The MeatEater

Host Clay Newcomb is joined by Render crew members Bear Newcomb, Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker as well as Moe Shepherd, and Ron Poole to talk about the latest Deer Stories episodes and share some tales of their own. Bear introduces Cricket, his new blue tick coonhound pup, sparking a conversation about generations of hounds, fur-trading days, and the memorable characters who made those days what they were.

The crew gets into the art of instinctive archery, including how traditional bowhunters learn to trust repetition and muscle memory instead of sights and gadgets. Along the way, they revisit stories of monster bucks, questionable claims of ownership, and deer that somehow come back to life after everyone thinks the hunt is over.

Clay also shares a first look at the bear grease research behind his upcoming book, American Bear, including a scientific analysis of bear grease and its place in American history.

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This week on the show I'm joined by Robert Lester and Ben Kaden to discuss their epic expedition to traverse the entirety of the proposed Ambler Road route on foot and the lessons they learned about what this controversial public land development project in the middle of wild Alaska could unleash.

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I’ve always been an elk hunter that doesn’t shy away from putting in hard miles. Once the season opens, I burn the boot leather, gaining and losing elevation like a B-17 bomber with an engine on fire. While this usually results in an elk encounter or two, the time inevitably comes when I need a sit-on-the-couch and do-nothing break.

While these mid-season elk hunting hiatuses are good for my physical well-being, they’re bad for my psyche. I constantly feel I’m missing my chance at a bull. Instead of beating the hell out of myself by hiking through every day of elk season, I throw in a few ambush hunts to break it up.

While it’s a similar concept, sitting on a good elk spot and waiting for a bull to come along is vastly different from waiting in a tree stand for passing whitetail. Unlike deer, which typically spend their entire lives in the same small chunk of habitat, elk can have a much wider home range. Not to mention, that home range can dramatically shift between the early and late seasons. That makes it even more important to pick the right spot when you ambush hunt for elk.

Whether you’re hunting with a bow, rifle, or muzzleloader, you’ll need to scout a ton to find success. Look for good, fresh elk sign that was made within the last 24 hours. Scout food sources, trails, and even watch elk from a distance, if you can, before picking your spot.

Use onX to find equal amounts of open meadows, old burns, clear cuts, and even agricultural fields where elk can feed. Look for steep ridges with thicker, dark timber where elk like to bed. Pay attention to low point saddles between high peaks as well as gradually sloping drainages between feeding and bedding areas that act as natural travel corridors and escape routes.

Once you find these places on the map, you need scout them out on foot or glass them from a distance to confirm your intel. If you see elk feeding in a meadow in the morning and then moving through a saddle or other pinch point in the evening, or if you find a well-used elk trail with a lot of fresh sign in these areas, make a note.

There’s no point in hanging out in a spot where there aren’t any elk, so spend a good amount of time glassing and walking to confirm if elk are there. Once you locate elk, go out and find a few more so you have several options depending on the conditions.

If you don’t have a lot of time for excessive scouting, you can still find an appropriate ambush spot around elk wallows and water sources during the early season or when it’s unseasonably warm. Elk will use wallows regularly during the rut by rolling around in muddy pools mixed with urine and mud to coat their bodies to attract cow elk. They’ll also use wallows outside of the rut to cool themselves off and help regulate their body temperature, making them great late-morning and midday spots during hot days.

The easiest way to find an elk wallow is to walk along the fringe of a water source in elk country. Look for small, slow-flowing creeks, swamps, ponds, or marshes on a map and then hike in and check them out. Try to find elk trails that run to and from the water source and then follow them along until you find a particularly muddy or stinky spot with a lot of tracks and other sign that indicate where the bulls have been rolling.

Once you find an active wallow, move away from it as far as you can and look for a comfortable area to hunker down or set up a tree stand in range of it. While most hunters will try to find a good area on the upwind side of the wallow, I’ve found that bulls will usually circle the entire area before approaching wallows from downwind, meaning that they’ll inevitably catch your scent if you’re directly on or near their path. Accordingly, it’s best to set up at a crosswind angle either above or below that wallow and away from any obvious travel routes while still keeping it in sight. This will give you a shot window or an opportunity to stalk into range once a bull shows up and tries to circle downwind.

