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Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underware. Listening past, you

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Speaker 1: can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. When

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Speaker 1: I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds,

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Speaker 1: no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer,

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Speaker 1: no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at

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Speaker 1: first light dot com. That's f I R S T

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Speaker 1: L I T E dot com. Ladies and gentlemen. Joined

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Speaker 1: today by Tom Seaton from Alaska Department Fishing Game, Montana

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Speaker 1: Native and Tom runs you tell me the title of

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Speaker 1: the program you run.

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Speaker 2: Wood Bison Project Biologists partner of Fishing Game.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, Wood Bison Project Biologist yep, okay, kind of

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Speaker 1: lay some context, Yeah, to tell the story you're gonna

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Speaker 1: tell you. Tom's gonna tell the story of what I

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Speaker 1: consider to be the most exciting thing. It's big. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna be under a lot of pressure what I considered

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Speaker 1: to be the most exciting thing in bison recovery in

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Speaker 1: the whole country. There's really nothing like what you guys

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Speaker 1: are doing. In order to set up the story of

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Speaker 1: what you guys, I'm gonna tell I'm gonna talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about what's going on around the country if

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Speaker 1: that's cool with you. Just lay the context as people know,

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Speaker 1: and we talked about this's a ton on the show. Uh.

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Speaker 1: For some reason, the American bison or buffalo are the

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Speaker 1: only animal in the United States of America. They're the

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Speaker 1: only wild native animal mammal in the United States of

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Speaker 1: America that is not treated generally, not treated like a

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Speaker 1: wild animal. I guess some examples. There's the one I

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Speaker 1: always bring up, so everybody knows. Everybody around the country

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Speaker 1: knows or has some familiarity with the fact that in

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Speaker 1: Yelstow National Park, there's a buffalo herd in Yelso National

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Speaker 1: Park and they've been in the park continuously since the

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Speaker 1: beginning of time. Now, there was points in the history

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Speaker 1: and the only ones left in the park were fenced

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Speaker 1: in and they were feeding them hay bales. But they've

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Speaker 1: been there right. However, when those animals, if those animals

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Speaker 1: walk north out of Yelstow National Park and come into

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Speaker 1: the state of Montana, they stop being wildlife when they

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Speaker 1: leave the park and they become they walk into an

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Speaker 1: environment where they're under the authority of the Montana Department

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Speaker 1: of Livestock. In the last twenty years, there has been

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Speaker 1: some efforts to be more lenient with the animals. There's

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Speaker 1: some these little things they call tolerance zones around the

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Speaker 1: area of Gardner, Montana, where the bison can leave the

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Speaker 1: park and mingle around without getting rounded up or hazed

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Speaker 1: back in. But it would not be allowable. It is

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Speaker 1: not allowable for a little band of those animals to

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Speaker 1: decide to leave the park and just go wandering their

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Speaker 1: way down the Yellowstone or wandering their way into the

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Speaker 1: National Forest and set up shop, say in the Gallatin Range,

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Speaker 1: or set up shop in the Absorcas. They would be

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Speaker 1: under the jurisdiction of the Department of Livestock, who would

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Speaker 1: have the authority to shoot them, down, load them up,

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Speaker 1: send them off to slaughter. They're just not welcome as

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Speaker 1: a wild animal. We have all around the country a

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Speaker 1: lot of habitat where we could be putting buffalo on

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Speaker 1: the ground and building up populations that are big enough

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Speaker 1: to support hunting, and we just choose not to do it.

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Speaker 1: With a lot of species that are imperiled or endangered

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Speaker 1: or absent on the landscape, sometimes it winds up being

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Speaker 1: that The reason we can't recover them is because it

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Speaker 1: would be really hard, or be really expensive, or there'd

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Speaker 1: be like intense social risk, right like putting grizzly bears

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Speaker 1: back in Golden Gate Park in California is going to

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Speaker 1: come with inherent risk to individuals. So you don't go

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Speaker 1: and do it with Buffalo. We could fix a lot

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Speaker 1: of the problem we created when we wipe them all out.

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Speaker 1: We could fix a lot of the problem by doing nothing,

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Speaker 1: because we have these little populations all around the country

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Speaker 1: that could be allowed to grow and expand. The example

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Speaker 1: I gave the Montana, and again this is all setting

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Speaker 1: up for Alaska. The example I gave the Montana is

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Speaker 1: here you have y Also National Park. It's administered by

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Speaker 1: the Park Service. The Park Service is very friendly toward

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Speaker 1: the animals. Since two thousand, they've had this idea that

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Speaker 1: the park and support around three thousand buffalo. Three to

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Speaker 1: five thousand, I think is what they have. Recently, the park,

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Speaker 1: National Forests, and tribal entities all agreed on a new

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Speaker 1: management plan and they're like, hey, we're going to double it.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna say that the park can hold six thousand,

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Speaker 1: trusting that some of these animals are going to migrate

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Speaker 1: out of the park. So the state of Montana turns

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Speaker 1: around and sues them, saying no, no, no, no, no, you

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Speaker 1: got to drop it back to three thousand because we

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Speaker 1: don't want the risk of these wild animals leaving the park.

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Speaker 1: Elk can leave the park, Bighorn sheep can leave the park,

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Speaker 1: grizzly bears can leave the park, Mountain lions can leave

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Speaker 1: the park, black bears can leave the park, moose can

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Speaker 1: leave the park. Everybody can leave the park, but not him.

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Speaker 1: If he leaves the park, we're gonna shoot him, okay,

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Speaker 1: or round him up. Then you got this other example,

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Speaker 1: like we'll jump down to Arizona for a minute. So

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Speaker 1: Arizona has had buffalo, a couple buffalo, a buffalo herd

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Speaker 1: going back to nineteen oh six. Okay, there's this dude

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Speaker 1: named Buffalo Jones. He was a reformed hide hunter. Toward

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Speaker 1: the end of the animals engagement in the country, when

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Speaker 1: they were wiping them all out, this dude went out

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Speaker 1: and caught some wild ones. He literally went out and

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Speaker 1: roped up some buffalo calves, and he bought some from

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Speaker 1: other guys and got this little herd worked up in

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Speaker 1: nineteen oh six, this herd makes us way into Arizona

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Speaker 1: and they set up this game area where these animals

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Speaker 1: live in confinement. Later they move some to another game area.

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Speaker 1: Eventually they shoot those ones off and bring them in

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Speaker 1: from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. And so

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Speaker 1: like these genetically peer ones. And then at one point

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Speaker 1: in time, a group of this herd breaks off and

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Speaker 1: they go down and they set up shop in Grand

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Speaker 1: Canyon National Park. So here you have the inverse of

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Speaker 1: what's happening in Montana and Arizona. The Grand Canyon National

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Speaker 1: Park is tended to be antagonistic to the animals. They're saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: they're not from here. There's these problems. They're damaging habitat,

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Speaker 1: they're restricting, they're causing trouble with other wildlife, so we

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Speaker 1: don't want so many of them in the park. And

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Speaker 1: when they leave the park and go on the national forest,

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Speaker 1: they're welcomed. So it's like an inverse relationship to what

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Speaker 1: happens in Montana. But for the animals that boils down

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Speaker 1: the same thing where again and again and again in

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Speaker 1: the lower forty eight their movements are restricted. We have

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Speaker 1: in in the country in North America. So between US

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Speaker 1: and Canada, there are about five hundred thousand buffalo in existence.

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Speaker 1: Ninety four percent Somewhere around ninety four ninety five percent

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Speaker 1: of all the animals in existence are privately owned. They

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Speaker 1: could be privately owned by a tribe okay, or they

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Speaker 1: could be privately owned by you know, an agricultural producer.

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Speaker 1: Every most people have heard of Ted Turner. Ted Turner

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Speaker 1: owns a ton of privately owned animals. They're out on

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Speaker 1: the landscape, but they're owned. They raise them for meat,

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Speaker 1: they raise them for leather, they raise them for production.

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Speaker 1: They're treated like livestock. So what does that leave. It

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Speaker 1: leaves about somewhere four to five percent of the buffalo

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Speaker 1: that exist in North of Erica are in some way

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Speaker 1: arguably free ranging or wild right. You have a small

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Speaker 1: number in the Henry Mountains of Utah.

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Speaker 2: You have a small.

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Speaker 1: Number in the Book Cliffs area of eastern Utah. Some

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Speaker 1: of those have been moving over into Colorado. Colorado just

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Speaker 1: did an interesting thing and they've made a new rule

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Speaker 1: that was just passed, and they said, if a buffalo

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Speaker 1: walks into Colorado, naturally, we are going to treat it

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Speaker 1: like wildlife. They did what Montana has not done right.

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Speaker 1: Montana has buffalo walking into the state on their own

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Speaker 1: fore legs naturally, but we don't welcome them as wildlife.

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Speaker 1: But Colorado, in a brilliant move, has come in and

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Speaker 1: they've gotten out ahead of it. And they said, when

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Speaker 1: an animal walks into the state, naturally, that animal's wildlife.

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Speaker 1: If you own in Colorado, they're still yours their livestock.

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Speaker 1: If they walk in as wild animals on their own

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Speaker 1: four legs, their wildlife. The reason they did that is

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Speaker 1: because some of these book cliffs ones in Utah are

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Speaker 1: crossing into Colorado. So Colorado has a future where they're

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Speaker 1: going to have to potentially have a wildheard. On the

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Speaker 1: north rim of the Grand Canyon, you have what I

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Speaker 1: would call it wild herd there. As I mentioned, what

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Speaker 1: makes them wild is they can move from one jurisdiction

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Speaker 1: to the other. That's like a definition of wild right.

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Speaker 1: They can move from the park onto the Kaibab National

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Speaker 1: Forest into a state game area, and when they're doing that,

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Speaker 1: they remain wild animals. So that's like a wild heerd.

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Speaker 1: They can move across jurisdictions and remain wildlife. But these

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Speaker 1: are just little isolated things. The reason we had I'm

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Speaker 1: having Tom seton here is because he is in charge

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Speaker 1: of a program that I've been watching for over twenty

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Speaker 1: years of finding some ways to bring wild, free roaming

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Speaker 1: bison into Alaska and put them onto suitable habitat and

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Speaker 1: allow them to live as wildlife. Okay, So, as I

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Speaker 1: handed over to Tom, the first question I'm going to

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Speaker 1: ask him, and this is when I was joking with

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Speaker 1: him that we might have different understandings of the history,

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Speaker 1: but he's gonna educate it on us, and it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be the first thing you think, the listener thinks when

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Speaker 1: you think of bison in Alaska. Huh, I didn't know

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Speaker 1: they had bison in Alaska. So Tom, you can talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about your program. But for the first question,

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Speaker 1: how do we call how is Alaska buffalo country? How

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Speaker 1: is Alaska like? Did Alaska have bison? And if so? When?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems a little bit odd to a lot

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Speaker 2: of the public. But if we just take today, we've

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Speaker 2: got about a thousand wild bison in Alaska. And when

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Speaker 2: I say wild, I mean you know, unfenced, unrestricted in

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Speaker 2: any way, subject to natural selection, exposed to all forms

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Speaker 2: of predation, that they originally had in North America and

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Speaker 2: and and you know, exposed to a lot of difficult weather.

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Speaker 2: Of course, Alaska's got some difficult weather as far as

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Speaker 2: bison range goes, and so they're valuable animals far as

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Speaker 2: conservation goes. But it's like, say, a thousand is about

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Speaker 2: what we have in the wild. And I think a

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Speaker 2: lot of estimates say that there's probably about ten thousand

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Speaker 2: wild bison in North America, like truly wild, not not

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Speaker 2: fenced in any way. And so Alaska has around ten

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Speaker 2: percent of the world's wild bison, really, which is shocking.

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Speaker 2: I didn't really understand that until he got into it myself.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is is that there's not a lot

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Speaker 2: of habitat left for wild bison to be wild anymore.

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Speaker 2: You know, most places that were good bison habitat historically

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Speaker 2: for the last say ten thousand years, are now agricultural.

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Speaker 2: You know, bis and eat things that are right at

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Speaker 2: the ground level, and that's the same place we like

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Speaker 2: to grow crops, you know. And and so it's it's

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Speaker 2: it's difficult to try to restore bison anywhere anywhere but Alaska. Now,

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Speaker 2: like you said, there's just not a lot of habitat

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Speaker 2: left or places to go with them.

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Speaker 1: Go ahead, Yeah, I don't agree, Okay, I understand what

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Speaker 1: you're saying. Yeah, but there are a lot of places

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Speaker 1: I think so, I think, but it's like a it's

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Speaker 1: a different definition than what you're thinking. Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: don't want to get into it. But man, like the

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Speaker 1: area of Missouri breaks areas in the Gallant and Range,

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Speaker 1: areas in the Madison Range areas and absorb it is

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Speaker 1: just the name a few areas around here. It could

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Speaker 1: definitely have some man, yes, they just it would require

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Speaker 1: more social tolerance, yeah, than what you're speaking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think there's always been a conflict between

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Speaker 2: agriculture and bison, and I'm not sure. I've done some

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Speaker 2: thinking about that, and I just don't totally understand what

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Speaker 2: it is. I mean, there's the obvious part that a

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Speaker 2: bison can graze on crops and damage crops or break

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Speaker 2: fences and things like that. And you know in Montana

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Speaker 2: with the arguments is to bring disease to cattle. Of course,

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Speaker 2: the disease that they're bringing was originally from cattle and

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Speaker 2: got into bison.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the great ironies of the whole thing, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: is it. Yeah, there's a Eurasian disease called brucellosis and cattle.

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Speaker 1: It can cause a cow, it can cause a haffer

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Speaker 1: to a border calf. This disease came in on cattle,

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Speaker 1: was transmitted to elk, was transmitted to bison. Then they

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Speaker 1: got rid of it. For the most part, they've gotten

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Speaker 1: rid of it in cattle and stockmen are worried that

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Speaker 1: bison will give the cows back their own disease. Elk

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Speaker 1: carried the disease, and no one's worried about elk giving

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Speaker 1: them back their own disease. And no one can point

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Speaker 1: to a case in modern times one a cow has

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Speaker 1: gotten it from a buffalo. But it's kind of I

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Speaker 1: viewed as kind of a red herring. It's not really

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Speaker 1: what they're talking about. They talk about it, but it's

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Speaker 1: not what they're talking about. Well, it's almost grazing competition.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that perceived conflict with agriculture is why

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Speaker 2: bison are the last great animal to be restored. I think,

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Speaker 2: you know, we nearly wiped out antelope and both pieces

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Speaker 2: of deer, and you know, buffalo and most other you know,

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Speaker 2: cats and bears and everything and elk.

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Speaker 1: We eliminated elk from nu metically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but now we've brought them all back, right. We

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Speaker 2: took all this effort to get all these animals back

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Speaker 2: on the landscape, but bison haven't really come back yet,

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Speaker 2: and we don't really want a lot of folks don't

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Speaker 2: really want them to come back because there's really not

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Speaker 2: a lot of space for them. That's what's perceived, and.

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Speaker 1: That is the perception. Correct. Yeah, I'd agree with that.

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Speaker 2: I think in Alaska it's a little different. The Alaska

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Speaker 2: Partment Fishing Game really wants to restore wildwood bison as

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Speaker 2: a wild animal performing their wild things in a niche

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Speaker 2: that's unoccupied at this time for a large lowland grazer.

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Speaker 1: Can you do too? Can you two things layout and

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Speaker 1: I haven't gotten into it. Can you lay out when

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Speaker 1: you say wood bison? Can can you contextualize that against

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Speaker 1: what we what most people are familiar with the planes bison?

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Speaker 1: And then also, can you talk about historically, prior to

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Speaker 1: any kind of introductions or reintroductions, what evidence do we

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Speaker 1: have that they were present in Alaska?

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Speaker 2: Sure, I don't know how far you want to go back,

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Speaker 2: but the history really starts about ten thousand years ago

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Speaker 2: the end of the place of scene in the beginning

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Speaker 2: of the Holy scene, which is, you know, the era

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Speaker 2: that we're in now, and bison were kind of there's

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Speaker 2: a bunch of species of longhorned bison, you know, larger

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Speaker 2: bison that occurred, you know, like they're just generally called

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Speaker 2: step bison in the places scene about ten thousand years ago,

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Speaker 2: when a lot of megafaon in North America went away,

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Speaker 2: bison persisted, but they became short horned bison revolved into

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Speaker 2: short horned bison, and it's the two persistent subspecies left

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Speaker 2: of those short horned bison are as bison and everywhere

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Speaker 2: from northern Mexico through lower forty eight, you know, eastern

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Speaker 2: Oregon to Pennsylvania, all the way up to central Alberta, Saskatchewan,

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Speaker 2: British Columbia. But then north of that was the wood bison,

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Speaker 2: and they occurred in the boreal forest all the way

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Speaker 2: up to the mouth of Kenzie River, which is uh.

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Speaker 2: You know, it goes into the Arctic Ocean there and

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Speaker 2: all the way west to the Yukon cus Cum Delta

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Speaker 2: and western interior Alaska and UH. And they kind of

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Speaker 2: stopped at the at the bottom edge of the Boreal forest.

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Speaker 2: And so if you look at a map you can

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Speaker 2: see that, you know, the Great Plains kind of ended

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Speaker 2: and became forest, uh, somewhere in central Canada, and it

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Speaker 2: was wood bison in the Boreal forest and plains bison

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Speaker 2: south in the plains.

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Speaker 1: And those soccers look a little different. Like if you

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Speaker 1: weren't used to looking at buffalo at all, I else

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Speaker 1: you say, I'm gonna stay bisonse you'd like the word bison.

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Speaker 1: If you weren't used to looking at bison at all,

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Speaker 1: and you were driving down the highway a sixty miles

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Speaker 1: an hour, you might just look and be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: some bison. But once you look at them a fair bit,

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Speaker 1: you'd look, even at that speed, you'd think something's different

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Speaker 1: about those. If you were looking at wood bison, you'd

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Speaker 1: recognize something's different. They got like some physical differences.

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Speaker 2: With thirty seconds of training that they're abundantly different at

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Speaker 2: one hundred yards distance, you know which. To me, that's

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Speaker 2: that's pretty grand for subspecies. Most subspecies you got to

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Speaker 2: kind of have them in hand, and you're not really

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Speaker 2: sure what the difference is between the two of them.

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Speaker 2: But planes, BiCon and wood bison are quite a bit different.

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Speaker 2: You know, the plane spison have a much more forward hump.

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Speaker 2: It's a taller hump and more forward. The way their

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Speaker 2: hair lays on the bodies a little bit different. A

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Speaker 2: plane spison has that really big, thick cape and it

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Speaker 2: goes into thin hair after that, with a real strong

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Speaker 2: demarcation between the front shaggy hair and the and the

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Speaker 2: thin hair in the back. Wood bison just kind of

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Speaker 2: has curly hair along its whole body and it is

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Speaker 2: a little bit bigger, you know, a little bit longer

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Speaker 2: and thicker in the front, and it isn't the back,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's it's fairly uniform. Then. You know, a

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Speaker 2: plane spison has really curly hair around its head, and

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Speaker 2: especially the adult males that get this big kind of

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Speaker 2: afro and and and there's for lack of a better okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and it's just thick and maybe it's you know, six

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Speaker 2: eight inches thick, and sometimes it even covers their horns

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Speaker 2: and everything.

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Speaker 1: Well.

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Speaker 2: A wood bison, a classic wood bison, doesn't have that.

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Speaker 2: A wood bison has like a a bill that sticks

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Speaker 2: out that's just like straight, perfectly straight hair that that

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Speaker 2: kind of looks like the bill of a baseball cap

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Speaker 2: and uh, and these hairs all lay flat and straight,

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Speaker 2: and then and they can get the curly hair on

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Speaker 2: the sides that that can cover the horns a little

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Speaker 2: bit too. But then planes bison have a really big

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Speaker 2: beard and really big shaps and all these grand secondary

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Speaker 2: sex characteristics that wood bison don't have. Wood bison have

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Speaker 2: really diminished cape and uh beard and and shaps and

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Speaker 2: all that. The other thing that I find really interesting

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Speaker 2: is that planes bison roar during the rut, but wood

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Speaker 2: bison are fairly oh really, And it's been hypothesized that

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Speaker 2: wood bison occurred in much smaller groups since they occurred

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Speaker 2: in the boreal forest. They live in these tiny patches

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Speaker 2: of habitat which are mostly wetlands, and so they never

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Speaker 2: really needed these strong secondary sex characteristics to compete with

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Speaker 2: other males and work out which females they could breed,

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Speaker 2: as opposed to the planes' bison that lived in these

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Speaker 2: groups of you know, a thousand, ten thousand, whatever, you know,

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Speaker 2: when they would come into rut and these massive groups

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Speaker 2: where they had to roar and have secondary sex characteristics

345
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Speaker 2: that really stood out amongst everybody else, so they could breed, right,

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Speaker 2: So that's hypothesized why that might be. But the whole

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Speaker 2: big hump and the big head and a little bit

348
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Speaker 2: bigger body size is hypothesized to be a reflection of

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Speaker 2: the demands of the environment in the north. So deeper snow,

350
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Speaker 2: colder weather, that sort of thing, and deeper. Well, the

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Speaker 2: reason why snow is important is bison sweep snow with

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Speaker 2: their face. That's how they get to the vegetation in wintertime.

353
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Speaker 2: And to do deeper snow you need, you know, more

354
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Speaker 2: bone structure and muscle structure and tends to be able

355
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Speaker 2: to sweep that big head. And that's why it's not

356
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Speaker 2: the the humpus. Further forward and.

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Speaker 1: Tell her how far back you got to go in Alaska, Like,

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Speaker 1: let's get rid of the modern times, because from a

359
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Speaker 1: period I think it was around the nineteen twenties I wrote.

360
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Speaker 1: I wrote about this extensively when I wrote a book

361
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Speaker 1: that I published seventeen years ago called American Buffalo in

362
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Speaker 1: Search of a Lost Icon. I wrote a story, the

363
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Speaker 1: story about how some buffalo were brought from Montana and

364
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Speaker 1: released up in Alaska, and that these planes bison from

365
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Speaker 1: Montana wound up this little shipment of Planes bison from

366
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Speaker 1: Montana formed the nucleus of what would become four little

367
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Speaker 1: scattered herds of Plaine bison around Planes bison around Alaska.

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Speaker 1: And at that time in the twenties when they brought

369
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Speaker 1: them up there there were none in the state. But

370
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Speaker 1: if you went back one hundred years, two hundred years,

371
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Speaker 1: at some point you would have found in Alaska there

372
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Speaker 1: were there were there were wood bison in Alaska that

373
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Speaker 1: were wiped out, perhaps by natural causes, perhaps by man.

374
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Speaker 1: What is your what is? What is sort of the

375
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Speaker 1: academic consensus about when they were there and what happened

376
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Speaker 1: to them?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's believed that they were in interior Alaska for

378
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Speaker 2: most of the last ten thousand years. And there's there's

379
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Speaker 2: a paper that we published in two thousand and one

380
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: and it's on our website and you can read it.

