 Brian. Thank you so much for joining today and chatting about your passion. Appreciate you taking the time today. Absolutely. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. Yeah. So we have, you know, spoken in the past and been out of the range together. But for those watching, will you give me your, I don't know, minute to minute elevator pitch about what it is that you do your organization and what you're about and why? Yeah, absolutely. So I, I'm Brian Bedrosian and I've been in Wyoming for, you know, over 20 years and I kind of wear multiple hats. One is as a raptor biologist with the Teton Raptor Center and the other is the founder of the sporting like free initiative. And so, you know, really my goal is to advance, you know, conservation and protect what we have in Wyoming and our shooting sports in our hunting practice. And really sporting like free is kind of a merge of those two main interests as a big hunter and angler myself and really wanting to promote the conservation of our wild systems. Basically, our approach is to just educate folks about the benefits of using lead free ammunition and tackle in the field, keeping our lead at the range. And just promoting this as a great conversation that we can have that can bring together both the shooting and hunting communities with the conservation communities instead of creating a divisive conversation as we often see in the media. So that's the ultimate goal is to just create a community of folks that understand and, you know, believe in personal choice and want to put our best foot forward as a hunting community. Great, great. And you know, that's something that I'm, I'm so leery of is being a use one of Lenin's useful idiots and being that person who, you know, I'm thinking about the EPA ban on the gas cans that actually pour without spilling all over you. I'm sure that the EPA had somebody who did spill on them, and they testified when you know it wasn't fun getting burned. And then you get this stupid law that now the manufacturers make these gas cans that you do get covered in gasoline. And that poor person was just a useful idiot they were used for this ulterior ulterior motive, and I don't want to be that guy. And yet I look at what it is you're doing and I don't like I'm not able to punch holes in it like I don't think you're trying to get rid of shooting. And that's what I love about your organization is it's not anti gun. It's not anti lead. I love that saying you said it's not anti lead. It's pro copper while hunting that makes such good sense. Yeah, exactly. You know, and, you know, I think, you know, the splashy headlines of, you know, coming to, you know, the copper movement is coming to take our guns is, you know, eye catching. But, you know, when we're trying to kind of promote this groundswell of common sense, you know, both from an industry standpoint and from a conservation standpoint, it doesn't often get the notification that some of the other pieces do. So I appreciate taking the time to learn more and really you said it it's not, it's not about being anti lead like I shoot lead at the range all the time, because, you know, it's cost effective. There's really no downstream effects. But when I'm chambering around when I'm going elk hunting, sure, I'm going to put copper in there because I know the benefits of using that for wildlife. Yeah, it makes great sense. You know, so I was doing some math and I, I figured out that if we were took a 219 grain bullet lead bullet, and to get a ton of those you would need 64,000 of them. So if you're figuring it costs you a buck a bullet, or so that would be a lot of shooting. If I took those somewhere not around water down between Pinedale and Rock Springs way out the desert on some hillside, and I shot all of those onto a hillside area in a day because I like shooting a lot and I'm fast. If I did all of that I put a lead, a ton of lead in a hillside. It's not like Eagles aren't going to come and eat lead right. Correct. So I think when we're talking about rifle ammo. For sure, you know when it's going into the hillside. There's little to no risk. I think there are some challenges with shotgun areas where we're shooting a lot of lead pellets. And whatnot, in areas where we have high concentrations of birds like doves and other galanaceous birds like, you know, grouse where they're picking up all those pellets. But generally speaking, if you're going out and shooting skeet on BLM lands or Forest Service lands and it's, you know, pretty dispersed to the risk is so is really minor. It's just those concentrated, mostly like dove hunting areas and things like that. Okay. Yeah. But for rifles. Absolutely. You can go shoot thousands of rounds into the hillside. And there's there's no risk the Eagles are only eating it when it's in a gut pile. Okay. Okay. And so that is so comforting to me as a long range shooter that you know I don't want to do any damage every time I go out on BLM just take an afternoon and go out and shoot at a rock 1500 yards away for kicks and giggles. I don't want to hurt anything. You know, I pick up a she's a beer can laying there. I pick it up. I want the place to be better when I leave it within when I got there. It's good to know that there isn't the damage. Yeah, just from that. And a friend told me years ago and I don't know any I'm not a hunter. A friend told me though years ago that there's some sort of a bird that will like