1
00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:04,040
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to

2
00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:08,520
Speaker 1: you by Lacrosse Boots. Now, if you haven't heard yet, uh,

3
00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: this is me telling you you need to take a

4
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:15,680
Speaker 1: look at the new boots from Lacrosse and they fall

5
00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:20,040
Speaker 1: under the Navigator series. Now, what they've done is they've

6
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:23,720
Speaker 1: taken the best parts of a rubber boot and the

7
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,880
Speaker 1: best parts of your traditional hiking and hunting boot, and

8
00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,680
Speaker 1: they've mashed them together to come up with this new

9
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,960
Speaker 1: line of boots from Lacrosse, and that is the Navigator series.

10
00:00:36,040 --> 00:00:40,040
Speaker 1: Now they have the women's wind rows, they have the

11
00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:43,720
Speaker 1: men's wind rows, and then they have the atlast the

12
00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:47,599
Speaker 1: Atlas series within that as well. So go to Lacrosse

13
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:50,800
Speaker 1: Footwear dot com and check out this new line of

14
00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:52,640
Speaker 1: boots that they have. I've been using mind for a

15
00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:55,360
Speaker 1: couple of weeks now and I am very impressed with

16
00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,400
Speaker 1: the the fit in the field and I can't wait

17
00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:01,000
Speaker 1: to get them in the woods this hunting season and

18
00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:04,839
Speaker 1: give him a trial runs. So Lacrosse Footwear dot Com

19
00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:13,679
Speaker 1: check them out. My name is Claye Nukeleman. I'm the

20
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:17,600
Speaker 1: host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be

21
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,080
Speaker 1: your host into the world of hunting the icon of

22
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:26,840
Speaker 1: North American wilderness to bear. We'll talk about tactics here conservation,

23
00:01:27,360 --> 00:01:29,640
Speaker 1: but will also bring you into some of the wildest

24
00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:39,560
Speaker 1: country on the planet Chasing the Barn. This episode of

25
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,280
Speaker 1: the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast, I am at the Arkansas

26
00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,760
Speaker 1: Game and Fish Regional Headquarters in Fort Smith, Arkansas, with

27
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: my friend Myron Means. Myron Means is the large carnivore

28
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,520
Speaker 1: biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. We talked

29
00:01:55,520 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 1: a lot about that. We talk about bears, We nerd

30
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:00,960
Speaker 1: out about biology, We talked about the history of bears

31
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:06,000
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, and Myron has wealth the most unique perspective

32
00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:09,639
Speaker 1: and this part of the country on bears because he's

33
00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:12,880
Speaker 1: been working with him for most of his career. One

34
00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:15,840
Speaker 1: thing that we did not get into, which I regret

35
00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:19,799
Speaker 1: that we didn't, is that formerly Myron was known as

36
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:24,120
Speaker 1: the bear Biologists, the lead bear biologists in Arkansas. They

37
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:29,560
Speaker 1: changed his title to the large carnivore Biologists because what

38
00:02:29,639 --> 00:02:33,560
Speaker 1: other carnivore could we have that he would have oversight

39
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:36,880
Speaker 1: over in the state of Arkansas. The answer to that question,

40
00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:42,919
Speaker 1: young men, is mountain lions. We actually have had enough

41
00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:47,600
Speaker 1: legitimate sightings of mountainlins in Arkansas that the Game and

42
00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:50,160
Speaker 1: Fish had to give him a hat tip. We actually

43
00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,160
Speaker 1: have somebody in charge of mountain lions in Arkansas and

44
00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:55,560
Speaker 1: that's Myron, but we didn't talk about it. We got

45
00:02:55,600 --> 00:02:59,280
Speaker 1: so sidetracked by bears that we never talked about it.

46
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:02,360
Speaker 1: And there's has been a handful, well not just a

47
00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,440
Speaker 1: handful every year there are confirmed sidings and mountain lions

48
00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:09,200
Speaker 1: and uh, that's gonna be for another podcast, but you're

49
00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:13,360
Speaker 1: gonna learn something for sure on this podcast. And me

50
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: and Myra and have a have just a great conversation.

51
00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:21,560
Speaker 1: I want to draw your attention to our good friends

52
00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:26,480
Speaker 1: at the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are a nonprofit

53
00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:31,200
Speaker 1: hunting conservation organization being a voice for bear hunters out west.

54
00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,320
Speaker 1: I was just on their Facebook page and they're a

55
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:38,880
Speaker 1: great resource for just all the information revolving the d

56
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:44,520
Speaker 1: listing and the listing of grizzlies and the Greater Yellstone region.

57
00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,119
Speaker 1: There's a they've got a post on there right now

58
00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:51,600
Speaker 1: about how the top one of the top US officials

59
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:55,960
Speaker 1: with the Fishing Wildlife Service has made a statement that

60
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:00,680
Speaker 1: the grizzly bear is recovered and relive Stein is a

61
00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:04,720
Speaker 1: waste of resources. Quote unquote, I'm reading this right off

62
00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:07,600
Speaker 1: of their Facebook page. These guys are a great source

63
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,480
Speaker 1: for information. Check them out on Instagram and Facebook. Our

64
00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:15,960
Speaker 1: friends at the Western Bear Foundation. Lastly, we just came

65
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,640
Speaker 1: out with our fifth season of Bear Horizons. So Bear

66
00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:23,960
Speaker 1: Horizon is our video series where we travel across North

67
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:29,080
Speaker 1: America chasing bear and chasing other credits to white tails, squirrels,

68
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:32,600
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much whatever whatever we can find. But

69
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,760
Speaker 1: we we came out with our fifth DVD which it's

70
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:41,120
Speaker 1: close to two hours in length and has at least

71
00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: eight or ten episodes. How many episodes have got Kobe?

72
00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:46,760
Speaker 1: Eight or ten? I'm getting a head nod from kolbe

73
00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:51,200
Speaker 1: very cool DVD that you could take with you anyway.

74
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 1: They're there for sale on the Bear Hunting magazine website

75
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 1: bear dash hunting dot com. Hey, you can enjoy this

76
00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:03,839
Speaker 1: podcast with my friend in Arkansas, Game and Fish large

77
00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:08,800
Speaker 1: carnivore biologist Myron Means. This is the uh Is this

78
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,520
Speaker 1: a regional office? Smith Regional Office, Fort Smith Regional Office. Yeah, Yeah,

79
00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 1: is a nice facilty it is. We just finished this

80
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:19,040
Speaker 1: about a year ago. Yeah, I hadn't been here. I

81
00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 1: thought you are still over on the river over there

82
00:05:21,640 --> 00:05:26,320
Speaker 1: or base. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember where. I think

83
00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:32,400
Speaker 1: we moved into this office last June. So okay, well, hey,

84
00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:37,720
Speaker 1: I'm here with Myron means the large Carnivore Biologist. Is

85
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,720
Speaker 1: that your Is that your officials? The official title now

86
00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:46,360
Speaker 1: a large carnivore program coordinator for a large carnish Okay, well, Maron,

87
00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:49,400
Speaker 1: you may not remember this. I remember the first time

88
00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:52,760
Speaker 1: I talked to you. You had just you had just

89
00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:56,120
Speaker 1: gotten the job at the time. It's just the Arkansas

90
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:01,600
Speaker 1: Bara Biologist and uh so Rick Eastridge had moved off

91
00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,200
Speaker 1: you got hired. I think it was two thousand eight. Yes,

92
00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:08,000
Speaker 1: it was in the December of two thousand and eight, actually,

93
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:11,080
Speaker 1: when I officially took the position. It had to have

94
00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:14,400
Speaker 1: been right in that time period because that I called

95
00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:16,960
Speaker 1: you and interviewed you, and I had one of the

96
00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:22,480
Speaker 1: first published articles I ever wrote, published in Arkansas Sportsman

97
00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,520
Speaker 1: or some magazine, and I was talking about bears. So

98
00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,440
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I vividly remember that. I do.

99
00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,400
Speaker 1: I remember it was. It seems like a lifetime ago.

100
00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 1: But uh so, you've been doing this since December two

101
00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:36,799
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. I've been in this capacity of this position,

102
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:39,880
Speaker 1: you know, since the follow two thousand and eight. Um,

103
00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:42,800
Speaker 1: actually in my twenty third year with Arkansas Game and

104
00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:47,000
Speaker 1: Fish this year, and uh, oddly enough, you know, I've

105
00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:50,400
Speaker 1: told people when I do seminars and stuff, I've actually

106
00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 1: worked with bears in Arkansas longer than I've been employed

107
00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:57,719
Speaker 1: with the Game and Fish. I worked with bears two

108
00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:01,360
Speaker 1: years and undergraduate and graduate Where and where did you

109
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:04,920
Speaker 1: go to school? I went to Arkansas Tech for undergraduate

110
00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:10,280
Speaker 1: working wildlife fisheries and wildlife management, and then I went

111
00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:13,720
Speaker 1: to graduate school at U of A Fayteville. Okay, so

112
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:15,720
Speaker 1: you were working with bears while you were in college

113
00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:21,320
Speaker 1: in the nineties, Yes, yeah, yeah, ninety, Let's see it

114
00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:26,920
Speaker 1: was it was? When was it eighty nine? Eighty nine

115
00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:29,880
Speaker 1: and ninety? Did you work with Kim Smith and Joe Clark?

116
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 1: Did you really? Now? See you may have told me that,

117
00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:35,720
Speaker 1: but I forgot it. I actually volunteered to work on

118
00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:38,920
Speaker 1: the bear project my first year. I didn't get hired

119
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:40,880
Speaker 1: on as a technician, but I wanted to work on

120
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 1: projects so much. I volunteered and I drove back and

121
00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:47,280
Speaker 1: forth from from Van Buren to ozar Tow three times

122
00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:49,480
Speaker 1: a week just to volunteer and ride along with it

123
00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:51,760
Speaker 1: for a little bit of history for people that are

124
00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:55,920
Speaker 1: that wouldn't know. So the first official research project for

125
00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,680
Speaker 1: Arkansas black bears was done in the late eighties and

126
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:02,880
Speaker 1: early nineties by Kim Smith and Joe Clark, and that

127
00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:07,480
Speaker 1: was this This is a good divergence into kind of

128
00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:12,360
Speaker 1: the history of bears. But well, I don't want, I want,

129
00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:15,240
Speaker 1: I want to hear you say it. These our listeners

130
00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:18,160
Speaker 1: of this podcast hear me talk about Arkansas bears all

131
00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:23,000
Speaker 1: the time. But it's worth talking about it is why

132
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,120
Speaker 1: don't you lead us up because I was gonna tell

133
00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:29,040
Speaker 1: why they were doing the research project, But tell us

134
00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:31,920
Speaker 1: the twenty five year prior history that led to the

135
00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:34,480
Speaker 1: reason that Kim Smith and these guys that you helped

136
00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:38,280
Speaker 1: back then. So give us an overview. Uh. Well, you know,

137
00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,120
Speaker 1: Arkansas used to be nicknamed the Bear State. And I'm

138
00:08:41,160 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 1: sure mostly from listeners that are familiar with Arkansas and

139
00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:47,000
Speaker 1: know that we used to be nicknamed the Bear State,

140
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:49,640
Speaker 1: and that was with good reason. It was thought at

141
00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:52,000
Speaker 1: the time of settlement we may have had fifty thousand

142
00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:55,000
Speaker 1: plus black bears in the state. Well, black bears were

143
00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:59,160
Speaker 1: almost extra pated from the whole state through the I

144
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:04,120
Speaker 1: guess the seventy eighteen and nineteen hundreds, and uh, you know,

145
00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,080
Speaker 1: by the nineteen twenties or so, it was pretty evident

146
00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:11,360
Speaker 1: that we didn't really have any bears left in the state,

147
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,480
Speaker 1: and the General Assembly decided to make it illegal to

148
00:09:15,679 --> 00:09:19,240
Speaker 1: kill a black bear in Arkansas. And uh, you know,

149
00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:21,679
Speaker 1: once the Game and Fish was actually kind of coming

150
00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:25,720
Speaker 1: to their feet about management stuff. Uh. And that would

151
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:31,640
Speaker 1: have been in fish was became an official organ well,

152
00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:36,160
Speaker 1: I mean we we had her by centennial celebration, what

153
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:40,760
Speaker 1: was it, three four or five years ago. I mean

154
00:09:40,800 --> 00:09:47,080
Speaker 1: the Game of Fish was actually established. That was yeah,

155
00:09:47,160 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 1: prior to that, but there really wasn't much to it

156
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:54,439
Speaker 1: as an organization. You know, the organization really didn't kind

157
00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:58,679
Speaker 1: of get on their feet until the forties. Uh. And

158
00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:01,720
Speaker 1: you know, by ten fifty one, there was a guy

159
00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:04,160
Speaker 1: named Trusting Holder that did a land survey of the

160
00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:07,920
Speaker 1: state and his finding was that the only remaining bear

161
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:12,120
Speaker 1: population was in the lower White River drainage. And I

162
00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:15,040
Speaker 1: thought we may have had fifty bears left in the state.

