The Ozark Podcast

Kyle Veit:
Alright, welcome back to the Ozark podcast. You've got Kyle Veit on the mic as always, and I am joined by Mr. Kyle Plunkett, and we have the special privilege today of being joined by Austin Booth, the director of Arkansas Game and Fish. He's with us on the Ozark podcast tonight. So just wanna say, Austin, thank you for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy, and you've got a lot going on, so I appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Austin:
Absolutely. I'm really glad to be here.

Kyle Veit:
Absolutely. So the question is why, you know, why do we want to talk to you? Why did we reach out to you? What do we want to talk about? And I think Kyle and I had kind of been talking about you know, what do we want our our listeners to know? What do we want them to be aware of? And I just thought this would be a cool opportunity to kind of let you cast your vision. start with an introduction, but then cast your vision for what your strategic plan is for the state of Arkansas, specifically, obviously, as it relates to the Ozarks and how that affects the Ozarks, and whatever extent you can. Just the opportunity to talk about how you're thinking about the issues that we're up against and what is being done to combat those issues and how people can get involved and help support that. That's really where I wanted to go. Before we get into that, let's just start with like, let's go back a little bit, give us like an introduction of who is Austin Booth and kind of how did you get to this position where you're at today?

Austin:
Yeah, so I'm Austin Booth. I'm the 19th director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which in my biased opinion means that I have the great honor and privilege of leading one of the finest fish and wildlife conservation agencies in the country. I'm born and raised in Arkansas. I'm from Scott, Arkansas, which is haven't seen the 2020 census, but in the 2010 census was a town of about 72 people in Lone Oak County. uh, left Arkansas in 2004 and spent 15 years out of the state, uh, which is important for reasons that we can get into later. Um, but spent 15 years away from the state for college, uh, at the Citadel Law School at the University of South Carolina, uh, and then spent eight years in the United States Marine Corps, uh, came home in, uh, 2019. Uh, I was, uh, honored to be the chief of staff and CFO for the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs. And I read in the paper one day, uh, that the director at the time, Pat Fitz was retiring. Uh, and it said in the article that, that, that the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was going to retain an executive recruiter, i.e. a headhunter to help find the next director. And I thought that sounds like the absolute job of a lifetime. So I Googled the headhunter. I didn't know any of the commissioners well. I Googled the headhunter. I found a leak to the vacancy. I sent my cover letter in and my resume. And after about three months of interviews, I was selected in May of 2021 and started the job in 2021. And it's been a lot of fun, a lot of work, a lot of challenges. something that's rewarding every single day that I walk into this office.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. I'm sure, you know, I'm curious just in terms of your background and what the typical background of a commissioner is. How do you kind of compare in terms of like what does it or not a commissioner but a director of Game of Fish, how does that usually look like?

Austin:
There's no set route to how one kind of gets to this job. I will tell you that I'm the first director in 20 years to come from outside the agency. And I'm also one of the first directors in 20 years to not be a game warden. Previous to that, it was almost either fish or wildlife biologists. And if you look outside the state, I kind of see the same thing amongst my peers from other state fish and wildlife agencies. So

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
I'm the youngest director in the country, something that's humbling.

Kyle Veit:
Hahaha

Austin:
And I also realize every day that I did not take the traditional route. But I mean, in my opinion, that only makes it more fun and more humbling. and really brings me back to square one every day.

Kyle Veit:
It gives you some outside perspective too that I imagine

Austin:
Sure.

Kyle Veit:
is

Austin:
Yes.

Kyle Veit:
really valuable

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
in a position like yours. That's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah, absolutely.

Austin:
Yeah, I think

Kyle Veit:
So

Austin:
so.

Kyle Veit:
maybe talk just a second about what does the director do, the nuts and bolts of it, right? I know that everyone has a title and it sounds like this and people have assumptions, but what is it? What are you responsible for within the agency and kind of how do you execute on those things?

Austin:
Yeah, so we are the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which if you were to look only at our title would make one believe that we're responsible for game species within the wildlife community and also within the fish community. But it really goes far beyond that. You have to look at Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution, which created the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. And we're responsible for conserving all fish and wildlife species, whether they're game or not. The habitat that they depend on, that's the second prong of it. And then the third prong is we have to take both of those things and we have to bring them to the public. So that's a pretty broad mission set and it has lots of different extrapolations for what that means for us as an agency on a day-to-day basis. Our largest division within the agency is our law enforcement division, our game wardens. When we're at full capacity, we have 180 game wardens in every single county of Arkansas. Then we have our wildlife management division that is really responsible for our wildlife management areas. And increasing elevating habitat for terrestrial species throughout the entire state. We have the same replication on the fishery side for all things aquatic. We also have, as of this year, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, we have a new private lands division, which is really focused on cultivating habitat amongst the private landowner community. And then we have our education division, which operates, you know, our nature centers and our education efforts, also in all 75 counties. We also brought online this year, a recreational shooting division. And then we have all the normal organizational support roles behind that, like HR and fiscal and, you know, IT. So. Right now we have about 650 employees and we're focused right now on habitat, access and recreational shooting.

Kyle Veit:
Should we get into some of the strategic plan even with habitat access and recreational shooting? Absolutely. I would love to. But actually before we go there I want to do something real quick as like almost an ice breaker. A couple quick rapid fire questions.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Would you rather, so let's see, duck hunting or turkey hunting? For you personally. This is Austin booth. For people that get to know Austin, would you rather go duck hunting or turkey hunting? Okay.

Austin:
Bye, duck hunting.

Kyle Veit:
Would you rather go trout fishing or catch a smallmouth bass?

