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Speaker 1: for more information on velvet Fest. My name is Clay Nukeleman.

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Speaker 1: I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll

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Speaker 1: also be your host into the world of hunting the

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Speaker 1: icon of North American wilderness bear. We'll talk about tactics,

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Speaker 1: gear conservation, but will also bring you into some of

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Speaker 1: the wildest country on the planet. Chasing Bear. On this

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Speaker 1: episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast, we're down in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma meeting with Jeff Ford of the Oklahoma Department of

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Speaker 1: Wildlife and we're talking the nitty gritty of bears. This

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Speaker 1: is a cool podcast because Jeff is a he's a biologist,

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Speaker 1: and he is a he's a he's pretty much the

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Speaker 1: man in Oklahoma when it comes to black bear. And

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Speaker 1: there's a fascinating story about Oklahoma black bear. It's a

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Speaker 1: fascinating hunting opportunities, but really it's a fascinating conservation story.

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Speaker 1: So we have a really interesting converse station where we

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Speaker 1: nerd out, absolutely nerd out about black bears. Super fun.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Ford has has become a good friend of mine

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Speaker 1: over the last several years as I've gotten to know him.

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Speaker 1: Because you have to check bears in, you actually have

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Speaker 1: to take the bear to the check station, and that's

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Speaker 1: how I met Jeff. Was the first year that I

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Speaker 1: harvested a bear in Oklahoma, I met Jeff Ford who

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Speaker 1: become friends. Since then, Jeff as a tradicial blow hunter

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Speaker 1: fun podcast. Hey, I want to bring to your attention

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Speaker 1: we just put up a very cool video on our

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Speaker 1: YouTube channel. I don't know if you're watching our YouTube

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Speaker 1: stuff that you should. We've got a new video called

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Speaker 1: Stalking and it's about my hunt in British Columbia's pretty

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Speaker 1: incredible video. A lot of really neat stocks stalking a

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Speaker 1: bear through a culvert and just it's a it's a

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Speaker 1: great video. It's up on the Bear Hunting Magazine YouTube channel.

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Speaker 1: To check it out. Below the videos, you're gonna see

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Speaker 1: a Bear Hunting Magazine store and it started to Spring

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Speaker 1: store and if you'll click on those you'll see a

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Speaker 1: wide variety of T shirts, swag stuff, phone covers, whatever,

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Speaker 1: all all kinds of stuff the Bear Tech says that

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Speaker 1: you can buy from our t Spring stores. To check

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Speaker 1: it out. Lastly, we are taking pre orders for the

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Speaker 1: Bare Horizon Season five DVD. So all our Bare Horizon

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Speaker 1: videos from any given year we make into a DVD

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Speaker 1: that you can give away to friends, that you can

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Speaker 1: give away as Christmas presence that you can watch at

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Speaker 1: your leisure. We have now five DVDs that we've made.

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Speaker 1: It's available at bear dash hunting dot com. Guys, check

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Speaker 1: out the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are fighting the

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Speaker 1: good fight for bear hunters and bear conservation out in

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Speaker 1: the Western United States. Check them out. This is a

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Speaker 1: membership driven organization. You become a member of the nonprofit

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Speaker 1: Western Bear Foundation and also get a subscription Bear Hunting Magazine.

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Speaker 1: Check them out and see what they're doing. There are

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Speaker 1: allies in the fight for preservation of hunting, bear, hunting, bears,

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Speaker 1: wild places. Good guys. Check them out now on the

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Speaker 1: southeast Oklahoma. Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We

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Speaker 1: are in Hodgen, Oklahoma today with with a good friend

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Speaker 1: of mine has become a good friend over the last

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Speaker 1: few years through checking bears. But uh, I'm with Jeff

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Speaker 1: Ford and I'll introduce him. I've also got the bear

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Speaker 1: tech Colby moorehead. Give him a give him a hello.

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Speaker 1: Just talking about how Colby doesn't say much. But uh,

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Speaker 1: now this is a this is gonna be I've been

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Speaker 1: looking forward to this conver station for a wild Jeff.

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Speaker 1: But so, Jeff is a You're a biologist with the Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma Department of Game of fish how long. We'll give

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Speaker 1: us a little bit of an introduction, Jeff, but my

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Speaker 1: initial question would be how long have you been working

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Speaker 1: with the department. I started full time with the Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: Department of Wildlife in nineteen I'd worked a couple of

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Speaker 1: years prior to that, just part time, and uh, opportunity

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Speaker 1: came up for a full time position, so I hopped

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Speaker 1: right in there as a biologist. As a boy, I

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Speaker 1: started as a wildlife technician, and I became a biologist

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Speaker 1: about thirteen years ago. Okay, okay, and you you're originally

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Speaker 1: from this area, Southeast Oklahoma, Yes, where I grew up

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Speaker 1: ten miles from here, spent spent my whole life in

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Speaker 1: Southeast Oklahoma. Yea, and a little personal background. You're a

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Speaker 1: traditional bow hunter, that's right. That's the to me, that's

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Speaker 1: the purest way to hunt. Yeah, and uh, I admit

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Speaker 1: I do grab across the bowl late deer season. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if I haven't put any meat on the table yet,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I like eating them way better and I

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Speaker 1: like missing them. So yeah, Well, we're looking at a

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Speaker 1: couple of nice Southeast Oklahoma white tails on the wall

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Speaker 1: right there, A couple of nice dere Yeah, I'm really blessed,

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Speaker 1: but have some good areas to hunt and and have

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Speaker 1: a little time in the fall, usually in December. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: to get out and chase them after bear seasons over.

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Speaker 1: So you are I want to get into you, but

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about the landscape, which I was

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Speaker 1: almost gonna jump into, kind of the landscape of where

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Speaker 1: we're at and whatnot. But you are. There's not an

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Speaker 1: official bear biologist of Oklahoma. Am I correct in saying

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Speaker 1: that's correct? But if there was one, it would probably

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Speaker 1: be you. Yes, sir, yes, if you can put it that. See,

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Speaker 1: in Arkansas we had well now it's a large carnivore

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Speaker 1: coordinator because now we have confirmed mountain lion sightings in Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: So it was there was a bear biologist quote unquote

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Speaker 1: that was over all the bear operations. Now his title

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Speaker 1: as large carnivore biologists. But so in Oklahoma, you're the

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Speaker 1: You're the bear man, right, I've you know, just living

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Speaker 1: in an area where we have most of the bear

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Speaker 1: that are in Oklahoma within forty miles of where we

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Speaker 1: are right now. And uh so, just I guess it's

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Speaker 1: it's fallen on me, you know, take care of the nuisance.

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Speaker 1: Bear in the hunting seasons that we have for bear

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Speaker 1: now we've had for the last ten years, we've had

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Speaker 1: a season. So so I'm responsible for what goes on

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Speaker 1: and keeping up with with the records. So to give

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Speaker 1: just a general would you, Jeff, give a general history

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Speaker 1: of Well, this is such a big box of cards here,

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Speaker 1: Where did these bears come from? And how long have

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Speaker 1: you guys been hunting them? Can we ask that question? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: We the bear that are here, we're the ones that

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Speaker 1: were part of relocated into UH southern Missouri and northern

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Speaker 1: Arkansas in the sixties, and it's taken them, you know,

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Speaker 1: that long to work their way down through the mountains

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Speaker 1: in and into here. We've we had our first confirmed

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Speaker 1: nuisance bear if we could call it a nuisance most

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Speaker 1: call it a problem bear around nineteen nine, and UH

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Speaker 1: we've year after year and a lot, depending on the weather,

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Speaker 1: you know, the sightings increased and and the problem number

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Speaker 1: of problem bears increased, UH usually related with drouth. And

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Speaker 1: UH we've had we started a hunting season. We decided

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Speaker 1: through research, We've done the research and UH projects and

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Speaker 1: we've been doing bear surveys since the early nineties and

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Speaker 1: UH we we decided ten years ago that we had

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Speaker 1: enough bear in southeast Oklahoma four further southeast counties to

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Speaker 1: have a bear season, and we started a bear season

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Speaker 1: in two thousand nine with a twenty bear quota, and

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Speaker 1: the first year the quota wasn't met. They almost got there.

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Speaker 1: This nineteen bear harvested and the second year hunting, everyone

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Speaker 1: was allowed to hunt with crossbows. It was legal legalized

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Speaker 1: in two thousand ten, and just so half in that

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Speaker 1: year was when there was a severe draft started. So

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Speaker 1: two thousand and ten bear season lasted one day. We

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Speaker 1: still had a quota quota, twenty bear quota, and they

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Speaker 1: harvested thirty two bear on the first day, so we

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Speaker 1: shut it down. We had a lot of Oklahoma's crossbows. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we had. Yeah, we we had a lot of hunters

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Speaker 1: that were upset because going from the data from the

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Speaker 1: previous year, uh, when only nineteen bear were harvested, they

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Speaker 1: thought they had plenty of time to hunt. And so

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Speaker 1: I mean I had people showing up out here ready

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Speaker 1: ring my neck. You know, I haven't even gone hunting

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Speaker 1: in it's over. So uh, two thousand and eleven rolled around,

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Speaker 1: the draft was still ongoing. Uh, bear season lasted two days.

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Speaker 1: Then we still had the twenty bear quota and they

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Speaker 1: harvested thirty one bear. And talking with other states, southern

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Speaker 1: states that have a black bear season, uh, they were

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Speaker 1: telling us that, you know, sometimes quotas work and sometimes

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Speaker 1: they don't. Normally, on a on a bad year, you'll

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Speaker 1: have a lot of bear harvested, bad weather wise and

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Speaker 1: food wise, and then on a good year, when there's

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Speaker 1: a lot, big large mass crop in the weather calls

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Speaker 1: off early and the bear slowed down in there there

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Speaker 1: full it'll go back down. And we've seen that. We

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Speaker 1: took the quota off after three years and uh and

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Speaker 1: and that year, uh, you know, all the hunters were happy,

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Speaker 1: they got to hunt all they wanted and the harvest

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Speaker 1: was up, but not where we were concerned. And since

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Speaker 1: then we've seen it. We've had a record year in

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Speaker 1: with eighty five bear harvested five so it went from

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Speaker 1: so you've had over since two thousand nine, and we're

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Speaker 1: coming into the tenth year of hunting bears in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: The harvest has been between nineteen and eighty five bears,

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Speaker 1: that's right, yeah, yeah, yearly. The fall of was our

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Speaker 1: tenth Yeah, and we've had a year in there where

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Speaker 1: they only harvested bear after the quota was taken off.

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Speaker 1: So and we've been seeing the bear. If you just

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Speaker 1: averaged our overall bear harvest's gonna be about fifty bear

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Speaker 1: year and you said it earlier, but they're current well

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Speaker 1: up until this year. And we can talk about the

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Speaker 1: regular st changes. But for the last ten years, there

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Speaker 1: has been four counties in southeast Oklahoma that were open

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Speaker 1: for bear hunting and it was it's legal to hunt

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Speaker 1: bear on private land in those counties over bait. So

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Speaker 1: that's been the method that's been the primary method of harvest.

