Transcript for On The Wing Podcast Ep. 343: Breaking Down 2026's Projected Conservation Battles at the State Level

Speaker 1 (00:50.634)

Welcome to On the Wing podcast presented by Purina ProPlan. Conservation legislation at state capitals across the country cover the spectrum from brilliant, and I'm thinking about dedicated funding for natural resources as an example of brilliance, to the tried and true, like critical habitat license plates that many of the states of pheasant and quail country have.

and many more exploring, as well as absurd ballad box biology. we see things like banning the use of bird dogs to recover game, which is just bizarre. But for this episode of On The Wing Podcast, it helped me break down the conservation legislation that we know about. Coming up.

for 2026 at the state level. We've got our relatively new Director of Government Affairs, Swanney Evans, joining me to talk about state politics and state advocacy. Before we learn a little bit more about Swanney, including where that name comes from, I want to give a shout out once again to Purina Pro Plan, not only the National Dog Food Sponsor,

of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever's Wildlife Habitat mission, but also the presenting sponsor of On the Wing podcast. All of my bird dog pups have always eaten Purina Proplant, not just because Purina supports the Wildlife Habitat conservation mission of our organization, which is incredibly important to me and should be important to you as well. But the most important element that makes me decide to put

Purina ProPlan and my bird dog bowls is that Purina has a team of the world's best scientists and nutritionists behind their dog food. Purina ProPlan was created for the working bird dog like yours and like mine. You can learn more at proplansport.com. All right. Introductions. Here we go. Swanney Evans. We got to start with the name Swanney.

Speaker 1 (03:12.556)

You are, without a doubt, the first person I've ever met named Swanny. What's the story behind your name?

Well, I'll tell you a little secret. That is not my legal name. So my name is Charles Swanson Evans and my dad's Charles. My dad's cousin that he was a really good friends with was named Swanson and everyone called him Swanny. So from birth, that's been my nickname. And unless it's a legal document or something along those lines, it's always Swanny.

And you do have golden tones. I'm looking at you on the screen, you got a radio station quality microphone. Did you get those vocal chords from your father? And was your father a singer at some

came from, like we were talking about earlier, Bob, everybody tells me I have a voice for radio, but radio's dying, so here we are on a podcast.

Here we are, get that deep, deep golden, golden vocal chords. Tell us a little bit about your background. What brings you to Pheasants Forever and Quill Forever and tell us about your career.

Speaker 2 (04:24.854)

Yeah, well, I'm excited to be working for PF and QF and excited to be talking to you as well this evening. You know, you, you said I'm relatively new in the position. I'd argue that a little bit. I still feel brand new. So you got to take it easy on me a little bit drinking from a fire hose. But I know just enough to be dangerous, which is why we're here talking about what's going to happen in the States with the upcoming sessions. From a background perspective.

I grew up in the middle of Atlanta. So down in Georgia, still live in Georgia. And all of my family for the most part lived Southwest of Atlanta. That's where most of them were from. And so I had the kind of the unique benefit of growing up in that urban area. But every weekend I was able to be out in the woods, hunting with my dad or fishing, camping, you name it. We were doing it. And that is what led me to

wildlife biology to pursuing that for my undergraduate degree and then my master's degree. And that kind of spawned this wild ride of working all over the country, overseas a little bit, doing all sorts of wildlife damage management work. So I've done everything from write management plans with people for a quail emphasis on their property to, you know, killing Philippine deer over in

Anderson or the military bases on Guam. So it's kind of a broad spectrum and through all of that. One thing that I consistently noticed and I was always dealing with is that when you're trying to have an influence, when things were actually changing, it was all coming back to the legislature. mean, that's where things were actually happening.

And so in order to be able to have an influence, you had to be able to have your hand in it. You know, and that was true through wildlife damage management, from a hunting perspective, with wildlife management in general, conservation funding, like we're going to talk about today, it, it trickled throughout. And so it's something that I've always been extremely interested in. And, my path has kind of taken me along through R3, which I'm sure you've talked about on this podcast before, but for those that

Speaker 2 (06:50.274)

maybe aren't familiar recruitment, retention, reactivation, basically looking at increasing support for, in participation in honey and shooting sports. And I was the first state level R three coordinator and that was in Georgia. It was under this national hunting and shooting sports action plan and got a lot of just very interesting experience in that role. we did all sorts of things from.

going down to the local farmers market and recruiting people that wanted to learn how to hunt because they wanted to take ownership of their protein source to create an endowment at local universities to fund student interns to teach other students how to hunt. And those are funded in perpetuity now. So just a lot of different interesting things on that front. And because it was a pretty new, shiny position, I got the benefit of

You know, getting to travel a lot, getting to go all around the country, talk about what we were doing in Georgia. And that fed into working for an organization called the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports. Marilyn, our CEO, is on the board of that organization. so Howard was on the board before. I got to know him pretty well. Really got to work with PF and QF a lot in that position and was always impressed by the organization.

primarily by the employees. mean, there's just some great people that work here. And through that position, I got to work through all 50 states, working on these hunting issues, once again, dealing with a lot of issues that would end up in the state legislatures, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. And got my hands a little bit more in it across a variety of states in that role. And from there,

I stepped into a role with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. was, the best way to put it is probably I was like a relationship manager between the firearms industry and the fishing industry, those that pay the manufacturer excise tax, Pittman Robertson Dinglejow, that funds conservation. And then the state natural resources agencies that take that money and put it to use on the ground. And so there was a need for

Speaker 2 (09:08.782)

some further relationship building there and they created this new role and I stepped into that position with them. And then I got this opportunity that I couldn't pass up. John Zennel with Federal Ammunition, who we've got a great partnership with, we had you at QF, is actually the first one that called me about this job and was like, hey, he had had lunch or breakfast with Maryland, I can't remember which one it was. And he was like, you should take a look at this. I think this would be great for you. And so I probably owe him a present at some point because I was...

I mean, I was legitimately excited about it. I read the position description. incorporated... I have a keen interest in state policy specifically. You know, when you're looking at the federal level, which PF &Q have historically done an excellent job with, it's very different from the states. You know, in a state legislature, you've got fewer members on average. I think the average is like 140.