Austin:
Oh, I'm gonna go trout fishing.

Kyle Veit:
Okay, and then the last one I was going to ask is, would you rather harvest a bear in the state of Arkansas or harvest an elk in the state of Arkansas?

Austin:
Bri-bear. Yep.

Kyle Veit:
could you have said there's a work it's off

Austin:
I have not. But I mentioned.

Kyle Veit:
it's it's on his list i mean i would hope i would have to say elke but that's because it just seems yeah yeah the

Austin:
Well,

Kyle Veit:
care of the

Austin:
yeah, so my bias towards the elk is directly connected to my bias for this agency. Sorry, my bias towards the bear is

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Austin:
directly connected to my bias for this agency because the reintroduction of the black bear in Arkansas is the most successful reintroduction of any omnivore in history. And it's a native species that we wiped off the face of Arkansas. And now to see the amount of progress just in the past 60, 70 years and the hard work that it's taken from generation to generation

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Austin:
of wildlife biologists

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
is just phenomenal. And it's the best possible conservation story of recovery that I know of.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, it's the crown jewel of Arkansas.

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
It absolutely is. So I'm

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
with you there. I'm with

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
you. I think personally, if I had to go smallmouth, I might go smallmouth for kind of similar reasons.

Austin:
I know.

Kyle Veit:
It is a native species.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Turkey hunting and duck hunting, that's a toss up, honestly. I'm going duck. I can't blame you for picking duck.

Austin:
Yeah. Well, and, and, you know, I'm from Walnut County, y'all

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
from Northwest Arkansas. So if y'all went with Turkey, I wouldn't blame you.

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Austin:
But so many of my memories when I was a little kid was with my dad behind a tree. And now that I've got a nine-year-old, almost 10-year-old that killed her first duck this year, some of those memories are starting to become more sweet as they start to come full circle, you know?

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
We're gonna know, now that people know a little bit more about Austin. So

Austin:
Thank you.

Kyle Veit:
let's jump into the nitty gritty. Let's talk about your strategic plan. And I wanted

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
to start with habitat. And just in general, we can dive into more questions specifically within that, but. When you talk about habitat and that being important for the agency to focus on, what are we

Austin:
What

Kyle Veit:
facing?

Austin:
are you thinking?

Kyle Veit:
What does the habitat look like in the state of Arkansas right now? And where are we coming from and where do you want to go, essentially?

Austin:
Sure. Habitat is incredibly challenged right now, and we're losing it both quantitatively and qualitatively. We're losing it quantitatively because, you know, as central Arkansas expands, we can certainly look to northwest Arkansas and portions of northeast Arkansas. For every acre of asphalt that goes down, we are losing an acre of something that was wants habitat for wildlife. We're losing it qualitatively because that acre of habitat that goes down is not only one acre less that we don't have, but it fragments the remaining habitat. And as the fragmentation of habitat becomes more common and habitat, although we still have it, is less and less connected. That has a disproportionate impact on on on both the wildlife and the sportsman that that depend on that habitat for whatever their pursuit is. That's really on the terrestrial side. Um, on the aquatic, on the fishery side, one of the best things about Arkansas is that is that we have incredible fisheries. We have all kinds of lakes, all kinds of reservoirs, all kinds of rivers, everywhere from, from, you know. whitewater to big core lakes to really rich and fertile oxbow lakes in the Delta. And we can look right now at what's happening with erosion and many of our fisheries, they're filling in. I mean, we recently did a very small private landowner project on the Ouachita River where we went in, the landowners funded it, we did the work. to essentially mitigate some of the erosion they had into the Ouachita River that was upstream of Lake Ouachita. And it was only a mile and a half to two miles worth of work, which is a lot of work for us to do. It's not that much when you think about how long the Ouachita River is. And that one project is gonna prevent about 4,000 dump truck loads of sediment. being deposited in the Lake Ouachita every year.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that's

Austin:
And

Kyle Veit:
crazy.

Austin:
so, whether it's on the fishery side or the terrestrial side, habitat is under a lot of pressure right now. So we're not necessarily backing away from anything that we're doing that's really outside the scope of habitat, but we wanna prioritize habitat and let everything else flow from that. And that just necessarily involves us doubling down on what we're trying to do with our public lands, but are also was really the predicate for us launching a historic private lands effort within the

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm

Austin:
agency.

Kyle Veit:
is that erosion because Trying to is it because natural grasses and trees and just how rivers normally function We're losing that or is that due to farming pressures and boat use and all of that kind of stuff Like where do you think that that

Austin:
Yeah,

Kyle Veit:
erosion may start?

Austin:
it's multifaceted. You point to any problem we have as sportsmen, as conservationists. And I always say, we don't have the luxury of single cause problems.

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Austin:
You could attribute it to the absence of native grasses along rivers and streams. on some of the more popular rivers like the Little Red and the White. We see lots of erosion from private landowners cutting down trees. Uh, we see lots of erosion from changing practices within the ag community. And then one thing that people don't often think about is when it is when our community's put down that one acre of asphalt and human growth, don't get me wrong, it's a great thing, especially for a a place like Arkansas and we should celebrate it. But that one acre of asphalt only increases what we call water velocity. So it makes the water move faster, which increases erosion. And all that water at some point is going into one of our rivers, along with whatever it's carrying with it.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm. Hmm. That is interesting. Yeah. I remember, um, I actually, I don't always, but I got to watch the last commission meeting on y'all's YouTube and I remember the biologist talking about that and just thinking about if you really extrapolate that data set out. into all of our lakes and all of our reservoirs. And the effect that you can have, you just talked about, what did he do, a mile, mile and a half on that one private

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
landowner?