381
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Speaker 2: It's called wood Bison in the Late Holst Scene in

382
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Speaker 2: Alaska and Adjacent Canada, Paleontological, archaeological and historical Records, written

383
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Speaker 2: by Bob Stevenson and several other folks. He was published

384
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Speaker 2: in two thousand and one and it goes takes a

385
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Speaker 2: deep dive into collecting a whole bunch of specimens radio

386
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 2: carbon dating them and they look at like accumulation of

387
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Speaker 2: specimens through different periods that and not ten thousand years

388
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Speaker 2: and the most recent radio carbon dating is about one

389
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy years before present. And then they went

390
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Speaker 2: into oral history. They asked a lot of local Native

391
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Speaker 2: elders about what they knew about bison in the area,

392
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Speaker 2: and they were amazed to uncover a pretty rich oral

393
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 2: history about woodbison, especially in Yukon flats. Give me some examples,

394
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:13,239
Speaker 2: so in this paper, I'll read you a couple real

395
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Speaker 2: short ones. Here a couple that really grabbed my attention,

396
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:20,399
Speaker 2: and that's here's one. Virginia Titis recalls that her father,

397
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Speaker 2: Robert Albert, described to her how he and his adopted father,

398
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:28,639
Speaker 2: Pretty Albert, encountered a bison near Tananau Village, probably in

399
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Speaker 2: the winter of nineteen eighteen. This occurred when they were

400
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 2: on their trap line and when her father, who was

401
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 2: born in nineteen oh four, was only fourteen years old.

402
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 2: Her father remembered being scared when they encountered a large

403
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 2: animal in the brush. His father shot the animal with

404
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: a lever action rifle, the first cartridge rifle they had obtained.

405
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 2: The animal was a large bison. After butchering the animal,

406
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 2: they stored the meat and an underground cellar insulated with grass.

407
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 2: The hide was given to their chief, which he used

408
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 2: in their quote unquote talking house as a place to sit.

409
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,600
Speaker 2: The carcass provided food for their dogs for a long time.

410
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 2: Missus Titus said that this was the last known occurrence

411
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Speaker 2: of bison in the Tananaw area, and so that was

412
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 2: a huh. That was, you know, nineteen eighteen roughly is

413
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 2: what that's expected to be. And if you get this paper,

414
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 2: there's twenty or thirty maybe more, just oral accounts that

415
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:24,680
Speaker 2: are a lot like that. But there's a second one

416
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 2: that I really enjoy, and I'll read it. With regard

417
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 2: to their disappearance. To the disappearance of woodwison, Missus Mary

418
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,880
Speaker 2: Sam said that quote unquote, maybe they ate it up,

419
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 2: suggesting that hunting might have contributed to the disappearance of

420
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 2: bison in a Black River area. She also described how

421
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:49,680
Speaker 2: on one occasion, her grandparents pointed to another young girl, saying, quote,

422
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 2: when this young girl grows up and her children grow up,

423
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,119
Speaker 2: then the bison will come back, quote unquote. And the

424
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Speaker 2: cool thing is if you kind of lay it out

425
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Speaker 2: in a timeline.

426
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Speaker 1: It's about now, Oh the prophecy, the prophecy exactly. Yeah,

427
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 1: that historical stuff matters, right because nowadays, well, let me

428
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 1: talk about what used to happen, because I referred in

429
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties. There was a long period an American

430
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:23,239
Speaker 1: kind of wildlife conservation when the idea was generally with

431
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 1: state game agencies and others. The idea was generally the

432
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: more animals, the merrier, and people would look around the

433
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: country and they would find areas that they thought were

434
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 1: game poor, right, they would see areas they thought should

435
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: have more animals than they do. So let's say someone

436
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: goes and looks in New Mexico and it's like, there's

437
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 1: just not that many animals in New Mexico. It's desert country.

438
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: The desert doesn't support things. Well, let's try some other animals,

439
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: and you would be able to just seemingly at random,

440
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: move creatures around the world to see what would take.

441
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: So to give you a few examples, like sambar deer

442
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: were brought into Florida, seek a deer from Japan and

443
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: areas of Asia were brought in in turn. Loose in Maryland,

444
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: ibex were brought in in turn loose in New Mexico

445
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 1: or from Asia. Or x were brought in from Africa

446
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: and turned loose in New Mexico. Aw Dad cut loose

447
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: down in West Texas and other areas. Nilghai brought in

448
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: from the Indian subcontinent and turn loose in Texas. I

449
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: hogs brought in, wild hogs from Siberia brought in and

450
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 1: turn loose all over the place. Ring neck pheasants brought

451
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,680
Speaker 1: in from Asia, turn loose in North America. I could

452
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: go on like this for an hour. Bison planes bison

453
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: brought from Montana and turned loose into Alaska. In those days,

454
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties up into the nineteen fifties, you could

455
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,959
Speaker 1: just do this stuff. They didn't have environmental impact statements.

456
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: It's like if you had the money and the will,

457
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: you would probably work it out and you would cut

458
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 1: animals loose. Right, That is not hip anymore. So with

459
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,920
Speaker 1: this project that you're working on to bring wood bison

460
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: into Alaska, you need to have the sort of authority

461
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,400
Speaker 1: of history, right. You need to be able to say

462
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: this is a reintroduction, this is not us really nearly

463
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: moving animals around, right, Can you explain that that process

464
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: a little bit of how you sort of get the

465
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: political go ahead to do a project like this.

466
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 2: Right, So, the Alaska Department Fishing Game has a policy

467
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 2: to not release animals into places that they weren't previously there.

468
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 2: And of course, like you say, history is not quite

469
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 2: like that. You know, there's there's deer on Kodiak, black

470
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 2: black tail deer weren't native to Kodiak. They're there and

471
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 2: they're super successful. And you know moose in the in

472
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 2: the in the Copper River delta weren't there and humans

473
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 2: did that too.

474
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: And elkinto Elkin do a fog neck and Raspberry Island

475
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: and yeah, all that.

476
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 2: And and of course even here locally, I'll just do

477
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 2: a little side thing real quick. Right here in Bozman,

478
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: there's brook trout, rainbow trout, brown trout, you know, pheasants,

479
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 2: you know chuckers, hungarian partners. I mean, that just list

480
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 2: goes on the things that you're really familiar with that

481
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: you don't realize that they were from somewhere else anyway.

482
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 2: Uh It there were problems that were created when you

483
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 2: look at things that were released in Australia and Hawaii

484
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:42,360
Speaker 2: and stuff. Whethy is there's uh, you know, isolated groups

485
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 2: of animals that that got you know, didn't do well

486
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 2: with with incoming new animals, and so there's problems that

487
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 2: they were created. So people are scared of recreating a problem. Well,

488
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 2: in in our situation in Alaska, there is a lot

489
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 2: of a record of wood bison being there and so

490
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 2: what we're really trying to do is restore were these

491
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 2: animals and we believe that hunting played a significant part

492
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 2: and their demise, and so humans may have caused their disappearance,

493
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 2: so we want to kind of correct that, but it

494
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 2: is a challenge. Would bison are listed as threatened under

495
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 2: the Danish Species Act, and so we can't just grab

496
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 2: a bunch of animals and start releasing, and we have

497
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 2: to go through all the process of the Danish Species Act,

498
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 2: which includes the neep A documentation, which for us in

499
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 2: this particular situation is environmental reviews and environmental assessments, and

500
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 2: we have a non essential experimental population rule for interior

501
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 2: Alaska so that we can hunt them. That's pretty unique

502
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 2: as far as those kind of rules go, but it

503
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 2: is complicated to make it happen.

504
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: So once you guys got the idea, once the State

505
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: of Alaska. I understand this happened before you're in your

506
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: current role, at some point in time, like very much

507
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: in our lifetimes. The State of Alaska started moving ahead

508
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: with a plan to reintroduce these animals. People might be thinking,

509
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: where are you going to go get them from? Can

510
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: you explain the source herd? Like if you want to

511
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: find a sort of disease free, somewhat genetically pure wood

512
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: bison to begin turning them loose in Alaska, how do

513
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: you get them?

514
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's excuse me. There's a park in Canada called

515
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: Alkyla National Park. It's east to Edmonton, and they've got

516
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 2: planes bison and wood bison that are separated from each

517
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: other with a highway, and so there's just no mixing

518
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 2: between the two subspecies. And they maintain those herds specifically

519
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 2: for conservation purposes where they kill test and live test

520
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 2: for diseases every other year, and they produce animals that

521
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 2: can be provided for release to create new herds of

522
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: planes bison and wood byson and some of those if

523
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 2: they don't have a need, like if no agency comes

524
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: along or or Native American group comes along and says

525
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 2: I want these bison for conservation. They just sell them

526
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 2: into you know, private ownership, like you talked about, there's

527
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: a lot in private ownership. But for the wood bison

528
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 2: that they have, we're one of their highest priorities right now.

529
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 2: And we have agreement with them to get their bison

530
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 2: every other year. Their surplus had them outs to about

531
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 2: forty bison every even year, so twenty two, twenty four,

532
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 2: twenty six like that, and and we've been getting them

533
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 2: for a while.

534
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: Now do you guys get them for free?

535
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 2: No, we have to pay. It's close. We pay for

536
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 2: all the effort to collect them from the wild. I

537
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 2: think they have seventy five square miles in their park

538
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 2: and maybe a third of that is wood bison habitat,

539
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: and so they're collecting out of let's say twenty square

540
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 2: miles or something like that. So it's not that easy.

541
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 2: But they lure them in through supplemental feeding in the

542
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 2: end of winter, and then they capture as many as

543
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 2: they can. They have to run them through shoots, and

544
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 2: they have this handling facility and they get all these

545
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 2: people there to do that process. And so we kind

546
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 2: of pay for that process, and then we pay for

547
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 2: the disease testing, all the veterinary services that are needed

548
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: for all the new disease testing. You know, they do

549
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 2: to the disease testing, but then as the State of Alaska,

550
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 2: we do it again just to be redundant and you know,

551
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 2: do due diligence to make sure that we don't bring

552
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 2: anything from there that that might be bad for native

553
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 2: wildlife in Alaska. So that's main thing we pay for

554
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 2: is just the handling and the keeping and then the trucking.

555
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: You know, in Canada has they kind of have their

556
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: own versions of what you guys are trying to create

557
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: because they had like wood Wood Buffalo or Wood Bison

558
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: National Park. They have a couple of populations that even

559
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: had the support limited hunting.

560
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. One of the greatest populations in

561
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 2: my view is the one in Yukon Territory between white

562
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 2: Horse and the border, and that's around two thousand wild

563
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: wood bison and it's still growing at something like fifteen

564
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: percent a year, really well something like that. Yeah, and

565
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 2: they harvest two hundred and eighty bis in a year

566
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 2: the last few years out of that herd, and it

567
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 2: was only put out in nineteen eighty eight, so it's

568
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 2: not very old.

569
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: This was doing good.

570
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: Oh, unbelievable.

571
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard from like like that there's some schools

572
00:31:58,040 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: and stuff that will take the students out to do

573
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: field harvest on those animals.

574
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 2: And yeah, right, because bison. You know, I I think

575
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 2: if you lived in North America at sometime in the

576
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 2: last you know, one thousand years up until just two

577
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, you would have thought of North America

578
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 2: as a bison continent. You know, we think of it

579
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 2: now maybe it's an elk continent or deer continent or something,

580
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 2: but it would have just been predominantly bison then. But

581
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 2: people have lost that connection with bison, and so sometimes

582
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 2: it takes you know, training to help people understand how

583
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 2: to deal with such a big animal.

584
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. When what year was it that Alaska started to

585
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: have a confinement area where they were keeping wood bison

586
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: in anticipation of trying to find good habitat to bring

587
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: them and put them on. It's been going on for.

588
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: A long time, it has. In two thousand and eight,

589
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 2: we have imported fifty three wood bison from from Elk

590
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 2: Island National Park. A farmer imported some in two thousand

591
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 2: two ish illegally because they were needed as endangered under

592
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 2: the ESA at that time, and he went and got

593
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 2: something in Canada anyway and brought them in without the permits,

594
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 2: and then those were confiscated by the Fishing Wildlife Service,

595
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 2: and we ended up with those and their progeny in

596
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 2: two thousand and six or so, and then because there

597
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 2: was really nothing else that the federal government could do

598
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: with them, and then we combine those with the ones

599
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 2: we imported from Elk Island in two thousand and eight,

600
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 2: and then we've received more in two thousand and two,

601
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, and we'll get some next spring too.

602
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: So what was the most you ever had in one little.

603
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 2: Spot in the captivity? We had about one hundred and

604
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 2: forty five in captivity in twenty fourteen at the Alaska

605
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 2: Wilife Conservation Center south of Anchorage.

606
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: No. I saw those ones there one time.

607
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're still about thirty five or so there

608
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: right now, and they've got there's got a really good

609
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 2: operation going on there, and those cows are really productive

610
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 2: and they produce eight to ten releasable animals every year,

611
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 2: and so every other year is when we tell to release,

612
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 2: and so we could we can get you know, fifteen

613
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 2: to twenty or so bison out of that hurt every

614
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 2: year and take it out. And then we have something

615
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,320
Speaker 2: that at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Large General Research

616
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 2: Station too, and that's a smaller group, it's like a dozen.

617
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,359
Speaker 2: But we are importing the ones from Elkla National Park

618
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 2: to UAF these days and just holding them there temporarily

619
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 2: and then taking them back out to the wild.

620
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's that process like to go find them? When

621
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: I was looking into this subject back in early two thousands,

622
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: it was kind of undecided where Alaska might try to

623
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: do a reintroduction. I would hear things like the I

624
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: hesitate to even say where. I remember initially hearing talk

625
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: about Yukon Flats, But Yukon Flats hasn't happened yet. Can

626
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: you can you explain the process of identifying a place

627
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: to do it, and then the sort of political and

628
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: social process us of ever getting the okay to go

629
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: take this large herbivore fifteen hundred pounds sixteen hundred pound

630
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 1: animals and turn them loose into place where they have

631
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: been absent for over a century. Like, you can't just

632
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: spring that on people.

633
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, No, it's complicated. The first thing we did

634
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 2: is after we acquired all this information about the paper

635
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 2: I discussed with radio carbon dating, the oral history, the

636
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 2: habitat that's available in modern times compared to historic times,

637
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 2: and all that. We took that to the public in

638
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 2: a feasibility assessment in nineteen ninety four and asked for

639
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 2: public input. And the input from the public at large

640
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 2: that came in verbal and written feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

641
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,320
Speaker 2: And that really set the course for Alaska Apartment of

642
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 2: Fishing Game to pursue would Bison Restoration Estate, because the

643
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: question in that feasibility assessment was do you want to

644
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: do this or not? You know, this is something we

645
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 2: should pursue, and then we were essentially directed by the

646
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 2: public to pursue it. So at that time a wood

647
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 2: Bison Project biologist was created, and that there's been a

648
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 2: position like that for the last you know, thirty some years.

649
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: And that was Bob Stevens in that time. I met

650
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: with him in Fairbanks, I believe year ago.

651
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And so there's been other folks on that

652
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:20,879
Speaker 2: program too over time. You know, sometimes it's as many

653
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 2: as three people. But you asked, how do we identify places?

654
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 2: So what we want if we're going to try to

655
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 2: restore a species a place that's large enough to have

656
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,479
Speaker 2: a minimum viable population, And through modeling of genetic work

657
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 2: with bison, it's decided that a minimum viable population is

658
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: more than four hundred. You'll maintain most of your genetic

659
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 2: diversity over one hundred years if you have a population

660
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 2: of over four hundred. It's even better if you can

661
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 2: get a population over one thousand. So what we were

662
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 2: seeking was a habitat patch that was big enough to

663
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 2: hold four hundred to a thousand bison or more or

664
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 2: something like that. And so it had to have certain

665
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 2: characteristics too of not really deep snow and not really

666
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 2: firm snow. It had to be soft snow that wasn't

667
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 2: too deep, but also the wintertime food. So you know,

668
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 2: bison our generalists grazers, so they can get by with

669
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,879
Speaker 2: durn near anything in the summertime, but they really need

670
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 2: grasses and especially wetlands sedges in the wintertime. And so

671
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 2: the three largest areas that had those qualities that we

672
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 2: came up with and we wrote an environmental assessment about it,

673
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:27,280
Speaker 2: and in twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen were the Enoko Flats,

674
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 2: which is kind of west central Interior Alaska, Minto Flats,

675
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 2: which is just about fifty miles west of Fairbanks, and

676
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 2: then the Yukon Flats, which is about one hundred miles

677
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 2: north of Fairbanks. Well, the Yukon Flats was the original place,

678
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 2: and that's where Bob Stevenson was an area biologist. That's

679
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 2: where all the oral history comes from, and that's probably

680
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 2: the largest and best piece of habitat on all of

681
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 2: interior Alaska.

682
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: That's kind of that's a stunning area. Yeah, you got

683
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: like the Brooks Range to the north, you got the

684
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 1: White Mountains of the south, all these big famous rivers

685
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: flowing out of thee coming in there. Oh yeah, tons

686
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: of mosquito.

687
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a difficult place to stand in the middle

688
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 2: of June.

689
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the flats. Eventually, you guys settled on the

690
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: Innoco Flats.

691
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 2: That was an interesting thing, since would bison have a

692
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 2: listing under the ESA Oil and gas and mining industry

693
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 2: was worried about the influence of that listing on development,

694
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: and there were no oil and gas prospects at the time,

695
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 2: and the Inoko and so a lot of the industry

696
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 2: leaders were like, well, we understand, you have a non

697
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 2: essential experimental population rule that protects us and we understand

698
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 2: that they're only listed has threatened right now, but just

699
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 2: to be safe, let's go with the Inoko.

700
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: And because what they're worried about is that they're worried

701
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: that you're gonna you're gonna re establish this population. There's

702
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: gonna be some protection of the population. They're gonna want

703
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: to industrialize the landscape, and then they're gonna have to

704
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: hear from people about how there's an endangered species living there.

705
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: So the argument would be, well, don't put them there.

706
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: Then we won't have to worry about them being.

707
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 2: There because it could potentially stop oil and gas development.

708
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: Well why, I'm just like, I don't want to drag

709
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,919
Speaker 1: you into like a quagmire here, but like, why would

710
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 1: anybody ask them anyways?

711
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. Well, Alaska, their economy is

712
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 2: based on oil and gas and mining. Really, that's what

713
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: Alaska's commedy is based on. And and so all the

714
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: political leaders and big business leaders care about the fact

715
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 2: that we need to be able to extract resources to

716
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 2: make Alaska survive. And so that's why I think it mattered.

717
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 2: And they have influence, you know, in the legislature and

718
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 2: the governor and everything else, you know, and it's important, right,

719
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 2: and that's why we spent so we spent five years

720
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 2: negotiating with the Official Life Service to make a non

721
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 2: essential experimental population rule that gives full deference to development

722
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 2: and talks about bison, you know, can live and play.

723
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 2: This is where there's development and and the reality is,

724
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 2: you know, most of that country's boreal forest, and so

725
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:08,760
Speaker 2: any sort of development breaks down that boil forest into

726
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 2: you know, places where sunlight gets to the ground, whether

727
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 2: it's fires or roads or or drilling pads or whatever.

728
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 2: That turns that into better habitat for bison than forest really,

729
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 2: and so there's it's it's a hard argument to say

730
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 2: that that development would hurt bison anyway. It's just that

731
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 2: the the Endangered Species Act has been used as a

732
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 2: club in the past to herd industry, and the industry

733
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 2: leaders know.

734
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: That I want to just touch on this for a minute,

735
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 1: this experimental status, because this is something that you see

736
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: come up again and again and wild They're recovery efforts

737
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: would be that oftentimes, let's take let's take the recent

738
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: move to bring wolves into Colorado. Okay, here your you're

739
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: you have proportions of Colorado that have no wolves. They

740
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: were historically there that gone for a long time, and

741
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: someone proposes, hey, we're gonna bring wolves into the state. Well,

742
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: right away, there's a negotiation that's gonna happen where you're

743
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: taking you have a landscape that doesn't have an endangered

744
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: species or a threatened species, and all of a sudden,

745
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: you're putting a threatened species on the ground right and

746
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: you know that it's going to cause conflict with livestock growers,

747
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: for instance, So they're like, oh, man, the minute you

748
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: bring them in, they're gonna start killing my cows. And

749
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: there's nothing I can do. I can't shoot them, and

750
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 1: the state can't help me out because they're they're an

751
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: endangered species. So you're just creating a headache for me.

752
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: So this deal that will often get broken in these

753
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 1: situations is people will say, we're going to bring them

754
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: in and turn them loose, but we're not gonna treat

755
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: them the same way we might treat an imperiled historic population.

756
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: We're gonna give managers greater latitude to deal with this

757
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: new pos population that we're creating. Then we would give

758
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: managers to deal with a historic population that's imperiled, and

759
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: it just greases the wheels a little bit. Right. You

760
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: might come in and say, sure, we're going to turn

761
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,640
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to reintroduce bears into this area

762
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: and there will only be a few. But if a

763
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 1: bear is killing your chickens, go ahead and shoot it.

764
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get prosecuted, whereas in other areas you

765
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: might under different circumstances. So this is kind of like

766
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: a way to. It's a way to, it's a compromise

767
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: that can be made when reintroducing animals.

768
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's a monumental irony there, Like when I

769
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 2: think the ESA was really designed for when when populations

770
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 2: are in a decline, to stop that from happening and

771
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 2: try to keep animals from going away. They didn't really

772
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 2: plan for, I don't think as well for when you're

773
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: trying to restore an animal on the landscape and the

774
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 2: in Danger Species Act, this stuff has probably been the

775
00:42:55,719 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 2: biggest detriment to wood bison restoration in Alaska because every

776
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: time we'd want to do something, the bureaucracy and political

777
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 2: nature of the Endangered Species Act being involved just makes

778
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 2: it extremely difficult. You know, and so it would have

779
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 2: been a lot easier to There's been several times when

780
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: political you know, higher ups above me have said, let's

781
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 2: just do this with planes bison. This is way too hard.

782
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 2: Planes bison aren't listed. And then we have to, you know,

783
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 2: from the biology perspective, we have to say, look, you know,

784
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 2: our policy is not to release animals here that weren't

785
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 2: originally here. You know, let's try to stick with wood bison.

786
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 2: And it's a real challenge to get it on the ESSA.

787
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: I don't want to stick you with having his viewpoint.

788
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: But so this is I just want people to clear

789
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: this is me talking, not Tom talking. But you're here.

790
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,280
Speaker 1: Especially lately, you hear a lot of people talk about

791
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act being cumbersome or aspects of it

792
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: to be revisited. Oftentimes you'll see that and you'll think

793
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: it's people trying to dismantle protections for imperiled wildlife. A

794
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: lot of times it's like kind of like good guys

795
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: will say that sometimes too, Like people that are pro

796
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: wildlife will say that for the things we're talking about,

797
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: where it just when they drafted the legislation, they couldn't

798
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: anticipate all outcomes, and you don't have a crystal ball,

799
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: so you can create situations that later you're like, I

800
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: wish we'd have thought of that. And that's the thing

801
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: that they hadn't contemplated, is they hadn't contemplated what about

802
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: ways in which it would make it harder to restore wildlife.

803
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: And it happens with other pieces of legislation, like famously

804
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: like the wild Horse and Burrough Protection Act. When they

805
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: enacted that, they're like, there's these wild horses out in

806
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: the desert. People are killing them all off. We should

807
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: try to save them, and they they create this piece

808
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: of legislation that winds up being its own worst enemy,

809
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: and then you're.

810
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 2: Just stuck with it.

811
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: You're stuck with it because it takes a super majority

812
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: to change it, right, and so then generations thereafter have

813
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: to live with a cumbersome ESA or have to live

814
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: with the wild Horse and Burrough protect At, which is

815
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 1: wind up. You could almost at this point call it

816
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: like the Wildlife Habitat Destruction Act is what the Wildhorse

817
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: Burrow Protection Act became.

818
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 2: And I think if you live with it, yeah, if

819
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: you deal with an amal like wood bison, that everybody

820
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 2: kind of wants on the landscape anyway. It's just an

821
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: impediment to have the essay there because you know, people

822
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 2: want this grand resource to be able to use there.

823
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 2: It's different than if it was a tiny fern that

824
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 2: only grew in wet spots along creeks or something, and

825
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 2: we really had to focus on trying to make sure

826
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 2: there was habitat for this fern. It's not like that.

