Relive Talking Mule Deer's first “live” podcast from Wednesday, July 22 in coordination with the final vote on the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) by the U.S. House of Representative . Join Steve and Jodi while they visited with their guests - MDF President Miles Moretti, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation President Jeff Crane, and Wildlife Mississippi Executive Director and Chair of the Boone and Crockett Club’s policy committee James Cummins, as the vote happened and ultimately passed 310-107. The bill will now head to the President for signature to become law.  This is a huge legislative win for the conservation community and one that has been fought for decades.

The GAOA will permanently fund Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) at its authorized level of $900 million per year for land conservation as well as state and local parks. In addition to LWCF funding, the GAOA authorizes significant funding ($1.9 billion/year) over five years to address the backlog in maintenance on federal public lands.

We also visited about the recently released report Wildlife for the 21st Century: Volume 6 report that was released last week by the American Wildlife Conservation Partners where conservation funding was the first of 10 key wildlife policy issues.