Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a Blitz podcast. I am your host. George Blitz, and I just wrapped up an amazing chat with Romy Swanson. We've been in contact with each other for a little over a year now. I've been following all the wonderful things he's done.

Speaker 1: 0:29

That time he moved from the Director of Conservation Strategy at the Audubon, texas, to his new post there at the Devil's River Conservancy where he is the Executive Director. We dive into those a little bit and a lot of really his history of all the organizations, councils he's been a part of. He's done so many amazing things. He's been appointed to the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Council by Governor Abbott. Here in Texas he has been a proponent and a voice for wildlife education, sustainability, conservation for all sorts of different critters and waterways. I mean there's been a lot that he's done.

Speaker 1: 1:07

We cover so much today and we talk about his new website, the podcast that he's got kicking as well, and what he plans to do with that and where he plans to build it. A lot of really great conversation. Romy is just a wonderful, wonderful individual, great gentleman, doing so much for the state of Texas and really, I think, an inspiration for many of the people that can, throughout the country, on all the things that he's done, what he's doing and the groups that he's a part of. So, without further ado, I hope you guys enjoy this wonderful conversation with Romy Swanson. Hey, romy, how are you doing today? Man, I'm doing great.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Thanks, George.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Dude, I'm so glad you're here. I've been wanting to have you on the podcast, I think when we first talked about it about a year ago, and just remember sitting there having a great chat on the phone and I was like, you know, we're going to do this one day. So here we are finally sitting down and, man, we got so many great things to cover. Obviously, you know just kind of to start, for most people may know you as the executive director for Devil's River Conservancy and obviously you've done work with Audubon Texas. You've done so many things here with so many different organizations and I kind of want to talk about all that. But, as always with a lot of my guests, I'd like to take it back to the beginning and talk about your origins in the outdoors. Why don't you talk about where you grew up and how you kind of developed this love for the wildlife and being out in the wild? Man?

Speaker 2: 2:32

Yeah, no, I'm happy to do so. I was, you know, a lot of folks know me as a, you know, a passionate Texan, and certainly I am. But I'm naturalized and not native, meaning I wasn't born in the state, and you know, a lot of us like to say that we got here just as fast as we could, and that certainly plays true for me. I was born in West Virginia, down the southwestern portion of the state, where, in Huntington that's where Marshall University is, if anybody's familiar with it, I was actually born on campus there. That's where my mom was going to college, all right, and grew up not too far away from there, on some somewhat rural land, in the heels and the foot deals there, and my first connection to nature was really, you know, I was, you know, blessed to be a part of this last generation where your parents pushed you outside and effectively said don't come home until it's dark, and which was just fine by me. We had a creek that flowed right by the property and we had some big open fields that were hay fields that also were lined in, you know, woods and stuff to kind of go get lost in, and that's where I found my very early connection to nature and wildlife. Just, you know, getting into that creek flipping rocks, seeing what I could find, being very excited to come home and share discoveries with my mom and my younger sister, and that really sort of played through through my early childhood.

Speaker 2: 4:09

I wasn't blessed with a ton of friends, we didn't live close to folks and we were very meager means growing up. So you know we didn't get to attend a lot of social activities. We did play a little sports and stuff, but really it was. You know, the creek was one of my best friends. In my bucket that I took with me and whatever I filled it filled it up with that day was was kind of it. My mom loves to tell a story about how she had to check the pants pockets before washing day because more likely than not there would be something in there a baby turtle, dried up frog. I mean, who knows how many animals I've killed not purposely as a child.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Scientific study.

Speaker 2: 4:55

Yeah, the investigation is all inquiry right. We moved to Texas to be with family, kind of getting away from some poor conditions in West Virginia. When I was 11 and immediately enrolled in a very small junior high near Bay City, texas, in Matagorda County, I lived in a town called Markham and that was a big farming community. So you know we were tucked in between a cornfield, a cotton pasture and a cow pasture at this very rural 2A at the time high school and you know, around that time I started getting more into girls and football and a little bit less into nature. However, one of my best friends that I've had since the day that I moved to Texas perhaps he shared with me that in high school I was although I was a, you know, pretty good athlete and you know lettered in floor sports or whatever, which is what a lot of people do at 2A high schools that I was one of the. I was the guy that would be running or practicing and would stop and admire a flower and bloom on the football field or a snail or whatever, and I didn't really realize that about myself until he shared that with me recently. You know, around a whiskey fireside chat and but I really, you know, got back into it whenever I found my direction in college. So, you know, I kind of graduated high school, entered into college. I kind of thought I maybe, you know, I was an athletic guy, maybe I'd be into sports, medicine, I'd always had a strong proclivity for science, looking at chemistry as a, as a potential major.

Speaker 2: 6:47

But in, and I bounced back and forth at Texas State University where I was going, kind of went for a semester, quit, went back later, quit. I finally, you know, after having a son during one of those periods or having a kid in one of those periods, realized I got to get, I got to get serious and you know I'm going to have to provide, you know, for my son and for myself and to be like a, you know, a real adult and contributing me for society. And but I was still kind of, you know, I was making good grades but I didn't have a great direction until one day I saw a sign that said, you know, the student chapter of wildlife society, come, come for free pizza and live animals. And I was like, well, I like, I like both of those things I'm in. And you know, what else are you doing on a Tuesday night. You know a college student and you know a parent and you know, taking things a bit more serious, it's a little older at this time too. But I went in there and I was blown away that not only was there a degree track for wildlife people, but that there was a number of jobs that you could likely get coming out with that degree. And I immediately changed my degree to to wildlife biology, and the rest was sort of kind of written in history.