Mm.

Speaker 2 (10:07.436)

members in the state legislature, you have a lot better access to those individuals. You know, throughout this job, I've been on the job for maybe six months at this point. And I've already made a bunch of contacts with state legislators that wouldn't have really been possible at the federal level. I've got their cell phone numbers, know, all of the, a little bit easier access on that front. And then a lot of these state sessions are only a few months. So issues can be resolved promptly and change can be

quick, you know, and that could be for the better or worse, which is why we've got to have a hand in it. And thankfully, Ariel Weigard, who I know you've talked to numerous times on this podcast, had kind of the foresight and the strategic vision for building out this government affairs team to include a robust state affairs program. And so that's where I've stepped in to help build that up.

Yeah, it's something that has percolated over the last, 18 months at the strategic planning level for the organization's leadership of, there's a tremendous opportunity here. We have done things of significance at the state level. You can look at Minnesota's legacy amendment and our involvement in passing the Outdoor Heritage Fund in 2008, which took 10 years up to that point.

as well as, you know, I will legislation in Iowa and license plates and you pick a state, know, Georgia and South Dakota. And those are some of the things we're going to talk about. But we obviously saw an opportunity to elevate our efforts, which started with Suzanne Anglewicz about a year ago. And she she had some personal changes in her life and in step Swanny.

to take over that baton. that's what we're going to be talking about today. What's coming up for 2026. It's hard to believe we're talking about 2026 already, but here we are, counting the days till the end of 2025. Before we get into a state by state roundup, I just want to touch on two more things with your background. You mentioned that piqued my interest. One was...

Speaker 1 (12:25.442)

You travel to the Philippines, so I'm curious about that. And the other was your background with quail, growing up in Georgia. So let's start kind of at the beginning, or at least my assumption at the beginning is your roots. You talked about going hunting with your father. Did it begin with quail? What are your quail connections from Georgia roots?

Yeah, that's a good question. It certainly did not start with quail. The first hunt I ever went on, I was so young, I barely remember any of it, but I was basically the squirrel dog for my dad. It was one of those, you run around that side of the tree and scare back this way situations. But from a very young age, mean, I remember, barely remember sitting in my dad's lap in the deer stand. You know, we dove hunted, we squirrel hunted, we deer hunted. Fished a lot, of course, but

hunting was the primary endeavor there. And that's what really got me interested in wildlife. didn't, the first wing shooting I ever did was dove hunting. And I remember I was a little kid and I shot five boxes of shells that day on that dove field and I came home with two doves, but I have a blast. My average has gotten a little bit better, Bob, but not a whole lot. But I still loved a wing shoot. you know, love shooting sporting clays, all of that kind of stuff.

I didn't actually go quail hunting for the first time until I was in college. Quail hunting was one of those interesting things, you know, where we've got wild quail populations, absolutely. But the majority of quail hunting in the South, at least in the Southeast, happens on plantations. You know, so it's a little bit of a different culture, wonderful culture, but if you don't grow up in it, you know, the majority of people are starting out squirrel hunting, deer hunting, that kind of stuff.

Got into one of my first quail hunt from there, shot some rough grouse from there, some pheasants, got into it a little bit. I still don't have a bird dog. I figured that question was coming. Yeah, y'all make me travel too much for work. It just wouldn't be fair to the dog. I'd love to have one. I just right now bird my friends and hunt over all their dogs.

Speaker 1 (14:45.307)

Mooch the pooch as we call it. How'd you end up in the Philippines? Tell us bit more about that gig.

There you go.

Speaker 2 (14:54.016)

Yeah, it was an interesting background. research, the majority of my work in undergrad and grad school focused on deer. And it became heavily focused on urban deer populations and overpopulations of deer. And so I worked up and down the East Coast and over in Guam dealing with

overpopulations of whitetail deer on the East Coast. You know, we'd go into places like just outside of DC in the Fairfax County parks and sharpshoot deer. So we'd go in at night with custom built rifles, with suppressors, of course, and work through these deer populations. And then we also did research on surgical sterilization, immunocontroceptives, deer birth control, basically.

I was in the Hamptons, you know, in between mansions in the middle of the winter. It's like a ghost town up there, darting deer, you know, so we're roving around. I've got a cop that's driving me around and we're pursuing these deer. It was fascinating. and you know, just up and down the East coast with all different things, related to that. The Guam project was an interesting one. It was originally the department of the Navy put out this request for a statement of interest and.

I actually wrote the initial proposal and response to it for this organization that I was working for called White Buffalo Incorporated. And we ended up getting a project on the north end on the Air Force Base and on the south end on the Naval Magazine. And the project was focused on eradication of Philippine deer and feral swine in certain eradication zones and then control and research in other zones. So

I was on Guam for 28 days, I think it was. I spent a week roving around the jungle and all the airfields and everything, darting deer and darting feral swine. Where the deer would put GPS collars on them and with the feral swine would do VHF ear tags. it was just allowing us to track them. And what we were looking at is called, it's called the Judas method, just in common terms. And the idea is that

Speaker 2 (17:17.518)

any species that is social, that's gregarious, is going to, you're going to tag it. It's going to go back and find its friends, basically. You're going to come in, work through the friends, and then it's going to go find a new social group and you're going to do the same thing again. So it's a method that's been used to facilitate reductions in populations when you're doing sharpshooting work. So that's what we were doing over there. Pretty interesting. If you know anything about Guam, it's the poster child.

for invasive species with a brown tree snake. Yeah, the brown tree snake came in and the federal government's now spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate this. I killed one within the first, I think it was first 12 hours that I was there. It in the carport of the place that we were staying. It is venomous. It's rear fanged there. So it has to kind of gnaw on you to get to you.

Huh.

Well, you had an awful interesting background.

it was wild. Yeah, we could go on about that, we should probably talk about, know.

