Apparently, buying outdoor clothing now requires a political consultation. You arrive needing rain gear and discover that your judgment needs waterproofing.
Patagonia’s “Vote the Assholes Out” slogan leaves me wondering whether the company has considered the obvious complication: Customers might agree enthusiastically, then vote against Patagonia’s preferred candidates. Democracy can be terribly inconvenient when people insist on participating unsupervised.
Full disclosure: We produced a fly-fishing television series for about a decade that included Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. I found Yvon likable, interesting, and authentic. Some of his political views amazed me. How does somebody arrive there? Still, we could agree that a bonefish was a noble creature worth protecting, even when our preferred routes to protecting it differed.
I enjoyed that. An echo chamber makes a lousy fishing companion. Besides, I’ve never asked a bonefish for its position on immigration.
But somewhere between sharing a flats boat and selling fleece, the outdoor industry developed an unfortunate confusion about customer service. Apparently, making excellent equipment qualifies a company to tell customers which political concerns to abandon. Please consult the care label: Wash cold. Tumble dry. Reconsider your entire worldview.
Patagonia put its notorious slogan on shorts in 2020, saying it targeted politicians who disregard climate science. Its current voting project provides a separate initiative, explicitly open regardless of party or voting intention. Fair enough. But the old slogan still deserves an answer: Which assholes?
The politicians whose public-land proposals Patagonia opposes? What about those whose border policies I consider reckless? Those supporting male participation in women’s sports? Officials defending sanctuary policies while demanding further restrictions on lawful gun owners? Politicians trying to restrict hunting or weaken wildlife professionals' management authority?
A constitutional republic requires citizens to weigh competing priorities. Nobody assigned that responsibility to Ventura's marketing department.
I hunt public land. I give to conservation and evaluate conservation programs. I care about habitat, access, and wildlife. I also care about whether the country functions. The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres. Debating the management of that enormous estate should allow room for something more sophisticated than identifying the villain by the letter after his name.
Then there’s Jackson, Wyoming.
In August 2021, resort co-owner Jay Kemmerer co-hosted a House Freedom Caucus fundraiser featuring Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Mark Meadows. Patagonia subsequently stopped supplying Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s retail operations.
Imagine the inventory meeting: Plenty of jackets, but unfortunately the owner has been observed associating with unauthorized Republicans.
Patagonia had every right to end that relationship. Kemmerer had every right to participate in politics. Yet the company’s version of civic engagement apparently includes commercial consequences when a business partner engages incorrectly. Free expression, with an approved-vendor list.
Edward Abbey’s George Hayduke could scarcely improve on this, although Patagonia has made political monkey-wrenching considerably easier to expense.
It takes remarkable confidence to tell a conservation-minded customer that his concerns about crime, borders, or hunting rights rank below your corporate priorities. I wanted a pocket big enough for a fly box. Apparently, that was the wrong question.
I’m not predicting bankruptcy. Patagonia plainly has devoted customers. I wonder how many more customers might buy its gear if buying a jacket didn’t feel like financing a lecture on their moral deficiencies. That’s potential business nobody can count at the register.
Maybe change the slogan to “Vote the Worst Assholes Out.” Let citizens decide who qualifies. I could support that.
Until then, thanks for the reminder, Patagonia. I intend to vote the assholes out.
And I’ll buy my next jacket somewhere else.
– Chris Dorsey
Chris Dorsey is a Coloradan, 30-year media veteran, biologist, outdoor television producer and natural history filmmaker whose writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Forbes and dozens more national titles.
As antigun activists have continued their drive to severely restrict gun rights over the past several years, they’ve seemingly stepped on a rake of evidence that shows those efforts are severely misguided. In fact, waltzing through a yard full of rakes is a little more like it.
What’s been the result? Historically low crime, as in 125-year record lows. All while gun ownership has dramatically increased.