Speaker 2: 8:10

I found confidence, interest, motivation, they all came together at a really critical point in my life. I had a great sort of support group, so my son and my son's mother and I, we, we, we parted. I mean we were made very friendly and co-parenting Christian my son, but at the time because it was so young, we would spend a very good amount of time with me and which is sort of challenging being kind of a, you know, part-time single parent in college. But I had a wonderful support system and because of that, because I successfully graduated, I decided to stay at Texas State and pursue a master's degree so that I had in my mind at least a couple of more years to figure this stuff out and a fun project to work on and and then I kept my support system while I had, you know, opportunities to spend time with my son.

Speaker 2: 9:08

Imagine moving to a new university, a new area, which a lot of folks do Pursuing their graduate degrees.

Speaker 2: 9:14

You know it might be difficult to to have those things work out. So, you know, working out greatly. I got. I got, you know, a master's degree in wildlife ecology, a lot of exposure. I had a fun graduate project looking at reptiles and amphibians and mammals over Palmetto State Park and the surrounding private lands. Learned how to, you know, conduct a design and conduct an investigative, scientific investigation, kind of be critical in thinking, tie land management to. You know the way populations have been flowed. You know peter in, peter out and it was just a really cool project and really I kind of I tell folks, you know that's the origin story and while again getting getting to this point was the was refining that childhood joy of nature, play and discovery and then incorporating it into a profession. And that was the spark that got me kind of to where I am today, which is not necessarily a direct line, but it's what created the foundation that allowed me to continue to pursue with passion all the things that I care about while receiving a paycheck to do it, which is really wonderful.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Yeah, well, let's talk about kind of that arc there and maybe that not direct line and those movements, because you've been involved with working, I mean in so many capacities so I guess maybe if you want to talk about the timeline of it too, but you've worked with different agencies and the idea of, like wildlife management, helping other properties and helping land trusts and different folks to be able to understand those different complexities of those systems and how to work with them. And I mean there's been so many different works that you've been working on a Conservancy Land Committee. I mean you look at the rolodex of the different groups you've been a part of and it's rather long and maybe you can just kind of walk us through some of the things you've done, because you spent some time at different ones for sometimes two, three years since and then obviously kind of landed where you are now. But let's walk through kind of your timeline and where you've kind of got to be, where you are in your journey now.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Yeah Well, I'll say a lot of it started in graduate school because I needed to take a position to have some income, and I found an opportunity with a group here out of Central Texas it's called Platto Land and Wildlife, and I got hired on with them as a technician part time while I was in graduate school and when I graduated so that was in 2008. I graduated in December of 2009 and immediately jumped in Full time with them as a technician, but quickly transitioned over to the Wildlife Biology Division, which is more consulting work with private land owners, and so, for those that don't know, platto is a full service private land serving company that primarily deals with the 1D1 Wildlife Management Property Tax Evaluation here in Texas, and so it's a really niche company with a lot of expertise in designing management plans that fit your need to qualify and maintain that favorable property tax evaluation about, while also meeting goals for the land owner, ultimately with their land and land management. So I spent a lot of time cutting my teeth learning about 1D1 property tax evaluation you become a tax code expert in some ways, as much as you are a wildlife biologist and learning from landowners. I went from having an academic background a little bit of a research background. Now to actually learning how to work with people. And in Texas we know, with as much private lands that there is that if you want to accomplish meaningful things with land conservation, wildlife or water conservation, you're going to do it with the private landowners in mind, and so you learn to be fluent speaking, but probably more so in.

Speaker 2: 13:39

One of the best qualities that I learned in this part of the timeline is how to listen and that every landowner has something to teach you. And my inquisitive nature, I think, lends itself I'll share and admit, and I see this, I observe it a lot and hopefully folks transition out of it. You come out of school or you come out of some sort of training or you come out of your paradigm or background and all you want to do is project your expertise, your knowledge, and that's great. But realistically it's all academic and land and people are so different from individual or parcel to parcel that it's critically important to sort of listen and learn when to crank up this tool or promote that one, or when it's just best to kind of listen and let someone work through their rationale with you. And I got a lot of that. I mean I calculated, I spent almost eight years at Plateau Land and Wildlife before moving over to Hill Country Conservancy, the Land Trust, and in that eight years I probably worked on somewhere in the 250 to 400 different properties across the state and when I left I was pretty much the traveling biologist because I was the one that was most willing to just hop in the truck, go to South Texas and West Texas.

Speaker 2: 15:07

I was expert in Hill Country and Central Texas, but you've been to West Texas Like you're going to fall in love with West Texas. You get out in those mountains. Same thing with the valley. The valley's got such these incredible conservation gems down there and some of the best remaining habitat is on those larger ranches in South Texas Some of the most interesting diversity or some of the best game and game management examples, of course. So that was an extension of an education for me. But what happened with that is that a lot of.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Because you're working for a consulting group and a for-profit sector, I learned that relationships are so important, but a lot of these relationships I would characterize as a single-serve. We went there, we did a job. We didn't quite have a relationship most of the time and I was becoming way more interested and I was exploring what my foundational principles were and I learned through reading and experience that I wanted to have longer, more durable relationships and have what I believe would be more meaningful impacts on landscape-scale conservation in the state of Texas through private landowners. And that's when I started studying up on the Land Trust model, the conservation easement model, and did some research on that and I found out what I originally had thought was a rich man's tax shelter game is actually one of the most important tools in the US and Texas to accomplish long-term meaningful preservation of well-kept properties. And that's kind of how I got motivated to jump over to the Land Trust community and that's kind of the middle phase here.