scoop up gravel from the river bottom and then they have it wobble around in their gullet or something to break up seeds. Will you please correct my butchering of God said but it sounds so neat. Yeah, I mean almost all ducks, waterfowl and grouse and other birds have a gizzard that they do pick up those pellets to help digest the vegetation that they eat. So it just kind of grinds it in. And so that's the risk. That's why, you know, waterfowl hunting and federal lands is, you know, steel shot, because the risk there is they're just picking up those pellets on the ground and that's kind of what I was referring to with with dubs as well it's the same kind of pathway. So we call those great pickers, you know, and that you know the risk there is the great pickers pick it up, and then the dove or the, the duck has lead poisoning and get slowed down the eagle or hawk comes down to feed on that and inadvertently ingest the lead that way. But by far, you know, when we're talking about raptors, specifically golden eagles out here in Wyoming or bald eagles, you know about 20 milligrams of lead is enough to make them sick or even to potentially kill them. And so that's just, you know, a grain of rice size and as the what that's what we're talking about in the gut pile that the birds are eating. You know, as that bullet mushrooms, whatever 80% weight retention it's that 20% that's a dust cloud in the lead in the of lead in the gut pile and that's what the eagles are feeding on. Yeah, that is so neat. And I'm actually going to run a video over our awesome looking faces right now, just showing from one of the videos you did the difference in the the gelatin with the copper bullet and the lead bullet. And it seems to me like there's, there's no argument unless you want a good bit more lead in your system and I'm thinking not gut pile here I'm thinking what you're eating, unless you have your salt shaker and pepper shaker and your lead shaker and you're adding some to your food anyway because you think it's good. If you're not that kind of person if you don't have a lead shaker, then why wouldn't you want to get every ounce of meat you can. Yeah, I'm glad you bring up that connection with with folks in our families and the meat we're bringing home you know I hunt because I'd love to bring home clean meat to my family. And, you know, we also provide a service we do a meat donation day for to connect hunters to our community. We also help with the hunters for the hungry program and scanning all the meat that comes in that is donated through that facility. And I personally have x-rayed about 5000 pounds of donated game meat which is phenomenal like I am so excited that our hunting community is helping our, you know, non hunting community with that awesome protein source. But unfortunately about 20% does have lead fragments in it so we know that if you're using lead bullets about 20% of your ground can have lead in it and I don't want to be alarmist. I want to be realistic it is not going to cause lead poisoning in anybody it's not going to send anybody to the hospital like it's not an alarmist thing it's just one of those you have an option to have cleaner meat. Let's take it and there's less blood bloodshot and less meat loss so that's just a bonus on that aspect in my book. Yeah, and so since I'm not a hunter I only buy target ammunition and I'm not familiar with pricing and I don't want to put you on the spot I know you're not an ammo dealer but you're a hunter. Can you give me an idea if I go down to the to the local store and I say just give me some good hunting ammo that expands well and it's led. What's that price compared to solid copper. I'm glad to bring up that kind of price comparison shepherd because it's it's a point that a lot of people talk about but has changed dramatically as availability and the technology of our ammunition has changed in the past 15 years to just like everything amp is you know there's good ammo and there's bad ammo and you know cheap ammo isn't necessarily good. You want to have good performing ammunition and so generally speaking for hunting calibers if you were going to go by not the bottom of the barrel but a decent round you're going to spend the same price if not a little bit more for lead than you would for copper now. That was not the case 10 years ago 10 years ago was almost twice as much for copper but because of availability in all the manufacturers having not led lines. Yeah it's it's And directly directly comparable if not cheaper to your good ammunition lines it'll be maybe a little bit more if you're buying you know some core locker you know you're kind of your base but you know theoretically I wouldn't want to be hunting with that anyways because I want the decent. You know the only thing that's touching the animal I want to make sure that's the good piece of performance that I have not necessarily my soft shell. Right well and as a target shooter I'm going to claim ignorance again here all I care about as far as terminal ballistics go is I want to hear a ding when it hits my metal target and when you're shooting a mammal you want to create a ton of damage or at least enough that if the shot isn't exactly perfect it's enough that it does do the job. How does copper with modern technology how does it perform to a really good top shelf lead included bullet are they same or is it better or is it slightly worse or how does that compare. Well