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
Just to think about the impact that you can have across all these different areas

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
is really astounding.

Austin:
Yeah. Well, and, and for us, you know, we start with a habitat, we extrapolate what we want to do with it, but we always have to reconnect it to what that's going to do for our Kansans and for sportsmen. You know what, what we need to sustain hunting and fishing as we know in Arkansas or even grow it is that experience where you Here in Turkey, blow up the woods where you see a deer walk out, where you see mallards come into flooded red oaks. And for that experience to happen, we have to have the habitat for it. And so we're really trying to drive the agency focus towards habitat both for people and for the wildlife and for the fish.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that makes sense. I wanted to ask you about, you talked a little bit about terrestrial species. When we think about, and as we've been on this journey of doing the podcast and talking to different people who know a lot more than. what we knew before we started, we've learned, you know, and we've been on this journey of the Ozarks haven't always looked like they look like today. You know, today we have a lot of closed canopy forests, there's not a lot of sunlight getting to the ground, and therefore you're lacking habitat that you used to have years and years and years ago when it was more of a savanna type landscape. What are some of the efforts, you know, being done to address those types of things, and how important is that for you?

Austin:
Yeah. So the amount of science that has grown around how not just conservation agencies, but even how timber companies approach forest management has grown exponentially the past 15 to 20 years, not only based on what we do with trees, but also how we administer control burns. You know, we had a private landowner about a year ago and this private landowner took us to a timber stand saying, this is what y'all need to do with y'all's wildlife management areas. And it was a ton of very healthy, very mature hardwoods. And the trees were beautiful. But if you looked at the forest floor, There was zero understory whatsoever and not a single grocery on the floor for any kind of wildlife. And oftentimes when people think about forest management, they're consciously or subconsciously managing for a really pretty forest. And I'm not a forester. I'm not a biologist. I came into this job with a fair amount of skepticism towards what forest management looks like on public lands. But kind of the light bulb moment that I had was that mother nature will always provide the next forest. Always, always. But we

Kyle Veit:
What

Austin:
can't

Kyle Veit:
do you mean

Austin:
assert,

Kyle Veit:
by that?

Austin:
well, if, if we do no kind of forest management whatsoever, We're going to have trees there.

Kyle Veit:
Gotcha.

Austin:
Um, that's mother nature's job, but there's, but there's no guarantee that those trees, um, are going to be consistent or helpful with managing public land for a specific purpose. And in our situation, that is for sportsmen and for wildlife. So if we want a certain tract of public land, whether that's one of our wildlife management areas or a national forest. to be the best deer hunting possible, the best duck hunting possible, fill in the blank, we have to manage against mother nature for a specific purpose. And that's what separates conservation from preservation. So we are trying to burn more now than we ever have to really zero in on what desired forest conditions look like from a wildlife. perspective and then manage to that both through forest management, through thinning, and also through burning. We knew that this was something that's not always popular with the public, so we've really doubled down on how we educate private landowners about what forest management looks like, not only because the Arkansas Game of Fish does it, but because this is how private land managers do it. And then we also took an additional layer of public accountability and we hired a third party auditor in 2021 to come in. And as we're trying to open up the canopy, put sunlight down on the ground, reintroduce fire to the landscape that hasn't been there for 20 or 30 years, that we had some accountability in that to make sure that we weren't doing too little and that we weren't doing too much.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that makes sense. It's a it is interesting. I feel like, you know, you think about the the public perception, you mentioned that on burning, I have noticed even in the last couple of years, it does feel like there's like there's some traction being gained, people are starting to come around to the idea. they're more pro-fire than I feel like they have been, at least from what I can remember, and only having been involved in these conversations really lately in the last couple of years. But do you guys see that on your end, the private landowners, they are more willing to, and they're more accepting of this idea that we need to burn more?

Austin:
Yeah, 100%. And we have kind of a slide deck that we can show private landowners of before and after pictures of this is what it looked like before. This is what it looked like when we burned it and it's ugly. And this is what it looks like after. And then here's what it looks like five years down the road when you do it on a prescribed cycle. And when landowners see it, they're like, no way. And so when people start to do it and try it and see the results of sunshine and fire, there's a light bulb that comes on. And we need that in every county in Arkansas. Not want anybody to be irresponsible, but we need more people that understand that fire's been removed from the landscape. and our native species, which are the best things for wildlife, badly need it. So one of the things that we did with Natural State Tomorrow, our strategic plan that you mentioned, is we made it a goal to create private burn associations throughout the state, where we can get groups of landowners in clusters that are all interested in burning, and then we train them. We help them write their burn plans and then we don't necessarily just turn them loose without any kind of supervision, but we

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Austin:
mentor them in prescribed fire, which has been huge for us.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. And that's a program that y'all have started or are starting very shortly.

Austin:
we have started it. Yep.

Kyle Veit:
Okay. I wanna be added to that email list. Yeah.

Austin:
Good, we'll

Kyle Veit:
That's

Austin:
do it.

Kyle Veit:
good to know. You talked about public perception and we've just obviously been talking about that. Let's talk about like, overall, what is public perception of hunting and angling in the state and how is it? you know, how is it good? How is it bad? What are, what do you guys see? What do you see in terms of what's going on in the state?

Austin:
Yeah. So one of the things that makes this job remarkably rewarding and also challenging is the fact that we have roughly as many ecosystems in Arkansas. And guys like I'm a knuckle, dragon Marine and a lawyer. The fact that I'm using ecosystems

Kyle Veit:
Hehehehe.