Speaker 2: 17:12

I worked over there at Hill Country Conservancy here in Austin. We served six counties in Central Texas generally along the Colorado River Basin. Securing the Hill Country Conservancy exists primarily first to secure lands that serve as a recharge of the Barton Springs section of the Edwards Aquifer, and they've since expanded that service region to include water quality lands upstream of Austin, because the Colorado River is the primary drinking water source for Austinites, and so I spent almost three years there another incredible stint Working with private landowners. We closed a few thousand acres worth of conservation easements in half a dozen projects over those years. And then even after I left, they were because it's lead generation and working through a year to year negotiation of terms because this is a legal instrument and then you close the deal. So some deals were still being closed even after two or three years after I left. That I had my finger put on.

Speaker 2: 18:28

And just to help the audience a little bit, a conservation easement is a legal instrument that a land trust typically a land trust can be a municipality or an agency use with a landowner, a private landowner, and it's all voluntary. They draft up terms on how they want to protect that property and it runs with the title forever. So you sell your property, which is completely legal under a conservation easement. It runs with the title and so the terms of that legal document, which typically spells out that we're not going to limit subdivision, we're going to limit development.

Speaker 2: 19:12

In the previous cover You're typically maintaining all of your other rights to hunt, farm, fish, camp, enjoy your property and its aesthetic values. What you're doing for the public benefit here is continue to assure that that property is available to produce food, fiber and water, clean air, beautiful views. I mean there's nothing like driving up 71 towards Mason during the spring, right, and seeing these beautiful views. Well, this instrument helps that and that's another public benefit is there are people that just go dry out Joy Rodin up that way to look at wildflowers.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Oh sure.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Anyway. So that was kind of the land trust, but like and that's almost a forever relationship between landowner, between the land trust, because the land trust continues to have obligations around monitoring the property to make sure that terms aren't broken and, if so, you know how to rectify. The landowners, or the land trust, are very good about being thoughtful and you know sometimes things happen unintentionally and you know technically a term's broken, but things can be remedied so easily with some communication and some thoughtful practice. So, like, it's not even a really heavy handed thing when you have a landowner that finds himself following a bit of foul of their own easement. So that's Hill Country Conservancy, which is a wonderful shop. I still love working with them. I sit on their land committee this day, even, you know, six years later after leaving, and I'm a part of a lot of their projects.

Speaker 2: 20:55

I was recruited away from Hill Country Conservancy by the National Audubon Society around 2018 to serve as their state director of conservation for Texas, and this is an organization that many people would probably recognize, not to be confused with the Audubon in Germany, the fast roadway or whatever. The Audubon Society is a bird conservation organization, international, huge. It's one of the big ones. It's as, like you know, almost as big as the nature of conservancy, which a lot of people recognize. I was brought in to take over their conservation services and delivery, strategic planning and elements of like that, and I spent almost five years there before getting a phone call about coming over to the Devils River Conservancy, which focuses its work on the river, the Devils River, and the lands within the basin, the landowners and the municipalities and the people, the communities that care about the river. So it feels like it's been ping pong balling along the way, but I've felt ever since, you know, I realized that I had some skills in some personality traits that were well suited to accomplishing some things in conservation, that you know, I would never miss an opportunity to do good work.

Speaker 2: 22:21

And Devils River Conservancy is a place that the Devils River in general is my top two favorite places in the state. You know there's the Davis Mountains and the Devils River, and it depends on if I wanna be wet or if I wanna be dry that day as to which one I'm gonna rank one or two, but it's those two that are to me, the most beautiful parts of the state, and there's lots of others. I'm just saying that these are for me. There's like those two, and then there's a lot of. There's a lot in the number two category because there's so many cool places, but that's kind of the arc from school profession. You know what. I've learned a little bit along the way and I can deep dive into any of that, but I feel like I probably should hush and let you have some words here.

Speaker 1: 23:13

No, this is great man. I think it's important to build up just kind of the idea of the resume and what you're doing, because you know you have become a voice that people are looking to to learn more about what they can do and be naturalists, conservationists here in the state. You know there's many examples of people that you and I have come across where we're learning from them, and I think you know you're at that stage where people are gonna be looking at you. I mean they already have and they're listening to you. Obviously you're getting tapped to run these organizations. I mean, and you've been appointed before to, you know, work with the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Council by Governor Abbott here in the state of Texas and I mean we were just kind of talking before recording stuff. You were just up at the Capitol there yesterday. Why don't we talk about kind of maybe what you got going there and what's happening there? Maybe, for people who aren't really familiar with the conservation council, maybe give us a little insight into what that is and the goals thereof.

Speaker 2: 24:10

Well, let's just first introduce the Texas Farm and Ranch Lands Conservation Easement Program. So this is a state funded program. It's been around for, you know, probably a little, almost 20 years now. It originated in the general land office and it wasn't a whole lot going on there, so there was a little bit of initial funding over there. They did a couple of deals while at the general land office but it was an underutilized thing. And about eight years ago the legislature and Texas Parks and Wildlife sort of agreed that you know, texas Parks and Wildlife is probably a good place to house this funded program because they have the expertise to review and to put together a review panel and a council that could scale the good work that had already been done. And the legislature began appropriating right at $2 million per biennium, so every two years we'd get a $2 million slug in that fund and the purpose of which is to was originally to help leverage federal dollars that exist in the farm bill and specifically through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program administered by the NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service. And what the Feds required was some sort of match, typically from your land trust, and the dollar amounts would be pretty significant and what you would find is a lot of municipalities, a lot of land trusts that were based around big metroplexes like Austin and San Antonio that had locally originating dollars for the purpose of buying conservation easements. Were those land trusts were successful leveraging the farm bill dollars. But you wouldn't see it as much on the rural sectors because you'd have to raise dollars to match and to leverage and then unlock those federal dollars. So this was a program that would provide funding for all those other land trusts across the state so that they could leverage those federal dollars with some state originating dollars. And that was the original idea and it's done great work. So over the last three cycles I've probably closed somewhere north of 20 projects and probably eking away at a hundred thousand acres probably not quite there yet, but a hundred thousand total acres. Maybe that maybe I'm being a bit too big, maybe it's more like 40,000 acres but meaningful parcels typically that are under a significant thread or have extremely important conservation values that aren't just wildlife, but this program is geared particularly towards preserving farming and ranching opportunities across the state and so that the TX Farm Ranch Lands Conservation program is administered by staff at Texas Parks and Wildlife but it's overseen by a council of 12 individuals and six of them are de facto, in that Sid Niller's a de facto member of our council because of his role as the head of the text department of agriculture. And then there's six appoints gubernatorial appointees.