163
00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:18,280
Speaker 1: All the forested areas of Ozarks and marshtals had been

164
00:10:18,280 --> 00:10:22,160
Speaker 1: cut over, uh, you know for logging and everything else,

165
00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:26,720
Speaker 1: and Game and Fish embarked on a historical reintroduction effort

166
00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:30,000
Speaker 1: through a teen year period from nineteen fifty eight nineteen

167
00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:32,880
Speaker 1: sixty eight. They brought two hundred and fifty four bears

168
00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:37,360
Speaker 1: from Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada, and they released the men's

169
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:41,559
Speaker 1: sights in the Ozarks and Marsha toss as a restocking near.

170
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,880
Speaker 1: Brought them down and pick up trucks and wire cages,

171
00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:47,839
Speaker 1: pick up trucks and wire cages and just kicked them

172
00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:50,719
Speaker 1: out basically. You know. I talked to a guy one

173
00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:53,400
Speaker 1: time that met one of those guys on the road.

174
00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:57,440
Speaker 1: I'm serious. He wasn't even from Arkansas. It was a

175
00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:00,240
Speaker 1: guy that called in to Bear Hunting Magazine. I still

176
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:02,440
Speaker 1: got his information because I wanted to call him back.

177
00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:06,000
Speaker 1: An old guy called Bear Hunting Magazine and he told

178
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:10,679
Speaker 1: a story of meeting Arkansas Game and Fish officials in

179
00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:13,360
Speaker 1: the in the sixties at a gas station. I can't

180
00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:16,000
Speaker 1: remember where. It was, like northern Missouri, you know, somewhere

181
00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:19,280
Speaker 1: between here and Manitoba. And he talked to these guys

182
00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, we're taking these bears back

183
00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:25,160
Speaker 1: to Arkansas. You know, I have a couple of pictures

184
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:29,320
Speaker 1: of those days. Uh, you know, a sixties something model

185
00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:32,440
Speaker 1: pickup truck with the cage on the back of it

186
00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:36,440
Speaker 1: and three bears in the back of it. But I

187
00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:39,079
Speaker 1: mean it was literally just that off the cuff, and

188
00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:42,440
Speaker 1: Minnesota dn R would call us and say, hey, we've

189
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,640
Speaker 1: got three bears for you, come get them. And you know,

190
00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,880
Speaker 1: they drive up to Minnesota, northern Minnesota and get them

191
00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:51,720
Speaker 1: or wherever and bring them back. And I mean it

192
00:11:51,760 --> 00:11:54,560
Speaker 1: was and you know it was. It was back before

193
00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,640
Speaker 1: the computer age and all that stuff. And you know,

194
00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:01,800
Speaker 1: a lot of this reintroduction effort was really just it

195
00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 1: was just done. Is just everyday stuff. If it was

196
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:08,360
Speaker 1: recorded on anything, it would have been recorded in someone's

197
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:11,880
Speaker 1: field journal or field notes, you know, or something like that,

198
00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:15,280
Speaker 1: which more than likely went with that person when they retired.

199
00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:19,760
Speaker 1: So there's really not a lot of documentation that took

200
00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:22,560
Speaker 1: place over this ten year period. You know, someone who

201
00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:24,880
Speaker 1: was in charge at that time that would have said

202
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,600
Speaker 1: let's do this. I believe it was Andrew Holsey. He

203
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:31,080
Speaker 1: would have been the director if it was. If it

204
00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:33,480
Speaker 1: was prior to Andrew Holsey, I know he was the

205
00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:36,079
Speaker 1: director when we brought the elk back in and that

206
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:41,400
Speaker 1: was in the seventies, and uh, it might have been Halsey,

207
00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:43,480
Speaker 1: it could have been someone before then. It was so

208
00:12:43,559 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 1: far before my time. I'm not really sure I know that.

209
00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,000
Speaker 1: Uh you know, when they did reopen bare season in

210
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:59,160
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, I believe Steve Wilson was our director, So

211
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:03,240
Speaker 1: you know that's I mean, the forests were growing back

212
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:07,199
Speaker 1: up during that reintroduction effort. It was really prime habitat.

213
00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:12,640
Speaker 1: There was no season on them. You couldn't harvest them,

214
00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:15,520
Speaker 1: and I mean those bare populations in the ozarks and

215
00:13:15,559 --> 00:13:18,120
Speaker 1: washer tolls, they really just flourished. I mean, there was

216
00:13:18,160 --> 00:13:21,280
Speaker 1: a lot of clear cut going on in the seventies

217
00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:25,320
Speaker 1: and eighties that provided just a tremendous amount of food

218
00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: in the summer. And then of course you always had

219
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,439
Speaker 1: the you know, the hardwood areas and the wash tolls

220
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:37,080
Speaker 1: and the ozarks that provided all the fall mass. So

221
00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:40,040
Speaker 1: I mean, really it was just unlimited and that was

222
00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 1: a big part of the reintroduction, is that the forest

223
00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:48,920
Speaker 1: had regenerated from the peak of the forestry harvest, which

224
00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,559
Speaker 1: would have been around the turn of the century. That's

225
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:54,480
Speaker 1: what I've read it. At the time of settlement, you know,

226
00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:59,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you know about everything. Yeah, it was and

227
00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:02,480
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the the the oak lumber went

228
00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 1: all over the world. I mean, you know, uh so,

229
00:14:06,200 --> 00:14:09,520
Speaker 1: but that had those forests had had time to get

230
00:14:09,559 --> 00:14:11,720
Speaker 1: some AIGs back on them, and I mean really it

231
00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:14,640
Speaker 1: was really prime habitat. I mean, there was a lot

232
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 1: of controversy through controversy on the clear cuttings back in

233
00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,360
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties and all that, but you know,

234
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:26,720
Speaker 1: really that's probably one of the single most uh important

235
00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:32,520
Speaker 1: factors their population to just boom. Yeah. Do you recall

236
00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:38,200
Speaker 1: I recall to of the locations they released bears. They

237
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,640
Speaker 1: released them in three locations, one in the Washtalls in

238
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:46,400
Speaker 1: Dry Creek Dry Creek Wilderness, and then the other one

239
00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:50,560
Speaker 1: was on Black Mountain, Black Mountain which is now White

240
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:53,240
Speaker 1: Rock w m A. And the third one I can't

241
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:55,160
Speaker 1: remember the third one, third one I believe was over

242
00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:59,520
Speaker 1: on Piney Creeks wm A. Okay, so those for those

243
00:14:59,520 --> 00:15:04,280
Speaker 1: would be eight miles apart, I don't know, I mean

244
00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:07,360
Speaker 1: kind of like three and they were that was just

245
00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:10,680
Speaker 1: like the the best places that they could figure that

246
00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,560
Speaker 1: they could turn them loose. Yeah, and you know, honestly,

247
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:16,960
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows whether they all got released in

248
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:19,400
Speaker 1: the same spot. You know, Like I say, there wasn't

249
00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:22,480
Speaker 1: a lot of documentation. I mean, if if you had

250
00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:26,160
Speaker 1: just driven thirty hours on a round trip, it was

251
00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:28,000
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, you might have just dropped

252
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:31,800
Speaker 1: the man, just dropped the tailgate and kicked them out.

253
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:37,920
Speaker 1: So you know, but uh, you know, they dispersed out

254
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:40,800
Speaker 1: where they needed to be, and you know, as I say,

255
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:44,040
Speaker 1: the population really just boomed. I'm sure reproduction was at

256
00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:48,160
Speaker 1: its peak. Uh. You know, our average letter size now

257
00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 1: is roughly two cups per litter. I wouldn't surprise me

258
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,160
Speaker 1: at off we didn't see a lot of three and

259
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:55,840
Speaker 1: four cup letters back in those days. Is that because

260
00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:00,240
Speaker 1: they would have that they somehow biologically would have sense

261
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,120
Speaker 1: that they were inside of a stress population and needed

262
00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 1: to reproduce more. Just outside of an open population, I mean,

263
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:11,640
Speaker 1: there's no restrictions on density depending issues or it's just

264
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:16,480
Speaker 1: unlimited food and unlimited range, and so that would translate

265
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:20,560
Speaker 1: into bigger letters size. Yeah, yeah, I would think so. Yeah.

266
00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:23,640
Speaker 1: So that brings us back to your work when you

267
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:28,560
Speaker 1: were in the late eighties. So finally, after twenty five

268
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,720
Speaker 1: years or twenty something years, they said, hey, these bears

269
00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:36,920
Speaker 1: are dispersing. There's been no scientific data gain They're really

270
00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:39,360
Speaker 1: hadn't other than the fact that we just knew we

271
00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:42,280
Speaker 1: were getting some bears. We knew we were getting a

272
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 1: lot of bears. And so they opened up a season

273
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:47,320
Speaker 1: and eighty and then in like night they said, hey,

274
00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:49,480
Speaker 1: we better figure out how many bears we've actually got

275
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,000
Speaker 1: about right, that's pretty that's pretty well it. I mean,

276
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:58,280
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, there had been enough work on establishing

277
00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:03,120
Speaker 1: population estimates to mark recaptures efforts and things like that,

278
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:06,440
Speaker 1: and they were getting pretty good at it. And uh

279
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:09,520
Speaker 1: but really, I mean that's what prompted Game and Fish

280
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:14,560
Speaker 1: to initiate a study. Uh. They worked on it in

281
00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:17,400
Speaker 1: the ozarks, uh for a couple of years, and then

282
00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:19,679
Speaker 1: the wash tolls a couple of years. And it was

283
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:24,160
Speaker 1: basically a hard mark recapture study to give us baseline populations.

284
00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,040
Speaker 1: They had collared bears that they would have collar bears,

285
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:32,960
Speaker 1: males and females that they were you know, doing home

286
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:37,720
Speaker 1: range estimates on that. They were doing reproduction estimates, recruitment

287
00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:40,399
Speaker 1: estimates on the females the same stuff that we're still

288
00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:45,280
Speaker 1: doing today. And uh, it was really just kind of

289
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:49,600
Speaker 1: the whole ball of wax. It was population estimation, it

290
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:55,920
Speaker 1: was home range estimation, it was reproduction, recruitment or survival.

291
00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:59,960
Speaker 1: It was just really everything that we didn't know about

292
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:04,120
Speaker 1: the bear population all rode into one and it ended

293
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:07,760
Speaker 1: up being, you know, the information was good enough and

294
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:12,280
Speaker 1: sound enough that it lasted us, you know, twenty years. Uh,

295
00:18:12,520 --> 00:18:14,959
Speaker 1: and we were able to kind of glean off of

296
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:18,080
Speaker 1: that and you know, make a little bit of assumptions

297
00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:21,040
Speaker 1: outside it, uh, you know, in the latter part of

298
00:18:21,040 --> 00:18:26,080
Speaker 1: that twenty years. So that's you know, that's what I

299
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 1: got started in when I was when I was an

300
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:32,960
Speaker 1: undergraduate and graduate school, I was able to be a

301
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:35,680
Speaker 1: part of those studies. So you were just you were

302
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,720
Speaker 1: just a biologist for the game and fish. Then for

303
00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:42,320
Speaker 1: a while before two thousand and eight when you became

304
00:18:42,359 --> 00:18:44,640
Speaker 1: the bare ball, Yeah, I was just a field ball

305
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: just and actually, uh, I actually started in Jonesborough for

306
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,439
Speaker 1: that's when I started my career. And I was in

307
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:54,600
Speaker 1: Jonesborough for a year and a half and then I

308
00:18:54,720 --> 00:19:00,679
Speaker 1: moved back to the Russellville office and from that point on, Uh,

309
00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:06,160
Speaker 1: you know, my predecessor riek Reek Eastridge. Uh, the oz

310
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:09,160
Speaker 1: Arcs was a really really big part of our bear

311
00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:13,400
Speaker 1: management or bear population, just like the Washingtons was. And

312
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:17,439
Speaker 1: because the entire almost the entire northwest quarter of the

313
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:20,960
Speaker 1: state was in my region. Uh, you know, I was

314
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,879
Speaker 1: kind of the go to person for that region for

315
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 1: bear work. And so back in when I moved from

316
00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:30,280
Speaker 1: ninety seven to ninety eight, I do really didn't do

317
00:19:30,359 --> 00:19:33,320
Speaker 1: much bear work in Jonesboro, but when I moved back

318
00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:38,320
Speaker 1: to Russellville, and I was basically I was a nuisance

319
00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 1: bear coordinator for all northwest Arkansas as a field biologists

320
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:45,400
Speaker 1: in there. That so, you know, I had the opportunity

321
00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:49,040
Speaker 1: to be involved in every facet of the bear program

322
00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,080
Speaker 1: where it would be nuisance work, whether it be research capturing,

323
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:56,400
Speaker 1: whether it be den surveys in the fall, bait station surveys.