827
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 2: You know, people want bison on the landscape.

828
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: So we got a little off subject. But explain the

829
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: area that we're talking about, Like, explain the Anoko, what

830
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: the flats the wetland. Well, I shouldn't say the wetland,

831
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 1: but like basically it's it's a river coming in from

832
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: the south, I believe, and flown into the Yukon. Yeah,

833
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where this site is, right.

834
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, the the Anoko kind of comes out of

835
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 2: the northeast and the Yukon happens to be flowing to

836
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 2: the south there, and they kind of come together to

837
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 2: make about forty miles apart, they make this valley, and

838
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 2: then they kind of come together at the bottom of it.

839
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 2: So this valley's maybe eighty miles north and south and

840
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 2: forty miles east to west and sometimes only twenty miles

841
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 2: east to us, and it floods on a regular enough

842
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 2: basis that it keeps that habitat in grass and sedge.

843
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 2: It inhibits tree growth there because it's so wet, and

844
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 2: that's just perfect wood bison habitat. And since it floods too,

845
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 2: a lot of the productivity or the nutrient value of

846
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 2: those plants is really high along with their productivity, and

847
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 2: so bison really like it and it's worked out great

848
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 2: as a good piece of habitat. The problem that we've

849
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 2: had is in that particular place is it's snow, and

850
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 2: we worried about that somewhat in the past before we

851
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 2: release bison there. That occasionally has as deep snows and

852
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 2: ice layers and snows, but the reality is that winters

853
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 2: have been very wet and warm in the last decade

854
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 2: or to fifteen years in Alaska, and that's been really

855
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 2: hard on all wildlife There's you know, we've had an

856
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 2: eighty percent loss and a lot of sheep populations. We've

857
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 2: lost about half our caribou in most places of an

858
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 2: interior Alaska, and then we've lost it depends on what

859
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:19,359
Speaker 2: you're looking at a boy. As far as moose goes,

860
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 2: it's something like thirty to forty percent of moose have

861
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 2: gone away in a lot of places in Interi, Alaska,

862
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 2: and it's mostly attributed to these really difficult winters we've

863
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 2: been having where they're just so wet and warm that

864
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 2: it makes snow that it's hard, it's deep, so it's

865
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 2: hard to get through for a lot of ungulates, and

866
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 2: it encapsulates the forage where the animals can't get to it,

867
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 2: especially sheep where they rely on the mountain sides to

868
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 2: be blown off so the snow blow off and so

869
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 2: they can get to the grass and things they eat.

870
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 2: Bison are similar, but they live in the lowlands where

871
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 2: they get through the snow without a problem if it's soft.

872
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 2: But if there's a rain on snow event that makes

873
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 2: an ice layer in the snow, it's much harder for

874
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 2: them to get through that vegetation or through the snow

875
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 2: to the vegetation. And so one of the things I

876
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 2: often have a difficult time with is all the history

877
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 2: and the legal process and the political process and the

878
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 2: funding has all come together and culminated in to now

879
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:18,800
Speaker 2: for releasing wood bison. But the weather is just really

880
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 2: difficult because it's hard for all angulates right now, and

881
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 2: we're trying to restore a species of ungula in the midst.

882
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: Of this is this winter shape, and it would be

883
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,280
Speaker 1: more the same, No, it's the opposite, which is great.

884
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 2: Like last winter, the winner of twenty four to twenty five,

885
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,760
Speaker 2: we had two ice storms even in Fairbanks. It was crazy,

886
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: you know, trees falling down everywhere and forage getting you know,

887
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 2: covered over with ice. But this winter has been like

888
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,400
Speaker 2: an old school winter, the winters I remember from my

889
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: twenties and thirties where it's really cold. We've had long,

890
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 2: long spells of thirty below forty below the snow falls,

891
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 2: but it's just super dry. It's like the way it

892
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 2: used to be, you know. So the snow can two

893
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 2: feet deep, but you could just smack your hand right

894
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 2: through the whole layer of snow, you know, it's just

895
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,479
Speaker 2: so easy to get through. And so bison and moose

896
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:08,720
Speaker 2: are I think, are probably doing real well this one

897
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 2: so far. You know, I haven't had any mortalities from

898
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 2: snow conditions, and in the bison herd that we just

899
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: released in mental flats.

900
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: So talk about how you guys got them in how

901
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: you guys brought animals in for on the Innoko Valley.

902
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 2: Okay, so in the Enoko this is well. First of all,

903
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:32,879
Speaker 2: I mentioned that that local people were really supportive when

904
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 2: we were trying to pick between Yukon flats, mental flats,

905
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 2: and Oco flats. Uh, the Inoko people were always, hey,

906
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 2: bring them here. You know, if you got political or

907
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 2: otherwise conflicts in that country, bring them to us. And

908
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: so that was one of the major decisions, not just

909
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 2: the the lack of conflict oil and gas industry, but

910
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 2: also the support from local people made us go there.

911
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: So now now that is that when you say that,

912
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 1: is that with with Native Alaskan and who who is there? Like,

913
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:57,879
Speaker 1: what group is there?

914
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 2: So there's four villages around the Yoko landscape where the

915
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,799
Speaker 2: bison are, and that's the villages of Grayling and vic

916
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,360
Speaker 2: Shagalak and Holy Cross. They call it the gash area,

917
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 2: you know, just the abbreviation of those four places. And

918
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 2: so those are communities that are they're mostly Native, but

919
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:16,839
Speaker 2: there's other you know, people, non natives in those villages too,

920
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 2: and they've been involved in the process of deciding whether

921
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:23,719
Speaker 2: bison could should go there. Or not through through the

922
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 2: whole time. Now, when we've went through all the political

923
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,359
Speaker 2: process and all the public planning process that we did,

924
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 2: you know, we finally got down to okay, we're going

925
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 2: to take bison there in the spring of twenty fifteen,

926
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 2: and so we had to get bison. This place is

927
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 2: more than three hundred miles from the closest road, you know,

928
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 2: the road system. You know, there's a couple of little

929
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 2: roads to airports and stuff like that from villages, but

930
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 2: it's really remote and it's way down the Yukon River

931
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 2: from any road too. So what we did was we

932
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 2: had these animals in the Alaska Whilife Conservation Center, and

933
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 2: like I said, at that time, we had about one

934
00:50:57,600 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 2: hundred and forty five there. I took one hundred and

935
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 2: third of them and took them to the Ynoko. But

936
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 2: it was it was kind of a complicated process. The

937
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 2: state only had enough money at that time to release

938
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 2: a smaller subset than this one hundred and forty five

939
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 2: we had in captivity, and so I kind of had

940
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 2: to do a piece mail bit by bit, and I

941
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: was able to get donations from Safari Club and Bass

942
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 2: Pro and then match that or really with match that

943
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 2: with Pittman Robertson funds and come up with enough money

944
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:32,919
Speaker 2: to fly bison. First truck them far out that they did,

945
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 2: which was great. Yeah, yeah, and uh, first truck bison

946
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 2: from the Alaska Islet Conservation Center to Anchorage Airport, put

947
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:45,879
Speaker 2: them on Linden cargo plane see one thirties and fly

948
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 2: them to Shaga Luck which had a good runway with

949
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 2: bison habitat nearby and a place a little road we

950
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 2: could take bison. We could pull them in these containers

951
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 2: to a little pen that we could build along the

952
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 2: Enoko River. And so we took a hundred total of

953
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 2: fifty cows and fifty younger animals there in the spring

954
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 2: of twenty fifteen, that was like late March twenty fifteen,

955
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: and we released them on April second, twenty fifteen, and

956
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,839
Speaker 2: that was I think there was seven loads herkloads went

957
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 2: back and forth with feed equipment, bison, all kinds of stuff.

958
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: But in the previous winter we'd built this like six

959
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 2: acre pen that was kind of divided into pieces that

960
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 2: we held them in. That was about three and a

961
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 2: half miles out of the town of shag Look. Anyway,

962
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 2: we released those animals, and then in May and June

963
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:37,320
Speaker 2: of that following summer, we released a load of bulls

964
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 2: by bar, two loads of bulls by barge, as I

965
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:43,200
Speaker 2: realized that I had enough money to do that through donations.

966
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: So you brought the females in by a plane? Did

967
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 1: you not bring the bulls in by playing because they're

968
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: too kind of wild?

969
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 2: Well, they're big, and then you know, if you fly stuff,

970
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 2: it's you know, the more weight, the more difficult it is.

971
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 2: So I brought fifty cows and then fifty young animals.

972
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 2: Those fifty young animals were about half and half male

973
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 2: and female. So there was plenty of bulls there to breed.

974
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 1: Like they would have gotten old enough bread anyways.

975
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I had all these adult bulls

976
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 2: in captivity that that I wanted them to be out

977
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,839
Speaker 2: there too, And so the barge. Yeah, I put the

978
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 2: barge process out to bid, which would have been a

979
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 2: seven hundred and fifty miles that would I think it's yeah,

980
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 2: somewhere around seven hundred and some miles from the barge

981
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,839
Speaker 2: station at Nynana where the Parks Highway hits the Tannel River.

982
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 2: They would get barged down the tanne down the Yukon

983
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 2: to the mouth of the Enoko and then back up

984
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 2: the Enoko to where these cows were. I put that

985
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 2: out to bid and one of the bidders.

986
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 1: Seven hundred river miles.

987
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:40,240
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that's crazy.

988
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 1: Well, that gives you a sense of the remoteness of

989
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 1: that stuff. Seven hundred river miles. Yeah.

990
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it took like four four plus days. So

991
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,280
Speaker 2: we had to truck them about one hundred miles actually

992
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 2: like two hundred some miles two hundred and fifty miles

993
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 2: or so by by a semi truck and then get

994
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 2: them on the barge and then go down the river.

995
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 2: And that whole process was four and a half to

996
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 2: five and a half days. But the cool thing is

997
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 2: there was a guy named Charlie that owned inland barge

998
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: at the time, and he drastically discounted his rate to

999
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 2: barge those bison seven or d fifty miles because he

1000
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 2: really wanted to see this project, to see you really Yeah,

1001
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 2: he was super cool guy's great man.

1002
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: And.

1003
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:18,680
Speaker 2: He helped us git those animals down there. And so

1004
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 2: what they would do is they'd come down by barge

1005
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 2: and it would take them all those days. I'd be

1006
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 2: down there with the cows, and I would fly to

1007
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 2: find out where the cows were and figure out where

1008
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 2: we could land the barge closest to the cows. And

1009
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 2: with the cows and young animals, we did what's called

1010
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 2: a soft release, where you hold them to kind of

1011
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 2: get him to calm down before you release them, so

1012
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 2: you don't get animals just like scattering everywhere from fear

1013
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 2: of the stress of transportation. So we held those animals

1014
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: about ten days and then they kind of they stayed

1015
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 2: there pretty good. Well. Then I would figure out where

1016
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:47,880
Speaker 2: they were at when the bulls were coming, and then

1017
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 2: I would just hard release the bulls, which means you

1018
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 2: just show up and open the gates onto the bank.

1019
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 2: But we needed a place where we could you know,

1020
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 2: land the barge and all that. Anyway, it all worked

1021
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 2: out pretty good, and about sixty percent of the bulls

1022
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 2: got into those cows in the first twenty four hours.

1023
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 2: The other thirty percent of the bulls would just kind

1024
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: of wander around and eventually connected with the cows.

1025
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 1: But you think they smell them and find them.

1026
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know. I think it's smell. I suspect

1027
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 2: there may even be some sort of low low frequency

1028
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:18,799
Speaker 2: sound that they do, you know, like elephants do that

1029
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,279
Speaker 2: low frequency sound that communicative long distances. And I can

1030
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 2: hear bison making low frequency grunts and stuff. But you know,

1031
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 2: my ear, you know, nobody's ear. Human ear can't go

1032
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 2: that low. So I don't know if anybody's testing that

1033
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:31,920
Speaker 2: with bison, but it's fascinating.

1034
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 1: So I just went right to it.

1035
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 2: That's crazy. So you hear you have you know, these

1036
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 2: animals have been in captivity most of their life. You

1037
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 2: got these bulls that have never been allowed to be

1038
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 2: with the cows other than when they were first young animals.

1039
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 2: You kept them separate in captivity. You fed them. Hey,

1040
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,760
Speaker 2: they're just in a pen, you know, a thirty forty

1041
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 2: eight re pen their entire life. You take them to

1042
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 2: this place that's a thousand miles away in total wilderness

1043
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 2: and just dump them out on the river bank and

1044
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 2: they just navigate to a cowgroup that's a you know,

1045
00:55:57,239 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 2: a mile away or something over the course of a

1046
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 2: night or something. And it's just it's mind blowing. That

1047
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:04,720
Speaker 2: other also, when we released these cows and young animals,

1048
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 2: a lot of the young animal we made feeding stations

1049
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 2: because I had all this grand ideas that I thought, well,

1050
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 2: if I make feeding stations on these native sedge habitats,

1051
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 2: they'll kind of transition from captive feeds to wild feeds

1052
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:20,839
Speaker 2: and stuff. And they kind of kept their calves there

1053
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 2: a little bit. And by calves, I mean like eleven

1054
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 2: month old. But the cow started doing this the exploratory forays,

1055
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 2: and they'd go on a foray until you know, they'd

1056
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 2: walk five ten miles until they got out of bison

1057
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 2: habitat and they would walk back in to where to

1058
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 2: that original spot that I released them, and then they

1059
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 2: would take another exploratory forewhere in a different direction, and

1060
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 2: they would come back. And they did that over and

1061
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:44,400
Speaker 2: over again until they went all the way around the

1062
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 2: you know, all directions and every it depended on how

1063
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 2: much bison habitat there were there was available that they

1064
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 2: would walk through. So to the south bison habitat goes

1065
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,160
Speaker 2: for sixty miles and they would walk that whole sixty

1066
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 2: miles and they'd get to the end of it where

1067
00:56:57,800 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 2: they hit canopy forest, and they would turn back and

1068
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 2: go all way back. Oh really, yeah, it was really cool.

1069
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 2: And so here you have these animals that haven't been

1070
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:10,320
Speaker 2: wild during their lifetimes that can just navigate a landscape

1071
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,319
Speaker 2: so well, and and and they would, they would they

1072
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 2: do all that well, then in the winter they would

1073
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:18,640
Speaker 2: go to these places that were really good habitat winter

1074
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,439
Speaker 2: habitat and summer habitat. And if you look at it.

1075
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 1: It's exactly they they they were just like serving the

1076
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 1: whole lampscape.

1077
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 2: Okay, what do we have here, and we're going to

1078
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 2: cover fifteen hundred square miles in the course of this

1079
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 2: summer and figure out what's out there, and then we're

1080
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 2: going to use it. And they found places, for example,

1081
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 2: that have a lower snow load than anywhere else. Now

1082
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that this this low snow existed

1083
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 2: in this little snow shadow behind the Russian mountains, which

1084
00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 2: is about sixty miles to the south. And now they

1085
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,439
Speaker 2: all winter down there. They go down to this place

1086
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 2: that's maybe ten miles across that you know, the storms

1087
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 2: come in off the Yk Delta. They go over the

1088
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:55,320
Speaker 2: Russian mountains and there's just this little spot where, you know,

1089
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 2: not little ten miles across that has low snow shadow yep,

1090
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 2: and they go there, you know, for winter. That's where

1091
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 2: they winter now, and that they found that sixty miles

1092
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 2: away from their release site. And so there understanding of

1093
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 2: navigation and habitat is so much greater than us. You know,

1094
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 2: it's pretty cool, you.

1095
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: Know when you mentioned doing the cold release, and you

1096
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 1: hear this in wildlife work a fair bit where you

1097
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 1: take animals to a spot where you're going to release them.

1098
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 1: It could be any number of kind of creatures you

1099
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 1: do this with, and like you said, you bring them

1100
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 1: into an enclosure and feed them there and just let

1101
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 1: them calm down. And then one day you leave the

1102
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:39,959
Speaker 1: door open, right and they might even leave and come back,

1103
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: but just try to get them settle in. There's a

1104
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 1: great story from Alaska when they brought those ones up

1105
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: in the twenties. They went to this area delta junction,

1106
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 1: and eventually they got a bunch of them there and

1107
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,760
Speaker 1: they wanted to just try to move them around. So

1108
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: at one point they take i think it was thirteen

1109
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 1: of them, add a delta junction and bring them up

1110
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 1: the Slana towards Slann of Mine in a truck and

1111
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: they just opened the door of the truck and show

1112
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 1: them all out of the truck. Well, they split for

1113
00:59:10,120 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 1: so long that people thought they were dead. I mean

1114
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: people will there'd be rumors of them. People applying over

1115
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: would see them or something. And they didn't settle in

1116
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 1: for a hundred miles. And that's the ones that wound

1117
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 1: up being in.

1118
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 2: That copper herd.

1119
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, the copper herd, so like the Nodina, Doddina Chattisleena,

1120
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: and they're migrating between a glacier and all the way

1121
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:33,000
Speaker 1: down to the Copper River. But they went one hundred

1122
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: miles before they found a spot they liked, you know.

1123
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: And that's like a cold that's a hot release right there.

1124
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:38,720
Speaker 2: Man.

1125
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they just split. You know.

1126
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 2: I know a daughter of a homesteader name's Sharon, and

1127
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 2: she used to live on the Danelli Highway and they

1128
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 2: would see him years after that release in Slanta and

1129
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 2: she'd say, well, there was you know, when I was

1130
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 2: a kid, the bison walked through here, and then three

1131
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 2: years later they walked through there. And yeah, I think

1132
00:59:54,680 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 2: one of the issues with that is that we didn't

1133
00:59:56,680 --> 00:59:58,840
Speaker 2: understand their habitat needs as much then. And if you

1134
00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 2: look at the habitat around slam And it's kind of

1135
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 2: Tussic thunder, which is not it's not quite like Alpine

1136
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 2: tussic tunder it, but it's it's it's tussics, and it's

1137
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 2: uh not what bisons select for habitat. They'll eat some

1138
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 2: some tustics in the spring, you know, especially the top

1139
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 2: end that turns green first. I mean, that's what a

1140
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 2: tussic really is, is just a micro climate that allows

1141
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 2: you know, thowd parts at the top while the bottoms frozen. Anyway,

1142
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:26,960
Speaker 2: it seemed like they didn't like that habitat and that

1143
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 2: hard release might have been not enough to keep them

1144
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:29,959
Speaker 2: there too.

1145
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 1: So some of the ones you guys cut loose, you

1146
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:36,439
Speaker 1: were telling me, they went on some tracks. Man. Yeah,

1147
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: if you talk about a few of the outliers, yeah,

1148
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: like what they did, why they did it, you know,

1149
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 1: but mostly I guess you don't know the why, but

1150
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: the what is incredible.

1151
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to make it clear first off that

1152
01:00:48,800 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 2: that ninety eight and a half percent of them stayed

1153
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 2: right where we had a habitat assessment and right where

1154
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 2: we wanted them to stay. And so these really are outliers.

1155
01:00:57,440 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 2: They're they're they're very unique individuals.

1156
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a solid point ninety eight point

1157
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: five percent stayed put. Of course, let's talk about the

1158
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:10,440
Speaker 1: one point yeah, right, So the one point five percent

1159
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: was three animals and that was.

1160
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 2: Uh. We had two cows that went on really long

1161
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 2: exploratory forays and a bull and I'll explain them all

1162
01:01:20,160 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 2: right now. So we had a ten month old cow

1163
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 2: that just disappeared right after release, within maybe less than

1164
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:31,880
Speaker 2: a month of when we released animals in the spring

1165
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 2: of twenty fifteen, not wearing a collar. Well, she had

1166
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: a collar on, but then at that time, we made

1167
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 2: them out of like spandex, like you'd wrap your ankle with,

1168
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:43,000
Speaker 2: you know, the spanex wrap with a little canister collar,

1169
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 2: and it was a VHF. So I had to fly

1170
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 2: and actually get within like ten miles of it to

1171
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 2: hear it. And then since it was made out of

1172
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 2: spanex with this growing animal, so that it would just

1173
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 2: rip off early and when I was radio tracking, that

1174
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 2: one just disappeared. And so sometimes they go off the

1175
01:01:57,680 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 2: air and things, and so within a month or so

1176
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,240
Speaker 2: after release, I couldn't hear her, and I thought she

1177
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 2: was just you know, her collar fell off and fell

1178
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 2: in the mud somewhere or something like that. So I

1179
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 2: didn't know. Well, a biologist in Galina spotted her that

1180
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 2: winter in a in a habitat about I think one

1181
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:18,360
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty miles north of where we released him,

1182
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:20,640
Speaker 2: and she's by herself still, and we went and called

1183
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 2: caught her then and put a caller spelled.

1184
01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1185
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 2: He was a biologist doing aerial surveys and and spotted her.

1186
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: And you were able to go find it.

1187
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well he he yeah, his name's Brad. He

1188
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 2: lives in Gallina as a great biologist, and he uh

1189
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 2: he kind of kept track of her, you know, and

1190
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 2: uh so we went and searched for uh and found

1191
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 2: her in the winter when things were froze up and uh.

1192
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:46,439
Speaker 2: And you know, bison, they're not that hard to see

1193
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 2: that they're they're dark, and they stay in open areas,

1194
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 2: and so you can you can tendly generally pick him out. Anyway,

1195
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 2: we put a caller on and we've tracked her ever since.

1196
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 2: And she stayed up there, uh, which was in like

1197
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 2: if anybody knows that that the area it's like the

1198
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:04,920
Speaker 2: Pilot Mountain habitat, you know, the marshy area, the big

1199
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 2: open marsh areas, and so she like that. But then

1200
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:09,640
Speaker 2: she moved down in the Cayu Flats east of Caltag.

1201
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 2: After that she started kind of migrating back and forth

1202
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 2: between those two kind of really nice wood bison habitats,

1203
01:03:14,240 --> 01:03:17,080
Speaker 2: always by herself, always by herself. And she's stayed now

1204
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:21,560
Speaker 2: she's she's east of Caltag now in the Kayu Sto. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1205
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 2: so she's old.

1206
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: What is she?

1207
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,000
Speaker 2: What would she be this year? She'd be twenty or twelve,

1208
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:25,640
Speaker 2: you know, coming.

1209
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:27,560
Speaker 1: There's never like just lived the rest of her life

1210
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:28,360
Speaker 1: on old spinster.

1211
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 2: I guess so. And we've had some that The reason

1212
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 2: why we don't add more bison there is that it

1213
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 2: has really deep snows there, and uh, I think without

1214
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 2: the demands of gestation and lactation, she's been able to

1215
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:43,560
Speaker 2: survive even in these horrible winters where the snow will

1216
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 2: be you know, forty inches deep with ice layers and

1217
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff. And she just should just be

1218
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:52,520
Speaker 2: standing out there and doing her thing. And yeah, anyway,

1219
01:03:52,960 --> 01:03:55,920
Speaker 2: kind of depressing it is. Yeah, but here's here's the

1220
01:03:56,320 --> 01:03:59,240
Speaker 2: very interesting thing is that I often wondered, well, why

1221
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 2: was it her? Did she go do that? I tried

1222
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 2: to take all the animals from captivity, you know, the

1223
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 2: full social structure that we had in captivity that because

1224
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:12,160
Speaker 2: bison's social structure is a very powerful thing, and it's

1225
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 2: generally matriarchal lead. And then they and these big groups

1226
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 2: of bison include all the young animals from calves up

1227
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:22,120
Speaker 2: to about three years old. Once they're three year olds,

1228
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:24,760
Speaker 2: the bulls kick off and go do their own thing,

1229
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 2: but the cows tend to stay with the older cows

1230
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 2: for their whole life. So and I think if you

1231
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 2: look at bison and the way that they're a generalist

1232
01:04:33,240 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 2: grazer and they can occupy all kinds of different niche

1233
01:04:35,880 --> 01:04:38,400
Speaker 2: like I mentioned, from northern Mexico to Pennsylvania to Oregon

1234
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 2: to the Arctic Ocean. I think they can do so

1235
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 2: much diversity because of their ability to learn how to

1236
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:50,160
Speaker 2: adapt to a particular site, and they are very their

1237
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 2: adaptation is very plastic. Since they're generalists, they can occupy

1238
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:55,760
Speaker 2: all these places and just learn what the best thing

1239
01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:58,480
Speaker 2: to eat is there. And I think part of that

1240
01:04:58,760 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 2: is the education from the adults, you know, like hey,

1241
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 2: you know, eat this and not that, and go here

1242
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:07,680
Speaker 2: and not there and that sort of thing. Anyway, that's

1243
01:05:07,720 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 2: the preface to the concept of why I think she

1244
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 2: went away the cow that gave birth to that calf

1245
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 2: that did that. She was still back in captivity. She's

1246
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 2: one of the cows they didn't take out because she

1247
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 2: was so n me that I didn't want her to

1248
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:23,320
Speaker 2: hurt herself in transport, So I left her back in

1249
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:25,439
Speaker 2: captivity because I thought she just might throw a fit

1250
01:05:25,520 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 2: and you know, hurt herself and.

