Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcasts and Blasts

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 175: Outdoor Investigative Journalism: From Lyme Disease to Endangered Species with Jimmy Tobias Mar 05, 2024

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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.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 174: Venomous Snakes, Local Hunting and more with Dr. Chris Jenkins Feb 20, 2024

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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!

Bonus Episode: The Largest Public Lands Conservation Opportunity in Our Lifetime Feb 08, 2024

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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.

Episode 173: BHA 2023 Federal Policy Roundup with BHA Government Relations Manager Kaden McArthur Feb 06, 2024

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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.

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 172: We Can Do This, One Person at a Time with Douglas Tallamy Jan 23, 2024

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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. 171: The Conservation History of George Washington Carver with Mark Hersey Jan 09, 2024

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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. 170: Poet, Author, Hunter, Angler and Forager Erin M. Block Dec 26, 2023

Show notes

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, Episode 169: Mouthful of Feathers Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

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, Ep. 168: Paving Paradise: Alaska's Ambler Road Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

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. 167: BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 167: Public Lands, Wild Game Cooking, Hunting, Angling and Conservation – Live from the Texas Hill Country Oct 24, 2023

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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.

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