WEBVTT - Ep. 118: Open to Nuance 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.760 This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:17.640 severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:25.600 You can't protect anything. First thing I want to talk about, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:27.920 honest is a thought of us day because I was 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.680 on the airplane. There's a dude next to me who 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.199 wants a beer, but he only wants to beer. Like 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:43.640 it's provisional on what beer they have. Okay, sounds like me, yeah, 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:45.960 but what is the world coming to. It's like like 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.840 people like I want a beer, okay, that you decide 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:50.440 you want to beer, and it's it's like if you 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.239 decide you want to beer, it's like you decide you 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:56.040 want to beer absent what beer is available, and then 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.600 you would hone in on now that I'm now that 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.760 I've just side that I want this beer, which I'm 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.200 going to have. I want to know what ones I 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.240 can choose from. But this guy was like, I don't 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.480 know if I really want a beer. It depends on 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.360 what beers I can get. And your dead is like 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.640 driving around somewhere and you're like, man, I love to 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:19.400 have a cup of coffee. I'm like, there's a Conico 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.800 right there, and you're like, yeah, you know, gass Asian coffee. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:24.600 Let's look for a Starbucks. Let's go so far. You 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.720 can't because he's on an airplane. He can't go look elsewhere. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.360 It would be like knee waking up in the morning 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.280 in a remote area with one gas station and me saying, 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.680 my god, do I want a cup of coffee? And 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.800 you're saying the only coffee you could possibly have is 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.800 from Bob's gas station. To me say like, never mind, 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:49.440 I don't want a coffee no way. It's like the world. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.760 It's like something's got to give with this beer situation. Yeah. See, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.000 for me, it really watered down a cup of coffee anymore. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.120 There's certain breakfast joints I don't go to because I 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.600 got really watered down coffee. So I would not have 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.600 a cup of coffee rather than not have one at all. Yeah, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:11.480 I don't, Okay, come on, please in your camp. Yeah no. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.200 The other day, in fact, we were, um, we're out 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.640 in a small town in Montana. We're out specifically for 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.440 bear hunting, and um, I was like, I want a 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.880 cup of coffee. The hotel we stayed at, awful Coffee, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.840 went to another place awful Coffee. I went to three 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.120 places awful coffee. Didn't drink any of it, about three cups. 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.040 I'm not gonna touch it. Yep. And the first thing 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:34.560 I said on the third place, I said, can you 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.840 make me a good cup of coffee? He's like yeah, 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.360 he goes back there pours a huge, tall cup of 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.359 coffee that tastes like cardboard walked out. Can't do it. 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:47.840 I'm in that camp. So if you're in a restaurant 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.120 and you're like, man, a beard sound good for dinner 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.200 with dinner and then they're like, yeah, you take a 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:55.839 look at the menu. If they're like and if all 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.680 they have is I don't know your you know, beard choices. 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:00.600 But let's just say all they have like the big 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:06.000 giant macro bruise and would you say, I'll pass? And 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.760 how cocktail glass of wine? I'll pass because they made 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.240 too many of those. They made too big of a 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:18.480 container of that beer. No, it's the flavor, bro it's 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:25.880 carl No, nothing, it's it's so ridiculous, man, I don't know. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.200 I guess there's times where, you know, for example, I'm 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:34.920 thinking about working outside on a real hot day the 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.120 end of the day, all right, so I'm thinking, you know, 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.680 like biling. Hey, al right, you're out throwing bails and 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.760 you're sweaty and dirty and you got you got hay 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.320 and like every crevice of your body and your clothing 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.880 and like, man, a brew at the end of this 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.040 day would be like heaven, you know, I could go 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:02.240 for one. Uh, in that circumstance, you pull out like 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.720 I'm not going to name brands, but any brand my 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.560 least favorite beer, if it's cold and you're like, here 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:10.840 you go, I'm gonna I'm gonna be very grateful for that. 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.560 On the flip side, there are times where it's like 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.799 I could go for a beer if there's the right beer, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.440 the right beer, and if it's not there, I'm I'm 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.359 good without. So I don't have a strong opinion. I 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.080 think it's more contextual, and I'd say on the airplane, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.560 you're kind of a captive audience, and depending on what 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.440 kind of day you've had, maybe you're in Camp A 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:35.520 or maybe you're in Camp BE. That is why I 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:40.839 was reserving my contribution here. Okay, On a somewhat related note, 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.480 I have multiple times, I have multiple times said that 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.000 I wanted that a great name for a bar would 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.599 be the Wet spot. Turns out that a lot of 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.240 guys rolled in, and there are already multiple wet spots 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.960 around the country. There's a wet spot bar at mile 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:02.080 marker on the Highway forty nine and North Dakota, and 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.200 there's a wet spot Barron, Texas. So I know what 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.120 the moral of that story is. You might go check 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:09.760 him out. You might have to go check him out. 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.440 And just because you have a good idea and you 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:18.760 think it was yours, oftentimes it's not. Um pete munich 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.120 are you are? You? Can you guys talk about your 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.880 new thing you're making you guess still be all like 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.480 a squirrelly about it? No, we can talk about a 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.200 couple of things, talking about tent. Yeah, okay, so now 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:31.840 you can say that because for a long time you've 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.880 been like like tippy toey No, not a tent. Oh, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:39.120 there's there's other things tippy toe about now, but you've tiptoed. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.320 You've like now tippy toe about but you've tiptoed. You're 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.280 not tiptoey about how you guys are gonna make a 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.160 new tent. Correct tent is available for preorder right now 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.120 and there's shipping in a month. There on the way, 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.120 so genuine stone glacier tent. Tell me, um, tell me 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.240 what's awesome about? When were you last on with us 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.040 A long time ago? No, no, not too long a 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.520 year ago with Roscoe, because then you guys will be 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.400 in tiptoey. You were like, let's just say it might 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.080 be a thing to put in a backpack. There's a 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.599 lot of things on the drawing table right now that 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:16.359 go in a backpack and out of a backpack. Do 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.919 you have to be tiptoey or not? Um about a 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.880 couple of things. Yeah, we're not. We're there's a couple 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.279 of irons in the fire, some things on the drawing 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.120 board that we're not publicly talking about yet. But the 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.279 tent is uh is ready to go. What's awesome about 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.200 the tent? Strength to weight ratio, super lightweight tent and 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:40.280 super strong um generously sized two man four season tent. 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:42.960 I'm pretty sure everybody in this room spent a lot 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.479 of time in a tent and being in a small 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.279 one not too much fun. So it's a it's a 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:53.960 generously sized genuine two man tent. Dual vestibules, big vestibules. 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.800 Four pounds four rounds is minimum trail weight? Was it 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.559 way like all in four pounds? Tell bounces sub five 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.560 pound four season tent and uh when it's all scrunched 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:10.160 up like how big? Is it pretty typical looking tent stuff? 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.680 Sack mm hmmm. I don't know. It's acting like he's 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.000 hold a loaf of bread right now. Yeah, big loaf 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.560 of bread. But there's only one and if I was 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.160 you guys, i'd give one to me. Yeah you got 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.440 you got one comment? Okay? Um, but people can go 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.560 on and order it right now. Do you feel that 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:31.680 when you look at you, like, wow, it's different than 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.400 most tense Yeah. There's a couple of things I really 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.640 like about it. Um, I'm six ft two. Most people 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.600 are home with their tall guys too, so I do 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.960 genuinely like the size of the tent um. There's a 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.040 lot of canopy space. When you sit up in it, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.360 You're not crowded by nylon. There's a bit of space 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.680 around your head that helps with condensation and moisture. It's 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.720 a light color nylon. I spent a lot of time 0:07:54.760 --> 0:08:00.240 in Hilliberg tense. Hilliberg's are notoriously dark green nylon, which 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.400 can create a bit of like a dark cave vibe 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.600 on day seven of a bit of a terrarium inside 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.360 area like a hothouse. Yep. So we have white and 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.280 gray nylons which a lot of natural light comes through. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.400 Stuff I didn't think about before I was using this tent, 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.400 but it actually makes a really big difference. Um as 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.520 far as just can't mark. That's a good point that 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.880 I never thought of. Is I thought of, like how 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.200 much the dark ones can just like you're going there 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:28.800 in the middle of the day to grab something, You're like, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.520 you know, because like what what happens inside there? But 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.760 I never thought about light transmission. Yeah, you spend a 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.439 lot of time in a tent on some of these hunts, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:41.040 and it's important be comfortable in there. So yeah, man, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.080 a length is key for longer people because when you 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.079 get in there and you sleep bag is touching the 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.120 end of that tent, may you wake up with wet cold, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.920 your feet are wet, and your hat's wet. Right, So 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.080 it's got a nice garage on it. What do you 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.680 mean vestibule, Yeah, super big vestibules, And I love them 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.360 because when your backpack hunting and you have a rifle 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:05.559 backpack boots, vestibules are super important, and having a generously 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.120 sized one that all of your stuff can comfortably fit 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.760 in is really nice to have and not where you 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.280 craming in there and the fabrics laying on it all 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.719 correct usual last year on your sheep hunt. Yeah, I've 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.920 been using it for about a year now. Yep, put 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.880 a lot of miles on it. These ten is pretty pricey. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.199 I'm guessing five, don't. They're cheaper than we were not 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.160 allowed to use that word. It's less expensive than Pete 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.240 went off the competition. Pete went off the went wild 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.320 there And I'm not allowed to use a couple of adjectives. 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.520 It's the hue glacier that's one of them. That's a 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.880 good one not to use. Um, you were just out 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.800 bear hunting with the buddy years can can? I can 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:51.960 I talk? I'm not gonna give away your spot, but 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.280 we used to do endless amounts of that. Is it 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.240 fair to say? You guys are out hike and closed 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:01.120 logging roads? Correct? And when they unclosed logging roads, we 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.080 just walk mild I mean miles of those things. But 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.600 it works right because when they stabilize those picture if 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.240 you will in your mind's eye, listener a logging road. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:16.920 It's like a two track through the woods, through the 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:24.000 mountains and where it switched backs up hills. Uh, you 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.720 have an erosion issue, can have an erosion issue along 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.439 some of these things. And so they grade out, they 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.000 grade out the banks, and they go to stabilize the 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.280 banks with certain types of vegetation. And one of the 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.440 types of vegetation that they stabilize a lot of the 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.960 banks with as a grass called smooth brown grass. And 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.400 when that comes up in the spring, it's just like 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.800 what the doctor ordered for bears. They love it. You 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.880 find their ships and it's just as like greasy. It's 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.600 like black grease. Picture taking a ball of grass and 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:00.600 then dipping it in the thickest, nastiest black grease. And 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:02.640 those are the droppings you find because when they come 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.640 out of hibernation or eating all that grass to sort 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:09.000 of get their digestive system cleared out. Yeah, I'm telling 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.439 Carlos like a something he doesn't lovest, right, Yeah, you are, 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.000 you are. And they love that smooth brown brass. Yeah. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.280 And we've talked, you know, about the adaptability of their diet, 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.319 how they have this kind of menu that shifts over 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.439 the course of the year, and that initial boost in 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.240 productivity that comes with the spring is something not unique 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.199 to American black bears either. Um, the work I did 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.079 with Asiatic black bears the same kind of thing. They 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:37.319 get that early flush of really nutrient rich spring forage 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.520 in the form of vegge. And for people who don't 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.720 spend a lot of time thinking about bears or around bears, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.840 you know, you you kind of picture the classic like 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.880 bear on the stream bank eating a fish or something 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.200 like that, But you don't envision a bear that's almost 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:57.320 in like col mode, just grazing, just sitting there like 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.600 like a college, just taking mouthful after mouthful of that grass. 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.160 People have ideas of bears, Like the idea that people 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.680 have of bears is like something usually that happens to 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.120 the bear now and then like yes, now and then 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.400 that bear catches the salmon. Well, that bear does a 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.280 lot of it's walking in the woods eating vegetation. Uh 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.480 So the bear you got, like I would say, over 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.760 the years, we had a walking clothes which were called 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.800 walking closers, probably a ratio of I bet we walked 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:34.440 a hundred miles of closers per bear that we got. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.240 Though you would know the spots of the bears used 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:40.280 oftentimes to be like they're coming down because they're coming 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.400 out of the snow and they're coming down drainages. So 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.720 you'd find concentrations of like they're following drainages down where 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.160 those drainages would have to be like a culvert going 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:51.400 over the road, and the would be like a bunch 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.840 of stabilized areas, and then you find grass patch and 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.320 then you'd find droppings on one of those in the 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.720 next year that be like droppings there, And there's like 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.920 certain spots they go. How many miles did you guys 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.600 walk to find one bear? About half of one? Really? Yeah, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:07.920 we shot this is right away. Yeah, we got pretty 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.040 lucky that night. We hunted. I hunting bears pretty much 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.360 every day in bear season, and we we knew where 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:15.840 we were going. We were going to a good spot. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.480 And uh we started our hike down the closed road 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.920 and I was telling you earlier that there were morals 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.920 growing in the road and that was a good indicator 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.280 that no one had been out. Yeah, it's really good spot. 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:36.000 Put it in the show notes. He was picked a 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.439 couple of Morrel's walking out throad like nobody's been up here. 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:43.120 That's a good sign. And then the cats started. Oh 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.080 so you knew there. It was just blanketed on the 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.720 I mean you couldn't. You couldn't walk thirty yards without 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.000 finding a pile of bear scat. And so you just 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.840 have this feeling like, well, there, there are there here, 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.360 They're definitely there's definitely a bear or more within a 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.400 short distance of us. And yeah, I just came around 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.800 one of the first turns in the road. Yeah, we 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.280 made an eventually made like a conscious decision to stop 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.880 hunting closers two boring. I just felt like we weren't 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.040 like really learning anything, weren't really learning anything, and then 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.600 started hunting avalanche slides and other kind of stuff. Yeah, 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.320 I would say that's my preferred method as well, to 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.840 hunt them in the mountains and avalanche slides and play 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:33.200 the spot in stock game. Did you notice how we'll 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:34.880 move on from that for a minute. You know what 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.880 I've never asked you about, Michelle. I just noticed, can 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.480 I ask you about what's on your wrist? Like take 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.800 a left turns out that means no, not well kind 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.560 of symbolically in a way, Um, it's a broken arrow, 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:48.880 it's a brand of a ranch. I was really young 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.640 when I did this. It's a brand of a ranch 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.520 that kind of signified my transition out of northern California. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.160 I left my life and my career there and was like, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.080 I want to go Berienced Wyoming, So moved to Wyoming. 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.680 Side Unseen worked at this ranch, had an amazing Yeah 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.720 it's um. That was their original brand from nineteen o two. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.200 It was the second oldest dude ranch in the country, 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.600 and it was just kind of a big life shift moment. 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:21.960 And you know, why didn't you brand the brand right? Maybe? Um? Yeah, 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.880 no real answer for that one, but yeah, it's it's 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.920 a little misperceived and left turn, but kind of symbolic right, 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:36.000 super left, super right wing and the sharp left. Did 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.600 you notice how I used the word squirrely earlier? I did? Yeah, 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.000 I missus. The guy actually wrote in to clarify a 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:43.560 point about he had a couple of points who wanted 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:48.840 to clarify. Um. Two are just observations that you can 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.600 feel free to comment on. One is that he says, 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.360 I'm missing an important distinction between squirrely and western. Mean, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.120 when someone says things got pretty western or thing he's 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.080 got squirrely. Okay, I was arguing that there's sort of 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.560 one and the same. He's saying absolutely not. He says 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:11.560 Western is distinct and that it implies a sense of 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:16.760 physical danger or even violence, and squirrely lacks this. Says, 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.120 squirrely simply means movements or actions that are erratic or 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:25.760 without obvious direction. Western is more sinister. For example, the 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.560 arrow has shot squirrel, he's using in the sentence, the 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.280 arrow has shot squirrelly ever since Johanna has stepped on it. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.320 Versus things at the Dirty Shame Saloon got a little 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.520 Western when Cal made a pass at that logger's girlfriend. 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.880 She says, as a writer, you should know that there 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.280 is a nuance here that you need to be aware of. 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.240 I think you hit the nail on the head. I 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.960 think the the element of the chance of physical danger 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.240 is what makes things western. If I was in a 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:57.680 bar and the next I said, man, things got a 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.560 little squirrel in that bar, you wouldn't think that. I'm no, 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.160 it doesn't really doesn't work. It doesn't mean that someone 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.800 got no fight broke out, No, yeah, just got squirrely. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.439 Another point he has is he thinks, oh you know 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.960 what I forgot? This has ben long you know, Ben Long, 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:21.600 you know um. Ben Long also says he thinks that 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.200 the use of the phrase grand slam beyond baseball came 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.639 from a guy like grand slam and hunting stuff like 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:37.080 the turkey Grand slam, sheep sheep grand slam. Um was 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.880 really the only too like really recognized, no, really recognized. 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.520 But it's a dear one. Yeah, I want to start 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.040 a squirrel grand slam. I want to talk about the 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:52.280 world the words squirrely, just real quick here because your 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.760 way back on that. Just go ahead there with me. 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.399 But when you're meandering through a nice grow oaks, you 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:04.600 might be like, man, looks looking pretty Yeah, if someone 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:06.480 says that to me, I don't think that things that 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.440 someone's gonna come up and sucker punched me in the 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.879 side of the face. I think that, uh yeah, just 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.120 make it sure we're covering the applications of these could 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:16.400 be down in the area and be like, it looks 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:21.879 very western down here, meaning that it evokes the West, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.359 so grand sol Fritz of the Boone and Crockett Club 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.880 used grant that he thinks the earliest used to grand 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.560 slam for hunting. Boone and Crocket Club. He used to 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.920 describe the fort to described to killing the four varieties 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.600 of North American wild sheep recognized by BNC records, but 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.840 which are doll sheep, stone sheep, rocky, mountain, bighorn, desert 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:49.639 bighorn um. It's said that he later regretted coining the phrase, 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.040 and Ben Long editorializes here and he says, I think 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:56.960 that if he were alive today, he would regret it 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:01.400 even more. I don't know about that, because like as 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.000 a proud turkey slam holder, I can never remember what 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:09.080 kind of slam I had, slam holder, why do you 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.760 think he would regret he doesn't. I don't know. I 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.040 don't know why Ben. I don't know why Ben Long 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.920 fields that Grand sol Fritz would regret it today. He 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.439 must be referring to why he regretted in the first place, 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.080 because I think that he feels that we guess on 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.159 my part would be a guess would be that it 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.959 would be like it's like the golf if occation of hunting. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.399 Mm hmm. There's a strong argument to be made that 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:37.080 a lot of conservation dollars are raised for wild cheap 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:42.800 conservation because this grand slam exists and it's something obtainable 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:48.280 that these affluent guys can go after Without the Grand Slam, 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.960 I don't think there would be as much interest in 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.200 collecting all four of these species and subsequently raising all 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.600 this money for conservation. Yeah, there's some dinky heart of 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:05.920 my brain that knowing that, um you know, uh, knowing 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.320 that were I to go to Guatemala or southern Yucatan 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.040 Peninsula and go out in the jungle there and find 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.640 an oscillated turkey, knowing that that would make me a 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.920 World Slam turkey holder, like that that that idea of 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.560 resting my head somewhere I was like and added benefit 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.920 would be that I would become a I have no idea. 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:28.960 I'm almost half joking, but I'm not. And I think 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.600 that the squirrel Slam is interesting because I don't think 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.640 people I think it would help promote the squirrel because 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.080 I don't think people realize how many damn squirrels there are. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:42.360 Who would you include in this squirrel Slam. I'd put 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.840 a pine squirrel in there. I'd put a gray squirrel 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.600 in there, eastern and western with color phases. Yeah, you 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:50.680 know what, I would put a black face, black face 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.120 gray squirrel in their eastern Western gray squirrel black phase fox. 