1251
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: Her calf didn't have that bond to the herd.

1252
01:05:29,440 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 2: And split looking for mom. I don't know that this

1253
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:33,600
Speaker 2: is totally you know, a guess.

1254
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:41,320
Speaker 1: But if you can somehow measure her contentment, like is

1255
01:05:41,360 --> 01:05:43,960
Speaker 1: she content or not content where.

1256
01:05:43,760 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 2: She's at now, I don't know. I don't know much.

1257
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 2: I think I think she knows. I think she knows

1258
01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 2: how to get back, you know, yeah, maybe not.

1259
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:57,000
Speaker 1: Well, if you look at the work of the Monteeth Shop,

1260
01:05:58,040 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 1: Kevin Monteeth, those things have incredible abilities, Yeah, to retrace journeys. Yeah,

1261
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 1: like when they go somewhere, they can, I mean from

1262
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:11,800
Speaker 1: his stuff, his collaring projects, not with bison, but with

1263
01:06:11,920 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 1: Mule de Or and Elk. When they go somewhere, they

1264
01:06:14,240 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 1: can damn sure walk back on their same tracks, like

1265
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:18,160
Speaker 1: they know where they're going.

1266
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 2: And maybe she was kind of in shock. When she

1267
01:06:20,320 --> 01:06:23,120
Speaker 2: left because she just got transported and I don't really know,

1268
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:25,240
Speaker 2: but onto the other things because it ties into that

1269
01:06:25,280 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 2: one a bowl. Then in twenty sixteen, so a year

1270
01:06:28,560 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 2: after release left and went north to the Cayu Flats

1271
01:06:31,720 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 2: where this cow that had already gone up there. Let's

1272
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:37,480
Speaker 2: say she's cow number one and he's bull number one.

1273
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 2: She was going back and forth between the Kyo Flats

1274
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,720
Speaker 2: and the Pilot Mountain area. This bull went up to

1275
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 2: the Cayu Flats and so at one point we had

1276
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 2: both this cow disperser and a bull disperser in the

1277
01:06:49,760 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 2: Kyu Flats and a lot of local people were like, oh,

1278
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 2: we're not gonna make a herd, you know, this is

1279
01:06:53,120 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 2: really gonna work out. And then he stayed there.

1280
01:06:57,120 --> 01:06:58,960
Speaker 1: And then how close did they get to each other?

1281
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 2: Maybe fifteen mile apart or something like that, so not

1282
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:03,920
Speaker 2: quite close enough I guess to smell each other or

1283
01:07:03,920 --> 01:07:10,240
Speaker 2: whatever it's like it was. And then uh, rut happens. Right,

1284
01:07:10,320 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 2: So this bull that did this dispersal, you know, he

1285
01:07:13,320 --> 01:07:15,200
Speaker 2: just takes off on heads north and rut and she

1286
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:17,440
Speaker 2: starts heading west. No, no, she's she was north of

1287
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 2: him at the time, and they crossed trails like they

1288
01:07:20,400 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 2: were like four days different or five days different or

1289
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:25,000
Speaker 2: something like that. But they didn't you know, like turn around,

1290
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:27,240
Speaker 2: try to find each other whatever. And the bull went.

1291
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:30,440
Speaker 2: Now onto the story of the bull. He crossed the Yukon,

1292
01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:34,520
Speaker 2: got into the kayakuk went all swam. You know, they're

1293
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:38,400
Speaker 2: good swimmers. They they're they're very dense and they don't

1294
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 2: have hollow hair, so they swim really low. Like when

1295
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 2: a bison swims. The only thing sticking out is like

1296
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:46,520
Speaker 2: its nostrils, its eyes, and its horns and maybe a

1297
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 2: little bit of its hump and uh so that you

1298
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 2: don't see much and they can be drowned easily with waves.

1299
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:55,360
Speaker 2: But yeah, he crossed the Yukon. In fact, there are

1300
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:58,040
Speaker 2: those cowgroups and those exploratory forays I talked about. In

1301
01:07:58,080 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 2: that first summer, we had some that were crossing the

1302
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:02,920
Speaker 2: Yukon with calves and everything down in that lower Yukon

1303
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:05,520
Speaker 2: it's a mile or more wide, and then going back, Yep,

1304
01:08:05,600 --> 01:08:06,920
Speaker 2: they were just you know, they go over there for

1305
01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:08,680
Speaker 2: a week and then they crossed back to the Yukon for

1306
01:08:08,720 --> 01:08:11,480
Speaker 2: a week and yeah, just crazy stuff. Anyway, this bull

1307
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 2: went north. He went up to Kayakuk, hit the upper Kobuk,

1308
01:08:14,120 --> 01:08:17,559
Speaker 2: went into the Brooks Range and got up in the

1309
01:08:18,080 --> 01:08:20,559
Speaker 2: high Brooks Range between the Kobuk and the no Attack

1310
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 2: and and Rutt was over by then. He got up

1311
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:27,000
Speaker 2: in there in like October or something, and I don't

1312
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 2: know what happened to him, but he died somewhere in

1313
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 2: there in late winter. And if he had a GPS

1314
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:34,720
Speaker 2: color and she'd kind of see his movement, say, he

1315
01:08:34,760 --> 01:08:36,479
Speaker 2: looked to me like he got up in this high

1316
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:38,640
Speaker 2: mountain valley and then couldn't get out of it. And

1317
01:08:38,680 --> 01:08:40,559
Speaker 2: I think what had happened. He must have been injured

1318
01:08:40,640 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 2: or something, because when we finally dug him out of

1319
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:49,760
Speaker 2: like nine feet of snow, he you know, he died

1320
01:08:49,800 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 2: in there, and the way he was trying to make

1321
01:08:51,760 --> 01:08:55,000
Speaker 2: forays out of this valley, he just couldn't make it out.

1322
01:08:55,080 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 2: And I don't think it's because it was too much

1323
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:57,960
Speaker 2: snow at the time. I think that, you know, he

1324
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:00,920
Speaker 2: got buried in snow afterward. But anyway, and then the

1325
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:03,360
Speaker 2: other the third one that I know of big dispersal,

1326
01:09:03,439 --> 01:09:07,800
Speaker 2: was a cow that left left the initial range, went

1327
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:14,280
Speaker 2: south around Anniak and Kowskeg, and then came back to

1328
01:09:14,760 --> 01:09:17,240
Speaker 2: the main herd, and then she left again a few

1329
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 2: months later and went down by Russian Mission, which is

1330
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:21,720
Speaker 2: so Annie and Kowskak are on the lower Cuscquim. Then

1331
01:09:21,720 --> 01:09:24,599
Speaker 2: she went down Russian Mission, which is the lower Yukon.

1332
01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:26,160
Speaker 2: And when I say those villages, I mean like right

1333
01:09:26,160 --> 01:09:29,680
Speaker 2: out the village, I mean that's the closest landmark. Yeah.

1334
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:32,240
Speaker 2: She spent much of a winter down in the mountains

1335
01:09:32,320 --> 01:09:34,519
Speaker 2: or the hills around Russian Mission, and then she worked

1336
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:36,320
Speaker 2: her way down and end up on the lower Cuscquim.

1337
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:43,640
Speaker 2: And she was like, we called her like a diplomat

1338
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 2: because everywhere she went, you know, everybody was, you know,

1339
01:09:45,880 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 2: writing us letters and called man, the wood bison's here.

1340
01:09:48,479 --> 01:09:48,719
Speaker 1: People.

1341
01:09:49,760 --> 01:09:52,360
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, they were super excited about it. In fact,

1342
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:54,320
Speaker 2: you know, we got a light, nice long letter from

1343
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 2: the village of Eke where they said, you know, hey,

1344
01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:00,040
Speaker 2: how can we get more wood bison down here? I

1345
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 2: really like this, you know, we want to start a

1346
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:04,720
Speaker 2: population here too, and all that. And but it went

1347
01:10:04,760 --> 01:10:09,080
Speaker 2: past Eke and went to down by Quinnahawk.

1348
01:10:09,320 --> 01:10:11,400
Speaker 1: How far from the release.

1349
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:14,280
Speaker 2: Uh, it's probably it's probably something like one hundred and

1350
01:10:14,280 --> 01:10:15,160
Speaker 2: fifty miles down there.

1351
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:15,280
Speaker 1: Too.

1352
01:10:15,360 --> 01:10:17,240
Speaker 2: I might have to measure it to be more accurate,

1353
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 2: but that's roughly about right. And she got into that

1354
01:10:20,360 --> 01:10:23,680
Speaker 2: lower Cusquin, which is just phenomenal habitat their sedge as

1355
01:10:23,720 --> 01:10:25,840
Speaker 2: far as I can see, and it's good thick stuff.

1356
01:10:25,840 --> 01:10:29,400
Speaker 2: And I had a friend from Bethel, the biologist there,

1357
01:10:29,800 --> 01:10:31,640
Speaker 2: radio tracker and took a picture from the air, and

1358
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:32,799
Speaker 2: she was just fat.

1359
01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 1: You know.

1360
01:10:33,160 --> 01:10:35,040
Speaker 2: She was really having a good time down there, I think,

1361
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:37,400
Speaker 2: and all alone, all alone, And.

1362
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:40,439
Speaker 1: Why can't you sling a mail over there go get

1363
01:10:40,439 --> 01:10:41,519
Speaker 1: her and sling her back?

1364
01:10:41,600 --> 01:10:44,639
Speaker 2: Or with all this good publicity that she was doing

1365
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:46,600
Speaker 2: down there, I thought that was going to happen. But

1366
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:49,519
Speaker 2: she got to near a village of Quinnahawk and a

1367
01:10:49,560 --> 01:10:53,720
Speaker 2: guy shot her. Essentially he was he did, yeah, he was.

1368
01:10:53,920 --> 01:10:56,040
Speaker 2: He was long ways away. He had a thirty thirty

1369
01:10:56,040 --> 01:10:58,000
Speaker 2: that had gotten for Christmas or something like that, and

1370
01:10:58,040 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 2: he shot it at her like nine times and finally

1371
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:02,880
Speaker 2: got her wounded enough that he came up and finished

1372
01:11:02,880 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 2: her off.

1373
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: And then what do you think it was?

1374
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:06,960
Speaker 2: Well, first he thought it was a bear, and then

1375
01:11:07,040 --> 01:11:08,720
Speaker 2: that's what he said. And then when he got it

1376
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:10,080
Speaker 2: close and side it had horns, he thought it was

1377
01:11:10,080 --> 01:11:12,720
Speaker 2: a muskox and and uh, then he saw it had

1378
01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:14,639
Speaker 2: a collar, so he shot the collar, so we couldn't

1379
01:11:14,720 --> 01:11:16,960
Speaker 2: use any of that information, and then shot the collar.

1380
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:20,280
Speaker 2: Yeah right, and then then he got it back to

1381
01:11:20,280 --> 01:11:21,680
Speaker 2: the village. So he did take some of it back

1382
01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:23,839
Speaker 2: to the village, and then the elders were like, you

1383
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 2: ding dong, you shot the wood bison, you know. And

1384
01:11:26,040 --> 01:11:27,840
Speaker 2: then he felt kind of bad about that, and then

1385
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:31,400
Speaker 2: we talked to him about it, and he had to

1386
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:33,559
Speaker 2: give a he didn't have anything. He couldn't like find

1387
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:35,920
Speaker 2: him or put him in jail or whatever, and and

1388
01:11:36,320 --> 01:11:39,639
Speaker 2: so he had to give a public apology on the radio,

1389
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 2: which he did, and uh he had to uh get

1390
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:49,080
Speaker 2: all the meat to the elders building and in Bethel,

1391
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:50,760
Speaker 2: and you know it was all fit out there and

1392
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:52,840
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So but it was it was pretty

1393
01:11:52,920 --> 01:11:54,559
Speaker 2: much a tragedy. It would have been kind of neat

1394
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:55,840
Speaker 2: to have because I.

1395
01:11:55,920 --> 01:11:59,439
Speaker 1: Let you hear that public apology. Yeah, it lengthy.

1396
01:11:59,600 --> 01:12:01,519
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know it was on the

1397
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:07,599
Speaker 2: radio there. Yeah, I didn't have an opportunity radio yet. Yeah. Huh.

1398
01:12:07,600 --> 01:12:11,440
Speaker 1: So there is kind of a long tradition in America

1399
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:15,120
Speaker 1: of seeing something you're not quite sure what it is

1400
01:12:15,160 --> 01:12:18,280
Speaker 1: and shooting it. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's like a

1401
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:19,719
Speaker 1: common response with people.

1402
01:12:19,920 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 2: I've had several old timers call me and say, hey,

1403
01:12:22,360 --> 01:12:24,920
Speaker 2: you can't do this because people local people are just

1404
01:12:24,960 --> 01:12:27,720
Speaker 2: gonna shoot them all. And I found that not to

1405
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:30,759
Speaker 2: be true. I think a lot of most local people

1406
01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:33,240
Speaker 2: are pretty darn excited about it, and they want it

1407
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 2: to happen, and they want to be uh, you know,

1408
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:40,880
Speaker 2: conservation conservationists for these animals, you know, they want it

1409
01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:41,760
Speaker 2: to work. But there's a.

1410
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:49,000
Speaker 1: Defense of that one. Bro though the muskos is plausible. Maybe.

1411
01:12:49,600 --> 01:12:51,720
Speaker 1: I mean, if he wasn't aware that you guys were

1412
01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:54,280
Speaker 1: doing the reintroduction, what the hell is you gonna think

1413
01:12:54,320 --> 01:12:55,320
Speaker 1: it is at a distance?

1414
01:12:55,400 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 2: I don't know, big brown object.

1415
01:12:57,400 --> 01:12:59,400
Speaker 1: I went time in the fog. We went after what

1416
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:01,320
Speaker 1: we went after a grizzly beard had turned out to

1417
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:04,519
Speaker 1: be a muskox and a fog shoot. But I mean

1418
01:13:04,520 --> 01:13:09,000
Speaker 1: it was enough to make us cross the river heavy fog,

1419
01:13:09,360 --> 01:13:11,160
Speaker 1: but it was enough to paddle across the river. And

1420
01:13:11,160 --> 01:13:13,840
Speaker 1: they were like, no, shoot, that's the muskogs.

1421
01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:18,160
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, anyway, that's all took off.

1422
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:22,320
Speaker 1: Man, you gotta go save that one. I'm not gonna

1423
01:13:22,320 --> 01:13:24,120
Speaker 1: be able to sleep at night. I didn't realize it

1424
01:13:24,160 --> 01:13:25,320
Speaker 1: was still live. Man.

1425
01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:30,559
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I mean a lot of folks

1426
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:32,240
Speaker 2: say that too. We should a lot of folks argue

1427
01:13:32,240 --> 01:13:34,880
Speaker 2: that we should supplementally feed when conditions get tough too,

1428
01:13:35,080 --> 01:13:37,479
Speaker 2: there spend times. I don't think that, but I think.

1429
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,200
Speaker 1: Because that would that wouldn't go along with the objective.

1430
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:43,639
Speaker 2: Right to have wild populations doing wild things.

1431
01:13:43,720 --> 01:13:47,640
Speaker 1: Yeap, it wouldn't. It'd be like an it'd be like,

1432
01:13:47,720 --> 01:13:50,240
Speaker 1: this is just me talking. In my view, if you

1433
01:13:50,280 --> 01:13:56,160
Speaker 1: start feeding them, yeah, what are you doing right? It's

1434
01:13:56,200 --> 01:13:59,280
Speaker 1: not it's not anything. Well but here here's gone.

1435
01:13:59,439 --> 01:14:01,200
Speaker 2: Well one of them we're trying to go do anything

1436
01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:04,360
Speaker 2: with her is that she is outside of the areas

1437
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:06,760
Speaker 2: listed in the environmental Assessment that we can do stuff.

1438
01:14:06,760 --> 01:14:08,559
Speaker 2: That's another thing where it comes down to the essay

1439
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:11,360
Speaker 2: the Danger Species Act making things difficult is we have

1440
01:14:11,439 --> 01:14:13,840
Speaker 2: to go with what is written like ten years ago

1441
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:16,360
Speaker 2: in that in that document. We can't just like go

1442
01:14:16,560 --> 01:14:18,360
Speaker 2: I would like to go the path of least resistance.

1443
01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:20,080
Speaker 2: There's a lot of villages that say bring them here,

1444
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:22,720
Speaker 2: but we're like, I'm sorry, we can't because the essay says.

1445
01:14:22,840 --> 01:14:25,320
Speaker 1: I want to set the record straight on something. If

1446
01:14:25,360 --> 01:14:27,519
Speaker 1: I was in your shoes, I would do the same

1447
01:14:27,520 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 1: thing you're doing. I'm just saying, like, as a guy

1448
01:14:30,040 --> 01:14:33,840
Speaker 1: sitting here feeling all sad about that one and anthropomorphizing

1449
01:14:33,880 --> 01:14:36,280
Speaker 1: its experience, that makes me say, like, go get it.

1450
01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:38,360
Speaker 1: But of course in your position, you can't go take

1451
01:14:38,439 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: your money and be like, oh, you spend thousands of

1452
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:44,800
Speaker 1: dollars to do what? Right? Like, I totally understand an issue,

1453
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:48,600
Speaker 1: But here's here's when you look at the numbers. And

1454
01:14:48,680 --> 01:14:50,680
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for you on this, I'm rooting for you

1455
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:52,400
Speaker 1: on it. But when you look at the numbers, man,

1456
01:14:52,479 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 1: you guys have put more animals on the ground in

1457
01:15:00,120 --> 01:15:03,200
Speaker 1: Noco in Thenoco Valley, You've putt more animals on the

1458
01:15:03,240 --> 01:15:06,840
Speaker 1: ground than are currently alive. It's right, So what like

1459
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:11,120
Speaker 1: what does that say to you? I mean, you dressed

1460
01:15:11,160 --> 01:15:15,160
Speaker 1: that this series of bad winners right right?

1461
01:15:15,640 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1462
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:19,720
Speaker 1: Where are you at? Like, like, where are you at

1463
01:15:19,880 --> 01:15:22,840
Speaker 1: right now? Mentally about this whole thing? Knowing that you

1464
01:15:22,960 --> 01:15:27,120
Speaker 1: turned out what one.

1465
01:15:25,640 --> 01:15:27,559
Speaker 2: We'd released one hundred and thirty right off the battle, you.

1466
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: Put one hundred and thirty on the ground but you

1467
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:34,200
Speaker 1: don't have one hundred and thirty alive right now, so correct.

1468
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:40,400
Speaker 1: You would expect with the reintroduction, and they're exploiting new habitat,

1469
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:44,200
Speaker 1: they're not competing with other animals, there's all this room

1470
01:15:44,240 --> 01:15:47,120
Speaker 1: to grow. You'd expect that to just be like boom

1471
01:15:47,120 --> 01:15:51,880
Speaker 1: boom boom, like population growth, population growth, population growth, population growth,

1472
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:54,120
Speaker 1: and that you'd be seeing it like skyrocket.

1473
01:15:54,240 --> 01:15:56,280
Speaker 2: Yep, right, that would be the hope.

1474
01:15:56,479 --> 01:15:59,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it didn't know, So what's your like, what's

1475
01:15:59,720 --> 01:16:00,720
Speaker 1: your what you take?

1476
01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:03,600
Speaker 2: There's been several years of growth like that, even up

1477
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:06,439
Speaker 2: to twenty five percent growth in a year. The problem

1478
01:16:06,520 --> 01:16:11,439
Speaker 2: is we've had these catastrophic bad winners with ice, you know,

1479
01:16:11,520 --> 01:16:13,559
Speaker 2: rain on snow events and ice laders in the snow.

1480
01:16:13,600 --> 01:16:14,960
Speaker 2: Like I mentioned, it makes it hard for them to

1481
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:18,519
Speaker 2: get to their forage and you can lose a lot

1482
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:22,280
Speaker 2: more bison to mortality and winter. Then you can replace

1483
01:16:22,360 --> 01:16:24,639
Speaker 2: that by calves because you know, there's only so many

1484
01:16:24,640 --> 01:16:27,839
Speaker 2: adult calves that are of breeding age. So the population

1485
01:16:27,880 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 2: can only grow you know, twenty percent or twenty five

1486
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:33,360
Speaker 2: percent in a year based on reproduction, but it can

1487
01:16:33,439 --> 01:16:36,000
Speaker 2: lose eighty percent or one hundred percent in a year.

1488
01:16:36,040 --> 01:16:38,439
Speaker 2: You know, in the spring of twenty eighteen we lost

1489
01:16:38,479 --> 01:16:41,479
Speaker 2: thirty percent. Spring of twenty twenty we lost twenty percent.

1490
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:45,080
Speaker 2: These are rough numbers. But in the spring of twenty

1491
01:16:45,360 --> 01:16:49,160
Speaker 2: three we lost was it twenty three, Yeah, spring of

1492
01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 2: twenty three we lost fifty percent of the population. And

1493
01:16:52,240 --> 01:16:55,320
Speaker 2: the two previous years were really great survival. So twenty

1494
01:16:55,360 --> 01:16:58,519
Speaker 2: one and twenty two, like all of the calves and

1495
01:16:58,600 --> 01:17:01,479
Speaker 2: all the yearlingks survive in the population was just cranking

1496
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:06,400
Speaker 2: and and then we had What happened was it snowed

1497
01:17:06,479 --> 01:17:09,920
Speaker 2: in mid October about two feet deep and then it

1498
01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:12,920
Speaker 2: melted down to about eight inches of just concrete and

1499
01:17:13,000 --> 01:17:15,360
Speaker 2: just you know, locked in their forage, and then that

1500
01:17:15,400 --> 01:17:17,840
Speaker 2: they had to go through seven months of winter with that,

1501
01:17:17,880 --> 01:17:20,040
Speaker 2: with most of their forage, so you know, locked in

1502
01:17:20,080 --> 01:17:20,400
Speaker 2: the ice.

1503
01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:21,920
Speaker 1: He had a bunch get drowned, right.

1504
01:17:22,200 --> 01:17:23,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, right after we released them in the spring of

1505
01:17:23,880 --> 01:17:26,640
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, we had about nine that we knew of

1506
01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:31,320
Speaker 2: go through the ice. You know, there's always going to

1507
01:17:31,360 --> 01:17:33,599
Speaker 2: be bison going through the ice. That's that's a common

1508
01:17:34,520 --> 01:17:36,920
Speaker 2: cause of death in Canada, you know, where they have

1509
01:17:36,960 --> 01:17:42,760
Speaker 2: a lot more bison than we do, and it's you know,

1510
01:17:42,880 --> 01:17:45,959
Speaker 2: I mean humans still fall through the ice, but they're.

