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the years, which is always fascinating to talk to him about cops and those who use the waters and woods of the great states of the Midwest.
And we have Eric
Lobner, who is the administrator for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
He's the current guy.
He's like the
Okay.
Let's hold it.
Let's not go overboard, right?
I do have fish.
I have wildlife.
I have parks.
those.
So what are you
You don't have all of it.
That's all of it.
I know.
I know.
Fish, wildlife, parks, research, endangered species.
Yeah, I kind of feel the same way a little bit.
Okay, so you
about
and endangered species and endangered species
You just put FWP and call it
you can call me
you want.
Loeb's.
That is what I was called.
That was one of my nicknames in high school.
Yeah.
It's very natural.
What's
I
know.
Is that his nickname?
The Shell Man?
Let's just stay with Todd.
OK, and you know
We listen to what Todd says.
You know, fun.
It's short for Todd.
It is
what we're doing in the outdoors.
Follow us on Facebook.
You get to see these characters with post pictures of the people that are in the studio with us.
But I, we ate, you know we have family dinners here with the radio crew and Loeb's and Todd Scheller and of course Noah from Morris Original who's our tried and true producer.
ate with us today and we ate something that I will promise you.
I never in a million years thought I was going to
Yes, because it's absolutely crazy.
Now let's I think I'm going to talk about my wild of the week then and we'll kick that off.
I had I took a brand new hunter who had never harvested a turkey.
I took him out to
hunt his first turkey and it was one of the most bizarre panoramic scenes of turkey frenzy I've ever seen in my life.
We we sat the first day and I saw the turkeys knew where they were they couldn't see our decoys went out early the next morning moved the blind went through all the work moved the blind had the and go on the Facebook and you'll see one of my tips for getting turkeys close a special fan technique for your decoys but we went out
and we had toms keep coming into the field.
And every time the toms came into the field, a band of hooligans, a band of jakes
And there was a tome, he was 200 yards out coming straight to the decoys and the jakes ran in and ran them off.
It happened over and over and over and finally finally this little gang of chopper drivers Decided to go into the woods and fight amongst themselves and that Tom got close enough I was out with Nells rude shout out to Nells rude For inviting me on his property to hunt with him and he put the perfect shot It was one a very cold day.
He was shaking
So have we were shaking because we were cold and he had so much adrenaline going and I just had a blast with him and he
Yes.
I spent
Two nights, three days at the Loebner Lodge.
It's
happening.
It is.
Oh, we're going to talk
Loeb's Lodge.
Oh, heck.
Oh, yeah.
My daughter was there.
It's awesome.
That sounds wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My daughter, my sister-in-laws have come.
Oh, yeah.
It's all open.
you
Yeah.
That's still a place.
I was wondering the same thing.
I don't
Yeah.
while of the week.
It certainly
at Curves.
The Veloabner Lodge, two nights, three days, skunked nothing.
Oh, my.
Were you here in Turkey's?
I saw some hands, heard some distance gobbling.
It wasn't magic.
to Turkey on it?
That is the one weird thing about Todd, as compared to some others that have come to the Lubner Lodge.
He did leave and hunt.
Wow, okay.
Yeah, he was out there beating the bush.
Yep.
A good public land hunt.
It was a little piece of heaven, but I would say the weather wasn't great.
Yeah,
we had tough weather.
Tough weather.
I heard, same spot, I heard grouse drumming.
pheasant cackle and a tricky gobble.
Oh,
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, add a deer grunt to that.
No luck came home, went back to my, this hurt, my, my go to spot of.
North of Madison and was done by 740.
why it's your go-to.
Where exactly?
then he sent... They were in
Then he sent pictures of it.
people.
As I'm sitting on the blind, actually, I think the rain was still dripping off of me.
Back at the lodge?
Back at the lodge, right?
I mean, I was out, honey, just to be clear.
And I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden, you know, all your phone, yeah.
Yeah.
I couldn't wait.
Maybe you didn't see Turkey because you had a
phone.
Could you say salt in the wound?
Yeah.
Oh,
on the ground
for them.
So you want to know what's really fun?
You're retired.
And you send that.
to your friends who are still working.
Those people, thank you.
Todd,
amazing.
I'm awful.
I'm sharing my experience.
I think it's good to
share.
You're sharing your tips, right?
How was work today and you got a bucket full of perch?
How was your meeting?
How was the meeting today?
How was Jeff2 today?
No,
That's one of the
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of the great Midwest, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois.
If you're listening on the Civic Media Stations, you can find us Saturdays at 11 a.m.
on your Civic Media Station throughout those states and growing.
And that's not the only time you can hear us, Chef Lawton.
Where can you find Raised in the Woods if you don't catch it live?