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.439 Put the fox squirrel in there. You can't put the 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.680 del marv a squirrel, right, Abert. I would put a 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.760 it's in there, damn sure. True would be all the 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:08.399 tree squirrels because it's not e s. It's not an 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.399 e s, a listed species anymore. But it's far from being. 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.280 It's far. It's it's recovered, beyond threatened. But it's it's 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.840 not a there's not honible numbers of you know how 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:26.000 you get a mountain goat slam shoot one. It's both 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:32.480 grand superan world. Right. Um, he's got a question though, well, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.760 listening to the show, Oh it's cool. So he's listening 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.119 to the show and cooking what he describes as a 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:42.439 freezer fossil. There was some pronged warm meat that had 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.879 been a bottom of this freezer for quite some time, 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.480 maybe less than a decade, maybe not any tips for 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:52.000 cooking freezer fossils. Is there a point which freezer fossils 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:59.040 should be discarded? There's it's like my input on that. 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.960 It's like that's something should really try to avoid having happened. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.240 Your brother would say no, my brother would eat it. 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:10.120 I would eat it. I guess it somehow became unwrapped, 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.240 and it became unwrapped, and slowly um just turned to 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:18.440 like that white freezer burn, freezer burn, and it yeah, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.080 just you're kind of like you you're it's sort of 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.800 becomes uh, it sort of becomes freeze driving over time. 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.560 I've had six year old elk though that you when 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.359 we served it, you couldn't tell. It's amazing. That's one 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.239 of the reasons I kind of quit putting dates. I 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.240 don't usually date it sucks, I was remember anyways, Like 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:39.680 I kind of like know what it is and how 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.800 it looked, and you know, just like the idiosyncrasies of 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.040 the marker used and the animal. I just kind of 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:47.960 have a sense. The reason like to put dates on 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.320 it is not only my wife always seeing the dates, 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.560 because if it's two thousand seventeen somethings two thousand fifteen, Like, 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.199 why invite the scrutiny. There's no difference. She's not gonna know, 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.440 but in never she's gonna look like, right, that seems odd. 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:04.359 So I don't even put dates on that. And I 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.000 don't need to hear about it or have anyone noticed 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:10.520 about it because there's no difference anyway. So why like 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.840 open it up to discussion. It's like a thing that 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.440 happens in marriage. I think if you start doing those 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.000 things like like, it just isn't worth my time explaining it, 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:26.720 Like why even why even invite the question? There's nothing 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:32.160 to hide, but why invite the scrutiny. I'm still gonna 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.000 keep dating. Yeah, there's lots just like it in my 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:38.320 head to know that last year's meets going out, new 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:39.960 fresh meats coming in, yea. But I still do the 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:41.560 same thing. But I do it. Here's the other things. 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:45.440 I have two freezers, so when it's in my garage freezer, 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.880 it's on standby, it's not in the run. If it's 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.960 in the kitchen freezer, then everyone that knows everyone knows 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:56.600 that that's what you're supposed to eat. Only I go 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:00.359 down into the main freezer and I constantly move stuff 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.200 into the running. So I'm sort of sequencing it anyway. 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:06.040 But the minute I put dates on there, people are 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:07.879 gonna go in there and they're gonna see dates and 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.440 shy away from dates that they feel to be outdated. 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:20.159 Good strategy, you follow me um quick news tidbit or 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.840 if Carl has anything to say about this, you're talking Wyoming. Mhmm, 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:28.520 chrisly Bears Wyoming. I was guessing that's where you're going 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.480 because that's so fresh. Okay, No, what are you talking about? 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:33.639 But we can talk about that. They voted on it, 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:38.399 just they tags you're coming up. They're still doing the 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:41.800 one female quota though, right, I've got the details. I 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:44.199 can pull that up while you ask the other question. No, 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:46.520 this isn't a question. This is just a news thing 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:53.000 that that's interesting. So the Interior Department UM under Secretary 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:55.640 Zinchie kind of making a cool move where they are 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:03.080 opening up more than two forty eight thousand acres two 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:07.600 hunting and fishing that were previously unavailable for hunting and fishing. 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:13.280 So this has taken like thirty units of the National 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:19.840 Wildlife Refuge System acreages in twenty two states are going 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.680 to be expanded to allow hunting and fishing access. So 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:26.719 it brings the number of refugees, the number of refuges 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:30.840 open to public hunting to three seventy seven and the 0:25:30.920 --> 0:25:35.760 number of refugees available for public fishing to three and twelve, 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:43.199 which is cool, increasing hunting and fishing opportunities in the 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:46.160 refuge system. What's interesting about that, maybe it's just it's 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:48.240 got to be a function of the opportunities available. But 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:50.800 I was expecting the fishing opportunity to be higher than 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:52.920 the hunting opportunity when you started going down that pack. 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:54.679 When I was talking to my brother who's a federal 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:58.840 who works at a federal land management agency, he was 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:00.280 he that was the first thing he It was like, 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:03.200 how could there be that are on the same wave 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:05.119 and I and I thought, well, maybe just has to 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:07.560 do with like availability kind of land. Yeah, especially in 0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:10.680 the dry West, you know, there's not a lot of availability. 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:13.520 But again, you think of refuges, right, and maybe this 0:26:13.600 --> 0:26:17.040 is just a Midwestern bias. I think waterfowl. I associate 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:20.320 the idea of a refuge being kind of a wet well. 0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:24.320 Their symbol is the Canada goose right on for the system, 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:28.040 I thought, or what was the bird on a Michelle? 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:30.920 What's the bird on a The National Wildlife Refuge was 0:26:30.960 --> 0:26:33.800 their icon. It's a Canada goose, right Yeah, sure that 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:36.200 was a swan or something. It's one of it too. 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:39.320 It's a long neck. It's a sweet logo. So I 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:42.640 got a flat back last night. Hopefully it's either way 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:47.440 that I think. Hopefully that's a Canada goose. Right, it's Canada. Um. 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:51.280 What's cool about um the proposal? Right now? The status 0:26:51.400 --> 0:26:54.000 is folks can actually weigh in on it. Um. Well, 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:56.520 what we actually have an article up on the mediator 0:26:56.600 --> 0:26:59.040 dot com period and folks can go to the link 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:00.800 that we're linking out to you, put in the docket 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:05.399 number and voice their public support. Sweet, and I'll just 0:27:05.440 --> 0:27:07.960 give you a couple of quick quick stats on this 0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:11.560 development in Wyoming. So if we've got it right, Idaho 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:16.360 also plans to have a hunt, but it's for basically 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:20.200 Idaho is having a symbolic thing where they're exercising their 0:27:20.280 --> 0:27:24.680 their exercising their management. Yes, in Montana, my understanding is 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:29.240 kind of sitting back and waiting, knowing it's a contentious top. Yeah, 0:27:29.240 --> 0:27:31.560 I think that I think that they're reluctant to step 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:35.720 into the reluctant to step into the into the fray, 0:27:35.880 --> 0:27:39.040 into the fray. Wyoming, on the other hand, can I 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:45.439 real quick? So uh, I'm trying to think of how 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:48.280 deep I want to go on this. At the time 0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:52.480 of European contact that there were you know, you had 0:27:52.600 --> 0:27:57.040 grizzly bears ranged from I don't know, like roughly the Meridian, 0:27:59.080 --> 0:28:01.520 maybe a little bit west hand from Meridian, so range 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:04.960 from portions of the Great Plains all the way to 0:28:05.920 --> 0:28:17.479 the Pacific Coast. UH. They were from through habitat destruction, poisoning, um, 0:28:17.760 --> 0:28:24.960 unregulated slaughter, conflicts with sheep grazing, cattle grazing, every bad 0:28:25.000 --> 0:28:28.640 thing that could happen to a species. They were eliminated 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:32.440 across the bulk of their range and existed only in 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:41.440 a few wilderness strongholds in Wyoming, Montana. UM. They were 0:28:41.640 --> 0:28:45.320 when the Endangered Species Act came into play. When President 0:28:45.400 --> 0:28:48.600 Richard Nixon signed in the sign the Endangered Species Act. 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:52.880 In the law UH, the grizzly bears listed in the 0:28:52.920 --> 0:28:55.160 lower forty eight the grizzly bears listed at as an 0:28:55.200 --> 0:29:02.440 endangered species. UM. Later manager wildlife managers kind of hit 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:06.800 on this idea that we would instead of looking at 0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:10.200 the grizzly across the entirety of it of its historic range, 0:29:11.640 --> 0:29:17.120 we would identify distinct population segments and sort of manage 0:29:17.120 --> 0:29:21.959 bears according to these habitat pieces that could possibly hold bears. 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:26.280 Because bears and humans are grizzly bear, particularly grizzly bears 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:28.920 and humans come into conflict, and so there's a lot 0:29:28.920 --> 0:29:32.720 of areas where we're never gonna have them, like Golden Gate. Uh, 0:29:32.840 --> 0:29:36.360 Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is grizzly bear country. 0:29:36.800 --> 0:29:39.080 It will not We will not be able to recover 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:42.080 grizzlies in Golden Gate Park. We will not be able 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:45.880 to recover grizzlies in downtown San Francisco. So we look 0:29:45.920 --> 0:29:48.360 at like where can we recover grizzlies? Where do we 0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:51.760 have populations? Now, we create these distinct population segments, and 0:29:51.800 --> 0:29:55.000 what we later realize, what later came to be, is 0:29:55.040 --> 0:30:01.440 that you could declare certain population segments as recovered and 0:30:01.480 --> 0:30:06.240 removed them from Endangered Species Act protection and then shift 0:30:06.240 --> 0:30:10.640 your focus on recovering other populations um that that still 0:30:10.640 --> 0:30:13.360 need assistance. So if anyone of the follows the news 0:30:13.400 --> 0:30:16.280 on grizzly bears, it wasn't too long ago. The Greater 0:30:16.440 --> 0:30:19.160 what's called the g y E or Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:21.160 which is a chunk of land the size of Indiana, 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:26.040 UM that population segment of grizzly bears were delisted because 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:33.440 they had reached recovery objectives. You know, twelve years ago 0:30:33.520 --> 0:30:36.400 or more years ago, they released they hit recovery objectives. 0:30:36.440 --> 0:30:38.480 So long time ago people look at what would it 0:30:38.480 --> 0:30:40.160 looked like to recover bears in this area, and we 0:30:40.160 --> 0:30:42.840 came up with ideas of how many, how many females, 0:30:42.880 --> 0:30:45.680 total numbers of bears, all kinds of things. We hit 0:30:45.760 --> 0:30:48.040 that point. So then the US Fish and Wildlife Service 0:30:48.080 --> 0:30:50.520 that was in charge of managing the bears are recommended 0:30:50.920 --> 0:30:54.360 that the bears be delisted and handed back to state management. 0:30:54.880 --> 0:30:59.120 And so now the states that have the states that 0:30:59.160 --> 0:31:02.840 are within the g I, which would be small portions 0:31:03.000 --> 0:31:09.440 of uh small portion of Idaho, Chunka, Montana, pretty big Chunka, Wyoming, 0:31:10.120 --> 0:31:13.800 now have the legal authority and legal right to manage 0:31:13.800 --> 0:31:16.440 the bears as a c fit. And they are going 0:31:16.560 --> 0:31:22.200 to are toying with the idea, some more than others, 0:31:22.280 --> 0:31:26.959 of allowing a very limited hunting opportunities for these bears, 0:31:27.000 --> 0:31:30.440 particularly with with kind of the focus of it being 0:31:31.720 --> 0:31:38.480 um focusing efforts on areas where you would be like 0:31:38.760 --> 0:31:44.800 reducing conflict between the bears and livestock, but still with 0:31:45.400 --> 0:31:48.920 still with the recovery objective of growing bear populations in 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:52.600 other areas so that you do listen the greater also 0:31:52.640 --> 0:31:56.520 an ecosystem for instance, doesn't mean anything with to do 0:31:56.600 --> 0:31:59.920 with current management practices of bears, and like the Cabinet 0:32:00.040 --> 0:32:05.080 Act Northern Cascades, I don't know. So with all that said, Carl, 0:32:05.440 --> 0:32:08.600 yeah you cooled all that. I'm cool with all that. 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:11.600 And I think, you know, this is one of those 0:32:11.600 --> 0:32:15.800 issues that is going to evoke strong emotions in the 0:32:15.840 --> 0:32:21.920 non hunting public. But it really is a glowing success 0:32:21.920 --> 0:32:24.840 story when you have that transition of the management of 0:32:24.840 --> 0:32:30.000 a listed species result in the removal of said species 0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:35.160 from protection under es A, and have that management returned 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:38.920 to the state, and it's being driven by the scientific 0:32:38.920 --> 0:32:44.240 information that justifies the decision to delist. Um. Whether you're 0:32:44.280 --> 0:32:47.440 somebody who is a okay with having grizzly bears hunted 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:50.600 or not, you have to acknowledge that there's a conservation 0:32:50.680 --> 0:32:53.080 success story to be told here. And also, I think 0:32:55.240 --> 0:32:59.800 a story that warrants some morning, you know, the fact 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:04.720 that we had historically so much more robust populations in 0:33:04.800 --> 0:33:09.280 such a such a massive distribution spatially. You know, I 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:10.920 spent a lot of time in New Mexico's where I 0:33:10.960 --> 0:33:13.760 live now. Historically a lot of my favorite places in 0:33:13.800 --> 0:33:17.000 New Mexico to hunt and fish were grizzly habitat and 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:20.760 they are not there now. Um. Whether or not they'd 0:33:20.760 --> 0:33:24.960 ever return is an interesting thing to debate and philosophies about. 