on the performance side like everything it's a little bit nuanced and as a distance shooter like you are I think there's a lot to be said in how far your shot is when you're hunting. You know to be frank I think if you're a long distance shooter for hunting the performance of copper may not be what you want it to be because it's going to be slower at that further distance it may not have the expansion post you know 500 600 yards away. Which is also another reason why bands aren't good because the but the ballistics for long range shooters for rimfire ammunition isn't quite there yet for a full on you know everybody needs to use it so let's just be realistic and know that there's limitations to every tool that's out there. But generally speaking if you're going to shoot a big game animal at 400 yards or less the performance is going to be outstanding. It's going to be you're not going to notice a difference it's all about shop placement but the knockdown power is actually a little bit better than copper than lead because copper doesn't lose that mass. And you know we go back to our high school physics class force equals mass times acceleration. So if you've got the same acceleration and you've got that you're holding that mass your force is going to be greater for that knockdown power. Okay yeah and speaking of long range hunting I'm opposed to it I'm going to be politically incorrect here and I'm going to tick off a bunch of long range hunters. But yeah I and I know this is a complete side note and it's not what we're talking about but I definitely wouldn't encourage anybody to go big game hunting beyond 400 yards. You know I go over to Rexburg sometimes and compete with these these excellent shooters there and we're shooting unknown distances from 100 yards out to 1500 yards and these guys are incredible they out shoot me I'm never even middle of the pack these guys are incredible. And I listened to them between shots and they're oh yeah I would never take a shot at an elk beyond 300 maybe 400 yards. I'm just not good enough shooter and I'm thinking these are some of the best shooters around the risk of just injuring something having to track it or just causing it a bunch of heartburner headache or whatever like that's yeah I don't think that's a I don't think lives are something to play with even though they're critters that we're harvesting. They can do it in a nice moral ethical way so yeah I just want to make clear I was not encouraging anybody to go long range hunting. Well I'm glad you bring that up I have a similar philosophy I I you know think of it as the fair chase philosophy and I think anything you know after that 400 yards isn't necessarily fair chase either you know if the animal doesn't even know you are in the area or could know it then I think that kind of falls outside that realm and frankly as a as a personal note like I'm right in that ballpark of I don't think anybody should be shooting more than 350 400 yards max. Yeah yeah um so another thing that I just I love about what you're doing your slogan is education not legislation and I look at laws from a you know kind of a political philosophy standpoint a law is basically a threat of violence. And if you do this thing the government says then we are going to use this kind of violence from you by taking money from you are putting you in a cage or whatever I hate laws I hate governments making laws. I just I like the rugged Wyoming individual attitude and I love that you guys aren't pushing anything in the legislature to make laws about this you're just saying hey y'all you want to be cool. And everybody so yeah it kind of does make sense to be cool and yeah it's going to be a few years until everybody's doing it but thank you by the way for not encouraging my neighbors the politicians to come after me and use force if I make a stupid choice I appreciate that. Well thank you. Yes as you mentioned our philosophy is education not legislation. I think nobody wants to be told what to do in this instance nobody needs to be told what to do. Hunters shooters we are conservationists we love being out in the woods and out in the wild because it's amazing and like I think just making that connection and just taking taking that piece of the equation out. Will get people on more on board the minute you know frankly I don't want to be told what to do either you know and I'm going to make ethical choices and I think I trust that you know everybody else that's out there hunting will as well and granted there's some bad problems that will happen regardless. But I think the more people understand why in the more people understand you know that this isn't about laws and regulations that's the important thing for me because it just doesn't work a you know the data show that you know the California is has low compliance because nobody wants to be told what to do they went way too far with their distribution to you can't even buy ammunition online in California which I think is you know absolutely ridiculous. But you know I think I'm more of a carrot than a stick kind of guy on all fronts. Yeah, I like that. Now the only hunting that I have done thus far has been on our ranch. We have our driveway destroyers called chisels or for my friends and family members in Utah pot guts. And those with a 22 I have never seen we have lots of raptors around I've never seen them swoop down into our yard and pick up a dead chiseler carcass