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Speaker 1: That's the most successful way to harst is that you

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Speaker 1: guys wanted archery hunters hunting bear on private land and

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Speaker 1: using bait, and that was that was a methodology for

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Speaker 1: harvesting them. Yeah, that's we didn't see a problem with

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Speaker 1: letting people huntover bait on private On public hunting are

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Speaker 1: snow Clona that's managed by the department. There's no baiting

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Speaker 1: is allowed for any type of harvest wildlife. Well, and

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Speaker 1: we've talked about it so much even on this podcast.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't kill if there was no baiting in this

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Speaker 1: part of the state. I mean, just a handful of

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Speaker 1: bears would be killed every year. I mean, so it's

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Speaker 1: a management tool. It's a it's a management tool for

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Speaker 1: you guys that have the research, that have the science,

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Speaker 1: that have the knowledge of how many bears need to

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Speaker 1: be extracted. It's a management tool to be able to

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Speaker 1: do that right. And it allows hunters to observe the

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Speaker 1: bear before season gets here and they know what's coming in.

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Speaker 1: That's a good good thing about it. They can uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, our research bear all have ear tags, some

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Speaker 1: of them have callers, and we can talk about some

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Speaker 1: of the changes that's going on with that. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I have a lot of hunters who are you know,

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Speaker 1: are female bears that research bear pink ear tags and

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Speaker 1: so they know it's easy to tell that ear tag

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Speaker 1: and uh, and so they know it's a female if

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Speaker 1: they want to harvest. Some they're legal its harvest if

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Speaker 1: they want, but some people just don't want to. But uh,

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Speaker 1: even overbait. And you gotta know your bear hunters. Once

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Speaker 1: those acorns start falling, it gets really tough. So and

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Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons our harvest was up, you

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Speaker 1: know this year was you know, it stayed hot the

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Speaker 1: bear removing and there the acorns were gone relatively early,

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Speaker 1: so the bear kept coming to the bait. The weather

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Speaker 1: was right for the hunters. I mean it seems, you know,

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Speaker 1: everyone says, well, the animals aren't moving, but when it

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Speaker 1: gets cold and wet, the hunters quip for most part,

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Speaker 1: quit moving to and and so. But this year it

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Speaker 1: stayed warm, the hunters were active and the bears were active,

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Speaker 1: and uh had a lot of opportunity. We harvested a

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Speaker 1: lot of big boars this year, which was great because

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Speaker 1: that's our target animal there animal and so we haven't

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Speaker 1: got the ages back on the on on the bear yet, uh,

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Speaker 1: but we just from seeing the bear. We saw several

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Speaker 1: big boars three hundred fifty four hundred pounds. Then yours

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Speaker 1: was huge, and we then we had a I believe

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Speaker 1: it's six hundred and eight pound harvested and Pushman Tall County. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's a monster. Monster. People don't realize how big they get.

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Speaker 1: So to talk a little bit about so we've established

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Speaker 1: that there's been a bear season in Oklahoma for ten years.

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Speaker 1: The kind of the broader story of these bears, to me,

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Speaker 1: really it's fascinating and it is the it's it's a

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Speaker 1: hallmark story of the conservation efforts of hunters and biologists

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Speaker 1: really across the country for sure. But you know they

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Speaker 1: in Arkansas. They say that the reintroduction of Arkansas black bears,

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Speaker 1: which which happened between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty four,

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Speaker 1: they brought in two hundred and fifty four bears into Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: released them in three different places. The closest, which of

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Speaker 1: one of those places would have been Dry Creek over

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Speaker 1: in uh Yale and Scott County, I think in Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: which from right here would probably be close to fifty

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Speaker 1: sixty miles from here in Arkansas. So that would have

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Speaker 1: been the closest relocation place to where we're at right now,

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Speaker 1: and here fifties sixty years later, those bears are here

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Speaker 1: now and and and the reason being is because the

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Speaker 1: habitat for bears is excellent right here and and if

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Speaker 1: you looked at the topographic map of western Arkansas, you'd

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Speaker 1: see southwestern Arkansas. You'd see a block of east west

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Speaker 1: running ridges called the Washingtah Mountains spelled O U A

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Speaker 1: c H I t A looks like Oha cheetah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Renella says Oha cheetah uh um uh, but it's

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Speaker 1: pronounced Washingta with a W and. And we're the Washington

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Speaker 1: Mountains tail into southeast Oklahoma, and we're really in some

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Speaker 1: spectacular beautiful mountains under three thousand feet most of them. Um.

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Speaker 1: But that's why the bears are here, right, Jeff, I

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Speaker 1: mean just a habitat. It's perfect habitat from National Forest.

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Speaker 1: And that's where I was gonna go, sitting right here

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Speaker 1: in Hodgen that your office here, U Gaming Fish, Department

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Speaker 1: of Wildlife land here just about any direction you go

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Speaker 1: is gonna be National Forests two hundred and forty thousand

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Speaker 1: acres in the Floor County. Wow, isn't that much of

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Speaker 1: Washington National Forest? And then around the hundred hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty thousand in McCurtain County. And then you have timber

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Speaker 1: company land also and so and those are also a

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Speaker 1: couple of w MS we at least land from Warehouser

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Speaker 1: and a couple other timber companies. So there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of country that with without a lot of humans in here,

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Speaker 1: which there's lots of private land that's great habitat too.

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Speaker 1: So these four counties would have kind of been the hub,

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Speaker 1: but they're bear is way outside of these four counties.

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Speaker 1: That's correct, now that I don't have a ton of

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Speaker 1: insight into I mean, I've hunted. I alluded to it,

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Speaker 1: and some people might have known this, But I've hunted

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma the last four or five years, and I live

285
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Speaker 1: kind of in Arkansas, on the western edge of Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: So I feel like I'm home when I'm here in

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00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:36,000
Speaker 1: the Washtalls in Oklahoma, But really I don't. I don't

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Speaker 1: know this country that well. Further west of here, how

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00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:45,120
Speaker 1: big is the bear range? Jeff, Well, we've had bear

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Speaker 1: show up just south of Oklahoma City, which is two

291
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,200
Speaker 1: hundred miles west of here. Now they're not they're not

292
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Speaker 1: a resident bear in that area. When the draft was

293
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,919
Speaker 1: going real strong, you on, they were following those watershed

294
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Speaker 1: looking for food and staying on water. So uh, But

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00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 1: we have excellent habitat west of here too. Down just

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Speaker 1: say McAllister Calvin area. You can get on a map

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00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:16,399
Speaker 1: and look at that, and it starts getting in, It

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Speaker 1: starts running into cross timbers habitat, which black bear prefer

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Speaker 1: more of a heavily cross timber habitat. A cross timbers

300
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Speaker 1: is where you're looking at large tracks hundred sixty two

301
00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 1: hundred acre tracks or more of hamed is cattle pasture

302
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:42,800
Speaker 1: and then just hardwoods on the creeks in the fence rows.

303
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: And that's man man induced habitat. I mean, like when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about hundred six decres that like the blocks

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Speaker 1: that people were homestead in the timber off something cutting

306
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:59,199
Speaker 1: timber using it for cropland or or hay or cattle grazing.

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00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 1: In some of these areas. You know, the only timber

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Speaker 1: is in the ripe arian areas. Now does the cross timber?

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Speaker 1: I always thought that had to do with the short

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Speaker 1: stubby post oaks that they made cross ties out of.

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Speaker 1: Well that also, but it's considered cross timbers habitat, and

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Speaker 1: so yeah, you're looking does that does that word cross timbers?

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Speaker 1: Is that referring to the type of timber or the

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Speaker 1: mishmash of its crop and the habitat? Okay, okay, So anyway,

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Speaker 1: that's the bear or are in there, and we know

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Speaker 1: they're there, especially with everyone has trail cameras now on

317
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Speaker 1: there whatever their feeders out in the back forty or whatever.

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Speaker 1: So we're getting a lot of a lot of so

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Speaker 1: the bears would range almost all the way down to

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Speaker 1: the Texas border. That's right. Yeah, we've had them down

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Speaker 1: right on the Red River. I'll be done. And now

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Speaker 1: whether they're staying there year round her or not, but

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Speaker 1: some of the research bear you know that we've caught

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Speaker 1: right here, ten miles from my house. Once the mating

325
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Speaker 1: season is over, they go seventy miles west and right

326
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Speaker 1: on the edge of the Washingtall Highlands and they'll stay

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Speaker 1: there all summer, all fall. They'll don there and then

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Speaker 1: come back here during Tell me about that specific bear,

329
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Speaker 1: like just like where you don't have to give specifics

330
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Speaker 1: of the names of the places he was at, but

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Speaker 1: just like, because that's fascinating, and you've told me about

332
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Speaker 1: this before. But this bear, yeah, we uh caught this bear.

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Speaker 1: He was a problem bear eating cat food. You o,

334
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Speaker 1: lady just kept poor. You know, I don't know who

335
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Speaker 1: would think cat could eat ten pounds of cat food today,

336
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Speaker 1: But she's putting out that more and the typical you know,

337
00:22:56,119 --> 00:22:58,640
Speaker 1: she comes out one day and you know, the bear

338
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 1: is there, large war and she calls me in this

339
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: this bear was there and and you know we're busy

340
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 1: with nuisance baroness. But anyway, I it was on June

341
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 1: was the day that I called him. I remember that

342
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Speaker 1: day because a great friend of mine retired that day.

343
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Speaker 1: But I caught this bear on the six of June

344
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Speaker 1: and put her tags in him, you know, done the

345
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Speaker 1: whole thing, and and released him and him took him

346
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Speaker 1: miles away. Yeah, I took him down close to Broken

347
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:42,120
Speaker 1: Bow Lake to the war from here you're looking at

348
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: probably forty five miles. Took him away and released him

349
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Speaker 1: and released team. You know, even though you know a

350
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Speaker 1: lot of bear all, they come back normally, but once

351
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: we handle him and everything, you know, then they're they're

352
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:01,159
Speaker 1: pretty intelligent animal. You know, they'll they'll stay away from us.

353
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: So we released this bear and nine days later our

354
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: research team caught him in Daisy, Oklahoma. And you can

355
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 1: get on the map and look, that's probably sixty miles west.

356
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Speaker 1: As a crow flies he I mean, he from where

357
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: you dropped him off, from where I dropped him off.

358
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: He just hit got the mountains and went home and

359
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: stayed the rest of the summer there, Denned There we

360
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 1: went and worked in the den and the next spring

361
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: he came back and uh, we had a malfunction on

362
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: his collar. Last known location of him was a corn

363
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 1: Arkansas down near a Mina. Wow. So he went from

364
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: Daisy to Mina correct, Which how far is that sixty miles?

365
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Speaker 1: Would you say as a profes something. So in the

366
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Speaker 1: in the research that I've done with bears in Arkansas

367
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: are the research I've read in different things. You know,

368
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Speaker 1: they say there was a bear that was captured and

369
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: tagged in the central Ozarks, that was killed on the

370
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: interstate in Salasaw, Oklahoma, back in the nineties. I mean

371
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: it's back when that original research was being done. Yeah,

372
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: I still have that. We had that bear amounted. Now

373
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: he's in Yeah, he's in rough shape, but yeah, yeah,

374
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Speaker 1: we we took that bear. This is in the early

375
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Speaker 1: days of doing our bear programs. Some schools go education,

376
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: you know, how do what to do to keep bears

377
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 1: from staying in your yard there. They don't come there

378
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: because they like being around humans. They like what we

379
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: put out for them to eat. So this bear we

380
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: had he mounted life year was that Jeff. That was

381
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: probably ninety two or ninety three. That bear was a

382
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty six miles away from where they captured him.