1511
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:48,920
Speaker 1: Well they're real. I've written about this. I mean, they

1512
01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:52,080
Speaker 1: got an incredible capacity to drown. Yeah, you wouldn't think

1513
01:17:52,120 --> 01:17:52,400
Speaker 1: of it.

1514
01:17:52,479 --> 01:17:54,439
Speaker 2: Well, they're so they're so low in the water that

1515
01:17:54,479 --> 01:17:56,080
Speaker 2: they can't get out. So once they get in a

1516
01:17:56,120 --> 01:17:59,080
Speaker 2: hole in the ice, it's done. And I've had them

1517
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:02,639
Speaker 2: go through holes by beer houses where they're just they're

1518
01:18:02,680 --> 01:18:04,479
Speaker 2: just there's under there, you know, and you can't even

1519
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:06,599
Speaker 2: radio track. I'm tell the spring when when the ice

1520
01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:08,880
Speaker 2: melts and I can hear the collar and the carcassol,

1521
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:10,760
Speaker 2: you know, float up to the surface and stuff. But

1522
01:18:11,160 --> 01:18:13,000
Speaker 2: like a moose, when a moose falls to the ice,

1523
01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:14,559
Speaker 2: you can see a whole bunch of struggle where it

1524
01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:16,120
Speaker 2: tried to get out for a long time and stuff,

1525
01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,760
Speaker 2: because it's you know, somewhat buoyant. But a bison is

1526
01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:21,719
Speaker 2: so danse Advan. Yeah, they're just under the ice.

1527
01:18:24,120 --> 01:18:25,960
Speaker 1: So what do you think, like, what do you think there?

1528
01:18:26,040 --> 01:18:28,120
Speaker 1: What do you think is gonna happen? And let me

1529
01:18:28,160 --> 01:18:31,240
Speaker 1: set this up to as you answered that, because here's

1530
01:18:31,240 --> 01:18:34,920
Speaker 1: the deal, though, you got like these other you got

1531
01:18:35,000 --> 01:18:38,040
Speaker 1: these other four populations trying to think so Copper River

1532
01:18:38,439 --> 01:18:43,400
Speaker 1: farewell burned Chittina, right has some is that it for?

1533
01:18:43,400 --> 01:18:45,760
Speaker 1: For plane? Yeah? So three other groups.

1534
01:18:45,439 --> 01:18:47,200
Speaker 2: And deltah, yeah, Delta.

1535
01:18:47,760 --> 01:18:52,040
Speaker 1: I knew there's four since nineteen twenties. So for a

1536
01:18:52,200 --> 01:18:56,960
Speaker 1: century there have been planes. There have been these populations

1537
01:18:57,000 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 1: of planes bison, which for all intentsive purposes, could be

1538
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 1: just as well adapted as anything else to live there.

1539
01:19:03,439 --> 01:19:07,839
Speaker 1: So for a century you've got these populations of buffalo

1540
01:19:08,439 --> 01:19:14,360
Speaker 1: that weren't even put on scientifically selected habitats. They were

1541
01:19:14,680 --> 01:19:19,559
Speaker 1: turned out that have that have survived for a century

1542
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:21,960
Speaker 1: now in Delta Junction. Sure they hang out in those

1543
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:24,840
Speaker 1: oat fields and there's agriculture around, but the other three

1544
01:19:24,880 --> 01:19:27,840
Speaker 1: groups are just living off the land and they got

1545
01:19:27,880 --> 01:19:30,800
Speaker 1: their ups and downs, but like they made it, and

1546
01:19:30,840 --> 01:19:33,280
Speaker 1: if you didn't mess with them, it's safe to assume

1547
01:19:33,280 --> 01:19:37,200
Speaker 1: in one hundred years they'd still be there. Right, So

1548
01:19:37,360 --> 01:19:40,400
Speaker 1: that makes me think that like there's a really good

1549
01:19:40,479 --> 01:19:44,320
Speaker 1: chance that these things could take off. I don't know how,

1550
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:47,120
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, just see like other animals are

1551
01:19:47,120 --> 01:19:50,080
Speaker 1: doing in other places, why not there? But what's come

1552
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 1: to be your opinion about the survivability of that herd?

1553
01:19:53,400 --> 01:19:57,400
Speaker 1: And could it ever turn into like thousands of animals.

1554
01:19:58,439 --> 01:20:00,640
Speaker 2: Well, the way I look at that heard as I

1555
01:20:00,680 --> 01:20:04,000
Speaker 2: look at individual years and what to try to understand

1556
01:20:04,000 --> 01:20:06,000
Speaker 2: their potential. So they've only been there ten years, and

1557
01:20:06,040 --> 01:20:11,439
Speaker 2: like I mentioned, there's years where the snow was fairly normal,

1558
01:20:11,560 --> 01:20:13,400
Speaker 2: you know, it was fairly soft. They could get through it.

1559
01:20:13,560 --> 01:20:16,080
Speaker 2: That the population gained twenty eight to twenty five percent.

1560
01:20:16,680 --> 01:20:19,080
Speaker 2: If you can maintain that over the long term, they'll

1561
01:20:19,240 --> 01:20:21,040
Speaker 2: be in the thousands in a short time, you know,

1562
01:20:21,040 --> 01:20:25,719
Speaker 2: a couple decades. The problem is this, this weather regime

1563
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:28,880
Speaker 2: that we're in right now is much different than the

1564
01:20:28,960 --> 01:20:30,960
Speaker 2: history that we had before we released them. You know,

1565
01:20:30,960 --> 01:20:32,960
Speaker 2: if you look at the weather records before we released

1566
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:36,120
Speaker 2: them compared to just the last ten years. And I've

1567
01:20:36,160 --> 01:20:37,519
Speaker 2: got a good slide on this in a lot of

1568
01:20:37,560 --> 01:20:39,640
Speaker 2: presentations I give that you can find on you know,

1569
01:20:39,760 --> 01:20:43,200
Speaker 2: YouTube or whatever, that in the last ten or fifteen

1570
01:20:43,240 --> 01:20:45,479
Speaker 2: years it's been so wet and so warm in Alaska

1571
01:20:45,520 --> 01:20:48,519
Speaker 2: that we get these you know, rain on snow events

1572
01:20:48,520 --> 01:20:50,680
Speaker 2: and isolators and things, and a bunch of that has

1573
01:20:50,720 --> 01:20:54,600
Speaker 2: happened just during this time that the Unoco bison have

1574
01:20:54,680 --> 01:20:58,040
Speaker 2: been out. Even with all that, they still have grown

1575
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:00,599
Speaker 2: in seven of the ten years that they've out there.

1576
01:21:01,560 --> 01:21:04,240
Speaker 2: It's but the problem is that you know, a catastrophic

1577
01:21:04,240 --> 01:21:06,360
Speaker 2: winter can can kill a lot more than what they

1578
01:21:06,360 --> 01:21:07,600
Speaker 2: can reproduce.

1579
01:21:07,160 --> 01:21:07,519
Speaker 1: In a year.

1580
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:10,719
Speaker 2: So right now, I'd say they're persistent. But the reality

1581
01:21:10,840 --> 01:21:13,280
Speaker 2: is is every one of these populations is an experiment,

1582
01:21:13,400 --> 01:21:15,360
Speaker 2: right you know, we if we we could sit on

1583
01:21:15,360 --> 01:21:17,720
Speaker 2: our hands and just say, well, let's not do this

1584
01:21:17,800 --> 01:21:19,760
Speaker 2: because it's too scary and they might die, but we

1585
01:21:19,800 --> 01:21:21,599
Speaker 2: can also just say let's let's give it a shot.

1586
01:21:21,640 --> 01:21:23,760
Speaker 2: You know, there's good habitat here that you know, the

1587
01:21:23,800 --> 01:21:25,400
Speaker 2: snow they might be able to have, the snow they

1588
01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:27,040
Speaker 2: might not, and then you give it a go. And

1589
01:21:27,080 --> 01:21:28,599
Speaker 2: so that's kind of where we're at now, I think,

1590
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:31,080
Speaker 2: is trying to just run these experiments and see if

1591
01:21:31,080 --> 01:21:33,040
Speaker 2: it's a reasonable thing. That's why I mentioned it's so

1592
01:21:33,680 --> 01:21:35,840
Speaker 2: it's such a difficult time, you know, and all like

1593
01:21:35,920 --> 01:21:38,680
Speaker 2: all the money and the legal process and the politics

1594
01:21:38,720 --> 01:21:41,280
Speaker 2: all came together to do it now. But we're in

1595
01:21:41,320 --> 01:21:43,920
Speaker 2: the middle of this thing where ungulates and Alaska are

1596
01:21:43,960 --> 01:21:46,920
Speaker 2: just getting pounded by these warm, wet winters, and I'm

1597
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:48,240
Speaker 2: trying to do it right in the middle of.

1598
01:21:48,160 --> 01:21:51,840
Speaker 1: That let's jump to the next one. So that wasn't

1599
01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:55,800
Speaker 1: the only release site, correct, some time went by and

1600
01:21:55,840 --> 01:21:57,439
Speaker 1: you move down to release site number two.

1601
01:21:57,960 --> 01:22:01,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's the three lease sites listed in the

1602
01:22:01,400 --> 01:22:04,280
Speaker 2: environmental assessment, and that's the Anoco Flats, the Mental Flats,

1603
01:22:04,479 --> 01:22:09,440
Speaker 2: and the Yukon Flats. And we were directed from the Commissioner,

1604
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:11,880
Speaker 2: which is the highest level person in fishing game, a

1605
01:22:11,920 --> 01:22:15,280
Speaker 2: couple of years ago to pursue the Mental Flats one.

1606
01:22:15,320 --> 01:22:18,960
Speaker 2: And so we went through the public planning process and

1607
01:22:19,560 --> 01:22:23,720
Speaker 2: wrote a management plan and we took bison out to

1608
01:22:23,760 --> 01:22:28,679
Speaker 2: the wild in Mental Flat State Game Refuge in the

1609
01:22:28,760 --> 01:22:31,840
Speaker 2: fall of twenty twenty four and then we held them

1610
01:22:32,080 --> 01:22:34,160
Speaker 2: in one hundred acre release pen that we built out

1611
01:22:34,160 --> 01:22:38,960
Speaker 2: there all winter long and then released them about May

1612
01:22:39,160 --> 01:22:43,479
Speaker 2: thirteenth of twenty twenty five. That was about sixty animals.

1613
01:22:43,560 --> 01:22:48,919
Speaker 2: Since then, we've we had three calves and lost two bisons,

1614
01:22:48,960 --> 01:22:54,720
Speaker 2: so we're at you know, sixty one animals now and yeah,

1615
01:22:54,880 --> 01:22:57,080
Speaker 2: that he seems to be doing pretty well and it's

1616
01:22:57,120 --> 01:23:02,360
Speaker 2: pretty exciting now that habitat there doesn't have as much

1617
01:23:02,520 --> 01:23:07,880
Speaker 2: historically of the heavy snows that are wet with with icing,

1618
01:23:08,120 --> 01:23:10,759
Speaker 2: you know, rain on snow events, but it does happen

1619
01:23:10,920 --> 01:23:13,599
Speaker 2: out there. You know, there wasn't a rain on snow

1620
01:23:13,600 --> 01:23:16,240
Speaker 2: event to my understanding until about fifteen years ago in

1621
01:23:16,280 --> 01:23:20,400
Speaker 2: interior Alaska, like around Fairbanks area. But now it's more

1622
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:22,439
Speaker 2: much more common, and like I mentioned, last winter, it

1623
01:23:22,479 --> 01:23:25,880
Speaker 2: happened twice and you know Fairbanks area. So some of

1624
01:23:25,920 --> 01:23:27,599
Speaker 2: it's just going to be luck. And the weird thing

1625
01:23:27,680 --> 01:23:31,679
Speaker 2: is if it's colder, like like the historic winters the winter,

1626
01:23:31,720 --> 01:23:34,479
Speaker 2: the snow is soft, bison can get through without a problem.

1627
01:23:34,640 --> 01:23:36,920
Speaker 2: If it's just a little bit warmer, you have these

1628
01:23:37,000 --> 01:23:39,080
Speaker 2: chinooks that melt out the snow and so then they

1629
01:23:39,080 --> 01:23:41,160
Speaker 2: can easily get to the forage. And when that happens,

1630
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:43,519
Speaker 2: that's happened twice in the Enoko and every time that

1631
01:23:43,760 --> 01:23:45,559
Speaker 2: only one melt out in the course of the winter

1632
01:23:46,000 --> 01:23:48,840
Speaker 2: produced about one hundred percent survival on bison that winter.

1633
01:23:48,960 --> 01:23:50,920
Speaker 2: And so all it takes is just a little bit

1634
01:23:50,960 --> 01:23:53,360
Speaker 2: warmer to when a storm comes it melts stuff out. Well,

1635
01:23:53,800 --> 01:23:57,160
Speaker 2: we're not in that regularly, and we're not in the

1636
01:23:57,200 --> 01:23:59,280
Speaker 2: cold part regular We're stuck right in this middle thing

1637
01:23:59,360 --> 01:24:01,920
Speaker 2: where we're snow is wet and there's ice layers in it.

1638
01:24:02,000 --> 01:24:05,880
Speaker 2: And so if there really is, you know, climate change

1639
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:08,479
Speaker 2: that's making us go more warm, I'm hoping we just

1640
01:24:08,520 --> 01:24:11,880
Speaker 2: get off this pinnacle of of difficulty, you know, one

1641
01:24:11,880 --> 01:24:12,519
Speaker 2: way or another.

1642
01:24:13,040 --> 01:24:16,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be like if that would be that as

1643
01:24:16,400 --> 01:24:19,639
Speaker 1: the climate changes, if it wound up being that that

1644
01:24:19,800 --> 01:24:23,760
Speaker 1: was one of the winners, you know, that that it

1645
01:24:24,040 --> 01:24:30,240
Speaker 1: made that uh whatever, moose suffer and bison. Yeah, it's

1646
01:24:30,280 --> 01:24:35,880
Speaker 1: going to take those balancing acts have occurred, right, and

1647
01:24:35,920 --> 01:24:38,400
Speaker 1: it would maybe it'd be some peculiar balancing act.

1648
01:24:38,439 --> 01:24:40,759
Speaker 2: And I'm not a climatologist, but a lot of folks

1649
01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:42,880
Speaker 2: from the University of Alaska that I've talked to that

1650
01:24:42,960 --> 01:24:45,360
Speaker 2: are have mentioned that that they think the future of

1651
01:24:45,479 --> 01:24:50,559
Speaker 2: interior Alaska is very conducive to to bison. But that

1652
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:53,679
Speaker 2: stuff is changing so fast, you know, like a lot

1653
01:24:53,680 --> 01:24:55,479
Speaker 2: of the predictive models that i'd heard of before in

1654
01:24:55,560 --> 01:25:00,880
Speaker 2: interior Alaska was drier, uh more, drier summers, more fire occurrence,

1655
01:25:00,920 --> 01:25:02,479
Speaker 2: So it would kind of kind of convert more to

1656
01:25:02,520 --> 01:25:06,000
Speaker 2: an Aspen parkland sort of thing, like like Yukon Territory is.

1657
01:25:06,080 --> 01:25:10,000
Speaker 2: But it's gotten so much wetter, just so fast, that

1658
01:25:11,200 --> 01:25:13,639
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's still true with those climate models.

1659
01:25:13,760 --> 01:25:18,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what surprises me is that I guess

1660
01:25:18,560 --> 01:25:20,639
Speaker 1: I don't know. I surprise is the right word. Yeah,

1661
01:25:20,680 --> 01:25:25,040
Speaker 1: sure that wolves don't hammer them, or the brown bears

1662
01:25:25,040 --> 01:25:28,000
Speaker 1: don't hammer them, But then you think, like they don't

1663
01:25:28,080 --> 01:25:31,680
Speaker 1: know how to deal with them, because they can. They

1664
01:25:31,720 --> 01:25:34,840
Speaker 1: have a defense mechanism, right, they got sharp horns, they

1665
01:25:34,880 --> 01:25:39,519
Speaker 1: got really powerful hoofs. And I've read in the past

1666
01:25:39,560 --> 01:25:43,280
Speaker 1: that like it's a real learning curve for wolves to

1667
01:25:43,280 --> 01:25:47,120
Speaker 1: figure out how to kill one, yeah, without themselves getting killed.

1668
01:25:47,520 --> 01:25:49,080
Speaker 1: But I think you did say you've had a couple.

1669
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:53,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's an argument out there that with these reintroduced populations,

1670
01:25:53,400 --> 01:25:56,639
Speaker 2: it takes wolves and all predators maybe a couple decades,

1671
01:25:56,680 --> 01:25:58,720
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five years, you know, that's kind of the

1672
01:25:58,760 --> 01:26:02,719
Speaker 2: Canadian experience for the predators to learn how to really

1673
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:07,280
Speaker 2: kill efficiently bison. But even after they do, and even

1674
01:26:07,280 --> 01:26:10,519
Speaker 2: in populations that persist half persisted forever, like well Buffalo

1675
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:15,120
Speaker 2: National Park and Yellowstone, predation rates are low in bison

1676
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:18,439
Speaker 2: compared to all deer species like you know, white tails, meinies,

1677
01:26:18,760 --> 01:26:21,800
Speaker 2: you know, moose, elk, that sort of thing. Much higher

1678
01:26:21,800 --> 01:26:25,040
Speaker 2: predation rates in deer species, and if you think about

1679
01:26:25,040 --> 01:26:27,040
Speaker 2: a bison, they kind of look like a you know,

1680
01:26:27,160 --> 01:26:31,799
Speaker 2: big slow animal, but they're not. They're they're quick and agile,

1681
01:26:31,920 --> 01:26:33,960
Speaker 2: and they can kick with all four feet. They got

1682
01:26:33,960 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 2: the horns. They're super strong, they're big, they're fast, you know,

1683
01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:41,160
Speaker 2: they're fast runners, and so it's hard to kill those things.

1684
01:26:41,160 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 2: And then they work socially together against predators. So uh,

1685
01:26:44,560 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 2: you know, when when a bear shows up, they'll or

1686
01:26:48,439 --> 01:26:51,040
Speaker 2: any predator. And I've seen this from the air. You know,

1687
01:26:51,040 --> 01:26:54,960
Speaker 2: when when wolves show up that they'll they'll approach those predators,

1688
01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:58,400
Speaker 2: which is really interesting, you know, I mean go to them. Yeah, yeah,

1689
01:26:58,400 --> 01:27:00,320
Speaker 2: they'll just kind of the calves will kind of work

1690
01:27:00,479 --> 01:27:02,160
Speaker 2: their way to the middle of the group, and the

1691
01:27:02,200 --> 01:27:04,360
Speaker 2: cows will just kind of like walk toward the wolves.

1692
01:27:04,360 --> 01:27:07,040
Speaker 2: And I've seen, really I've seen a group of bison

1693
01:27:07,120 --> 01:27:08,760
Speaker 2: and the anoka where there was you know, three or

1694
01:27:08,800 --> 01:27:11,559
Speaker 2: four wolves kind of around the edge, and and uh

1695
01:27:11,640 --> 01:27:13,760
Speaker 2: and they just kind of had a standoff for half

1696
01:27:13,840 --> 01:27:16,400
Speaker 2: hour forty minutes and then and and the cows just

1697
01:27:16,439 --> 01:27:18,840
Speaker 2: you know, kept you know, working their way toward the wolves,

1698
01:27:18,840 --> 01:27:20,760
Speaker 2: and eventually the wolves just kind of got tired of

1699
01:27:20,760 --> 01:27:22,519
Speaker 2: it and and worked their way you know when it

1700
01:27:22,640 --> 01:27:23,679
Speaker 2: did something else.

1701
01:27:24,400 --> 01:27:27,679
Speaker 1: That's a spear fisherman move with sharks. Really, the friends

1702
01:27:27,680 --> 01:27:31,400
Speaker 1: of mine them just show me, don't Yeah, they'll go at,

1703
01:27:31,439 --> 01:27:34,760
Speaker 1: they'll go to them. And it throws the sharks whole

1704
01:27:34,760 --> 01:27:37,840
Speaker 1: perception of what's going on, like changes his whole groove.

1705
01:27:38,160 --> 01:27:40,200
Speaker 1: He's like home and what, Yeah, you're coming to me,

1706
01:27:40,280 --> 01:27:41,280
Speaker 1: and they don't like it.

1707
01:27:41,439 --> 01:27:44,679
Speaker 2: There's a body language, there's a predator and prey body language.

1708
01:27:44,800 --> 01:27:47,720
Speaker 2: And I remember the most significant time I've ever done that,

1709
01:27:47,880 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 2: if you'll allow me, a little rabbit hole is a

1710
01:27:50,880 --> 01:27:54,120
Speaker 2: buddy and I landed uh in the spring for bear

1711
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:58,759
Speaker 2: hunting in the Brooks Range, and UH at night overnight

1712
01:27:58,800 --> 01:28:00,920
Speaker 2: the river came up and so we couldn't take off

1713
01:28:00,920 --> 01:28:02,800
Speaker 2: in the place that we'd landed, and so we had

1714
01:28:02,800 --> 01:28:05,120
Speaker 2: to make a new runway fartherer up on this growbar,

1715
01:28:05,160 --> 01:28:06,559
Speaker 2: and there's a bunch of rocks. So we're throwing off

1716
01:28:06,560 --> 01:28:09,000
Speaker 2: all these rocks and we're just, you know, heads down,

1717
01:28:09,080 --> 01:28:13,719
Speaker 2: throwing rocks and making this runway, and at one point

1718
01:28:14,479 --> 01:28:17,280
Speaker 2: we look up and there's a wolf that was kind

1719
01:28:17,280 --> 01:28:19,240
Speaker 2: of in between us, and he's scouting us out, and

1720
01:28:19,479 --> 01:28:21,360
Speaker 2: you can tell he's in predator mode. He's looking at

1721
01:28:21,439 --> 01:28:24,280
Speaker 2: us very carefully, you know, and like kind of stalking

1722
01:28:24,360 --> 01:28:26,080
Speaker 2: us a little bit. And we were kind of just

1723
01:28:26,120 --> 01:28:28,439
Speaker 2: bent over doing all this work, and he thought, man,

1724
01:28:28,439 --> 01:28:31,080
Speaker 2: these must be prey animals, you know. And my buddy

1725
01:28:31,200 --> 01:28:32,960
Speaker 2: like looks at me, and there was a gun leaning

1726
01:28:33,000 --> 01:28:36,120
Speaker 2: against the airplane and you could tell like as soon

1727
01:28:36,160 --> 01:28:39,320
Speaker 2: as my buddy like went to you like looked back

1728
01:28:39,360 --> 01:28:43,320
Speaker 2: at this animal in a predatory posture, that wolf that

1729
01:28:43,400 --> 01:28:45,479
Speaker 2: knew that immediately He's like, oh my god, these are

1730
01:28:45,520 --> 01:28:48,360
Speaker 2: prey predators. They're not praying. He was gone no in

1731
01:28:48,400 --> 01:28:50,880
Speaker 2: a second. And so I think about that a lot

1732
01:28:50,920 --> 01:28:54,519
Speaker 2: when I'm working with wildlife. If I can act like

1733
01:28:54,600 --> 01:28:57,360
Speaker 2: a prey animal, I can, you know, make a lot

1734
01:28:57,439 --> 01:29:00,639
Speaker 2: more progress being around bison than I can a predator.

1735
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:02,280
Speaker 2: And you know, cowboys do that a little bit with

1736
01:29:02,280 --> 01:29:04,439
Speaker 2: horses too. You know, if you try to act like

1737
01:29:04,439 --> 01:29:06,200
Speaker 2: a predator that they're not real happy about that.