Austin:
in a

Kyle Veit:
Hehehehe.

Austin:
sentence still does not really sit right with me, but it,

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
it's true. We have. We have roughly as many ecosystems in Arkansas as they do in Texas. And one of the things that just makes this a great place to live is all those ecosystems just bring about all kinds of different wildlife. We like to brag that we're the only state in the country where you can kill an elk, an alligator, catch a world record brown trout and have a world-class duck hunt.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
That makes this job so rewarding. It also means that there's lots of our beloved Arkansans out there with lots of different and strongly held opinions about their pursuit.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that's so true. You can't

Austin:
Right?

Kyle Veit:
like do blanket conservation because it's so diverse.

Austin:
Yeah,

Kyle Veit:
It

Austin:
right.

Kyle Veit:
would not

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
be suited for everyone

Austin:
But overall, support for conservation in Arkansas is very, very strong. People disagree sometimes very stridently with management practices either on private land or public land, but nine times out of ten, their heart's in the right place and they want to do what's best for the resource.

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Austin:
And that's a much better place than some of the other states are in. Um, so we're not a preservation agency. I am adamant that for everything we do, it's for the people of Arkansas, both this generation and the next. Um, and the vast majority of people understand that. And I've been mostly encouraged by what I've, I've seen on the public perception side, uh, since I took this job. 19 months ago.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that's good. I mean, to think about, I've heard the stat and I'm sure you know it off the top of your head, but just to, what is the percentage of public land versus privately held land in the state of Arkansas?

Austin:
Yeah, so Arkansas is 90% privately owned.

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
So yeah, thinking about the implications of that when it comes to conservation and what you guys actually have kind of, I don't know if jurisdiction is the right word, but control over to how things get managed.

Austin:
Thank

Kyle Veit:
There's

Austin:
you.

Kyle Veit:
really, even if you were maximizing a hundred percent of the public land conservation, it really is barely putting a dent in that whole chunk of the pie, right?

Austin:
Right, and you know, just by nature, I'm a small government guy, and this agency will never be successful if we think we can successfully manage all the habitat in Arkansas just by nature of the patch we wear on our shirt.

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Austin:
If we achieve absolute perfection with the limited capacity that we have. At the most, we're going to be impacting a limited number of private landowners and 10% of the lands in Arkansas. And when we think about landscape scale habitat, 10% is not going to cut it from the wildlife perspective. So in answering the question of how we broaden the influence of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and how we increase capacity for cultivating our habitat. Uh, the missing link to all of this is the private landowner. Uh, and just to tell you, uh, just be honest with you how far we are behind in private lands, you know, we, we have not, we have non-private lands biologists we have since 1996, um, and those non-private lands biologists are responsible for 75 counties, uh,

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Austin:
Marines aren't being Marines aren't known for being very good at math, but that's like eight and a half counties per private

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
lands biologist. And that's a lot of ground to cover. Um,

Kyle Veit:
That is a lot.

Austin:
so, so we have nine in Missouri, our friendly, beloved competitor to the north. They have 60.

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Austin:
Um, so we create a private lands division this year to create the private lands capacity. And from everything that I've seen from private lands division and private landowners, landowners want to do the right thing for the natural resources. If they know how to do it, they don't have the resources or the incentive, or they have the resources, they have the desire, they just don't know how. And when you take the expertise that our people have managing private lands, getting them enrolled in federal farm bill program. combined with the tax credit that we were able to secure a pilot project for this year. I think if we can double down like we have been on private lands and also increase the emphasis on private lands, the habitat in Arkansas is going to be better than it ever has.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. Do you think some of that, just the private land ownership piece and even the biology piece, is you think Missouri has so many biologists because they've been branded as the big buck state and a good turkey state, and Arkansas has so many different ecosystems that you look at it as a whole and kind of think, what does the bear habitat have to do with the guy who wants to hunt alligators? And it's just so broad that it's hard to, I don't know, it's hard

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
to kind of sell one thing. You think that's going into it or am I oversimplifying it?

Austin:
No, that's a really interesting take and one that I haven't thought of, but that certainly makes sense. I think most of our delay in Arkansas in increasing that private land focus for Habitat has really been built around resources. But we're changing that and we're happy about it. I was joking around with the first ever chief of our private lands division that if I need to help him with his ulcer medication, so

Kyle Veit:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Austin:
let me know because we're all in on private lands, not in a way whatsoever that it's going to detract from our management on public lands. But we think it's some of the untouched potential that we have here. Arkansas.

Kyle Veit:
So when it comes to, you just covered a lot of stuff that I want to come back to the tax credit that you talked about because

Austin:
Thank

Kyle Veit:
I think

Austin:
you.

Kyle Veit:
that's a huge thing so we'll revisit that. But while we're in the topic about preservation versus conservation, there's kind of a, at least what I've heard or have seen is like there are some people and there's almost a narrative of, for maybe a general public of hunting is... bad or some level of conservation is bad. Wildlife should be left alone, should be observed, and should be left to its natural course.

Austin:
I'm sorry.

Kyle Veit:
How do you think about that in terms of like what is our role as conservationists when it comes to wildlife?

Austin:
Yeah. So I have the privilege to sit on the Bird Conservation Committee for the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. And if you look at how many, you know, how many birds of all species the United States has lost in the past 40 years. We've lost around 600 million birds. 600 million birds.

Kyle Veit:
Holy cow. Wow.