Speaker 2: 27:38

And about three years ago I was called and said, hey, we're gonna need a representative of the land, the greater land trust and conservation community, to slot in here on the council. And I was like, well, hell, that sounds pretty cool. I'd be real happy to do it. I wasn't working for a land trust at the time so I didn't have a conflict of interest in that I may submit a project that we would consider, and then that process was very interesting. Being vetted by the governor's office is a tricky wicket and I'll be straight up man, I've shared some opinions on social media back when I was in college that I was nervous about because they said they do a pretty deep dive about things, and but I came through pretty clean because I remember around some point in my life I said I don't wanna be a person that lives their politics on and actually I don't wanna be hemmed in and categorized as a political this or that, and so that part of that sort of my nature was something that did allow me, because I had heard that there was a couple of folks that weren't qualified because there were liabilities for the governor's office, and that's one bit of advice. I mean, people are listening and I'm like, okay, we're talking about that. It was actionable. Anybody that's younger listening in your career, just be cognizant of what you're leaving out there, that one day might come back and sort of hurt you and be measured, because I didn't. It's one of the reasons I got a pretty dang cool job volunteer job you mentioned.

Speaker 2: 29:35

Yesterday I was up at the Capitol representing the Land Trust Community, devils River Conservancy, for a Lunch and Learn to talk about this particular program and how we have way more projects than we have funding to accomplish, how the state of Texas is losing a square mile of rural working lands every day and, as we're also watching, 1,200 people join us in Texas every day. So we're faced with immense challenges and we have this one little tiny tool and we have lots of tools, but this one is a very impactful tool that if the legislature saw the wisdom of investing more dollars 10 million, I mean we could spend a hundred million dollars and still not take care of the existing pipeline, but if we're going to get ahead of this and project balance, because a lot of people are moving here for the quality of life, it's not just be you know Texas is great but like they're going to come here and they're going to be crammed into a cookie cutter neighborhood like I am right now. You know their quality of life is going to be when they get to leave the neighborhood and the suburbs and then go out into the rural lands. But we got to have rural lands for those people to be able to go visit or own and manage. So that's the idea behind the conservation program.

Speaker 2: 31:01

And then, immediately after the lunch and learn with members and with their staff, I transitioned over to a training for, you know, the governor's appointees.

Speaker 2: 31:10

They do it once a year seminar training, kind of getting you familiar with your responsibilities but also you know how to be careful as you're navigating sometimes tricky things. I don't sit on a board where there's a lot of political concern, but some of these boards are. You can imagine people trying to influence the way you vote on things, the way you conduct meetings or influence other people, and so they want you to be very careful of that, which, to their credit, they did a really good job of explaining it. And then also I got to, you know, sit and see Governor Abbott, for you know, talk to us for about 20 minutes and you know, three rows away, I thought I was pretty well, I took a picture of the Senate's mom and she thought I was pretty cool for that and I, you know, not every day. I've seen him once, you know, rolling through one of the hallways at the Capitol, gave him a head nod.

Speaker 1: 32:03

He doesn't know who I am.

Speaker 2: 32:04

I mean, I worked with his staff of course. But you know, it's kind of cool to have a little bit of a connection to your state's leader.

Speaker 1: 32:11

So Absolutely Well, you know. That kind of begs the question too do you see yourself at any point in time having some political aspirations of any sort? I mean because you're and I ask that because I know that in a sense you are very involved with a lot of different agencies, different groups that you know. I feel like in a sense there is a kind of a political nature of that in a sort. So, like I was just curious, is there any way that that you've ever thought about kind of having something where you take another level of involvement, or are you happy with the chair you're sitting in now?

Speaker 2: 32:48

Let me tell you what. I don't know that I have have it in me right now. I have had this. I have thought about this, you know where, where I don't think I'm particularly special, but I do recognize that within me I have an agreeable personality. I seek to hear folks as much as I try to tell or speak to folks, and not always great at that. But I have this kind of rare combination of experiences, skills and personality traits that may lend themselves to being somewhat influential. Because we do, just like I said, go up to the Capitol when you're trying to educate staff members and members of the House and Senate and it's like you're spending so much time. It'd be so much easier if I had these relationships within the Capitol and pop into the office and say, hey, we're going to champion this bill and we'd really like to have your support on it if you need anything from us, because you're a little bit more of a trusted broker at that point we're coming in, we get to know some staff person typically and we have a fairly good relationship. Then we may have a good relationship with some of the members, but that's one of how many hundreds of state representatives there are and one of 60 or so senators. So right now, brother, I'm happy. I'm happy with where I'm at.

Speaker 2: 34:19

I have thought about it.

Speaker 2: 34:21

I thought maybe if I have something I'm going to complain about, it's time to kind of address it in a meaningful way.