324
00:19:56,480 --> 00:20:00,560
Speaker 1: You know. So let me ask you this to So

325
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, we had you know, less than

326
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:07,920
Speaker 1: a couple hundred bears in the state. We brought them

327
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:11,840
Speaker 1: back in in nineteen ninety they figured we had bears

328
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:17,520
Speaker 1: in Arkansas. Basically how many how many do we have now? Myron,

329
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:21,480
Speaker 1: you know, really Honestly, if you look at the the

330
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:25,639
Speaker 1: revised population work that a GFC did back in the

331
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:31,960
Speaker 1: early two thousand's, you know, we found that, uh the

332
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,600
Speaker 1: end resulting the washatass study or the Ozark study was

333
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:39,760
Speaker 1: almost three times what the previous density estimate was from

334
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:43,879
Speaker 1: the eighties study, and the wasshatas it was almost double

335
00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:48,320
Speaker 1: of what the previous estimate was. So if you kind

336
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:51,240
Speaker 1: of take that information with a little bit of a

337
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: grain of salt, understanding that the methods applied in early

338
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:59,000
Speaker 1: two thousand's, we're probably a lot more accurate than the

339
00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:04,719
Speaker 1: methods that we applied in the late eighties. Late eighties

340
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,400
Speaker 1: they were doing snares and ear tags and actual mark

341
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:13,560
Speaker 1: and recapture. In two thousand we're doing DNA analysis off

342
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:18,679
Speaker 1: hair traps, and so can you say, well, if we

343
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 1: thought we had then you know, do we have four

344
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:28,080
Speaker 1: times that now? Well, uh, probably not that much. It's

345
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:30,200
Speaker 1: probably a little bit of the fact that yes, we

346
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 1: no doubt have more bears. Now, Uh, do we have

347
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: three times the amount of bears? Maybe? I mean, it's

348
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,679
Speaker 1: not an exact science, so you have to take a

349
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 1: little bit of a I mean, there's a little bit

350
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: of I guess factoring that goes into it. I think

351
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,440
Speaker 1: based on the information that we had, you know, fifteen

352
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:58,480
Speaker 1: years ago or twelve years ago, now, I think we've

353
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,919
Speaker 1: probably have somewhere in the neighbor hood of six thousand

354
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:05,400
Speaker 1: plus bear statewide. I mean we've we obviously have bear

355
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 1: populations in the Osarks and Marshatas that continued to expand.

356
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:15,119
Speaker 1: Oklahoma continues to get more and more bears, you know,

357
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 1: bears dispersing into Oklahoma, our Gulf coastal plane of the

358
00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:23,280
Speaker 1: state continues to get more bears as bears. This person

359
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 1: now the Warshatalls and fellshal and in places like there.

360
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: What percentage of Arkansas would you say has bears right now?

361
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea sev seventy percent of the

362
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 1: counties in Arkansas would have had bear siding. Uh, well,

363
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:42,760
Speaker 1: seventy the length of the state. Arkansas has seventy five counties,

364
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say there's probably sixty counties in the state. Okay,

365
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: So okay, so even a higher percentage of actual counties. See,

366
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 1: that's that seems like. I mean the heck, when I

367
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,159
Speaker 1: was a kid growing up in the Washing Tolls, I

368
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 1: mean there aren't like I knew. I mean just as

369
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:06,360
Speaker 1: a kid where the line was where there weren't bears anymore,

370
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: because we deer hunted an hour south Amena and there

371
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,639
Speaker 1: were no bears down there. Nope, you'd never see a

372
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 1: bear down there, never hear of a bear. People talked about, Oh, well,

373
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,400
Speaker 1: you guys are from up there, you got bears up there,

374
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: and then now there's bears down there just as much

375
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,360
Speaker 1: as there were bears. Absolutely, absolutely, you know, I've seen

376
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 1: the same thing up in the north part of the state.

377
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I've lived in I've lived in western Arkansas

378
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: all my life, and I grew up hunting the ozarks

379
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: and hunting white rock and hunting wms like that, that

380
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: those parts of the National Force. And I can remember,

381
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,479
Speaker 1: you know, as a teenager, even as an adult, and

382
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: even as a you know, a ball just with game

383
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: and fish, there were there was forever in a time

384
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 1: to where the major north south corridor in the western

385
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: part of Arkansas, as I forty nine that goes from

386
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: Fort Smith to Faetteville. Well, the previous core door was

387
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: Highway seventy one, which it runs parallel to, but uh,

388
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: you know it was it was further on in my career,

389
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 1: before you would even ever hear of a bear being

390
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: west of Highway seventy one or west of I forty

391
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: nine corridor. And now you know they're that part of

392
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: the between the I forty nine corridor in the Oklahoma

393
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: state line. It's just lousy with bears. I mean, it

394
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: really is. There are a lot of bears, and even

395
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: in northeast Oklahoma, you know in uh some of their

396
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:40,920
Speaker 1: public land areas like Cherokee, uh, Cookstoon and all that.

397
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: I mean, since there's getting to be a pretty substantial

398
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: bear population. And we on this podcast too, we've talked

399
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: a lot about Oklahoma because I hunt over there. But

400
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: I mean their bears came from our bear our reintroduction.

401
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: Now they would have had that totally would have been

402
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,719
Speaker 1: in the bears historic range. Bears were in Oklahoma. Absolutely

403
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: in Missouri seeing the same thing south central Missouri there

404
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: they you know, they're getting bears as a result of

405
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: Arkansas bears dispersing. So why are the somm You know,

406
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,959
Speaker 1: if you look if you looked at North America ecologically

407
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: and you saw what was happening. The best way that

408
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: I could describe it as whatever is happening seems to

409
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: be beneficial to black bears. Well, you know, it really is.

410
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: And uh and what is I'll give you a prime

411
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: example of it, or Gulf Coastal Plain in the state

412
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: is really a prime example of how the culture is

413
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: benefiting the bear population. Uh. You know, and this is

414
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: strictly just observation on my part of the abiologist in

415
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: working with bears in Arkansas for twenty plus years. Uh.

416
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: You know, historically in the Gulf Coastal Plain of the state.

417
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: And when I'm talking about the Gulf Coastal Plain, if

418
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: you just basically took hip of a triangle of being

419
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 1: the Little Rock and you drew a corner to the

420
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: southeast part of the state and a leg to the

421
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: southwest part of the state, that's essentially the Gulf Coastal

422
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: Plain of Arkansas. And you know, if you look back, say,

423
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: you know, thirty years ago, forty years ago, Uh, it

424
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: was primarily all timber company land. Uh. You know, I

425
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: had plenty of soft masts available. There's probably enough hard

426
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: mass available, you know, throughout certain regions of that state

427
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 1: that could have sustained a bear population, But we just

428
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: never really saw bears pulling into it until probably twenty

429
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 1: years ago. And uh, the thing that started happening culturally

430
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: twenty years ago was, you know, a lot of the

431
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 1: way people hunt changed, you know, twenty thirty years ago,

432
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: and it really started kind of evolving into a m

433
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: you know, more of a food plot slash feeder type

434
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: hunting style rather than to go out and still hunt,

435
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 1: you know. And that's one thing that that you know,

436
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, I can't prove it, but I know,

437
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: looking at how that bear population has evolved over the

438
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 1: past twenty plus years, I have no doubt in my

439
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: mind what that has done. It's because you have people

440
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,479
Speaker 1: feeding on a landscape level, year round, year round, on

441
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: a landscape level, and this has been a cultural deal

442
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: that's just kind of down in there. I don't know

443
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: if we necessarily bait, I don't know if that would

444
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: be accurate. I'm with you, But what what that has done,

445
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: because culture has moved to that style of hunting, bears

446
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 1: have indirectly benefited from it because what it has done

447
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: is provided an annual food supply, and it has taken

448
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: submarginal habitat and turned it into marginal or even moderate

449
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: bear habitat. Because you know, bears can adapt to any

450
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: forested type. Uh. They don't have to have crevices to

451
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: have dens and reproduction. The get right on top of

452
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: the girls. Uh, there's no flooding regime. Where there is flooding,

453
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,919
Speaker 1: they have adapted to denning in tree cavities, you know,

454
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: like in the lower White River by Bartholome. You area,

455
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: so on the upland areas, you have taken the area

456
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: that would have probably been void of food through most

457
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: of the fall, and it just wouldn't have been suitable

458
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: because it's all pine. People wouldn't know all that. It's

459
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: all pine, it's all timber company. Timber companies didn't manage

460
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: the land for hardwood. There were always enough hardwood strips

461
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: around through there to provide along creeks. That's the way

462
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: that world works down there. That'd be small strips of

463
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: hardwoods along creeks. They have you know, all these timber

464
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: companies have always done you know, well always, but in

465
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: the last several decades they've done best management practices. Uh.

466
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,959
Speaker 1: They don't cut timber all the way up. So they

467
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 1: had stream riparian stream Uh, I forget what's called streams

468
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: side riparian zones. Or something like that. But anyway, they

469
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:37,239
Speaker 1: left the hardwoods along the creeks and uh, so you

470
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: know that provided a little bit of hard mass to

471
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: get through the fall. And uh, because these were typically

472
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: clear cut operations, you know, they're always planning of hard

473
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: mass or soft masks in the summer. Soft mass more

474
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: than likely wasn't the limiting factor. It was the fall

475
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: food source that was the limiting factor through most of that.

476
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: Now we've given it to them through bait and deer.

477
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 1: I'll be done. Would that area ever be you? Uh?

478
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: That was good to hear you say that, because I've

479
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: thought about this, you know, that being like subpar habitat,

480
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: which the difference between that and the Ozarks and Washingtons

481
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: Ozarks and Washingtonles would be mature climax hardwood forests through

482
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: national forest that's not being cut very much anymore. What myron,

483
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: would that? I mean, they're like I was in Michigan

484
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and I mean they don't

485
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: hardly have much hard mass. Uh, and a lot of

486
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: areas a lot of big pines and pine areas and

487
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: timber areas, and bears do find there with that Gulf

488
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: coastal plane. Ever, I mean with those bears ever adapt

489
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: to where that is prime habitat, even without baiting deer.

490
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if that's a fair a

491
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: good question really, uh my opinion of it. Would you know,

492
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: it may be able to support a very very small

493
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: They gotta have that fall. They got to have it.

494
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that's the fall forage is really,

495
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what they used to to fatten up to.

496
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: That's what the females have to have in order to

497
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: get their bodies into condition to go through and complete

498
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: a gestation period, go into a den cycle for four

499
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: to five months, you know, completely into the fall to

500
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: that and without that, you know, the males wouldn't necessarily

501
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: have to have it, but the female segment of that

502
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: population has to have that going into the fall. Otherwise

503
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: you're not going to have decent reproductive rates. You're gonna

504
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: have extremely poor reproductive rates. You're probably gonna have extremely

505
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: poor recruitment rates. And it just it reverts back to

506
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: that sub marginal habitat because you know, really, I mean

507
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: in the fall, when there's a very limited food available,

508
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: the males just you know, the males are going to

509
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: dominate those food supplies the dominant males are, so they

510
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: don't care if the female gets any food or not.

511
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,959
Speaker 1: You know, for them, that's survival of the fittest. So

512
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: if there's one little oak patch there that's dropping acorns,

513
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: guess what. Guess who's gonna own it. He's gonna get it,

514
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: He's gonna own it. So so what kind of recruitment,

515
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: So with with this added human and cultural element, like,

516
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: what kind of recruitment? And that's what That's one of

517
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: the studies that you guys have been doing the last

518
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: several years. Yes, we have an ongoing study UH that

519
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: should have completed its filled season the second field season

520
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: this year. Unfortunately we got flooded out. UH. That part

521
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: of the world does flood frequently from the White River

522
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: UH system. And the first year of our study was

523
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: supposed to have been two years ago. The first year

524
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: of the field season got flooded out because half of

525
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: our hair snare sites for underwater. UH. Then last year

526
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: we were able to complete a field season. We were

527
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: supposed to finish our second field season this summer, we

528
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: got flooded out again. UH. So right now the projection

529
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: is to finish our second field season next summer UH,

530
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: and once the second field season is completed within the

531
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: next year, we should have enough information to go ahead

532
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: and start putting the season framework together. UH. With a

533
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: little bit of hesitation, you know, I'll make the projection

534
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: that I'm hoping that we can see some type of

535
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: season framework in the year for the Gulf Coastal plant,

536
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: so that would be that would bring us to four

537
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: areas that we have. Well that's actually right now we

538
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 1: have bears on one and Bears one two, which is

539
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: the Ozarks and washtaw Uh Mountain region. That's our big

540
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: that's are those are the big areas. And then we

541
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 1: also have Bear Zone five and five A which is

542
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: basically around the White River refuge that very limited hunt,

543
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,319
Speaker 1: very limited opportunity. And then the Gulf Coastal Plain right

544
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: now consists of basically Bear Zone three and Bear Zone four.

545
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 1: So you know, hopefully within my career time frame, hopefully

546
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 1: within the next uh four to five years, you know,

547
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: we'll have a bear season over there's only seven bear

548
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: zones so six and bear Zone six and seven are

549
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 1: really up in the northeast part of the state and

550
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: the Delta, and you know, I don't ever foresee having

551
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 1: a bear season that it's just not but really in

552
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: every other bear zone in the state, you know, hopefully

553
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: by we'll have some type of season structure in place.

554
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how many bears are in

555
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 1: the Gulf Coastal plan We don't right now. We do

556
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: know that we have population. We do know that we've

557
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: seen we have some colored females on the Gulf Coastal plane.

558
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: We've seen evidence of reproduction. We know that females are

559
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: dispersed across the Gulf Coastal plane. We have citizens science

560
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,319
Speaker 1: evidence of that. You know, we have a site on

561
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: a Naturalists if you live in that part of the

562
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: world or hunt or have land or least land in

563
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: that part of the world, that we have an Arkansas

564
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: Black Bear Survey where people can log on to that

565
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 1: create a log on name, and they can actually download

566
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: pictures on a Naturalists on the Arkansas Black Bear Survey

567
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: and it will give us citizens citizen science information. Uh.