Through all of that, antigun, anti-Second Amendment activists have tried everything, including ineffective and misguided laws, off-book restrictions to penalize the firearm industry, defund the police policies, soft-on-crime prosecutors and a “new-ish” favorite — so-called “violence interrupter” programs.
New data reveals something they won’t like about their new shiny object in their fight against gun rights.
Interrupt At Your Own Risk
Violence interrupter programs began in the mid-1990s in Chicago, though these programs really took off and expanded in the last few years as anti-police, antigun activists sought “police reform” while at the same time blocking good citizens from their right to own and carry firearms to protect themselves, their families and their property. Interrupters were supposed to be in and among trouble-spot neighborhoods and be able to talk through criminal incidents with perpetrators to deter violence instead of calling police officers to the scene.
A new study by Johns Hopkins professor Daniel Webster and University of Maryland professor Joseph Richardson shows these programs made things worse.
“Using a spatial disaggregation approach, we first divided the [Washington, D.C.] into approximately 1500 equally sized hexagons and assigned their CVI (Community Violence Interruption program) status, then identified synthetic and matched control hexagons that had not yet or never received CVI treatment. Compared to synthetic control areas, we found that VII areas had significantly higher rates of firearm homicides (emphasis added), while CTS areas had somewhat but not significantly elevated rates of firearm homicides (emphasis again added),” the study revealed. VII stands for Violence Interruption Initiative, one of two D.C.-based programs, and CTS stands for the second, Cure The Streets.
In fact, part of the study actually found in one area of the city “there was roughly one additional firearm homicide a year per neighborhood where the program operated.”
For those following along, antigun defund the police activists advocate for stricter gun control laws that only penalize law-abiding citizens, push to cut law enforcement budgets, support prosecutors who pledge to go easy on criminals and then support police replacement “violence interruption” programs that put community members at a greater risk of violence.
Not Simply Numbers
The data speaks for itself but these aren’t just numbers in a spreadsheet. These are real innocent lives taken by those who have no regard for the innocent. And community members aren’t the only victims. The so-called “violence interrupters” themselves are often at great risk when trying to stop a crime.
Dante Barksdale served as the outreach coordinator for Baltimore’s Safe Streets violence interrupter program. In Jan. 2021, he was shot and killed in a courtyard at the Douglass Homes housing project.
Kenyell Wilson also worked in Baltimore as a Safe Streets violence interrupter in the Cherry Hill neighborhood for nearly nine years. He was fatally shot in July 2021.
A quick reminder that defund the police activists pushed the Baltimore City Council to enact a $22 million Baltimore Police Department budget cut in June 2022.
Clarence Venable was a trainee with Washington, D.C.’s Cure the Streets violence interruption program. He was shot and killed in Nov. 2019, shortly after finishing a training session at the program’s office.
In 2020, the Washington, D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety unanimously approved and the full council passed a budget that reduced the Metropolitan Police Department budget by more than $15 million.
Elections have consequences, as the saying goes.
The One Best Option
Criminal violence is a plague in all cities across the country. So-called “social justice” activists continue to try and hamstring law enforcement officials and law-abiding citizens in their efforts to just be safe. But criminals aren’t interested in safety and they aren’t interested in justice.
While these same activists push defund or reallocate policies on police departments, back soft-on-crime prosecutors and push for more taxpayer dollars for “violence interrupter” programs, law-abiding citizens have made their position clearly known — they will exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Nov. 3 is Election Day and in one week all law-abiding citizens need to recognize the stakes and the consequences facing them ahead. Citizens need to remember: Don’t Risk Your Rights® — #GUNVOTE®.
GPS collars cue cattle to stay within designated boundaries. This saves ranchers time and money. Photo: Halter
Kansas rancher Daniel Mushrush has tested virtual fencing on his family’s ranch in the Flint Hills for the past five years.
“It wasn’t very long before I was like, holy smokes, this is real. This is going to be something for us,” Mushrush says.
Virtual fencing is a high-tech way to address an age-old grazing challenge: how to move cattle most efficiently so they feed on the best grass.