Speaker 2: 34:30

But also, that's one place I do not have just a natural aspiration to get to. I have thought about running for some like water district boards that's kind of a local politics thing and I think that's where my headspace has been is that I get so frustrated with the back and forth from presidential election to presidential election about how we're going to look at everything from endangered species to waters of the US and like, can we just get some clarity, consistency, stop trying to pull and tug things and instead of being really frustrated it's like it's not going to matter. Ultimately they're going to decide. We have to adapt. I want to impact the local, meaningful local decisions. The state of Texas is probably about as far as I could envision having some influence, but here at the river authority level or the groundwater district, the county soil water and soil boards those types of things are probably way more appealing to me in the political world than a big office someday.

Speaker 1: 35:46

Yeah, well, those are fascinating too.

Speaker 1: 35:47

I kind of work within that industry so I'm very familiar with that kind of localized politics and definitely water infrastructure development.

Speaker 1: 35:56

There's so many things that are there and I think a big impact and I can see your heart and interest is the wildlife and obviously, having this habitat, this place for us to explore as Texans, and keeping things as pristine as we can and leaving them better for future generations, and I feel like that, those kind of cross thread from all the things you've done.

Speaker 1: 36:18

That one consistency that you can kind of read between those, even though they've jumped around, is your passion for really caring and protecting our environment and doing whatever you can to help bring funds in, protect watersheds, whatever it may be, because it's been jumping across some different boards there too. But that kind of brought me back to the idea of, as we've been talking over the last year and such too, and I've been informed about some of the things you've done there's been times where you've done outings, where you're teaching people about wildlife, whether it's maybe birding on the border, whether even during COVID you were doing virtual hikes and pointing out different types of flora and fauna and hey, this is this bird, and I mean you know we can bring it back recently to one of your kind of magnanimous viewings of it was the Mexican owl right.

Speaker 2: 37:13

Yeah, the Mexican owl.

Speaker 1: 37:14

That was amazing, man, just to hear you, because you and I were texting and you were like I heard one last night and then the next thing I see the next day. You were like I saw one and you have the picture, so it's like you got to hear it and then see it. You know why don't you talk to some of the listeners about maybe some of those things you've been involved in and your journey, about helping to teach and explore with others all the amazing things that our state has to offer?

Speaker 2: 37:42

I'm happy to, and that was another thing I learned about myself that I wasn't aware of until folks like you just now kind of shared with me like hey, you know, when you, when you made that post like that resonated with me for whatever reason, might have been something about a snake, and I started to receive and this was a power of social media Like again, no, no politics on social media I may kind of advocate for, you know, funding or this or the bill here or there, but you know it's really to me been a platform of sharing what we have that's so special, and particularly in Texas, and then touting the ultimate managers, the landowners, and their role in stewarding our wildlife. I mean, not everybody knows that wildlife is a public trust resource that you and I have a shared interest in every animal out there. We don't necessarily own it, but we also do, and but it's the landowners, typically with the 95% privately private land state, that are managing the habitat, and so we have this really crazy relationship due to that. You know, the landowners make the decisions on. You know what's going to happen on that piece of property that they own. That piece of property is where these animals that we all have an interest in, reside and thrive in many cases, and the storytelling and the relationships and the trips.

Speaker 2: 39:18

I try to focus on that. Even though it's a birding walk and people are there to learn how to use their binoculars or how to identify a cardinal and a bluebird and whatever else, when they go out with me they're going to get introduced to a whole wide breadth of things that they're going to interest in. And one of the funnest things that I do is I like to go have a talk with like an Audubon group, like a local chapter, and I like to man, if it's September, I like to talk about how I just got out of the field and shot a limited dove and you know we're going to have a great night and you can just kind of you can hear it in the room every clutch and pearls and then we get to have a really great conversation about Pittman, robertson and how sportsmen and sportswomen are meaningfully funding conservation for decades in the US and you know how hunters license fees are such a critical, important part of the funding mechanism for our state DNR Department of Natural Resources and Text Parks and Wildlife and that plays out across the US. We have this really beautiful model and what you know, and sometimes I like to kind of rub their nose in and be like what we don't have is a particular funding suite that came from that non-consumptive sector to accomplish the same thing.

Speaker 2: 40:44

You know, and I caveat that with in Texas, you know, there's numbers that would suggest that the economic, the local economic impacts from hunting and from non-consumptive ecotourism sources are about even. But the state, the Text Parks and Wildlife, wildlife Vision, is about 95% funded by sportsmen, sportswomen, and not particularly so by non-consumptive users. And then we talk about duck stamps and how they can have duck stamps, buying hunting license, just knowing that those dollars are going to be dedicated for these reasons. So I like, I like to kind of talk about all sorts of things in every offering that we provide, you know we go out there.

Speaker 2: 41:28

My wife and I are really pretty decent burgers and bird guides. We're going to find a lot of species and people are tickled pink by that, but they walk away typically with a good education. And we've also. We've done this for years now because in the early days as a as a dirtbag biologist you know we didn't have a lot of cheddar to pass out, right. So what we did have is time and a little bit of expertise, and we knew that the best impact that we could do, the best way we could support organizations that we cared about, was I couldn't write a thousand dollar check for every single one of them. What I could do is I could donate something and maybe they could raise some dollars off of it, and maybe that's a couple hundred dollars. That you know, and for me it's. I get to go out and point out bird share some stories. So we've done. We've done that with groups like Hill Country Alliance here in central Texas. I've supported Texas Tech University Student Chapter of Wildlife Society. I've supported Texas Chapter of Wildlife Society with trips like that, and we've done that with the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. That does really great work over there on the upper Gulf Coast.