568
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: And you know, we do use that information. We do

569
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,720
Speaker 1: use it, we do look at it. And in large

570
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 1: part of that state, that's really the only means of

571
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: reproduction information we can have private and you know, we

572
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: can't just willy nilly go out and do these big

573
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: research projects on a bunch of private land. So that

574
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: is one of our big limiting factors of being able

575
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: to obtain data in that part of the world. It's

576
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: hard to do. But we do know there's reproduction in

577
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: that part of the state. I have just from what

578
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: I've seen, I think we have fairly low bare densities

579
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: and that part of the state relative to the other

580
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: areas of the state. But I think it's I think

581
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: we well, you know, we'll see through the research effort.

582
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: I think we'll see that we do have a large

583
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:39,719
Speaker 1: enough population. I think we have a high enough reproductive

584
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 1: rate that will will definitely be able to have some

585
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: type of season framework. Well, that's exciting and that's a

586
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a win for conservation when your bears.

587
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, when you when you look at

588
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: Arkansas's history just over the last thirty eight years, when

589
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: we open bear season, you think, you know, well, back

590
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: then it's just the Ozarks and the Washshatas, And now

591
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking about, you know, forty years later,

592
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: having a bear season over virtually every part of the

593
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: state that isn't just Delta Agra so it's it's pretty remarkable.

594
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: It really is. I mean, you know, that reintroduction effort

595
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: that Arkansas embarked on in the fifties and sixties is

596
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,760
Speaker 1: and I tell everybody this, you know, it's it's still

597
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: to this day, it's the most successful reintroduction of a

598
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: large carnivore in history, not just here you know, in

599
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: the US, but anywhere in the world. I mean, it's

600
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: just it is a it is a true poster child

601
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: what good conservation strategies can do. It's incredible. Do you

602
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:53,720
Speaker 1: think what do you think do you think the bear

603
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: is on the I mean, where's the bear ad in

604
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: terms of the Commission's level of attention? Is that a

605
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: fair Is that a fair question? I think it is.

606
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, it certainly ranks up there

607
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: in the top two or three, you know, I mean,

608
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: dear Dear's dear, Dear's king in any state. Uh, and

609
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: Arkansas is really no different. I mean, dear is king

610
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 1: in Arkansas. When you're talking about game species and all

611
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: that stuff. Whether it will run a second to deer

612
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: as opposed to turkey, you know, I don't really know. Unfortunately,

613
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: we don't really have a system a licensed system in

614
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 1: Arkansas that allows us to you know, cherry pick how

615
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: many bear hunters we have in the state. I wish

616
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: we really did, uh and you know, and maybe someday

617
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: we will, but right now, our license system really doesn't

618
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: allow everybody a resident Arkansas sportsman, right and even even

619
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 1: out of state, you know, uh hunters if they come in,

620
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: if they're hunting deer, they have to buy the big

621
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: game license. Uh. You know, so when you buy the

622
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: nonresident big game then you get a bear tag. So,

623
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 1: you know, we just we have no way of knowing

624
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: whether or not the residents and the non residents, whether

625
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,919
Speaker 1: they're coming into bear hunt where they're coming into deer hunt.

626
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: Our license system just isn't set up for us to

627
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 1: be able to pull that information off. But let me, uh,

628
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: let me ask you a couple of questions about those

629
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: arcs and washtalls and bare densities. I've always been curious

630
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: about and I've seen some of the data, but I

631
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 1: wonder if you have any new data of actual take

632
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: take uh the best habitat in Arkansas, and we don't

633
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: have to tell them where it is. Me and you

634
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: both know where it is. Best bear habitat in Arkansas?

635
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: What is a bare density per square my or just

636
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: and I know it's not you know, be bare home

637
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: ranges overlap. I mean I have people ask me this

638
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: question and it's hard to describe because I mean, bear

639
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: home ranges overlap. So if you just drew a square mile,

640
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: you said, how many bears are there right now? Well,

641
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: maybe right now there's no bears there, but over the

642
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: course of a year, there might be ten bears that

643
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: crossed through that square mile. But like, how would a

644
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: biologists describe bared densities? Well, I mean, you know, the

645
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: population is that we get from our from our research

646
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: will always equate it to square kilometers or a hundred

647
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: square kilometers, And it's hard, it's it's really hard to

648
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: kind of, uh, I guess give a person a good

649
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 1: feel of a bared density. When you say, well, we

650
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: have two and a half bears per hundred square kilometers,

651
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: you know we'd understand that or something like that. We

652
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: need to speak some Arkansas rednet, yeah, man, converting it

653
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: to uh, converting it to square miles, uh or some

654
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 1: unit that would make sense. You know, you know, I

655
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 1: mean you if you take something like uh, something like

656
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: white rock w m A, which is part of the

657
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: Ozark National Forests two hundred and fifty thousand acres roughly.

658
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: And you say, how many bears do we have on

659
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: white Rock w m A, or at least utilize a

660
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: part of white Rock w m A. Would it be

661
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 1: a fair assessment to say maybe there were two or

662
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 1: three hundred bears scattered across white Rock w m A.

663
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's probably pretty fair assessment when you're

664
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: talking about densities. I mean, it's just one of those

665
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: things you can have localized, very high identities and then yeah,

666
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,879
Speaker 1: a few miles away from that, you may not have

667
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: any bears in that part of the world. So you know,

668
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: when you spread it all the way across like bears

669
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: one one which is basically the Ozarks, uh, you know,

670
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: we think that we may have three thousand bears plus

671
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: across the Ozarks. I think that's a fair assessment of

672
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 1: our population what we have going on right now. And

673
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: so and really when you're calculating densities, you're really just

674
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: calculating densities from that study area extrapolating that over a

675
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: bigger area. So you take a you've taken a controlled

676
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: area that you can really understand like white Rock when

677
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: they did the population work on white Rock and the

678
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,839
Speaker 1: late two thousand six to two thousand nine something like that,

679
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: and then and then so you say, well, we pretty

680
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: much have a good idea of how many bears are

681
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: in this and then you say, well, how much more

682
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: habitat do we have that's like that across the state.

683
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: And so so really, when you get a population study,

684
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: it's not like they went to every county and didn't No, no,

685
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: it's far far from an exact science. I mean, you know,

686
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: you can take some of the variables out of it.

687
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: With the technology that we have now, you can do

688
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: habitat rankings and you say, okay, this white Rock has

689
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:20,760
Speaker 1: a habitat ranking of this, you can say, okay, where

690
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: else do we have, you know, habitat that ranks this?

691
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 1: And if this habitat ranks it is by no means

692
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: in exact science. There is a lot of uh swagging

693
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: that goes on. Let me ask let me ask you

694
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 1: to you this way. This will be like a true

695
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: or false. If you were standing in white Rock, you

696
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 1: you and you and you were you had a bow

697
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: in your hand and you're fixing to dive off into

698
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: one of those big hollis there. Could you could you say,

699
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: in the fall of the year, there's probably three bears

700
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: in the square mile. I think that would be probably safe, Okay,

701
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 1: would there be Okay, so that's that's true. Your answer

702
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: is true? Uh, true or false? There are six bears

703
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: in the square mile? Probably not? Okay? False? Okay. So

704
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: so you know that's what I think about. Myron when

705
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: I'm hunting the National Forest just kind of envisioned this.

706
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,919
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there looking up this huge grain and I'm thinking, boy,

707
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: if I had one red dot appear everywhere there was

708
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: a bear, you know, that's to me, that's where I

709
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: make of densities. You know, that'd give me an idea

710
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: of density. But yeah, if you're talking to square I

711
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: would I would say a square mile anywhere on white Rock,

712
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: because it is optimum habitat, it is National Forest. I'd

713
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,720
Speaker 1: say there's a real good chance that within any given

714
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: square mile on white Rock you could have two to

715
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: three bears. Yeah, let's see. That's good. I think that

716
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: that kind of gives a picture of of the density,

717
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: which if you think about it from a deer perspective,

718
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: like coming from deer hunting. I mean a bear is

719
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: a low density animal compared to a deer, So I mean,

720
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: you know that's now obviously there's not a lot of

721
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 1: deer in white Rock because it's close campy forest, but

722
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: you know, there might be fifteen deer ten deer in

723
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: that square mile. And the other thing to consider with bears,

724
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: you know, they may show up in that square mile,

725
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: but one of those bears may show up in the

726
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: square mile next to it as well, you know, So

727
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:32,319
Speaker 1: to say that there's three bears that live in that

728
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: square mile, they don't, they don't they have their ranges

729
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: are a way to talk to me about bear home

730
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:42,359
Speaker 1: ranges for Arkansas, because I've seen data from all over

731
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 1: the country about you know, in places where resources are sparse,

732
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: like out west, these bears have these bigger home ranges

733
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: because they're they're having to travel more. Uh. But where

734
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 1: resources plentiful, which the eastern deciduous forests pretty much is

735
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: bear primetime habitat. What are bear densities here? Or excuse me,

736
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: bar at home ranges? You know, home ranges. Uh, I'm

737
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,479
Speaker 1: gonna say your typical home range in the ozarks horr

738
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: washer toss for an adult female is probably gonna be

739
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: maybe five or six square miles and and realize that.

740
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,280
Speaker 1: And I tell people that the way to think about

741
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: a home range of a bear is really kind of

742
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,240
Speaker 1: like this. That doesn't mean that they're the only bears

743
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: that occupy that home range. And I tell people just

744
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: equate it to uh an individual owning forty acres. If

745
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: you own forty acres and have a house and a

746
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: yard on that forty acres, every once in a while,

747
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: you may go over to the back forty and you

748
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: may kind of check it out. You may have a

749
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 1: pond on the east side that you go fish, you

750
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: may have this or whatever, and but you primarily live

751
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: in your house and in your yard. And that's a territory.

752
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: And bears will have establish territories within a home range.

753
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: They may have a summer territory where they typically forage

754
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 1: in the summer. They may have a fall territory where

755
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: they typically forage in the fall. Sometimes those places are

756
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: right next to each other, sometimes they may be two

757
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,879
Speaker 1: miles apart. Uh So with bears, you have a lot

758
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: of home range, and that forty acres is basically all

759
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: the resources they have available where they would go in

760
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: a given year. Is that right where they could go

761
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: if they had to go to the back corner of

762
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: the forty to get a drink, if they had to

763
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: go to the front forty corner of the forty to

764
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: go to a berry patch that was ripe, or the

765
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 1: bottom corner to get a you know, a cherry uh

766
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: bench that was loaded with cherries. It's basically all the

767
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 1: land that that bear can potentially go to to have

768
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 1: access to food during the year, and that home range

769
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 1: would be overlapped by multiple absolutely, and people tend to

770
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: think of you know, I'll tell the White Rocks two

771
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: hundred fifty tho acres. Well, an adult females home ranges

772
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: four or five six square miles. Wow, you know there's

773
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: only five bears on White Rocket. Well, no, it's not

774
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: like that at all. You have several adult female home

775
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: ranges that overlap. You have multiple adult male ranges that

776
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: overlap themselves and overlap multiple female What about males, They're

777
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: probably gonna be at least half again bigger, uh, you know,

778
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: maybe ten square miles and where you will most see

779
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: home range quote home range activity come into plays during

780
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: the mating season. Those males probably hit all four corners

781
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 1: of their home range looking for those. Now, you still

782
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: get some wild ones that disperse really big. I mean

783
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: there's been we talked about the bear that went a

784
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 1: hundred fifty six miles in Oklahoma and killed on the

785
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: interstate back in the nineties or whenever. And you know

786
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: it's not just the young bears. I mean typically it

787
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: is the sub adult male bears that disperse, can disperse

788
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:16,760
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles. Uh. But you know, we've had females

789
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: with callers on them just pack up and move. And

790
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen very often, but you know, for some

791
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 1: reason or no that they just they just pack up

792
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: and move. But what's the wildest uh bear movement story

793
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: that you've come across in twenty years in Arkansas? Can

794
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: you think of one? Mm hmm. I know we had

795
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: one of our collared females show up a couple of

796
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: years ago up on the Mingo National Railoe National Wildlife

797
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: Refuge in southeast Missouri. I mean at the time, Missouri

798
00:49:55,640 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: hadn't even started their project and it was several months

799
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: months after the fact. But anyway, I ended up getting

800
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: in contact when someone that had a photo or someone

801
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: that had seen a cinnamon bear on main Go that

802
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: had an orange radio tracking collar on it. How far

803
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: did she go? We don't know. We were never able

804
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 1: to get a hoodo. I was never even able to

805
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: who knows, I mean, she was collared by us and

806
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 1: our don't even know. You don't even know who she

807
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: don't even know which female it was, because I guess

808
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,240
Speaker 1: some of them go missing. Yeah, some of them go missing.