Speaker 1 (18:19.726)

Well, yeah, you're doing my job for me, steering us to more relevant conversation. So let us talk about a state by state roundup. As you mentioned, your role is to of keep track of, excuse me, keep track of state legislation issues, both positive and challenging that are on the horizon.

keep track of them, and hopefully influence them to the benefit of our conservation mission. So let's start with what I consider the crown jewel, dedicated funding for natural resources. Maybe give us a little bit of definition of what falls into this bucket, and then we'll go through a state-by-state roundup of what's on the horizon.

Okay, yeah. So dedicated funding, it can be a little bit subjective as far as what you include, what you don't. But in general, we're talking about money that is a permanent or allocated on every whatever the interval is to support conservation. It's not coming from hunting and fishing licenses or Pittman-Robertson, Dingell-Johnson. It's kind of a permanent dedication of funding to conservation from

what I would say is a specific source. Now that's a very loose definition. But an example would be in Arkansas and Missouri, they have an eighth of a percent coming off of their sales tax that provides millions of dollars every year for conservation in the state. it's a supplement to those state natural resources agencies to help with all sorts of things, whether that's, and there's different regulations, different states, but it's everything from public land acquisition and management.

to, you know, state park stuff, a lot of different habitat work that goes on. And it has become something that is a desire of every state that doesn't have a model like that because it is so helpful in seeing what those agencies can do on the ground that have dedicated funding. It's pretty impressive. So you look at other, you know, so that's coming straight off of the sales tax. Another example would be

Speaker 2 (20:40.522)

In Georgia, this was a... I was actually working for Georgia Wildlife Federation at the time that helped push it through. My boss, Mike Worley, was one of the ones that had a heavy hand in it. But the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Amendment was something that was added to the Constitution in Georgia. And what that did is it took a portion of existing sales tax on sporting goods at the state level, and it allocated that to public land acquisition in Maine.

So it's kind of like the PR dollars at a state level.

Yeah, a little bit. There's just that code or whatever it's called in there that it's allocated as supporting goods in the tax code. And then they were taking a percentage of that.

And that was for public land acquisition specifically.

That's correct. Public land acquisition and management. Cool. Yep. And so now there's a grant process associated with that. It could, you know, it can incorporate hunting. It can be for green spaces. It can be for all sorts of different things. That's the Georgia example. In Montana, I know you're familiar with this one, but it was the weed for wildlife, right? Got you name. But cannabis sales, with tax coming off of that. I believe that was the last year that that went through. You see oil and gas

Speaker 2 (21:57.74)

Royalties. think Alabama has an oil and gas royalty percentage that's coming off and helping with conservation programs. So there's some states are tapping in the lottery. There's a bunch of different examples of it. And when we, get into it, what we're working on both this year and looking forward to 2026 are some existing ones.

that are currently already funding things like Knowles Nelson in Wisconsin. And then some that have not, there've been ongoing efforts to try to get dedicated conservation funding, but they haven't been implemented yet. So we're a part of numerous coalitions, but Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program is a good place to start here. So that's in Wisconsin. It is a preexisting dedicated conservation funding model. And it has done wonders for the state.

I mean, everybody is very supportive of it. The sportsmen and women, you know, other conservation groups. It's just, it has been a very good model from the standpoint of what it produces on the backside with habitat and access and everything else. And I believe that one was funded through, it was something to do with state obligated bonds and general revenue as well. So a little bit of a different model, but it's set to expire in

I want to say the end of June, 2026. So we're part of a coalition there. We're working with all of our partners, which is pretty much everybody, to try to push this reauthorization through. And there's been a bunch of different efforts. We've been involved with, our members have been involved big time with actions alert, action alerts. mean, thousands of our members and supporters in Wisconsin have sent emails to their representatives and senators.

saying, this is important to us. You need to take a look at this, you know, and that is enabled through our new upland action center, the action alerts that we're doing. We could talk about that a little bit later, but pretty cool to see the engagement that we've gotten from our Wisconsin supporters there. So currently that one is, just came out of committee. It was a six, six vote. The bear, the bear hunters in Wisconsin,

Speaker 2 (24:21.55)

have been a little bit of a hurdle. You know, we're, trying to work with them. There were some changes to land acquisition and how much money could be spent on that without other approvals. And so that's what they're worried about. Biggest bear hunters like large tracks of land, mumbuck land to able to run on. So that's one that we're, we're pushing right now. Pretty interesting. We'll see where that, that goes. mean,

Hopefully we're going to get it reauthorized in some form or fashion because that's crucial to what we do in Wisconsin.

So, you said that one expires in June. That's in the legislature's hands as opposed to going to the public for a vote, correct?

Yes, that is in the legislature's hands. So there's a couple of pieces of legislation and the one that I just mentioned came out of committee. was a six, six vote, but they, did advance it and there's going to be movement on that in 2026. Okay. So we're going to be looking to when we do involve our members again with their voice through the action alerts. I'm on regular weekly.

coalition calls with all of the partners and we've been helping push it forward as we can.

Speaker 1 (25:42.094)

Let's move just to the south of Wisconsin, south and west Iowa. We've talked about Iowa's water and land legacy since, well, before 2010, when 63 % of Iowans voted in favor of creating I Will in 2010. But since 2010, it hasn't moved beyond that. And it takes a, based on my recollection,

It takes a state sales tax increase to fund the Iowa Water and Land Legacy Fund. And that hasn't happened in 15 years. Where's, where's I will stand in 2026 as we look forward.

It's probably not going anywhere, unfortunately. And we're part of a coalition there as well. We commit time and money to that effort. And we've got a great state coordinator there, Josh. He's always keeping me informed and we're working together on this. But the problem right now is it just looks like it's not going to move forward in 2026. It does not look like the environment.

or a sales tax increase would be palatable at this moment. There have been some other things suggested to try to get that across the line, but what we've kind of got our eye on right now for 2026 with I will, as far as it's concerned, is defense, making sure that there's not another attempt to repeal that constitutional amendment because that has happened previously. It would take them a couple of years of effort.

because the process is so long to repeal an amendment to get that through. But it's something that we're, we're concerned about. We do have a lobbyist in Iowa. We also buy into another contract with a shared lobbying group. So this is something that we're, we're really investing in, and trying to make sure that we've got a good plan in place for likely 2027 to try to push it forward, but to play defense in 2026. Now that's not to say that something couldn't happen in 2026.