and fly away. And I don't know the terminal ballistics if the bullet is passing right through. Do you recommend that when shooting little varmints like that or somebody's going out groundhog shooting in South Dakota or whatever that they use lead free there as well. Yeah, so on the farm and aspect I've actually done some personal studies with golden eagles and peruginous hawks out in northeastern Wyoming powder river basin Thunder basin National grasslands area. So in those kind of open landscapes, and I'm not sure kind of what the ranch looks like where you're at but there is it is like a dinner bell for a lot of raptors of, you know, as they're hearing the shots they're going to come over and pick up those shot very dogs and ground squirrels and whatnot. And I've taken a bunch in I've x-rayed them I've actually digested them pulled a little lead fragments out and match the lead isotope ratios from within the prairie dogs to the nestling hawks and eagles in the area. So it does transfer that the 22s and the, you know, 17s they they will fragment just like the big game rifle bullets do the challenge, the bigger issue is just like humans. If young developing brains eat lead there's much a higher a much higher risk of the developmental issues behavioral issues down the road. So it's actually while it's less lead that's on the landscape, it could be a higher risk because it's going to the nestling eagles instead of the adult eagles during the winter. So what I recommend is, you know, I've used a lot of the non led 22s. Yeah, it's okay. They are those are way more expensive. So generally what I recommend is, you know, maybe just pick them up. You know the ones that don't go back down in the hole, you know those are going to get eaten by their friends which is a whole other gross can of worms but you know if you just got a bag and just can pick a few up. I think that's that's a that's a great solution and maintaining kind of the status quo on what people need to do on their ranches. Okay, that sounds good, or I guess you just step up in in caliber or muzzle velocity so that we know it's going to exit and not leave something there. I would imagine the 223 or something going through a chiseler isn't going to leave as much lead because it just zips right through solid core or something. Yeah, it'll leave less. It'll still leave some like 70 and HMRs will definitely leave a lot. I only looked at a couple 223 so I don't have that much data. But yeah anytime you've got a lead core it's going to have some fragmentation but I think it's all a degree right if you can make steps that make something better. It's great that much better than doing nothing and I will advocate for that every single time. Yep, and dose makes poison and yeah it's an easy enough thing to not do. So Brian, what haven't I asked you today that I should have. That's a good question. I think you know one of the things I like to just showcase is that you know especially from the hunting community you know there are. We are in the minority of Americans right the most Americans don't hunt, but most Americans support hunting. And I think this is an opportunity for us also to put our best foot forward and say, hey, yes, we recognize this is an issue of the science is conclusive that eagles do ingest lead from hunting sources, and we're taking steps within our community to as opposed to ignoring it or pretending like it doesn't exist I think that kind of proactive approach will help maintain our support from the non hunting public which is important for me because you know we want to maintain hunting we want to maintain shooting for the next generations. And so you know reaching that and you know teaching it's easier to you know go out hunting my kids are seven and eight they were at the range with me the other day and they they start off knowing that we shoot not led when we're in the field. And so like, you know, we're not going to solve this tomorrow. This is, it's fine that's okay but if we can take steps in that right direction. And you're teaching the young next generation. Let's just start them off with this message so it's not a conversation point of we just it's a normal thing that we all kind of do and get behind, you know, as the years progress, building that community of folks to showcase that there is support for this is really important so we have memberships. And then we have ambassadors across almost all the states now, and then we have conservation partners for organizations. Okay, well, that sounds great. Thank you, Brian. And by the way, if anyone watching this thinks that I am being a useful idiot that Brian has this master plan. He's was at which finger is it Mr. Evil or whatever. If he has this big master plan to hurt hurt hunting, hurt shooters, etc, etc. Please write in the comments below a logical rational well put together argument. And we will check into it I will either I'll do my research and then confront Brian on it in a future episode, or just ask him, and we'll work it out somehow but I want to know as many true things as possible. And I want to not believe as many untrue things as possible. And in my search for truth, what I have seen so far. I'm believing Brian I'm thinking this is a good idea. Lead at the range and out long range target shooting and when you are hunting critters non lead makes good sense. Thank you Brian. Great. Thanks you shepherd I appreciate the conversation and yeah.