809
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,760
Speaker 1: A collar will go missing, you know, whether they're poached

810
00:50:34,840 --> 00:50:38,800
Speaker 1: or whether that goes dead or you know, malfunction, something

811
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: happened to it, and you have callers just disappear. And

812
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 1: I was never able to glean back through. I mean,

813
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: there was no doubt when the bear was seen. The

814
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 1: only state around within it was your mile area was

815
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 1: using orange radio collars. I mean it was obviously it

816
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: was one of our collared bears. Now, whether that bear

817
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: was colored in the wash dolls, the ozarks, who knows,

818
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,919
Speaker 1: But it was collared in Arkansas. And will you still

819
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: to this day have no idea which bear it was

820
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 1: or where she ended up at. Huh. So she may

821
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: have come back, I mean she may have. She may

822
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: she may be here now we don't know so, but uh,

823
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 1: I mean you know when the callers have limited ranges. Um,

824
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: if it was a satellite collar, it would have been different,

825
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 1: but we've never used satellite callers. So so we harvest

826
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: about less than five d bears a year in Arkansas.

827
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 1: Is that you have three hundred what's the quota in

828
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 1: the Ozarks, fifty for archery and then forty five older

829
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: forty five modern guns. So we could kill as many

830
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: as three hundred and fifty something three forty three and

831
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: forty bears, which maybe we will. I mean, most of

832
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: the time we will get pretty close to that, wouldn't we,

833
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 1: you know, most of the time. I mean even in

834
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: years where there is a good mass available, you know,

835
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 1: it usually trickles through enough. I think quite a couple

836
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: of years ago, you shot one, you shot one on

837
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 1: the last day. I mean, you know, it'll just kind

838
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: of trickle through depending on what the mass available availability is.

839
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: Like if it's a really poor mast year, Oh yeah,

840
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna meet the quota and then and then the

841
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: Washingtons they'll kill hundred hundred and thirty yeah, something like that,

842
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: probably a hundred hundred and fifty probably, So there's potential

843
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,319
Speaker 1: of five hundred bears and they'll kill ten down in

844
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: zones five and five A. So that's kind of the

845
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: scope of our of our bear harvest here in Arkansas. Yeah,

846
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,879
Speaker 1: and you know, we're really looking at to increase that.

847
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, for a for a long time

848
00:52:56,200 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: there after the early two thousand study amount, we knew

849
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: we had more bears than than we thought reproduction rates.

850
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: Uh we saw in two thousand seven eight nine, we

851
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 1: thought we saw those drop. Well, we did see them

852
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: drop dramatically because of some environmental things, and we actually,

853
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: I actually thought, uh that we would have seen some

854
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: pretty far reaching effects of that, and it turns out

855
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:32,239
Speaker 1: that it wasn't. It wasn't near as dramatic effect as

856
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:34,240
Speaker 1: we thought. I think would be interesting to talk about

857
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 1: that just for a second. And that that was a fall,

858
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: I mean, excuse me, a spring when there was total

859
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: leaf out and I don't remember all the dates, but

860
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:46,520
Speaker 1: I just it was the Easter weekend of two thousand seven,

861
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 1: so all the oaks had their tassels out, I mean

862
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: full leaf out, and then we had a massive freeze

863
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: about two thirds of the state that I mean, it

864
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: was it was almost like Halloween, Myron, I mean you

865
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: remember too, I mean it was like everything all the

866
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: screen and then everything went black and it was almost otherworldly.

867
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 1: And and you I mean, for so it killed all

868
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 1: the mascrop, killed all even some of the soft mast.

869
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 1: It killed all the soft mask, It killed all the

870
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:20,560
Speaker 1: hard mast, And so you knew that that was gonna well,

871
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: I mean, the projection was that that was gonna massively

872
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 1: impact reproduction. It wasn't it. You know, at that time,

873
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 1: we had actually removed the quota end zone one because

874
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: if people were barely meeting the quota, even on years

875
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: when there wasn't mast available, when the bears were susceptible

876
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:44,800
Speaker 1: to harvest overbaked, we were still really barely meeting our quota.

877
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: And so what happened as a result of that was

878
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: we knew it was gonna impact reproduction. We knew it

879
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: was going to impact survival rates. But we didn't start

880
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 1: seeing that, of course, until two thousand and eight and

881
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:03,320
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, because bears have a two year reproductive cycle,

882
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, after two thousand nine, after that

883
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 1: data came in, you know, we realized, I mean, we

884
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 1: went from having eighty eight percent reproductive rates to thirty

885
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 1: percent reproductive rates. We went from having eighty to nine

886
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:23,879
Speaker 1: survival or recruitment rates down to survival rates. I mean,

887
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: it was just hard. And you know, we saw that

888
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 1: coming and we thought, well, we have got to reinstate

889
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:33,879
Speaker 1: the quota. So in two thousand and ten we reinstated

890
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:38,399
Speaker 1: the quota to provide a cushion on that. And uh,

891
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 1: you know, of course, uh, almost a decade later, you know,

892
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: I can look back at the at the dispersal information

893
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 1: that just the information we have on bear showing up

894
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 1: in parts of the States where we just haven't had

895
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: bears before, and especially females with cubs showing up in

896
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: areas that were you know, really fringes of bare range before.

897
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, looking back on it, I mean,

898
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 1: you know, we I can say with pretty good confidence,

899
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:11,560
Speaker 1: well I thought it was going to be a major

900
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 1: impact to the population, and it turned out it wasn't

901
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:17,319
Speaker 1: even a speed bump. Well, it's incredible how they can

902
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: adapt and it really and you know, some of the

903
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 1: things that may that may have softened the blow is

904
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: the same effect that's taking place in the Gulf Coastal

905
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,359
Speaker 1: Plain is more than likely taking place across bare range

906
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:34,439
Speaker 1: one as well. You know, feeding on the landscape level

907
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: of deer feeders and stuff like that. So you know,

908
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 1: outside of that, uh, you know, that impact may have

909
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:46,960
Speaker 1: been a lot more prevalent. Uh And but uh, at

910
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:50,359
Speaker 1: any rate, the end results is still the same. We

911
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: we still feel like we have expanding bare populations in

912
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 1: the Ozarks in the Washing Toss, and right now, our

913
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: current statewide bear plan dictates that we are trying to

914
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: stabilize those populations. Uh. So you know, ideally, what we

915
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:10,919
Speaker 1: want to do is we want to harvest those bear

916
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 1: populations at roughly the same rate of reproduction. And so

917
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: if instead of having ten or twelve percent reproductive rate, uh,

918
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we're having fifteen eighteen percent. Uh. You know, well,

919
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 1: I guess that's misstatement. Instead of having adding ten percent

920
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: to your bare population, you know in a given year

921
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: or twelve percent, maybe we're adding fifteen or eighteen percent

922
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: to our population. So what we want to do is

923
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: increase harvest rates to balance that out. So, uh, you know,

924
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:57,920
Speaker 1: I do know that, you know, for the next regulation cycle. Uh,

925
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: there'll be some proposals, now, you know, I don't I

926
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: don't I don't make the laws or the regulations I

927
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: propose them, But I do know that I have proposed

928
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:12,160
Speaker 1: an increase in the Zone one quota. Uh. And you

929
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 1: know there may be you and I have talked about

930
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: this for years, going back to some things in Zone

931
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: two that may allow us to harvest more bears. Zone

932
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:22,760
Speaker 1: two doesn't have a quota. Uh, it's really kind of

933
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: a self regulating system. For the lack of a better term,

934
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: there's really only so many bears in Zone two that

935
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 1: are going to be accessible to being harvested because of

936
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 1: the distribution of private land. That's exactly right. What the

937
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: with a September because we had a September opener for

938
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 1: five or six years. Would that be a logistical problem,

939
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: because that's that's what we're talking about. Well, you know,

940
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 1: it wasn't really Uh, it wasn't really a logistical problem

941
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: back then. I think it was. I guess the question

942
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: would just be if we were trying to harvest bears

943
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: they're reinstate in that would that be Because I know

944
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:04,360
Speaker 1: now it's pretty nice that we've got, I mean from

945
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 1: a management standpoint and regulations to have the deer season

946
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 1: open with the bear season. And you know what could

947
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: I do? Could I twist your arm to get back

948
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: our septem be open. Uh, you know, those are just

949
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: those are decisions on those types of things are really made.

950
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: Um you know, they're made by our upper administration, They're

951
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: made by our commissioners. And uh uh is it possible

952
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: that you know, we could we could go back to that. Sure,

953
00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:41,840
Speaker 1: it's possible now whether or not we'll we'll do something

954
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 1: uh as drastic as tagging gun onto the front of it,

955
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:48,760
Speaker 1: because really that you know, those were one of the

956
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: things that really kind of hurt that early opener was

957
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: it was so successful, uh that you know, that's when

958
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 1: we really start seeing the spiking females in the harvest

959
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:03,200
Speaker 1: rate when we added the gun. So you know, if

960
01:00:03,240 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 1: we if we really feel that we need to address

961
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:10,160
Speaker 1: population growth in zone two, is that something that we

962
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: could certainly consider. Sure, just turn those bow hunters lootion.

963
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: So believe me, I get asked every year. Hey, I

964
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: had to say that for my people because everybody's like,

965
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: you gotta talk to Myra and about getting the space.

966
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about it so many times. You

967
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: know the only thing that I say from a hunting's

968
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:35,240
Speaker 1: perspective is that if we could change the culture in

969
01:00:35,280 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 1: some way, and I think we're doing it where people

970
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: are targeting those older mature males, which that's the ones

971
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: we want to take out anywhere. Boy, it's easier to

972
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 1: take them on the fifteenth than it is later. So

973
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 1: that's the So if you're in a perfect world, if

974
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: you could say, okay, guys, we'll give you the September opener,

975
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,200
Speaker 1: you shoot the big ones, don't don't shoot the juveniles

976
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 1: and females that come in that are Obviously you can't

977
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: do that because there's new hunters, and there's situations that

978
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 1: arise where you know, you let your kid hunt, and

979
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: you're not gonna tell your kid not to shoot a

980
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: legal bearer, you know what I mean. There's all these variables,

981
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 1: but that's the one thing that I've seen is that, boy,

982
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:16,479
Speaker 1: for those older mature males, you can they're they're they're

983
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: always hard to kill, but they're easier to kill the

984
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:23,680
Speaker 1: earlier for whatever's no doubt, for whatever reason. And believe me,

985
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 1: nobody's heart has been broke more than mine. I I

986
01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: hunting Zone one, and so I'm susceptible to the to

987
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: the regulations of the game and fish just like anybody else.

988
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 1: You know, last year was a prime example. You know,

989
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 1: I was so excited about it because I thought, Wow,

990
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:46,560
Speaker 1: we're gonna have everybody, everybody in our leash. You know,

991
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: I got six guys, and we're gonna have everybody, man bo,

992
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,240
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be perfect. We could potentially have every

993
01:01:53,240 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 1: one of us have a bear on the opening afternoon,

994
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 1: you know, and two days before the wind in the

995
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: break your heart, man be will break your heart. What's

996
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:10,440
Speaker 1: the total shift of of topics here? What's the biggest

997
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 1: Arkansas BlackBerry you've ever laid your hands on in research

998
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:19,000
Speaker 1: or or legitimately heard of. Well, I've heard of some

999
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:23,440
Speaker 1: six hundred pound plus males being harvested. Uh that I

1000
01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: have physically laid my hands on. H I'm gonna say

1001
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: a five hundred pound male. When we've done research. I've

1002
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 1: had people tell me they've shot males five hundred plus. Um,

1003
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that I had one on on a

1004
01:02:43,720 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: bait barrel last year. Uh that would have pushed five hundred. Uh.

1005
01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: That number is a pretty legitimate number. I mean, like,

1006
01:02:52,960 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 1: not everybody has a five pound bear, but there's enough

1007
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 1: that are killed that are really weighed that. I mean,

1008
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 1: that's yeah, they're five pound bears, you know, and the

1009
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: people that have that I've heard actual weights from. I mean,

1010
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:08,240
Speaker 1: they went through the effort of Wayne, you know, weighing

1011
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 1: on me either on really big spring scales or taking

1012
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 1: their truck over some scales or something. So I feel

1013
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:16,560
Speaker 1: it's pretty accurate. I mean, you know, if you think

1014
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 1: back to the reintroduction effort, are bears are descendants of

1015
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: their northern counterparts, so they naturally are going to have

1016
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: the potential of being a lot bigger framed than our

1017
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: original Arkansas. Oh yeah, I mean it's ah well, it's

1018
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: a rule of science called Bergman's rule, and the simply

1019
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:40,880
Speaker 1: states that animals of northern hemispheres have larger biomass than

1020
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:46,160
Speaker 1: animals of southern hemispheres. Are bigger than you know, I

1021
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:49,560
Speaker 1: wad there are bigger than Arkansas deer. Uh, Minnesota deer

1022
01:03:49,600 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: are bigger than I always thought that. I've always said

1023
01:03:52,520 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 1: that Bergman's law didn't apply to bears because they dinned

1024
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:58,560
Speaker 1: in the winter, so they evaded that law. Because think

1025
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 1: about North Carolina bears, Caroltle bears the biggest bears in

1026
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, there's coastal bears and that's probably due

1027
01:04:05,040 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 1: to mostly their diet. But I mean, you know, really,

1028
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: I think I think the rule still applies, you know,

1029
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: to some extent. I just think on average, you know,

1030
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 1: after bears evolve on a certain food type or certain habitat. Uh,

1031
01:04:22,880 --> 01:04:27,240
Speaker 1: I just I think Bergman's law still applies. So that's interesting.