Speaker 2 (27:55.51)

It's just the way it's looking right now. But this would be huge when this sales tax increase, whenever it happens, assuming we were able to maintain the constitutional amendment, it's going to be a lot of money to conservation in Iowa. And it's going to be really good news for, you know, water, soil, habitat, access, all of the things we're concerned about.

I always find that this one that it hasn't moved in 15 years perplexing. All the polling, every single year there's polling and it's somewhere on the magnitude of 65 to 75 percent of Iowans. The vast majority of Iowans support the creation of the fund through a tax increase. And if you look at the news stories of how much money is being spent in Des Moines to clean the water.

that's coming into Des Moines metro area. And they could do something proactively to start help mitigating the water quality issues and create habitat at the same time by helping to fund, I will. Just at some point, this has to become reality. Iowa voters voted in support of it 15 years ago. And here we are still talking about it in a

theoretical way. hopefully that one gets across the finish line. A more moving south again, a relatively new concept, KFC, Kansans for Conservation. Tell us about where this one stands.

Yeah. So another dedicated conservation funding effort that we are helping push for in Kansas. have been for a few years now and we're part of this broader coalition that involves a lot of organizations there that want to see this funding source for like, just like we're talking about with everything else, water quality, land conservation, wildlife habitat, you know, you name it. And there've been a couple of bills proposed.

Speaker 2 (30:06.604)

And there's been a couple of different ways looked at for funding it. I believe the current proposal surrounds the lottery and taking a portion of those funds. Still a small percentage, of course, but dedicating that. Right now, we've joined the coalition, of course, we've been involved in that. Once again, the weekly meetings there. And we also have a lobbyist that we're working with.

along with several other partners in Kansas to try to push this through. So this is another one that would be huge for that state that we're trying to move forward. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of news on it right now. It's kind of stalled a little bit, but there's ongoing in-person events with the stakeholders that are on the ground there. Our staff have been engaged in that and we're looking forward to when the right moment to push this and get

our members and our supporters involved in some sort of an action alert or whatever that mechanism may be.

The last one that I have on my list in the dedicated funding bucket is the state of Tennessee, which is a new one for my awareness. So tell me about what's going on in Tennessee.

Yeah. So Tennessee just popped up. I'm actually driving to Nashville tomorrow to meet with a bunch of partners up there. It's being hosted by the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, Mike Butler, their CEO. And basically what happened is the Tennessee pushed for a hunting and fishing license increase and some other adjustments as well. And that got withdrawn from consideration. It looked like it was moving forward.

Speaker 2 (31:55.628)

And then it got withdrawn from consideration, but the agency needs more funds to operate. And so we started looking toward dedicated conservation. So when the committee where it was withdrawn, they committed to looking at alternatives, just seeking alternatives and some sort of dedicated funding model for conservation. So we joined, I think it was over 30.

other partners on a letter to the governor expressing our desire for dedicated conservation funding in the state of Tennessee. And we're currently looking at what the best mechanism would be for that. think Iowa, unfortunately, is a case study of a cautionary tale of how not to do it. should probably be looking at existing funding sources and allocating a portion of those because that can happen. Whereas if you put an amendment that's

you know, depending on the tax increase and that tax increase never comes, you never get it.

and steer away from it, forever. Really, fix on yours towards forever.

Yeah, for you.

Speaker 2 (33:04.056)

So I'm really interested to see what it's a general legislative meeting I'm going to tomorrow in Nashville. So we're going to talk about a whole host of topics, but I know this is going to be one of the primary topics that we discuss. We're not sure what direction we're going to go yet with that, but all of the partners are on board with, and like I said, it's over 30 partners that are on board with helping push this forward. We want to be a good partner to the agency. They're a great partner to us. And we're just excited to hopefully.

ensure that they continue to be funded at a capacity necessary to provide what they're doing for the great state of Tennessee.

Any others that are on the horizon in terms of dedicated funding or should we move on to the next bucket?

Are there several other states where initiatives are being pushed? Nothing that looks really promising right now that I'm aware of. And like I said, you've to be patient with me. I'm still getting up to speed here, Bob. But I think those are the main ones. There's some other ones that we're going to be involved in potentially if they come to fruition, but we can do an update on those later.

Great. Similar category, which is funding for conservation, but it's pretty focused on license plates, and not huge dollar amounts, but it's tried and true and proven effective in a whole assortment of states. Give us the hit list of what's on the roster for license plate creation in 2026.

Speaker 2 (34:34.988)

Yeah, so we are, I don't know if I should say this on the podcast, but we're a little behind the game when it comes to license plates and states and who doesn't want a Pheasants Forever Quill Forever license plate. So those are the phone calls that I immediately got when I started this job. I got a lot of state coordinators calling me, hey, we want a license plate because one, it's a branding opportunity. It's something our members want. And then

It's also going to produce funds that we can use in that state once again for Habitat and helping support those positions as well. So it's something we're pretty excited about. We've got some great examples of it. Arkansas has a really good example of a plate gone right. You know, we've got a license plate there. generates a great amount of funding to have a real impact on the ground with our staff there. We have a license plate in North Dakota as well.

Georgia's got a Quail license plate that helps support a lot of the projects that we work on. It's not actually a Quail Forever license plate, but the state agency is such a great partner that they use those funds to help us help them basically. So we've got a really good partnership there. As far as the new states that we're looking at for 2026 and that we're pursuing is Tennessee is one of those. So I talked with Brittany, the state coordinator, and then Kat, one of our other employees there.

And this is something that they've been interested in and our membership has been interested in. I've actually been speaking with Representative Tandy Tarpey, out in West Tennessee, big quail hunter. And he's interested in introducing this for us and helping push a license plate bill in Tennessee. So we're moving forward with that one. pretty excited about it. Virginia, we're pushing one there. Delegate Buddy Fowler has been a big supporter of ours and had a conversation with them.