Austin:
So that's roughly twice the population of the United States. And you can break that out by songbirds. You can break that out by shorebirds. And if you break that out amongst all the different categories of birds, there is one species. sorry, not one species, there's one category of birds that have actually grown in number the past 40 years. Amidst the loss of 600 million birds, there's one category that's actually grown. And guess

Kyle Veit:
Hmm

Austin:
what it is.

Kyle Veit:
Game birds

Austin:
waterfowl.

Kyle Veit:
Waterfowl really specifically waterfowl.

Austin:
It's waterfowl.

Kyle Veit:
That's really cool. Why?

Austin:
And the reason for it, the reason for it is because of hunters and conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited, like Delta Waterfowl and the work that has gone into conserving wetlands.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Austin:
And you would be hard and some of our turkey hunters in the Southeast would disagree with this.

Kyle Veit:
Sure.

Austin:
But you would be hard pressed to find. a species in the North American model that is broadly treasured by hunters, or on the fishery side, anglers, and that has faced the same kind of losses as non-game species. And so, you know, someone that I've gotten to know since this job is my buddy Clay Newcomb, that

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
hillbilly.

Kyle Veit:
No.

Austin:
And one of the things that... that he said, when he did the podcast on what we were doing with our Green Shrew reservoirs was that, you know, wherever you look where, and where a critter is thrived with, or wherever a critter is treasured within the North American model, it thrives.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Austin:
Um, and so, you know, we don't want to say that we're past the hunting debate or anything like that. at all because we want to be sensitive to changing demographics within Arkansas. But when you look at the role that the brown trout has played in north central Arkansas, when you look at the role that the mallard duck has played in the Delta, and then you go down to our forest in south Arkansas and see the role of white tail deer, just about every home in Arkansas. If they're not hunters, They're found with people that are because they understand the connection between wildlife and our cultural identity in the natural state.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. So really it's, you know, go back a thousand years. Yes. If man just left everything alone, it'd be fine. But we're at a day and age now where that's not

Austin:
We're.

Kyle Veit:
really a possibility. If

Austin:
That's

Kyle Veit:
you

Austin:
right.

Kyle Veit:
value the any species, game or not, as much as anybody says that they do, it's actually necessary to take action as far as conservation goes to see those animals thrive.

Austin:
Yep, that's exactly

Kyle Veit:
That

Austin:
right.

Kyle Veit:
makes sense to me. Yeah, it makes total sense I was I was having a conversation with someone who I Work with and I won't mention any names, but they were talking about like how could you hunt a black bear? They're so beautiful. They're such majestic creatures and I'm like you're a hundred percent, right? but there there is data to back up that hunting is conservation and without hunters and without the passion and You know the knowledge that they have for this creature and just the desire for them to be here in our state you wouldn't have the reintroduction of the black bear in the state of Arkansas and it just wouldn't exist.

Austin:
Yep, that's exactly right.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. Okay, on the public, this is kind of changing topics a little bit. In terms of, you know, a lot of our audience... You know, we span the Ozarks, so it's Arkansas, it's Missouri, a little slice of Oklahoma over there, even just the extreme southeast corner of Kansas, but a lot of our audiences, they're younger, they're a younger generation, and you know. in terms of participation in the outdoors, it does seem like, or at least anecdotally I've heard that the numbers are declining or they're lagging and we are not going to be able to replace the baby boomers as they get older and are unable to get outside and hunt and fish anymore. How big of a deal is that and what can be done or what are you thinking about that situation?

Austin:
So I really like the way that you framed the question, because not everybody frames it that way. If you just look at Arkansas game and fish numbers, we are down in the past 20 years. We're down about 25% in license sales on the hunting side, and about 30% down on the fishing side. Now, that's on a resident level. add in non-residents with increased interest in our brown trout, white tail deer, and our ducks, it mitigates that decline a little bit.

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Austin:
And then we had about an 8% to 10% jump during the pandemic, and we're thankful to be level with the pandemic from where we are right now. So

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Austin:
all of that's really good. You ask a really important question about what is it about this decline that we can control?

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
And I think that's really important for fish and wildlife agencies and communities for us to think about because when we talk about the rate of propensity, the number of people that are inclined to hunt and fish, we would have to have exponentially more propensity in a generation like this, like the millennials or Gen Y or Gen Z to compensate for the propensity in the baby boomer generation that's like this big, right?

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, yeah.

Austin:
And so when you have just that quantitative hurdle, and then you combine, I mean, you know, declining middle class, changing work productivities. what the work week looks like now for people versus 30, 40 years ago. That's certainly a really big factor. People love to beat up on these kids in video games and need to get them off the tablets and off the couch.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
I'm not saying that's not a contributor, but from what I've seen, and this makes people mad, and I'm not going to stop saying it, it's year-round sports. I mean, I'm 36

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Austin:
and year-round sports right now are on a level that was just unthought of when I was a kid. And the hardship with year-round sports is it takes not just the kid out of hunting or fishing, but it takes a whole family out of it because they're on the road going to tournaments and what not.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
Not saying there's anything wrong with year-round sports whatsoever, but if we're thinking about what the long-term future of conservation looks like, we need to think about what are the things that we can control and how we make outdoor endeavors broadly, whether they're hunting or fishing, how do we make those more attractive and compatible with people's lifestyle? So that... That complex set of challenges right there is actually the number one reason on the people side of the house that we are focused on habitat. Because we don't want to chase a bunch of really challenging problems on the hunter and angler participation side that are outside of our control. We don't want to chase those at the expense of our fundamental responsibility, which is conserving the natural resources.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
So, so. The way that I look at it is, let's focus on the habitat, on the natural resources. And if there's one thing that is gonna be so competitive and appealing to people with all these other distractions away from hunting and fishing and outdoor experiences, the one thing that can pull people away from all of that is the experience

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
of setting a hook, of hearing a duck work, of watching a deer walk out. And all of that comes back to Habitat. So we're taking a more hyper-focused view on education, but we really want our attraction, our recruitment, our education to flow directly from Habitat.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that makes sense. So you're saying everybody make your kids quit travel baseball. Ha ha ha.