0:33:25.000 --> 0:33:29.720 But um per personally, I hope so yeah, I share that. 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:31.440 You know, I've been spent a lot of time in 0:33:31.480 --> 0:33:34.360 the HeLa lately. I just had a great nine day 0:33:34.400 --> 0:33:38.800 family trip chasing turkeys down in the HeLa. And Um, 0:33:38.880 --> 0:33:42.160 I was reading this book Black Range Tales that covers 0:33:42.160 --> 0:33:44.240 a lot of history of the Southwest, and it wasn't 0:33:44.280 --> 0:33:47.280 that long ago. You're talking like the eighteen sixties eighteen seventies, 0:33:48.000 --> 0:33:51.360 and these miners and market hunters who were living in 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:53.640 that country are bumping in. They call them silver tips. 0:33:53.960 --> 0:33:56.560 That was the terminology. You know. They had this um 0:33:56.640 --> 0:34:00.400 coloration kind of the silver tip guard heres um. And 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:04.400 it was an animal. You know, the conflict was very real, 0:34:04.640 --> 0:34:08.000 and it's an animal that understandably you know, it's struck 0:34:08.080 --> 0:34:11.960 fear in the heart of these miners. But Um, I 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:16.520 share your perception about something missing from the experience when 0:34:16.520 --> 0:34:19.800 you know that animal that historically existed on landscape is 0:34:19.840 --> 0:34:23.520 no longer there. Um. But I also acknowledge my attitude 0:34:23.560 --> 0:34:27.800 about you know, having my my wife and her friend 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:32.280 um out turkey hunting together in that landscape with grizzlies, 0:34:32.320 --> 0:34:34.600 I might feel a little bit differently about it, you know, 0:34:35.200 --> 0:34:37.880 understand on their own. I understand those fears, and I 0:34:37.920 --> 0:34:41.120 think there's many people who would agree that we should 0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:48.600 recover the bears an all suitable habitat. The details most 0:34:48.640 --> 0:34:50.920 everyone I hang out with would say like, yeah, man, 0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:53.360 I agree we should recover grizzlies and all suitable habitat. 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:55.920 And then the minute where things would start to fall apart, 0:34:56.000 --> 0:34:57.879 what I would say is like, okay, let's all define 0:34:57.960 --> 0:35:01.440 suitable habitat. So in my back well, you know, but 0:35:01.440 --> 0:35:04.919 but even uh. And this was like another surprise move, 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:09.840 a surprise move. Uh. Interior Secretary Zincy came to Seattle 0:35:10.800 --> 0:35:14.719 and announced his support for recovering grizzly bears in the 0:35:14.719 --> 0:35:18.480 Northern Cascades, which was surprised to me, but not as 0:35:18.480 --> 0:35:21.200 surprising if probably was the cattle ranchers up there. I 0:35:21.200 --> 0:35:23.760 thought it was like, I'm all for it, man, um, 0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:25.960 so I'm I'm all There's like I have like a 0:35:26.040 --> 0:35:29.080 dual pronged approach in thinking about grizzlies. I'd like to 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:33.759 see grizzies recovered in suitable habitat, and once the recovery 0:35:33.880 --> 0:35:36.719 objectives are met, I like to see them delisted in 0:35:36.719 --> 0:35:39.680 the hand of the state management and some people that 0:35:39.719 --> 0:35:41.680 can't get all these ideas in their heads at once. 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:44.200 But I'm playing like I'm thinking about it in the 0:35:44.320 --> 0:35:46.879 terms of I'm thinking about it in terms of like 0:35:47.360 --> 0:35:50.319 the long game of where I think things should settle out. 0:35:50.800 --> 0:35:53.759 And to your point, this definition of suitable habitat, I 0:35:53.760 --> 0:35:56.800 think there's there's a really relevant nexus here with respect 0:35:56.840 --> 0:36:02.600 to the the upcoming hunts both in ho in Wyoming Um. 0:36:02.600 --> 0:36:06.399 Thinking about suitable habitat in the context of social acceptance 0:36:06.920 --> 0:36:09.480 and having the ability to target hunting pressure in places 0:36:09.480 --> 0:36:12.160 that are prone to conflict with the species, I think 0:36:12.239 --> 0:36:14.120 is one of those management tools that will pave the 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:17.000 way towards social acceptance and having more places on the 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:21.839 landscape where we can strike that balance between your kind 0:36:21.840 --> 0:36:28.120 of approach of this definition of ecological suitable habitat social 0:36:28.520 --> 0:36:32.440 suitable habitat. I think hunting has the potential to be 0:36:32.480 --> 0:36:36.480 a really critical ingredient in that mix and all of 0:36:36.600 --> 0:36:40.520 creating social acceptance because because for people who are living 0:36:40.600 --> 0:36:43.839 in these locations and whose lives are impacted by these things. 0:36:43.880 --> 0:36:48.440 They're experiencing it very differently than you are from say, 0:36:48.760 --> 0:36:51.160 Golden Gate Park totally. And you're talking about the opportunity 0:36:51.200 --> 0:36:56.040 to manage any very surgical, precise fashion. Right, It's not 0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:58.880 like you're gonna have a whole bunch of tags available 0:36:58.920 --> 0:37:00.239 and a bunch of people out on the land escape. 0:37:00.239 --> 0:37:03.400 You're gonna be able to issue tags and target hunting 0:37:03.400 --> 0:37:06.040 pressure in a way that is very focused in places 0:37:06.040 --> 0:37:10.120 that are prone to that kind of conflict. So I 0:37:10.160 --> 0:37:13.680 think there's you know, there's a real tension and a 0:37:13.680 --> 0:37:18.200 lot of these natural resources management issues um between what 0:37:18.239 --> 0:37:20.160 the public would like to see in the places where 0:37:20.160 --> 0:37:22.640 they're actually directly interacting with the animal versus what the 0:37:22.640 --> 0:37:27.880 public would like to see happen from AFAR and the 0:37:27.960 --> 0:37:31.160 ability for local managers to be able to make decisions 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:35.560 that address the concerns of the local constituents who have 0:37:35.680 --> 0:37:39.560 to coexist with that species day in and day out. 0:37:40.280 --> 0:37:44.200 I think it's one of the critical elements of being 0:37:44.239 --> 0:37:48.200 able to talk about a broader recovery beyond where they 0:37:48.200 --> 0:37:51.640 currently are and where they currently are. So that being said, 0:37:51.680 --> 0:37:53.919 here a couple of details on the Wyoming hunt. Under 0:37:53.960 --> 0:37:57.920 the Wyoming proposal, you've got the potential for up to 0:37:58.080 --> 0:38:04.520 one female and ten male grizzlies killed this fall inside 0:38:04.520 --> 0:38:09.680 the states section of federally designated demographic monitoring area, so 0:38:09.880 --> 0:38:13.200 they'd have a cap at at one female, ten males, well, 0:38:13.320 --> 0:38:17.720 one female, everything ends, that's right, and and that's similar 0:38:17.719 --> 0:38:20.320 to other states where you have UM like in New Mexico, 0:38:20.400 --> 0:38:23.640 for example, most of the units have unlimited hunting opportunity 0:38:23.680 --> 0:38:26.080 up until the quotas met, and it's the hunter's responsibility 0:38:26.160 --> 0:38:28.600 to keep tabs on where we are with respect to 0:38:28.640 --> 0:38:33.600 the the total um cap and also the female cap. 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.440 So if either of those are reached, boom the season closes. 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:40.160 And then outside of that demographic monitoring area there's the 0:38:40.160 --> 0:38:44.560 potential for another twelve grizzlies to be taken, and those 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:47.640 could be male or female. So they're being really careful, 0:38:47.840 --> 0:38:53.640 very very conservative hunt inside that designated portion and then 0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:55.919 beyond that, which again this would be the area where 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:59.040 the bears are starting to expand out beyond kind of 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:03.040 that core prime habitat, i e. The places where there's 0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:08.799 more likelihood for conflict with humans. Those places you've got 0:39:08.800 --> 0:39:11.440 more flexibility, so a similar number of bears twelve bears, 0:39:11.600 --> 0:39:14.040 but they could be male or female. So that's the 0:39:14.040 --> 0:39:17.520 plan in the season is set to start September one, 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:20.600 and you know, again getting back to the different values 0:39:20.600 --> 0:39:24.719 that people have around wildlife. UM, I don't see it 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:27.440 as being unreasonable for somebody who lives far far away 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:31.920 from Montana two have some consternation about it hunt like 0:39:32.000 --> 0:39:35.680 this happening. No, it's not surprising to me. I think 0:39:35.680 --> 0:39:37.839 there's a there's a ton of perspectives on it that 0:39:38.440 --> 0:39:41.520 are all not surprising to me. Um. And I think 0:39:41.520 --> 0:39:44.359 that if you're like completely removed from it, you might 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:47.560 look and just if you're completely removed from it and 0:39:47.560 --> 0:39:49.920 you just know the bear from looking at calendars and 0:39:49.920 --> 0:39:54.640 stuff and and and social media pictures and you don't 0:39:54.840 --> 0:39:57.239 you don't have like three hours to go take a 0:39:57.239 --> 0:39:59.600 look at like the history of this whole thing. Absolutely 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:02.000 you're gonna it can be like what Yeah, And that's 0:40:02.000 --> 0:40:04.920 why I think that's why I think the biggest talking 0:40:04.960 --> 0:40:07.799 point here if if if people have an opportunity to 0:40:07.840 --> 0:40:10.279 communicate one thing to someone who will listen to him 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:14.000 for ten seconds, it's that the reason these hunts are 0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:17.880 being opened up is a conservation success story. The species 0:40:17.920 --> 0:40:20.440 has rebounded, at least in this small portion of its 0:40:20.480 --> 0:40:23.279 historic range to the point that the states are able 0:40:23.320 --> 0:40:28.879 to manage it guided by sound population ecology, and they're 0:40:28.880 --> 0:40:30.560 going to be able to have a sustainable hunt that 0:40:30.600 --> 0:40:34.200 helps address some of these conflict concerns. But there's not 0:40:34.480 --> 0:40:38.360 anybody who works for these state agencies who's not passionate 0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:41.239 about the recovery of the species. I mean, you're not 0:40:41.239 --> 0:40:45.600 gonna find a commissioner for the Wyoming Department of Game 0:40:45.640 --> 0:40:50.920 and Fish who doesn't think it's cool that grizzly bears 0:40:51.000 --> 0:40:53.400 are delisted and recovered to the point that they can 0:40:53.440 --> 0:40:57.640 have a hunt, a sustainable hunt. So I personally have 0:40:57.880 --> 0:41:01.839 a lot of admiration for the professionals that work at 0:41:01.840 --> 0:41:05.080 these state game and phish agencies. And I know, based 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:07.680 on all the personal friends that I have who work 0:41:07.719 --> 0:41:10.040 for these agencies, that they come at this work with 0:41:10.080 --> 0:41:15.760 a really strong conservation ethic and passion for the resource. Um. 0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:20.640 So I view this, this delisting and opportunity to hunt 0:41:20.760 --> 0:41:25.279 as um evidence of a really cool story that I 0:41:25.320 --> 0:41:27.719 hope we can replicate us we're on the landscape. Yeah, man, 0:41:27.800 --> 0:41:31.319 I've spent a ton of time around grizzlies, love being 0:41:31.320 --> 0:41:34.399 around them, have had mix ups with them, have never 0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:37.360 killed one. I'm not gonna apply from one of the tags, 0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:44.759 but applaud, applaud the work and effort that's gone into this, 0:41:44.800 --> 0:41:47.640 and applaud the path they're taken on it, and uh 0:41:47.920 --> 0:41:51.319 wishing the best of luck on it. And and I 0:41:51.360 --> 0:41:53.839 hope it goes well. I have concerns about how this 0:41:53.920 --> 0:41:56.399 might play out, but hopefully my concerns won't be found. 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:58.080 And you pointed out an interesting thing, like and I 0:41:58.080 --> 0:42:00.319 think this thing people struggle with. It's like, but they're 0:42:00.360 --> 0:42:02.279 not recovered across the entirety of the range. Well, you 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:04.279 know what I'm sorry with neither our elk. Elk are 0:42:04.320 --> 0:42:08.400 still absent from their historic range. But no one's running 0:42:08.440 --> 0:42:11.799 around saying like, hey man, we don't have uh, you know, 0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:16.440 a healthy herd of elk in Iowa. How in the 0:42:16.480 --> 0:42:20.960 world are you hunt them in Colorado? It's absurd. Yeah, 0:42:21.239 --> 0:42:23.680 elk used to exist across Like if you look at 0:42:23.680 --> 0:42:26.720 a map of the US, it was all elk country, 0:42:26.960 --> 0:42:32.160 excluding like the Florida, probably the Florida Peninsula, probably parts 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:40.400 of Maine. Elk. We're everywhere. We've recovered some chunks, and 0:42:40.440 --> 0:42:45.040 we hunt elk in those chunks, and we're still simultaneously 0:42:45.320 --> 0:42:47.080 trying to work to put them back on the ground 0:42:47.200 --> 0:42:49.640 in all the places that they belong. And I'll point 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:51.440 out that the people who are doing this are hunters. 0:42:53.600 --> 0:42:55.840 New Jersey cat ladies are not doing a ton of 0:42:55.880 --> 0:43:05.200 work to put elk back in Iowa. Right. Uh? What 0:43:05.200 --> 0:43:07.359 what kind of things you guys make a pete the tent? 0:43:11.320 --> 0:43:13.160 You can't. It's all the rest of it's all the 0:43:13.160 --> 0:43:15.720 rest of it's all secret. Huh. I suppose it matters 0:43:15.719 --> 0:43:22.760 when when the podcast is gonna be posted. Um, give 0:43:22.800 --> 0:43:27.440 a little hinty hint some No, we're gonna rush some 0:43:27.520 --> 0:43:32.040 technical performance pieces of gear that you put on your 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:34.400 body to touch your skin or not. You know, it 0:43:34.880 --> 0:43:39.680 might touch your boots. It might it might touch your boots. 0:43:39.880 --> 0:43:42.640 It just might touch your boots. Does it cover your 0:43:42.680 --> 0:43:48.680 ankles bigger than a bread box? It's about a loaf 0:43:48.760 --> 0:43:50.960 of bread and it has to do with your ankles. 0:43:51.000 --> 0:43:54.640 That's uh, that's one of the irons in the fire. Okay, 0:43:54.680 --> 0:43:58.759 here's something someone wrote in UM. I like this guy 0:43:58.840 --> 0:44:00.680 right off the bat because he said he listened to 0:44:00.760 --> 0:44:04.799 seventy episodes of the podcast in a month's insane must 0:44:04.840 --> 0:44:07.279 do a lot of driving. Now. He takes great with 0:44:07.280 --> 0:44:09.120 a number of people who have come on the podcast, 0:44:09.120 --> 0:44:11.040 and I think what he's thinking about is Pat Durkin, 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:13.560 are good? Are our good friend? The lovely Pat Durkin, 0:44:14.520 --> 0:44:21.880 who argues that he draws the question like just what okay? 0:44:22.400 --> 0:44:25.680 He says how Pat Durkin, who he doesn't name by name, 0:44:25.880 --> 0:44:30.360 is always saying that coyotes don't kill many deer. I 0:44:30.480 --> 0:44:35.520 think what Pat was saying is that coyotes are probably 0:44:35.560 --> 0:44:41.440 not having a very dramatic impact on total dear numbers. Right, 0:44:42.400 --> 0:44:44.799 he's saying they don't kill deer, But I think he's saying, 0:44:44.840 --> 0:44:49.360 like when you look at dear numbers, so like numbers 0:44:49.400 --> 0:44:53.359 of adult deer on the ground, um that kyles don't 0:44:53.400 --> 0:44:56.200 seem to be having as dramatic of an impact on 0:44:56.320 --> 0:45:00.480 dear numbers as some people like the claim. But this 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:03.880 guy goes on to have some pretty compelling anecdotal evidence 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:06.520 where he says he has but he knows about a 0:45:06.520 --> 0:45:09.520 couple of coyote dens. He mounts some trail cams on 0:45:09.640 --> 0:45:12.879 these kyote dens, he's got two trail cams posted up 0:45:12.880 --> 0:45:15.960 over two different kyote dens, and last year alone, he 0:45:16.080 --> 0:45:21.520 caught images of coyotes dragging in thirty nine different fonts. 