The late season can provide good ambush hunting opportunities when elk are stocking up for winter after the rut. It gives you a chance to set up on obvious food sources and wait for the elk to come to you. If only it was as easy as it sounds.

An elk’s feeding grounds can cover several square miles, and they may only frequent a certain spot a couple times a month. Accordingly, you’ll often have better luck ambushing elk along their travel routes and in transition zones that lead to multiple feeding areas rather than the food sources themselves, as long as you know where and how to set up.

Travel routes are generally well-used elk trails that lead from feeding to bedding areas. These can be hard spots to find as elk leave a lot of trails through the woods, so you’re going to want to find one with the freshest sign possible. If you’ve glassed elk moving in and out of a saddle or thick stand of timber, move into the area and try to find a trail with fresh tracks and moist scat. Set up in a sheltered area off the trail during midday or in the dark of early morning and then hang out and wait for elk to utilize the trail as they move into or out of their bedding area.

If you haven’t seen any elk recently and don’t have a ton of time to scout out a frequently used trail, you can still ambush hunt elk by hanging out in transition zones. These include south-facing hillsides where elk travel and feed either above or below thick timbered bedding areas or natural low points and gaps between ridge tops where elk can cross from one drainage to another. Spots like this can be tricky but effective to hunt if you’re patient. These areas might not be utilized by elk for several days before a herd suddenly decides to move in.

Whenever you’re blind hunting a transition zone, it’s important to keep thermals in mind. In the early morning, position yourself higher than or right where you expect elk to be moving before moving downhill to a new position. As cooler air begins moving down mountain slopes in the evening, you’ll want to do the opposite. You’ll have to make these adjustments around the early morning and late evening prime times; otherwise, the elk will bust you.

As much as I love spot and stalk hunting and still hunting my way through thick timber, ambush hunting for elk can be an effective hunting strategy. It might not feel as productive as running and gunning, but it’s a fantastic way to intercept a bull while you sit and enjoy the wonderfully wild places that elk live.

Join author Bryan Burrough for the story of the greatest Old West gunfighter you’ve never heard of.

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Bleating, grunting, snort-wheezing, and rattling, all have their place in a deer hunter's arsenal. When and how you use each call matters though, and not all calling situations are created equally.

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This story was co-published with Re:Public Lands Media, an independent, non-profit news organization. Sign up for Re:Public’s newsletter.

Scan almost any corner of a U.S. map, and you’ll find a National Wildlife Refuge. In the far north, there’s the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a swath of Alaska protecting some of the nation’s remaining caribou herds, chunky salmon, and Arctic grayling. Glance southeast to find the 160,000-acre White River National Wildlife Refuge splashed across Arkansas with its bottomland forest and unparalleled waterfowl hunting. Head north again to see the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge outside Philadelphia, offering a mentored white-tailed deer archery season on the edge of eight-lane Interstate 95. Then look West to find the tiny Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming, one of the only places where the critically endangered Wyoming toad still croaks its mournful mating call.

Chances are most people can only name a few of the nation’s more than 570 refuges, but the spaces carry an outsized importance in conserving not only endangered species like red wolves and whooping cranes but also the ducks, geese, elk, black bears, and white-tailed deer so many of us spend weeks or months of the year chasing.

Unfortunately for the creatures who depend on those oases for places to eat, sleep, and raise their young, the wildlife refuge system is in a crisis like never before.

Jump to: The Refuges

Managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service under the umbrella of the Department of Interior, the refuge system has not escaped Interior’s widespread deep cuts. Staffing levels had already dropped by 27% between 2011 and 2023, before the Trump administration oversaw another stunning 43% plunge, according to staffing information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Biological Diversity. Funding levels haven’t risen since 2010, yet the refuge system shoulders a $2.6 billion infrastructure backlog. Few staff remain on the ground to monitor and control invasive species, open valves to flood wetlands, fix tractors, man visitors’ stations, and patrol wild spaces inundated by a public yearning to go outside.

“There are always other priorities,” says Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, the country’s only nonprofit focused exclusively on the refuge system. Whether Democrat or Republican administrations, “wildlife refuges always take it on the chin.”