383
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: That's what I remember from the research. And so he was.

384
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: So we had him mounted life size and we had it.

385
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,239
Speaker 1: We had it the taxidermist. We said, ask him if

386
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: he could build us something for this bear that we

387
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:31,640
Speaker 1: could bolting too, so we could haul him around the schools.

388
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 1: And he builds this huge platform four him with handles

389
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: on it, and so we'd throw him in the back

390
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: of the truck and just take off down the road

391
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 1: and boy, we'd get the looks three anything. No, we

392
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: we never uh. He was just the bear, just the

393
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: just the bear. Yeah, we we may have come up

394
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: with the nickname back then, but I'd rather not say

395
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: I don't. But but yeah, we used that bear in

396
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: a lot of schools and he just finally wore out.

397
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: We started his hide, you know, from riding in back.

398
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: The truck got dried and cracked and pieces come off,

399
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: and we'd go down and buy some like black throw

400
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: rugs and glue to the bald spots. But we got

401
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: we got a lot of mileage and a lot of

402
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: good education. Now that bear. Well, it's pretty amazing how

403
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 1: big these bear home ranges can be. And those would

404
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: probably be exceptions, but there it happens. Often what would

405
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: you say, average bear home range would be here in

406
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: the in the mountains there in Oklahoma. Do you have

407
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: any idea well on on the research that we've done

408
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: and with the collar the bear, you know, the a

409
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 1: boar may he may be ten miles in other direction

410
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: any time move around and during the mating season goal more. Uh.

411
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 1: Females normally stay pretty close within ter three miles of

412
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: where they're born, but a big boar, they get older,

413
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: will will range out. You told me one time that

414
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: you guys for us for some period of time you

415
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: were doing tissue samples from all the bears harvested or

416
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: from a lot of bears harvested, and they were doing

417
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: DNA sampling, and you would see that these females, they

418
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: were like family groups of females that were stretched out

419
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: in different areas of the mountains. That was pretty consistent. Yeah,

420
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: that's correct. And they would one just one family group

421
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: on one mountain five miles south of there, totally different

422
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: DNA string mitochondrial DNA just no relation at all. Is

423
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: far wow, you know, and and sometimes even even closer

424
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: than that. So these so what that is indicating was

425
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: that the females were staying close to their home range

426
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: of their mother and the males were just dispersing like crazy.

427
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: Is that that's correct. That's the natural way for for

428
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: a bear to do. The females stay close, even though

429
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: they won't tolerate each other, you know, unless they're both

430
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: on the same food source. But but even then, you know,

431
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: they wait their turn. But but then the males disperse,

432
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: and you know, the younger they are and the weaker

433
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: they are whatever, uh, you know, they just keep getting

434
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: kicked farther and farther away until they end up. You

435
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: suppose it probably what this big boar that was going

436
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: to Daisy every summer and spending all year. You know,

437
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: he was probably dispersed away from when he was a

438
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: young guy. And then even though he was large four

439
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: hundred pound bear, um, you know, he had come back

440
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: here during the mating season and go back home. How

441
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,479
Speaker 1: long did you have that collar on him? He did

442
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 1: that more than once, in I correct, a couple of years. Okay,

443
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we said that earlier, but it wasn't

444
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: just a one time deal. You caught him over here,

445
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: and then he went to say he did that multiple years.

446
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: And then the collar malfunctioned over in Arkansas and he's

447
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: probably still alive over that. Now, that was a big bear.

448
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 1: That was a large large How big do you think

449
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: he was when you caught him? Well, we weighed him

450
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: and he was four hundred and twenty six pounds in

451
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: un man. That's a five hundred plus pound bear in October. Yeah,

452
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: he's easily we've caught now this year we have it

453
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: on on our research lines. But we catch bear every

454
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: year this time of year, been or over five hundred

455
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: pounds and recapture this hang bear. Almost one bear we've

456
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: caught four years running. Just just a big guy and

457
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: uh and he lads lads of the hunters, you know,

458
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: and the big ones are smart. Man. Yeah, since we're

459
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: talking about bear weight, talk to me about the weights

460
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: of some of these big boars over here and and

461
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: even sALS like what give me a range of what

462
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: you're seeing with bear weights. Well, I'll start out with

463
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: the heaviest weights, since that's what everyone's here. Yeah. The

464
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: heaviest bear that I've handled was a problem bear that

465
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: I caught near Tallahina and he uh, he weighed seven

466
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Even now, you know what what we were

467
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: doing then and we can still do this is the

468
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: feed meal and heavener. We knew how much our trapped wade,

469
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: so we would catch a bear if it we thought

470
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: was more than five pounds or scales only went to five,

471
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: so we would run up there and get on their

472
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: truck scales and the yeah, unhooked from the trap, you'renna

473
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: pull our pickups off. We knew our trap was twelve

474
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: hundred pounds, just a big old heavy thing, but ye know,

475
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: so nineteen hundred pounds him and that trap filled that

476
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: culvert trap up. He did. He was laying on his

477
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: back when I pulled up. I'd never seen one do that,

478
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: and it was just because he was so big. He couldn't.

479
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: You know, they'll lay on their belly and put their

480
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: heads on their chins. He couldn't do that. He was

481
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:45,719
Speaker 1: too big. Oh boy, now you're gonna get me to guessing.

482
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: But that was probably five years ago, and I caught

483
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: him on Labor Day. Okay, so he's potentially still around.

484
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: Yeah he could, yeah, because he was a young bear.

485
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: He was actually when I washed the trap out, and

486
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: I didn't find it at first, uh in there, but

487
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: I found the ear tag where i'd caught that bear

488
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: three years earlier. Yeah, and I when the research started

489
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: going on, they were they were putting him in in

490
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: the right and the left ear. So I thought, well,

491
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: I with the nuise and sparre, I'll just put one

492
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: ear tag in in the right ears. And this was

493
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: your decision. You were the nobody. You were the only one.

494
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: I mean, you and maybe a couple of other biologists

495
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: around here, we're the ones trapping. We were, you know,

496
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: we were all doing that. So but anyway, when I

497
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: caught this bear and worked him up, have video of it,

498
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: actually of the release, and just because he was so huge.

499
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: And anyway, when I got back home and was watching

500
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: the trap out, I found the ear tag from where

501
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: i'd put one any where I'd caught him three years earlier.

502
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: Had some beehives over here on Poto Mountain. I'll be down.

503
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: And so this this bear was a five six year

504
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: old bear. Yea. And these these bears can live up

505
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: to years. Do you have much history on the I mean,

506
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: I guess you've only been doing bear research for about

507
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: ten years. Do you have any super old bears? I

508
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: know in Arkansas the research says that the oldest documented

509
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 1: bear at the time, and in the research in Arkansas,

510
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: it's kind of spotty, like there's not been this continual

511
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 1: research project. It's like they do research projects for sections

512
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: of time. But the oldest bear that they had ever

513
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,959
Speaker 1: recorded was like twenty three or twenty five year old.

514
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: Do you have any info on that? We the oldest

515
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: bear that we've had harvested was eighteen years old now

516
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 1: wed and that's from tooth tooth aging by annually cross

517
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: section of the two sent off to a lab. They

518
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: count the rings on that tooth like a tree basically.

519
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: And we had in two thousand, two thousand one or

520
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: first research project, Um, we'd tagged some bear and then

521
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: we've recaptured a female bear several times. Actually that's still

522
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: alive from that original research project, and she's twenty one

523
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: years old and she's still having cops having I guess

524
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 1: it would make sense inside of a new region where

525
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: the bears were repatriating like that, it wouldn't necessarily be

526
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: a super old age structure. But now they've been here

527
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: so long, it's starting to be an old age structure,

528
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: am I right? Yeah? And they're and they're healthy, and

529
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: they're like domestic animals similar as far as having babies

530
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: or reproducing, they all do it until they're till last

531
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: year or two of their life, and once they get

532
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: to where they can't produce young, they're so they're so

533
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: far gone usually by the end that they die pretty

534
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: que natural causes. So let's do some math on our

535
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: feet here. If that how old do you think that

536
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: bear was when y'all caught her? She's probably three or

537
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: four years three or four year old, Okay, So in

538
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: two thousand one she was three years old and she

539
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,839
Speaker 1: started having cubs. She pretty much had cubs every other

540
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: year until in twenty nineteen, say eighteen years cubs every

541
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: other year. That's nine litters. Yeah, and you know some

542
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: bear don't have bear every other year, even though they

543
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: can somen't go three four years sometimes they don't know

544
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 1: for what reason, but some some bears. Do you recall

545
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 1: that do you believe this bear? And I don't know

546
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: if you kept that much track on her. Did she

547
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: have well during those years in between two thousand one

548
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 1: and two, I was in thirteen. We didn't have research

549
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: project going. We don't know how many years she's had cups,

550
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: but since then, you know, every two years and this

551
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: did she ever have Do you recall if she ever

552
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: had as many as three cups. Three cups. Really she's

553
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: a good mama. So let's just say we could speculate

554
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 1: and say she had nine nine litters um and they

555
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: were as many as two or three cubs each, So

556
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 1: she could have had seven cubs, could have could probably maximum, Yeah,

557
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: she could have and and don't cut mortalities about thirty Okay,

558
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: about like whatitetail dere or you know, well white tailer

559
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: actually higher than that as far as fun mortality, but

560
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: they have a lot more predators after them. So but yeah,

561
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: so what what they say about bears is that you know,

562
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: when you're talking about when you're compared and the other

563
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: big game animals that that we hunt and use, you know,

564
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: white tail, a white tail doe can get pregnant her

565
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,439
Speaker 1: first year of life and immediately begin to reproduce. These

566
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 1: bears are not reaching sexual maturity till they're three years

567
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 1: old at least. And we're some of our harvest status shown.

568
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: These three year old female that are harvested have not

569
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 1: had a litter, and you know, so some of them maybe,

570
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: and again that is something that research hasn't figured out

571
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: why some go a little longer than others before typically

572
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: it might even be four years old before that. So

573
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: when you when you look at that from a a

574
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: recruitment standpoint of how much how many new bears are

575
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: on the landscape every year. If a female is born

576
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: and it's four years before she reproduces in the animal world,

577
00:38:54,680 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: that's that's a slow reproducing animal. But I heard, uh,

578
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: the Bara biologists in Arkansas, Myron Means, say this recently

579
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:10,839
Speaker 1: that they've really been amazed at the last ten years

580
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: in Arkansas how much Well there's there's sALS reproducing that

581
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: are young. I mean, like I think it's pretty common

582
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 1: for him to be three years old when they start

583
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: having large litters. And just how fast they actually can reproduce. Yeah,

584
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: when when there's plenty of food for them and uh

585
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: weather conditions are right, Yeah, they really really produce. Yeah,

586
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: and there's yeah, there's plenty of room out there. You

587
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 1: are bear uh populations even with the hunting seasons going on,

588
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: our our population still increasing that about six percent a

589
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 1: year in this in this area where the hunting seasons

590
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: are going on. Really, Now, that's that's I want to

591
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: dig into that right there, Jeff. Populations of the natural

592
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: natural population of hunt bears would increase by about ten

593
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: percent per year. Yeah, it showed around eleven percent here,

594
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: but you're talking about excellent habitat. Yeah, you know, in

595
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:19,320
Speaker 1: in eight months of the year at least with a

596
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: good food source. So even with us taking out ten

597
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: percent of the bears were still reproducing, reproducing at six percent.

