Caring about the future these days feels like it’s in short supply. Thinking about what happens to the world around us after we’re gone is even rarer. And doing good, leaving the world better...well, I can count on one hand the people who hope to do just that.
I don't mean to be all Eeyore, but if you turn the TV on, head online, or doomscroll social media, the world seems to be on fire and everyone still can't seem to see past their own short existences.
But Doug Duren, conservationist, humorist, Can-Am ambassador, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) evangelist, and regular guest within Steve Rinella’s MeatEater universe, is one of the people who actually give a shit about what happens next. And no, I don't mean about his own legacy—though I suspect that it will be great—but rather how he leaves the world once he's not a part of it anymore. How he hopes to leave it better for all.
And how the land we inhabit and utilize isn't actually ours; it's just our turn.
Duren owns a small farm in western Wisconsin, in a place called the Driftless Area. The name comes from the fact that during the last ice age, this part of the state remained relatively untouched by the glacial receding that flattened and carved the rest of its features.
As such, there are actual hills. Rock cliffs dot the landscape. Old-growth forests rise out of the agricultural fields that have been planted with wanton abandon. And the whole area feels very old-world. Duren's farm even has the quintessential Midwest red barn and silo.
The only giveaway that modernity has touched this area are the trio of Can-Am Defenders that Duren and his crew rely on. They're used to tend to the farm's needs, to harvest deer, and also to work in conjunction with the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on two things: Being examples of great private land stewards, as well as to combat one of the biggest biological issues of our lifetime: Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
On this last point, Duren has been at the forefront of the battle for the last decade. Yet, it's regarding the first point that Duren gave his now-famous quote, "It's not ours, it's just our turn."
Talk to Doug for more than a minute and you can hear echoes from where he gained his conservationist rigor: Aldo Leopold. For those unaware of Leopold, or who didn't take environmental biology in college, the man is held as one of the first true American conservationists. He helped to solidify the concept of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, and is also one of my favorite outdoor authors.
Duren, who gives out Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" to many a stranger and friend, speaks with the same gusto that Leopold did of the ethics behind ensuring there's something to return to for others down the proverbial road. He even gifted copies to my fellow writers who attended this Wisconsin trek; as for me, I had actually brought my own dog-eared copy along with me.
"I think the right thing is to be thinking not just about what my experience is, but what the future is as well," Duren tells me.
Then he adds, "And that's where my conservation mantra, 'It's not ours, it's just our turn' came from. And so, I learned that lesson here because I had a family who had this property for all these years and was well-managed. And, it just kind of became obvious to me that, you know, we're doing stuff for the future here, not just that we're honoring the past while we do things in the present, but to do the best we can for the future."
And so, thanks to his grandparents and parents both being good stewards, who were far ahead of the curve, Duren developed his own conservationist ethic—as well as his Sharing the Land project. Just as Leopold previously developed his own, which then led to the establishment of the Gila National Forest, among countless others.
"Sixty percent of all land in the United States is privately owned, and in certain regions, up to 95 percent of wildlife habitat, hunting grounds, and foraging areas are privately held," reads Sharing the Land's website, adding, "Recognizing a need to reconnect people with the land and with each other, Sharing the Land has designed a model to do just that. By connecting Landowners and Access Seekers through an exchange of services for access, Sharing the Land is building long-term connections that will share and protect our natural resources."
The idea behind Sharing the Land is simple: Promote good land stewardship through navigating the maze of environmental concerns of both owners and the state. This includes restoring forests and plains, helping with wildlife migration corridors, managing wildlife herds and herd health, as well as helping foster hunting access for a public that wants it. Most of all, it seeks to "underscor[e] the significance of preserving ecosystems and biodiversity for future generations."
And so Doug, along with his merry band of conservationists, manage the Duren farm in a way that provides an example of what good private land stewards can be.
As such, he's spoken to groups far and wide about the importance of thinking about the future, tending to a landscape's needs, being proactive stewards of the land we've been entrusted with bettering for future generations, and being mindful of how private land owners can work with state and federal agencies cooperatively.