Actually, and one of the things just because I'm a little more simple when it comes to technology than most people, if you just put in Raised in the Woods on a Google search, it'll take you right to our shows.
Promise you, you're gonna laugh.
If you listen to the show, you're going to learn something.
We talk about how to take your game or your quarry or your forage from field to table.
We talk about rules and regs once in a while, how to be a better hunter, a better fisherman, a better angler, a better forager.
We've got a certified chef and sommelier on the show.
And today we've got Eric Lobner, who's the administrator of the Department of Fish.
wildlife and parks for the state of Wisconsin.
Eric that covers everything.
What is not under your jurisdiction?
You are like the czar of everything that anyone steps outside of their house.
I kind of like that term czar.
I'll be honest with you.
We should do that.
It just rings.
know,
czar.
Could you do that?
I
That's pretty
Yeah, so anything that swims largely, everything that flies, walks on the land, as far as wildlife and fish, as well as we handle state parks in our Fish Wildlife Parks division.
Yeah, there's a lot going on there.
But I'll tell you, anytime that you want to get outside and enjoy nature, maybe do a little hiking, a little biking, cross-country skiing, hunting, fishing, trapping, you name it, we're somehow involved with that.
That's all under your jurisdiction.
It is.
It is.
Now, you know, we've got all of the general management of all pretty much all of our public lands.
There's still a forestry is a separate division within DNR.
So really anything that happens with the trees, certainly our staff do some of that.
But the foresters within the agency are really handling that.
And then our warden force ultimately handles keeping people in line with the rules and regulations as well.
How long have you been doing that?
So my current role, I was trained as a wildlife biologist.
I was a wildlife biologist.
I like to think I was.
Let's just put it that way.
I became a little bit of an administrator.
I was in the wildlife program for 30 years.
And now since June of last year, so when I became the division administrator to handle.
um fish wildlife parks
different
maybe he's just really good at what he does.
Yeah, you know what?
It's about adaptability, right?
And everybody has a story and everybody has a perspective.
And so respecting those perspectives and just really trying to understand where people are coming from I think is really important in the
work that
we do.
And so hearing those voices, listening, you know, I know it's somewhat of a cliche, but having your ears open more than what your mouth is is really kind of a critical perspective and really trying to look at that at the agency as a whole.
I mean, many times I feel like we do that really, really well.
And sometimes, you know, there's a little bit of a slip up maybe and that sometimes sticks.
But overall, I like to think that I'm a good representation of the department.
Trying to protect the resources and providing opportunities for the public to do the things that they enjoy
I did get out into the wild of the week.
It was fantastic It got to be a little bit of a challenge.
I thought it was gonna be great It was my idea to I'm gonna get a two turkey tanks, right?
I'm gonna not yeah second time period and I'm gonna hunt the last half of that and then I'm gonna hunt the first half of three so You know ultimately that means being
up at four for a week straight.
Yeah, that's tough.
It sounds good on paper.
Yeah.
And then when you get any turkeys,
Joel, did you really need to go there?
Well, it's it's been a tough right ride.
I just want to be clear.
I last year, I hunted Wisconsin, it poured rain every day.
So I pulled up stakes and I'm like, forget it.
I'm going to go to Nebraska and I'm going to go to like I'm out of
Bingo.
Let's just say
Nothing.
That has not happened very often, but that last year.
This year, two tags.
Oh yeah, this is going to be great.
I'm going to go there and I'll make up for it.
And you did
go to work.
That is true.
I like the way you talk.
And you still haven't blocked
I love naps.
You know what?
You're still right.
You guys are like, help.
You're educating me, and that's what I appreciate, because why haven't I?
Why haven't I?
I didn't
It's like a reality, right?
Every now and then, when you come to a realization of something, all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, why?
Why
Because he doesn't know how.
She'll do it.
She'll probably cast it Yes, go listen to last week's show if you haven't heard it yet.
We had somebody casting raccoon feet and stuff.
It was great
I can't wait for our recipe this week.
You're not going to have ever tried it.
You're not going to believe it.
And we've got stories from Turkey Camp, from a chief high official at the DNR and a former warden.
I can't wait.
This is Raised in the Woods.
You never know what you're gonna get on raised in the woods What I do know that we're going to talk about every time is making our guests.
Oh, maybe slightly uncomfortable My name is Joel Clayfish.
I get
If you're just joining us we have one of the top brass at the Department of Natural Resources for Wisconsin his name is Eric Loebner He is the administrator for the Department of Fish we calm low wild life and parks the low man is He's bringing us the low down
and with him is his sidekick, and I thought they started the show as friends.
Mr. Scheller, I am so sorry.
Todd Scheller's something about that I kind of liked though, right?
Yeah, see Loeb's
loved.
He was the former...