598
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: So does that mean that the reproduction rate would have

599
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: been about seventu You may not follow my math there, Yeah,

600
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:40,919
Speaker 1: I don't, so, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah,

601
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,439
Speaker 1: we're still doing really so we're still increasing by six

602
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: percent despite us taking out all these bears. Is that

603
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: what you're saying? Yea, Our population isn't isn't being It's

604
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,879
Speaker 1: still growing. It's still growing. It despite us taking out

605
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: and you know, the world heard could be healthier, you

606
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 1: know when whenever you know, we're not overpopulated with bear

607
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: are Our studies show that there's still a lot of

608
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: room for expansion in this area for bear. There's food

609
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: sources unreal. So but anyway, still we're still our population

610
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: is increasing even with so really, even right here at

611
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: the probably the hub of some of the best bear habitat,

612
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: the population is not saturated the habitat. That's correct. That.

613
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:35,359
Speaker 1: That's that's surprising to me. Yeah, we're still in really

614
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 1: good shape. That's a good sign because there's a lot

615
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 1: of bears right here. Jeff Wynn told you this. We

616
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 1: saw a bear today. We did well to Kolby. This

617
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: is Kolby's first time you've driven through Southeast Oklahoma, but

618
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:50,400
Speaker 1: this is the first time we We came over here

619
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,440
Speaker 1: a few hours early and went to one of our

620
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: places where we bear hunt, and a few hours away

621
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: long ways from there. Don't get too far until this

622
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: until this year. You know, we're driving down the highway

623
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: and uh over there by the dumpsters, there was a

624
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: bear there at twelve was at twelve noon, it was

625
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: around there, you, I mean, it's hot. And I was

626
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: telling Cobe when we were pulling up close to there's

627
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: a there's a place where there's some trash barrels sometimes

628
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: a tract to bears, and uh, I said, I said,

629
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: this is a place where you can see a bear sometimes.

630
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: And I was gonna show him. Well, anyway, there was

631
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 1: a We pulled up and there was a bear standing

632
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: there were in the hot on the highway. Anyway, I said, man,

633
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: it's a good day in Southeast Oklahoma. And you see

634
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: a bear and I call it a shooter. It was

635
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,800
Speaker 1: a nice bear too. But you know, you can you

636
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,839
Speaker 1: could drive around in this country for weeks and never

637
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: see a bear. That's what's amazing to me. I mean,

638
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: this is densely forested. Most places in these mountains. If

639
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: you just got out of your truck or walked out

640
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: in the woods, you couldn't see more than forty yards

641
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,320
Speaker 1: like yeah, that's yeah during the summer. During the summer,

642
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:09,720
Speaker 1: that's stretching it even. Yeah. So the first twenty years

643
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: i worked for the Department of Wildlife, and I'd kept

644
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: up with the amount of bear I'd seen this hidden

645
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: caught counting our problem bears are the ones that was harvested.

646
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: But I'd seen nineteen bear in the wild just crossing

647
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: the roads, crossing the road. That's it. And I'm spending,

648
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: you know a lot of times forty hours a week

649
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: in the woods and live here. So and I have

650
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: until year before last, had never seen any bear in

651
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: the woods while I was hunting, and and jumped one

652
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 1: a mile from here. Yeah, you know, so that's that's

653
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 1: I want to stop right there, Jeff, that's crazy. What

654
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: what I mean, Jeff, is a is bow hunting a

655
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: lot around you, and some of your hunting this out

656
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: of probably the less sir, not in the heart of

657
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: the bear areas. But I mean, you just said you

658
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 1: hunted all these years and never saw a bear while

659
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: you were out actually hunting in the woods. It just

660
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: shows you how elusive they are because there's no shortage

661
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: of bears here. I mean a good bear density and

662
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:21,439
Speaker 1: and we could I want to ask you a question

663
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: about bear density and total population of bears. But as

664
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: much time as you've spent in the woods, you've not

665
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 1: seen And I would say the same thing about my

666
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: hunting growing up in the washed All mountains, you know,

667
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,439
Speaker 1: not far from here. Um, you can hunt your whole

668
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: life and never see a bear. Hunting in November October, November,

669
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: which is is the time when these bears are starting

670
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: to slow down their home, their ranges are starting to

671
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: to narrow down in preparation for dinning. So you know,

672
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 1: if you're in the deer, if you're just going rifle

673
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: deer hunting in Arkansas or Oklahoma, yeah, you're you're probably

674
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 1: not gonna see a bear. You could, but you're you know,

675
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: like right now through October is probably peak bear movement.

676
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: I mean, bears are you know, we just saw one

677
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: at twelve noon and eighty five degrees outside. But anyway,

678
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: I just think that's remarkable. It's remarkable how elusive they are. Yeah. Yeah,

679
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:13,800
Speaker 1: and you know what, I turkey hunt saw him in

680
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: the woods in the spring in the spring too, and

681
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: you know, squirrel hunt not as much as I used to.

682
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 1: But you know, you just a lot of people are amazed.

683
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: And I tell them, you know, even though you haven't

684
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: saw a bear, there's chance if you've been in the woods,

685
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: bears saw you. And I mean lud before you ever knew.

686
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: He was around a lot of people in the woods

687
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: in the fall. And you know, it's we just people

688
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: just don't report seeing them that often, you know, unless

689
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: the hunters. I've never seen a bear while a turkey

690
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: hunting in the in good Bear country in Arkansas. Uh

691
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: and even turkey down in Oklahoma last year or some

692
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:01,320
Speaker 1: never seen a bear. Watch again. Yeah, it seems like

693
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 1: you would, wouldn't it. Yeah, they're because, yeah, it seems

694
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,439
Speaker 1: like you would, because there's not a lot of food

695
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: then and they're definitely out first April there, most of

696
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,359
Speaker 1: them by the end, so it's just let's go back

697
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: to what I've said before. Do you guys have a

698
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: number that is you believe is a good estimation of

699
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 1: how many bears are in Oklahoma. With what we've done

700
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: with the research and then our capture release recapture, we're

701
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: looking at around eleven in southeast Oklahoma, Okay, And so that's, uh,

702
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 1: that's good math. There a good math lesson on bears

703
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: because if you want to stay but this is something

704
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: that bear managers talk about, if you want to stabilize

705
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: the bear population, you take out ten percent of the

706
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: bears per year because they increase by ten percent, and

707
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: so ten perent of eleven would be a hundred and

708
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: ten bears. So in theory, you could harvest hundred ten

709
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: bears and wouldn't affect the population. But we're harvesting a

710
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: lot less than that, correct. So that's why the I mean,

711
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: the population is still still growing. And it's not only

712
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 1: it's not only growing, it's expanding. I mean it's kind

713
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: of like a pouring water into a vast open space.

714
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 1: I mean it hits and spreads out. I mean it's

715
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: like there's a I mean, that's the way bear bear

716
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: distribution happens, right, Jeff, Like like bear pop bear begin

717
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: to get get pretty dense and good habitat and then

718
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 1: they begin to just fold out. Males begin to disperse

719
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: and gradually females begin to disperse. Secondly, is that correct?

720
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: We're in our far western areas that we tramp for

721
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 1: the research bear. It was several years before we caught

722
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:06,800
Speaker 1: a female in some of these areas we'd catch and

723
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 1: you know, and there's not a lot of bear in

724
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: the far west areas of where are bear where we

725
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: figure we have a bear population that stays are year round.

726
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 1: So we were catching seven or eight males and and

727
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: no females. And just the last couple of years we've

728
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: gone to catching a few females in those areas and

729
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: had a female dn UH in one of the areas

730
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:36,879
Speaker 1: and had cubs this year. Well, and that's a that's

731
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: a powerful sign of that the habitat is good. Would

732
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 1: you say? I mean it. It just means that it's working.

733
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 1: Mayors are spreading. They're starting to you know, when you

734
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: start seeing females show up in in Uh in the

735
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: Gulf coastal plaine of Arkansas, um like kind of where

736
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: the washing tolls stop the southern edge of the Washingtalls

737
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: and the you know, the net geographic feature they called

738
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: the Gulf Gulf coastal plane, which is kind of flat timberland.

739
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: I've got some buddies that have deer leases in the

740
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: northern part of that area, which just happens to be

741
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: the very southern edge of the bears. On week in

742
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: bait bears on private land. I've been keeping track of

743
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: this buddy mine and and for years they would put

744
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 1: out bait and they would get boars. That's all they

745
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: would get. They would never see a sole with a cub,

746
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: and just twenty miles north you would get sALS with

747
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: cubs all the time. Last year it was the first

748
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 1: year that he texted me and he said, finally got

749
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: a sow and and and to me, that showed what

750
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: was happening. That's kind of on the edge of the

751
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:49,840
Speaker 1: bear range and uh and and finally they're starting to

752
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 1: be they're starting to be resident, soals that must be

753
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: close rear and young. Yeah, she was. You know, it's

754
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:03,399
Speaker 1: just like a dominoes fallen or whatever ever what you want,

755
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: stair steps, you know, just finally they'll get in an

756
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: area and then those souths if they if they have

757
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,359
Speaker 1: three cubs, you know, there's pretty good chance to him

758
00:50:15,440 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: maybe females during that and uh, you know, because that's

759
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 1: just how God made him. Yea, if are he doesn't

760
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: have a lot of bears, you can have female cubs

761
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: and uh you know they'll then those cubs in three

762
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:33,879
Speaker 1: years will have cubs and you know, it just goes

763
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:38,399
Speaker 1: goes from there and then you know, usually if there's

764
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: one female in there, there's some more that you're just

765
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: not seeing. But but it does take several years, you know,

766
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,479
Speaker 1: the from what we've seen, it takes about eight years

767
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 1: for the females to catch up with the males. That

768
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: would that would almost line up perfectly with what my

769
00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: buddy saw with his just and obviously he wasn't doing

770
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: any research. He just was putting out he just putting

771
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: out a trail camera. But that's pretty amazing that what

772
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: what about bear density's Jeff right around here? Do you

773
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: have idea on like square mile that's kind of that's

774
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: a good figure that kind of somebody can understand like

775
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 1: how many bears per square mile? I would it would

776
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: be a good guess for me to that maybe something, yes, Sarah,

777
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 1: because those density numbers are you know, cause areas really trap.

778
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: It's it's hard to get a really accurate density number

779
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: in there because there's so many houses, yeah, in there,

780
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 1: So you probably need to talk with her about that. Well,

781
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,240
Speaker 1: I can relay the information that I know from research

782
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 1: done in Arkansas years ago. I mean it's old info,

783
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: but basically, you know, a bear per square mile in

784
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: the good areas was what it ended up being. But

785
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: that really isn't a real strong functional figure of how

786
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,239
Speaker 1: many bears there really would be there, because that's like

787
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: taking this massive geographic section and you know, barrel bear

788
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: home ranges are overlapping, and at any given time in

789
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:23,320
Speaker 1: a square mile there might be four or five bears.