The Mushrushes’ cattle now wear GPS collars that cue the animals to stay in a designated area. Daniel and his brother can draw a boundary on a computer or a phone, and move cattle without having to physically rearrange fences. They can also monitor animals’ whereabouts virtually from an app on their phone.
“We were able to address our labor and capital challenges in a pretty big way,” Mushrush notes. “We’re a family operation, and that’s a light way of saying that we are starved of human resources—we don’t have enough hours in the day.”
Finding Efficiencies And Maximizing Production With Virtual Fencing
Virtual fencing technology saves time and labor for ranchers. It can be cheaper than building or replacing fences.
It also gives more grazing flexibility and improves soil health and water resources by more easily rotating cattle between pastures or excluding them from sensitive landscapes. This boosts the agricultural operations’ overall productivity.
Wildlife benefit, too, since virtual fencing allows landowners to get rid of old fences that increase bird collisions or impede migrating big game. Conservation benefits of virtual fencing can include improved landscape connectivity, protection of sensitive areas, lower livestock predation risk, and increased control of livestock, according to research from WLFW’s migratory big game science advisor, Jerod Merkle.
“We have a variety of early adopters in Kansas who are recognizing the value of virtual fencing for managing their operations—not only from a herd health standpoint, but also from a grassland health standpoint,” says Dean Krehbiel, assistant state conservationist with Kansas NRCS.
From Satellites To Pasture—RAP’s Forage Data At Your Fingertips
The Mushrushes use collars from Halter, a virtual fencing company based in New Zealand that serves 3,500 customers worldwide with 1.5 million smart collars.
“Smart collars unlock massive potential for grazing,” says Toby Hurley, Halter’s director of product. “You can control grazing in places where physical fencing just isn’t a viable option, like on rocky terrain. With satellite technology, you literally put collars on your cows and you can use the system straight away.”
Daniel and Christine Mushrush use virtual fencing to save time and labor, maximizing their forage in Kansas’ Flint Hills. Photo: Halter
Halter is also integrating vegetation data from the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP) into its software to help ranchers make even more precise grazing decisions.
This free online mapping tool quickly shows how much forage an area produces, as well as how forage has changed over the past 40 years. It was developed by the USDA-NRCS Working Lands for Wildlife, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the University of Montana. This publicly funded dataset is powering innovations in the commercial sector, as well as helping agricultural producers with their operations.
“RAP is a really awesome tool for the United States,” says Hurley. “We’re trying to create leverage out of that forage data for ranchers looking to see how many cattle an area can support.”
For Daniel Mushrush, having historic and current forage data at his fingertips allows him to better respond to challenges like drought, or track how pastures are faring after different treatments like prescribed fire.
“I can look back and see at what point could I have hit the wean button or the de-stock button a little sooner to get ahead of the curve,” Mushrush says.
The Rangelands Analysis Platform shows forage productivity over time, which is helpful for making grazing decisions when paired with data from cattle’s GPS collars.
Ranchers’ Knowledge: The Most Valuable Asset
Technology will never replace the knowledge ranchers have built over generations. It can, however, reveal patterns in how the land is changing and how livestock are using the land. It’s the people on the ground who provide context for what those patterns mean for each individual operation.
“We’re taking ranchers’ leads,” Hurley says, regarding the company’s focus on developing technology that fits landowners’ needs.
For the Mushrush Ranches in Kansas, virtual fencing has helped “squeeze more value” from already productive rangelands, Daniel says.
“You’re going to be able to use the hours you have more efficiently,” says Daniel Mushrush. “Virtual fencing helps you use your land better.”
Walleye fishing is a big deal in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, particularly in the southwestern end of the peninsula.
Walleye make up nearly 80% of fish stocked in the region, which has a mix of lakes with natural reproduction, where walleye populations are stable or growing without stocking, and lakes where they’re stocked to help meet angler demand.
That’s why the region was selected for a new pilot technique, a parentage-based tagging for walleye stocking evaluation.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources staffers conducting a nighttime survey for walleye.