We talked through all the details. He was really excited to help push this plate for us. So we're going to be pushing a license plate in Virginia and Kansas is another one. So our lobbyist there helped us identify two legislators to introduce it. We're going to have it introduced in the Senate and in the House most likely, and it will probably all fall into one legislative package at end of the session. So that's looking really good. There are our state coordinator, Tyler did a lot of

Speaker 2 (37:00.789)

On that one, we'll do-

And so it looks really slick.

Oh yeah, we've already got a design in Virginia as well. So a lot of people put in a lot of work before I got here to make these come to fruition. I certainly don't want to take the credit here. I've just had a few conversations to kind of get them over the finish line as far as getting bills introduced. And then in Louisiana, we've got a great partnership with state agency there. There's actually already a Quell Forever license plate. We're just restructuring it to where we received the funds.

So it's been going into a state account. We're shaking that up a little bit. And of course, we're still going to be assisting the agency to a significant degree. We've got great partnership, like I said, with all of their staff over there. We're really looking forward to this potential change that's going to happen during this session. And looking forward to really doubling down on advertising the plate more too and creating some more branding there in Louisiana, up in our membership.

As you know, I think it's like 51 % of our staff are in quail country now. that something along those lines? And our membership is starting to catch up. I mean, we're seeing membership growth in those southern states. We've got a lot of interest in plates and other things where people want to show that they're representing quail forever.

Speaker 1 (38:25.496)

Very cool. So let's move to the next bucket, which is going to take a little definition from you. Charitable gaming, which is a little different than what I think when somebody hears that might perceive we're going to start talking about. Tell us a little bit about what the charitable gaming bucket means.

This is one that caught me by surprise. I did not anticipate working on, working with gambling commissions and gambling legislation when I stepped into this role, but it is a big issue and it's something that we're definitely engaged in and it significantly impacts what we're able to do as nonprofit. So what we're talking about is a lot of 501c3 organizations like ourselves that are

charitable nonprofits, like, you know, giving all their money to a good purpose here are regulated by gambling laws. And that's some states have updated those some states haven't. And it's, it's something that we've been dealing with as it, as it pops up. So Pennsylvania was the first one that we jumped in with a number of other partners on to

ensure that you could buy raffle tickets with a credit card or a debit card. Believe it or not, in Pennsylvania, if you want to buy a raffle ticket right now, you got to do it in person with a check or cash. So obviously we want to update that. We want to not that many people carry checks or cash with them. They definitely want the convenience of being able to support the organization, buy a raffle ticket with an electronic method. And so

That's one that we're pushing right now with the help of a lot of our partners. jumped in on a sign on letter with it we're going to see where that goes. Ohio has been a big topic lately. We just jumped into a coalition there that sprung up because of some interpretations that were going on of the existing law. But basically we're, we're trying to help mold and push forward a piece of legislation that's going to clarify a lot of the issues that are going on to include.

Speaker 2 (40:48.33)

Online raffles. Online raffles were not previously allowed in Ohio in some forms. This is going to clear that up and create a pathway for that. And it's also going to help further define what a traditional raffle is and what we can do on that front. So we really want to make sure that we can continue not only our fundraising and banquet efforts and all of those events at the state level, but also some of those national efforts that we're doing where we might be doing

national raffles or national sweepstakes, which the sweepstakes don't typically fall under these same regulations. So a lot of different things popping up there. And it's kind of a similar thread, just trying to update some laws that were probably been in place for a long time. Washington's no different, trying to modernize some of the fundraising efforts there, nonprofit charitable organizations, what they're able to do.

in Washington state. Basically, the legislation that we're bagging there, once again, with a bunch of other partners, is going to raise some of the limits and remove some of the regulation surrounding some of those fundraisers. it's honestly not that interesting to talk about on a podcast, but it's something that's crucial to our members being able to continue to host the events that they do.

our staff being able to do the work that they do and ultimately the education access and habitat that we can put on.

Yeah, it has millions of dollars of ramification that would go towards our habitat mission. this is why, you know, and folks see an online raffle, for instance, on the website and it says, you know, list the 12 states that can't participate. This is the reason. And there's state laws preventing folks that live in certain states from participating in raffles or, to your point, you know,

Speaker 1 (42:49.838)

being able to use a credit card to pay for it. We are in 2025, almost 2026, and there are some very archaic laws out there preventing people from spending their money with their own decisions for the benefit of our mission. Yeah, that one took a little bit of explaining because you hear charitable gaming and my mind goes to sports gambling and...

I'd love for us to be able to get a percentage of all those dollars going towards the Tigers to win the World Series or the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup for a little bit of money to go towards our Habitat mission, but that falls into a little bit different bucket. This is just legalese of how our organization and how our chapters raise money.

We'll do a bit of a lightning round to wrap up of some of the other things going on at the state level. Before we get to the next set of topics, I want to thank Onyx Hunt, a national sponsor of our organization, as well as a proud partner of our PATH program, Public Access to Habitat program, which has already generated more than 100,000

acres of high quality habitat on private lands for public access in South Dakota and Nebraska. And new this year, we have new path programs in North Dakota, Oklahoma, and in Michigan. Onyx is helping to make real boots on the ground impact for you, your bird dogs, and the future of upland hunting. If you don't yet have the best tool,

available for the bird hunter, use the code PFQF at the link in the show notes and you'll get 20 % off your onyx hunt membership and onyx will make a contribution back to our habitat mission. So thank you very much to onyx hunt. All right, the next item on the hit list is hunter education. What's going on with hunter ed?

Speaker 2 (45:12.846)

Yeah, so it's a good question and I'm going to broaden this bucket a little bit to include some hunter access as well and kind of throw a few different things in here. But I, and we're going to start with the access component. Going back to Pennsylvania and things that you can't believe such as not being able to buy a raffle ticket with a credit card. You also up until recently, this season actually, you couldn't hunt on the majority of Sundays in Pennsylvania.

