Remarks of Tony Dean at the Fourth Annual Wilderness Symposium

Rapid City, SD, November 10, 2005

Wilderness - From a Hunter's Perspective

I believe in history. You can't know where you're going, unless you know where you've been. And while I plan to address wilderness from a hunter's perspective, I think it will be easier to understand where I'm going, if you know where I've been. From as long as I can remember, I was fascinated with radio. And while I was a youngster, my goal was to become a radio announcer. I succeeded and started as a weekend announcer at North Dakota's first rock & roll station, KQDI in Bismarck.

That inauspicious start took me to many interesting places. After later taking a job with a radio station in Cedar Rapids, IA, I spent my summer nights announcing stock car races on the dirt tracks of Iowa and Illinois, and ultimately became a regular announcer for the Motor Racing Network covering NASCAR races on the super speedways across the south. And this was before NASCAR was cool.

Even so, the outdoors was my first love, and when I was sent to Pierre, SD in 1968 to manage a radio station, I found myself in a fishing and hunting mecca. Two years later, my employer wanted me to move back to Iowa, and I quit my job and again found myself in the right place at the right time, because on that day, the Governor of South Dakota called and hired me as his Press Secretary -- the first Gubernatorial Press Secretary in South Dakota history. And I must have done a helluva job because Gov. Frank Farrar was the first Republican Governor to lose a reelection attempt in SD history.

But while in the Governor's office, I presented an idea to the SD Game, Fish & Parks Department, the state conservation agency, to develop a radio show, with the Governor's approval. That show, South Dakota Outdoors, aired daily on every station in South Dakota for the next 25 years. In 1990, I resigned, and created a new show, "Dakota Backroads," which airs 42 times daily on 39 North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and one Wyoming station. So, as of today, I have been on the Dakota airwaves daily for 40 years. Soon, I was also hired by “Fisherman” magazine to produce a radio show for them, one that became the largest daily outdoor radio show in history, airing on more than 850 radio stations around the nation. And I was simultaneously producing a similar outdoor show for the US Fish & Wildlife Service in 12 states. So my start as a youngster wanting nothing more than to become a radio announcer, helped me to ultimately launch a career that would allow me to proselytize on behalf of the things I believed.

When I began working for myself, actually, doing radio shows and writing a few magazine articles, my Mother asked me one day, just how I made a living. I explained that I hunted, fished, and wrote and talked about it.

"And they pay you for that," she asked?

I assured her they did, and then she'd say, "No, c'mon, what do you really do?" Years later, I think she realized her oldest son was actually making a living doing something others got to do only on week ends.

I thank my parents for much of this, because from my Mom I inherited a love of water and fishing. And from my Dad, I inherited a love for autumn and hunting. I also remember my Dad telling me about the importance of conservation.

He also gave me some good advice.

Stand for something and fight for what you believe in. If you do, you will make powerful friends, and you'll make a good share of powerful enemies too.

But you can be damn proud of both.

So it was that knowledge from my parents and what they gave me in genes, plus what I learned from my radio years, that enabled me to parlay it into a living in the outdoors. I entered it at full speed and never looked back.

I began to spend time with biologists at a state and federal level, and I noticed that their beliefs were so strong, and that they lived their jobs and wore their hearts on their sleeve. I know it's common for many sportsmen to criticize resource workers, but even the skeptics among us have to admit that they are right much more than they are wrong.

I was heavily influenced by people like Art Hawkins, Aldo Leopold's first teacher, who today ranks as one of my dearest friends. And Ray St. Ores, a retired biologist who was also privileged to study under Leopold.

As I moved along in my outdoor career, I began to see, sometimes slowly at first, how critical clean water, air and open spaces were to wildlife --exactly the environment we have in South Dakota. And it is those basic connections,I call them, that so many hunters and anglers do not see.

Connections like that between clean water and good fishing, and lots of grass on the prairie, which translates also into clean water, and abundant wildlife.

And I learned the truth about South Dakota -- that our most precious resources are, in no particular order, water, soil, and grass.

I began to read and research. I read the works of Edward Abbey, writers like Ben East and Ted Trueblood, Ted Williams, and the father of the conservation movement, Aldo Leopold.

Leopold has had more impact on the way we think about land and water in America than any other living human being. He is known as the Father of American wildlife management, and his book, "A Sand County Almanac is a classic work, deserving of reading by all of us who fish and hunt, as well as all of us who love the land.

The author, Terry Tempest Williams was obviously a subscriber to the philosophies of Leopold.

In a book entitled, "The Essential Aldo Leopold," Williams wrote, "In the American west, there may not be a more explosive, divisive and threatening word than "Wilderness."

She's right, but I find myself asking, why is that?

Leopold wrote, "A resource which can shrink, cannot grow."

Why is wilderness a concept so difficult to understand? Why do we continue to find the idea of wilderness so controversial? Is it because wilderness is more difficult to understand because there is less and less of it to be found? Is wilderness as a word threatened because wilderness is threatened as a place? And how can we understand wilderness if we have never experienced a place that is unaltered by man? Shall we exterminate this thing that made us Americans?