In 2025 and 2026, the technique was implemented in the area, funded through the Wilderness Shores Mitigation and Enhancement Fund. This new method for tagging stocked fish is more effective and cost-efficient than traditional approaches and will help fisheries managers better understand how stocking is or isn’t affecting the walleye populations in key lakes.
What is parentage-based tagging?
It’s kind of like Ancestry.com or 23andMe for fish.
Historically, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources used a different system that created a skeletal marking on the treated fish to evaluate stocking. This method involves treating fish with oxytetracycline (referred to as OTC), a chemical that leaves a visible mark on the otolith, the bone inside the ear of a fish.
After a fish is stocked, it may be captured later that fall or the following year by DNR staff, who then examine all fish collected for evidence of an OTC mark to help determine how many stocked fish survived.
Checking for this chemical marker requires sacrificing the fish in order to view the otolith, and marks were not always easy to detect. The quality of the visible marks varied, and environmental factors could lead to degradation of the marks over time, making it more difficult to confirm whether a fish was from a hatchery or produced naturally.
Additionally, OTC marking is labor-intensive.
A tank filled with oxytetracycline treatment for walleye tagging.
Because OTC is an antibiotic, a prescription from a veterinarian is needed to use it to treat fish. Walleye fry needed to be marked three days after they hatch, so hatchery staff would have to keep the fry being marked separate from other fish, which could be hard to do with limited holding tank space.
During the chemical treatments, the walleye required monitoring from staff throughout the six-hour process, ensuring that the water temperature, oxygen and pH remained at appropriate levels for the young fish.
“Moving away from OTC reduces the workload for hatchery staff and removes some of the complications with tank space at the hatchery,” said Randy Espinoza, fish culture manager at Thompson State Fish Hatchery. “Since the fry are usually stocked only days after they’re hatched, spending additional time marking a portion of the young walleye introduced delays as staff sorted out which tanks of fish needed to be marked and which could immediately move out of the hatchery for stocking into ponds or area lakes.”
Parentage-based tagging, on the other hand, requires less work and is less invasive.
The fish does not need to be sacrificed to check its genetics, and no physical tags (which can be easily lost) are placed on the fish. Instead, it is all done with a small clip that is taken from a fin.
It starts with the adult walleye that are spawned to create offspring for stocking.
Hatching walleye fry at Thompson State Fish Hatchery in Schoolcraft County.
DNR staffers take a small fin clip from each of these broodstock (parent) fish and send them to Dr. Jared Homola’s lab at Michigan State University for analysis.
Once the offspring of broodstock are hatched, they can be stocked with no need for OTC treatment.
Later, when DNR surveys collect walleye from area lakes, the lab uses a small fin clip collected from each captured walleye to determine whether those fish came from broodstock parents.
If the genetics match, biologists can be certain it’s a stocked fish. If not, the fish was produced naturally in the system.
"Using genetics to evaluate stocking is a modern solution to a long-standing fisheries question: Which fish are succeeding, and how much are they contributing to future generations?" Homola said. “Genetics gives us a way to follow the story of stocked fish long after they leave the hatchery. The information we gain will help managers understand when stocking is working, when natural reproduction is carrying the fishery and how to best maintain excellent walleye fishing opportunities into the future.”
How was parentage-based tagging piloted?
To begin the process for the walleye stocking parentage-based tagging pilot, genetic samples were collected from Lake Michigan broodstock at Little Bay de Noc. Then, walleye were raised in the hatchery system, as usual.
Walleye fry stocking at Teal Lake in Negaunee in Marquette County in 2025.
Walleye leave the hatchery as fry (approximately 0.9 centimeters long) in the spring.
Some of them are stocked at this size, and some are placed in rearing ponds, where they grow into spring fingerlings (around 1.5 inches in length) before they’re stocked in local lakes.