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:29.879 So he's having a hard time believing. Um, he's having 0:45:29.920 --> 0:45:33.960 a hard time reconciling that with the idea that they're 0:45:34.000 --> 0:45:39.480 not impacting local populations. I feel like it would be 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:42.120 nice to have Pat here to kind of defend whatever 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:43.759 it is he did or didn't say. And I would 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:46.880 not ordinarily speak for Pat Durkin, but I will speak 0:45:46.920 --> 0:45:49.520 for Pat Durkin and saying he certainly did not say 0:45:49.600 --> 0:45:54.640 he doesn't think coyotes kills some deer um coyotes. In 0:45:54.960 --> 0:46:00.719 like studies out of Pennsylvania, coyotes and domestic dog are 0:46:00.760 --> 0:46:05.840 the number one killers fawn mortality. Number one fahon mortality 0:46:06.080 --> 0:46:08.120 is kyles and dogs. And the reason you have to 0:46:08.160 --> 0:46:11.360 say that is because when you do a knee cropsy, 0:46:11.560 --> 0:46:14.279 do you say new crops or knee crops? When you 0:46:14.320 --> 0:46:16.640 do a knee crops, he's hard to tell the difference. Yeah, 0:46:17.520 --> 0:46:19.400 it's hard to tell it it feels killed by domestic 0:46:19.440 --> 0:46:23.400 dog or yeah, and coyotes. I mean, Pat, everybody at 0:46:23.400 --> 0:46:26.480 this table would agree. Kyotes certainly do kill a fair 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:28.920 number of fonds and a whole lot of other creators do. 0:46:29.080 --> 0:46:31.560 I mean, in the in the Upper Midwest. This guy 0:46:31.640 --> 0:46:35.040 was from Minnesota, I have that right. But let me 0:46:35.040 --> 0:46:36.919 look here, does he say where he's from? I had 0:46:36.920 --> 0:46:38.279 it he was. I had in my head that he 0:46:38.360 --> 0:46:41.319 was in. Uh, he's up on the Canadian border. I'm 0:46:41.320 --> 0:46:45.120 imagining like boundary on northern Minnesota, ninety miles from the 0:46:45.120 --> 0:46:48.759 Canadian border. So yeah, black bears are gonna be killing 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:53.279 a bounch of fonds too in that country. But a 0:46:53.320 --> 0:46:56.520 couple of points I would make one is you know there, 0:46:56.560 --> 0:46:58.320 this is a species, the white tailed deer is a 0:46:58.360 --> 0:47:03.759 species that has eat that adapted to um withstand very 0:47:03.880 --> 0:47:08.480 strong predation pressure on fawns that occurs in a very 0:47:08.480 --> 0:47:10.879 short period of time. So there's this this idea of 0:47:11.040 --> 0:47:14.200 predators swamping. And that's the reason why you know, the 0:47:14.239 --> 0:47:16.840 deer hunting up in that neck of the woods probably 0:47:16.880 --> 0:47:20.400 in late October early November for a couple of weeks 0:47:20.440 --> 0:47:22.880 is really really good because all those does are in 0:47:23.120 --> 0:47:26.799 estrous and all being bred at the same time. That 0:47:26.880 --> 0:47:30.000 translates into a very narrow window of maybe a couple 0:47:30.000 --> 0:47:32.880 of weeks. The same kind of duration of time that 0:47:32.920 --> 0:47:35.600 the rut would last would be the amount of time 0:47:35.600 --> 0:47:38.160 that all those all those pregnancies would be would be 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:41.920 coming to parturition to birth. And so you have a 0:47:42.000 --> 0:47:45.239 landscape that suddenly has a whole lot of food on 0:47:45.280 --> 0:47:48.840 it in a for a very short window of time, 0:47:49.440 --> 0:47:52.319 and everything is eating those fawns. Coyotes are eating them. 0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:54.360 I mean, one interesting question would be, I'm not doubting 0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:56.920 this guy's story, but if you've got trail cams providing 0:47:56.920 --> 0:48:02.640 pictures of coyotes going to a den with fawns, how 0:48:02.680 --> 0:48:04.840 he arrived at the count of the number of fawnds 0:48:04.880 --> 0:48:07.880 he's actually seeing versus pieces of fawns being carried around. 0:48:07.960 --> 0:48:10.439 You know how you come to like there was thirty 0:48:10.560 --> 0:48:14.040 nine fawns through a series of static pictures. I believe 0:48:14.040 --> 0:48:15.560 the guy though, that there's a bunch of fawns getting 0:48:15.600 --> 0:48:18.040 dragged back. The point is you're talking about an animal 0:48:19.120 --> 0:48:23.920 that has evolved to flood the market with lots of 0:48:23.920 --> 0:48:28.160 offspring predators swamping. It's the exact same thing that oak 0:48:28.200 --> 0:48:31.520 trees do when they massed every few years, right there, 0:48:31.520 --> 0:48:34.320 just dumping tons of acorns out all at the same time, 0:48:34.960 --> 0:48:36.759 and the predator in this case would be something like 0:48:37.000 --> 0:48:42.680 squirrels um and over the or deer um and the 0:48:42.880 --> 0:48:47.200 the driver there would be that over the long haul, 0:48:47.840 --> 0:48:50.840 those oak trees or that deer herd is able to 0:48:50.920 --> 0:48:56.040 support a relatively small base of predators by occasionally flooding 0:48:56.080 --> 0:49:00.040 the market with offspring, as opposed to trickling out a 0:49:00.120 --> 0:49:02.879 corns or fawns over a longer window. Like like put 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:05.359 in an extreme Like to put in an extreme sort 0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:09.040 of scenario is imagine you have a let's say you 0:49:09.040 --> 0:49:12.040 have an enclosure, right, just just a picture like the 0:49:12.080 --> 0:49:13.920 idea of predators. You have an enclosure, and then this 0:49:14.080 --> 0:49:16.279 enclosure you put a black bear, and you put ten 0:49:16.280 --> 0:49:22.319 white tailed dos uh and the does all ten of 0:49:22.320 --> 0:49:24.840 those doughs all dropped their fonds on the same day, 0:49:25.320 --> 0:49:28.160 and they're gonna be vulnerable to predation for forty eight hours. 0:49:29.320 --> 0:49:33.560 That black bear is gonna eat one or two in 0:49:33.600 --> 0:49:37.560 that forty eight hour window, and the other eight are 0:49:37.560 --> 0:49:40.040 gonna be by that point up and running around. Now, 0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:42.719 picture that those doughs came in and they spread it 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:46.840 out so that one had a baby every two weeks, 0:49:46.840 --> 0:49:50.160 probably all those fonds will be dead exactly, so which 0:49:50.200 --> 0:49:53.120 just in this predator swamping is something that takes place 0:49:53.120 --> 0:49:58.960 with like bird nesting colonies. Yeah, so having having those 0:49:59.280 --> 0:50:01.920 those carnival or is consuming some fonts as part of 0:50:01.960 --> 0:50:06.840 the system. Um. You know, another interesting question for the 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:09.800 guy would be how's his deer hunting ben? Has he 0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:11.440 been able to fill his tags? As you see in 0:50:11.480 --> 0:50:13.399 Dear it sounds like you know a guy who's paying 0:50:13.440 --> 0:50:16.200 attention to the local landscape. My guess is he's probably 0:50:16.239 --> 0:50:20.160 a on the upper end of the distribution tail in 0:50:20.280 --> 0:50:25.440 terms of hunter success. Right, he's curious, he's active in 0:50:25.480 --> 0:50:28.799 the outdoors, so he's probably a good hunter. Um. But 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:30.600 here there's another thing too that you gotta get into it. 0:50:30.719 --> 0:50:35.640 This is, uh, there's there's the idea of like carrying capacity, 0:50:36.200 --> 0:50:42.120 So how many adult deer can the landscape support? And 0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:45.160 oftentimes you're gonna wind up with a somewhat. I mean, 0:50:45.200 --> 0:50:47.719 there's all kinds of variabilities and things are happening in 0:50:47.800 --> 0:50:50.279 mass crops and weather and all this stuff. But you're 0:50:50.280 --> 0:50:51.880 gonna have a sort of sense that that that the 0:50:52.000 --> 0:50:55.040 area can support x number of deer through the winter, 0:50:56.840 --> 0:51:01.760 and if and that number is going to stay relatively fixed, 0:51:03.640 --> 0:51:06.840 and you could be losing tons of fawns to coyotes, 0:51:07.280 --> 0:51:09.919 but still finding that at the end of their most 0:51:10.000 --> 0:51:13.200 vulnerable stretch of time, so that every year in March 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:16.160 or every year in April, you're gonna be you have 0:51:16.400 --> 0:51:19.360 that same number of deer have made it through the winter, 0:51:20.320 --> 0:51:23.280 and that when you when these fawns are getting killed, 0:51:23.680 --> 0:51:26.719 it's just making room for the next one, because they're 0:51:26.719 --> 0:51:29.799 gonna find there there the bottleneck that they're gonna pass through, 0:51:29.960 --> 0:51:33.680 is they're gonna pass through a bottleneck usually like white 0:51:33.719 --> 0:51:36.200 tails and northern climates are passing through a bottleneck in 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:39.480 the late winter, and only a certain number going to 0:51:39.560 --> 0:51:42.120 fit through that bottleneck anyway, that's right, And there's usually 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:45.680 disproportionate mortality for those young of the year, right, So 0:51:45.760 --> 0:51:49.520 those those are the ones that typically have less likelihood 0:51:49.520 --> 0:51:54.640 of passing through that bottleneck. And the ecological term you're 0:51:54.680 --> 0:52:00.000 touching on is the idea of compensatory mortality versus additive mortality. 0:52:00.480 --> 0:52:04.400 So the idea that um, if a fawn is killed 0:52:05.160 --> 0:52:09.840 by a coyote in the summer that would have otherwise 0:52:10.000 --> 0:52:15.239 made it through the winter, there's potential for that to 0:52:15.280 --> 0:52:18.560 be an additive source of mortality. But if you say 0:52:18.600 --> 0:52:22.359 the coyote wasn't there, you had let me back up, 0:52:22.360 --> 0:52:26.400 I'll simplify it. You've got ten fawns, okay, and only 0:52:26.480 --> 0:52:28.399 five of those fawns are going to make it through 0:52:28.400 --> 0:52:31.719 that bottleneck you're talking about late in the winter. So 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:36.919 there's enough resources for five of them to survive. And 0:52:37.960 --> 0:52:40.359 you have no coyotes in the system. So you have 0:52:40.440 --> 0:52:43.839 five of the ten that die as a result of 0:52:44.120 --> 0:52:49.200 hardship in the wintertime. If you have coyotes there that 0:52:49.440 --> 0:52:52.640 kill those five during the summertime and the other five 0:52:52.760 --> 0:52:56.880 make it through the harsh times of late winter, you 0:52:56.880 --> 0:52:59.879 would say that that's that source of mortality. The five 0:53:00.040 --> 0:53:04.240 went to the coyotes was compensated for you had higher 0:53:04.239 --> 0:53:06.920 survival a hundred percent of the remaining individuals. Those five 0:53:06.960 --> 0:53:09.400 individuals made it through winter, as opposed to only fifty 0:53:09.920 --> 0:53:13.520 of those individuals making it through winter. So there's all 0:53:13.600 --> 0:53:18.440 kinds of things that kill fawns. Um the fact that 0:53:18.480 --> 0:53:22.480 they've evolved with these predators, the coyotes and others and 0:53:22.680 --> 0:53:27.680 have these reproductive strategies. And you know, another another um 0:53:27.920 --> 0:53:29.759 form of defense they have is the fact, as you 0:53:29.840 --> 0:53:32.160 touched on, it's not a long window of time that 0:53:32.200 --> 0:53:36.239 they're super susceptible to being killed by coyotes. It's a 0:53:36.239 --> 0:53:37.799 matter of a couple of days that they're able to 0:53:38.000 --> 0:53:40.640 run and be up on their feet. Super success. Super 0:53:40.640 --> 0:53:44.520 success was the word super susceptible. Susceptible Like when you're 0:53:44.520 --> 0:53:47.640 off hunting morals and you find a fawn just laying there. Yeah, 0:53:47.719 --> 0:53:50.880 like that's a pile and stumbled across at at in 0:53:50.920 --> 0:53:53.440 a very narrow window of time, and and you know 0:53:53.480 --> 0:53:55.880 when that's the case, I mean, everything on the landscape 0:53:55.880 --> 0:53:58.520 is fat and happy. The bears are doing really well 0:53:58.560 --> 0:54:02.719 for that narrow window of time. But there aren't too 0:54:02.719 --> 0:54:05.319 many places that come to my mind where you know, 0:54:05.680 --> 0:54:09.040 as a biologist, I'm thinking, man, I'm really concerned about 0:54:09.120 --> 0:54:12.360 a lack of abundance and white tail deer. You know, 0:54:12.560 --> 0:54:15.680 I know there's places that the numbers are higher and lower, 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:18.120 and everybody likes to see deer when they're out there hunting, 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:22.120 but um recognizing there's going to be some predation on 0:54:22.160 --> 0:54:24.759 the landscape, and the fact that this guy gets to 0:54:24.800 --> 0:54:27.200 see that on his trail cameras, you know, I'd be 0:54:27.239 --> 0:54:30.560 fascinated looking at the pictures and think cool to see 0:54:30.560 --> 0:54:33.560 the coyotes doing their thing. Hopefully I'm still seeing some 0:54:33.560 --> 0:54:35.799 some deer in the fall. I guess as this guy is. 0:54:36.239 --> 0:54:38.600 If he's in a situation where the coyotes are able 0:54:38.640 --> 0:54:42.480 to capture that many fawns from that small area, chances 0:54:42.480 --> 0:54:44.520 are there's a heck of a lot of deer kicking 0:54:44.560 --> 0:54:47.400 out fawns. So it doesn't sound like a situation where 0:54:47.680 --> 0:54:50.560 the white tail numbers or something anybody should be really 0:54:50.600 --> 0:54:58.920 worried about. It did man, I was going to roll 0:54:58.960 --> 0:55:02.399 through it, man, just play a little. But uh, I'm good. 0:55:02.840 --> 0:55:06.560 I'm good at a place called Stone Glaciers Old, I 0:55:06.600 --> 0:55:08.920 gotta I got a little follow up on this before 0:55:08.960 --> 0:55:13.080 we jump back to pestering Pete. Just I'm not getting 0:55:13.080 --> 0:55:14.520 the kind of answers out of them that want to 0:55:14.520 --> 0:55:17.799 get out of them, But go ahead. Talking about this 0:55:17.840 --> 0:55:20.200 brings up this thing that I hear a lot in 0:55:20.360 --> 0:55:23.960 our community about. And it seems like hunters are kind 0:55:23.960 --> 0:55:26.080 of talking about out of both sides of their mouth 0:55:26.120 --> 0:55:29.840 on this one, because at one one Instagram post is 0:55:30.920 --> 0:55:35.160 hunters are such a big part of controlling these populations. 0:55:35.160 --> 0:55:38.120 So there's not too many deer and not too many elk, 0:55:39.040 --> 0:55:42.440 and you know, we're like the ones that are keeping 0:55:42.480 --> 0:55:45.440 all this and check and then out of the other 0:55:45.960 --> 0:55:48.160 side of their mouth, it's and that's why we gotta 0:55:48.239 --> 0:55:51.239 kill all the wolves and coyotes, because if we don't 0:55:51.239 --> 0:55:54.160 manage that population, they're gonna kill off all the deer 0:55:54.200 --> 0:55:57.640 that we're also managing. And so you don't mean to 0:55:57.680 --> 0:56:00.960 tell me that there's some hunters who has some squirrel justification, 0:56:01.880 --> 0:56:04.680 squirreling justification. Yeah, just say you like to go out 0:56:04.680 --> 0:56:07.960 and hunt a bunch um, And yeah, I like to 0:56:08.040 --> 0:56:10.239 hunt a bunch and I hope that there's like maintains, 0:56:10.280 --> 0:56:14.520 like good stable, huntable populations of animals out there. That 0:56:14.680 --> 0:56:16.719 is funny that you're like, no, man, we gott a 0:56:16.800 --> 0:56:18.920 hunt deer because I'll be overpopulated, and we gotta kill 0:56:19.000 --> 0:56:21.759 kyles because they're killing deer. Yeah, totally. And the only 0:56:21.760 --> 0:56:24.160 reason I bring it up is because like I just think, 0:56:24.200 --> 0:56:26.719 like that argument is full of holes. And so if 0:56:26.840 --> 0:56:29.440 if you're also of the group that is like saying like, 0:56:29.480 --> 0:56:32.600 oh my god, hunting is dying right now, Like it's 0:56:32.640 --> 0:56:35.120 not good to be going out there with arguments that 0:56:35.480 --> 0:56:38.960 don't really hold up. That's right. I've been following some 0:56:39.280 --> 0:56:42.760 Australian hunters and they they got the whole other weird 0:56:43.000 --> 0:56:46.920 thing there Elwyes doing. Or they're always saying like, um, 0:56:46.960 --> 0:56:49.840 hey man, this is all non native. We need to 0:56:49.920 --> 0:56:53.319 kill all these animals because they're non native and we're 0:56:53.360 --> 0:56:55.960 doing a great service to the you know, the biota 0:56:56.320 --> 0:57:01.200 of Australia by killing all these non native animals. But 0:57:01.280 --> 0:57:04.719 then they're like, damn do I love these animals? This 0:57:04.800 --> 0:57:08.080 is all we eat all the time, love being on 0:57:08.120 --> 0:57:10.719 the wild with these animals. But man, we gotta kill 0:57:10.760 --> 0:57:15.480 all these animals. Or they always shoot there like it's 0:57:15.600 --> 0:57:21.360 big males, so they're shooting like stags and bucks because 0:57:21.400 --> 0:57:23.040 we've got to control the animals. Like, if you want 0:57:23.040 --> 0:57:24.560 to control the animals, I don't know if you've taken 0:57:24.680 --> 0:57:27.760 while they biology one on one yet shoot the females. 0:57:28.960 --> 0:57:32.200 If that's really what this is about, shoot females. It 0:57:32.280 --> 0:57:36.120 doesn't do any good for anything in terms of number 0:57:36.160 --> 0:57:40.360 control to kill males. And people are smart, man, you've 0:57:40.360 --> 0:57:44.200 got to be I think authentic in these conversations. There's 0:57:44.320 --> 0:57:47.520 there's nothing wrong, in my opinion with really liking to 0:57:47.640 --> 0:57:52.960 hunt and havn't it be motivated by a desire to 0:57:52.960 --> 0:57:55.840 be outside getting good food, all that kind of stuff. 0:57:55.840 --> 0:57:59.320 But if you're just trying to argue points that are 0:57:59.640 --> 0:58:02.760 all all the holes, somebody who has no affiliation with 0:58:02.840 --> 0:58:06.120 hunting or the outdoors is going to pretty easily start 0:58:06.240 --> 0:58:08.840 picking at this idea of talking on both sides of 0:58:08.840 --> 0:58:10.520 your mouth. And I think, you know, it's a really 0:58:10.520 --> 0:58:13.920 good observation you made. Be honest with respect to the 0:58:14.320 --> 0:58:17.960 predator control versus the key role of hunters. If you 0:58:18.000 --> 0:58:20.560 were to pull every hunter in Americans say, hey, man, 0:58:20.600 --> 0:58:23.320 if we could snap our fingers right now and have 0:58:23.560 --> 0:58:27.840 the full the full cast of of predators back on 0:58:27.880 --> 0:58:31.640 the landscape and have these systems function with natural predator 0:58:31.640 --> 0:58:35.919 prey dynamics, no need for human beings to be part 0:58:35.960 --> 0:58:38.440 of that equation anymore. It's gonna be wolves and bears 0:58:38.520 --> 0:58:42.360 and lions and coyotes bobcats doing all that work for us. 0:58:42.960 --> 0:58:45.400 We can wipe our hands, We're we're good to go. 0:58:46.480 --> 0:58:48.200 How many hunters are gonna be like, oh yeah, all right, 0:58:48.280 --> 0:58:50.640 that's cool. I don't think any of them. So I 0:58:50.760 --> 0:58:53.000 was only doing it to make sure everything was going 0:58:53.040 --> 0:58:56.320 to be the reality, actually hate hunt. I actually hate hunting, 0:58:56.360 --> 0:58:58.320 but I was just very worried about too many deer. 0:58:58.840 --> 0:59:02.200 So this is there's nothing wrong with saying this is 0:59:02.240 --> 0:59:06.840 something you know that we deeply enjoy and we you know, 0:59:07.760 --> 0:59:14.440 identify fundamentally in our our personal identities as being hunters 0:59:14.440 --> 0:59:17.000 and people who are connected to the land and participatory. 