1032
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:31,280
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought that that those bears would be

1033
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 1: bigger frame than arts. So that's why we have some

1034
01:04:33,560 --> 01:04:36,040
Speaker 1: big bears that we do. I think, you know, it

1035
01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:40,800
Speaker 1: may not be as prominent as hurts me a little bit.

1036
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:45,640
Speaker 1: It may not be as promitive as you know, like

1037
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:49,160
Speaker 1: on deer. Of course, you know, the perfect example is

1038
01:04:49,280 --> 01:04:53,120
Speaker 1: you know, uh, Saskatchewan deer versus a Florida key deer.

1039
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:57,720
Speaker 1: But I think there's I think there's still a certain

1040
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:01,640
Speaker 1: amount of that law that applies to all animals. I

1041
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:06,960
Speaker 1: don't think bears are completely excluded from it. Well, UM

1042
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: conversation shift again. Before we started we started talking about UM.

1043
01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:15,400
Speaker 1: A question that you get asked a lot about, which

1044
01:05:15,480 --> 01:05:22,440
Speaker 1: is expansion into a spring season or running hounds. I

1045
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 1: want to tee you up for that because I get

1046
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: that question all the time to people are like, hey,

1047
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 1: why don't we why don't we have this? Why don't

1048
01:05:29,760 --> 01:05:32,280
Speaker 1: we have that to the explanation that you gave to

1049
01:05:32,320 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: me earlier was a great I thought it was a

1050
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:40,520
Speaker 1: great example of why actually the risk inside of that.

1051
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not gonna say I hadn't decided

1052
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:46,040
Speaker 1: if I fully agree with it, but it's a good

1053
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:48,600
Speaker 1: it's a good a good point. So talk to me

1054
01:05:48,640 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 1: about talk to me about that. Well, Uh, I've given

1055
01:05:52,080 --> 01:05:54,520
Speaker 1: uh say, I just finished up giving a six bear

1056
01:05:54,600 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: hunting seminars all across the state and it was really

1057
01:05:57,680 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 1: just bear hunting night to z e in Arkansas. You

1058
01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:02,240
Speaker 1: know what to do on publicly and won't do in private.

1059
01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: And I got to ask it every one of those seminars.

1060
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:09,840
Speaker 1: I was asked, uh, do you think Arkansas will ever

1061
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:12,720
Speaker 1: have a spring season? Do you think Arkansas will ever

1062
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:17,520
Speaker 1: have a hound season? And uh, you know the kind

1063
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 1: of just a short abbreviated response I gave them was

1064
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 1: probably not uh And really, uh, you know, Arkansas is

1065
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:38,400
Speaker 1: really fortunate and that we are a very sportsman oriented state. Uh.

1066
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:43,560
Speaker 1: You know, we have a very very strong sportsman mentality.

1067
01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:47,840
Speaker 1: Consumptive user of the resource, whether you're a fisherman, whether

1068
01:06:47,880 --> 01:06:53,680
Speaker 1: you're a hunter. But you know, the consumptive component of

1069
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: the vast majority of our state is very prevalent, and

1070
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:03,600
Speaker 1: we're very fortunate of that. And uh, the reason why

1071
01:07:03,680 --> 01:07:06,480
Speaker 1: we are so fortunate about it is we don't really

1072
01:07:06,520 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 1: have a lot of backlash from anti hunting segments of

1073
01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: the population because there are so many sportsmen in Arkansas.

1074
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:21,400
Speaker 1: There's such a large consumptive component of our state is

1075
01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 1: still pretty rural. Uh. You know a lot of places

1076
01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 1: in the state. You know, most people don't have to

1077
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:30,360
Speaker 1: go very far at all to go deer hunt. You know,

1078
01:07:30,520 --> 01:07:33,480
Speaker 1: they may, but they wouldn't necessarily even people that are

1079
01:07:33,680 --> 01:07:35,840
Speaker 1: urban people you know, are the biggest city in Arkansas

1080
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 1: is roughly two or fifty people a little rock. Even

1081
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 1: even those people that might be truly urban people that

1082
01:07:43,000 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: aren't hunters and stuff, they're always this is my just anecdotal,

1083
01:07:49,160 --> 01:07:52,640
Speaker 1: they're one step away from a hunter. You know, their uncle,

1084
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:56,000
Speaker 1: their uncle was a hunter, their granddad was a hunter,

1085
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:58,800
Speaker 1: and so they have some and that heritage is they

1086
01:07:58,800 --> 01:08:02,280
Speaker 1: have some connection to it really is so in steeped

1087
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: in Arkansas tradition, Uh, that we're fortunate enough not to

1088
01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:11,840
Speaker 1: have a large anti hunting component in the state. And

1089
01:08:12,680 --> 01:08:16,120
Speaker 1: you know, some of the some of the cons of

1090
01:08:16,320 --> 01:08:22,160
Speaker 1: having many harvest strategies like a hound season or spring season.

1091
01:08:22,680 --> 01:08:25,880
Speaker 1: You know, it's just some of them can carry pretty

1092
01:08:25,880 --> 01:08:32,599
Speaker 1: strong anti hunting, uh connotations about them. I mean, people

1093
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: hear about a spring season and you know, maybe they're

1094
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:41,280
Speaker 1: not necessarily anti, but uh if they hear about a

1095
01:08:41,280 --> 01:08:45,439
Speaker 1: spring season orphaning cubs, uh, you know, well, that's just

1096
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:47,479
Speaker 1: gonna leave a bad taste in their mouth, so they

1097
01:08:47,520 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: may become an anti rather than And it's just there's

1098
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:57,599
Speaker 1: some the cons that are associated with some of those

1099
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:03,880
Speaker 1: practices would really probably outweigh the benefits of us instituting

1100
01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:09,920
Speaker 1: one of those, primarily because we don't have to institute

1101
01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: practices like that in order for us to obtain our

1102
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:18,320
Speaker 1: harvest objectives. And so that's what I usually tell people

1103
01:09:18,400 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: in the short answer is well, probably not, because uh,

1104
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:26,880
Speaker 1: we're able to harvest enough bears in the state to

1105
01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:32,719
Speaker 1: keep the population healthy and sound without venturing off into

1106
01:09:32,760 --> 01:09:35,960
Speaker 1: those for lack of a better term, I'm gonna call

1107
01:09:36,040 --> 01:09:40,800
Speaker 1: them sideline harvest strategies, because your primary harvest strategies there

1108
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: is always going to be a fall season, you know,

1109
01:09:43,280 --> 01:09:45,800
Speaker 1: on bears, but then you can have a sideline of

1110
01:09:45,880 --> 01:09:49,439
Speaker 1: spring or hounds or something like that. And most of

1111
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: the states that have spring seasons need those spring seasons

1112
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 1: to achieve their harvest objectives, or they need multiple bears

1113
01:09:58,000 --> 01:09:59,920
Speaker 1: in the bag limits, you know, or something like that.

1114
01:10:01,200 --> 01:10:04,320
Speaker 1: But I mean, the the true answer is we're able

1115
01:10:04,320 --> 01:10:09,240
Speaker 1: to harvest enough barriss in Arkansas without fighting. I think

1116
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:13,920
Speaker 1: that's a good pr statement because people don't understand. And

1117
01:10:14,200 --> 01:10:18,360
Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm all for every legal method that

1118
01:10:18,400 --> 01:10:21,640
Speaker 1: falls into side of big wildlife management to give people opportunities.

1119
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:24,840
Speaker 1: So in my mind, in a perfect world, guys could

1120
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:29,000
Speaker 1: run hounds, we'd have a spring season the perfect world.

1121
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:35,400
Speaker 1: But the the the way that you guys think and

1122
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:38,879
Speaker 1: and and this is good is from a management position.

1123
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:43,719
Speaker 1: Our job is to extract a certain number of animals

1124
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:46,599
Speaker 1: from the population every year to achieve our management goals.

1125
01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:52,280
Speaker 1: In the current system facilitates that. And here's another thing

1126
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:54,760
Speaker 1: about Arkansas that I think is important is that we

1127
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:59,679
Speaker 1: don't have a long history of historic use practices because

1128
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:02,360
Speaker 1: we did to have bears in the state for fifty

1129
01:11:02,439 --> 01:11:05,840
Speaker 1: years for real, Like in the Appalachians. I've been going

1130
01:11:05,880 --> 01:11:08,679
Speaker 1: over there, uh in hunting with some guys with hounds.

1131
01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 1: Incredible culture incredible. I mean, those guys are some of

1132
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:16,840
Speaker 1: the most dedicated sportsmen and the best outdoorsman that I know.

1133
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:22,800
Speaker 1: They have on their side. Historic use because for two

1134
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:27,360
Speaker 1: or fifty years they've been running house and in because

1135
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:31,240
Speaker 1: we didn't have bears, because they were absolutely guys running

1136
01:11:31,280 --> 01:11:34,320
Speaker 1: hounds in Arkansas back in eight hundreds. I mean, there's

1137
01:11:34,360 --> 01:11:36,840
Speaker 1: all kind of literature that I mean, so like, in

1138
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:38,760
Speaker 1: some ways you can say, well, it is historic use

1139
01:11:38,800 --> 01:11:41,679
Speaker 1: because we've been running, but there was seventy years where

1140
01:11:41,680 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 1: people forgot about it. It is lost. So that's the

1141
01:11:46,000 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: difference between us and say the Smoky Mountains and the

1142
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:54,639
Speaker 1: Appalachians is that we don't have that because if yeah,

1143
01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:56,960
Speaker 1: and I think that's a good point to make, and

1144
01:11:57,560 --> 01:11:59,519
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it would be a massive political

1145
01:11:59,680 --> 01:12:03,479
Speaker 1: jump for a game agency in this day and age

1146
01:12:03,520 --> 01:12:07,599
Speaker 1: two institute something like that. And I mean, and I wish,

1147
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,960
Speaker 1: I wish you would, uh, but I also realized the

1148
01:12:11,000 --> 01:12:13,040
Speaker 1: limitations of it, and I think it's good for people

1149
01:12:13,080 --> 01:12:18,000
Speaker 1: to understand the macro picture, you know, and and and

1150
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:20,640
Speaker 1: I mean it is I mean, we're we're a state agency.

1151
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:24,559
Speaker 1: You know, we're beholding to the uh customers of the state.

1152
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: So I mean that's certainly always going to dictate to

1153
01:12:28,960 --> 01:12:32,520
Speaker 1: a certain extent how we manage you know, our game species.

1154
01:12:33,439 --> 01:12:36,880
Speaker 1: Uh you know, well, I mean, well we're never outside

1155
01:12:36,920 --> 01:12:42,120
Speaker 1: of that, uh so, but I mean as far as

1156
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:46,040
Speaker 1: management goes, as far as the scientific end of it goes,

1157
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:52,360
Speaker 1: uh you know, uh the old expression if you know,

1158
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 1: if it's not broke, don't fix it. So if we're

1159
01:12:57,040 --> 01:13:00,320
Speaker 1: able to harvest the bears that we need to under

1160
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 1: our current framework, and it's yeah, I think we're fortunate

1161
01:13:04,479 --> 01:13:06,320
Speaker 1: to be able to hunt them over bait. I mean

1162
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:08,559
Speaker 1: there's a lot of places as well. I mean, you know,

1163
01:13:08,640 --> 01:13:12,760
Speaker 1: that's a perfect example of you know, whether you necessarily

1164
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,559
Speaker 1: agree with hunting bears over bait or not. We had

1165
01:13:16,600 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 1: to have that as a harvest tool prior to two

1166
01:13:20,600 --> 01:13:23,320
Speaker 1: thousand one. You know, all bear harvest in the state

1167
01:13:23,400 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 1: for roughly twenty years was basically incidental to deer hunting.

1168
01:13:27,160 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: If you were out deer hunting, you saw a bear,

1169
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:31,200
Speaker 1: you can shoot a bear. We probably killed less than

1170
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:33,600
Speaker 1: fifty bears a year in the state. Well, it was

1171
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:37,080
Speaker 1: getting on up there towards the nineties as a population group,

1172
01:13:37,560 --> 01:13:40,639
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean, you know, more people were seeing

1173
01:13:40,720 --> 01:13:43,559
Speaker 1: the more bears are out there, you're gonna harvest more bears.