The current director of Fish and Wildlife, Brian Nesvik, recognizes issues facing the refuges. He ordered a systematic review of each refuge in December 2025, which has not yet been released. But as he said on a phone call in March, “I’ve heard over many years concerns from folks who really value the system that the refuge system needs some help.”

In the meantime, even some staunch Republican lawmakers are becoming frustrated. Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley wrote a letter to Nesvik in early October regarding local concerns about staffing shortages at his state’s Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge.

“I share their concern that this is not a sufficient amount of staff to fulfill the Wildlife Refuge’s mission,” his letter stated.

Sorenson-Groves agrees, saying many refuges are running on fumes.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen the refuge system,” she says. “What’s happening to the resources and the morale. It’s difficult to watch… There is critical work not being done.”

And while cuts to the National Park Service, for example, draw outrage from lawmakers and coverage by national media, the refuge system remains largely forgotten—even if advocates say both are America’s greatest ideas.

Theodore Roosevelt christened Florida’s Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the country’s first, in 1903 to protect brown pelicans and colorful birds from market hunters seeking their plumage. He went on to create another 50 refuges for birds and four for big game like the nearly extinct bison and dwindling Rocky Mountain elk. The refuge system grew from there, conserving and restoring wetlands that helped lead to the remarkable comeback of the American alligator, bald eagle, and piping plover; cordoning off the last remnant of habitat for endangered species like gulf sturgeon, red wolves, and masked Bobwhite quail; and offering a place to restore species like Key deer, Florida panthers, and ocelots.

According to Sorenson-Groves, wildlife refuges have also been “the darling child of users—hunters, fishermen, bird watchers, people who historically in the United States really cared about wildlife.”

And for good reason. Hunting and fishing have long been accepted activities on most refuges. In fact, the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act formally recognized hunting and fishing, along with wildlife observation and photography, environmental education and interpretation, as priority uses for refuges.

Waterfowl hunters alone—through purchasing a federal duck stamp—helped pay for more than half of the nation’s wildlife refuges, says John Devney, chief policy officer with Delta Waterfowl, a national waterfowl hunting and conservation organization. Those refuges then became some of the last best habitat for everything from snow geese to northern pintails to mallards, a role that increases as lands around them face pressures from changes in agricultural practices, development, drought, sea level rise, and pollution.

“The Chesapeake Bay isn’t what it used to be. The Gulf Coast of Louisiana, broadly, isn’t what it used to be. The Mississippi Alluvial Valley has changed in terms of how it’s being farmed and the habitat values it provides,” he says. “So when we want to talk about maintaining a historic distribution of ducks, those public assets play a really, really oversized role in achieving those goals.”

Cut staff who manage the refuges and money to invest back into the land, Devney says, and you have “both a duck problem and a duck hunter problem.”

In August, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to open hunting and fishing in 14 refuges and three fish hatcheries while adding nearly 1,500 “opportunities” at more than 100 refuges. The agency billed the news as the largest expansion of access to refuges in history, though hunting groups say the reality on the ground is a bit more nuanced (it is also one of many expansions by various administrations over the years, including the Biden Administration in 2024). Many of the changes merely align hunting on a refuge with local and state regulations. But in September, the administration released an executive order, 2026 Reinvigorating America’s Hunting Heritage executive order, which calls for most public lands to be open for hunting “unless a specific closure is justified by local resource conditions.”

While hunting groups largely applaud more access, they also worry about how refuges will manage additional pressure with crumbling roads and infrastructure and fewer law enforcement officers. Roughly 200 law enforcement officers, for example, patrol 850 million acres of land and water, an area that requires at least 1,000, according to the National Wildlife Refuge Association.

“With increased visitation comes the need for more maintenance and habitat work and making sure those places don’t get loved to death,” says Ryan “Cal” Callaghan, president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “We haven’t got a straight answer to how any of that access will manifest with money.”

Congress originally authorized about $95 million each year from the 2020 Legacy Restoration Fund to pay for wildlife refuge infrastructure issues, but the fund expired in 2025. While Delta Waterfowl and other groups are lobbying for reauthorization and an increase in appropriations, Devney can’t see how any amount of likely appropriation will cover the massive workforce shortage in the short term.