Speaker 2: 42:36

And but reality is set in. Aaron and I, both developed in our careers, we're finding that we are taxed to the max within our nine to fives, which oftentimes turn from six to 11s, and that we don't have that sort of time. So we have to be way more selective. But at the same time, what those trips are being sold or auctioned off for, we're watching like it used to be, like oh, if you got two hundred dollars for one of these trips, romy donated, that was pretty good. And now we're watching I guess because of some brand recognition, some reputation, variety or whatever, we're watching some of these trips going for like fifteen hundred dollars and it's largely no different. Maybe people are just willing to open up their checks for cool opportunities, which is playing out true, but, like the, it's cool to see that the impact of that same offering has gone up, while at the same time we're not able to do as many of them. But we are now willing to write a five hundred dollar check every once in a while to a good group and maintain all of our memberships to all the land trust, texas Land Conservancy, twa's that we really care about and support and want to be supportive members of. So that's kind of where it's at Now. I've kind of moved over the last few years into like I really enjoy writing. That's where that social media has been, this outlet for some of those vignettes.

Speaker 2: 44:07

I developed an interest in a hobby in wildlife photography recently, particularly focusing on birds, reptiles and mammals, and I love to pair. You know, hey, I'm not a photographer by any stretch of imagination, I'm pretty amateur but I've gotten pretty decent. But I'm a person that knows how to use a camera, that spends enough time in the woods that when they find they'll occasionally find something cool and it's just worth sharing. And I, my best compliments have come back about not so much the photographs but the stories, the quick vignette that's shared about. You know what it meant to me and folks that I better, better in my circle. You know lessons learned.

Speaker 2: 44:49

And when you mentioned the Mexican spotted out at the top of this question, that was a bird I was aware of as it's a resident of Texas. It exists year round in the high elevation mountains of far west Texas, known from the Guadalupe's, known from the Davis Mountains. I spent years in the Davis Mountains looking for him. Haven't found him. A couple effort, a couple of times I put some effort over in the Guadalupe Mountains, not found him, and I'm not not like looking for him all the time, but when I'm there, you know, when I'm there, I'm going to keep an eye out for him and keeping an ear out. And so when I, when I finally found one, it was it just kind of was really cool to stop it really, after enjoying the bird, taking some pictures, stop and Two and a half mile, three mile hike out of the back country of the Guadalupi Mountains Wilderness back to where I, where I parked. I Was just sitting there and you think you that's what you do when you hike, as you think you clear your head and I was just thinking, like gosh, I've been kind of pursuing this animal for like 12 years and you know who was I when I first even became aware of the spotted. Now and then it's just it's a federally threatened species and it's so cool to me that we have them in Texas and these In these two mountain ranges that are protected, but protected in very different ways.

Speaker 2: 46:14

The Guadalupi Mountain National Park is a national park, protected since the 70s and available for all of our use, but the Davis Mountains are protected through conservation easements and those sacrifices that that Landowners, stewards, have made in in preserving intact their ranches, and Driven in large part by the nature conservancy, but equally in large part by by generous ranchers, and, and so those those birds are there represent you know two very different ways of protecting land and and then you think about your growth arc, like we talked about at the beginning of this conversation. You know who was I 12 years ago, who am I now, and and I'm just so thrilled that I walked away with a self realization and I've probably had lots of friends telling me that that you know what's. What's unique perhaps about me is that I lead with passion, kindness and enthusiasm, like it. It just that's the prevailing thing. And so when you can inject that somehow into your walks, into your writing, into your, into your videos or whatever, people hear it and Listen, and if people are listened, then they can learn and and so that's why I think it's really important to Be aware that those things are happening, even even when they're organic and somewhat natural for you as an individual, and then to Leverage it, because we we in this field need champions that can have influence and impact, because we've got a lot of people in the general Public and population that aren't thinking about these things and they're going to be on the fence and they don't know.

Speaker 2: 47:59

You don't know what to think or how to rank it in the order of all the things that they got to care about and so just being available, having some platform, and I don't have a huge amount of reach or anything, but the people that that know me are going to learn and they're probably going to tell other people and those people may come learn From me or they may learn, you know, through the telephone game. You know what, what we're doing, what we need and how, how we kind of maintain all of these incredible qualities of Texas that people love, which I think are largely driven by our land, our waters and our wildlife well, well said, man, and you know kind of talking about that idea of having a platform of, of where people can learn more.

Speaker 1: 48:45

You know you've got your social media channels and we'll tag those here in a minute, but you've got your website and you've got a podcast that now you're putting out. So now you have another level of Sharing and being a conduit to this information, of really helping to educate people and lighten them and entertain them as well Throughout the process, because you have that ability and I'm sure a lot of your guests will as well but to kind of shine the light on some of those things that maybe People are aware of or maybe they're not. So let's kind of talk about a little bit about what you want to accomplish with your Website, with your podcast, and maybe kind of just give people a little bit of 101 on on what they got coming, because these are kind of Something that's kind of been re you know. You know formatted with your your site You've had before, but you've kind of had a relaunch and things too. So let's maybe talk to people there, tell them where to go and and what you got kicking.

Speaker 2: 49:33

Yeah, so the website is gonna be kind of a future hub of all of my creative, creative Offerings, I suppose you could say, and that's the wwwmoderntexasnaturalistcom, and I've had that website for for a number of years. As there's two, there's been two iterations, there's about to be a third. The first one was a lot of fun. I learned, you know, I built that thing myself, so it was a hack job, but it was a great outlet for just writing blog posts, sharing Photographs from you know, this point-and-shoot camera I had, and telling it was the beginnings of telling these stories and I let that one fall apart.