Leopold wrote, "Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization."

Profound words. Words we should heed. But so much of it has been lost.

I am reminded of the Academy Award-winning motion picture that was filmed in my backyard, Dances With Wolves. Lt. Dunbar, played by Kevin Costner, wanted to see the frontier while it was still there.

And that is where we are at today. We have a precious few remaining areas that our youngsters and theirs, deserve to see and to experience, that have largely been unaltered or changed by man.

But let's relate wilderness from the perspective of a hunter. It does not take a rocket scientist among hunters to recognize that once the opening salvo takes place on opening morning of the big game seasons, no matter where you live, the best hunting is almost always found far from the nearest road.

My wife, Dar, and I have frequently deer hunted the Cave Hills in Harding County, one of the most beautiful places in northwestern South Dakota. Deep canyons, rimrock cliffs, punctuated with a mixture of pines and hardwoods, a marvelous home to wild turkey, mule deer and whitetails. One morning, we were glassing from high atop a cliff overlooking one of the especially deep canyons when we spotted movement below us. There, perched on an outcropping, was the largest Bobcat either of us had ever seen. It remains one of our enduring memories of our time hunting the Cave Hills.

But unfortunately, it is almost blotted out by another memory of our hunts there. We'd always arrive a day or two prior to the start of the deer season. We're believers in scouting, in understanding the areas deer are using, and how and when they are using them.

But each time, our scouting was for nought, ,because before dawn on opening morning, our ears and eyes were assaulted by the constant drone of Engines, ATV's, SUV's and 4wd pickups. These people were ostensibly "hunting."

Whitetail and mule deer are blessed with a fine ability to hear, and to smell. And on opening morning, most deer were shot from the roads.and those deer with a strong survival instinct, quickly moved far from the roads and were much more difficult to hunt.

Ironically, this is the type of hunting the National Rifle Association tries to protect, by opposing roadless areas. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Dar and I both learned, a long time ago, that this isn't what hunting is all about. What we seek is a quality hunt -- the kind you find only in areas far from the roads. And we learned long ago, that such areas always provide the best hunting.

But it isn't just hunting. Trout Unlimited recently did research that unequivocally tells us that just as the case with hunting, the best fishing is found far from roaded areas. And when you think about it, doesn't that concept make a lot of sense? Fish, birds and animals that aren't assaulted by a constant parade of 4wd vehicles, are less wary and more apt to hold to the same daily patterns. Do you have to work harder to get there? Of course, but if you are an American outdoorsmen, you have a noble heritage to uphold -- a heritage forged by the Daniel Boones and Teddy Roosevelts.

Dar, is a hunter -- a skilled one. You can put her in mule deer country anywhere in the nation, give her a rifle, map, compass and a backpack with food, and if you're taking bets, bet on her tagging a big buck, as she's done for the past 35 years.

Several years ago, she planned an all lady hunt in the high country near Durango and Pagosa Springs, Colorado. She did her research, and on a November morning, headed for Colorado with her two hunting pals, a school nurse from Pierre and a lady resort owner and rancher from North Dakota. None of them had ever hunted elk, nor had they ever hunted the high mountain country of Colorado.

Each day, the three gals would arise in darkness, and trudge up the mountainsides, no small task for those who live at 2,000 feet, but were now hunting at 12,000 feet.

None of them bagged an elk, but they weren't hunting from 4wd vehicles or ATV's either. And today, Dar calls that unsuccessful hunt for elk, one of the ones she enjoyed the most.

Today, neither of us belong to the crowd that considers an ATV evil. Instead, the ATV is a useful tool that is, unfortunately, driven all too often by incompetent idiots. And in a day when hunting seems to be under increasing scrutiny, it is we, the hunters, who must put the best foot forward. We can do that best by conducting ourselves in the highest ethical manner. We do that by supporting conservation movements, and we do that by doing our share in making sure there is always, an "out there."

I especially salute the Sierra Club for their efforts over the past few years, to bring together two groups that have more in common than members of either, realize. Hunters and environmentalists, and in many cases, hunters and non-hunters. Consider this: up until one specific instant, the hunter and non-hunter agree on everything -- the need for habitat, the thrill of seeing a majestic animal up close, the emotion of it all. And the only thing that separates them is the single, final act of the hunter -- that of pulling the trigger. But a true hunter knows that that act is the least important part of the hunt. It is everything that leads up to that split second, that makes it a true hunt.

But imagine what we could collectively accomplish -- we hunters and environmentalists -- if we were willing to put aside our differences regarding that single act -- and work together on behalf of conservation. Someone once said to me, while I was delivering a talk about wilderness, that he was too old and couldn't access wilderness like a younger, more physically fit person. My response was that I am about to turn 65, and I've hunted for more than five decades. And like that gentleman, I've had my opportunities. But this isn't about us. It is about our children, their children, and the legacy we shall leave them.

The wilderness proposal for South Dakota is a modest one. More important to me, it will be the first prairie wilderness in the nation. That's significant, because the prairie is the most productive eco-system of all. If you doubt that, read the Lewis & Clark Journals, and you will find that of all the places they traveled, they ate best on the Dakota prairies. They lived on a high protein diet of deer, elk, antelope, buffalo, and occasional meals of birds and fish. They knew no hunger until they moved into the mountains.