They kind of, there's a remnant to the blue laws there, but they kind of slowly started integrating some Sundays. think there was a legislation that passed that allowed them to dedicate three Sundays to hunting, but still the overwhelming majority of Sundays you could not hunt. And that's half of most people's opportunity, you know, if you've worked during the week. we were able to jump in on the tail end of that. had just started when that effort was,

moving forward, had some pretty good steam behind it. We got an action alert to, of course, signed on, worked with our partners on some different letters to the legislators. But then we got an action alert where our members were able to speak up and voice their concern and their, you know, excitement about the opportunity to actually be able to hunt on both days of the weekend, which sounds crazy to say. And it's always wild to me growing up in Georgia because I always hunted on Sunday.

but I've got some friends out there and they were really excited about this. So I was pretty pumped to get engaged there and see that one across the finish line. And we were able to play a small part in that and just thankful that that one went through. So that's huge for hunter access. And that's been an ongoing effort led by a variety of organizations to chip away at those last remaining Sunday hunting laws.

But that's kind what we're talking about when we're talking about access. Education, of course, plays into that. also in Pennsylvania, one thing that we're looking at right now is, and I would consider this a bit of access in this front too, but it's a bill that we've signed on in support of that allows college students that are not residents of Pennsylvania, but are

Speaker 2 (47:37.248)

attending college full time in Pennsylvania to obtain resident rate hunting licenses. Now this is something that, you know, I came out of the R3 world, right? And so this is something that we were constantly working on. CSF has pushed a lot of the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, University of Montana did some research on this. And it has been shown that you're going to increase hunting participation among college students when you allow them to buy a resident.

because non-resident licenses are pretty cross-prohibitive to somebody that's in school.

a regular occurrence for lot of states where you go to South Dakota State University that you can buy an in-state license. guess I'm not aware of how widely accepted that is.

Yeah, I don't have the map in front of me right now, but there is a document with the breakdown on it that was put together that's a really good explanation of it. But yes, there are a lot of states that allow non-resident full-time college students to buy at a resident rate. we even have case studies, I think it was from Montana, where they changed the law so we were actually able to see the participation difference between the non-resident and the resident rate. And it was significant.

So something that is definitely worth pushing when we look at people that are turning out or lapsing from hunting, know, going to school is a big part of that. And so anything that we can do to facilitate keeping people engaged in the outdoors is something that we want to be a part of. that's one that we're helping back. We're pretty excited to see where it goes. It has passed the house in Pennsylvania. It's headed to the Senate. So we'll see what happens with it. Also on access.

Speaker 2 (49:27.136)

John Kenny, who's our state coordinator in Indiana, got the opportunity to testify in an interim study committee just a couple of months ago on public lands. So a lot of this federal public land questioning trickled down to the states. And some legislators started saying, do we really need all these state lands? And in Indiana, there was an interim study committee put together to look at the economic value and the

the other value of state public lands. And John and I worked together to write his testimony. He went in, did a great job of testifying in front of that committee just to show PF and QF support of those state level public lands. those are kind of examples of what we're doing on the access front. Washington State's another good example. know, we're engaging a lot out West.

Right now, I'm trying to ramp up our efforts out there. We've definitely seen membership growth out there. And some of our members reached out to our regional rep chat out there about supporting public land acquisition in Washington. So the state agency puts out for public comment, hey, we're looking at buying these properties. What do you think? And so we were able to provide comment on that and show strong support of, yes, we want properties purchased that prioritize hunting access and prioritize.

conservation with a plan in place for it. those are pretty exciting to me. It's something that, you know, access is one of our biggest limiting factors when it comes to hunting participation. So we're always looking to get involved in that. And then of course, those public lands are huge for habitat as well. So that's kind of the access component of it. The last, before I get to the hunter education part.

The last component on access that we're looking at is something that's going on in South Carolina. It was, I think it was called the hunting heritage protection act, if I'm remembering correctly, but basically it was a no net loss of public lands bill. And this was introduced in the last session. It cleared the house unanimously and it's going to be picked up again in 2026. But that's something that we supported last year. We're going to be helping to push it this year as well.

Speaker 2 (51:49.23)

And it's something we're pretty excited about. Basically, it's just saying that you can't sell any land, you know, or you can't, there's no net loss of the total acreage that's made.

So if you do sell some land, you'll get to replace it with some alternative problems.

Exactly. Yeah. So moving to the Hunter education front, it is something that can be a hot topic online versus in person. know, that all changed surrounding COVID. That's not something we're anticipating coming up this year. But one thing that we are taking a look at are some different state level initiatives that are looking at providing for

more opportunity for hunter education in K through 12 schools, which we think is beneficial. I mean, having that exposure to firearm safety, to the conservation portion of the curriculum in there, how to safely hunt, whether you're going to hunt or not, it's probably a good idea to be exposed to it. And it's something that we're helping push in Georgia. That is the, it was the some sort of hunter education act.

that was going to allow for local boards to be authorized, local education boards to be authorized to provide education and hunter safety. And I want to say it was grade six through 12. So there was a kind of an age limit on that. But that's something that we're interested in helping push. And there's a couple of other states that are looking at doing something similar. I don't want to name them right now just because there's behind the scenes discussions going on. you can rest assured that it's something that we will be.

Speaker 2 (53:29.249)

Engage in.

All right. The next one is probably a little bit of a head scratcher when you read the bucket topic. It says restructuring of state natural resource agencies. And I know that some of this has happened in different states over the last, say, decade where there's been a marrying of state natural resource agencies and tourism departments.

But that's not exactly what we're talking about here. Tell us a little bit about what restructuring here is referring to.

Yeah, so, you know, our state natural resources agencies are some of our biggest partners. I mean, we, of course, are great partners with the federal agencies as well, but at the state level, we work very closely with our state natural resources agencies. We were always trying to make sure those relationships are strong and support them where we can. So whether that's supporting the reapportment of commissioners and

in Pennsylvania or something along those lines or ensuring the structural integrity of the agency stays intact. Such as Colorado, which is kind of, think what we were alluding to with this bucket. But Colorado is a really interesting state. I had the opportunity to travel out there and meet with Bob Hicks, our regional rep out there who's a wealth of knowledge about the Western region. It was great though. He brought me out. We went and talked to

Speaker 2 (55:04.674)

chapter leaders in the Denver area had a bunch of people come in and then we went out to Eastern Colorado and met with all those chapter leaders, did some habitat tours. But what I kept hearing from those members was how concerned they were about ballot box biology. And proposition 127 was, was the big hot topic last year that would, would have prohibited large cat hunting, I believe was kind of the gist of it.

