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Bruce: I’m ready to do it, we’re going to count it down. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous with your host, Bruce Hutcheon. Hey, we’re heading over to Missouri today and I’ve got Brian Towe, QDMA, co-op specialist, who’s in partnership with the Missouri Department of Conservation and Brian brings a lot of talent to developing co-ops with landowners not only in Missouri, but in the Midwest area. Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian: Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me.
Bruce: Let’s just jump right into it so our listeners can understand what you’re doing for QDMA. This is basic, 101 co-op specialist for QDMA. Brian, take it away.
Brian: Thank you, Bruce. Specifically, what I do and there’s some folks that may not even truly know what a wildlife co-oper, or co-op is, it’s something that QDMA has pushed and promoted since the original days back in 1988 when the organization was founded and a lot of actually what the basis for co-ops are, comes from the state of Texas, by the deer hunting associations they have down there. Groups of landowners that are working together as opposed to maybe an individual landowner or a property owner or just a hunter that hunts on a particular piece of property, practicing some sort of management style or techniques or methods, as opposed to working as a singular unit. Now, they’re working with the groups of landowners.
So a lot of what my job is and based upon is just getting those groups of landowners working together. As much as anything, there’s the science of sociology as there is biology in that. And they’re trying, as we all know, that getting individuals working together sometimes can be a little bit cumbersome just because it was all sorts of different personalities and styles and methods and trying to blend all that together to where it works cohesively in a good unit, actually, in a productive unit. There’s as much of, as that old adage says, there’s as much art as there is science behind it. But the big thing is it’s a really neat position in that not only do I get to do what I am truly passionate about, which is manage wildlife and habitat, but I also get to work with people which is another good part of my job.
I’ve just been in this position. . . it’s a brand-new position about two years ago, back February of 2013 is when the position actually got kicked off and got started. Since that time, Michigan has had a position. Actually, Michigan went out and hired their own position. There’s a variety of other states looking to do the same thing, trying to get a position on board, which is really neat. I’m just glad there’s a demand and, in fact, Missouri is looking to add right now, currently looking at adding a second position in the state. I live in the southern portion of the state, so they’re looking to maybe I’ll go to the south and take care of the north-south sort of scenario. I guess we’ll draw a Mason-Dixon Line, so to speak, across Missouri where even though we’ll still probably cross that line and work on occasion, but it’s going to be pretty exciting that we can actually have another body on. At least another warm body on hand to help out and to help service folks and hopefully we can get a lot more done that way as well.
Bruce: I’m going to give Brian a shout-out right now and I’m going to quote QDMA Director of Education Outreach, Kip Adams. He speaks about Brian, “His experience of Missouri and his knowledge of the state’s regional habitat and cultural diversity make him a perfect fit for this position.” So listeners, it’s not easy to do what Brian does because you’re not only working on the habitat, but you’re working on mending fences between families that maybe don’t agree eye to eye on anything. Or maybe one family on one side of the fence is all about QDMA and their management and then the person on the other side of the fence if it’s brown, it’s down. Kip is really helping a lot of people throughout North America to understand that we’ve got to mend fences if we’re going to have balanced quality deer management. Would you agree with that, Brian?
Brian: Absolutely and that’s what it’s all about. It goes back to me, for me, at least, co-ops are as much a part of the whole deer camp scenario and the whole deer camp culture in that it’s getting to know your neighbor, getting to know the folks that you hunt with who are in the neighborhood and just sitting around and chewing the cud. Because as we do that, we realize that our goals and objectives aren’t nearly as diverse as what we realize or what we may perceive, anyway. We all have this image of maybe our neighbor just across the fence and we kind of have this ghostly maybe snaggle-toothed-looking image maybe in our head as some of our neighbors and really, that’s not at all the case. Whenever you first meet them, it’s kind of interesting with some of these startup co-ops when they get them going, there’s a preconceived notion of what their neighbor is or who they are. Then this little old man or woman might walk in in a neighborhood they’ve never met before for the last 10 or 15 years. Even though they’ve been neighbors, they just have this preconceived notion.
So it’s always kind of interesting to see some interaction. But the biggest thing is, also, really nice to see some of the bridges or burnt bridges be rebuilt or even give some bridges that have never really been there necessarily. Just kind of propped up and actually, some walls and barriers come down that typically interfere with some of that. Because really and truly what I found is that most landowners and most neighbors aren’t that far apart in their philosophy and their ideology and when it comes to deer management but even all wildlife management is not [inaudible 00:10:00].
Bruce: Let’s talk about techniques that you share with your co-op members to get to know their neighbors.