Remember too, that elk were common on the prairie, and they too, have been moved into the mountains by man plowing their preferred habitat, destroying wildlife habitat, turning it into endless row crops. You'll also discover from your reading, that even Grizzly Bears and wolves were prairie residents. And why not? The prairie is where the food was.

So, I call for a prairie wilderness. A call to separate the fears and falsehoods of the property rights movement, and deal with honesty and integrity, and the knowledge that a civilization is best known for what it saved, and not what it unwisely used.

Hunters and environmentalists have so much in common, so much at stake, that a coalition of these two groups who often view the other from afar and with no small amount of suspicion makes so much sense.

And we both share another quality that is missing in most urban areas, and that is clean air and open spaces. Areas such as this are truly great places -- places created for those who appreciate the unique beauties and the one bullet, one buck hunt, where we challenge our quarry on his own terms, on foot.

Take another big game animal whose range we find in both places, the pronghorn -- the fastest North American mammal. Hunted from a four-wheel drive vehicle, the quality is no Daniel Boone experience. But when hunted on foot, relying on your scouting and stalking skills, the pronghorn is a superb big game animal.

It's somewhat like duck hunting. If you just want dead ducks, sneak over the top of a stock tank and blast them on the water. You can kill a lot of ducks that way. But quality? Instead, spend the time to learn to call ducks, arrange decoys properly, study flight patterns, be in the right place at the right time, and when you slap the trigger of your shotgun, what follows is anti-climactic. I say that because the hunt is not the kill. The hunt is what leads up to the kill, and most true hunters know the difference.

I hunt regularly with an old friend, an 84-year-old retired thoracic surgeon. He lives to hunt prairie grouse. It becomes a year-round sport for him because he raises bird dogs, Brittanies. He carries a 28 gauge side-by-side double barrel, and he passes up birds that his dogs fail to point. He's not interested in the killing as much as he is, the hunt. He'll average about 10 miles a day on foot, and he says, "I was once a Pile hunter, and then I grew up."

In the end, quality hunting and fishing is all about place, for it is place that determines the availability of game and fish. The best places are always far from the hum or whine of vehicles, and far from roads. Pack in on horses or walk in on the legs our ancestors used to open the west.

The Wilderness Act recently turned 40, and currently in South Dakota, 77,570 acres, or 0.16 percent of South Dakota is protected, all of that in the Black Hills and Badlands.

But today, at a time when the Farm Bill drives the breaking of the prairie and breaking seems an appropriate word to describe what is being done, we are losing native prairie as we speak. In fact, go to USDA statistics, and you'll find that in spite of the grass gains of the CRP program, the prairie loss to plowing has exceeded it.

But we now have an opportunity to leave a legacy for the next generation, and to accomplish a first, at the same time. South Dakota can become the FIRST state to enact the FIRST prairie wilderness. And this should be a no-brainer because all of the land proposed for a wilderness designation is already in public hands, though that's often questionable because of the stranglehold that the livestock industry and their political henchmen have on America's public lands.

The Cheyenne River Valley Grassland Heritage proposal consists of 71,381-acres, only another mere 0.15 percent of South Dakota. Standing in our way is the livestock industry, principally the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, the Black Hills Multiple Use Coalition, which is little more than a Wise-Use Movement front for timber, mining and cattlemen, and lurking in the background as they always do, you'll find the Farm Bureau. Truth is, each of these groups has consistency in that you can count on them to oppose anything that stands for conservation.

The key to the realization of this dream is our Congressional delegation, and to date, Sen. Tim Johnson and Rep. Stephanie Herseth favor the wilderness designation. Sen. John Thune has not taken a position on it.

I once asked Sen. Tom Daschle, who at the time, was Senate Minority Leader, how many letters he'd have to receive to assume that many of his constituents were interested in a specific piece of legislation. He told me, 15, maybe 20 obviously individually composed letters.

Think about that -- a handful of letters would have been enough to get the attention of one of the world's most powerful political leaders.

There are about 100 of us here tonight. Imagine what you could accomplish if each of you wrote a sincere letter to Sen. Thune. I know that won't happen. In the end, only a few of you, no matter how well intentioned, will actually do it. So, we'll end up getting a handful of letters sent to the Senator. Some of you will plan to do it, but your intentions will get lost in the day to day activities of getting kids to school, attending meetings, and so forth. And if that happens, our opponents will win. But imagine what we could do if HALF of you actually sat down, wrote, and mailed a letter to Sen. Thune explaining why you favor wilderness. He knows that the opponents are very small in number, and that they are a vocal minority. He knows they'll scream and shout if he votes against them. But deep down, he also knows that they will continue to support him.

It's certainly time we hunters and environmentalists learn from the agricultural industry. They've always played the political game better than we have.

I'll compare it to a football game. If we play a prevent defense, it will prevent us from winning. But if we play a smart, aggressive offense, this is one we can win. My time is up. Thank you for yours.