1738
01:29:06,360 --> 01:29:08,800
Speaker 1: Buddy mine, we were talking about this this thing with

1739
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:11,519
Speaker 1: shark body language and sharks and a body mind who's

1740
01:29:11,520 --> 01:29:14,320
Speaker 1: had a ton of exposure to sharks. He had an

1741
01:29:14,320 --> 01:29:16,600
Speaker 1: interesting observation he made me one time where I was

1742
01:29:16,920 --> 01:29:21,759
Speaker 1: I was commenting on and I didn't growup around sharks,

1743
01:29:21,760 --> 01:29:23,720
Speaker 1: so everything's new to me with sharks. But I was

1744
01:29:23,760 --> 01:29:27,120
Speaker 1: commenting on, it's weird that you can like intimidate them

1745
01:29:27,400 --> 01:29:31,439
Speaker 1: by going at them, and he said, they can't afford

1746
01:29:31,479 --> 01:29:35,560
Speaker 1: to get hurt. Like when he gets hurt, he's done.

1747
01:29:36,400 --> 01:29:38,320
Speaker 1: The minute he's hurt, his body's all rip him apart.

1748
01:29:39,080 --> 01:29:42,320
Speaker 1: They're just careful, you know. And it's like you think

1749
01:29:42,360 --> 01:29:43,960
Speaker 1: about two with a wolf or a bear or whatever,

1750
01:29:44,040 --> 01:29:46,600
Speaker 1: like they don't want to get hurt, you know. And

1751
01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:48,240
Speaker 1: he put them in this and if you put him

1752
01:29:48,280 --> 01:29:51,080
Speaker 1: in a situation where sometimes you put them in a

1753
01:29:51,080 --> 01:29:53,479
Speaker 1: situation where they're like, I don't know this thing, maybe's

1754
01:29:53,520 --> 01:29:56,479
Speaker 1: gonna mess me up, it just changes their conversation, you know.

1755
01:29:57,040 --> 01:29:58,120
Speaker 1: They don't want to get hurt.

1756
01:29:58,479 --> 01:30:02,120
Speaker 2: Well, back to predation on vice, and I think that's

1757
01:30:02,160 --> 01:30:05,280
Speaker 2: their strategy is to try to face those those predators.

1758
01:30:05,560 --> 01:30:07,439
Speaker 2: And I think with bears it works really well because

1759
01:30:07,439 --> 01:30:09,559
Speaker 2: you got you know, twenty thirty bison on one bear.

1760
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:11,880
Speaker 2: It's a little bit Wolves can kind of break that

1761
01:30:12,000 --> 01:30:14,759
Speaker 2: because I think wolves as a group can work against

1762
01:30:14,760 --> 01:30:16,640
Speaker 2: a group of bison and finally get them run and

1763
01:30:16,760 --> 01:30:19,000
Speaker 2: then try to pick something out of the population, and

1764
01:30:19,040 --> 01:30:21,960
Speaker 2: you see that in the videos from Wood Buffalo National Park.

1765
01:30:22,000 --> 01:30:24,200
Speaker 2: Of course, Wood Buffalo National Park is a diseased heard

1766
01:30:24,320 --> 01:30:28,280
Speaker 2: so that both brussels and tuberculos brings down enough animals

1767
01:30:28,320 --> 01:30:32,040
Speaker 2: that it's wolves can actually have a better time killing

1768
01:30:32,120 --> 01:30:35,040
Speaker 2: animals there and in a lot of these non disease populations.

1769
01:30:35,080 --> 01:30:41,160
Speaker 2: But I think that strategy that bison have to avoid

1770
01:30:41,160 --> 01:30:46,320
Speaker 2: predation is probably central to the reason why humans killed

1771
01:30:46,360 --> 01:30:49,520
Speaker 2: them off in North America is because we have weapons

1772
01:30:49,520 --> 01:30:54,200
Speaker 2: that if you stand and face a human being and

1773
01:30:54,240 --> 01:30:57,120
Speaker 2: the human being has a rifle, you're done. You know,

1774
01:30:57,160 --> 01:30:58,720
Speaker 2: you have to run and get away. And that's what

1775
01:30:58,840 --> 01:31:01,120
Speaker 2: serve its. You know, deer speed have done, is they

1776
01:31:01,240 --> 01:31:03,160
Speaker 2: running it away and they hide and things. Bison are

1777
01:31:03,200 --> 01:31:05,439
Speaker 2: in the wide open and they stand and face you.

1778
01:31:05,520 --> 01:31:08,800
Speaker 2: And so there's an argument out there that bison are

1779
01:31:08,840 --> 01:31:11,759
Speaker 2: the only really, you know, the only North American angulate

1780
01:31:11,840 --> 01:31:18,479
Speaker 2: that absolutely requires modern conservation to exist because of their

1781
01:31:18,920 --> 01:31:23,200
Speaker 2: predator avoidance strategy. It's impossible to just let people shoot

1782
01:31:23,200 --> 01:31:25,559
Speaker 2: whatever they want with rifles or even bows and they'll

1783
01:31:25,600 --> 01:31:26,200
Speaker 2: just all be gone.

1784
01:31:26,240 --> 01:31:29,879
Speaker 1: Well, you look at another one. Muskogs have a similar approach,

1785
01:31:29,920 --> 01:31:31,320
Speaker 1: and they're very easy to wipe out.

1786
01:31:31,439 --> 01:31:31,639
Speaker 2: Yep.

1787
01:31:31,680 --> 01:31:34,599
Speaker 1: There also exists at much lower numbers, but they were

1788
01:31:34,720 --> 01:31:36,759
Speaker 1: very easy to wipe out, yep. I mean they're riping

1789
01:31:36,760 --> 01:31:40,040
Speaker 1: those things out, the Russians, even just the Russians initiating

1790
01:31:40,040 --> 01:31:43,519
Speaker 1: the fur traders wiping out muskogs in the Arctic, you know,

1791
01:31:43,600 --> 01:31:45,639
Speaker 1: because it would be the same thing, like, yeah, they

1792
01:31:45,680 --> 01:31:47,120
Speaker 1: don't boogie.

1793
01:31:46,920 --> 01:31:49,479
Speaker 2: And so far, you know, alasa's been trying to restore

1794
01:31:49,600 --> 01:31:53,120
Speaker 2: muskos too since nineteen fifty. And one of the issues

1795
01:31:53,160 --> 01:31:55,599
Speaker 2: there is that bears have figured out, you know, grizzly

1796
01:31:55,600 --> 01:31:59,160
Speaker 2: bears have figured out predation of muskogs, and they can

1797
01:31:59,160 --> 01:32:01,599
Speaker 2: get them running and out animals. You know, the muskots

1798
01:32:01,680 --> 01:32:03,240
Speaker 2: go into that you know, the tight group where they

1799
01:32:03,280 --> 01:32:04,559
Speaker 2: put the calves in the middle and stuff. But if

1800
01:32:04,600 --> 01:32:05,960
Speaker 2: they can get them run, and they can, they can

1801
01:32:06,040 --> 01:32:09,479
Speaker 2: kill some. And I think a bison are just so

1802
01:32:09,600 --> 01:32:11,960
Speaker 2: much larger, you know, Bison are you know, roughly three

1803
01:32:12,000 --> 01:32:16,200
Speaker 2: times larger than a muskox, and it's a little bit

1804
01:32:16,240 --> 01:32:18,439
Speaker 2: tougher for a bear to kind of make that happen,

1805
01:32:18,560 --> 01:32:19,040
Speaker 2: I think.

1806
01:32:19,960 --> 01:32:23,880
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the last one is the last area.

1807
01:32:24,080 --> 01:32:28,280
Speaker 1: So you you you got the Anoko Valley Mental Flats

1808
01:32:28,640 --> 01:32:31,280
Speaker 1: rub one hundred ducks and fished. It's a cool spot.

1809
01:32:31,880 --> 01:32:33,840
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a funny thing of Mental Flats. We

1810
01:32:33,880 --> 01:32:36,680
Speaker 1: one time at Mental Flats had been duck hunting and

1811
01:32:36,720 --> 01:32:39,800
Speaker 1: left our ducks land, I mean just right in our camp.

1812
01:32:41,200 --> 01:32:43,720
Speaker 1: In the morning. We had them all gutted and they're

1813
01:32:43,760 --> 01:32:47,280
Speaker 1: gone and mink had hauled them off and we were

1814
01:32:47,320 --> 01:32:50,360
Speaker 1: able to recover them just by hunting around. You find

1815
01:32:50,360 --> 01:32:53,479
Speaker 1: them stashed in the woodpile, stashed in the holes, you know.

1816
01:32:54,280 --> 01:32:57,280
Speaker 1: But uh so you got some there. But it seems

1817
01:32:57,320 --> 01:33:00,400
Speaker 1: like the real promise, man, is that that that the

1818
01:33:00,520 --> 01:33:06,320
Speaker 1: Yukon Flats would work out? Like what needs to fall

1819
01:33:06,360 --> 01:33:09,439
Speaker 1: into place to do someone at Yukon Flats And if

1820
01:33:09,479 --> 01:33:11,920
Speaker 1: you imagine at Yukon Flats, and you can say this

1821
01:33:11,960 --> 01:33:17,600
Speaker 1: about the other release sights too, like if everything went perfectly,

1822
01:33:18,520 --> 01:33:20,760
Speaker 1: what is the estimate of how many you could have

1823
01:33:20,800 --> 01:33:22,080
Speaker 1: at Yukon Flats?

1824
01:33:22,600 --> 01:33:26,320
Speaker 2: Well, the estimate from the habitat assessment in nineteen ninety

1825
01:33:26,360 --> 01:33:31,200
Speaker 2: five was more than two thousand. Okay, so that's not

1826
01:33:31,240 --> 01:33:33,519
Speaker 2: really a number. It just means greater than great in

1827
01:33:33,560 --> 01:33:36,200
Speaker 2: two thousand, Yeah.

1828
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:37,439
Speaker 1: So it could I mean, let me ask you this,

1829
01:33:38,160 --> 01:33:44,920
Speaker 1: could it possibly dethrone Yellowstone National Park as the high

1830
01:33:45,080 --> 01:33:49,080
Speaker 1: number figuring there, you know, typically around you know, three

1831
01:33:49,120 --> 01:33:52,639
Speaker 1: thousand and four thousand, Could it possibly I mean, would

1832
01:33:52,640 --> 01:33:55,720
Speaker 1: it have the potential to knock that off? It's to

1833
01:33:55,800 --> 01:33:59,040
Speaker 1: knock Yellowstone off, it's off its bison pedestal.

1834
01:33:59,240 --> 01:34:02,920
Speaker 2: Well, humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future, but

1835
01:34:04,040 --> 01:34:07,840
Speaker 2: I think that, Yeah, I think it has the habitat absolutely.

1836
01:34:08,439 --> 01:34:08,679
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1837
01:34:08,880 --> 01:34:11,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's going to depend a little bit about the

1838
01:34:11,560 --> 01:34:15,559
Speaker 2: appetite for harvest from human beings and Yukon flats and

1839
01:34:15,720 --> 01:34:21,000
Speaker 2: you know, Alaska a little bit about the social uh density.

1840
01:34:21,080 --> 01:34:22,760
Speaker 2: So if we have we end up a lot of

1841
01:34:22,760 --> 01:34:27,160
Speaker 2: bison and Yukon flats, how do people do the people

1842
01:34:27,280 --> 01:34:29,439
Speaker 2: like that? You know when it comes to bison interaction

1843
01:34:29,520 --> 01:34:33,680
Speaker 2: with infrastructure, human human infrastructure, and so uh, there's a

1844
01:34:33,720 --> 01:34:36,040
Speaker 2: lot of regulating factors there. But if you just take

1845
01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:38,320
Speaker 2: like what could live in Ukon flats, yeah, absolutely, I

1846
01:34:38,320 --> 01:34:40,280
Speaker 2: think we could have way more than Yellowstone in there.

1847
01:34:41,320 --> 01:34:43,960
Speaker 2: But you know, the asiac herd in Yukon territories ahead

1848
01:34:43,960 --> 01:34:46,360
Speaker 2: of us now they're you know, they're passing two thousand

1849
01:34:46,439 --> 01:34:50,920
Speaker 2: with a growing population. And so again the Asiac herd

1850
01:34:51,000 --> 01:34:52,800
Speaker 2: is the is the herd between white Horse and the

1851
01:34:52,880 --> 01:34:56,639
Speaker 2: Alaska border and Yukon territory. They're going past two thousand

1852
01:34:56,640 --> 01:34:59,599
Speaker 2: animals with a growing herd right now. That's super productive.

1853
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:01,599
Speaker 1: I mean they're and they're just in like boreal forests

1854
01:35:01,680 --> 01:35:03,599
Speaker 1: and like aspen stands, and.

1855
01:35:03,680 --> 01:35:08,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so weird. Yeah, they're just open mixed forests

1856
01:35:08,320 --> 01:35:11,040
Speaker 2: essentially with some kind of aspen parkland. They've got some

1857
01:35:11,080 --> 01:35:14,880
Speaker 2: old like pleisiscene step kind of habitat on some of

1858
01:35:14,920 --> 01:35:17,519
Speaker 2: the big hills, you know, where it's just kind of

1859
01:35:17,560 --> 01:35:19,519
Speaker 2: these grassy It looks a lot like that picture on

1860
01:35:19,560 --> 01:35:21,759
Speaker 2: your wall there where it's just like the grassy slopes

1861
01:35:21,800 --> 01:35:25,040
Speaker 2: with you know, uh, you know, spruce and things mixed in.

1862
01:35:26,800 --> 01:35:28,760
Speaker 2: But it's mostly boreal forests and a lot of it's

1863
01:35:28,760 --> 01:35:31,439
Speaker 2: burned and stuff. You know. But that the productivity that

1864
01:35:31,479 --> 01:35:34,439
Speaker 2: population always stounds me. And I'm a little bit jealous,

1865
01:35:34,479 --> 01:35:35,080
Speaker 2: to be honest with you.

1866
01:35:35,200 --> 01:35:37,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what would it take to be able to

1867
01:35:37,360 --> 01:35:39,960
Speaker 1: do a release up you like, like, what are the

1868
01:35:40,000 --> 01:35:43,479
Speaker 1: obstacles right now to doing a lease? A release on

1869
01:35:43,600 --> 01:35:46,520
Speaker 1: Yukon flats is the obstacle having the animals.

1870
01:35:48,600 --> 01:35:51,320
Speaker 2: Not really. We've got the two captive populations in Alaska,

1871
01:35:51,320 --> 01:35:54,479
Speaker 2: we've got in agreement with Canada get more animals. We've

1872
01:35:54,520 --> 01:35:57,880
Speaker 2: gone through the public process, the public planning process here

1873
01:35:57,960 --> 01:36:02,439
Speaker 2: in the last few years, at our third public planning meeting,

1874
01:36:02,439 --> 01:36:06,840
Speaker 2: where we get thirty different interest groups or representatives from

1875
01:36:06,840 --> 01:36:08,880
Speaker 2: thirty different interest groups together in one room and we

1876
01:36:09,240 --> 01:36:11,360
Speaker 2: sit down for three days and we go through every

1877
01:36:11,439 --> 01:36:14,000
Speaker 2: possible thing anybody could ever want to say about bison.

1878
01:36:14,120 --> 01:36:16,599
Speaker 2: We record all that, we summarize it all, and we

1879
01:36:16,640 --> 01:36:19,920
Speaker 2: turn it into recommendations for the Board of Game and Fishing,

1880
01:36:19,960 --> 01:36:22,880
Speaker 2: Game and local Landowners in what's called a management plan.

1881
01:36:23,960 --> 01:36:27,320
Speaker 2: That's where we're at right now. That public process has happened,

1882
01:36:27,360 --> 01:36:29,160
Speaker 2: and now we have to write that into a management plan,

1883
01:36:29,200 --> 01:36:30,559
Speaker 2: which I haven't done yet. So I'm going to be

1884
01:36:30,560 --> 01:36:34,639
Speaker 2: summarizing the public process here over the next month or two,

1885
01:36:34,800 --> 01:36:36,920
Speaker 2: and then I'll be trying to write a management plan.

1886
01:36:36,960 --> 01:36:39,599
Speaker 2: Over the course of the next year, we're going to work

1887
01:36:39,600 --> 01:36:42,559
Speaker 2: out some logistics on how to get bison into Ukon flats.

1888
01:36:42,640 --> 01:36:46,440
Speaker 2: So a whole bunch of Yukon Flats is National Wildlife Refuge,

1889
01:36:47,200 --> 01:36:50,559
Speaker 2: and a bunch more of it is Native corporation land,

1890
01:36:50,560 --> 01:36:54,080
Speaker 2: both local Native corporations and regional Native corporations. And then

1891
01:36:55,320 --> 01:36:58,160
Speaker 2: there's about five hundred square miles of state land in

1892
01:36:58,240 --> 01:36:59,960
Speaker 2: eastern Yukon Flats, and that's where we're going to go,

1893
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:05,400
Speaker 2: is to that state land. We don't have any access

1894
01:37:05,520 --> 01:37:08,120
Speaker 2: overland to that state land, so we're gonna fly them

1895
01:37:08,160 --> 01:37:11,000
Speaker 2: all in. And so I got to work out all

1896
01:37:11,000 --> 01:37:15,280
Speaker 2: those details. And I've done some proof of concept work

1897
01:37:15,320 --> 01:37:19,080
Speaker 2: with flying bison and smaller airplanes, like to havel in beavers.

1898
01:37:19,640 --> 01:37:20,920
Speaker 2: Really yeah, I flew to.

1899
01:37:21,439 --> 01:37:22,920
Speaker 1: Uh, you can stand one up in there.

1900
01:37:23,040 --> 01:37:26,360
Speaker 2: No, no, no, they're immobilized, so we just they just

1901
01:37:26,439 --> 01:37:28,920
Speaker 2: you just dart them, toss them in there with a

1902
01:37:29,000 --> 01:37:31,680
Speaker 2: lightweight veterinarian and uh, and go for it. And so

1903
01:37:31,720 --> 01:37:34,160
Speaker 2: I flew to the Mento Flats that way.

1904
01:37:34,920 --> 01:37:37,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, because a beaver can haul like two thousand pounds.

1905
01:37:36,920 --> 01:37:39,000
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, and you got a six hundred pound year

1906
01:37:39,080 --> 01:37:40,800
Speaker 2: ling or something like that, it's no big deal. The

1907
01:37:40,840 --> 01:37:42,920
Speaker 2: two cows that I hauled were twenty two months old

1908
01:37:43,000 --> 01:37:45,360
Speaker 2: and they were there were something like that seven hundred pounds.

1909
01:37:45,080 --> 01:37:46,720
Speaker 1: Maybe, So why not barge them in?

1910
01:37:47,200 --> 01:37:49,840
Speaker 2: Well, the state land that we're going to go to

1911
01:37:50,200 --> 01:37:54,400
Speaker 2: is Uh, maybe twenty miles or more from the Yukon River,

1912
01:37:54,560 --> 01:37:57,240
Speaker 2: so there's no barging. There is a little tiny corner

1913
01:37:57,280 --> 01:38:00,760
Speaker 2: of it. That's many many my it was probably two

1914
01:38:00,840 --> 01:38:03,720
Speaker 2: three hundred miles from the closest boat landing, and you

1915
01:38:03,720 --> 01:38:05,680
Speaker 2: could get there by riverboat. And so maybe you could

1916
01:38:05,680 --> 01:38:07,439
Speaker 2: haul one at a time on this, like you know,

1917
01:38:07,600 --> 01:38:09,960
Speaker 2: three day treks in a riverboat or something like that.

1918
01:38:10,000 --> 01:38:11,519
Speaker 2: But it'd be a real challenge.

1919
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:13,880
Speaker 1: But you got the legal go ahead to do it.

1920
01:38:14,000 --> 01:38:17,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I won't until I write the management plan

1921
01:38:17,920 --> 01:38:20,200
Speaker 2: and the Border Game approves the management plan. But right

1922
01:38:20,240 --> 01:38:24,360
Speaker 2: now all the political support exists, and I just got

1923
01:38:24,400 --> 01:38:28,400
Speaker 2: to make it through that last process of getting the

1924
01:38:28,439 --> 01:38:32,920
Speaker 2: plan written, approved internally in Fishing Game, and then approved

1925
01:38:32,960 --> 01:38:35,200
Speaker 2: by the Border Game, which is a panel of people

1926
01:38:35,240 --> 01:38:38,200
Speaker 2: appointed by the governor that sets wildlife regulations in Alaska.

1927
01:38:40,760 --> 01:38:45,519
Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned Colorado's recent move to sort of

1928
01:38:45,640 --> 01:38:50,200
Speaker 1: buy for kate bison in the state of Colorado, where

1929
01:38:50,240 --> 01:38:55,160
Speaker 1: they've said there are bison in Colorado their livestock. We're

1930
01:38:55,160 --> 01:38:58,240
Speaker 1: creating a new classification and just three mind, folks, it's

1931
01:38:58,240 --> 01:39:03,800
Speaker 1: a new classification saying buffalo that come in naturally into

1932
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:08,479
Speaker 1: the state that walk into the state will be treated

1933
01:39:08,479 --> 01:39:14,800
Speaker 1: as wildlife. They pave the way for hunting, which is

1934
01:39:14,840 --> 01:39:17,960
Speaker 1: a brilliant move because a thing you wind up with

1935
01:39:18,000 --> 01:39:21,240
Speaker 1: when you do introductions or reintroductions is you wind up

1936
01:39:21,280 --> 01:39:24,360
Speaker 1: with you might have wildlife managers that are planning on

1937
01:39:24,560 --> 01:39:28,600
Speaker 1: using hunting as a control mechanism in the future, and

1938
01:39:28,640 --> 01:39:31,880
Speaker 1: they'll bring in an animal, and then later down the

1939
01:39:31,960 --> 01:39:36,400
Speaker 1: road you'll encounter public resistance to hunting, even though it

1940
01:39:36,439 --> 01:39:39,400
Speaker 1: was the intentional long people down the road will be like,

1941
01:39:39,479 --> 01:39:42,479
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I thought they were endangered or imperiled,

1942
01:39:42,479 --> 01:39:43,920
Speaker 1: and now you tell me we have a hunting season

1943
01:39:43,960 --> 01:39:48,280
Speaker 1: for him. So in Colorado, they've already laid out that

1944
01:39:48,320 --> 01:39:52,200
Speaker 1: they're like, they will be a big game animal. And

1945
01:39:52,280 --> 01:39:57,000
Speaker 1: the bill they passed even specified what a tag will cost.

1946
01:39:57,600 --> 01:40:01,479
Speaker 1: They set out the fine if you kill one or

1947
01:40:01,520 --> 01:40:05,160
Speaker 1: capture one, it's a ten thousand dollars fine. There's one

1948
01:40:05,200 --> 01:40:09,600
Speaker 1: thousand dollars restitution to the state for the loss of

1949
01:40:09,640 --> 01:40:13,960
Speaker 1: its asset. There's a resident tag price, there's like a

1950
01:40:14,000 --> 01:40:17,759
Speaker 1: really hefty, like twenty seven hundred dollars non resident tag price.

1951
01:40:18,080 --> 01:40:20,200
Speaker 1: But they don't even have the animals yet. But they're

1952
01:40:20,280 --> 01:40:22,479
Speaker 1: laying out like, here's what it's going to look like,

1953
01:40:23,439 --> 01:40:26,320
Speaker 1: right as this becomes a thing, Here's what it looks like.