790
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 1: But when you when you statistically run that out, you know,

791
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:30,720
Speaker 1: for the good bear habitat in Arkansas, they were saying,

792
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: basically a good bear density would be one bear per

793
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 1: square mile. You compare that to you know, guys, you

794
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 1: know we're white tail hunters too, you know, good white

795
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 1: tail density. What's that gonna be here in Oklahoma? Well,

796
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: on the national force, you're talking about maybe eight dear

797
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: per square mile. It didn't real hie, that's about to

798
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: encouraging yeah, so, uh, but on on other areas, you know,

799
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: you're looking at fifteen sixteen dear per square MILECA, so

800
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: it's a lot more or it's just yeah, are we

801
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: have such a mature forest under the floor county portion

802
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: that even though it's beautiful to look at, you know,

803
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: big trees open, you can see and that's why a

804
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: lot of people look for But we're at the sunlight

805
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 1: isn't hitting the ground. That's not going to support a

806
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:21,759
Speaker 1: lot of animals. Yeah, so you and do you think

807
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: these bears do better in the timberland like areas that

808
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: are being clear cut south of here? And that's that's

809
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: one of the reasons about your bear per square mile.

810
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:39,919
Speaker 1: When we're doing our research, it's during the best time

811
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:41,840
Speaker 1: of the year for bear to be up and moving,

812
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: and so they're congregating on food sources, whether it's uh,

813
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: someone who has feeders out year around. You know, some

814
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 1: of these people bring in just tons of food and

815
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:56,720
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of bear in that areas.

816
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: And then you go to a clear cut area where

817
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: there's just poke berryes, some blackberries and and everything. So

818
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: the bear numbers really, the bear really get concentrated on

819
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: these so yeah, so I couldn't. That's why, you know,

820
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,799
Speaker 1: as far as the bear for square mile thing, yeah,

821
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,800
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of its arbitrary number. And yeah. So

822
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: so something you did say that surprised me. I've heard

823
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: you say before was was that some of the more

824
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 1: denser areas are in the private timberland. Is that correct? Yeah,

825
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: and it's public hunting, but no no abating allowed in there.

826
00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just unreal the number of bear that

827
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 1: stay in those clear cuts all all spring, in all summer.

828
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 1: There's if just like all animals, if bear had to

829
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 1: depend on acorns to live, there wouldn't be any It

830
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't be any bear, there wouldn't be any deer if

831
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 1: that's all they had to have. And that's just a

832
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: short window they're in the fall when that food sources

833
00:54:58,680 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: available to bonus get acorn. Most oak trees average four

834
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: years with acorns out of every decade, so four out

835
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,919
Speaker 1: of ten years they'll have acorns six years they won't.

836
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 1: Just drought or too much rain in August. That's what

837
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: was the problem last year. Are trees were really loaded

838
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: and we had twelve inches rain in August and acorns

839
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: swoll up in the caps and quit raining and they

840
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: shrunk and fell out, so all the acorns were gone

841
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: by basically by the first second week in October. So

842
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 1: what's some food sources that these bears are using throughout

843
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: the year? Here, well, it in the spring and somewhere

844
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: they're on just forbes, everything greening green up early in

845
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 1: the year. And right now they're on berries. They've been

846
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:58,399
Speaker 1: on berries, all sorts of berries since the first of May.

847
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:04,480
Speaker 1: They'll stay there usually by fourth of July, middle of July,

848
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: all the blackberries are gone. Then they just then they

849
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: go to what I call scavenging. They're just ripping up rotten.

850
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: So the last berries are gonna be the uh gonna

851
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:18,479
Speaker 1: be the BlackBerry blackberries. When did the blueberries come out? Jeff?

852
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: Like rackleberries there's right now they're doing really good. Yeah,

853
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:28,439
Speaker 1: and the wild raspberries, you know, the black blackberries. I've

854
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: always heard and believe that the uh service or service

855
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: bearris was the first berry ripe in the spring. Is

856
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:42,359
Speaker 1: that that's what? Yeah, Everyone the bears eat those, they

857
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: do go through those. And right now there's also plums,

858
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:49,160
Speaker 1: you know, the chicken saw plums. There are those native

859
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:53,720
Speaker 1: trees really oh, those are those little thorny, small bushes,

860
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 1: little plum trees. Let me ask you something. You you

861
00:56:57,400 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 1: probably would know this the first native flowering tree in

862
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 1: this part of the country, it's going to be the

863
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: service berries. Is that the serviceberry in dogwood or the

864
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:13,320
Speaker 1: two earliest flowering trees? Okay? Now is the service berry

865
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: not the ones that you see flowering when the leaves

866
00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 1: aren't even out? Okay, Okay, that's what I've always heard,

867
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: the easy to pick up. Yeah. Yeah, Now there's a

868
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: lot of non native flowering pear trees around here that

869
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: you see in agricul along the roadways and stuff. And

870
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: because I tell the kids, hey, the first flowers that

871
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: you see are gonna be service berries. And but then

872
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 1: that's not always true because there's all these flowering pear

873
00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 1: trees along the road to which aren't native. But yeah,

874
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: in the mountains you're gonna see those. And then there's

875
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:49,800
Speaker 1: there's a So there's service berries, huckleberries or blueberries, blackberries,

876
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 1: wild raspberries, uh pawpaws which would come in the fall,

877
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: which is a big fruit. What other kind of berries

878
00:57:56,120 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: are there? Jeff, Well, there's uh gon dewberries. Now what's

879
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 1: to do? But I actually don't. Dow berry is actually

880
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: through what most people they call them blackberries, but actually

881
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: they're they get thorny bush. It's like a black like

882
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 1: a BlackBerry, and they'll be right around the first of June.

883
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 1: They're big, they're not very many seeds, okay in them.

884
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 1: And then there's uh, huckleberries like you mentioned, yeah and

885
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 1: uh and that's a that's a low bush around here.

886
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 1: We have the some type of using air quotes low

887
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: bush blueberry that's like eighteen to yeah, am I right?

888
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 1: And they do really good in areas that do get

889
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: a lot of sunlight, like on the south side of hills.

890
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: You'll notice if some fine big pine trees style, those

891
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 1: areas will just cover up with those real quick in

892
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: the bear really all wildlife go go in there in

893
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:58,919
Speaker 1: there for those and uh, but there's just a ton

894
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: of different kind of little berries growing out there. But

895
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 1: they'll they'll stay on the blackberries. They'll have those for

896
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 1: two months long and then they'll in towards the end

897
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: of July is when the poke berries will start getting ripe,

898
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,959
Speaker 1: and they really poke berries would typically be in regeneration

899
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:28,840
Speaker 1: areas like clear cut sides of roads right or the

900
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:33,160
Speaker 1: edges of mad is, you know, and everything you'll see

901
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:39,439
Speaker 1: them growing, and they really go after those and red yeah.

902
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 1: And after after that you'll start in the middle of August,

903
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: you'll start seeing some wild grapes, especially a high That's

904
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: why Talamina Drive is such a good place to drive

905
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 1: in the evenings or early morning if you want to

906
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 1: see a bear, because all the grapes. They're usually the

907
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 1: everything low in there is covered with grapes. On a

908
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: year that they make, they'll speak barrels and barrels of them.

909
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: And then what time of year did you say, early August?

910
01:00:08,040 --> 01:00:11,360
Speaker 1: The middle of August when we're doing our bear surveys

911
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:16,560
Speaker 1: is when we go to finding there grapes, so they're

912
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: they're really on them. Then they'll start on you know.

913
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: Shortly after that, some of the acorns will start casting

914
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 1: off and they'll climb trees. They'll climb trees and get them. Yeah.

915
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: So but usually you're you don't red oaks will go

916
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:39,640
Speaker 1: losing a few acorns, especially they'll be big and loaded,

917
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:42,840
Speaker 1: and they'll go to dropping a few in September. Then

918
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 1: then the white oaks, which is the preferred food source

919
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:48,880
Speaker 1: of fall wildlife out there in the fall and then

920
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:54,760
Speaker 1: then they'll have acorns through December usually so uh, you know,

921
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:58,320
Speaker 1: so you'll see our bear. The big boars or usually

922
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: stay active until around Thanksgiving, and you know, the more

923
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 1: calories they burn looking for food. If they're not finding

924
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: nfl going to den. Usually they go to den earlier

925
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 1: than the females. Females usually around New Year's before they're

926
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: going to Dan big boars to see. I would have

927
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 1: heard different. I would have heard that the boars would

928
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: have stayed out later. A four hundred pound bear needs

929
01:01:25,600 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: a lot more food than in one hundred pounds. That

930
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 1: makes sense, so um and our bears den based upon

931
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 1: food availability, correct, So if there's if food is scarce,

932
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 1: they go to bed earlier. Food is abundant, they stay

933
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 1: up and eat if the party. If the party's still gone,

934
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,880
Speaker 1: there's plenty of chips and sauce that they just stay up. Yeah,

935
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 1: areas people I know who keep game feeders up here

936
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 1: around Now all bear slow down, you know, but every

937
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: week or two they'll they'll have a bear come to

938
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: their feet. Are that then close bear they don't like,

939
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: even though they'll spend all summer right behind your house.

940
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,040
Speaker 1: When it comes to din and usually they like to

941
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 1: get out away from people, you know, where they're feeling

942
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 1: a little safer if they know, you know, they don't

943
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 1: all have a d n so just lay on the ground. Yeah. Wow,

944
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 1: that's something I'd like to talk to to the where

945
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: did these uh well, okay, there's a debate, and I've

946
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:33,479
Speaker 1: heard it's not a debate, it's just a different way

947
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 1: of categorizing what bears do. The typical like a kindergartener,

948
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: You say, does a bear hibernate? And they go, yeah,

949
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 1: bear hibernates, It goes to sleep in the winter. But

950
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: a bear doesn't really hibernate, It's correct. Tell me what

951
01:02:48,520 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 1: it does. Torpor. It called state of torpor. And there

952
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:59,400
Speaker 1: they sleep, but they don't hibernate. Their body temperature stays sane,

953
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 1: their heart eight stays. That's the definition of hibernations that

954
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:07,520
Speaker 1: the body temperature dramatically decreases in their heart rate. Like

955
01:03:07,880 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 1: and I've heard it said like a wood, like a

956
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 1: gopher that would go down in the ground. I mean

957
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 1: if you dug him out in the winter, I mean

958
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:18,400
Speaker 1: he would just be dang there. I mean you couldn't

959
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 1: hardly wake him up. They're barely alive. Yes, they have

960
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 1: to do that to survive, to keep from starving to death. Uh,

961
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:29,720
Speaker 1: you know. And and a bears is awake every time

962
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 1: we go to a DN, you know, they they know

963
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:35,560
Speaker 1: we're coming way before we get there, you know. And

964
01:03:36,000 --> 01:03:41,439
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, so they're they're just they're they're

965
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: not active, you know. So they're trying to maintain keep

966
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:49,320
Speaker 1: as many calories as they can during during that time

967
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:53,480
Speaker 1: because they're gonna stay inactive until it starts screening up,

968
01:03:53,600 --> 01:03:56,800
Speaker 1: whether that's the middle of March or the middle of April. Yeah,

969
01:03:57,280 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: So that is the most sinating thing about bears, and

970
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: I always default to it on this podcast talking about uh,

971
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 1: bear reproduction and bear denning. But it's such an amazing

972
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 1: biological strategy. I mean, just fascinating that they they you know,

973
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:20,320
Speaker 1: they eat groceries for eight to nine months a year

974
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: here all right, from let's just say they go to

975
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:26,480
Speaker 1: den around Thanksgiving first of December, and they're in the

976
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:29,800
Speaker 1: den till April. That's four months. So they get eight

977
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 1: months worth of groceries or a year's worth of groceries

978
01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: in eight months. And and that's they're eating. They're they're

979
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: they're storing up that fat. We uh hey, this is

980
01:04:41,760 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: this is a good place to uh. We brought you

981
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:48,200
Speaker 1: some bear fat Jeff, Oklahoma, bear fat from the bear

982
01:04:48,360 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 1: that I that I killed last year. We that big

983
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 1: bear we rendered down. Uh yeah, I get it out

984
01:04:55,200 --> 01:04:58,760
Speaker 1: your magazine. Yeah yeah, yeah, this is from that batch.