0:59:17.000 --> 0:59:19.000 And I would make the argument too that if you 0:59:19.000 --> 0:59:21.560 want to talk about the full cast of North American 0:59:22.040 --> 0:59:26.080 predators or global predators, that for many, many years Homo 0:59:26.160 --> 0:59:28.840 sapiens have been part of that cast of characters, and 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:32.440 celebrating that point um and this desire to maintain a 0:59:32.440 --> 0:59:36.480 connection to who we are fundamentally in our species identity, 0:59:37.120 --> 0:59:40.800 I think is a much stronger case than saying, well, 0:59:40.840 --> 0:59:43.200 we've got this job to do and you know, we 0:59:43.280 --> 0:59:45.320 gotta we gotta make sure there aren't too many deer, 0:59:45.440 --> 0:59:47.240 and oh yeah, we got gotta make sure there aren't 0:59:47.280 --> 0:59:51.080 too many predators. It's like, no, man, celebrate the fact 0:59:51.200 --> 0:59:55.640 that we are maintaining a strong personal connection to the land, 0:59:55.800 --> 0:59:58.440 a personal connection to our identity. The species that we 0:59:58.520 --> 1:00:01.080 evolved as would is one of that, you know, one 1:00:01.080 --> 1:00:04.320 of the key species in that cast of predators. And 1:00:04.360 --> 1:00:09.280 be able to, you know, to share authentic stories and 1:00:09.360 --> 1:00:13.600 authentic information about what we do and not try to 1:00:13.720 --> 1:00:16.479 not try to paint it with some inauthentic brush, because 1:00:17.680 --> 1:00:20.160 you have to give credit to the people with whom 1:00:20.160 --> 1:00:22.600 are communicating about this stuff. They're going to be perceptive, 1:00:22.640 --> 1:00:24.960 They're going to be able to poke holes. And if 1:00:24.960 --> 1:00:27.000 you're in a thoughtful conversation, my hope would be people 1:00:27.000 --> 1:00:31.760 are eager to question and pick and ask. And I 1:00:31.800 --> 1:00:35.840 think a lot of our our community of hunters, you know, 1:00:35.880 --> 1:00:40.840 we point to these kind of tired, um, overused justifications 1:00:40.880 --> 1:00:43.680 that we maybe haven't put as much thought into. And 1:00:43.760 --> 1:00:48.400 it's absolutely okay to really enjoy hunting and have that 1:00:48.440 --> 1:00:50.600 be a primary motivation and not feel like you have 1:00:50.680 --> 1:00:52.960 to talk about it. Is this what we've got this 1:00:53.040 --> 1:00:55.360 job to do in the ecosystem, because I think, frankly, 1:00:55.400 --> 1:00:57.840 that's one of the weakest arguments that we have. Yeah, 1:00:57.840 --> 1:01:00.280 but I think it's helpful to point out, though, to 1:01:00.280 --> 1:01:05.280 to to focus on your particular love of the natural world, 1:01:05.320 --> 1:01:07.920 your love of being out of doors, um. Could be 1:01:08.000 --> 1:01:10.920 your love of hunting for food that you feed to 1:01:10.960 --> 1:01:15.160 your family, your interactions, um. And it's helpful to point 1:01:15.160 --> 1:01:18.040 out and say, and in addition to all of that, 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:22.520 the system that we've developed in this country makes it 1:01:22.600 --> 1:01:26.320 that my participation in these activities is normally is like 1:01:26.680 --> 1:01:31.480 enormously productive in terms of land management and funding for 1:01:31.520 --> 1:01:36.520 wildlife work. Yes, it's it's it's a it's it's a 1:01:36.600 --> 1:01:38.960 valuable thing to point out. It's not that I don't 1:01:38.960 --> 1:01:40.920 think anyone's gonna say like, I'd have a hard time. 1:01:40.920 --> 1:01:43.680 As someone said, dude, the only reason I hunt is 1:01:43.680 --> 1:01:47.160 because when I buy a hunting license, that provides the 1:01:47.240 --> 1:01:50.440 funding for my state Phishing Game Agency to work on 1:01:50.560 --> 1:01:55.200 disease issues and enforcement of wildlife regulations and land enhancement projects. 1:01:55.320 --> 1:01:56.680 That's why I'm out, Because if that was the case, 1:01:56.680 --> 1:01:59.280 you just send the money, You just send them a check. Right. 1:01:59.600 --> 1:02:03.600 So I guess like, there's what I personally like about this, 1:02:04.320 --> 1:02:06.280 and you can take pride in the fact that the 1:02:06.440 --> 1:02:10.000 systems that we've developed over time make it that my 1:02:10.160 --> 1:02:15.000 participation in the activity is actually productive for the land 1:02:15.120 --> 1:02:18.560 and the animals. I'm not a problems there's no problem 1:02:18.640 --> 1:02:21.960 with that at all. What I what I think. What 1:02:22.080 --> 1:02:25.000 I think shines through though, when you have somebody making 1:02:25.000 --> 1:02:29.640 a justification like Joannie was talking about where you're saying simultaneously, 1:02:29.920 --> 1:02:32.120 I need to be able to play a role in 1:02:32.200 --> 1:02:35.640 helping control the white tailed deer heard for example, and 1:02:35.640 --> 1:02:39.560 then meanwhile, yeah, we've got these issues with too many coyotes. 1:02:39.600 --> 1:02:41.840 If we don't manage the coyote numbers, we're not going 1:02:41.920 --> 1:02:46.080 to have any deer to hunt. Um. That kind of 1:02:46.080 --> 1:02:49.320 a conversation where holes can be poked. I think that's 1:02:49.360 --> 1:02:54.440 coming from a place of and and this might frustrate 1:02:54.480 --> 1:02:59.000 some listeners. I apologize, but thoughtful discourse here. It's a 1:02:59.080 --> 1:03:02.080 it's a selfish kind of mindset, right, Like I want 1:03:02.080 --> 1:03:05.120 to have deer on the landscape so that I, as 1:03:05.160 --> 1:03:09.000 a hunter can get a deer. It's coming from a 1:03:09.040 --> 1:03:13.800 place of I'm totally comfortable centrism. Okay, yeah, but but okay. 1:03:13.880 --> 1:03:17.120 But my argument is the problem is saying like, no, 1:03:17.200 --> 1:03:18.720 I want there to be deer because I like to 1:03:18.760 --> 1:03:20.959 hunt deer. Yeah, let me finish my my point though, 1:03:21.000 --> 1:03:25.000 because I I like getting a deer as much as 1:03:25.000 --> 1:03:29.160 the next guy. But I'm also interested in having that 1:03:29.240 --> 1:03:34.400 resource available to support other species on the landscape that 1:03:34.440 --> 1:03:37.520 have evolved there to be part of that system. So 1:03:37.800 --> 1:03:40.720 for me, I want to have deer on the landscape 1:03:41.000 --> 1:03:43.160 because I like to get a deer. I mean, if 1:03:43.200 --> 1:03:45.560 there there has not been a year in a long time. 1:03:45.560 --> 1:03:48.160 And this is not some braggadocio about my hunting prowess. 1:03:48.160 --> 1:03:50.320 I'm not the greatest hunter in the world, but I 1:03:50.400 --> 1:03:53.480 have a steady I appreciate the kind words. I have 1:03:53.520 --> 1:03:56.920 a steady supply of hard earned game meat in my freezer, 1:03:57.600 --> 1:04:00.800 like all of us here at the table, do okay, 1:04:01.400 --> 1:04:05.200 And that's a fundamental element of my identity. If you 1:04:05.240 --> 1:04:06.920 took that away from me, that would be a major 1:04:06.960 --> 1:04:09.480 impact to me and my family in terms of our lifestyle, 1:04:09.520 --> 1:04:13.480 how we eat. Um. So I like having a deer 1:04:13.520 --> 1:04:16.200 as much as the next guy, but I would submit 1:04:16.240 --> 1:04:21.000 to you that on an equal level of appreciation in 1:04:21.080 --> 1:04:24.800 my mind with my own use of that resource, I 1:04:25.000 --> 1:04:30.120 value the fact that that dear herd exists and is 1:04:30.160 --> 1:04:35.800 supporting a whole cast of other awesome animals in that 1:04:36.320 --> 1:04:40.640 trophic web, that food web. So I this is the 1:04:40.720 --> 1:04:45.440 selfishness that I was touching on. It's not saying I 1:04:45.480 --> 1:04:47.240 have a problem with somebody saying they really want to 1:04:47.240 --> 1:04:49.840 get a deer. What I have a problem with is 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:54.360 somebody saying, I feel like I have the corner around 1:04:54.400 --> 1:04:57.000 the market for deer, and these deer are all here 1:04:57.040 --> 1:05:00.760 for human beings, and I don't have any tolerant. It's 1:05:00.800 --> 1:05:04.440 for all these other animals in the landscape that are 1:05:04.480 --> 1:05:09.960 also working hard two transfer those deer into their calories. 1:05:10.480 --> 1:05:15.680 So I love the idea of sharing my deer hunting 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:19.880 spots with the full cast of species that evolved to 1:05:19.920 --> 1:05:22.560 be part of that system. And if you gave me 1:05:22.600 --> 1:05:25.560 the choice of hunting in a place where I could 1:05:26.600 --> 1:05:32.400 easily kill a deer every year in the absence of 1:05:32.480 --> 1:05:36.480 that sharing, or another word would be that competition versus 1:05:36.520 --> 1:05:38.840 a place where maybe I'd kill a deer every other year, 1:05:40.360 --> 1:05:44.720 but there's this robust community of all these other organisms 1:05:44.760 --> 1:05:50.040 that depend on each other for their existence, I would take. 1:05:51.560 --> 1:05:54.080 I would take the latter option. And I think the 1:05:54.120 --> 1:05:59.960 extreme example of you know, the ease of killing something 1:06:00.040 --> 1:06:02.160 every year and in the total control you could talk 1:06:02.200 --> 1:06:05.400 about like a high fenced deer kind of operation where 1:06:05.400 --> 1:06:12.640 there's no predators, very high likelihood of success, and increasingly artificial. Yeah, 1:06:12.680 --> 1:06:17.120 I'm looking for a situation where you're experiencing the ecosystem 1:06:17.160 --> 1:06:20.840 and it's full complement of species, and if that comes 1:06:20.840 --> 1:06:24.160 with potential for a lower degree of success in my hunting, 1:06:24.720 --> 1:06:26.800 so be it, because I would rather have an intact 1:06:26.840 --> 1:06:30.240 ecosystem in which I can be an active participant, maybe 1:06:30.240 --> 1:06:34.360 with a lower success rate, than a situation where there's 1:06:34.360 --> 1:06:36.560 a whole pile of deer out there and I'm going 1:06:36.640 --> 1:06:40.160 to get two bucks and four does every year without 1:06:40.200 --> 1:06:44.240 a whole lot of work because the system has been 1:06:44.280 --> 1:06:49.560 so manipulated that that opportunity exists. I think that that's 1:06:49.560 --> 1:06:51.600 the thing we've touched on the past is I think 1:06:52.360 --> 1:06:58.080 that's why I kind of like caution people against assessing 1:06:58.240 --> 1:07:01.400 the health of the lands gate by looking at how 1:07:01.400 --> 1:07:03.640 many deer I have, how many turkeys I have, Because 1:07:03.640 --> 1:07:06.560 you could go into a property, go into a chunk 1:07:06.600 --> 1:07:11.320 of ground and scrub it of its bio diversity. In 1:07:11.400 --> 1:07:14.360 scrubbed of like well, you know, Leopold's cogs and wheels, 1:07:14.440 --> 1:07:16.760 right of the natural world. Scrub it all out, and 1:07:16.760 --> 1:07:19.960 you've got like the right ratio of soybeans to multi 1:07:19.960 --> 1:07:24.400 flora rose, you know, to blow down timber and have 1:07:24.600 --> 1:07:27.400 a ton of deer and all other you've gotten rid 1:07:27.440 --> 1:07:32.080 of all other native much of the other native fauna 1:07:32.320 --> 1:07:34.840 and flora, and you go out like, look it's healthy 1:07:34.840 --> 1:07:36.280 because there's deer here. It's like you could be looking 1:07:36.320 --> 1:07:39.640 at a very unhealthy landscape. It's got a shiploaded deer 1:07:39.680 --> 1:07:42.880 on it, and it has been another way to measure it. 1:07:44.480 --> 1:07:48.000 So I agree, like, there's there's nothing you're saying that 1:07:48.040 --> 1:07:50.720 I think even like borders on like a controversial sentiment. 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:54.400 I don't know, man, I feel like there's an element 1:07:54.480 --> 1:07:58.640 of our community of hunters that is um overly focused 1:07:58.760 --> 1:08:05.960 on simple measures of what success looks like did I 1:08:06.000 --> 1:08:08.960 get a deer? Did I not get a deer, as 1:08:09.000 --> 1:08:14.080 opposed to being more considerate of the health of the 1:08:14.160 --> 1:08:20.920 systems that they are participating in. So, you know, I 1:08:21.439 --> 1:08:26.479 do believe there's an element of our community that's fairly 1:08:27.040 --> 1:08:30.880 self centered and selfish and the idea of scrubbing every 1:08:30.880 --> 1:08:33.679 predator from the landscape so that they could have more dear, 1:08:34.560 --> 1:08:38.120 which has been something that the hunting community has wrestled 1:08:38.160 --> 1:08:42.599 with for a hundred plus years. Um, I think that's 1:08:42.600 --> 1:08:45.639 still alive and well in some quarters. And for me personally, 1:08:45.680 --> 1:08:49.680 I'm speaking you know, about my own philosophy here, I 1:08:49.720 --> 1:08:52.439 think it's I think it's flawed, and I think it's 1:08:52.520 --> 1:08:56.519 detrimental to our ability to have thoughtful conversations with the 1:08:56.560 --> 1:09:00.160 non hunting public about the activity when it's coming from 1:09:00.160 --> 1:09:03.840 a really selfish place. If you're saying, and this is 1:09:03.840 --> 1:09:07.720 getting back to Yanni's observation about um, you know, I'm 1:09:07.720 --> 1:09:09.840 playing this role as a as a deer manager. I'm 1:09:09.840 --> 1:09:12.280 playing this role as a predator manager. I think what 1:09:12.439 --> 1:09:14.880 starts to come through there is just this idea that 1:09:14.920 --> 1:09:17.880 the deer are here from me, as opposed to I'm 1:09:17.920 --> 1:09:22.160 a participant in this system that I treasure, that I cherish, 1:09:22.200 --> 1:09:26.200 and that I know something about. That's a very different conversation. 1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:29.040 And I think that conversation about being an active participant 1:09:29.040 --> 1:09:32.000 in a community that you know something about, and by 1:09:32.040 --> 1:09:35.559 community I mean an ecological community where you're a predator 1:09:35.600 --> 1:09:38.640 involved in this system that you've come to understand and 1:09:38.680 --> 1:09:42.959 appreciate and cherish. That kind of conversation I think can resonate, 1:09:43.560 --> 1:09:45.960 should resonate with a whole lot of people who might 1:09:46.000 --> 1:09:49.519 never want to hunt. And the days of us, you know, 1:09:52.479 --> 1:09:55.160 arguing about this stuff from a position of feeling like 1:09:55.160 --> 1:09:59.360 we've got these really strong rights. You know, we exist 1:09:59.360 --> 1:10:01.360 in a democrat out of society, and I think we 1:10:01.720 --> 1:10:07.439 are our ability to continue participating in these activities, maybe 1:10:07.439 --> 1:10:09.879 not in our generation, but maybe in our grandkids generation. 1:10:10.160 --> 1:10:13.080 It's going to hinge on whether or not we can 1:10:13.200 --> 1:10:17.720 communicate authentically and effectively. And that conversation about being an 1:10:17.720 --> 1:10:21.240 active participant who's immersed in the systems that evolved us 1:10:21.240 --> 1:10:24.479 as a species, I think that's that's an argument, that's 1:10:24.479 --> 1:10:26.879 a set of observations that's going to continue to resonate 1:10:26.920 --> 1:10:30.479 with the non hunting and hunting public in perpetuity. Whereas 1:10:30.479 --> 1:10:34.760 a conversation about I need to manage the deer so 1:10:34.760 --> 1:10:36.519 they don't get over abundant, I need to manage the 1:10:36.560 --> 1:10:40.240 coyotes so they don't need all my dear, that conversation 1:10:40.280 --> 1:10:46.040 is gonna gonna fall flat on its face. I'm tracking. 1:10:46.960 --> 1:10:50.719 I'd like to point out too, very quickly that you know, hunting, 1:10:50.840 --> 1:10:56.920 the animals that we take as hunters are compensatory, right, yes, 1:10:57.120 --> 1:10:59.920 And in most you know, unless they're really trying to 1:11:00.200 --> 1:11:03.160 down a population of said, you know, certain animal, where 1:11:03.160 --> 1:11:04.960 they're also they're like, O could kill a bunch of dollars, 1:11:05.000 --> 1:11:07.280 kill a bunch of this, right, most most of these 1:11:07.320 --> 1:11:10.160 systems we manage so that we're sort of like, not 1:11:10.240 --> 1:11:13.360 like extra doing extra killing. We're like, if you took 1:11:13.439 --> 1:11:17.840 us out, you roughly have the same population. It's not 1:11:18.000 --> 1:11:25.920 quite that simplenny. I mean, what drives the establishment of 1:11:26.560 --> 1:11:30.400 quotas is gonna is going to be a combination of 1:11:31.640 --> 1:11:35.599 ecological science and social science. The reality is, in any 1:11:35.640 --> 1:11:38.559 one of these systems, we could be managing it up 1:11:38.680 --> 1:11:43.840 or down potentially um for more fewer animals. And it's 1:11:43.840 --> 1:11:46.880 a matter of yeah, making sure it's sustainable, but you 1:11:46.880 --> 1:11:49.800 could have a sustainable number of animals on the landscape 1:11:50.360 --> 1:11:53.000 that is higher or lower than what we do. So 1:11:53.120 --> 1:11:56.080 not all the hunting associated mortality is going to be 1:11:56.479 --> 1:11:59.120 compensatory or additive. Yeah, this is something that comes up 1:11:59.160 --> 1:12:01.439 all the time. Um. And we've talked about a bunch 1:12:01.439 --> 1:12:04.519 of times when people say, like deer overpopulated, it's kind 1:12:04.520 --> 1:12:09.000 of well by whose measure, right, because it could be 1:12:09.080 --> 1:12:13.400 that oftentimes from a hunter's perspective, they're hardly overpopulated. Like 1:12:13.439 --> 1:12:15.400 I don't see it. A matter of fact, I didn't 1:12:15.400 --> 1:12:18.600 even get one last year. But from a from the 1:12:18.680 --> 1:12:24.360 automobile insurance industry might think they're way overpopulated. When you 1:12:24.360 --> 1:12:26.960 look at how many claims they're handling for deer car collisions. 1:12:27.720 --> 1:12:32.200 Agricultural interests might say they're overpopulated when they're looking at 1:12:32.320 --> 1:12:37.160 orchard damage or people who are losing whole orchard plantings 1:12:38.080 --> 1:12:41.680 two deer, and they might argue that it's overabundant. And 1:12:41.720 --> 1:12:44.559 so I think that they're that the wildlife managers are 1:12:44.600 --> 1:12:50.479 always needing to manipulate the valve because on one hand, 1:12:50.600 --> 1:12:52.360 they're they're hearing from hunters, we want more deer on 1:12:52.360 --> 1:12:55.320 the landscape, we want hire success rates, and other people, 1:12:55.760 --> 1:12:58.839 you know, automobile insurance, egg and the host of others. 1:13:00.080 --> 1:13:03.000 In some places, even like the landscaping industry is saying like, man, 1:13:03.040 --> 1:13:06.400 we've got close at valva and and you're you're making 1:13:06.439 --> 1:13:10.439 like constant microadjustments. Yeah, and they're rooted in different value sets. 1:13:10.439 --> 1:13:14.640 And and for me, you know, as somebody who um 1:13:14.680 --> 1:13:20.320 as a trend ecologist and somebody who values a system 1:13:20.479 --> 1:13:23.559 in which you have all the all the players present 1:13:23.720 --> 1:13:28.320 and interacting the way they have evolved to interact. Another 1:13:28.640 --> 1:13:31.200 criterion by which you could you could measure deer over 1:13:31.200 --> 1:13:34.440 abundance would be are there so many deer on the landscape? 1:13:34.479 --> 1:13:39.240 That they're having a negative effect on other species that 1:13:39.280 --> 1:13:42.640 are part of that ecosystem, and there are plenty of 1:13:42.640 --> 1:13:45.439 examples where that's been shown to be the case. So 1:13:45.960 --> 1:13:51.519 like the big drive to lower snow geese numbers has 1:13:51.520 --> 1:13:55.479 as much to do with protecting their habitat Arctic like 1:13:55.920 --> 1:13:59.960 Arctic coastal habitat as it does grain fields in Louisy 1:14:00.000 --> 1:14:02.040 in Texas. And there are places where that's true for 1:14:02.040 --> 1:14:06.280 white tailed deer as well, where um the idea of 1:14:06.280 --> 1:14:11.120 trying to bring deer to meet a particular objective, um 1:14:11.240 --> 1:14:14.160 bring numbers down, is driven by trying to protect other 1:14:14.160 --> 1:14:18.400 elements of that ecosystem. So I think it's the the Canada. 1:14:18.479 --> 1:14:22.080 You as a plant up in northern Wisconsin that historically 1:14:22.200 --> 1:14:25.200 was much more abundant, and it's it's, you know, like 1:14:25.280 --> 1:14:27.400 candy to the deer in the wintertime, and it's basically 1:14:27.400 --> 1:14:30.680 been eliminated from much of northern Wisconsin. And the only 1:14:30.720 --> 1:14:32.680 places you have little pockets of it are on the 1:14:32.720 --> 1:14:36.519 Apostle Islands, where the the deer densities are either zero 1:14:36.600 --> 1:14:41.320 or really low. So there are plenty of examples for 1:14:41.400 --> 1:14:44.720 a variety of species where they're over abundance has resulted 1:14:44.880 --> 1:14:48.519 in major implications to the ecosystem. So you have these 1:14:49.000 --> 1:14:52.320 criteria that are social, like the insurance example, or the 1:14:53.400 --> 1:14:55.840 the farmer trying to grow corn or soybeans, and then 1:14:55.880 --> 1:15:01.880 you have other other criteria that are driven more around ecology. 