, a hunter of invasive minks, and destined to be a soldier. Fast forward to an early-in to the U.S. military just out of high school and eight deployments in 18 years, including a decade in the U.S. Army Special Forces during America’s longest wars. Now “retired” to the bush in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, Kevin is the point man for Wild Response, an organization that equips and trains the roaming, high-risk game rangers who are protecting the bitterly imperiled wildlife of these last iconic wild landscapes, often at the risk of their own lives. Internationally recognized man-tracker, soldier, medic, teacher and passionate conservationist of wildlife and wild places, Kevin has an utterly unique tale to tell. Join us!

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