985
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:01,400
Speaker 1: But now you can to set this on the window

986
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 1: seal of the uh of the office there, Jeff, and

987
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:07,680
Speaker 1: forecast the weather or fry some fish in it. We

988
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: fried uh flathead catfish. Jeff. It that's incredible stuff right there.

989
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 1: Now you guys made bear uh well, you were telling

990
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 1: me how to make lye soap from fat from fat,

991
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: you know, we were using pork fat, beef and pork fat. Yeah,

992
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:28,560
Speaker 1: we've it's uh what we do around here, first couple

993
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:32,280
Speaker 1: of days of bear season, when you know, there's we're

994
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: busy working. But you know, yeah, we'll make some homemade

995
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:40,520
Speaker 1: lie soap. It's good. Yeah good. I gotta get in

996
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:42,360
Speaker 1: on some of that sometime when you are doing that.

997
01:05:42,440 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 1: I want to I want to use bear fat, well

998
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: safe safe something it uh you will sell how see

999
01:05:48,600 --> 01:05:51,080
Speaker 1: how it works, you know, because I'm I'm just gotta

1000
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 1: stand there and stirs, you know. So but the other guy,

1001
01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 1: uh from over on the Wister Wildlife managementary comes over.

1002
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:02,880
Speaker 1: He has the red spe we'll see. I talked to him.

1003
01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: You you hooked me up with him, and I tried

1004
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:09,640
Speaker 1: to follow his recipe and I didn't really like we're

1005
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:12,080
Speaker 1: trying to make lye soap, which have been like a

1006
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:14,880
Speaker 1: hard bar of soap. What I made ended up being

1007
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: more like shampoo. Like shampoo. It never it never fully solidified,

1008
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 1: so it was just kind of this gooey liquid. And uh,

1009
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:27,480
Speaker 1: you know, so anyway, I gotta perfect my recipe or

1010
01:06:27,760 --> 01:06:31,280
Speaker 1: I could start, you know, just making bare fat lye shampoo. Yeah,

1011
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 1: but you know we we have that problem. Well okay,

1012
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:39,720
Speaker 1: and then yeah, and when if it doesn't get solid,

1013
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: we turned fire back on and and boil it longer,

1014
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:46,520
Speaker 1: you know. And the the longer you you bowl it,

1015
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:49,840
Speaker 1: the darker it gets, you know. But it's it's good.

1016
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 1: We had some out one year and you know, you

1017
01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 1: just cut it into squares. We'd put it in a

1018
01:06:56,520 --> 01:07:00,760
Speaker 1: sheet pan and then cut up and I'd put money

1019
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: into it and just a little cookie tin like you

1020
01:07:05,320 --> 01:07:09,080
Speaker 1: get these Danish Christmas cookies in and had it set

1021
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: in in the office and we were having a meeting

1022
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:15,520
Speaker 1: around Christmas and one of the guys walked in and

1023
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:18,120
Speaker 1: grabbed a piece of that. I thought it was fudge,

1024
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 1: and yeah, he I don't know if he ever got that. Yeah,

1025
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:32,880
Speaker 1: he talked clean the rest of his life, so it

1026
01:07:33,040 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 1: probably cleaned him out head to toe. But yeah, I mean,

1027
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you don't walk into our office and just

1028
01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: grab something and think think it's addible anyway, you know.

1029
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 1: But because there's no talent, how long it may be

1030
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:51,840
Speaker 1: laying there, even if it was a piece of fudge.

1031
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:56,080
Speaker 1: I mean, looking at me, there's not a lot of

1032
01:07:56,120 --> 01:08:02,280
Speaker 1: food laying around. Oh that's funny. Well, Jeff, what would

1033
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: you to me these this population of bears is so special, Like,

1034
01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:12,560
Speaker 1: for real, I've been able to hunt all over North America,

1035
01:08:13,320 --> 01:08:17,799
Speaker 1: and I love hunting right here as much as anywhere

1036
01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 1: on the planet. And and part of that is because

1037
01:08:20,280 --> 01:08:22,680
Speaker 1: I feel like this is my home, and it is

1038
01:08:22,760 --> 01:08:25,880
Speaker 1: my home turf, I mean really in Arkansas, but you know,

1039
01:08:26,160 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 1: pretty much an extension over into these mountains, So that

1040
01:08:29,400 --> 01:08:31,160
Speaker 1: that's part of it. But the other part of it

1041
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:35,640
Speaker 1: is is, uh, I mean, there's some incredible there's some

1042
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 1: incredible bears over here. There's some incredible opportunity. But to me,

1043
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: the foundational coolness of it all is that this is

1044
01:08:44,800 --> 01:08:49,800
Speaker 1: an absolute success of modern conservation and hunting working together.

1045
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 1: I mean, there would not be bears here today because

1046
01:08:53,720 --> 01:08:56,639
Speaker 1: we didn't say it before, but this is native bear range.

1047
01:08:57,040 --> 01:08:59,840
Speaker 1: I mean, these bears came in from Arkansas from the

1048
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:02,639
Speaker 1: nighteen fifties and sixties and that reintroduction. We didn't say

1049
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:06,000
Speaker 1: that before, but I mean the bears were here natively

1050
01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:10,240
Speaker 1: long before white Europeans got here, and and and and

1051
01:09:10,360 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: they were extirpated because of landscape level logging and uh

1052
01:09:14,479 --> 01:09:17,680
Speaker 1: in in market hunting, which I always make clear has

1053
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,800
Speaker 1: nothing to do with modern hunting. I mean it's not

1054
01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 1: even we shouldn't even call it hunting what they were doing.

1055
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:26,479
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were farming for wildlife place,

1056
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:32,160
Speaker 1: they were earning, harvesting animals. And so so when we

1057
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:34,760
Speaker 1: come over here and we see a bear driving through

1058
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:37,600
Speaker 1: like we did today, man, that to me, that is

1059
01:09:37,640 --> 01:09:42,679
Speaker 1: a point of celebration that we've got these critters here,

1060
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:45,960
Speaker 1: And we wouldn't have those critters here if we didn't

1061
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:51,439
Speaker 1: have the incredible habitat in a million acres of public

1062
01:09:51,560 --> 01:09:54,720
Speaker 1: land right and even in these well, just in southeast Oklahoma.

1063
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 1: And I mean that goes back to another thing we

1064
01:09:57,120 --> 01:10:00,080
Speaker 1: talked about all the time, is that the pub the

1065
01:10:00,280 --> 01:10:02,800
Speaker 1: land that we have available to us as an incredible

1066
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:07,720
Speaker 1: feature of rural American living that most people on the

1067
01:10:07,800 --> 01:10:11,400
Speaker 1: planet in the history of humanity have not had access to.

1068
01:10:12,080 --> 01:10:15,040
Speaker 1: Is that vast amounts of public land where the wildlife

1069
01:10:15,120 --> 01:10:18,080
Speaker 1: there belongs to us, and we have if we can

1070
01:10:18,720 --> 01:10:21,360
Speaker 1: follow the rules, we get access to hunt this land.

1071
01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:27,280
Speaker 1: I mean, so this is a celebration of modern conservation, right. Yeah.

1072
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 1: These the bear have always been special to us who

1073
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 1: have worked with them in Oklahoma. It's uh. Making a

1074
01:10:34,240 --> 01:10:37,000
Speaker 1: decision to open a season on him was something that

1075
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:39,479
Speaker 1: you know, we just didn't get up one day and say, hey,

1076
01:10:39,880 --> 01:10:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's start a season. This was talked

1077
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:48,439
Speaker 1: about for years before, uh, even before the first research

1078
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:52,320
Speaker 1: project in two thousand, two thousand one. And then after

1079
01:10:52,479 --> 01:10:57,160
Speaker 1: that research project was over and we knew about where

1080
01:10:57,240 --> 01:11:00,280
Speaker 1: our better numbers were in in the core areas or

1081
01:11:00,760 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 1: of our bear population, it was eight years before we

1082
01:11:04,880 --> 01:11:07,880
Speaker 1: decided to open a season. And so it's something we

1083
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:11,639
Speaker 1: care a lot about having the bear here and monitor

1084
01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:17,920
Speaker 1: bear health as the summer goes on with our research projects,

1085
01:11:18,080 --> 01:11:21,920
Speaker 1: you know, and it's we you know, if if something

1086
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:26,960
Speaker 1: happens with our bear population, you know, we have a

1087
01:11:27,080 --> 01:11:29,960
Speaker 1: way that we can stop the hunting if we if

1088
01:11:30,000 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 1: we have to. But right now that it's a great

1089
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:36,200
Speaker 1: opportunity to be able to hunt this this animal that

1090
01:11:36,960 --> 01:11:40,360
Speaker 1: even today that there's a lot of people in Oklahoma

1091
01:11:40,520 --> 01:11:44,879
Speaker 1: do who do not even though that after animal in Oklahoma.

1092
01:11:46,760 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 1: It's I'm amazed I don't hunt bear. Uh. It's it's

1093
01:11:52,720 --> 01:11:56,080
Speaker 1: mainly because I'm working twenty hours a day during that

1094
01:11:56,240 --> 01:12:00,760
Speaker 1: time of the year. But uh, I'm amazed at the

1095
01:12:00,880 --> 01:12:04,320
Speaker 1: number of hunters who were die hard deer hunters who

1096
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:08,040
Speaker 1: just don't even think about deer hunting the first five

1097
01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 1: or six days of archery season. They're just after after

1098
01:12:13,200 --> 01:12:17,400
Speaker 1: they become bear hunters. And I didn't. I didn't until

1099
01:12:17,439 --> 01:12:19,880
Speaker 1: we had a season. If you had asked me if

1100
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:23,360
Speaker 1: we'd had people that would rather bear hunting deer hunting,

1101
01:12:23,680 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 1: I would probably said no, probably not, you know, just

1102
01:12:26,320 --> 01:12:30,400
Speaker 1: because everyone who lives here just about lives here because

1103
01:12:30,439 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 1: they like to deer hunt, because it's such a great opportunity,

1104
01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:37,400
Speaker 1: you know, and you can see on some of the

1105
01:12:37,560 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: large leases you know where they're you know, maybe growing

1106
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 1: bigger deer and heavier deer and all. But if you

1107
01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:49,840
Speaker 1: want a good hunting experience, everyone wants to come going

1108
01:12:49,920 --> 01:12:52,040
Speaker 1: to these mountains and and try to get a white

1109
01:12:52,080 --> 01:12:55,519
Speaker 1: tail buck. And now it's turned that way for bear

1110
01:12:55,880 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 1: where I'm getting calls every year from hunters other other states.