1:15:02.000 --> 1:15:03.559 And which one of those you put more weight on 1:15:03.680 --> 1:15:05.800 is going to be very subjective, Right, what do you 1:15:05.840 --> 1:15:09.639 care most about? If you're the farmer, you might think 1:15:09.640 --> 1:15:13.519 of deer as rats with antlers, um. And if you're 1:15:14.960 --> 1:15:18.800 a guy who waits all year to have that week 1:15:18.840 --> 1:15:21.960 of deer season and you want to be able to 1:15:22.640 --> 1:15:25.280 fill X number of tags, you might have a very 1:15:25.320 --> 1:15:32.360 different perception of what too many deer looks like. This 1:15:32.439 --> 1:15:37.439 leads into another question, Pet you cool? What I was 1:15:37.439 --> 1:15:41.280 gonna ask you men for? Um? I just wanta how 1:15:41.360 --> 1:15:48.760 bad your Australian accent was. Let's say you work at 1:15:48.800 --> 1:15:52.760 the place like Stone Glacier. Um, why do companies Why 1:15:52.800 --> 1:15:55.920 are companies secrety about? Like? What's the argument to be 1:15:55.960 --> 1:15:58.479 secrety about a product you're gonna make sure? Like? What 1:15:58.520 --> 1:16:02.000 are they afraid of? Um? I don't. I think there's 1:16:02.040 --> 1:16:03.960 just a time and a place to kind of to 1:16:04.080 --> 1:16:08.400 lay out the unveiling of it in the hype. Um 1:16:08.439 --> 1:16:12.080 that that hype is valuable and market you want to 1:16:12.120 --> 1:16:16.479 time that correctly, got with the with the delivering of 1:16:16.520 --> 1:16:18.960 the product. But look, man, when a new Star Wars 1:16:18.960 --> 1:16:24.120 movies coming out, they release trailers. They released trailers for trailers. 1:16:26.240 --> 1:16:28.800 The questions because I had one one time I asked 1:16:28.800 --> 1:16:33.080 this to a guy who works in apparel. Heugh was, 1:16:33.120 --> 1:16:36.400 explain me, there is when you announce new stuff coming out, 1:16:37.280 --> 1:16:42.320 people will stop buying the currently available stuff because like, well, 1:16:42.360 --> 1:16:43.880 I'm just gonna wait for the new stuff. And then 1:16:43.880 --> 1:16:46.040 you could be in a situation where you're left holding 1:16:47.680 --> 1:16:50.240 sure because they're like, well I was gonna buy a 1:16:50.280 --> 1:16:54.880 two thousand and sixteen, but screw it now, I'm just 1:16:54.880 --> 1:16:56.559 gonna wait for the sweet news you can see like 1:16:56.600 --> 1:16:59.120 in cars. Right. And also, you realize, man, once we 1:16:59.200 --> 1:17:03.080 told about this bit a new truck, two eighteen trucks 1:17:03.120 --> 1:17:05.320 sales every we just put it off because of waiting 1:17:05.320 --> 1:17:07.920 for the new one. But in the situation like this, 1:17:07.960 --> 1:17:10.920 where company's launching a product they don't currently make, that 1:17:11.040 --> 1:17:14.080 argument doesn't hold water. It's very true. Just think about 1:17:14.080 --> 1:17:17.360 all this. Yeah, I'm taking notes. Um, that's funny because 1:17:17.360 --> 1:17:19.720 I haven't seen you writ anything. You can give me 1:17:19.760 --> 1:17:22.360 a pen when I came in. Ah. Yeah, I think 1:17:22.520 --> 1:17:25.719 it's just the timing of the of the hype. And 1:17:26.360 --> 1:17:28.519 you know, you don't want people forget about it. You 1:17:28.560 --> 1:17:31.679 want to tell them about it when they can actually 1:17:31.680 --> 1:17:35.880 buy it or close to it. Yeah, yeah, and not 1:17:35.960 --> 1:17:39.320 just get forgotten and blown away in the wind. Can 1:17:39.360 --> 1:17:41.120 I get one of those blue hoodies? Yeah, we just 1:17:41.160 --> 1:17:43.920 came out with these yesterday. Can you tell people about it? 1:17:43.920 --> 1:17:45.760 It's a blue hoodie. It's a blue it's a bright 1:17:45.880 --> 1:17:48.880 blue hoodie, and it has the American flag on my 1:17:49.000 --> 1:17:52.800 chest and the Stone Glacier logo as well. I wear 1:17:52.920 --> 1:17:54.840 this here Stone Glacier shirt because my wife's that it 1:17:54.840 --> 1:17:59.080 makes me look a little younger. Yeah. It's got a yeah, 1:17:59.120 --> 1:18:02.880 which apparently is um something she cares about. Our shadow 1:18:03.120 --> 1:18:06.120 being a shadow lady, the shadow leader issues. That's our 1:18:06.200 --> 1:18:10.679 jersey for a softball team. Don't look like a little 1:18:10.720 --> 1:18:17.400 league player in this some badass mountain hunter man. Our 1:18:17.400 --> 1:18:21.720 softball team name is the Stone Glacier. You crushers. That's good. 1:18:21.800 --> 1:18:25.559 That's a good name. You like not you would, but 1:18:25.720 --> 1:18:30.280 you e w okay, Carl, This is a real doozy, 1:18:30.760 --> 1:18:35.120 the major doozy. All right, and it's long. It's a 1:18:35.240 --> 1:18:42.800 long angry email. Favorite kind a long angry email. And 1:18:42.840 --> 1:18:47.040 I love the guy. He owns the entire collection of 1:18:47.760 --> 1:18:51.360 the Mediator TV show, so he's not a freeloader. Wants 1:18:51.360 --> 1:18:55.799 to point that out. He is critical here where he says, boys, 1:18:56.320 --> 1:18:59.760 I know you guys generally don't find fault and biologists 1:18:59.760 --> 1:19:06.840 and over the agencies and whatnot. But come on, but 1:19:07.120 --> 1:19:10.639 come on, and you know, I don't know that's that's 1:19:10.680 --> 1:19:14.479 an entirely fair statement. I feel that I can find 1:19:14.479 --> 1:19:18.559 plenty of situations where where I have not been happy 1:19:18.600 --> 1:19:24.320 about something that the government agency has done. For instance, uh, 1:19:24.520 --> 1:19:28.040 the State of New Jersey closing bear season. That's a 1:19:28.120 --> 1:19:31.000 government agency making a move that I think is ridiculous 1:19:32.120 --> 1:19:34.720 and misguided. So we've talked about plenty of times and 1:19:34.760 --> 1:19:37.160 government agencies are screwed up. But here's his here's where 1:19:37.200 --> 1:19:41.519 he here's his angry nous, here's his problem. He's from 1:19:41.560 --> 1:19:43.160 Georgia and he keeps wanting to go up to hunt 1:19:43.520 --> 1:19:48.240 moose and Maine. And he's saying, how they keep counting 1:19:48.240 --> 1:19:51.439 moose and Maine. They're like, oh so Maine's thirty five thousand, 1:19:52.280 --> 1:19:56.120 five square miles huge place. It's got one year, they 1:19:56.160 --> 1:19:59.280 say maybe they got sixty thousand moose in Maine on 1:19:59.360 --> 1:20:02.680 the low end. Then there's account that comes out and 1:20:02.720 --> 1:20:06.160 there's someone that doesn't estimate, maybe we've got seventy five 1:20:06.360 --> 1:20:11.080 thousand moose in Maine. So he's pointing out, man shiploads 1:20:11.120 --> 1:20:15.920 a moose in Maine. But then there's some talk about 1:20:16.000 --> 1:20:24.559 how they're wondering what the increasingly warm weather and Maine 1:20:24.880 --> 1:20:27.160 kind of what kind of impacts it's having on moose, 1:20:27.760 --> 1:20:31.120 And there's a lot of worry about increasingly warm summers 1:20:31.160 --> 1:20:35.040 and what and it's concreasingly warm winters, and they're reducing 1:20:35.080 --> 1:20:38.559 the number of tags available to hunters even though they 1:20:38.600 --> 1:20:43.080 still have apparently quite a lot of moose. Like, how 1:20:43.080 --> 1:20:46.200 in the world he's wondering, could it be that the 1:20:46.320 --> 1:20:49.240 number of tags they're issuing, how could it be as 1:20:49.280 --> 1:20:54.479 low as two thousand, one forty moose tags when you've 1:20:54.520 --> 1:20:59.559 got perhaps seventy five thousand moose. Then the writer does 1:20:59.600 --> 1:21:03.200 something a bit confusing where he starts pointing out that 1:21:03.600 --> 1:21:08.679 the Canadian provinces to the north of Maine have many 1:21:08.800 --> 1:21:12.799 more moose two hundred twelve thousand, Newfoundland maybe has around 1:21:12.840 --> 1:21:16.240 three thirty thousand. So he's saying, you got all these 1:21:16.360 --> 1:21:18.760 moose all over the place, why isn't Maine killing more. 1:21:20.360 --> 1:21:22.240 I want to dispatch with a couple of that's before 1:21:22.240 --> 1:21:23.559 we turn it over to Carl and a couple thats 1:21:23.640 --> 1:21:27.080 be one. If you're the moose manager in Maine who 1:21:27.080 --> 1:21:31.439 cares what they have in Newfoundland or New Brunswick, you 1:21:31.479 --> 1:21:33.799 wouldn't say I'm gonna kill all the deer in Iowa 1:21:34.200 --> 1:21:37.479 because Ohio has got a lot of deer, right, So 1:21:37.800 --> 1:21:40.720 that really isn't like a valid point. And not only that, 1:21:40.760 --> 1:21:45.120 but if you look, Maine doesn't manage moose by Maine. 1:21:45.640 --> 1:21:48.920 They manage moose by very like micro chunks of ground, 1:21:49.040 --> 1:21:51.599 so they have, you know, you have districts and regions, 1:21:51.880 --> 1:21:55.080 and you're making like micro management decisions, sometimes down to 1:21:55.120 --> 1:21:59.600 a single valley. So it doesn't like it's germane to 1:21:59.640 --> 1:22:01.679 be like to talk about how many you're in other places. 1:22:01.760 --> 1:22:04.320 Let's focus on the core of the question. He's sort 1:22:04.360 --> 1:22:07.280 of accusing them of saying they're all worried about climate change, 1:22:08.000 --> 1:22:10.519 so they're saying we can't go kill moose, even though 1:22:10.560 --> 1:22:12.720 it's a ton of moose and they're not letting us 1:22:12.760 --> 1:22:17.400 get at as many. No, Carl, can you speak to 1:22:17.520 --> 1:22:20.679 what's going on? And it's happening in more places than Maine. 1:22:21.520 --> 1:22:27.519 What's going on with some of the trepidation around what's 1:22:27.760 --> 1:22:31.439 where moose are at, what role hunting is playing with moose? 1:22:32.360 --> 1:22:35.840 What might be happening to moose? Right? Can you dig 1:22:35.840 --> 1:22:38.519 in totally? And before I before I dig into the 1:22:38.600 --> 1:22:42.720 science side of it, I'm thinking about a strategy for 1:22:42.720 --> 1:22:46.160 trying to get a moose tag. Right, Because you're thinking 1:22:46.160 --> 1:22:49.839 about this guy's strategy, I guess Maine would be awesome. 1:22:50.880 --> 1:22:53.759 But this is getting back to the beginning of the podcast. 1:22:53.880 --> 1:22:57.599 We're talking about the idea of having a beer. If 1:22:57.640 --> 1:23:01.240 I said you want to go moose hunting, you're gonna say, well, 1:23:01.280 --> 1:23:05.760 only if it's in Maine. Well he can drive. He's 1:23:05.800 --> 1:23:07.880 in Georgia and he can drive main And Pete was 1:23:07.920 --> 1:23:10.840 just telling Pete telling me, tell these guys, tell yeah, 1:23:10.880 --> 1:23:12.880 I I also put in for a moose tag in 1:23:12.960 --> 1:23:15.680 Maine this year. Um for a couple of different reasons. One, 1:23:15.720 --> 1:23:18.519 I really want to go moose hunting a lot like this, Uh, 1:23:19.040 --> 1:23:23.080 this guy that wrote in um Phil Phil, Yeah, it 1:23:23.080 --> 1:23:25.439 sounds like Phil really wants a moose tag. I do too. 1:23:26.439 --> 1:23:29.759 I have ten bonus points in Montana as a resident 1:23:30.080 --> 1:23:32.360 in the area I put in for my draw, odds 1:23:32.400 --> 1:23:34.720 are still sub four percent. It's like three and a 1:23:34.760 --> 1:23:37.200 half percent chance that I'll draw this tag this year. 1:23:38.320 --> 1:23:42.120 There are no bonus points in Maine. It's very affordable 1:23:42.160 --> 1:23:44.240 to put your name in the hat, and I think 1:23:44.280 --> 1:23:47.840 I have a seven or eight percent chance. So Pete 1:23:47.840 --> 1:23:49.840 would argue that they're still doing a good job on 1:23:49.960 --> 1:23:52.080 giving out opportunity in Maine. I was doing a quick 1:23:52.160 --> 1:23:53.800 math in my head. I'm not real good at math, 1:23:53.920 --> 1:23:57.360 but uh, a little over two thousand tags to sixty 1:23:57.400 --> 1:24:00.200 thousand moose that seems like somewhere in the ball park 1:24:00.200 --> 1:24:04.160 of what a three or four target objective of harvest. 1:24:04.320 --> 1:24:10.479 That seems pretty normal to me, so I guess it can. 1:24:10.600 --> 1:24:14.519 It can vary. Those percentages can vary widely depending on 1:24:14.560 --> 1:24:17.160 the host of factors, but it's definitely not unusual. I 1:24:17.160 --> 1:24:19.280 think like you would know this. I think with mountain goats, 1:24:19.320 --> 1:24:23.200 I think like in excessive five percent is dangerous, correct, Yeah, 1:24:23.479 --> 1:24:27.519 like Washington manages for a one percent harvest objective of 1:24:27.520 --> 1:24:31.880 mountain goats. Montana manages for four, so different states choose 1:24:32.400 --> 1:24:36.080 different numbers to shoot for. But if moose or anything 1:24:36.080 --> 1:24:40.360 like mountain goats sounds like men on par for the 1:24:40.400 --> 1:24:43.760 course here for Phil, I'm going to criticize the state agency. 1:24:44.040 --> 1:24:47.160 I think, I think I think that the Washington I 1:24:47.160 --> 1:24:49.880 think at Washington Fishing Game, I think their perspective on 1:24:49.960 --> 1:24:52.960 harvest numbers from mountain goasts is ridiculous. And I think, 1:24:53.040 --> 1:24:55.400 and this is a bowl, I can't back it up, 1:24:55.439 --> 1:24:58.120 but I feel there's kind of a there is a 1:24:59.680 --> 1:25:02.800 there's there's a sentiment there seems that at times be 1:25:02.880 --> 1:25:09.160 a sentiment there um of of not maximizing, of not 1:25:09.240 --> 1:25:13.080 maximizing opportunity. They're kind of like, I guess we gotta 1:25:13.080 --> 1:25:15.800 allow him to do some hunting. Yeah, Yeah, I don't 1:25:15.840 --> 1:25:19.000 think you're alone in that feeling. Because the one percent 1:25:19.240 --> 1:25:21.840 is you know, or whatever it is like to be 1:25:21.960 --> 1:25:24.720 on such the low end of the acceptable spectrum. I 1:25:24.760 --> 1:25:27.120 think there's a great argument, and I've read the argument 1:25:27.240 --> 1:25:29.840 made that like in excess of five percent can get 1:25:29.960 --> 1:25:32.639 dangerous on these on mountain goat populations because the low 1:25:32.680 --> 1:25:37.080 fecundity high risk of natural disaster. You know that they 1:25:37.160 --> 1:25:42.320 die by accident and avalanches, rock slides, falling. Um. It 1:25:42.360 --> 1:25:46.680 takes a lot to get a mature nanny who's reproductively successful, right, 1:25:47.000 --> 1:25:50.880 I understand all that, So I'm not disparaging the idea 1:25:50.880 --> 1:25:53.360 of applying for a main moose teg. My point is, 1:25:54.400 --> 1:25:57.000 if he'd even limited himself to the lower forty eight, 1:25:57.400 --> 1:25:59.840 he could be thrown in. If his idea is like 1:26:00.000 --> 1:26:02.040 I want to go on a moose hunt, he should 1:26:02.080 --> 1:26:06.240 be applying. I would say anywhere there's an opportunity, and 1:26:06.320 --> 1:26:10.839 they can't do that much farther to drive from Georgia. 1:26:11.120 --> 1:26:14.080 It's not like Maine is in the backyard. It's not 1:26:14.160 --> 1:26:15.880 like Maine is in the backyard of Georgia. So he 1:26:15.880 --> 1:26:21.160 could be he could be applying eight or nine states. Yeah, 1:26:19.880 --> 1:26:22.920 And I'm coming at this from the standpoint of having 1:26:22.960 --> 1:26:26.799 just hunted moose in Idaho last year as a non resident. 1:26:26.840 --> 1:26:30.960 As a nonresident and shout out to the state of Idaho. 1:26:31.080 --> 1:26:33.360 I love the way. I'm sure some people hate it. 1:26:33.400 --> 1:26:37.519 But forcing you to choose one species and then having 1:26:38.080 --> 1:26:41.280 a real likelihood of actually drawn a tag with no 1:26:41.439 --> 1:26:44.160 point system, I think is really cool you want calling 1:26:44.200 --> 1:26:46.920 in the bull there? I called in several bulls and 1:26:47.240 --> 1:26:51.000 managed to get one at close range. Yeah, it was 1:26:51.160 --> 1:26:54.160 an awesome hunt, had a great group of friends there. 1:26:54.160 --> 1:26:57.120 It was a once in a lifetime experience, literally, because 1:26:57.280 --> 1:27:00.439 now I'm you know, prohibited from ever a plan for 1:27:00.479 --> 1:27:03.040 a bull tag and Idaho again. And you ran into 1:27:03.040 --> 1:27:08.040 our resident enforcement specialist. I did. The guy called when 1:27:08.040 --> 1:27:10.719 I got an enforcement and I got an enforcement question. 1:27:11.000 --> 1:27:15.200 Ic Crawford. Wonderful guy. He actually man. He was kind 1:27:15.320 --> 1:27:18.080 enough to come out and visit camp and register the 1:27:18.080 --> 1:27:21.040 bull for me. But um, the reason I'm bringing up 1:27:21.160 --> 1:27:24.799 Idaho is can I kind of enough real quick? Sure? Uh? 1:27:24.920 --> 1:27:27.479 Did you did you enjoy? Was the moose meat? Pretty good? 1:27:27.560 --> 1:27:29.960 It's been excellent. I'm still I mean, yeah, you use 1:27:30.040 --> 1:27:34.400 it past past tense is not appropriate here because I'm 1:27:34.400 --> 1:27:37.080 gonna be eating that moose. Did you data or when 1:27:37.080 --> 1:27:39.800 you see moose? You know what that moose was? Yeah? No, 1:27:39.840 --> 1:27:42.040 I don't have to worry about like which moose was this? 1:27:42.160 --> 1:27:46.360 And my freezer a fossils? There will there will be 1:27:46.360 --> 1:27:49.960 no freezer fossils. I agree with Steve's advice on that, um, 1:27:50.000 --> 1:27:52.000 but I have been very generous too. That's the other 1:27:52.080 --> 1:27:53.720 nice thing about having a moose is being able to 1:27:53.760 --> 1:27:56.720 dole out some meat. And this is the smallest of 1:27:56.800 --> 1:28:01.479 the subspecies to rights shiris bulls, so but still a 1:28:01.560 --> 1:28:04.040 very large animal. And my buds who came and joined 1:28:04.080 --> 1:28:06.639 me each left with a cooler full of meat. So 1:28:07.320 --> 1:28:10.519 I'm digressing here, But the point is for this listener, 1:28:11.640 --> 1:28:14.800 don't limit yourself just the main first start, you're starting 1:28:14.840 --> 1:28:16.920 out with some advice. Yeah, don't limit yourself just to 1:28:16.960 --> 1:28:18.760 Main if you want to go moose hunting and you 1:28:18.760 --> 1:28:21.040 want to drive there, because you could just go buy 1:28:21.120 --> 1:28:23.160 over the counter up in Alaska right and make it happen, 1:28:23.200 --> 1:28:27.000 which is going to be more expensive, more logistically challenging. 1:28:27.560 --> 1:28:28.920 But if you want to hunt moose in the meat 1:28:28.960 --> 1:28:33.080 home is very tough, yes, and not tough. So if 1:28:33.080 --> 1:28:34.800 you want to limit yourself to the lower forty eight, 1:28:34.840 --> 1:28:37.960 I would point out Maine is not in the backyard 1:28:38.000 --> 1:28:41.240 of Georgia. For a similar distance of driving, you could 1:28:41.240 --> 1:28:43.240 be going up and and hunting some of those other 1:28:44.000 --> 1:28:47.559 um you know, Northern Rockies States, Northwest States, and and 1:28:47.600 --> 1:28:49.920 if you're lucky enough to draw obviously, the more hats 1:28:49.960 --> 1:28:53.000 you have, your name in the higher the chances. So 1:28:53.120 --> 1:28:56.479 all that being said, UM, I like it though, all right, 1:28:56.600 --> 1:28:58.320 because you start you know what my dad always said, 1:28:58.800 --> 1:29:02.439 he didn't invent us, don't curse the darkness. Light a candle, 1:29:02.720 --> 1:29:06.040 Light a candle. Nice like to think the old man 1:29:06.080 --> 1:29:07.599 came up with that bound. I think he did. I'd 1:29:07.640 --> 1:29:09.679 like to think that maybe we're lighting a candle here 1:29:09.760 --> 1:29:13.280 and and just lit fills candle. Well, it feels lucky 1:29:13.400 --> 1:29:16.920 enough to draw a tag up in Idaho. I'd be 1:29:16.960 --> 1:29:19.639 happy to chat with him to about the planning there. 