Nesvik, for his part, hopes he will be able to increase staffing in the field. He has consistently heard from people that they love their refuges, he told RE:PUBLIC in September, and that they want to see facilities and infrastructure in good shape.

“The second thing I hear a lot is, ‘We want to see people in the field on the ground and we have less of that than we used to,’” he said. “So one of my biggest focuses right now is to get more boots on the ground at the 573 refuges around the country.”

To understand what the staffing and budget cuts mean for the people who depend on refuges and their wildlife, RE:PUBLIC interviewed dozens of former refuge staff, hunters, anglers, members of refuge friends’ groups, and refuge advocacy organizations. We then stitched together their answers to offer 10 refuges that illustrate the perils facing not only those refuges, but the hundreds of other oases scattered across the map from Alaska to Florida.

New Mexico  ·  Waterfowl  ·  57,331 acres

Key Issue: Water Infrastructure Collapse

To say Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge provides habitat for waterfowl is like saying the Nile River provides water to the desert. That’s why the refuge, one of the largest remaining wetlands in New Mexico, is “an oasis in the middle of a really hot dry, tough land,” says Stede Barber, communications manager of Friends of Bosque del Apache. The carefully conserved and managed refuge provides overwintering habitat to more than 20 species of ducks and geese, including mallards, American wigeons, green-winged and blue-winged teal, ruddy ducks, and northern pintails, as well as thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese and more than 100 other bird species. Waterfowl have sought refuge there in such abundance that they can cloud the sky at sunset, all nourished by a complex series of canals and irrigation ditches that bring water to wetlands and soak fields of native grasses and other food.

As development sucks the Rio Grande Valley dry and climate change compounds the problem, those ditches and canals are increasingly critical. But the 70-year-old gates and culverts are collapsing. Left unrepaired, water will no longer reach wetlands and roads may become impassable, hurting the refuge staff’s ability to manage land and diminishing public access, says Barber. “It’s nothing less than a crisis at this point,” says Brad Parks, a passionate duck hunter and New Mexico’s Ducks Unlimited state chairman.

The refuge is the engine supplying waterfowl to a large chunk of the Rio Grande Valley, Parks says, and is a critical stopover for the Central Flyway. “It is extremely important for waterfowl to have a place of refuge and a consistent source of food.” In other words, less water in the wetland means fewer ducks in the sky.

Friends of Bosque del Apache

Arkansas  ·  Waterfowl and Small Game; Fishing  ·  73,000 acres

Key Issue: Public Infrastructure Deterioration

The Cache River National Wildlife Refuge isn’t just beloved by local hunters and bird watchers—it has been designated a Wetland of International Importance. Its 1,000-year-old cypress trees and tupelo swamps stand as testaments to the biologically rich land that existed before channels and canals drained the region to control flooding and increase agricultural production. Hunters seek species like wood ducks, blue- and green-winged teal, and snow geese here, while anglers cast their lines for crappie, bream, and catfish and houndsmen chase raccoons and squirrels. It is also considered the most important wintering area for mallards on the continent. “When I say big, I mean people are coming from all over the country to hunt these refuges,” says Keith Weaver, a lifelong hunter who used to manage the Central Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge Complex which includes the Cache River, Bald Knob, Big Lake, Wapanocca, Holla Bend, and Logan Cave refuges.

“It’s no secret the National Wildlife Refuge System, and most seriously the southeast region, has experienced a tremendous loss of personnel,” Weaver says. And indeed, the Central Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge Complex that includes Cache River had as few as six full-time employees in 2026 from a high of 23. Weaver touted the hardworking and skilled staff putting in extra hours under emotional and physical stress, but at some point, it’s simply too much. They will eventually no longer be able to maintain boat ramps or grade roads, fix levees, intensively manage habitat, or control beavers and invasive plant and animal species like feral hogs to the extent necessary. “And that infrastructure is critical not only to habitat management but also public use.”

The more strained refuge staff become, the more public infrastructure will falter. That means fewer boat ramps ready for a weekend fishing, Weaver says, or roads maintained for travel through the refuge. And while volunteers can help, they require trained, full-time staff to plan and supervise projects.