1111
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:05,559
Speaker 1: One hunter from Canada who just you know, he's going, Man,

1112
01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 1: I've I've loved come down to fall and and harvest

1113
01:13:09,479 --> 01:13:13,800
Speaker 1: to bear down there. So and and he and when

1114
01:13:13,840 --> 01:13:17,280
Speaker 1: you think Canada, you think huge bodies and huge weights.

1115
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:21,280
Speaker 1: But he was just having a hard time believing, you know,

1116
01:13:21,800 --> 01:13:26,160
Speaker 1: opportunity to harvest three pound four there because they don't

1117
01:13:26,200 --> 01:13:30,320
Speaker 1: even have those where he was from. Mainly because you know,

1118
01:13:30,479 --> 01:13:33,280
Speaker 1: six or seven months out of the year those a

1119
01:13:33,320 --> 01:13:37,040
Speaker 1: bear hyberd nating, That's right, they don't. Yeah. Yeah, and

1120
01:13:37,120 --> 01:13:39,480
Speaker 1: a lot of hunting pressure, a lot of bear harvested,

1121
01:13:39,680 --> 01:13:41,920
Speaker 1: so they don't get to get the age either. Maybe,

1122
01:13:42,560 --> 01:13:45,840
Speaker 1: so Colbe, do you have any questions for Jeff River.

1123
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:53,479
Speaker 1: I didn't introduce River rivers here with it's my daughter. Yeah, uh,

1124
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:56,840
Speaker 1: I guess I guess. My thing I was thinking was

1125
01:13:57,560 --> 01:14:00,880
Speaker 1: when you're whenever you're talking about moving or relocating, the

1126
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:04,320
Speaker 1: boys like what their range looked like. Whenever you relocate

1127
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:07,479
Speaker 1: a cell, Uh, do you take them out the same distance?

1128
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:10,160
Speaker 1: And if you do, uh, do they stay in that

1129
01:14:10,320 --> 01:14:12,120
Speaker 1: area or do they kind of have a range like

1130
01:14:12,320 --> 01:14:16,880
Speaker 1: the boys do? We try if if a bear is

1131
01:14:16,920 --> 01:14:20,320
Speaker 1: a problem, we I mean, we won't go and set

1132
01:14:20,360 --> 01:14:22,920
Speaker 1: a trap and move a bear if it's just say

1133
01:14:23,040 --> 01:14:26,160
Speaker 1: walking through your yard. But you know if if if

1134
01:14:26,200 --> 01:14:29,080
Speaker 1: this bear is getting on your porch or just hanging

1135
01:14:29,120 --> 01:14:31,320
Speaker 1: around your house for four or five days, you know,

1136
01:14:31,439 --> 01:14:37,479
Speaker 1: once that bear needs for the bear safety and the

1137
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:40,160
Speaker 1: humans safety, that you don't need a bear of that's

1138
01:14:40,479 --> 01:14:42,640
Speaker 1: that's got so used to humans that they feel like

1139
01:14:42,760 --> 01:14:46,320
Speaker 1: they can just stay right there. So we will move

1140
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:51,519
Speaker 1: them the same distance. Now they like I said earlier,

1141
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:55,920
Speaker 1: they always come back. And we've moved a bear and

1142
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 1: I know Clay no where Zaffrey is. We moved to

1143
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:05,800
Speaker 1: her female sal uh just right across the river here

1144
01:15:05,880 --> 01:15:09,840
Speaker 1: from us, and took her to Zaphra and released her

1145
01:15:09,960 --> 01:15:15,040
Speaker 1: on a Monday afternoon. And on Tuesday afternoon and on

1146
01:15:15,320 --> 01:15:19,479
Speaker 1: Friday she was right here in this yard. You know,

1147
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:23,519
Speaker 1: So even though her range didn't take her that far.

1148
01:15:23,640 --> 01:15:27,679
Speaker 1: They just they know how to get back to where

1149
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:34,240
Speaker 1: they're from. And she had yearly cubs, and you know,

1150
01:15:34,360 --> 01:15:37,400
Speaker 1: we had done everything to try to catch the cubs

1151
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:40,360
Speaker 1: but couldn't. But it was on dire situation, you know,

1152
01:15:40,479 --> 01:15:43,439
Speaker 1: the same old story someone sees a bear and they

1153
01:15:43,520 --> 01:15:45,799
Speaker 1: put food out for it and want to get pictures

1154
01:15:45,960 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: this way for cell phones and everything, and and the

1155
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:52,640
Speaker 1: person you always threatening to shoot to bear if we

1156
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:56,160
Speaker 1: didn't come move it. And we caught her and stated

1157
01:15:56,200 --> 01:16:00,760
Speaker 1: at her and left the trapdoor, and so maybe the

1158
01:16:00,840 --> 01:16:03,560
Speaker 1: cups would go in there, but they wouldn't, you know,

1159
01:16:03,720 --> 01:16:07,320
Speaker 1: so we couldn't release her right there. But we did

1160
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:09,120
Speaker 1: take her and release her, and she came back and

1161
01:16:09,240 --> 01:16:13,439
Speaker 1: her cups were they would have survived, but they would

1162
01:16:13,479 --> 01:16:15,360
Speaker 1: have typically gone to the den with her one more

1163
01:16:15,400 --> 01:16:19,880
Speaker 1: time probably so, but they were definitely with her the end.

1164
01:16:20,000 --> 01:16:25,120
Speaker 1: So River got a question for Mr Jeff No question

1165
01:16:25,200 --> 01:16:29,200
Speaker 1: from River newkem Okay, it's good, wasn't it? River? That

1166
01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:32,800
Speaker 1: was really fun? Yeah, Jeff, anything that you would like

1167
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:35,920
Speaker 1: to say, I mean, just any or anything we didn't cover.

1168
01:16:36,200 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: I mean we I really just wanted to cover the

1169
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:42,160
Speaker 1: nuts and bolts of bare biology. You know, it's it's

1170
01:16:42,280 --> 01:16:44,519
Speaker 1: rare that I get to sit with a professional that

1171
01:16:44,760 --> 01:16:48,120
Speaker 1: like you. That is uh. I mean you obviously you're

1172
01:16:48,120 --> 01:16:50,160
Speaker 1: doing more than just bear, but that's a big part

1173
01:16:50,240 --> 01:16:51,720
Speaker 1: of what you do and have done. And I know

1174
01:16:51,880 --> 01:16:55,200
Speaker 1: you really value the bear and and uh and and

1175
01:16:55,479 --> 01:16:57,559
Speaker 1: and that you're a hunter too, so you you understand

1176
01:16:57,640 --> 01:17:00,519
Speaker 1: not just wild life biology, but you under stand kind

1177
01:17:00,560 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 1: of the hunter's perspective. Um. But any other general comments

1178
01:17:05,040 --> 01:17:07,640
Speaker 1: about the bear here in southeast Oklahoma, Well, one thing

1179
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:11,679
Speaker 1: I'd like to touch on is that we've expanded open

1180
01:17:11,800 --> 01:17:19,839
Speaker 1: areas for bear hunting opportunities this fall. We're gonna basically

1181
01:17:19,960 --> 01:17:24,040
Speaker 1: everything If you looked on a map and you come

1182
01:17:24,080 --> 01:17:27,920
Speaker 1: out of Fort Smith, Arkansas and Interstate forty, once you

1183
01:17:28,000 --> 01:17:32,559
Speaker 1: get into Oklahoma and go west to where Highwi sixty

1184
01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:36,880
Speaker 1: nine meets Interstate forty, then everything south of there is

1185
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:40,600
Speaker 1: going to be open for archery and muzzload season. We

1186
01:17:40,920 --> 01:17:47,120
Speaker 1: still have a twenty bear quota on our muzzleload season. Uh,

1187
01:17:47,560 --> 01:17:51,680
Speaker 1: it's never been met during muzzload season. The most bear

1188
01:17:51,760 --> 01:17:55,840
Speaker 1: we've have harvested during a muzzload season was seven. So

1189
01:17:56,080 --> 01:17:59,160
Speaker 1: they're tough to get over bait by late October, and

1190
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:02,559
Speaker 1: there they're really smart, you know. And by the end

1191
01:18:02,640 --> 01:18:04,240
Speaker 1: they're out in the mountains or they're out in the

1192
01:18:04,280 --> 01:18:08,400
Speaker 1: clear cuts. There. Hunters have been in the woods pretty steadily,

1193
01:18:08,680 --> 01:18:12,240
Speaker 1: you know. For our muzzloed season opens the fourth Saturday

1194
01:18:12,280 --> 01:18:16,240
Speaker 1: in October. So by the end, the bear of pretty

1195
01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:19,760
Speaker 1: much gone nocturnal, you know. And we did, like I said,

1196
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 1: we have a few harvested every year with the muzzleloader,

1197
01:18:23,120 --> 01:18:28,400
Speaker 1: but those, uh, those are just chancing counters most of them,

1198
01:18:29,040 --> 01:18:31,439
Speaker 1: you know, they're most of the people aren't setting over

1199
01:18:31,520 --> 01:18:37,040
Speaker 1: there bait on privately and forbear during those times. So

1200
01:18:37,560 --> 01:18:40,040
Speaker 1: that's that's a big deal. So the bear range now

1201
01:18:40,280 --> 01:18:42,760
Speaker 1: is no longer the four counties. How many counties does

1202
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:46,600
Speaker 1: it entail now? Probably you're catching a bunch. There is

1203
01:18:46,680 --> 01:18:50,040
Speaker 1: several counties. I mean, you double tripled the size of

1204
01:18:50,080 --> 01:18:56,160
Speaker 1: the bear, more than doubled more than size. That's awesome,

1205
01:18:56,920 --> 01:18:59,679
Speaker 1: you know. So it and in some of those areas

1206
01:19:00,400 --> 01:19:04,040
Speaker 1: there may not be very many bear, but we've had

1207
01:19:04,560 --> 01:19:07,440
Speaker 1: a lot of truill camera photos. Were not doing researching

1208
01:19:07,720 --> 01:19:11,800
Speaker 1: in these areas, but our surveys, you know, we're we're

1209
01:19:11,840 --> 01:19:14,920
Speaker 1: getting some bear hits in there, and we just you know,

1210
01:19:15,160 --> 01:19:18,640
Speaker 1: want to offer the opportunity to people who live in

1211
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:21,840
Speaker 1: those areas. You know. I think when when people start

1212
01:19:21,960 --> 01:19:25,599
Speaker 1: hunting bears in a new region like Oklahoma, like all

1213
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:27,920
Speaker 1: of a sudden there's a bear season and there wasn't before.

1214
01:19:28,400 --> 01:19:31,519
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that people are beginning

1215
01:19:31,560 --> 01:19:36,080
Speaker 1: to understand here and is that how good bear taste? Jeff,

1216
01:19:36,600 --> 01:19:39,679
Speaker 1: I mean, we had a bear chili at my house

1217
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:41,880
Speaker 1: last night. My wife didn't I didn't tell her what

1218
01:19:42,000 --> 01:19:45,080
Speaker 1: it was, just, uh, we just had it. And she's

1219
01:19:45,120 --> 01:19:47,680
Speaker 1: totally cool of eating bear meat, but uh, you know,

1220
01:19:48,360 --> 01:19:51,240
Speaker 1: it's probably not her preference most of the time. And

1221
01:19:51,320 --> 01:19:54,000
Speaker 1: my wife would be the finnickyst eater of anyone in

1222
01:19:54,080 --> 01:19:57,920
Speaker 1: our family. River houses the bear chili. No one knew

1223
01:19:57,960 --> 01:20:01,240
Speaker 1: that it wasn't. I mean, there's any way that you

1224
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:03,720
Speaker 1: can cook beef, you can cook bear. Sure, if it's

1225
01:20:03,760 --> 01:20:07,479
Speaker 1: handled well, it's good. I had bear Ausabuco when I

1226
01:20:07,560 --> 01:20:11,720
Speaker 1: was in British Columbia. Assabuco is a I don't want

1227
01:20:11,720 --> 01:20:13,799
Speaker 1: to I don't know then, I don't know where exactly.