Chief Warden at the Department of Natural Resources, the Warden force is the highest law enforcement.
I got to chair the criminal justice committee back in the legislature.
So we dealt with those.
I know the importance of Todd Scheller.
It was not belittling him to say, I mean, I would be honored to be the lobe man sidekick.
WPA.
Yeah, that's true.
Both Megan
important.
Thank
Thank you.
Here's
of
We're in trouble.
The state is in trouble, and I don't...
I don't want to oversell the concern, but there was a deal in the legislature to continue funding for a lot of the conservation in Wisconsin that got stuck in the last moments of the legislative session and didn't pass.
What on earth are we going to do?
I mean, Eric Loebner, you're kind
Yeah, no doubt about it.
Certainly hunters, anglers, trappers, ultra recreationalists in general are critical to everything that we have here is our core fiber here in Wisconsin, right?
It's about the economy of the state.
It's about the environment that we all enjoy and appreciate.
And you're right, those right now with stewardship likely not going forward.
We also have certainly a decline in the total available funding sources that we have.
This year we saw a decline in the Pittman-Robertson funds, so
if
you're unfamiliar with Pittman-Robertson, that's an excise tax on guns, ammunition, and archery equipment.
It goes into the Fish and Wildlife Service and then it gets redistributed back to the states based on the number of licenses they sold, as well as their acreage of land in that state.
And so this year we saw a decline because there's been a little bit of a decline in the sale of guns and ammunition.
We did see consistent numbers in sport fish restoration, which is basically the equivalent.
Same process, people, manufacturers pay an excise tax on fishing equipment, goes into the feds, comes back to the states.
And that has stayed constant, but certainly seen a decline in our PR.
And the other part of it is we're seeing a decline or it kind of, it's not so bad here in Wisconsin.
We've been holding our own the last couple of years.
It was about a 2% decline, but we're seeing a bit of a, you know, overall, we're seeing, I would say stagnant revenue.
where you've got costs as we're all familiar with going to the gas station or going to the grocery store, those costs are going up.
And yet our revenue is staying constant or declining.
So I have a
So here's, yeah, well, it's short term.
versus long term is the equation I'll kind of talk a little bit about.
So currently this FY 27, so starting July 1, we're fiscal
for those who don't know what that is.
Thank you.
We're going to be about $15.5 million in the whole.
So that's of a total division budget of about $126 million.
So nothing to sneeze at, but certainly $15.5 million is a significant deficit.
So we are ultimately going to be reducing a lot of the habitat work that we do on that public land to make a good viable wildlife or fish habitat.
What lens affected
that?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Everything will be impacted by that.
Well, we're going to be doing less fish stocking this year.
We're declining certain, depending on the species of fish that you're interested in, we're going to see a 70%
down to somewhere around 25% decline in the number of fish that we stock.
So are you seeing an
Well, the bottom line issue always is the money that it takes to raise those fish, right?
So we've seen a 200% increase in the food.
that we need to raise fish in a very short period of time.
The
The cost of producing them.
Unleivable.
Right.
And so when you look at that on that perspective and you... Because you
before you put them in the lakes and waterways.
Exactly.
Same with the pheasants that we stock.
And so pheasants stocking is going to be going down this year about 10,000 birds.
So we're going to be going down from 75,000 down to 65,000 birds.
Now,
It's really important to think about this because this is a great example in my opinion of just the cascading impacts pheasants.
Some people in Wisconsin question, why do you guys stack pheasants?
pheasant stocking is absolutely critical for us, because it ultimately results in people without pheasant stocking, they don't buy a pheasant stamp.
If they don't buy a pheasant stamp, we don't do grassland.
It's a
If we don't do grassland management, it doesn't benefit both your game species as well as your non-game species, because when you think about non-game species in Wisconsin, and I'll put them in the bucket of endangered or threatened, many of those are dependent on grassland habitat
migrants, all of it, right?
Yeah.
And many of these habitat types, as I mentioned, I just talked about PR and SFR as well as license sales.
Those are all generally funded by your hunters, fishers and trappers, right?
Sure.
But everybody here in the state really benefits from them.
whether you're talking about the wetland restorations work that they do that helps with flood storage or it helps with groundwater recharge or it helps with water purification.
All of those things happen as a result of the wetland restoration work that they may be doing for wildlife.
Same kind of thing, you know, you could talk with stocking a fish, right?
That drives the economy of many parts of the state, especially our northern part of the state.
Certainly.
Bringing people in.
to stay in Airbnb's or hotels, buying equipment, you know, you name it, right?
It has a driver, restaurants.
Yeah, great, great.
Another all
I
And so the
and
as well.
And so it's like, totally a whole big picture cascading effect.
And, you know, we're, I'm really nervous about it, right?