Friends of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge

Alaska  ·  Fishing  ·  Roughly 1.98 million acres

Key Issue: Access and Resource Issues

Each wildlife refuge in Alaska appears as stunning as the next, but the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is the most visited, in part because of its proximity to Anchorage. It’s still plenty wild, though, with ice fields, glaciers, wetlands, tundra and boreal forests. Brown and black bears, lynx, wolves, trumpeter swans, Dall sheep, and caribou live inside the refuge. Trophy rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, and wild coho salmon swim in its rivers and lakes, and giant Kenai moose lumber nearby. Anglers use dozens of portages on the Kenai Canoe Trail System to access wild country, one of only three backcountry canoe trail systems in the U.S.

The refuge lost 25 of its 44 staff members, according to the Center for Biological Diversity’s data. Eight new staff were hired, says Noah Greenwald, the organization’s endangered species director, but the new hires were largely technicians and laborers, not long-term positions like rangers.

Fewer staff at the refuge means three worst-case outcomes, says Mary Glaves, Alaska Program Manager for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. The first is a shortage of biologists monitoring the resource. The second is a decline in law enforcement officers patrolling the area. And the third is a drop in access. That portage trail through lakes and streams filled with trophy fish requires regular maintenance after wildfires and winter storms. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers volunteers have stepped up to help in the past, as has Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, but even with volunteers, it’s hard to keep trails constantly cleared.

Fewer staff monitoring wildlife populations could lead to species languishing, overpopulations, or inaccurate information. And as access chips away, says Glaves, so does the desire to head into the backcountry. Fewer people venturing into the wildlife refuge means fewer people who care about its long-term sustainability.

Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges

Texas  ·  Deer, Wild Boar, and Duck  ·  Roughly 102,000 acres

Key Issue: Proposed Land Swap

More than 93% of Texas is private land, which makes any slice of public land a refuge for hunters as well as wildlife. The Lower Rio Grande Valley refuge spans the last 275 miles of the Rio Grande River in southeast Texas, and was established by the Fish and Wildlife in 1979 as a wildlife corridor that connects land owned by private individuals, nonprofits, the state, and two other wildlife refuges. It houses endangered species like the spotted ocelot and tiny jaguarundi, as well as condors, puffins, ducks, white-tailed deer, and invasive wild boars.

One of the refuge’s closest neighbors, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, wants to exchange a piece of the refuge for land elsewhere, a proposal recently cleared by a U.S. District Court judge and fast-tracked by Fish and Wildlife. “Look at it on the map, and the stuff they’re gaining is not the same kind of wildlife habitat they’re losing,” says Land Tawney, co-chairman of American Hunters and Anglers. “These are duck stamp dollars that help pay for refuges, and we the people had little or no say in divesting the land that belongs to us.”

For Tawney and other hunters and conservationists, a land exchange shrouded in relative secrecy is emblematic of future possible swaps involving the wealthiest individuals or corporations. Unlike other public land management agencies like the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service has broad latitude to swap parcels. “This is a really bad precedent,” Tawney says. “As we look at the administration’s desire to put data centers on public land… Does this make me nervous? Absolutely.”

Friends of the Wildlife Corridor

Maine  ·  Waterfowl  ·  Nearly 10,000 acres

Key Issue: Critical Nesting Habitat Threatened

This refuge is, as its name implies, a vast complex of more than 70 rugged, largely undeveloped islands in frigid North Atlantic waters. The spits and nobs of rock totaling nearly 10,000 acres host a dizzying array of nesting seabirds, including common, Arctic, and endangered roseate terns, Atlantic puffins, and double-crested and great cormorants. It is also becoming increasingly popular for sea duck hunting of species like the large, fast-flying common eider. Refuge staff work long days patrolling islands with the most important nesting habitat and controlling populations of seagulls, which had thrived off the riches of garbage dumps and chicken butchering facilities on nearby islands, says Tom Goettel, Maine Coastal Islands’ first refuge manager. When the bloated gull populations can’t reach other food, they tend to feed on chicks and eggs of nesting seabirds.