Austin:
No, that's not what I'm saying. But,

Kyle Veit:
Ha ha.

Austin:
you know, we, we are, we are trying to emphasize how, you know, fishing, hunting, recreational shooting. These are endeavors that you can do, um, with a community and that you can do from the time that you're nine years old to 79 years old.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, I love that man. I think that I mean it makes total sense when you when you put it that way and just to think about the Yeah, it's like no one's gonna fall in love with turkey hunting if there's no gosh dang turkeys in these woods And you go out

Austin:
Right.

Kyle Veit:
there, and you don't hear anything

Austin:
Right. Right. That's right. That's

Kyle Veit:
The

Austin:
right.

Kyle Veit:
we can cut this out if we need to but we We buried my grandfather a couple of months ago and we put him in the, put him up in the spot of ground that he grew up squirrel hunting with his dad in Little Rock. And, uh, it was like a big part of his story is all the different outdoor pursuits he had. Big bass fisherman is a part of the bass club in Little Rock, all that kind of stuff and his stories. And then my dad's stories of taking a week off of school at the start of deer season was something, it was like a thing of legend for me as a kid growing up.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
I want to leave for a week and go deer hunting. Yeah. And, uh, I don't want to over spiritualize this at all, but I do feel like there's something in the Just the outdoor pursuit when it comes to hunting and fishing and even time with your family or your close friends that Year-round sports I don't think can get close to and that may just be my family I like I know there are families who they love that experience the big part of their culture and what they're about their values And all that kind of stuff, but I don't just imagining I'm imagining the day they put me in the ground and they're like, you know what? He loved to do He loved to get in the car and drive around do do sports all the time. It's like that's not what they're gonna be saying about me. And so, like I said, that could just be me, but we can delete

Austin:
Well...

Kyle Veit:
that if we need to. Yeah.

Austin:
You know, the example that I use kind of to your point is, I played basketball in high school and the last time I played basketball with my dad, there were bloody noses and busted lips and I was in the eighth grade

Kyle Veit:
hurt feelings

Austin:
and yeah, and he beat me. And it was the last time that we ever played because he knew he probably was not gonna beat me again. Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, you hit your gross for right about eighth grade, I figure.

Austin:
Yeah, but I'm 36 and he's 66 and we still hunt together.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Austin:
And there's just nothing like it. And, you know, we think there's kind of been an awakening since the pandemic about the connection with the outdoors and what it means for mental health, your relationship with your maker in a way that we can kind of point to that. we think for why we're still level with the pandemic.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Austin, do you think media has played into that at all? You know, the rise of MeatEater and YouTube hunting shows and all of that, or is that, there's probably no way to track that, but do you think that's helping in the state of Arkansas or is that just helping the elk hunters out west?

Austin:
No, we, you know, if you look at our bear population, um, and our, our bear hunters, we have a ton of new bear hunters in Arkansas.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
And one of the most exciting things to me about that is it's hunters of all ages.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm.

Austin:
And we have a, we have just a different communication suite on, um, on what the hunting, fishing conservation world looks like right now. And it's absolutely making a difference. I mean, um, you know, on X did a survey, uh, right after the pandemic, just to understand how people's hunting chat hunting habits changed. Um, it's a tremendous, tremendous research effort. Um, and one of the things that we found was that. the number of programs and courses that people took that got them outside was this big. And what was off the charts was how their desire to hunt and learn how to hunt, it drove them towards other people. And I think meat eater plays a huge role in that. Certainly how the industry broadly is really doubling down on emphasizing that connection between people and nature and people and people and nature. That has a lot to do with it. So it's an exciting time right now for sure.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned year-round sports, and I actually, I wanted to ask specifically

Austin:
typically

Kyle Veit:
as it relates

Austin:
as it

Kyle Veit:
to

Austin:
relates to

Kyle Veit:
the Ozarks.

Austin:
the...

Kyle Veit:
We're not dogging on Eurosports, I promise we won't keep going down that rabbit hole.

Austin:
it.

Kyle Veit:
I had a question on, we've seen at least in Northwest Arkansas, the boom of mountain biking. It's people who are enjoying the resource, they're getting out and they are using public land. They are appreciating the resource and the work that has been done to keep it accessible and open to the public. But they're not necessarily buying fishing licenses. buying hunting licenses, the stamps, the things that go back into conservation. Has there been any thought or effort into thinking

Austin:
and

Kyle Veit:
about

Austin:
think together.

Kyle Veit:
a rebranding almost of Game and Fish into more of a department of natural resources or some way to include

Austin:
people

Kyle Veit:
these people who enjoy the resource but they aren't

Austin:
who are

Kyle Veit:
necessarily

Austin:
going

Kyle Veit:
pursuing Game and Fish? Does that make

Austin:
to

Kyle Veit:
sense?

Austin:
make so much money, but they don't necessarily have to assume that they're going to make so much money. Sure, yeah. So the short answer is yes, there's been quite a lot of thought around it. But I also think we have to be careful that we don't really think about ourselves as, you know, a outdoor recreation revenue machine. I mean, there's lots of ways for us to try to monetize what we do. And we have to have the resources that we need for conservation. But conservation and habitat should be always the desired outcome. So we can bring those to the people, not the other way around.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
And so if we go back to the mission of Arkansas Game and Fish, it's conservation so that we can bring to the people and to build that long-term support for conservation. So yes. We want to expand how we do conservation in Arkansas to make it more appealing to a more diverse set of Arkansans, but not so that we can just monetize them, right?