1954
01:40:29,479 --> 01:40:33,479
Speaker 1: What would it look like in the future, Like, how

1955
01:40:33,520 --> 01:40:37,800
Speaker 1: have you guys contemplated what it would look like when

1956
01:40:37,840 --> 01:40:41,439
Speaker 1: one of these populations is in the many hundreds or

1957
01:40:41,479 --> 01:40:45,240
Speaker 1: moves into the thousands, What would it ever look like

1958
01:40:45,360 --> 01:40:49,600
Speaker 1: to open up hunting opportunities? Because that's probably part of

1959
01:40:49,640 --> 01:40:53,200
Speaker 1: the public buy in with locals is that in some

1960
01:40:53,360 --> 01:40:56,840
Speaker 1: way they are setting up a future in which they

1961
01:40:56,840 --> 01:41:02,320
Speaker 1: have a diversified portfolio of wild game available to them. Yeah, right,

1962
01:41:02,600 --> 01:41:06,240
Speaker 1: so what would how have you contemplated this?

1963
01:41:06,920 --> 01:41:11,040
Speaker 2: So the primary reason for this restoration is to restore

1964
01:41:11,040 --> 01:41:14,960
Speaker 2: this subspecies as a component of the ecosystem that functions

1965
01:41:15,000 --> 01:41:17,800
Speaker 2: in this empty niche. So that's the that's the number

1966
01:41:17,840 --> 01:41:21,280
Speaker 2: one reason. But if we are successful at it, then

1967
01:41:21,439 --> 01:41:24,280
Speaker 2: it will be a renewable natural resource that we can harvest.

1968
01:41:24,320 --> 01:41:26,559
Speaker 2: And that's what you like you mentioned, there's a lot

1969
01:41:26,600 --> 01:41:28,479
Speaker 2: of people that are counting on that. That's that's why

1970
01:41:28,520 --> 01:41:30,559
Speaker 2: we get a lot of support from your average person

1971
01:41:30,640 --> 01:41:32,600
Speaker 2: is because they think that someday they could harvest that

1972
01:41:32,920 --> 01:41:35,479
Speaker 2: that animal and it's a pretty big boon, you know,

1973
01:41:35,560 --> 01:41:37,840
Speaker 2: to harvest you know, eight hundred pounds of meat or

1974
01:41:37,880 --> 01:41:39,880
Speaker 2: something like that. You know, it's a it's well worth

1975
01:41:39,880 --> 01:41:42,519
Speaker 2: it to a citizen to have that on the landscape.

1976
01:41:43,640 --> 01:41:48,080
Speaker 2: The way our regulatory system works is that every few

1977
01:41:48,160 --> 01:41:50,639
Speaker 2: years for each area, the Border Game meets and they

1978
01:41:50,640 --> 01:41:54,479
Speaker 2: hear proposals from the last compartment Fishing Game, and just

1979
01:41:55,360 --> 01:41:57,639
Speaker 2: average citizens can just put a proposal in to change

1980
01:41:57,760 --> 01:42:01,479
Speaker 2: regulation in Alaska and so that there then there's a

1981
01:42:01,520 --> 01:42:07,759
Speaker 2: process of locally elected citizen advisory committees, and each village

1982
01:42:07,880 --> 01:42:13,320
Speaker 2: and each large community they can also produce proposals and

1983
01:42:13,760 --> 01:42:16,840
Speaker 2: they you know, vote any proposal from anybody else up

1984
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:18,320
Speaker 2: or down, and that all works its way up to

1985
01:42:18,320 --> 01:42:19,800
Speaker 2: the Border Game and when they get to these Boarder

1986
01:42:19,840 --> 01:42:23,200
Speaker 2: Game meetings, the Board of Game reviews that proposal, They

1987
01:42:23,240 --> 01:42:25,840
Speaker 2: hear all the public testimony from everybody else, including the

1988
01:42:25,880 --> 01:42:29,160
Speaker 2: department's perspective fishing Game department, which is usually just a

1989
01:42:29,160 --> 01:42:32,120
Speaker 2: biological perspective, and then they make a decision right then there,

1990
01:42:32,120 --> 01:42:33,920
Speaker 2: this is how we're going to do it. But there's

1991
01:42:33,960 --> 01:42:36,280
Speaker 2: a lot of options, Like I've written in the management

1992
01:42:36,280 --> 01:42:40,440
Speaker 2: plan for the Mento population or lower ten and not populations,

1993
01:42:40,439 --> 01:42:42,880
Speaker 2: it's the formal name where you know, there could be

1994
01:42:42,960 --> 01:42:48,160
Speaker 2: drawing permits, there could be registration permits that there could

1995
01:42:48,160 --> 01:42:50,519
Speaker 2: be all of the permits that are available to hunt

1996
01:42:50,600 --> 01:42:53,600
Speaker 2: any other species are as a possibility, and so we

1997
01:42:53,640 --> 01:42:55,800
Speaker 2: really don't know what that hunt structure is. When we

1998
01:42:55,840 --> 01:42:59,040
Speaker 2: first started releasing animals in Anoko, before we were going

1999
01:42:59,080 --> 01:43:02,160
Speaker 2: to go to the Yenoko with the animals, the planning

2000
01:43:02,200 --> 01:43:06,080
Speaker 2: team there set up this. They had it all figured out.

2001
01:43:06,120 --> 01:43:08,200
Speaker 2: They were like, Okay, the hunt's going to be this

2002
01:43:08,320 --> 01:43:11,560
Speaker 2: many drawing permits, this many locally registraed locally available.

2003
01:43:11,160 --> 01:43:14,639
Speaker 1: Registration gets them on the ground totally. Yeah.

2004
01:43:14,720 --> 01:43:16,880
Speaker 2: And they had they had you know, we're gonna have

2005
01:43:16,920 --> 01:43:19,920
Speaker 2: a trespass fee on on these lands and and so

2006
01:43:20,080 --> 01:43:22,840
Speaker 2: people can you know, access these bison on private lands,

2007
01:43:22,880 --> 01:43:25,320
Speaker 2: and like, we're gonna have a scholarship fund that a

2008
01:43:25,360 --> 01:43:27,760
Speaker 2: bunch of these trespass fee dollars goes into and that

2009
01:43:27,840 --> 01:43:30,400
Speaker 2: helps local people go to college to study, you know,

2010
01:43:30,479 --> 01:43:32,680
Speaker 2: by and they were just going for it, and and

2011
01:43:32,840 --> 01:43:35,519
Speaker 2: they I thought it was a beautiful piece of work

2012
01:43:35,560 --> 01:43:37,719
Speaker 2: of people trying to work together to make something happen.

2013
01:43:37,800 --> 01:43:41,800
Speaker 2: It was just absolutely wonderful. However, over time, when the

2014
01:43:41,840 --> 01:43:45,160
Speaker 2: Ynokle population didn't perform as well and then different people

2015
01:43:46,800 --> 01:43:50,120
Speaker 2: you know, were elected into different these different groups that

2016
01:43:50,200 --> 01:43:52,760
Speaker 2: helped make that that then it changed over over over time.

2017
01:43:52,880 --> 01:43:53,120
Speaker 1: And so.

2018
01:43:54,640 --> 01:43:57,080
Speaker 2: I think one of the important things to realize is

2019
01:43:57,120 --> 01:44:00,840
Speaker 2: that it's not the people from Night teen twenty eight

2020
01:44:00,960 --> 01:44:03,679
Speaker 2: when they release the bison and delta junction that determine

2021
01:44:03,720 --> 01:44:05,479
Speaker 2: how we're going to hunt those bison today. It's the

2022
01:44:05,520 --> 01:44:07,760
Speaker 2: people of today that determine how we're going to hunt

2023
01:44:07,800 --> 01:44:10,600
Speaker 2: bison today, and through the Board a Game thing, and

2024
01:44:10,720 --> 01:44:14,519
Speaker 2: so we can record everything that people want to see

2025
01:44:14,720 --> 01:44:20,919
Speaker 2: happen with wood bison now before they go on the landscape.

2026
01:44:20,920 --> 01:44:22,880
Speaker 2: And that's why we have this public planning process where

2027
01:44:22,920 --> 01:44:26,479
Speaker 2: we we write down everything everybody says, any opposition, any support,

2028
01:44:26,600 --> 01:44:28,920
Speaker 2: any any concerns, all that stuff, and then try to

2029
01:44:28,920 --> 01:44:31,479
Speaker 2: address that and these management plans so that later on,

2030
01:44:32,840 --> 01:44:36,880
Speaker 2: when the Board A Game does hear proposals regarding a

2031
01:44:36,960 --> 01:44:41,840
Speaker 2: harvestable surplus in a particular bison population, then they can

2032
01:44:41,920 --> 01:44:44,600
Speaker 2: look back at these recommendations that were there originally and

2033
01:44:44,680 --> 01:44:46,719
Speaker 2: be like, oh, yeah, well they really wanted the harvest

2034
01:44:46,800 --> 01:44:49,320
Speaker 2: to be you know, to include local people as much

2035
01:44:49,320 --> 01:44:52,040
Speaker 2: as it includes everybody else, and you know whatever, and

2036
01:44:52,120 --> 01:44:54,080
Speaker 2: then try to act in that way if they if

2037
01:44:54,120 --> 01:44:58,320
Speaker 2: they choose to. But as you know, public trust resources,

2038
01:44:58,600 --> 01:45:01,280
Speaker 2: there's a lot of conflict there because and there always

2039
01:45:01,320 --> 01:45:03,679
Speaker 2: will be. That's why we have a Board of Game

2040
01:45:03,760 --> 01:45:06,120
Speaker 2: and all this citizen advisory groups and all that is

2041
01:45:06,160 --> 01:45:08,880
Speaker 2: because there will always be conflict about something that we

2042
01:45:09,000 --> 01:45:13,920
Speaker 2: all own together, you know, because we're a territorial social animal,

2043
01:45:13,960 --> 01:45:18,280
Speaker 2: and we want those resources to go to our group,

2044
01:45:18,400 --> 01:45:20,680
Speaker 2: not some other group, you know, whatever our group is.

2045
01:45:21,040 --> 01:45:23,000
Speaker 2: And so it's a challenge.

2046
01:45:23,520 --> 01:45:25,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, you raise a really good point when you say

2047
01:45:25,680 --> 01:45:30,640
Speaker 1: that when it's time, if and when it's time to

2048
01:45:30,720 --> 01:45:33,840
Speaker 1: do a hunt, it'll be the people. Then figure it

2049
01:45:33,880 --> 01:45:36,679
Speaker 1: out because like I said, with the original, the nineteen

2050
01:45:36,720 --> 01:45:40,479
Speaker 1: twenty eight ones, I mean, think about what happened since

2051
01:45:40,560 --> 01:45:44,280
Speaker 1: then and now statehood, the Native Claims Settlement Act, I mean,

2052
01:45:44,280 --> 01:45:46,360
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like you can't anticipate.

2053
01:45:45,920 --> 01:45:48,080
Speaker 2: Totally, you know what I mean, right, And in Alaska

2054
01:45:48,160 --> 01:45:50,920
Speaker 2: regulations I'm not sure if you're familiar, but prior to

2055
01:45:52,120 --> 01:45:55,120
Speaker 2: like nineteen eighty nine or so, we could discriminate by

2056
01:45:55,120 --> 01:45:57,120
Speaker 2: someone where you live, we could give more permits to

2057
01:45:58,000 --> 01:46:00,960
Speaker 2: people in this town than people in this town because

2058
01:46:01,040 --> 01:46:02,680
Speaker 2: say they were closer to the resource, or they had

2059
01:46:02,720 --> 01:46:07,439
Speaker 2: more subsistence you know, history there in a particular resource

2060
01:46:07,520 --> 01:46:09,519
Speaker 2: or something like that. Well, we lost that to a

2061
01:46:09,600 --> 01:46:12,200
Speaker 2: court case in the late nineteen eighties where it said,

2062
01:46:12,240 --> 01:46:15,240
Speaker 2: all right, the last Constitution says that all people have

2063
01:46:15,400 --> 01:46:17,680
Speaker 2: equal access to wildlife resources, and so we have to

2064
01:46:17,720 --> 01:46:20,240
Speaker 2: treat all people equally. We can't discriminate based on where

2065
01:46:20,240 --> 01:46:22,800
Speaker 2: you live. That was a difficult thing. Well, then does

2066
01:46:23,200 --> 01:46:26,240
Speaker 2: the federal government stepped in and said, oh no, that's

2067
01:46:26,320 --> 01:46:30,080
Speaker 2: not fair. Through a nilka, we are going to say

2068
01:46:30,160 --> 01:46:33,280
Speaker 2: that you have to provide a priority for rural people

2069
01:46:33,400 --> 01:46:36,160
Speaker 2: on resources and you know, on federal land. And so

2070
01:46:36,560 --> 01:46:39,240
Speaker 2: that created this kind of dual management system between the

2071
01:46:39,280 --> 01:46:42,080
Speaker 2: state and the federal government. And that's been really complicated.

2072
01:46:42,080 --> 01:46:42,759
Speaker 2: Well that just happened.

2073
01:46:42,800 --> 01:46:46,160
Speaker 1: That's gonna I mean, we're going to talk about this

2074
01:46:46,280 --> 01:46:49,960
Speaker 1: on an upcoming up. So that system is in a

2075
01:46:50,040 --> 01:46:54,880
Speaker 1: review process right now. The current the Trump administration is

2076
01:46:55,000 --> 01:47:00,240
Speaker 1: reviewing the Federal Subsistence Board and so some of the

2077
01:47:00,320 --> 01:47:03,479
Speaker 1: decisions they've made recently, and so that could be again,

2078
01:47:03,560 --> 01:47:05,280
Speaker 1: you know, just another we don't need to get into.

2079
01:47:05,120 --> 01:47:07,599
Speaker 2: It now, but I mean it's like, but my point

2080
01:47:07,680 --> 01:47:08,160
Speaker 2: is that things do.

2081
01:47:08,640 --> 01:47:10,680
Speaker 1: They're poking and prodden at it right now, you know,

2082
01:47:10,920 --> 01:47:11,200
Speaker 1: and you.

2083
01:47:11,360 --> 01:47:13,200
Speaker 2: Just added to it. I mean, I think things change.

2084
01:47:13,240 --> 01:47:14,680
Speaker 2: You know, thirty years ago the state could do that,

2085
01:47:14,760 --> 01:47:16,280
Speaker 2: then the federal government can do that. Well, who know

2086
01:47:16,439 --> 01:47:18,400
Speaker 2: thirty years from now, when we have a big harvestable

2087
01:47:18,439 --> 01:47:20,840
Speaker 2: surpus of bison in a particular area, who knows what

2088
01:47:20,920 --> 01:47:21,920
Speaker 2: the regulations are going to be.

2089
01:47:21,960 --> 01:47:23,720
Speaker 1: Then Hey, I don't want to I don't want to

2090
01:47:23,760 --> 01:47:27,200
Speaker 1: paint you into a corner here, but I mean, just like, no,

2091
01:47:27,320 --> 01:47:34,680
Speaker 1: I mean, just just for conversation's sake, what would you

2092
01:47:34,760 --> 01:47:37,479
Speaker 1: put one hundred and thirty animals on the ground. Okay,

2093
01:47:37,520 --> 01:47:39,600
Speaker 1: you put one hundred and thirty wood bison on the

2094
01:47:40,000 --> 01:47:43,840
Speaker 1: in the lower n Oocle Valley If you just had

2095
01:47:43,920 --> 01:47:45,840
Speaker 1: to get like, what would be a number that would

2096
01:47:45,880 --> 01:47:49,680
Speaker 1: make sense to you in the future where if you

2097
01:47:49,880 --> 01:47:54,639
Speaker 1: heard from your grave or wherever you heard, hey, they're

2098
01:47:54,680 --> 01:47:57,240
Speaker 1: running a bunch of the they're giving out twenty per

2099
01:47:57,479 --> 01:48:01,599
Speaker 1: permits in the Anoko Valley, you'd think to yourself, well,

2100
01:48:01,680 --> 01:48:04,679
Speaker 1: I hope there's at least blank animals on the ground.

2101
01:48:05,160 --> 01:48:07,360
Speaker 1: Ten permits they're given out ten permits, you'd say, I

2102
01:48:07,479 --> 01:48:08,639
Speaker 1: hope there's at least.

2103
01:48:10,520 --> 01:48:16,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I want to see a minimum viable

2104
01:48:16,560 --> 01:48:19,559
Speaker 2: population of four hundred or more for the long term.

2105
01:48:19,880 --> 01:48:22,840
Speaker 2: But we've harvested plane spice, and you mentioned all the herds,

2106
01:48:22,840 --> 01:48:24,560
Speaker 2: the plane spice and herds in Alaska, and it's a

2107
01:48:24,560 --> 01:48:27,240
Speaker 2: lot of those bisons. Bison herds have been managed at

2108
01:48:27,360 --> 01:48:31,200
Speaker 2: less than two hundred for for decades and decades, and

2109
01:48:32,000 --> 01:48:34,120
Speaker 2: uh so we know it's possible, and I think we

2110
01:48:34,200 --> 01:48:35,960
Speaker 2: could have a hunt in the Nooko now. We could

2111
01:48:36,000 --> 01:48:37,840
Speaker 2: have one or two drawing permits. There are no problem

2112
01:48:37,880 --> 01:48:40,720
Speaker 2: without any sort of issue with right now, yeah, right now.

2113
01:48:41,320 --> 01:48:44,599
Speaker 2: But the planning team doesn't want that yet.

2114
01:48:44,640 --> 01:48:47,479
Speaker 1: Now the last it does, I'm all for a little hunting,

2115
01:48:47,520 --> 01:48:49,799
Speaker 1: you know, it does feel a little free mature.

2116
01:48:50,000 --> 01:48:52,320
Speaker 2: Well what they what the planning So the planning team

2117
01:48:52,360 --> 01:48:54,599
Speaker 2: includes all kinds of people, right, it's all the local

2118
01:48:54,680 --> 01:48:57,920
Speaker 2: people and urban people and safari club and animal welfare

2119
01:48:58,000 --> 01:48:58,760
Speaker 2: groups and all that we.

2120
01:48:58,800 --> 01:49:01,519
Speaker 1: Are welfare groups in on it. They didn't do anything.

2121
01:49:03,600 --> 01:49:07,160
Speaker 2: I think I'll let that one go with So we're

2122
01:49:07,160 --> 01:49:10,120
Speaker 2: doing it's just part of we're trying to get be inclusive, right,

2123
01:49:10,160 --> 01:49:12,439
Speaker 2: you know, get everybody in there. Maybe Animal wor for

2124
01:49:12,600 --> 01:49:17,160
Speaker 2: Chris is the Whilelife I don't know, like Alaska Whilelife Alliance,

2125
01:49:17,320 --> 01:49:21,040
Speaker 2: and there's another one I can't remember the name of

2126
01:49:21,080 --> 01:49:23,320
Speaker 2: it right now. Anyway, we're just gonna want to keep

2127
01:49:23,320 --> 01:49:25,800
Speaker 2: everybody involved so people don't feel alienated and come back

2128
01:49:25,840 --> 01:49:26,320
Speaker 2: later with them.

2129
01:49:26,400 --> 01:49:27,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand.

2130
01:49:28,240 --> 01:49:31,560
Speaker 2: Anyway, where was I going with this?

2131
01:49:31,720 --> 01:49:31,840
Speaker 1: Oh?

2132
01:49:32,680 --> 01:49:36,080
Speaker 2: So this group that's the planning team, the site specific

2133
01:49:36,120 --> 01:49:38,880
Speaker 2: planning team for the Unoko Uh. They first started out

2134
01:49:38,880 --> 01:49:40,479
Speaker 2: and said, well, we don't want to start any harvest

2135
01:49:40,560 --> 01:49:43,400
Speaker 2: until we have a harvestable surplus of twenty animals. Are

2136
01:49:43,439 --> 01:49:47,040
Speaker 2: going to run part of that into drawing permits and

2137
01:49:47,080 --> 01:49:49,519
Speaker 2: part of that into locally issued registration permits so that

2138
01:49:50,160 --> 01:49:54,000
Speaker 2: local people will have the ability to harvest in the

2139
01:49:54,080 --> 01:49:58,799
Speaker 2: presence of drawing permits. Well, when the population wasn't that productive.

2140
01:49:58,840 --> 01:50:01,080
Speaker 2: Then now they lowered that to they're like, well, when

2141
01:50:01,120 --> 01:50:03,320
Speaker 2: there's a harvest of will surplus of ten and so

2142
01:50:03,439 --> 01:50:06,120
Speaker 2: at the last meeting, I was like, well, do you

2143
01:50:06,200 --> 01:50:08,000
Speaker 2: guys there's enough to have a harvest of a few?

2144
01:50:08,080 --> 01:50:10,160
Speaker 2: Do you guys want a harvest few and they were like, Nope,

2145
01:50:10,479 --> 01:50:12,360
Speaker 2: we want to start this in a way that there's

2146
01:50:12,479 --> 01:50:17,200
Speaker 2: local harvest and drawing permits. And of course drawing permits

2147
01:50:17,280 --> 01:50:20,680
Speaker 2: do service local people too, but they just have a

2148
01:50:20,880 --> 01:50:23,680
Speaker 2: small chance of getting a permit. And we have no

2149
01:50:23,880 --> 01:50:26,679
Speaker 2: way because of that court case and the last constitution.

2150
01:50:26,760 --> 01:50:28,800
Speaker 2: We have no way of just giving permits of local people.

2151
01:50:28,880 --> 01:50:32,840
Speaker 2: We have a way of you can issue local registration

2152
01:50:33,040 --> 01:50:35,759
Speaker 2: permits where you're more likely to get it if you're local.

2153
01:50:36,000 --> 01:50:40,560
Speaker 2: The problem is the planning team can predict this and

2154
01:50:40,680 --> 01:50:43,400
Speaker 2: they can say what they want, but ultimately it'll come

2155
01:50:43,439 --> 01:50:45,800
Speaker 2: down to a border game action. And nobody's done a

2156
01:50:45,920 --> 01:50:52,599
Speaker 2: proposal to start a hunt in the enoko. If somebody

2157
01:50:52,680 --> 01:50:55,360
Speaker 2: would would propose that there should be hunting the enoko,

2158
01:50:55,400 --> 01:50:56,920
Speaker 2: then that would kind of force the issue and we'd

2159
01:50:56,960 --> 01:51:00,400
Speaker 2: have to go through that process. Uh.

2160
01:51:04,520 --> 01:51:07,640
Speaker 1: With the when you talk about the permit thing and

2161
01:51:07,920 --> 01:51:10,920
Speaker 1: the local hunt and all that, they also have a

2162
01:51:11,040 --> 01:51:14,080
Speaker 1: mechanism to stay as a mechanism too, where you have

2163
01:51:14,200 --> 01:51:16,120
Speaker 1: to destroy the trophy value of the animal.

2164
01:51:17,560 --> 01:51:20,280
Speaker 2: That's that is in some places, yeah, on some species.

2165
01:51:20,479 --> 01:51:24,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, Win said, here's the deal. Though you can't take

2166
01:51:24,120 --> 01:51:27,840
Speaker 1: the horns, you cut the horns in half. You would

2167
01:51:27,920 --> 01:51:30,599
Speaker 1: lose a lot of outside You wouldn't lose my interest,

2168
01:51:30,640 --> 01:51:32,080
Speaker 1: but you lose the outside interest.

2169
01:51:32,200 --> 01:51:35,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, that happens. People do that if they think that

2170
01:51:35,560 --> 01:51:39,000
Speaker 2: the you know, Yeah, there's a bunch of little tools

2171
01:51:39,080 --> 01:51:41,360
Speaker 2: like that to try to level the playing field between

2172
01:51:43,080 --> 01:51:44,000
Speaker 2: different user groups.