And it's something we kind of got involved in at the last minute, just from a standpoint of the science being, you know, we want wildlife management decisions to be driven by science, not by the ballot box. And what's popping up that I kept hearing from all of our members out there was something called initiative 82. And what this was going to do if it made it to the ballot was, and it passed, was essentially create an independent

parallel commission to Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission that would be able to create legal protections for certain species, assess financial penalties. There was just not a lot of oversight on it. And what we're hearing from a lot of our partners is that it would effectively kind of crush the authority of Colorado Parks and Wildlife and really politicize

wildlife management in Colorado and potentially have detrimental impacts on the future of hunting and habitat management as well. that things like that are things that we're always keeping an eye on. Making sure that wildlife management follows the science, that we are focused on conservation, the wise use of the resource where appropriate, and that hunters have access. You know, the majority of our members are hunters.

And that's something that we care deeply about. so those are things that we're going to be engaged on, whether it's in Colorado or other states where it's continually popping up and we're, we're seeing more and more coordinated efforts to try to take hunting off of the landscape, um, remove it as a management tool, you know, and it's, it's kind of being chipped away at, it's something we're concerned about. And of course we're always looking at it through a lens of upland.

Speaker 2 (57:29.186)

bird hunting, but you know, this does expand from there.

It does bring to mind, the last two decades, there's been this movement to create state amendments protecting the right to hunt and fish as part of constitutions. And I think that number, again, I hadn't thought about this for this podcast, but off the top of my head, I think that's in the 35 state.

range that have an amendment in their state constitution protecting hunting and fishing. But this ballot box biology, which is a new term in the last two years from my awareness, you know, it is very scary that, you know, politicians in the absence of listening to scientists are trying to make rules that govern on natural resources and our ability to hunt fish and

Manage while game. It's just, it's a frightening situation.

Absolutely and in the winds can blow and shift so quick and that's where the ballot box becomes a little bit intimidating because You know with the right advertising and the right wording on the ballot. It can seem like you're voting for something really positive But the the whole intent is to make sure you don't really understand what you're voting for So that's where education campaigns and others working with our partners comes in but the with the right to hunt and fish amendment That's a constitutional amendment

Speaker 2 (59:07.352)

current team, the right don fish at the state level. There's 24 states that currently have that.

Sure, okay, so half way there.

And I don't think Florida was the most recent one this past year. And it's already being used to help defend against people that are trying to take away, I think, the mirror hunts down there in Florida currently. There's a court case going on right now. But it's pretty interesting. We're involved in a couple of states that are going to be pushing for it this year. I've actually got a call on tomorrow at three o'clock on my way back from Nashville with the

CEO of the International Order of Teddy Roosevelt, just to talk through their efforts and what they're doing. They're one of the main organizations along with Congressional Sportsman's Foundation that's helping push this. And of course, we are supportive of the right to hunt and fish and that being in the Constitution. Here in Georgia, where I live, we have that in our Constitution, something we'd like to see throughout the country.

Yeah, it sounds like we need 26 more states to get on board. We talked five different buckets, give or take. Anything we missed that is on your radar for 2026 that you want to bring up before we get to a close and ask our members how to stay engaged.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06.35)

We do, we do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25.782)

not sure there's anything specific I want to bring up. There are other things that we're working on. And there's a few things that I'm pretty excited about. But we're engaged in all sorts of things from the federal issues to the state issues, whether it's just a hunting license increase that's going to benefit wildlife habitat on the ground and hunting access and everything else or season date changes. Even energy development is something that's popping up a lot.

as solar fields and other things get put in, you know, what does it look like as far as our position on that and how can that coexist with upland habitat, which it can. So getting a lot of questions about those topics. I've been doing a bit of a listening tour is what I've been calling it. So, you know, I came on into this, director of government affairs focused on the state and the state side. So

We've got members in all 50 states. We've got Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever members in all 50 states. Of course, we're going to have to prioritize as we build our team here where we're focused. But we could potentially engage in all of those states depending on what pops up. any issues that are going to pop up related to that would have an impact on upland habitat or upland hunting is something that we're interested in and we're potentially going to engage in. And we've got the membership to help do that.

It might just be an action alert, you know, where we're having our members email their legislators, or I might be flying in to testify. So it's kind of a range of options that we have there. but I'm pretty excited for what we have with the, with the future here. You know, when we talk about the engagement, I've been doing that listening to her that I'm talking about. I started with our staff. I've been talking with all of our partners and then I've also been talking with our members.

Like I said, was out in Colorado. I was in Tucson, met with some members out there. We've got a meeting on Wednesday night with our Texas chapter leadership. You know, we're trying to get feedback to hear what's important to our membership, what they want to see us engaged in, what they want to engage in, and what's popping up in their states. I mean, they're going to know better than us a lot of the times, especially in states where we don't have a lot of staff at this point. And so creating that

Speaker 2 (01:02:49.708)

that feedback loop is going to be extremely important and ensuring that they know that we're here to work for them. Because I mean, that's where our strength comes from. It comes from that. What are we at? Well, I think it's 540,000 members, supporters and partners. You got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got a lot of potential power to harness here. We can empower a lot of people to use their voice to impact policy. And like we said, at the state level,

you can actually have a really big impact. It might just seem like an email sometimes, but that email is making the difference. mean, that is being seen, you know, we get feedback on that all the time from the legislators. So I would just encourage people to get engaged and

So I want to just underscore that for just a moment because I'm sure listeners are oh yeah, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, they're going to really look at my email. I want to underline that because so many people write that comment off, write that request out there, they're apathetic or they're yeah, you know, there's no way. Like that's such a waste of time. The reality is so many people think like that and so few people take the time.

to send that action alert, sent that email. And we're talking about something that we all cherish. Being able to follow our bird dog into the uplands, chasing wild quail, sharpies, chickens, pheasants. Something as simple as forwarding an email that's already pre-populated for you in one of these templates actually does make a difference because so many, so few,

people actually do it. please do pay attention to our action alerts. We are very judicious. We don't fire off action alerts every week. When we do it, it's extremely meaningful and we actually really want you to take action in firing off an email because if we get enough people, it can have an impact.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05.42)

I mean to cut you off there, Swanny, but it's just, I mean, I listen to all sorts of other podcasts too, and it's sort of that throwaway line. yeah, send an action alert. No, we freaking need you to send an action alert. It actually makes a difference.