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
We want to do it because people will support conservation through a variety of different ways, whether that's hunting and fishing, also recreational shooting, and... We have a lot of data around cycling around the United States and also in Europe that shows that all of these other pursuits, whether they're wildlife watching or cycling, once people get plugged into it and get off the beaten path, their support for conservation goes vertical. And so we have some projects that we're working on right now in Northwest Arkansas. trying to rethink how we do wildlife management areas, how we do river management to open it up to more paddle sports. And we're doing it because we're trying to build that long-term support for conservation. And we know that if we emphasize the habitat and the experience that their support for conservation, wild places, wild things is just gonna go vertical.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah. Yeah.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
I love that everything y'all think through goes back to the habitat and the people. Like just building off of that makes so much sense. So I don't.

Austin:
Yeah. You know, there was a saying in the Marine Corps, it was mission first, Marine always. And I've shamelessly hijacked that to summarize natural state tomorrow to say habitat first, people always. And if we can focus on the habitat and the people, then... will be just fine and the natural state will be as good as it's ever been.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, I want to come back to something that you touched on earlier. And I know a tagline that I've heard you say, we actually got to meet you a while back at Kirk Dupes

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
dedication and a tagline I heard you kind of say there was common man and common woman conservation in the state of Arkansas. tailing that into you mentioned the tax credit that you guys proposed. That's a big deal. maybe just go into a little bit what it is, why it's a big deal, and just kind of let people know what's going on with it right now.

Austin:
Yeah, so when I talk about common man, common woman conservation, it's the idea internally that we will safeguard and steward and manage the natural resources of Arkansas at a level that's commensurate with what it means to the state. And externally, what common man, common woman conservation means is that conservation is a household, a household topic. Whether you care about water quality or whether you care about the importance of revenue from hunters for your local gas station, that people around the state understand what conservation is and what it means to our identity. So if we come back to the tax credit and how we build long-term capacity to deliver conservation and increase the habitat, again, In my opinion, the missing link is the private landowner. Um, now there are lots of in incentives out there, um, on the federal level, uh, to incentivize the private landowner, um, to conserve their land. They're incredible project or other incredible programs. If you go back to where I grew up, I grew up in Scott, Arkansas. from zero to 18, I never saw a single deer, not

Kyle Veit:
Really?

Austin:
a single one. And when the WRE, the Wetlands Reserve Easement Program came into effect around the year 2000, I think, now all of those WRE properties in the Leno County area, they're producing monster deer.

Kyle Veit:
Wow.

Austin:
And it's awesome just to see what those conservation programs can do in such a short amount of time. So they're really great programs. They often involve some kind of long-term restriction or easement with the landowner's property. And I said, it would really be awesome if we had an incentive that was offered on the state side, but also that didn't involve tying up your property in long-term restrictions.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
So. The conservation tax credit as we proposed it would have been $15 million per year. It would have been a tax credit capped at $10,000 per landowner. And we would essentially lay out a menu of conservation best practices. And the landowner could pick from any one of these conservation best practices and try to qualify. the tax credit. So the program is flexible, it's year to year, and it's completely voluntary.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
And because it's not a direct subsidy, it's a tax credit, there's no money whatsoever that flows through Game and Fish for it. So we wanted to divide the tax credit, seven and a half million for waterfowl practices to delay fall tillage. to leave more waste grain on the landscape and then to flood rice fields from October to March. Then on the non-waterfowl side, our qualifying practices would include everything from timber stand improvements, feral hog trapping, enrolling your lands in a three-year prescribed burn program, converting grazing operations from Bermuda and Fescue over to native grasses. I think I mentioned timber stand improvement already. And then if you have a pond or a reservoir on your lake or a river, increasing public access to private fisheries.

Kyle Veit:
Hmm, okay.

Austin:
And so we have two separate categories of qualifying practices. We got a ton of support from it, both from conservation organizations and from grassroots. We did a lot of work with it this year in the legislative session. We did not get the tax credit permanently authorized, but we did get some set aside funding to pilot the tax credit, which is a really great place to start. And we'll be back in the next session trying to get that permanently authorized.

Kyle Veit:
Man, that is awesome. Just

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
to make that a little bit more plain English for people who, you know, they may not know exactly what a tax credit is or how that works or how you might qualify. But essentially, I'm not an accountant, so don't judge me on this, but a credit would be essentially a payment back to you. So if you say you've spent $5,000 to improve your property on, I don't know if you mentioned string bank restoration, but like...

Austin:
Yep,

Kyle Veit:
TSI

Austin:
that's one.

Kyle Veit:
prescribed burn

Austin:
Yeah,

Kyle Veit:
something

Austin:
TSI.

Kyle Veit:
like that That would be if I spent 5k, I could qualify for 5k to come back to me

Austin:
That's right.

Kyle Veit:
Based on how much I did

Austin:
Right. So a tax deduction, you would deduct it from your amount of income. And that's good. A tax credit comes out of the bottom line, the actual tax that you owe, which is even better.

Kyle Veit:
It was so much better.

Austin:
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Veit:
That is

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
so cool. So you really could, if you did enough, there could be a scenario where you spent $1,000 and you actually qualified for a credit of $3,000 and so you might make money by doing this type of conservation. Is that right?