1174
01:13:44,360 --> 01:13:47,920
Speaker 1: And uh, we were harvesting, you know, a decent amount

1175
01:13:47,920 --> 01:13:52,080
Speaker 1: of bears up until two thousand and one. And uh,

1176
01:13:52,200 --> 01:13:56,280
Speaker 1: but it was also it was also pretty clear to

1177
01:13:56,400 --> 01:14:00,320
Speaker 1: the agency that by two thousand one or by two

1178
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:05,839
Speaker 1: thousand that our population was growing at a much faster

1179
01:14:05,960 --> 01:14:09,200
Speaker 1: pace than what our harvest rate was and we knew

1180
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:11,120
Speaker 1: we had to slow it down. So we knew we

1181
01:14:11,160 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: had to increase and you know, baiting. Whether you agree

1182
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:17,040
Speaker 1: with baiting or not, I mean, that was one tool

1183
01:14:17,120 --> 01:14:21,080
Speaker 1: that that we figured was probably the most palatable to

1184
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:25,559
Speaker 1: the consumptive and non consumptive users of the state, and

1185
01:14:25,760 --> 01:14:29,640
Speaker 1: it was certainly probably the most effective tool that we

1186
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:32,960
Speaker 1: could use. And so you know, we implemented it in

1187
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: two thousand one, and uh, you know, I mean you

1188
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:39,360
Speaker 1: can look at our harvest chart and see what an

1189
01:14:39,400 --> 01:14:42,280
Speaker 1: impact it were from that very first year and still

1190
01:14:42,320 --> 01:14:45,360
Speaker 1: continues to make a huge impact. So, you know, and

1191
01:14:45,479 --> 01:14:48,679
Speaker 1: we had a I was on a a big national

1192
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:53,479
Speaker 1: podcast two months ago and the guy wanted to talk

1193
01:14:53,479 --> 01:14:56,559
Speaker 1: to me. I know, you don't listen to podcaster. I'd

1194
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:58,920
Speaker 1: tell you what Steve Ronnella is the guy I was

1195
01:14:58,960 --> 01:15:04,040
Speaker 1: on this podcast and we talked about baiting bears, and uh,

1196
01:15:04,280 --> 01:15:07,680
Speaker 1: you know, baiting bears is one of the most selective

1197
01:15:08,680 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: ways for selective harvest. You know, you're drawing the animal,

1198
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:14,560
Speaker 1: you got pictures of him, you know what's there. You

1199
01:15:14,600 --> 01:15:19,759
Speaker 1: can be highly selective in in Ranella's response was that, honestly,

1200
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:22,040
Speaker 1: it's one of the most ethical ways to hunt a

1201
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:24,760
Speaker 1: bear in terms of shot selection. I mean, if you

1202
01:15:24,800 --> 01:15:27,479
Speaker 1: looked at it from a and we talked about fair

1203
01:15:27,560 --> 01:15:31,479
Speaker 1: chase and stuff, and but from it even an ethical

1204
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:37,799
Speaker 1: standpoint of if ethics is dispatching an animal quickly, then jeez,

1205
01:15:38,320 --> 01:15:42,240
Speaker 1: drawing in debate at fifteen yards there's no doubt about

1206
01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:44,519
Speaker 1: and have them stand still. And so I mean there's

1207
01:15:44,560 --> 01:15:47,120
Speaker 1: there's all these like really powerfully possitible things which I'm

1208
01:15:47,120 --> 01:15:49,080
Speaker 1: preaching to the choir talking to these guys about it.

1209
01:15:49,280 --> 01:15:52,559
Speaker 1: I'm not really that selective because I love bear meat

1210
01:15:54,800 --> 01:15:58,240
Speaker 1: as long as I think it is a moderately mature

1211
01:15:58,479 --> 01:16:06,000
Speaker 1: or mature adult. Ill. Uh, yeah, I'm with you. That's good.

1212
01:16:06,600 --> 01:16:10,800
Speaker 1: That's excellent. Well, hey, anything that you'd like to say

1213
01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:13,080
Speaker 1: that we hadn't talked about this has been really great,

1214
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:16,240
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for I wouldn't mind talking about

1215
01:16:16,280 --> 01:16:18,720
Speaker 1: this false season a little bit. Uh. You know, I

1216
01:16:18,760 --> 01:16:21,040
Speaker 1: get I get a lot of people asking me all

1217
01:16:21,080 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: the time, you know, what do I think the fall

1218
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:24,720
Speaker 1: season is gonna be like? As a quotare gonna be mad?

1219
01:16:24,800 --> 01:16:27,880
Speaker 1: Is everything? And so you know that's one thing I

1220
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,720
Speaker 1: always like to kind of whenever I have a platform,

1221
01:16:30,760 --> 01:16:33,439
Speaker 1: I like to kind of educate people on, especially where

1222
01:16:33,439 --> 01:16:39,360
Speaker 1: it becomes pertains to Arkansas bears, uh and Arkansas bear

1223
01:16:39,479 --> 01:16:42,760
Speaker 1: quotas in zone one or something like that. Is how

1224
01:16:43,040 --> 01:16:48,040
Speaker 1: closely tied to the mass crop it is. I mean

1225
01:16:48,240 --> 01:16:51,519
Speaker 1: it is. It is so closely tied to the mass cropping.

1226
01:16:51,600 --> 01:16:53,439
Speaker 1: You know this because you and I have talked forever

1227
01:16:53,479 --> 01:16:56,400
Speaker 1: about this. But I could actually go back and look

1228
01:16:56,439 --> 01:17:00,240
Speaker 1: at the bear harvest every single year all the way

1229
01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:04,560
Speaker 1: back to nineteen and I could probably tell you, especially

1230
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:07,800
Speaker 1: up to two thousand one, but I could tell you

1231
01:17:08,760 --> 01:17:10,920
Speaker 1: whether or not it was a really good mast year

1232
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:13,680
Speaker 1: or whether or not it was a really poor mash year.

1233
01:17:13,880 --> 01:17:15,240
Speaker 1: It would be kind of a little bit tougher to

1234
01:17:15,240 --> 01:17:17,439
Speaker 1: gleam out prior to two thousand one, but from two

1235
01:17:17,520 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 1: thousand one to this past year, I could look at

1236
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:22,280
Speaker 1: every year and tell you whether or not it was

1237
01:17:22,320 --> 01:17:25,800
Speaker 1: a good mash. High high bear harvest would mean low

1238
01:17:25,880 --> 01:17:29,800
Speaker 1: mast that's correct, And especially if you looked at the

1239
01:17:29,920 --> 01:17:34,240
Speaker 1: timing of the bear harvest, because you know, I mean

1240
01:17:34,280 --> 01:17:37,519
Speaker 1: we we have harvest records by day, you know, when

1241
01:17:37,520 --> 01:17:41,200
Speaker 1: the season opens, and you could look at how that

1242
01:17:41,400 --> 01:17:45,080
Speaker 1: initial like the opening day of archery season. Roughly eighty

1243
01:17:45,280 --> 01:17:49,480
Speaker 1: plus percent of Arkansas bears every year harvested with archery equipment,

1244
01:17:50,160 --> 01:17:53,000
Speaker 1: and so I could look at the breakdown of harvests

1245
01:17:53,160 --> 01:17:56,360
Speaker 1: through the duration of archery season, through the duration of

1246
01:17:56,439 --> 01:18:00,080
Speaker 1: most load season, through the duration of gun and I

1247
01:18:00,120 --> 01:18:03,080
Speaker 1: could tell you, you you know, I could get raided on

1248
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:05,479
Speaker 1: a one to ten. Oh, this is probably about an

1249
01:18:05,479 --> 01:18:09,960
Speaker 1: eight year for masturbailability. This was about a two and

1250
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:16,360
Speaker 1: uh it's it is really that directly correlated to masturbailability.

1251
01:18:17,160 --> 01:18:20,880
Speaker 1: And the bellies are full of acrons and they're not

1252
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:24,720
Speaker 1: responding to base And I tell people in my seminars

1253
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:31,240
Speaker 1: and everything else, you really can't compete with eons of evolution.

1254
01:18:32,040 --> 01:18:35,479
Speaker 1: I mean, these bears evolved eating what mother nature provides.

1255
01:18:36,280 --> 01:18:38,760
Speaker 1: And you know, the only thing I can equate it

1256
01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 1: too is if if you've been fed, you know, filet

1257
01:18:42,320 --> 01:18:47,040
Speaker 1: mignon your whole life. And uh, someone sets, you know,

1258
01:18:47,080 --> 01:18:52,000
Speaker 1: a piece of burnt chicken down in front of you.

1259
01:18:52,080 --> 01:18:55,559
Speaker 1: Need to eat this instead of your filet. I don't

1260
01:18:55,600 --> 01:18:57,679
Speaker 1: know too many people they are gonna go over there anything.

1261
01:18:57,800 --> 01:18:59,640
Speaker 1: The only reason you go eat that bird chicken is

1262
01:18:59,640 --> 01:19:07,200
Speaker 1: that that wasn't there. That's right, that's and uh, you know,

1263
01:19:07,240 --> 01:19:11,760
Speaker 1: I've had people ask me about projections on this year. Uh,

1264
01:19:12,120 --> 01:19:14,000
Speaker 1: you know, on the sad truth about it is, it

1265
01:19:14,040 --> 01:19:16,120
Speaker 1: looks like it's going to be a pretty good mass

1266
01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:19,720
Speaker 1: year all the way across the Ozarks, not just at

1267
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:24,680
Speaker 1: lower or higher elevations. It's pretty good distribution of mass

1268
01:19:25,080 --> 01:19:29,040
Speaker 1: white oaks and red oaks both. And uh, it was

1269
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:32,880
Speaker 1: from what I've seen on the area on my lease

1270
01:19:32,960 --> 01:19:36,360
Speaker 1: and around my lease, it was it's it's a good

1271
01:19:36,479 --> 01:19:40,720
Speaker 1: enough year that I didn't even bother with it this year.

1272
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:44,519
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not even bating this. I mean it's

1273
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:48,120
Speaker 1: a lot of work and everything else like that. And uh,

1274
01:19:48,160 --> 01:19:49,920
Speaker 1: you know I have guys that come in from out

1275
01:19:49,920 --> 01:19:52,760
Speaker 1: of state and and hunt with me, and you know,

1276
01:19:52,840 --> 01:19:55,599
Speaker 1: I just told them said, look, guys, it's it's even

1277
01:19:55,640 --> 01:19:57,599
Speaker 1: more money on their part because they have to buy

1278
01:19:57,640 --> 01:20:00,439
Speaker 1: the nonresident big game. And I said, it's it's a

1279
01:20:00,439 --> 01:20:02,240
Speaker 1: lot of work and a lot of effort, and I'm

1280
01:20:02,280 --> 01:20:05,720
Speaker 1: afraid we'd all be pretty disappointed by time Opening day

1281
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:09,120
Speaker 1: rolls around. So so I don't know, I don't I

1282
01:20:09,160 --> 01:20:15,320
Speaker 1: don't expect. I don't expect every Arkansas hunter follows what

1283
01:20:15,439 --> 01:20:18,559
Speaker 1: Myron's doing. It just don't even bathe this year. Just

1284
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:20,679
Speaker 1: leave it to us. Man, We'll take it from here.

1285
01:20:22,479 --> 01:20:25,439
Speaker 1: So but you know, I tell people that, and but

1286
01:20:25,560 --> 01:20:29,200
Speaker 1: it's really, you know, it's really kind of it's killing

1287
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:32,759
Speaker 1: really kind of what the availability is around their area.

1288
01:20:32,840 --> 01:20:35,559
Speaker 1: I mean, these bears can travel four or five six

1289
01:20:35,600 --> 01:20:39,280
Speaker 1: miles maybe to a bait site. Uh if there's no

1290
01:20:39,400 --> 01:20:43,200
Speaker 1: mass available, So you know, they're little micro area of

1291
01:20:43,240 --> 01:20:45,640
Speaker 1: the world, may not have any masks. If you're at

1292
01:20:45,640 --> 01:20:49,960
Speaker 1: a high elevation or called a late frost um, you know,

1293
01:20:50,080 --> 01:20:52,680
Speaker 1: it may be a perfect year for them. So I

1294
01:20:52,800 --> 01:20:56,439
Speaker 1: tell people, really, I tell them, despite what I'm telling you,

1295
01:20:56,479 --> 01:20:59,280
Speaker 1: what I saw where I hunt, You go out and

1296
01:20:59,320 --> 01:21:02,280
Speaker 1: do the homework where you hunt. Take your binoculars out

1297
01:21:02,760 --> 01:21:05,559
Speaker 1: before the season and scout around. See if you've got

1298
01:21:05,560 --> 01:21:08,040
Speaker 1: a bunch of white oaks that have are loaded with

1299
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:11,960
Speaker 1: acorns and if you do, uh, you know, your hopes

1300
01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:14,920
Speaker 1: of pulling that berry and after that acorn drop is

1301
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:18,519
Speaker 1: is tough. And we've got a late season opener, which

1302
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:23,080
Speaker 1: was the way the cycle it rolls. This year it

1303
01:21:23,160 --> 01:21:25,280
Speaker 1: was late. Now, if the season would have opened the

1304
01:21:25,320 --> 01:21:28,120
Speaker 1: twenty second or twenty three like it did last year,

1305
01:21:28,520 --> 01:21:30,599
Speaker 1: I would have probably went ahead and you know, took

1306
01:21:30,640 --> 01:21:32,559
Speaker 1: a gamble. This is about as late as it will

1307
01:21:32,600 --> 01:21:35,639
Speaker 1: ever get. Yes, it is. They don't always go fourth

1308
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:41,360
Speaker 1: Saturday for Saturday in September. It usually runs between the

1309
01:21:41,800 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 1: one and the or something. But you know, I've had

1310
01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:50,080
Speaker 1: I've heard mixed reviews that validates what you just said

1311
01:21:50,720 --> 01:21:53,439
Speaker 1: in that I've I've got guys that are I've had

1312
01:21:53,439 --> 01:21:55,800
Speaker 1: two texts in the last twenty four hours, but people say,

1313
01:21:55,800 --> 01:21:58,360
Speaker 1: where the bears go clay, you know, just like their

1314
01:21:58,400 --> 01:22:02,040
Speaker 1: bears are just gone and they will do it that quick.