Speaker 2: 50:13

I had, a couple of years ago, taken on a project, a passion project, where my I intended to find every reptile and amphibian in state Texas and photograph them and I wanted to share, you know, blog stories While doing that project in 2021, and so I had a friend and help me rebuild my website as an outlet, and then I never wrote anything. It was. It was just kind of like Gosh. I mean, I put a couple of things on there which actually turned into a magazine article for the text, parts of all that magazine about the project, but I wasn't consistent on it and that's that's the one that's still active right now, but because of you know, understanding, starting to understand the impacts of creativity and in injecting Learning into that creativity With social media. So I understand, like, okay, like man, I got it. I got it. I got to do some things. I have some some things tickling my mind. I wanted to do a podcast because it's guys like you and, like I mentioned earlier, ed Robertson's been a big inspiration for me with the mountains of praise podcast. Like I Want to highlight my peers and my colleagues across the state while investigating really interesting concepts and stories around wildlife conservation and management. And and so I started to realize like okay, this is going to keep bothering me until I do it, and I'll either realize that I don't have the bandwidth to be consistent to do it, but I won't know that until I actually try. And so I I am partnered with one of my really close friends, hope Boatwright, to rebuild my, my website for me and and we're working on the. You know the last edits for it. It's going to be an outlet for the, for the podcast, for my blog writing I want to close the newsletter on there for like relevant Texas wildlife news and and really I wanted to be a place for people to kind of come and find interesting stories, you know, provide practical guidance on where you can go to see things with, in how to be respectful of, you know, sensitive species or sensitive landscapes and, in particular, to be respectful of private property, so so that we're not encouraging folks to just kind of go out and do you know, not great things. So I want to, I want to project a lot of these sorts of things and I'm a dude that has such a Strange Venn diagram of networks.

Speaker 2: 52:50

I I both belong and don't belong to many. I'm a hunter, I'm an angler, but I don't know that my, my hook and bullet Friends are gonna, are gonna, just, you know, say like, yeah, I'll run me. Just another one of us good old boys, they probably would, you know, they might, you know, suggest that I'm a bit more. Had another friend tell me that I was a member of the Nuttenberry crowd. But I'll tell you that I go to my Nuttenberry crowd. The first thing I want to do is tell them about, you know, hunting doves and deer and everything else. And you know, like the clutch, the pearls talked earlier and then I've got. You know, I'm in this, in the water conservation and land conservation game. But, like all those things, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 2: 53:35

There's not very many of us where all these things sort of overlap, but we really do need all of these networks talking to one another, because doing good for one is going to do good for all and, as the saying says, the rising tide can't float all boats. And that's where I think my opportunity exists is that I do have all these different kind of networks. Whether or not I belong squarely in one or the other or not, it doesn't matter that I do have some influence and reputation amongst them. And so I can, you know, for the water crowd, look at it, look at a problem through a wildlife lens or its connection back to the land, and, you know, hopefully, you know, pull the curtain back a little bit for them to understand that too and think a little, you know, perhaps sometimes innovatively, or be aware of models that work in one system that could potentially be applied to another system. And but also, you know, it's self-serving.

Speaker 2: 54:47

I have a lot of joy from sharing stories from the field, from acquiring I mean, I'm a, I'm a heart of wildlife dirt bag, like I just am, like if I could live in a van down by the river and take pictures and walk trails every day in sustainable living.

Speaker 2: 55:09

I would probably do that and because my day job and a lot of my responsibilities as a husband and, you know, having owning a home and things like that, like all of these are ties keeping you out. That's why I, you know, I try to make sure that I preserve time to scratch the itch, which is always there, which is to be a dirt bag biologist. And you know being on the ground, staining my clothes, getting, you know, grass stains on the knees and being dirty and mucky and that's just the way it's going to kind of keep going. Folks get confused and think that that's my day job. It's not. I mean, I give up all the things that you do, that other people do after hours to go do this, you know, and I'm eating my own costs. A lot of times I'm sleeping on the ground because I can't afford to stay in a hotel every time I travel and I love it, I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 56:10

No, I mean that's, I'd be right there next to you, the camping spot or the river man. I mean, if we got to go and explore and do this all day long and it that's, that's like a dream, right. It's like, yeah, does somebody want to sponsor Romeo and George going around? And you know, yes, somebody does.

Speaker 2: 56:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:28

Right as in we'll, we'll do whatever paperwork.

Speaker 2: 56:30

Maybe even for a month. We'll do it.

Speaker 1: 56:32

Exactly you want. You need a, you need a book out of it. We can do that, that's right, we'll do. We'll do podcasts, but like that is, I think it's very important because when you're out there and you have that connection with the earth, when you're going and seeing all these amazing species and you're seeing all these beautiful places in the state I mean there's I brag about our state all the time when I talk about other folks and you know, oh yeah, texas, and it can be whatever it is they're going to say after that statement, but it's one of the most amazing landscapes, one of the most culturally diverse areas.

Speaker 1: 57:04

You know, as far as, like the environmental areas, there's so many amazing places to go explore. You mentioned, you know, some of your favorites there already, and there's so many that are yet to be discovered, by both of us, I'm sure, and species as well. And so that richness, that of kind of exploring that culture and seeing what we have as far as our resources here, can only lead to the paramount decision to want to make sure we're protecting them and that we are conserving these for other people to have these exact same experiences that you and I are, you know, talking about with such passion and vigor and, you know, desire to get out there and have more of it. You know, and people I've interviewed, it's the same thing, man. It's like we just we love this and if, yeah, if you could get paid for it every day, we'd be doing that and it wouldn't maybe be what we're doing in our day to day jobs. But I think what you're doing, and kind of what I'm doing in a sense, is what we're kind of being conduits for that information for other people to learn, explore, be educated and see what they can do to get out there and enjoy it and also leave it better for future generations.