Austin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you, you know, the feral hog trap example, the way that we contemplated that is, um, if you pay $5,000, either for somebody to come trap hogs on your land, or you buy a $5,000 hog trap, you would get that $5,000, $5,000 tax credit. But if you wanted to flood your rice field from October to March, or burn X amount of acres, we would have a per acre formula. And as many acres as you did that practice on would take you up to a $10,000 tax credit. On the waterfowl side of the house, if we have a $7.5 million tax credit on the waterfowl practices, and it's capped at $10,000. per landowner, you can see that we would max out at 7,500 landowners, all right?

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
If we find 7,500 landowners in the state that will agree to flood 130 acres, that's not much, we'll add over 100,000 acres of habitat every single year.

Kyle Veit:
Oh my god. That's unreal.

Austin:
It's unbelievable.

Kyle Veit:
That's

Austin:
And

Kyle Veit:
unreal.

Austin:
if we can create the capacity internal to the agency to have the private landers the private lands biologists out there selling the tax credit, writing management plans, pointing people towards these federal farm bill programs. And then we have the tax bill that's an incentive for people to come to us. We're going to change habitat in a really, really big way.

Kyle Veit:
You're gonna be too busy. You're gonna be so busy. I don't know that you'd be able to keep up with everyone

Austin:
I'm gonna go to

Kyle Veit:
who

Austin:
bed.

Kyle Veit:
wants to do that to the property.

Austin:
Well, I was adamant that, you know, I didn't want Department of Finance to administer the tax credit. I didn't want, um, and I'm really good friends with the secretary of ag West ward, uh, we served in the Marine Corps together. Uh, I didn't want ag to administer the program. Yes, it'll be more work for us to do it, but just from a leadership perspective, I wanted nobody else to blame than us if this thing doesn't work.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
So. We're going to pilot it in tax year 24. I'm going to pilot it in tax year 25. And then hopefully in the next legislative session, we'll have it permanently authorized for tax year 26.

Kyle Veit:
That is awesome, man. That is so cool. Is that like a first of its kind type of credit on a state level across the US? Like, I have to feel like we're, like that's kind of leading the way.

Austin:
Yeah. And if, if one of your listeners says, no, we know for a fact that some other state has this, that'll be news to us. But from our research, as far as we know, we would be the only state in the country doing this.

Kyle Veit:
That is so cool. Man,

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
that just makes me proud to even be in Arkansans to think that that might get enough backing and support within the state to make that a thing. That's just a really cool opportunity.

Austin:
Well, and it makes a lot of sense to every corner of the state, not just for hunters and anglers, our number one industry in Arkansas is ag.

Kyle Veit:
Right.

Austin:
Our number two industry is tourism and outdoor recreation. If you break down the outdoor recreation numbers to see like what the most popular outdoor recreation segments are, number one is fishing, number two is RVing, and number three is hunting.

Kyle Veit:
Okay.

Austin:
So we can draw a very short, direct line between the outdoor recreation, economic impact

Kyle Veit:
Mm-hmm.

Austin:
of hunting and fishing and habitat. And for, for those two things to continue to thrive, we have to have the habitat for it. And that's what the tax credits all about is the long-term future of the state as it relates to habitat.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah, incentivizing the private landowner

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
to do their

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
part.

Austin:
Yep.

Kyle Veit:
Gosh, that's so cool. Man, I've loved talking with you. Unless you've got anything else that you wanna say to our listeners or to anyone listening across Arkansas or Missouri or any of the people who are tuning in, we've just enjoyed spending time with you. Is there anything else you wanna say?

Austin:
I don't think so.

Kyle Veit:
Cool. I've got one final question for you, Austin.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Hit him. Summarize for me just a couple words why Arkansas is the greatest state to have ever existed or will ever exist in the union. Good softball.

Austin:
Wow. Wow.

Kyle Veit:
Why do you love it? I'll make it easy. Why do you love it?

Austin:
Um, there's something different about what it means to be in our cancer compared to other States. And I'm sure your, your listeners in Missouri and Oklahoma will be like, well, yeah, y'all are 49th and everything. And we're fifth.

Kyle Veit:
Yeah.

Austin:
But that's not what I'm talking about. Uh, I spent 15 years out of the state. And in that 15 years, I had an opportunity to walk away from hunting and fishing, because I didn't know the wildlife management areas and I didn't know where the fisheries were, but I didn't. And I just understood that connection between the outdoors and what it meant to me personally. And that made me a better hunter and a better angler when I came back here. But the more time that I spent away from Arkansas, the more I appreciated what we had here in terms of the Arkansas outdoors. Yes. But then to take that one step further, just what that means to people. Um, and if you look at our number one, you know, industry being ag and number two, being tourism and outdoor recreation, uh, when we say that we're the natural state, we mean it. And when you look at what we have here in terms of the Delta. uh, in terms of the Ozarks and all the different ecosystems that, that, that we have, this is the best place to live. Um, you know, I could have moved my family anywhere after 15 years, there's 15 years out of the state and eight years in the Marine Corps. And I chose Arkansas for a reason. And it's because of our wild places, our wild things, and the people that we have here.

Kyle Veit:
Fantastic. Love it. It's a great place to end. It is.

Austin:
Yeah.

Kyle Veit:
Well, awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time. Like I said, I know you're a busy guy and you've clearly got a lot on your plate and a lot to do with conservation in the state. So thank you. We enjoyed hanging out with you.

Austin:
Um, one are are we off the record now?

Kyle Veit:
Yeah,

Austin:
All

Kyle Veit:
we can be.

Austin:
right.

Kyle Veit:
You want me to stop recording?

Austin:
Yep.