1315
01:22:02,160 --> 01:22:05,439
Speaker 1: I've also got guys that are like, man, my baits

1316
01:22:05,479 --> 01:22:09,400
Speaker 1: are getting pounded and so and they're different. I mean,

1317
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:13,080
Speaker 1: just I think the regional you know, just small area

1318
01:22:13,160 --> 01:22:16,160
Speaker 1: might different. I mean, you know, I can't predict what

1319
01:22:16,320 --> 01:22:20,759
Speaker 1: everyone's regional environment you know, within a five mile radius

1320
01:22:20,760 --> 01:22:23,640
Speaker 1: of their baits side. But I can just tell them

1321
01:22:23,720 --> 01:22:27,000
Speaker 1: what I've what I have been told people I've talked

1322
01:22:27,040 --> 01:22:30,640
Speaker 1: to all across the Ozark style, just technicians, landowners. A

1323
01:22:30,680 --> 01:22:32,920
Speaker 1: lot of mass crop. There is a lot of mass

1324
01:22:32,920 --> 01:22:35,960
Speaker 1: this ship, and there's a lot of white oaks specifically.

1325
01:22:35,960 --> 01:22:38,280
Speaker 1: The way that I deal with this emotionally, Myra and

1326
01:22:38,360 --> 01:22:44,920
Speaker 1: every year is that on years with massive mass crop, man,

1327
01:22:45,360 --> 01:22:49,320
Speaker 1: the bare populations are thriving because of it. Yeah, I

1328
01:22:49,320 --> 01:22:51,360
Speaker 1: mean for real, I mean, like you have a year

1329
01:22:51,400 --> 01:22:54,080
Speaker 1: with a bumper crop, you're gonna have You're gonna have

1330
01:22:54,160 --> 01:22:57,080
Speaker 1: stals with big litters, You're gonna have males they're going

1331
01:22:57,120 --> 01:22:59,559
Speaker 1: in the then fat and so it's I mean it's

1332
01:22:59,600 --> 01:23:02,760
Speaker 1: kind of like you're you're buffering for that bad year

1333
01:23:02,840 --> 01:23:05,720
Speaker 1: that you have. I think about that from a you know,

1334
01:23:05,840 --> 01:23:08,760
Speaker 1: somebody that loves bears. That's what you gotta think of it.

1335
01:23:08,840 --> 01:23:10,920
Speaker 1: Because if every year we had a terrible mask cop

1336
01:23:11,040 --> 01:23:13,479
Speaker 1: wouldn't have any bears, That's right, you know what I mean?

1337
01:23:14,080 --> 01:23:17,479
Speaker 1: And the and uh you know like that that is

1338
01:23:17,520 --> 01:23:19,519
Speaker 1: the way it may be a really bad year for

1339
01:23:19,600 --> 01:23:22,439
Speaker 1: bow hunters you know that have bait sites, but those

1340
01:23:22,479 --> 01:23:26,439
Speaker 1: bowl hunters that want to go find those natural food sources. Hey,

1341
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:29,559
Speaker 1: it can be a boom year for this. Uh and

1342
01:23:29,720 --> 01:23:32,679
Speaker 1: you know the bears is it may be bad for

1343
01:23:32,960 --> 01:23:37,400
Speaker 1: you know, for me over a hunting over a barrel,

1344
01:23:37,479 --> 01:23:39,719
Speaker 1: but hey, it's good for the bears, There's no doubt

1345
01:23:39,760 --> 01:23:42,799
Speaker 1: about it. Years like this, you know, can have lasting

1346
01:23:42,840 --> 01:23:46,400
Speaker 1: impacts year or two years in the future. So it's

1347
01:23:46,400 --> 01:23:50,120
Speaker 1: always good. And uh, you know certain things, Uh if

1348
01:23:50,160 --> 01:23:54,160
Speaker 1: if certain, if some of my proposals are you know,

1349
01:23:54,200 --> 01:23:57,080
Speaker 1: approved by our commission, then you know we'll start to

1350
01:23:57,120 --> 01:24:01,760
Speaker 1: see some liberalization of the harvest strategies for sure in

1351
01:24:01,840 --> 01:24:05,439
Speaker 1: Bear Zone one. Uh, probably in Bear Zone two in

1352
01:24:05,479 --> 01:24:09,439
Speaker 1: the next you know, a few years. So uh, you know,

1353
01:24:09,520 --> 01:24:12,439
Speaker 1: we're we're trying to we're trying to keep up with

1354
01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:18,240
Speaker 1: the growing times of our air populations. Excellent. Well, I'm

1355
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:22,840
Speaker 1: grateful that we're in a state that number one isn't

1356
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:26,960
Speaker 1: a referendum state. Not to dive too far off of it,

1357
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:29,759
Speaker 1: but a lot of these states, the game agencies are

1358
01:24:30,320 --> 01:24:35,559
Speaker 1: dictated not by commission but by the legislators, and so

1359
01:24:35,720 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 1: you can get you know point being you know, say

1360
01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:44,000
Speaker 1: what you will about being governed by a commission. These

1361
01:24:44,000 --> 01:24:50,679
Speaker 1: people have wildlife and mind their hunters. The general mass

1362
01:24:50,760 --> 01:24:54,639
Speaker 1: population isn't what is making game laws, if I could

1363
01:24:55,360 --> 01:24:58,800
Speaker 1: simply put it that way, Yeah, or legislators making game

1364
01:24:58,880 --> 01:25:03,320
Speaker 1: laws based up on political stuff, and uh you know,

1365
01:25:03,439 --> 01:25:06,080
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they're sure. There's pros and cons to

1366
01:25:06,160 --> 01:25:11,840
Speaker 1: all state systems, whether you're a legislative government agency or

1367
01:25:11,920 --> 01:25:15,439
Speaker 1: a commission government agency. But you know, it's been my

1368
01:25:15,520 --> 01:25:20,160
Speaker 1: experience that without a doubt, the commission governed agency is

1369
01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:24,040
Speaker 1: by far and away can be the better way to go. Uh.

1370
01:25:24,120 --> 01:25:26,880
Speaker 1: It's certainly a lot more reactive. I mean, you can

1371
01:25:26,960 --> 01:25:30,400
Speaker 1: get you can get things done easier, a lot easier.

1372
01:25:31,720 --> 01:25:33,880
Speaker 1: But I mean we're still you know, even though we

1373
01:25:33,920 --> 01:25:38,880
Speaker 1: have a commission, we're still um uh the legislature keeps

1374
01:25:38,880 --> 01:25:41,960
Speaker 1: a close eye, you know, on us, and we still

1375
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:45,879
Speaker 1: have to have all our appropriations, building, all that stuff

1376
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:49,960
Speaker 1: approved by the legislature of the state. So uh, but

1377
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:53,680
Speaker 1: you know, we've been really blessing Arkansas to you know,

1378
01:25:53,840 --> 01:25:57,480
Speaker 1: have really good commissioners and uh, most of them are

1379
01:25:57,520 --> 01:25:59,920
Speaker 1: our sportsmen, so they, you know, they have a real

1380
01:26:00,080 --> 01:26:04,000
Speaker 1: fondness like every other sportsman in the state, for the resources.

1381
01:26:04,720 --> 01:26:08,920
Speaker 1: So uh, it's it's it's been working really well. Yeah.

1382
01:26:08,960 --> 01:26:13,439
Speaker 1: Well man, the Arkansas black bear and and now the

1383
01:26:13,520 --> 01:26:16,120
Speaker 1: Oklahoma black bear, and the southern Missouri bear and the

1384
01:26:16,200 --> 01:26:19,960
Speaker 1: eastern Mississippi bear and the northern Louisiana bear. This region,

1385
01:26:20,640 --> 01:26:23,360
Speaker 1: you know, it is it's a it's a special place

1386
01:26:23,400 --> 01:26:26,600
Speaker 1: and it's it's uh. I mean, it truly is a

1387
01:26:26,640 --> 01:26:29,720
Speaker 1: world class wildlife resource that we have. You know, it

1388
01:26:29,840 --> 01:26:32,240
Speaker 1: really is. I tell people all the time. You know,

1389
01:26:32,479 --> 01:26:36,599
Speaker 1: Arkansas is not only you know, coming back into its

1390
01:26:36,640 --> 01:26:39,639
Speaker 1: own as the bear state, but you know, when bear

1391
01:26:39,840 --> 01:26:42,960
Speaker 1: baiting first took off in two thousand one, one of

1392
01:26:43,000 --> 01:26:46,240
Speaker 1: the main reasons why we removed the quota believe in

1393
01:26:46,280 --> 01:26:51,479
Speaker 1: two thousand six was because in spite of having baiting,

1394
01:26:52,000 --> 01:26:57,400
Speaker 1: you know, bear hunting as a sport really didn't start

1395
01:26:57,479 --> 01:27:02,360
Speaker 1: taking off until people learned how debate. When people learned

1396
01:27:02,400 --> 01:27:06,479
Speaker 1: how debate bears, that's when the culture really took off.

1397
01:27:06,960 --> 01:27:09,880
Speaker 1: So in the late you know, two thousand and eight,

1398
01:27:10,000 --> 01:27:13,680
Speaker 1: nine eleven twelve, that was kind of the coming of

1399
01:27:13,800 --> 01:27:16,960
Speaker 1: age of the Arkansas bear hunters, and that's when people

1400
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:20,559
Speaker 1: really started learning how to do it and they thought, man,

1401
01:27:20,600 --> 01:27:22,760
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is great. You know it

1402
01:27:22,840 --> 01:27:25,360
Speaker 1: was a great resource. It was a great tool to have,

1403
01:27:25,760 --> 01:27:28,519
Speaker 1: and people took advantage of it and they learned, they

1404
01:27:28,640 --> 01:27:34,080
Speaker 1: learned on it. And now Arkansas is truly becoming they

1405
01:27:34,160 --> 01:27:38,040
Speaker 1: go to state to hunt burying in the southeast. I mean,

1406
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:40,439
Speaker 1: I have more and more out of state bear hunters

1407
01:27:40,479 --> 01:27:43,040
Speaker 1: called me every year and and really one of their

1408
01:27:43,760 --> 01:27:47,520
Speaker 1: oddly enough, one of their biggest uh, I guess complaints,

1409
01:27:47,600 --> 01:27:50,320
Speaker 1: not really complaint, but one of the questions I get

1410
01:27:50,360 --> 01:27:54,360
Speaker 1: all the time, there are there any outfitters And that

1411
01:27:54,560 --> 01:28:00,400
Speaker 1: is really oddly absent in our in Arkansas is the

1412
01:28:00,560 --> 01:28:03,599
Speaker 1: absence of outfitters. And you know, you and I both

1413
01:28:03,600 --> 01:28:06,040
Speaker 1: know all the issues that come without It's hard to

1414
01:28:06,080 --> 01:28:10,760
Speaker 1: gain that much land to have access to, but uh,

1415
01:28:10,800 --> 01:28:14,320
Speaker 1: you know there and I just tell them, man, just

1416
01:28:14,840 --> 01:28:16,960
Speaker 1: come down and beat the bushes, kind of like turkey

1417
01:28:17,040 --> 01:28:19,640
Speaker 1: hunting or something in Kansas, you know, go knock on

1418
01:28:19,760 --> 01:28:24,200
Speaker 1: some doors and uh. Because we do have an absence

1419
01:28:24,240 --> 01:28:27,479
Speaker 1: of outfitters in the state, but in spite of that,

1420
01:28:27,560 --> 01:28:32,559
Speaker 1: we're still becoming the go to state uh to hunt

1421
01:28:32,600 --> 01:28:36,280
Speaker 1: bears in the southeast. And I think it's great. Uh,

1422
01:28:36,400 --> 01:28:38,040
Speaker 1: you know, I love to see it. I love to

1423
01:28:38,400 --> 01:28:40,880
Speaker 1: I love to promote the sport. I just I just

1424
01:28:41,000 --> 01:28:43,280
Speaker 1: love it. I have a passion about bears and always

1425
01:28:43,280 --> 01:28:47,519
Speaker 1: have and I'll pro promote the sport until, you know,

1426
01:28:47,600 --> 01:28:56,960
Speaker 1: until I retire. So well, excellent man, Thank you Byrons. Yeah, hey,

1427
01:28:57,040 --> 01:28:59,040
Speaker 1: we always I know you've never listened to bar any

1428
01:28:59,080 --> 01:29:01,320
Speaker 1: magazine podcast, because I showed you how to do, I'm

1429
01:29:01,360 --> 01:29:05,880
Speaker 1: going to follow you. We just feel like I'll past

1430
01:29:05,960 --> 01:29:10,519
Speaker 1: the technical milestone today. Yeah, we just gotta figure out

1431
01:29:10,600 --> 01:29:13,200
Speaker 1: how to get a podcasts on an Android. But no,

1432
01:29:13,479 --> 01:29:14,720
Speaker 1: this is what we always say. At the end of

1433
01:29:14,720 --> 01:29:17,360
Speaker 1: the podcast. We say, keep the wild places wild because

1434
01:29:17,400 --> 01:29:20,280
Speaker 1: that's where the bears live. That's right. Thank you very much.