Speaker 1: 58:09

As far as that kind of wrapping that into the you know. My final question here for you is, with all that you've done and all the things you've been a part of and your passions and your history here, I was curious about how you particularly viewed your own legacy in a professional and a personal setting. Obviously, you know fatherhood, being a husband, and you know family man in there too, but also in all the work that you've done, the organizations you've been a part of, still a part of boards you sit on and what is it that you look? How do you view your own legacy and what is it that you hope to leave behind? To buy your fingerprints in the mud here?

Speaker 2: 58:49

Yeah, thank you. That's, I mean, such a wonderful question and, you know, really kind of a hard one to grab with for a person that you know I'm only 42. I don't think tons about legacy, but if I was pursuing something that I wanted to be remembered for, it would probably be the message that we are a part of and not a part from nature. And I think that you know we there's a lot of writing about biofilia or this innate connection people have to the outdoors, and you know it's more intense than some, than others, but we, but it's it should be present in all of us and just to, kind of like, have the awareness that it exists and that our decisions ultimately impact the future. And you know your, your buddy and my friend, doug Durand, you know he says it very well you know what we have today is not necessarily ours, it's what we're borrowing from, from our future kids, grandkids and generations, and so that responsibility should resonate and I, I, just I really think it is the idea that we are all a part of and not a part from. And if I just really quick wrap, really quick story up with, that is, that's what I've loved about helping some helping folks, especially early career, mid-career individuals, connect to hunting and and which was what we do at the ranch I help manage over near Fredericksburg, is that those folks that have otherwise and didn't have any other way, didn't have a landowner connection.

Speaker 2: 1:00:38

They didn't have a dad or a grandmother that hunted that could take them out and giving them an opportunity to learn and to be a part of this drama out there in the world where you know, we have abundant game many cases over abundant and that game does need to be managed for the benefit of other species, even other game, and and in doing so we can provide a meal for your family and let you have your hands dirty being the predator that we have not, we've removed from the landscape.

Speaker 2: 1:01:14

It seems to resonate especially, you know, when you connect it to the food that you're eating. That's a patting my stomach here I think that that's one of my favorite groups and we're not hitting huge scales. But like a couple of dozen people at this point have been through our program with we partner with Texas Parks or Texas Wildlife Association's adult one to hunt program and seeing that light bulb moment for a lot of folks of you know, hey, I came here today, you know not not having a real strong connection to the land, and then I'm leaving with a belly full of venison and a you know, acting as a predator on a landscape, on a property that that is desiring to manage for conservation purposes and gains. I think it's beautiful, and more of that is the legacy that I hope to contribute to.

Speaker 1: 1:02:05

Oh, wonderful man, and thank you for all the things that you've done with that and with everything that you're a part of, man, I'm glad that there are people like you sitting in a position where you are and helping out others and being a an example, a guide. I'm in a friend and I can't wait to see all the different guests you have on your podcast, your website, as it builds. You know, I'm a huge photodork, so I'm going to be, you know, looking out for all the amazing pictures you take, because there's some incredible ones and all the videos you've done to um. It's educational, entertaining and just fun and all for, you know, I think, inspiring other people to take another step of involvement and awareness of what we have and what we're a part of. So, for those who are ready to um, follow in that journey again, if you wouldn't mind again throwing down your website, any socials you know Instagram, facebook, wherever you have where people can kind of, you know, tag in and learn more about that, and, uh, obviously, with the devil's verbal as well whatever.

Speaker 2: 1:03:05

Thank you Um. So my my website is wwwmoderntexasnaturalistcom. That's all one word. Um, you can find me on insta where I'm fairly active. Um, it's just my name, romy Swanson dot wildlife. That probably will change to modern Texas naturalists soon, and um, and then you know if you want to reach out via email. Uh, my work email devil's river conservancy is is Romy dot Swanson, and the spelling my name is R-O-M-E-Y dot Swanson, s-w-a-n-s-o-n, and that's at.

Speaker 2: 1:03:43

Uh devil's river conservancy, there's an S on devil's. It's not plural. Um, uh, I mean it is. It's written as if it's plural, it's not possessive, and our website is uh devil's river conservancy dot org. Um, and what I would encourage any of your listeners to do, since we didn't really deep dive into devil's river conservancies they go check out the website. Um, if you feel inclined and and passionate about uh the stewardship, management, protection of that incredible river and and and uh landscape, please consider joining uh the devil's river conservancy as a devil's river advocate. There's a membership program. It's $85 a year. It comes with a suite of of perks. Um, and reach out. Um. I love talking about the devil's river and maybe someday we can come back on and just do one on on the devil's river.

Speaker 1: 1:04:31

Yeah, no, I'd really like that.

Speaker 1: 1:04:32

And you know, for those who, again, definitely go check out the website, um, look at some of those photos.

Speaker 1: 1:04:38

You're going to find it's one of the most beautiful places you've ever seen, uh, the river.

Speaker 1: 1:04:43

It's like there's times you look like you're in some Bahamian world, with the turquoise, blue, amazing water, the vistas, and you know, there's a lot of organizations that are out to try to protect our waterways, our rivers here in Texas, um, and so, if there's one near you that you care to get involved with, we both encourage you to go and do whatever you can to put back and put some time and energy and effort and to learning what you can do, uh, locally as well, as you know, growing that regionally and throughout this state, cause there's a lot of great things we can do to be involved in. We have a wonderful state. Let's take care of it and let's pass it on to our future generations better than we found it. Romy, thank you for coming and joining. I look forward to our next time, cause this is just one of many times I get the feeling we're going to be chatting like this and, uh, we got to do this in person sometime soon as well.

Speaker 2: 1:05:28

Yeah, I love it. Thank you, brother, appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:05:30

Thank you, all right, you take care bud.