1228
01:20:13,880 --> 01:20:17,599
Speaker 1: Shanks it's the shanks, but it's like a French dish

1229
01:20:17,760 --> 01:20:21,560
Speaker 1: or something that you they not French, Italian, Italian, but

1230
01:20:21,760 --> 01:20:24,760
Speaker 1: it's where they slice the the shank up. They use

1231
01:20:24,880 --> 01:20:28,200
Speaker 1: it for ox tails, use ausbuco. They'll they'll take an

1232
01:20:28,240 --> 01:20:32,640
Speaker 1: ox tail and cut it. But I promise you you

1233
01:20:32,680 --> 01:20:34,880
Speaker 1: could have set that in front of a king and

1234
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:36,920
Speaker 1: given it to him and told him it was beef

1235
01:20:37,360 --> 01:20:39,120
Speaker 1: and he would have loved it. I mean, like, there's

1236
01:20:39,240 --> 01:20:40,760
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great ways to eat bear meat.

1237
01:20:40,760 --> 01:20:43,640
Speaker 1: I like to smoke it, uh, you know, use it

1238
01:20:43,720 --> 01:20:47,200
Speaker 1: in chili. Uh. We grilled some on the grill last week.

1239
01:20:47,280 --> 01:20:49,800
Speaker 1: We were grilling some chicken and I've thought out some

1240
01:20:49,880 --> 01:20:52,600
Speaker 1: bear steaks and seasoned it up good. I like to

1241
01:20:52,640 --> 01:20:55,559
Speaker 1: season it up good. And I mean, it's just it's

1242
01:20:55,600 --> 01:20:59,320
Speaker 1: good meat. Yeah, it's I was surprised. I've never eaten

1243
01:20:59,320 --> 01:21:02,800
Speaker 1: any bear until we had a season and hunters asking me,

1244
01:21:03,200 --> 01:21:05,360
Speaker 1: you know the best way to prepare it, and I'm

1245
01:21:06,080 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, and uh, a friend of mine,

1246
01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:16,000
Speaker 1: who unfortunately has passed away since then, had harvested a

1247
01:21:16,160 --> 01:21:21,800
Speaker 1: young bear. He gave me a like two steaks off

1248
01:21:21,880 --> 01:21:25,600
Speaker 1: of it. And we'd had fried hamburgers for lunch and

1249
01:21:25,760 --> 01:21:28,920
Speaker 1: just frying pan on the stove and and so I

1250
01:21:29,080 --> 01:21:33,880
Speaker 1: just cut that berry into little medallions sized pieces and

1251
01:21:34,160 --> 01:21:37,000
Speaker 1: through and there after we'd cooked the burgers and ate it,

1252
01:21:37,360 --> 01:21:41,080
Speaker 1: just mainly because so I could tell hunters, hey, here's

1253
01:21:41,160 --> 01:21:44,080
Speaker 1: what I've done, and I've ate it. And I was surprised.

1254
01:21:45,120 --> 01:21:48,320
Speaker 1: I expected it to taste like venison, but it was

1255
01:21:48,439 --> 01:21:53,040
Speaker 1: nothing like venison. Was more like beef what I was

1256
01:21:53,120 --> 01:21:58,000
Speaker 1: thinking around steak and tasted more and uh, my grandchildren

1257
01:21:58,080 --> 01:22:02,680
Speaker 1: needed I eat it. But my wife, she she's from California.

1258
01:22:03,960 --> 01:22:07,400
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say a lot more about that, but yeah,

1259
01:22:07,760 --> 01:22:11,920
Speaker 1: but she she eats deer and everything. But still that's

1260
01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:14,320
Speaker 1: kind of like my wife. She's even she's from Arkansas

1261
01:22:14,400 --> 01:22:16,640
Speaker 1: and she's still she she will eat bear meat, but

1262
01:22:16,760 --> 01:22:21,960
Speaker 1: it's not you know, there's something boy, you know when Yeah.

1263
01:22:22,080 --> 01:22:27,000
Speaker 1: So but yeah, I was surprised how great a table

1264
01:22:27,080 --> 01:22:29,599
Speaker 1: fair it was. Yeah, And it's such to me. It's

1265
01:22:29,600 --> 01:22:32,600
Speaker 1: such a historical food and people don't realize it. But

1266
01:22:33,040 --> 01:22:37,680
Speaker 1: there's literature from Arkansas, um that that says if you

1267
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:41,800
Speaker 1: ate meat on an Arkansas table in the Ozark or

1268
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:45,400
Speaker 1: Washtall Mountains in the in the eighteen hundreds, there was

1269
01:22:45,479 --> 01:22:48,639
Speaker 1: a high probability that it was bear meat. I read

1270
01:22:48,760 --> 01:22:51,320
Speaker 1: I read that somewhere from a historian that I mean,

1271
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:55,240
Speaker 1: it's it's great meat. But and then this fat, Now

1272
01:22:55,360 --> 01:22:57,600
Speaker 1: this is something we're really exploring a lot right now.

1273
01:22:57,680 --> 01:23:00,320
Speaker 1: And I've been rendering fat for a long time, but uh,

1274
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:03,960
Speaker 1: we're we're finding new ways to use it. And uh,

1275
01:23:04,760 --> 01:23:08,559
Speaker 1: it's good stuff, Kobe, it's solid, it's on the bottom,

1276
01:23:08,600 --> 01:23:13,120
Speaker 1: it's yes. Well okay, Jeff, oh man, you've opened up.

1277
01:23:13,200 --> 01:23:16,680
Speaker 1: Can we got a major research project going on right

1278
01:23:16,760 --> 01:23:21,840
Speaker 1: now about how to render pure liquid oil. Firstus this

1279
01:23:22,280 --> 01:23:26,639
Speaker 1: this thick pasty lard because we've done it, we've we've

1280
01:23:26,720 --> 01:23:30,679
Speaker 1: were trying some different ways to render it. And uh, anyway,

1281
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:34,920
Speaker 1: that was a solid lard when we first did it.

1282
01:23:35,040 --> 01:23:36,759
Speaker 1: I mean you could have like scooped it out almost

1283
01:23:36,800 --> 01:23:40,439
Speaker 1: with a knife. And now it's starting to solidify. But

1284
01:23:40,520 --> 01:23:42,320
Speaker 1: all that oil is good. Like if you were to

1285
01:23:42,439 --> 01:23:44,519
Speaker 1: be cook with that or something, I mean you just

1286
01:23:45,160 --> 01:23:47,040
Speaker 1: stirred up and put it in a frying pan, and

1287
01:23:47,479 --> 01:23:50,160
Speaker 1: oh man, it would it would be perfect. But well, hey,

1288
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:54,360
Speaker 1: we're gonna close down. We've we've gone a little ways here. Jeff,

1289
01:23:54,400 --> 01:23:59,960
Speaker 1: thank you so much for it's Yeah, I hope I

1290
01:24:00,120 --> 01:24:02,320
Speaker 1: see you. Well, I know i'll see you again. This

1291
01:24:02,479 --> 01:24:04,280
Speaker 1: is en route to where I hunt, so I stopped

1292
01:24:04,280 --> 01:24:06,280
Speaker 1: by and talked to Jeff. But I hope I see

1293
01:24:06,320 --> 01:24:07,720
Speaker 1: you this year with a big bear in the back

1294
01:24:07,760 --> 01:24:10,400
Speaker 1: of my truck. Yeah, that that's would be great. Last

1295
01:24:10,479 --> 01:24:13,559
Speaker 1: year was it was good getting to check your bear

1296
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:16,280
Speaker 1: and yeah, and I know you were awful happy about that.

1297
01:24:17,600 --> 01:24:21,679
Speaker 1: And so we have three or four guys that we've

1298
01:24:21,760 --> 01:24:24,479
Speaker 1: come to know since the bear season that we're rooting

1299
01:24:24,560 --> 01:24:27,760
Speaker 1: for every year and hoping to see on opening day.

1300
01:24:28,120 --> 01:24:31,880
Speaker 1: And I think you had the largest one this year.

1301
01:24:32,160 --> 01:24:38,400
Speaker 1: So well, so that the largest one checked here yest here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1302
01:24:38,560 --> 01:24:41,960
Speaker 1: so yeah, well that that six eight pound bear down south,

1303
01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:44,320
Speaker 1: I guess was the biggest one in the state, the

1304
01:24:44,479 --> 01:24:48,839
Speaker 1: the biggest one I heard. And so I had another

1305
01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:54,760
Speaker 1: pretty good size bore four pounders. So you checked in

1306
01:24:56,400 --> 01:25:01,240
Speaker 1: archery kill. And but to finish up on as far

1307
01:25:01,320 --> 01:25:04,800
Speaker 1: as wait, we got off there just while ago, I

1308
01:25:04,880 --> 01:25:08,200
Speaker 1: wanted to say that we have checked in a three

1309
01:25:08,280 --> 01:25:13,240
Speaker 1: hundred and forty pound female bear. So that was the

1310
01:25:13,320 --> 01:25:18,280
Speaker 1: second one I've seen that was three hundred or monstress. Yeah,

1311
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:20,720
Speaker 1: that'd be hard to tell a big dry a sow

1312
01:25:20,840 --> 01:25:24,280
Speaker 1: without cubs. I mean, you kill a shoot at three

1313
01:25:24,320 --> 01:25:26,800
Speaker 1: and forty pound bear, you assume you're shooting at a male.

1314
01:25:27,720 --> 01:25:32,960
Speaker 1: She was huge, and I've asked those people to bring

1315
01:25:33,040 --> 01:25:38,160
Speaker 1: it back. I wanted to score, yeah, and they have it.

1316
01:25:39,520 --> 01:25:41,439
Speaker 1: I told Colby on the way down here, I should

1317
01:25:41,439 --> 01:25:43,880
Speaker 1: have brought my bear, sculled Jeff from that big bear.

1318
01:25:44,760 --> 01:25:46,760
Speaker 1: Next time I come, I'm gonna bring it. Jeff's an

1319
01:25:46,760 --> 01:25:50,439
Speaker 1: official Boone Crocket scores, so he can officially score bears.

1320
01:25:50,960 --> 01:25:54,080
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's gonna make twenty. Yeah, and

1321
01:25:54,520 --> 01:25:58,639
Speaker 1: that was kind of surprising to me. That's for another podcast, Hey, Jeff,

1322
01:25:58,680 --> 01:26:00,320
Speaker 1: that's what we say on all that pod. Guess at

1323
01:26:00,360 --> 01:26:02,960
Speaker 1: the end to say keep the wild plaice as wild,

1324
01:26:02,960 --> 01:26:06,120
Speaker 1: because that's where I thank Okay, thank you