2173
01:51:44,560 --> 01:51:46,560
Speaker 1: But I think, man, I think that you got to

2174
01:51:46,600 --> 01:51:48,439
Speaker 1: wait till you got a way, till you're on a

2175
01:51:48,479 --> 01:51:51,000
Speaker 1: steady upward incline. Man, I think it's a little early right.

2176
01:51:50,960 --> 01:51:52,880
Speaker 2: Now, and I think that's going to depend on the weather,

2177
01:51:52,920 --> 01:51:54,360
Speaker 2: which is something we can't predict, right.

2178
01:51:55,120 --> 01:51:58,040
Speaker 1: But I think it's like I don't care what I think,

2179
01:51:58,120 --> 01:52:01,479
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you anyway. I think that having that

2180
01:52:02,520 --> 01:52:08,280
Speaker 1: I think that having that hunter buying is really important,

2181
01:52:09,120 --> 01:52:11,200
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a thing that frustrates me down

2182
01:52:11,280 --> 01:52:14,400
Speaker 1: here in the Northern Rockies and well in the entire

2183
01:52:14,600 --> 01:52:17,760
Speaker 1: in the West. The thing that frustrates me is it's

2184
01:52:17,800 --> 01:52:21,559
Speaker 1: just an area where you don't see, we don't see

2185
01:52:21,760 --> 01:52:30,599
Speaker 1: widespread hunter buy in on buffalo restoration. I think people

2186
01:52:30,680 --> 01:52:36,519
Speaker 1: can't picture it meaning this whole brucellosis thing. If someone,

2187
01:52:37,800 --> 01:52:41,080
Speaker 1: if a politician in Montana said, hey, man, we're really

2188
01:52:41,080 --> 01:52:43,800
Speaker 1: worried about brucellosis. We're gonna start killing every elk that

2189
01:52:43,880 --> 01:52:48,200
Speaker 1: walks out of that park. It's a political suicide. It's

2190
01:52:48,240 --> 01:52:52,920
Speaker 1: political suicide. Hunters have a fit, you know, hunters that

2191
01:52:53,000 --> 01:52:55,040
Speaker 1: have a fit. They're like, if anyone elk walks out

2192
01:52:55,040 --> 01:52:57,160
Speaker 1: of the park, we're shooting it or hauling it away. Yeah, dude,

2193
01:52:57,920 --> 01:53:02,880
Speaker 1: they would. They would be apoplectic. Hunters would be. And

2194
01:53:03,000 --> 01:53:05,760
Speaker 1: as much as I invite people to be like now, no, no, listen,

2195
01:53:06,760 --> 01:53:10,000
Speaker 1: like restoring these animals is a long term hunting play.

2196
01:53:10,280 --> 01:53:13,559
Speaker 1: Like restoring these animals, I'm always like, picture man, picture

2197
01:53:13,640 --> 01:53:16,120
Speaker 1: that we have public herds on public land and you

2198
01:53:16,280 --> 01:53:18,120
Speaker 1: draw tags and hunt them like we do for moose

2199
01:53:18,200 --> 01:53:22,040
Speaker 1: and everything else. And I think it's too far fetched,

2200
01:53:22,760 --> 01:53:25,080
Speaker 1: Like you just don't see hunters in on it some

2201
01:53:25,560 --> 01:53:28,240
Speaker 1: but not all. It's too far fetched to picture. But

2202
01:53:28,400 --> 01:53:31,840
Speaker 1: I view in order to get more more of the

2203
01:53:31,960 --> 01:53:35,040
Speaker 1: animals on the landscape, I think that it's gonna be

2204
01:53:35,240 --> 01:53:39,880
Speaker 1: really important for hunters to like advocate for that, knowing

2205
01:53:39,960 --> 01:53:42,200
Speaker 1: that it might not even be for their benefit, but

2206
01:53:42,280 --> 01:53:44,799
Speaker 1: it might be for their kids benefit. And that happens

2207
01:53:44,840 --> 01:53:47,519
Speaker 1: all the time because you look at like you go

2208
01:53:47,640 --> 01:53:51,000
Speaker 1: to like, look at people in bighorn all the people

2209
01:53:51,040 --> 01:53:53,679
Speaker 1: that do work on bighorn sheep. Okay, all the people

2210
01:53:53,760 --> 01:53:57,120
Speaker 1: that support Wild Sheep Foundation. There's a lot of people

2211
01:53:57,200 --> 01:54:02,120
Speaker 1: that support wild sheep we're called and conservation that are

2212
01:54:02,200 --> 01:54:04,800
Speaker 1: never going to hunt big horns. They're never gonna hunt

2213
01:54:04,840 --> 01:54:07,320
Speaker 1: big horns. I've never hunted a big horn. I'm all

2214
01:54:07,360 --> 01:54:10,000
Speaker 1: for big horn recovery, right, So it's not just that

2215
01:54:10,080 --> 01:54:11,720
Speaker 1: people do it. Like the people that were involved and

2216
01:54:11,760 --> 01:54:14,360
Speaker 1: bringing elk back into Kentucky, there were people that were

2217
01:54:14,400 --> 01:54:17,519
Speaker 1: heavily involved in bringing elk back into Kentucky that knew

2218
01:54:17,600 --> 01:54:20,559
Speaker 1: they were never going to hunt elk, but they did

2219
01:54:20,600 --> 01:54:24,320
Speaker 1: it as hunters, right. They did it as they were

2220
01:54:24,439 --> 01:54:29,200
Speaker 1: their heart as a hunter, motivating them to get involved

2221
01:54:29,240 --> 01:54:32,200
Speaker 1: even though they themselves weren't going to benefit from it.

2222
01:54:32,840 --> 01:54:36,320
Speaker 1: So I think that like I wish more hunters were

2223
01:54:36,440 --> 01:54:43,760
Speaker 1: involved in, like in building up public publicly owned herds,

2224
01:54:45,160 --> 01:54:51,320
Speaker 1: using public land as a long term play of being

2225
01:54:51,480 --> 01:54:53,760
Speaker 1: not just that you're doing the right thing by the wildlife,

2226
01:54:53,960 --> 01:54:57,800
Speaker 1: but motivated as a long term play of restoring this

2227
01:54:58,040 --> 01:55:02,160
Speaker 1: really important game species onto the American landscape. It's like

2228
01:55:02,240 --> 01:55:05,080
Speaker 1: the forgotten game animal. Yeah, and you go back and

2229
01:55:05,160 --> 01:55:09,240
Speaker 1: look like the tribes that lived here historically, that was

2230
01:55:09,360 --> 01:55:13,440
Speaker 1: their pick man. They were slumming it when they deer meat,

2231
01:55:13,640 --> 01:55:17,680
Speaker 1: they were slumming it when they pronghorn. Yeah, that's what

2232
01:55:17,800 --> 01:55:20,400
Speaker 1: they wanted. And I just think we need to get

2233
01:55:20,480 --> 01:55:20,880
Speaker 1: back there.

2234
01:55:21,200 --> 01:55:24,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that that is the main motivation for

2235
01:55:24,560 --> 01:55:27,640
Speaker 2: most people, is the concept that someday they might get something.

2236
01:55:27,680 --> 01:55:29,120
Speaker 1: But we have to be But I don't think it's

2237
01:55:29,120 --> 01:55:29,960
Speaker 1: a bad motivation.

2238
01:55:30,120 --> 01:55:33,040
Speaker 2: No, no it's not. But we have to be as biologists.

2239
01:55:33,040 --> 01:55:34,960
Speaker 2: We have to be brutally honest with them and say,

2240
01:55:35,720 --> 01:55:38,360
Speaker 2: this is an experiment. We're going to try to make

2241
01:55:38,400 --> 01:55:40,480
Speaker 2: a renewable resource. We're going to try to fill this

2242
01:55:40,600 --> 01:55:43,720
Speaker 2: empty niche in the ecosystem and improve nutrient cycling at

2243
01:55:43,720 --> 01:55:47,080
Speaker 2: all trophic levels, from insects up to human beings. But

2244
01:55:47,920 --> 01:55:48,520
Speaker 2: it may fail.

2245
01:55:49,200 --> 01:55:49,360
Speaker 1: You know.

2246
01:55:49,560 --> 01:55:51,600
Speaker 2: The unocle population, as you pointed out, is you know,

2247
01:55:51,760 --> 01:55:55,360
Speaker 2: is not climbing at this moment. Maybe these other populations

2248
01:55:55,400 --> 01:55:58,080
Speaker 2: that we try, maybe maybe they won't work out either.

2249
01:55:58,600 --> 01:56:01,160
Speaker 2: But if we look at history and we look at bison,

2250
01:56:01,280 --> 01:56:04,440
Speaker 2: what bison can do, it might be a massive success.

2251
01:56:04,600 --> 01:56:08,160
Speaker 1: You know. And earlier I made like I made a

2252
01:56:08,240 --> 01:56:11,080
Speaker 1: comment about I think before we started recording, I made

2253
01:56:11,120 --> 01:56:14,560
Speaker 1: a comment to you without explaining myself, where I said,

2254
01:56:17,280 --> 01:56:21,080
Speaker 1: use an oral tradition or archaeology or paleontology to prove

2255
01:56:21,520 --> 01:56:26,320
Speaker 1: that bison were in the modern period present in Alaska, right,

2256
01:56:26,520 --> 01:56:28,720
Speaker 1: so that you have the political cover of saying it's

2257
01:56:28,880 --> 01:56:32,640
Speaker 1: it's a reintroduction or recovery effort, which relies on you

2258
01:56:32,720 --> 01:56:35,400
Speaker 1: saying they were here and they were wiped out by

2259
01:56:35,440 --> 01:56:37,880
Speaker 1: people or people were influential in wiping them out. That

2260
01:56:38,000 --> 01:56:44,720
Speaker 1: gives you the political cover right to go ahead and

2261
01:56:44,800 --> 01:56:46,600
Speaker 1: bring the animals back in. And I said, I don't

2262
01:56:46,600 --> 01:56:48,720
Speaker 1: really even care if it's true or not. What I

2263
01:56:48,840 --> 01:56:55,800
Speaker 1: meant by that is at European Contact, we had forty

2264
01:56:55,880 --> 01:57:01,200
Speaker 1: million of them, Somewhere around forty million. You hear twenty

2265
01:57:01,240 --> 01:57:04,040
Speaker 1: eight million, you hear sixty million a bunch. There was

2266
01:57:04,080 --> 01:57:09,120
Speaker 1: a bunch, and not all areas are suitable. So in

2267
01:57:09,400 --> 01:57:14,800
Speaker 1: bringing the animal back me personally, I'm not so concerned

2268
01:57:14,800 --> 01:57:20,760
Speaker 1: about having it match up exactly to where they were historically.

2269
01:57:21,160 --> 01:57:23,080
Speaker 1: I mentioned that group that's living on the north rim

2270
01:57:23,160 --> 01:57:24,800
Speaker 1: of the Grand Canyon. They're spending a bunch of time

2271
01:57:24,840 --> 01:57:28,480
Speaker 1: in Grand Canyon, National Park. And in this whole conversation

2272
01:57:28,560 --> 01:57:31,840
Speaker 1: about whether the animals belong there is this thing, well,

2273
01:57:31,880 --> 01:57:35,120
Speaker 1: how many were there historically? And they're like, oh, it

2274
01:57:35,240 --> 01:57:38,160
Speaker 1: was marginal habitat at best, it was fringe habitat at best.

2275
01:57:38,200 --> 01:57:42,600
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't care. It's suitable. It's a suitable

2276
01:57:42,720 --> 01:57:45,680
Speaker 1: location for them now. They can be there now. Maybe

2277
01:57:46,800 --> 01:57:48,960
Speaker 1: maybe there were more of them one hundred miles away, Like,

2278
01:57:49,200 --> 01:57:53,919
Speaker 1: I don't care. The public wants them there, the habitat

2279
01:57:53,960 --> 01:57:57,480
Speaker 1: supports them being there. It's okay for them to be there.

2280
01:57:57,800 --> 01:58:00,480
Speaker 1: Let them be there because there's places like they're not

2281
01:58:00,560 --> 01:58:03,040
Speaker 1: going to be in downtown Dodge City, but Dodge City

2282
01:58:03,120 --> 01:58:05,560
Speaker 1: had a lot. It ain't gonna have a lot now.

2283
01:58:05,880 --> 01:58:11,160
Speaker 1: So it's like where its suitable put them on there, right, yeah,

2284
01:58:11,200 --> 01:58:13,040
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of places to be covered up.

2285
01:58:13,880 --> 01:58:16,320
Speaker 1: And so if it winds up being that, you can

2286
01:58:16,400 --> 01:58:20,080
Speaker 1: go into valleys in Alaska and it's not and they're

2287
01:58:20,120 --> 01:58:23,000
Speaker 1: not coming at the cost. They're not pushing moose into

2288
01:58:23,080 --> 01:58:26,240
Speaker 1: extinction and they're not pushing caribou into extinction, and local

2289
01:58:26,320 --> 01:58:29,440
Speaker 1: people want them there. I'm like, go for it, because

2290
01:58:29,480 --> 01:58:30,880
Speaker 1: we have a lot of ground to recover.

2291
01:58:33,080 --> 01:58:37,200
Speaker 2: I completely agree, yeap, that the problem is right now

2292
01:58:37,360 --> 01:58:40,720
Speaker 2: is the constraints of the endangered species that actn make

2293
01:58:40,760 --> 01:58:43,640
Speaker 2: it difficult to just do those paths of least resistance

2294
01:58:43,680 --> 01:58:46,160
Speaker 2: where we find places that people want them and the

2295
01:58:46,200 --> 01:58:48,000
Speaker 2: habitat's good and we can just put them there. We

2296
01:58:48,160 --> 01:58:50,000
Speaker 2: just can't go willy nearly like that. We have to

2297
01:58:50,040 --> 01:58:51,240
Speaker 2: stick to that.

2298
01:58:51,440 --> 01:58:53,280
Speaker 1: And it's a lot easier for me to be a

2299
01:58:53,360 --> 01:58:55,480
Speaker 1: dude sitting here like telling you all about everything that

2300
01:58:55,520 --> 01:58:58,000
Speaker 1: should happen, Like, yeah, you're the huge that there's a

2301
01:58:58,120 --> 01:59:00,680
Speaker 1: huge difference between me and you. I mean, I can

2302
01:59:00,760 --> 01:59:02,800
Speaker 1: say all these like grandiose ideas, but then you got

2303
01:59:02,920 --> 01:59:06,120
Speaker 1: to live the reality and like, thank god, I'm not

2304
01:59:06,160 --> 01:59:09,120
Speaker 1: putting animals on the ground you are. So I appreciate

2305
01:59:09,160 --> 01:59:12,560
Speaker 1: the obstacles. Yeah, you know, I appreciate the obstacles, but

2306
01:59:12,680 --> 01:59:15,560
Speaker 1: I I just like that's all like a long wind

2307
01:59:15,600 --> 01:59:19,160
Speaker 1: away of saying that. I'm like, I really am elated,

2308
01:59:19,280 --> 01:59:23,360
Speaker 1: Like I'm the work from my personal perspective, the work

2309
01:59:23,400 --> 01:59:25,640
Speaker 1: you guys doing is beautiful. I think it's like a

2310
01:59:25,720 --> 01:59:33,120
Speaker 1: really cool testament to the state aspects of the political atmosphere,

2311
01:59:33,200 --> 01:59:36,880
Speaker 1: the social atmosphere, the state game agency like to kind

2312
01:59:36,880 --> 01:59:40,880
Speaker 1: of have the audacity to like try to do this.

2313
01:59:41,520 --> 01:59:43,760
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's great, man, I think it's great.

2314
01:59:44,120 --> 01:59:47,000
Speaker 1: And until someone can come and point out some overwhelming

2315
01:59:47,160 --> 01:59:50,440
Speaker 1: harm that none of us have anticipated, I think it's

2316
01:59:50,520 --> 01:59:52,600
Speaker 1: like full steam ahead, man, I think it should. Like

2317
01:59:52,880 --> 01:59:54,240
Speaker 1: I wish you guys the best of luck.

2318
01:59:54,520 --> 01:59:58,400
Speaker 2: Thanks. Yeah about the harm saying, there are no studies

2319
01:59:58,440 --> 02:00:02,520
Speaker 2: that I know of where bison show that they've harmed

2320
02:00:02,560 --> 02:00:05,480
Speaker 2: other species. But there are many many studies that I

2321
02:00:05,560 --> 02:00:09,120
Speaker 2: know we're buy some help other species, you know, like

2322
02:00:09,200 --> 02:00:12,160
Speaker 2: I said, everywhere from all trophic levels, from insects right

2323
02:00:12,200 --> 02:00:14,880
Speaker 2: on up to you know, human beings, and so it's

2324
02:00:14,960 --> 02:00:17,839
Speaker 2: a yeah, I think they bring a lot of benefit

2325
02:00:17,920 --> 02:00:18,720
Speaker 2: to most systems.

2326
02:00:19,000 --> 02:00:21,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to point out folks, like there is

2327
02:00:21,560 --> 02:00:24,520
Speaker 1: one last thing I'll make on the same point is

2328
02:00:25,680 --> 02:00:28,120
Speaker 1: if you go back to European time of European contact,

2329
02:00:28,160 --> 02:00:31,960
Speaker 1: they think that there were turkeys in thirty four states.

2330
02:00:33,800 --> 02:00:37,440
Speaker 1: We have wild turkeys in forty nine states. Now, why

2331
02:00:37,600 --> 02:00:40,880
Speaker 1: is that? Because it just no one people have looked,

2332
02:00:41,560 --> 02:00:44,440
Speaker 1: No one can go and find where they're causing harm.

2333
02:00:45,840 --> 02:00:48,840
Speaker 1: They're not driving species to extinction, they're not displacing native

2334
02:00:48,880 --> 02:00:53,640
Speaker 1: wildlife right, It's like they're just not causing problems. That's

2335
02:00:53,640 --> 02:00:56,560
Speaker 1: why we don't have turkey eradication effort. People welcome and

2336
02:00:56,640 --> 02:00:59,040
Speaker 1: being on the landscape, and I think there's gonna become

2337
02:00:59,200 --> 02:01:00,760
Speaker 1: more and more places. This is where not only do

2338
02:01:00,840 --> 02:01:02,600
Speaker 1: people welcome out in the landscape, there's gonna be come

2339
02:01:02,640 --> 02:01:04,680
Speaker 1: more and more places where people like, hey, man, why

2340
02:01:04,760 --> 02:01:08,600
Speaker 1: can't we have some right, like, let's get some back.

2341
02:01:09,480 --> 02:01:11,960
Speaker 1: And they're big, they're dangerous, I don't know, tough shit.

2342
02:01:12,240 --> 02:01:14,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like I hope it can be that way

2343
02:01:14,560 --> 02:01:17,760
Speaker 2: with bison, and I think it can be. I mean, yeah,

2344
02:01:18,240 --> 02:01:20,520
Speaker 2: there's such a valuable resource. I think it's worth trying.

2345
02:01:21,080 --> 02:01:23,280
Speaker 2: Oh now, I tell you what too.

2346
02:01:23,440 --> 02:01:25,400
Speaker 1: I used to when I first got a hide off one,

2347
02:01:25,920 --> 02:01:28,120
Speaker 1: we'd try to sleep under it. It's got pretty cold

2348
02:01:28,200 --> 02:01:30,640
Speaker 1: for you to sleep under that thing. Man. It's all

2349
02:01:31,040 --> 02:01:32,240
Speaker 1: there is a useful animal.

2350
02:01:32,320 --> 02:01:32,480
Speaker 2: Man.

2351
02:01:33,520 --> 02:01:35,840
Speaker 1: But I sure I appreciate you coming in and talking

2352
02:01:35,840 --> 02:01:37,920
Speaker 1: about your work. Glad to be here, thank you, and

2353
02:01:38,000 --> 02:01:40,240
Speaker 1: this is home for you originally. Yeah, yeah, I was

2354
02:01:40,320 --> 02:01:42,360
Speaker 1: born and raised in Montana. I left when I was eighteen,

2355
02:01:42,640 --> 02:01:44,040
Speaker 1: But did you go right to Alaska?

2356
02:01:44,280 --> 02:01:47,360
Speaker 2: Went right to Alaska? Go to school UF Fairbanks.

2357
02:01:47,480 --> 02:01:50,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're married. Yeah, I'll long. You been married.

2358
02:01:52,760 --> 02:01:56,560
Speaker 2: Twenty six years this summer. But I was with her

2359
02:01:56,600 --> 02:01:58,840
Speaker 2: for three years more than that, so almost thirty years.

2360
02:01:58,920 --> 02:02:00,920
Speaker 1: So if your wife is driving at sixty miles an

2361
02:02:00,920 --> 02:02:02,560
Speaker 1: hour and she looks out the window, can she say

2362
02:02:02,840 --> 02:02:04,600
Speaker 1: wood bison or planes bison?

2363
02:02:06,600 --> 02:02:11,120
Speaker 2: I don't think she could. No, I'm not totally, but I.

2364
02:02:12,680 --> 02:02:18,720
Speaker 1: Understand it's stressful. Well, dude, thanks so much for coming on,

2365
02:02:18,880 --> 02:02:21,120
Speaker 1: and thanks to your agency for letting you come on.

2366
02:02:21,480 --> 02:02:21,800
Speaker 2: Welcome.

2367
02:02:21,880 --> 02:02:24,240
Speaker 1: I know sometimes there's reluctant to cut people loose some big,

2368
02:02:24,320 --> 02:02:27,160
Speaker 1: long conversations about policy. I don't think. I don't think

2369
02:02:27,200 --> 02:02:28,560
Speaker 1: you cause any trouble for anybody.

2370
02:02:28,560 --> 02:02:30,080
Speaker 2: Hope we'll find out when I get back.

2371
02:02:30,440 --> 02:02:33,440
Speaker 1: Thanks man, I appreciate it all right, everybody else? Tom

2372
02:02:33,520 --> 02:02:36,160
Speaker 1: Seaton from Alaska Department of Fishing Game tell me the

2373
02:02:36,240 --> 02:02:36,920
Speaker 1: title again.

2374
02:02:37,360 --> 02:02:41,040
Speaker 2: Uh, Wood Bison Project Biologists for Apartment of Fishing.

2375
02:02:40,800 --> 02:02:44,640
Speaker 1: Game, Wood Bison Project Project Biologists. And if people want

2376
02:02:44,680 --> 02:02:46,200
Speaker 1: to check out some of you guys work, what's the

2377
02:02:46,240 --> 02:02:47,120
Speaker 1: best place to go? Look?

2378
02:02:47,520 --> 02:02:49,280
Speaker 2: Well, I've got a website if you just google, you

2379
02:02:49,320 --> 02:02:52,800
Speaker 2: know Alaska wood Bison Restoration and Alaska Apartment of Fishing Game. Uh,

2380
02:02:52,880 --> 02:02:55,640
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of documents on there. The website's a

2381
02:02:55,640 --> 02:02:57,720
Speaker 2: little bit old right now. We've got a new draft

2382
02:02:57,800 --> 02:02:59,680
Speaker 2: that will should come out in the next few months.

2383
02:02:59,760 --> 02:03:01,840
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's all kinds of information if they want

2384
02:03:01,880 --> 02:03:02,400
Speaker 2: to dig into it.

2385
02:03:03,160 --> 02:03:05,600
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for where you click to apply

2386
02:03:05,760 --> 02:03:09,920
Speaker 1: for a tag. It's too early, but you can apply

2387
02:03:10,000 --> 02:03:12,560
Speaker 1: for the planes bison hunts, right, you know you can

2388
02:03:12,560 --> 02:03:15,120
Speaker 1: apply for those. Be allowed to keep waiting to get

2389
02:03:15,160 --> 02:03:18,240
Speaker 1: your wood bison permit, So stay tuned. Thanks again, Tom,