Case in point: How Duren manages CWD across his farm's landscape.
For those unfamiliar, Chronic Wasting Disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which is caused by misfolded proteins (prions) within an animal's brain. It's similar to Mad Cow Disease.
CWD is spread through direct contact, watersheds and soil, and through fluids, resulting in symptoms within deer and elk populations that the Wisconsin DNR states include "no fear of humans, teeth grinding, notable weakness, drooping of head and ears, excessive thirst, difficulty swallowing, rough dull coat, walking in set patterns, nervousness, loss of coordination, excessive salivation, diminished tone of facial muscles, excessive urination, severe emaciation and dehydration and inability to stand."
It's worth noting that, at present, no deer/elk-to-human transmission has ever been recorded by any state agencies, nor by the United States Center for Disease Control.
However, CWD is affecting Wisconsin's white-tail deer population, as well as white-tail, mule deer, and elk herds across the United States and Canada. And while other diseases don't always kill a subject, CWD does. Every. Single. Time.
As such, though white-tail deer remain the best case study for the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation—going from near-extinction to the current most-hunted animal thanks to exponential population growth—that all has the potential to unravel thanks to CWD. That's why Duren manages his herd in the way he does, as well as preaching atop his pulpit about why testing—and sending off that testing to Wisconsin's DNR to analyze—is so important.
"That disease [CWD] was discovered here 22 years ago and since has become more and more prevalent and spread," Doug tells me, adding, "For 10-ish years, the DNR had a plan and a program in place to control it, including more aggressive hunting, being able to hunt with a gun on your own property or even on public land during earlier seasons like during the rut and all of that, liberal tags, which we still have, but also a thing called earn a buck where you had to shoot a doe before you could shoot a buck."
Those, however, were either struck down in the intervening years, or else hunters just didn't adopt those methods. And that's even with the fact that when you purchase a hunting license in Wisconsin, you get one buck tag, plus four doe tags, all for the low-low price of $100 for a non-resident. By comparison, my own resident buck tag in Utah was $46 and only included said buck. [No does, and we aren't talking OTC stay-awake medication.]
FWIW, actual Wisconsin residents get even better benefits and hunting privileges.
Duren took his particular stewardship approach to land management and, seeing CWD as the plague that it is, manages his herd differently than others around him. As such, it's based on more aggressive deer herd management, which includes more does taken off the landscape through his now annual Doe Derby. There's also strict testing for CWD done for every single deer taken off his farm.
Thanks to these tactics, combined with evangelizing to his neighbors about the importance of management and testing, the deer herd in his area is not only still healthy, but its prevalence of CWD hasn't risen, unlike other areas.
"Chronic wasting disease has an effect on the resource that, if left alone or not controlled, the prevalence increases, the disease spreads, and you'll see a younger herd because deer don't get as old and the population will decline, and that's what's beginning to happen around here south of us," Duren states. Then, he counters, "Here we still have a robust herd."
He tells our group, "We killed 47 deer on this property last year. The year before we killed 42. The year before that it was like 35. So, we're killing routinely half and two-thirds of the deer that are supposedly on here, yet every year we're able to do it again. Which tells me there were more deer in this area than that and nature abhors a vacuum. As soon as you make space, more deer move in."
And maintaining that herd is essential not just for hunters, but for the local ecosystems, too. Deer have an effect on forest management and growth, as well as the rest of the flora and fauna. Duren's management isn't just about maintaining a resource for hunters, but a resource for all, as well as the land he now shares with others.
Humans often forget that we're a part of the overall ecosystem. Despite the best intentions of environmental groups promoting preservation over conservation, our presence still has an effect that has to be managed. And while nature is pretty good at regulating things, stewardship is required to maintain healthy balances, both for wildlife and for us.
We have to do our part. It's our turn to take care of the land.
"If you take anything from this time here, it's that this group of people that's a part of this, my family and these other folks who are involved with our Sharing the Land cooperative, is that we're trying to do better for the land," Duren tells me, adding, "I mean, this is about an idea. It's not about me or anything. It's more about an idea of good stewardship, good conservation...and I like having people around too."