Staff numbers have dwindled, and the knowledge and experience of those who remain will leave as they retire. At the same time, human pressure here only increases. Most islands with nesting habitat are closed to the public during nesting season, but few people patrol them. And whereas 200 years ago seabirds might have had hundreds of important nesting sites, now only about a dozen exist. “We really have to protect the ones we have,” Goettel says.

Females of species like common eiders sit on their nests hidden in tall grass and don’t leave until their chicks are ready to fledge. But if a person, or even worse a person with a dog, lands on the island during nesting season, the eiders will flee. Gulls then typically swoop in and steal the eggs or chicks for a meal. Those encounters stack up, Goettel says. Only increased law enforcement and refuge staffing can help the public stay informed and maintain healthy seabird populations.

Friends of Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge

Wyoming  ·  Elk  ·  Roughly 24,700 acres

Key Issue: Disease Concerns

More than a century ago, after a series of brutal Wyoming winters killed thousands of elk, Congress established the National Elk Refuge. The plan was to feed elk that poured down out of the Wyoming and Idaho mountains into a low country increasingly fragmented and occupied by ranches and houses. That feeding program kept elk away from ranchers’ hayfields and prevented the large ungulates from starving. Now millions of visitors to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem drive by the National Elk Refuge on a nearby highway on their way in and out of Grand Teton National Park. They gawk at elk and bison, bald eagles, and trumpeter swans. Families bundle up for horse-drawn sleigh rides through the refuge in the winter.

Unfortunately, elk are now facing consequences from those century-old good intentions, says Lloyd Dorsey, a hunter and conservationist who has lived in Teton County for more than half a century. “Bacterial brucellosis in both species, and scabies, hoof rot, and now chronic wasting disease in some elk are long-ignored signals that the paradigm needs to change,” he wrote in an email to RE:PUBLIC. Yet ending a program that feeds more than 20,000 elk each year is complex and controversial. And despite calls from some conservationists to end the program, Fish and Wildlife will likely continue even as disease spreads through the artificially congregated animals.

Research has shown that ending feeding on the National Elk Refuge, as well as the 21 feedgrounds the state of Wyoming runs in the region, would diminish the number of elk on the landscape. But maintaining the feeding program will likely lead to continued disease spread, as chronic wasting disease gains a foothold.

Learn more about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed plan here.

Iowa  ·  Pheasant and Deer  ·  6,000 acres

Key Issue: Invasive Species

Bison, white-tailed deer, more than 200 bird species, and the now-extinct eastern elk once thrived in the tallgrass prairie and savannah oak that covered 85% of Iowa. Now native tallgrass prairie amounts to less than .1% of the state. To offset at least a fraction of the losses, volunteers and refuge staff spent years collecting seeds and slowly restoring these 6,000 acres once riddled with coal mines. Their efforts worked—once again providing a wild home for bison, deer and elk, songbirds, endangered bats, salamanders, and a flourishing population of pheasants.

Restoring native grassland requires constant attention, says Joan Van Gorp, former president of Friends of Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge. Without regular monitoring and controlled burns, invasive species like bushy lespedeza, spiky Canada thistle, Siberian elk, American willow and honey locust take over. About 14 full-time employees once managed the area but now only three full-time staff remain. The grassland savannah is slowly turning, once again, into an impenetrable tangle of weeds and branches. “Everything is kind of at a standstill,” she says, “and it gets worse every year.”

Invasive species continue their slow creep, consuming wildlife habitat on its destructive path. A federal fire crew managed to burn 3,000 acres last year, but Jim Johnson, a longtime hunter and volunteer, feels that, with little staffing and even less money, it’s only a matter of time before the invasives fully take over, crowding out native cover and food for the pheasants and other species that thousands of hunters seek each year. “That’s the most frightening thing of all,” Johnson says. “If you don’t have plans for the future, when the future arrives, you have nothing.”