Absolutely. It certainly makes a difference and, you know, we're trying to make it easier. I went through right before I came on board, we got a new system, new delivery system that enables us to track legislation, manage these action alerts, target them at the state level, and really craft those alerts to where we can control who we need you to send that alert to. We can control

the message we can drop it in there the suggested message we almost always leave it open to editing though if you want to go in and add your own personalized touch which would love you to. But here's action alerts with P.F. and Q.F. used to be a blog post so they'd go up on the website they might go out via email you'd read the blog post it has some suggested text and then have a link to the dot gov website where you had to go look up your representative and senators and it was.

Super labor intensive.

Yeah, I timed it recently and I went through the old process at a minimum. If you were doing it fast, you knew what you were doing. It was going to take 15 minutes. The new process takes less than a minute. And so I would definitely encourage everybody. You've got no excuse. We want you to send those emails. It takes a minute, maybe two of your time. And it's really important to us. It's a way for you to get engaged.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49.622)

If you want to customize it, would love to see that as well. But we've got this new upland action center that we're standing up and I don't know. I mean, I don't know if you want to include a link in the show notes or something like that, but we can drop that in there. You can go in and sign up for it. Just make sure you're on the list. If you're a member or you're already on the list, you're going to get these action alerts, but at the state level, we're going to be targeting these actual alerts. So, you know, you're only getting the Wisconsin alerts. If you're in Wisconsin.

You know, the Pennsylvania alerts if you're in Pennsylvania. And of course, everybody's get the federal alerts. So we're going to be sending those out. You're going to be sending, seeing a lot more of them roll out. And I really encourage, I mean, I mean it when I say I want member feedback. If something is popping up in your area that you're worried about, and you want to know if we're engaged or if we're even aware of it, always feel free to reach out, reach out to your regional rep, your state coordinator. You can email me.

you know, whatever works best and we'll take a look at it. We're not always going to be able to engage. We're going to make sure that it aligns with our national policies and what we're looking to do in the States. But if it does, you can be rest assured that we're going to engage in some form or fashion and try to help in any way we can.

I'll make it easy, whether it's a state issue or even, you you're listening, you got some questions about federal policy. Email to send those inquiries is advocacy at pheasantsforever.org. Advocacy at pheasantsforever.org. Any government affairs, state or federal, fire them and they will hit the inbox of our entire government affairs team and it'll get distributed to the appropriate person. If it's a state issue.

know hit Swanny's inbox. Any final thoughts, Swanny?

Speaker 2 (01:08:43.256)

think my final thought is I'm excited. I think we've got a lot of opportunity here on the state side. You know, I've enjoyed working for Ariel, hearing about her vision and seeing what direction that she's taking this. I'm excited with her plans and what we're going to do to build out at the state level. I should probably mention that we are building at the state level. The plan is to bring on regional positions and actually have a regional state affairs team.

so we can have more of an impact as we move forward. It's going to take a little bit of time. you know, you're going to have to bear with us as we build this out and as we stumble a little bit, but we are moving forward with it and it, it's something that we're all excited about as a team. know everybody else in the organization that I've talked to is excited. The members are excited. I think we've got everybody geared up, and a lot of stuff to work on and I'm.

I'm thinking we've got a bright future here.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but you're going to be at National Fez & Fest and Quail Classic, and you're going to be spending a little time in the elite member booth talking to folks. If people want to learn a little bit more, make a contribution to our legislative action fund. We've got some new things going on on that front at Fez & Fest as well.

us forgot the money. We gotta talk about the Legislative Action Fund real quick. That is what enables us to do all of this. As a 501c3, we have guidelines around how much money and how we can spend funds on lobbying activities, on government affairs activities. So that's where that Legislative Action Fund is so crucial. That's what funds the whole government affairs team. That's what we use to engage in these coalitions and these efforts. And if you're a member...

Speaker 2 (01:10:34.798)

and you're a member of a chapter and y'all are looking at where to put your money, please keep us in mind on that front. I would love to have you more engaged if you're just looking to make a donation and help out on the government affairs front and making sure that we defend access and habitat and hunting and everything else. We would love to see that as well. But yes, I will be at Pheasant Fest. I'll be spending some time in the booth. We've got some other pretty exciting

member engagement projects in the works that we've been instructed not to talk about Bob. I think we got that email as well. Yeah, yeah. So maybe we'll talk about that at a later date, but I think more information will be available at Pheasant Fest.

Folks, whether you're a chapter, a member, a donor, a corporate partner listening, and want to learn more about the Legislative Action Fund, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever's Legislative Action Fund, that fuels our efforts at the state capital level as well as at the federal government level to fight for upland habitat conservation, to fight that ballot box biology. The opposite of that.

Go ahead and email us at advocacy at peasantsforever.org. Swanny, welcome to the team. It's great to have you fighting on the state front. You've got 50 states, so that's a pretty big region, but excited to see where you take us.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10.208)

All right, folks, thank you for listening. This won't be the last time you hear from Suwannee. As we get things popping on the state level, we'll bring Suwannee back to give us updates. Throughout the year, if we need your help, we'll do an impromptu breaking news alert as well. So we'll stay engaged with Suwannee and make sure that you're informed. I'm Bob St. Pierre, thanking you for listening and reminding you to always follow the dog.

Something good will rise. Thanks folks.