In the fall, fisheries crews conduct surveys on stocked walleye lakes, electrofishing at nighttime. Walleye captured during the surveys had fin clips collected, ages were verified, and the clips were sent off to the lab for genetic analysis.
While in some waters, lots of walleye were sampled, in some lakes, the teams only captured a few fish during their efforts. This could indicate poor natural reproduction or low stocking success, but that is not necessarily the case.
Some lakes are harder to survey than others. Some have lots of woody debris or aquatic vegetation for fish to hide in along the shoreline, or steep dropoffs that allow fish to evade capture.
Further investigation of these lakes where few walleye were captured is needed to determine population levels and stocking results.
While the focus is presently on measuring stocking success at the juvenile stage, because genetics don’t change, over time, biologists will be able to test adult walleye in these waters and compare their genetic data to data collected in their year of hatching to see if stocked fish survived to adults.
What were the results?
Results of this pilot study confirmed some of what biologists expected, though there were also some surprises.
A Michigan Department of Natural Resources staffer is shown holding a captured walleye.
Lake Emily in Iron County, for example, is a lake currently stocked with walleye. Genetic results show that 96% of the Age 0 and Age 1 walleye were stocked fish, indicating that the stocking is having its intended effect there.
Hagerman Lake, also in Iron County, was a different story.
The lake was originally stocked with a strain of walleye from Lake Gogebic in the 1980s. After 1987, Hagerman Lake was regularly stocked with Bay de Noc-strain walleye until the early 2000s.
Based on traditional fisheries surveys, that stocking seemed to be working, as plenty of walleye were captured. The lake was stocked briefly from 2011 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2019, primarily due to angler demand.
As fisheries management best practices evolved, biologists suspected that stocking wasn’t having as much of an effect on the walleye population in Hagerman Lake as previously believed.
The genetic results, however, were striking.
Only 1.7% of the walleye population was related to the Bay de Noc-strain hatchery broodstock. The remaining 98.3% were related to the Lake Gogebic walleye, which had established strong natural reproduction in Hagerman Lake, now confirmed beginning in the 1980s.
Ottawa Lake in Iron County also had a low proportion of stocked walleye, with natural reproduction accounting for 94% of the walleye sampled.
Walleye on a measuring board.
Something interesting showed up in the Ottawa Lake genetics that differed from the other lakes studied.
While the fish had some genetic similarities to the Lake Gogebic strain that had been stocked there in the 80s, their genes had started to drift. If the trend continues, Ottawa Lake could come to contain a unique strain of walleye, genetically distinct from populations in Lake Gogebic or Little Bay de Noc.
What does this mean for future stocking and parentage-based tagging?
Fisheries management biologists will use information from parentage-based tagging to decide whether to continue stocking these lakes.
In waters where stocking is not contributing much to the walleye population, biologists may decide to stop stocking and focus resources elsewhere, where stocking is having a greater impact.
With a lean budget, this kind of calculation is more important than ever for the DNR to ensure that limited financial resources are being used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Given the success of the pilot effort, the DNR will be using the new tagging method statewide for evaluating walleye stocking. In the future, this may expand to stocking evaluations for other species as well.
Right now, the DNR’s use of parentage-based tagging is focused on stocking decisions, but it could be used to answer many other questions that fisheries managers have about fish populations.
Setup in Dr. Jared Homola’s laboratory, conducting parentage-based tagging analysis on walleye samples.
For example, the technique seems to demonstrate that, in settings with hatchery-reared fish or a lot of natural reproduction, there are often just a handful of successful parents who pass on their genes to the next generation.
Researchers could look at characteristics of parents with many surviving offspring to see what might be contributing to their reproductive success, whether that’s characteristics of the parents, like age or size, or something else entirely.
On Hagerman Lake, Lake Emily, Ottawa Lake and others in the U.P. and across the state, anglers are keen on catching their limit of walleye.
New techniques like parentage-based tagging can help the DNR manage walleye, ensuring that stocking, funded by anglers’ license fees, has the desired impact – more bites and more fishing opportunities.