Friends of Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge

North Carolina  ·  Waterfowl, Bear, and Deer  ·  Roughly 270,000 acres

Key Issue: Sea Level Rise, Staffing and Budget Shortages

These two national wildlife refuges near Albemarle Sound form the backbone of some of the best habitat for migratory birds in North Carolina. They contain a unique peat soil that sits enough above sea level that it earned the Native American name meaning “swamp on a hill.” The two refuges are managed as part of a nine-refuge complex that anchors one of the highest concentrations of tundra swans in the Lower 48, as well as one of the densest populations of black bears in the country. It is also one of the most rural spots on the eastern seaboard. Pocosin’s 110,000 acres and Alligator River’s nearly 160,000 acres provide a buffer from rising seas and saltwater encroachment.

Cuts over the past few decades have made active management of the refuges nearly impossible, says Howard Phillips, the National Wildlife Refuge Association’s southeast regional representative and a former Pocosin refuge manager from 2001 through 2020. The nine-refuge complex requires 126 employees to properly manage, according to Comprehensive Conservation Plans completed about 20 years ago. Now only nine full-time employees operate the refuges as sea levels continue rising and levee infrastructure ages.

“Without proper infrastructure and staffing, it’s really hard to manipulate water the way it’s supposed to be done,” says Cyrus Hunter Baird, vice president of government affairs with Delta Waterfowl, who also worked and hunted at the refuges. “If you have a couple of bad budget years and you have to sacrifice diesel and can’t run pumps and let these places lay for a season or two, it will take a long time to get them back.”

Delta Waterfowl or the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society

California  ·  Waterfowl  ·  10,800 acres

Key Issue: Hunting Closure Risk

More than half a million ducks and a quarter-million geese spend their winters at the Sacramento refuge. A critical stopover on the famous Pacific Flyway, it was created in 1937 to provide habitat for waterfowl, alleviate crop depredation, and protect sensitive and endangered species. In a populated state, the broader Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes another four wildlife refuges, contains more than 70,000 acres of habitat hosting almost 300 bird species. They’re part of the broader Sacramento Valley, which winters about 3 million ducks and 750,000 geese. The refuge offers world-class hunting opportunities within a couple hours’ drive from millions of people.

The Sacramento refuge has lost 60% of its staff since 2011, going from 21 full-time positions to 10. What’s more, each full-time position comes with extra money to hire part-time or seasonal employees, compounding the full-time losses. Most refuges, including Sacramento, also had fire crews—sometimes a dozen strong—that helped with habitat and other refuge needs when not addressing prescribed burns. Now the refuge no longer has enough staff to run water or mow and disc all of the habitat needed for waterfowl hunting, relying on the California Rice Commission and several private donors to pay for a small portion of the shortfall, says Jake Messerli, president and CEO of the California Waterfowl Association.

If private money dries up, the refuge will likely flood fewer fields and maintain less habitat, leading to fewer ducks for hunters. “If you constantly cut back, it’s death by a thousand cuts and people lose interest,” Messerli says. “Fewer hunters means fewer dollars from licenses which means further budget cuts and it snowballs from there.”

Friends of Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and California Waterfowl Association

Michigan  ·  Hunting and Fishing  ·  95,000 acres

Key Issue: Loss of Access

Hunting camps have a long and storied tradition in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Big game hunters stalk white-tailed deer through the woods, upland hunters pursue American woodcock, Wilson’s snipe, and ruffed grouse, and small game hunters chase snowshoe hares. The Seney refuge, created by Roosevelt in 1935, also hosts 200 species of birds, including trumpeter swans, common loons, and ospreys; 26 species of fish such as northern pike, large and smallmouth bass, and walleye; 50 mammal species; and 22 types of reptiles and amphibians. Ernest Hemingway’s iconic 1925 story “Big Two-Hearted River” takes place on the Fox River, which runs near the refuge.

Like so many refuges, staffing levels at Seney have plummeted, says Tom Worthington, the National Wildlife Refuge Association’s Midwest Region’s representative. The refuge once had as many as 10 full-time staff and now has fewer than three: a refuge manager, maintenance worker, and a seasonal park ranger. Much of the refuge is thick woods accessible through two-tracks and wilderness with remote entry points. “With a lack of staff it’s hard to maintain access to large parts of the refuge,” he says. And a lack of permanent fire personnel will mean fewer prescribed burns that help manage the landscape. Wetland pools built in the 1930s and ’40s and used by sandhill cranes and other waterfowl will also start to fail if not properly maintained.