I'll just
share, right?
I look at it here in Wisconsin, we're at a very pivotal point.
We've got to decide as a state, as all residents here in the state to figure out where are we going with our natural resources here in the state.
And it's not just, yes, it's very important from a hunting fishing trapping perspective, but it's also really important from the rest of the citizens and the benefits that they feel from that, right?
If I always use the example, if I were a biker,
I can go biking down the street in town, right?
But what we're seeing more and more is that those people are choosing to go to those natural environments, trails, public lands to experience that appreciation of the nature around them, right?
And so with less money available to do that work, whether it's invasive species management or just general habitat management, you do see a decline in that habitat.
Is that immediate?
No, probably not, right?
It happens more over time, but certainly these impacts.
in our
Right.
And the way we're working this current shortfall is that, you know, we're going to be holding positions vacant longer.
We have a significant
number of our limited term employees that we're going to be laying them off starting July.
And then we're also looking at just we are decreasing the amount of work that we're going to be able to do.
So those projects where we may partner with a local rod and gun club
or the
local Kiwanis or whatever, that money is not going to be there.
And so we're going to see these kind of impacts that we as you mentioned earlier, we're seeing a really good reaction.
They want, all of our groups want to help, right?
But when you're talking about a 15 and a half million dollar budget shortfall, you know, you can't do a bake sale.
Let's figure that out, right?
I mean, I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it might, that might be, right?
I mean, maybe if you guys baked it, it
on here.
Oh, it's hugely
think a big part of it is as...
conservationists, we gotta start talking together.
We gotta quit arguing about too many deer, not enough deer, not big enough muskies or too many walleyes, or we gotta start getting behind the topic and the issue and it's funding.
What's the future funding in Wisconsin?
And we've got to start talking about
us?
Great question.
So we have a variety of different things that we do differently here in Wisconsin.
So Minnesota in particular just recently got an eighth of a percent sales tax that they ultimately dedicate that towards conservation efforts in their state.
We're a user tax state.
We are a user tax state, exactly.
Now, the other thing that we have happening here is, so we have a lot of reduced or free licenses, right, to the tune of $20 million worth every year.
I had a buddy that I knew, New Hunter, that I was hunting with.
you know, they said, yeah, I was kind of embarrassed.
Like, Eric, I only paid five bucks for my, is that right?
I only paid five bucks.
That cost me more for my coffee, right?
My coffee costs seven bucks.
And
I'm like, yeah, there's, there's these issues of, okay, we have, you know, eighth of a percent sales tax, we have free licenses here.
Some of them we have Oregon just passed the one and a half percent room tax, right?
So
there's all these different approaches that people in different states have.
But nonetheless,
There are different approaches that we could look at, and I do think it's time to start having that conversation.
We are a user
such low state fees for other states, and we love our neighboring states, so we want them to come here.
But there is a balance, and budgets are always about priorities more than they are about money, and we need to make sure that Wisconsin's conservation efforts
Stay a priority.
We got a crazy recipe coming up.
I can't wait.
That's
on Raised in the Woods.
football player.
Bernie Kozar.
He
fine.
You got into a rhythm.
Well, so I was in Kansas City a few years ago and at a restaurant, James Beard chef and he had duck tongue tacos on the menu.
And I was like, huh, this must be a joke.
No, they were actual duck tongues.
And so I did not harvest these birds because that would take a lot.
Megan, tell us how much they were on the menu at the one place you went to.
Oh, another place I saw them as a snack, they were $1,000.
Oh, $1,000.
Which, you know, if you spent that much ammo to shoot that many ducks to get enough of them, they probably would have won you the $1,000.
that makes
Probably so.
Megan, I gotta ask, though, clearly no bone in your tacos.
no.
so what I did was,
Just drop them in.
Yep.
And then once you're done boiling them, take them out, drain them.
Then I created a Chinese stir-fry sauce.
It was basically equal parts.
Hoisin, oyster sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, a little bit of sriracha.
It was delicious.
You did a great job
on
No, they just have those.
You know when you look at a doctor and it has those little hairs on the tongue?
I don't think they care what it tastes like, because they basically swallow everything.
Well, the tongues look like they did have the little bumps on them, but those are like papillans to like force it down their esophagus.
Oh, right.
To help get
took that
You are what you eat.
So Noah is wild game now.
So all right He's nodding he's nodding in agreement We love having you along on raised in the woods We never know quite where we're gonna go when we get started But we will help inform you about the outdoors of the Midwest We'll show you how to take field and forage put it on your plate And I promise you you're gonna laugh when you listen to us check us out Saturdays at 11 o'clock on your civic media stations in Wisconsin
Johnson, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa.
And if you miss us, check us out on the podcast.
We'll see you next week on Raised in the Woods.
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