Hunters and anglers stand to lose what limited access they still have to portions of the refuge, Worthington says. He also worries about a lack of law enforcement patrolling the rural area and about fewer biologists and other staff able to tackle invasive grasses and other plants.

Friends of Seney National Wildlife Refuge

This week Cal covers big game tag allocation in New Mexico, Saskatchewan calling it quits on CWD testing, how to sign up for harvesting roadkill, and so much more.

Call to Action:

Make Sure New Mexico's Wildlife Is Managed as a Public Trust: https://takeaction.io/bha/make-sure-new-mexico-s-wildlife-is-managed-as-a-public-trust/

Presented by First Lite

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In most cases in this show, we operate very much within the real of explainable. Wildlife biology, close looks at specific animals, wildlife conservation history. Y'all know the deal. However, this time we will be hearing 5 separate stories, from wild places across the country. all of which I have no idea how to fully explain them, or believe whether or not they're even true.

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Steven Rinella talks with Dr. Melanie Thornton about the water crisis on the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers.

Melanie Thornton is the Senior Director of Western Water for The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Find her work and more at https://www.trcp.org/

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Rut funnels, all day sits, and good setups are important when it comes to finding success in early November. But those things won’t do you a lick of good if you can’t stay in the woods. Sometimes, the key to killing a big buck has a lot to do with your gut. No, not your intuition, but what you put in it. That’s right, snacks might just be the difference in punching your tag or going home empty handed.

If you’re not prepared with enough grub to get you through the day, you’ll cave to that little voice whispering in your ear. Right around the time you should be focused on killing a cruising buck, that voice will convince you that you can still make it to the gas station before they quit serving the morning biscuits. Regardless of the time of day, it’s hard to focus on deer hunting when your stomach sounds like it’s trying to grunt in a buck.

I like to pack sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and some kind of fruit, but my secret weapons are no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. I’ve got a mean sweet-tooth, and these sit at the top of my list. I space them throughout a hunt and reward myself for making it to those odd hours of the day when I least expect deer to move. If that doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in, don’t worry, I polled the MeatEater crew for their best rut snacks. These are foods that help them stay on stand and, ultimately, kill big bucks.

“All-day rut sits are a struggle, so I always have plenty of candy, like Snickers and M&Ms. I like jerky, granola bars, turkey sandwiches, and lots of coffee. I usually have something extra to drink with some caffeine in it as well, just to combat the midday lull. I’ve learned through western hunts and all-day whitetail sits that I need to bring food I will actually want to eat, so I’m not packing salads if you get my drift.” –Tony Peterson

“I’m big on coffee, jerky, and cheese crackers. I always take the crackers out of the original package and drop them in a ziplock to make less racket when snack time comes.” –Brent Reaves

“Homemade egg McMuffin is my go-to rut breakfast (in the stand). I’ll have Usinger’s liverwurst and butter on Latvian sourdough for lunch one and two, Werther’s Original, Hershey’s with almonds, and round out the day with an apple. I also pack a pint of hot coffee and a liter of water to wash it all down and keep me hydrated.” –Janis Putelis

“Lara bars, pb and J, and fruit snacks. I can run off that all day.” –Clay Newcomb

“My favorite snacks are a peanut butter honey bacon wrap, peanut butter snickers, nature valley wafers, cheese crackers, and an energy drink.” –Jordan Budd

“When I'm traveling for a rut hunt, I do the apple-a-day thing. They keep me regular and that's valuable. My other favorite rut snacks are jerky, meat sticks, granola bars, and muffins. And if I'm in the Midwest, I'll also be stopping at Casey's for a slice of pizza.” –Spencer Neuharth

“I like a mix of ‘good for you’ and just plain good tasting to get me through the rut. That means I'll have healthier staples like an apple, PB&J, mixed nuts, jerky, and dried fruit on hand. But I also make sure to have some rewards for the long midday hours too like Oreos, Snickers bars, and Dot's pretzels.” –Mark Kenyon

These foods won’t technically make you a better hunter, but they can keep you from cutting your hunt short. And if that’s what it takes to wrap your tag around a big buck, you better bring the groceries.

Let us know in the comments what foods keep you going during the whitetail rut!