1:29:20.240 --> 1:29:22.800 It was a fantastic experience, all right. So what's going 1:29:22.840 --> 1:29:26.840 on with moose? Um? I would I would refute something 1:29:26.880 --> 1:29:34.600 that Steve said where it's not allowed. You made this. 1:29:35.240 --> 1:29:37.840 Don't worry it's it's nothing to major, But you made 1:29:37.840 --> 1:29:42.320 this comment that, Um, what's happening in those more northern 1:29:42.520 --> 1:29:46.800 provinces is not relevant to what's happening in Maine. But 1:29:46.880 --> 1:29:51.960 in fact it's part of the story because Maine and 1:29:52.120 --> 1:29:55.559 our other um moose hunning opportunities in the lower forty 1:29:55.640 --> 1:30:04.559 eight represent the southern of this species range. So when 1:30:04.560 --> 1:30:06.840 you're in that situation and you're you're talking about hunting 1:30:06.840 --> 1:30:12.519 opportunity at the very fringes of a species distribution. You're 1:30:12.520 --> 1:30:15.280 already kind of starting off on a difficult foot because 1:30:15.280 --> 1:30:20.800 you're talking about hunting an animal that is inherently existing 1:30:20.880 --> 1:30:26.639 at the limits of its capacity to exist. So moose 1:30:26.680 --> 1:30:28.720 are an animal. I'm sorry, But what's the part that 1:30:28.760 --> 1:30:31.479 I said that's bad? You said, what was happening in 1:30:31.520 --> 1:30:34.480 those in those Canadian provinces. I think you mentioned Newfoundland 1:30:34.640 --> 1:30:37.679 and New Brunswick. It wasn't relevant. You said, just because 1:30:37.720 --> 1:30:41.400 they're killing all the deer and state X, I don't 1:30:41.400 --> 1:30:44.080 need to worry about you know, I'm gonna you said, 1:30:44.280 --> 1:30:47.920 just because the hunting is great in Iowa, I'm gonna 1:30:47.920 --> 1:30:50.519 go ahead and kill all the deer here in whatever state. 1:30:50.560 --> 1:30:53.960 I'm ok. And I'm saying to set the stage for 1:30:54.120 --> 1:30:57.800 the biology the story here, it's important to recognize that 1:30:57.840 --> 1:31:01.280 there's a fundamental difference as you oh north for the 1:31:01.320 --> 1:31:03.479 moose into the core of its range. I don't want 1:31:03.479 --> 1:31:05.120 to belabor this, but this isn't That was not what 1:31:05.160 --> 1:31:09.280 I was saying. You Okay, that's true. You said for 1:31:09.360 --> 1:31:12.400 him to say, hey, Maine has sixty thousand moose, they 1:31:12.439 --> 1:31:16.320 should give out more tags in Maine because a neighboring 1:31:16.360 --> 1:31:22.400 Canadian province has three. Okay I was I thought you 1:31:22.439 --> 1:31:26.600 were saying, in essence, what's happening in those other provinces 1:31:26.680 --> 1:31:30.920 is irrelevant to what's happening here. No, okay, all ahead, 1:31:30.960 --> 1:31:34.599 Well then I'll I apologize for misinterpreting. The point is 1:31:34.720 --> 1:31:38.160 what's happening in those other provinces, thank you, is that 1:31:38.240 --> 1:31:42.280 they are they represent really kind of the core of 1:31:42.320 --> 1:31:45.840 the of the distribution. That is a place where, for 1:31:45.880 --> 1:31:49.240 a variety of reasons, moose are able to thrive in 1:31:49.360 --> 1:31:55.880 contrast to the southern limits of their range, I e. Maine. Okay, 1:31:55.920 --> 1:31:59.439 So in Maine, you're talking about an animal that has 1:32:00.280 --> 1:32:07.000 evolved to withstand very cold weather. Um, there's this idea 1:32:07.640 --> 1:32:13.160 um an ecology in species evolution of a thermo and 1:32:13.200 --> 1:32:14.840 you you talked about this actually with some of your 1:32:14.840 --> 1:32:19.040 buffalo work. But the thermo neutral zone. So if you 1:32:19.040 --> 1:32:21.920 think about being a human being, you know the range 1:32:21.960 --> 1:32:24.560 of temperatures where we can hang out and be pretty comfortable. 1:32:25.439 --> 1:32:29.360 Let's say it the lower limit is maybe fifty degrees 1:32:29.680 --> 1:32:34.080 and you know, you could ask a human um a 1:32:34.080 --> 1:32:38.519 biologist who who studies people, physiologist, you could ask what 1:32:38.680 --> 1:32:41.120 the what the actual numbers are. But let's say it's 1:32:41.160 --> 1:32:45.200 fifty degrees. Yeah, if you get below that, you start shivering, right, 1:32:45.200 --> 1:32:49.280 and that shivering comes with an energetic cost. And on 1:32:49.320 --> 1:32:52.040 the upper limit, when do you start getting uncomfortable? What 1:32:52.080 --> 1:32:56.040 do you say? You're a better man than I am. Damn, 1:32:57.680 --> 1:33:01.200 he's durable. So I started, I start breaking a sweat 1:33:01.200 --> 1:33:05.160 if I'm just hanging out, let's say whatever, you get 1:33:05.160 --> 1:33:08.840 the idea. So, whether you're trying to keep yourself warm 1:33:08.880 --> 1:33:12.160 through shivering, or trying to cool yourself off through sweating 1:33:12.160 --> 1:33:15.680 in our case, or if you can't sweat, panting some 1:33:15.720 --> 1:33:19.639 sort of um physiological response to either heat or cool yourself, 1:33:19.680 --> 1:33:22.919 those things come at a cost. So there's this envelope 1:33:23.360 --> 1:33:28.880 where you can exist without any energetic cost associated with 1:33:28.960 --> 1:33:32.800 addressing an uncomfortable temperature. Yeah, you know, and you're talking 1:33:32.880 --> 1:33:35.240 for the Buffalo. I remember you writing that. You know, 1:33:35.240 --> 1:33:37.840 it's some absurd like you can crank them down. They 1:33:37.840 --> 1:33:40.800 couldn't find it. So yeah, in my book American, that's 1:33:40.840 --> 1:33:42.640 about the study they did where they took a like 1:33:42.680 --> 1:33:44.719 a whole stein or just some running the mill cow. 1:33:45.880 --> 1:33:49.160 They took a Tibetan yak. I think they had a 1:33:49.200 --> 1:33:55.400 Scottish highland some variety like Scottish Highland cow in a 1:33:55.439 --> 1:33:58.519 buffalo and they put them in these shipping containers with 1:33:58.600 --> 1:34:01.520 monitors on to see and they had like a metabolic 1:34:01.720 --> 1:34:07.840 increase related to the temperature so basically that it will 1:34:07.840 --> 1:34:11.360 start to shiver or start to expend energy to keep warm. 1:34:11.400 --> 1:34:13.719 And they hit it like very quickly with the regular cow. 1:34:14.960 --> 1:34:17.479 Um how mare what it was twenty degrees or whatever 1:34:17.479 --> 1:34:20.639 the hell was like like surprisingly like still surprisingly warm, 1:34:20.680 --> 1:34:23.240 and he hit it with a regular cow. And then 1:34:23.600 --> 1:34:26.800 I think the Scottish Highland cattle, the Scottish Highland cow 1:34:26.880 --> 1:34:30.200 tapped out. The Tibetan yak might have tapped out at 1:34:30.240 --> 1:34:35.240 negative thirty and they couldn't get they could never get 1:34:35.280 --> 1:34:37.400 the container cold enough to tap it out. They couldn't 1:34:37.439 --> 1:34:39.479 tap it out of the buffalo. Yeah, And it might 1:34:39.520 --> 1:34:40.680 have tried, like I don't know, I don't know if 1:34:40.680 --> 1:34:43.320 they got to negative seventy, but they couldn't find the 1:34:43.400 --> 1:34:45.960 point when it had a metabolic increase for dated to cold, 1:34:47.240 --> 1:34:51.880 meaning some bits cold tolerant as are moose, they're very 1:34:51.920 --> 1:34:55.720 cold tolerant. And can I tell no quick story, Yeah, sure, man, 1:34:56.360 --> 1:34:59.960 this is your gig baby. So cold tolerant, so cold 1:35:00.040 --> 1:35:02.960 toller that there was a there was trying to do 1:35:03.360 --> 1:35:07.120 some account on a buffalo herd in Canada, and they're 1:35:07.120 --> 1:35:10.559 out in the winter and they were using thermal imaging 1:35:11.120 --> 1:35:13.400 to find the animals. They could never find them because 1:35:13.400 --> 1:35:16.120 they're so well insulated. One day a guy noticed, when 1:35:16.120 --> 1:35:18.439 he's looking at the images, how he sees these little 1:35:18.479 --> 1:35:24.160 teeny crescent these little teeny black crescent shapes that didn't 1:35:24.200 --> 1:35:27.080 make sense. And what he later realized was the horn 1:35:27.760 --> 1:35:31.280 is their belly. That when one's laying on its side 1:35:31.880 --> 1:35:34.200 and it's belly hair is exposed, you would now and 1:35:34.240 --> 1:35:36.920 then hit a little bit of its belly, but it's 1:35:36.960 --> 1:35:40.519 so well insulated that you're not picking up warmth off 1:35:40.520 --> 1:35:44.960 of his back. It's a great a great story and 1:35:45.000 --> 1:35:49.559 a great example of how a given animal can be 1:35:49.640 --> 1:35:54.360 so well adapted to, uh, you know, a very cold envelope. 1:35:55.960 --> 1:36:02.400 All right. So moose like the buffalo are well adapted 1:36:02.520 --> 1:36:08.679 to withstands some extremely cold temperatures. But it doesn't take 1:36:09.800 --> 1:36:14.240 particularly warm temperatures for them to need to start regulating 1:36:14.880 --> 1:36:17.719 their body heat down, which is one of the reasons 1:36:17.760 --> 1:36:20.759 that in the summertime, in addition to their being plenty 1:36:20.800 --> 1:36:25.280 of good forage in aquatic habitats, you see moose in 1:36:25.320 --> 1:36:29.800 the water like all day. They're there to escape insects, 1:36:30.320 --> 1:36:34.559 they're there to access really rich food supplies, and they're 1:36:34.560 --> 1:36:37.840 also there to cool down. So the issue of keeping 1:36:37.840 --> 1:36:39.800 cool in the summer for a moose is a way 1:36:39.840 --> 1:36:42.599 bigger deal than the issue of keeping warm in the winter. 1:36:42.800 --> 1:36:45.280 So in a place like Maine, throughout the southern extent 1:36:45.320 --> 1:36:52.000 of their range, and as we have climate warming and 1:36:52.120 --> 1:36:57.840 temperature envelopes shifting north, it gets increasingly difficult for moose 1:36:57.880 --> 1:37:00.679 to thermal regulate in the summer. At the lower extend 1:37:00.680 --> 1:37:06.120 of their range. There's a a very real cost to 1:37:06.200 --> 1:37:11.400 their fitness associated with those warmer temperatures in the summer, 1:37:11.520 --> 1:37:14.360 a longer summer season. But that's just the beginning of 1:37:14.360 --> 1:37:19.360 the story, because there are a number of other complex 1:37:19.400 --> 1:37:24.800 interactions occurring on the landscape associated with relatively mild winters 1:37:25.479 --> 1:37:30.000 relatively warm summers that planned this as well. And part 1:37:30.040 --> 1:37:34.679 of the story here is with warmer winters milder winters, 1:37:35.479 --> 1:37:40.960 um the ticks do much better at over wintering. So 1:37:41.080 --> 1:37:44.160 there are there are a number of examples of kind 1:37:44.160 --> 1:37:49.920 of natural biological processes that can really ramp up in 1:37:49.920 --> 1:37:54.040 the absence of super cold winters, ticks being one another. 1:37:54.040 --> 1:37:58.679 One is um the example of some of these pine 1:37:58.680 --> 1:38:02.160 beetle infestation in the West, where it takes a really 1:38:02.200 --> 1:38:04.000 cold winter to kill off the larvae, and in the 1:38:04.040 --> 1:38:06.400 absence of a cold winter for a few years, you 1:38:06.479 --> 1:38:10.720 end up with these huge insect outbreaks, these huge insect epidemics. 1:38:11.880 --> 1:38:18.760 And another example would be um relatively warm falls and 1:38:18.800 --> 1:38:25.200 springs and wetter weather resulting in more episodic hemorrhagic disease 1:38:25.320 --> 1:38:30.559 outbreaks in white tail deer e h D. So changes 1:38:30.600 --> 1:38:34.240 in weather associated with our climate can have major impacts 1:38:34.600 --> 1:38:37.680 to wildlife and habitat look in those cases, it just 1:38:37.880 --> 1:38:43.000 doesn't get cold enough, doesn't Yes, And with the moose 1:38:43.040 --> 1:38:45.719 population in Maine, part of the story is these these 1:38:45.800 --> 1:38:49.600 tick loads getting to be so severe than portions of 1:38:49.640 --> 1:38:54.400 the state. They're clearly having a major impact on the 1:38:54.479 --> 1:38:59.200 survivorship of moose. So not only is it harder for 1:38:59.240 --> 1:39:03.559 them to last through warmer summers, but then they're they're 1:39:03.560 --> 1:39:07.120 added on with this heavy load of ticks. But the 1:39:07.160 --> 1:39:11.040 story doesn't end there either, as these as these warmer, 1:39:11.120 --> 1:39:15.760 milder conditions continue to shift north. Another trend is that 1:39:16.160 --> 1:39:20.479 you have increasing overlap between white tailed deer and moose. 1:39:21.120 --> 1:39:26.240 The deer dew relatively well. Really cold, gnarly winters are 1:39:26.800 --> 1:39:29.960 much harder for white tails to withstand than for moose 1:39:30.000 --> 1:39:35.360 to withstand, and there's limited evidence to suggest that there's 1:39:35.400 --> 1:39:40.040 direct competition for forage between the two species. Um Some 1:39:40.080 --> 1:39:44.960 folks think maybe dear are a significant direct competitor with 1:39:45.000 --> 1:39:49.000 moose for forage. Other folks think maybe not. But one 1:39:49.040 --> 1:39:51.639 thing that the white tails do bring with them are 1:39:51.680 --> 1:39:56.919 these meningeal worms, so another parasite story. And the species 1:39:57.040 --> 1:40:01.720 name of the maningeal worm is peril of strugilous teneous. 1:40:02.160 --> 1:40:05.479 So given that that's such a mouthful, you can understand 1:40:05.560 --> 1:40:07.759 why they like to refer to him as ningel worms. 1:40:08.439 --> 1:40:13.719 And them ninjis are these three layers that wrap around 1:40:14.240 --> 1:40:19.200 the brain and spinal cord of all mammals. And if 1:40:19.200 --> 1:40:21.040 you ever have heard of anybody going in to get 1:40:21.080 --> 1:40:26.320 like a cerebro spinal fluid tap, that fluid exists between 1:40:26.320 --> 1:40:28.960 a couple of these ma ningel layers, and the whole 1:40:29.000 --> 1:40:33.040 system exists to provide kind of a a shield, like 1:40:33.080 --> 1:40:36.120 a layer of protection and cushioning around these really important 1:40:36.439 --> 1:40:40.680 spinal marriage Spinal meningitis will come from the same word. Yes, yes, 1:40:40.800 --> 1:40:43.879 So meningitis just means the swelling of the ma ninji's, 1:40:44.000 --> 1:40:49.920 these three layers. So in white tailed deer, this worm, 1:40:49.920 --> 1:40:56.040 it has a super fascinating um life cycle. And I'll 1:40:56.080 --> 1:40:59.839 start with the adults laying eggs in the me ninji's 1:40:59.880 --> 1:41:02.960 in these these layers that wrap around the brain and 1:41:03.000 --> 1:41:08.440 the spinal cord. So the adults ladies eggs, the eggs 1:41:08.479 --> 1:41:11.559 on the deer's nostrils. No, so we'll start with an 1:41:11.560 --> 1:41:16.599 infected and infected white tailed deer with adults that start, 1:41:16.680 --> 1:41:18.920 and we'll come back around to it. So we'll talk 1:41:18.960 --> 1:41:21.880 about the mode of exposure. I'll let you do it, 1:41:21.920 --> 1:41:24.040 but I don't agree. Okay, where do you want to start. 1:41:24.040 --> 1:41:28.880 I wouldn't do it that way. I would start with 1:41:28.880 --> 1:41:31.800 the introduction, all right, But I'm just telling what, dude, 1:41:31.880 --> 1:41:36.320 I'll go with you. So, imagine a white tailed deer 1:41:37.240 --> 1:41:40.639 is walking through the woods, dicking around in the woods, 1:41:41.040 --> 1:41:46.320 cruising along and whirling around. Yeah, it comes upon a 1:41:46.320 --> 1:41:51.919 a tuft of it's preferred browse pick a pick a species. 1:41:51.960 --> 1:41:55.439 What do you want to be eaten? Man? See that 1:41:55.479 --> 1:41:57.840 footage of a deer eating eggs out of a bird nest. 1:41:58.520 --> 1:42:03.519 Pick something, Pick something, pick something more? Yeah, I can't 1:42:03.560 --> 1:42:08.360 pick little baby birds? Uh? Comes across it desized to 1:42:09.400 --> 1:42:12.880 um can pick a mushroom? Sure? Okay, size of Eta 1:42:12.920 --> 1:42:16.360 Morrell Okay. So this deer comes upon black or white 1:42:16.360 --> 1:42:25.240 morele Morchella canicus okay, Morchella canicus. And as it lowers 1:42:25.280 --> 1:42:28.000 its muzzle to nibble upon the head of this morale 1:42:28.880 --> 1:42:33.439 inadvertently without even knowing it has done, so, it happens 1:42:33.479 --> 1:42:35.920 to consume a gastropod. Do you want it to be 1:42:35.960 --> 1:42:40.080 a snail or a slug because it could be either snail? Okay? 1:42:40.200 --> 1:42:43.600 So this this two year old dough, which this is 1:42:43.720 --> 1:42:45.439 making a lot of sense because you find those things 1:42:45.439 --> 1:42:49.160 and Morrel's yes, you do. And it's an interesting part 1:42:49.160 --> 1:42:50.840 of the story to in terms of the distribution of 1:42:50.880 --> 1:42:53.439 this disease. And I'll come to that. So this two 1:42:53.520 --> 1:42:58.760 year old white tail dough nibbles down on this morale 1:42:58.880 --> 1:43:03.040 mushroom and then is up consuming, inadvertently and unbeknownced to itself, 1:43:03.840 --> 1:43:09.479 a snail. Okay. That snail is infected, and I will 1:43:09.479 --> 1:43:13.080 come back around to how the snail got infected. But 1:43:13.680 --> 1:43:16.559 the deer, Yeah, because we're talking about the cycles, right, 1:43:16.600 --> 1:43:19.000 So you can jump into that circle anywhere along the way. 1:43:19.600 --> 1:43:24.840 So the deer ingests the snail. The snail has an 1:43:24.840 --> 1:43:31.120 advanced larval phase of this worm living inside of itself, 1:43:31.600 --> 1:43:36.719 inside of it, yes, which it has contracted by eating 1:43:36.720 --> 1:43:40.240 the mucus on a fecal pellet from a different deer. 1:43:41.160 --> 1:43:43.639 I'll come back around to that pellet. Why you wanted 1:43:43.680 --> 1:43:45.760 to start where you wanted to Start's confusing, but I 1:43:45.760 --> 1:43:51.080 think I'm good. One thing about the listenership of this 1:43:51.400 --> 1:43:53.920 digital radio program is they're a pretty savvy bunch, so 1:43:53.960 --> 1:43:55.559 they'll be able to they'll be able to track this. 1:43:56.720 --> 1:44:04.160 So the dough has consumed omed the snail. Upon doing so, 1:44:06.600 --> 1:44:16.080 the larval phase of the worm is consumed, ends up 1:44:16.080 --> 1:44:21.599 in the stomach, matures makes it into the stomach wall. 1:44:23.080 --> 1:44:27.719 From the stomach wall travels to the central nervous system. 1:44:27.920 --> 1:44:32.880 The blood stream through the bloodstream makes it too. In 1:44:33.000 --> 1:44:36.720 white tailed deer, the meningel tissues the layers around the 1:44:36.720 --> 1:44:40.439 brain and the spinal cord, where it then proceeds to 1:44:40.520 --> 1:44:49.480 lay eggs. Those eggs hatch into stage one larvae, dislodge 1:44:51.000 --> 1:44:57.680 travel to the lungs, where they are then coughed up 1:44:58.320 --> 1:45:04.439 by the deer and ingested into the stomach. Wow, at 1:45:04.479 --> 1:45:09.800 which point in the stomach they are defecated and end 1:45:09.880 --> 1:45:14.680 up in the mucus where a snail or slug consumes 1:45:14.680 --> 1:45:18.120 the mucus that is infected with the larvae. That's another 1:45:18.160 --> 1:45:21.200 thing you see. No, then snails on snails and slugs 1:45:21.240 --> 1:45:25.000 on snails on droppings. Yeah, they eat that that mucus 1:45:25.080 --> 1:45:29.479 which can be infected. So you have this cycle of 1:45:29.840 --> 1:45:38.280 adult worm two long too digestive track, two feces, mucus 1:45:39.240 --> 1:45:44.000 two gastropods, snails or slugs consuming it to those snails 1:45:44.040 --> 1:45:51.800 or slugs than being eaten inadvertently by other servants other ungulates. 1:45:52.840 --> 1:45:56.639 The interesting thing about this worm, though, is that white 1:45:56.640 --> 1:46:03.880 tailed deer are uniquely able to carry the carry the 1:46:03.920 --> 1:46:11.000 infection without having really negative consequences associated. So even even 1:46:11.040 --> 1:46:14.960 other deer species, of course, which the moose is one, 1:46:15.360 --> 1:46:22.479 but mule deer, moose, caribou all have the potential for 1:46:22.520 --> 1:46:30.640 this infestation. This infection, this parasitism two go beyond the 1:46:30.720 --> 1:46:35.640 maningel layers and actually have the infection end up in 1:46:37.040 --> 1:46:41.960 their brain tissue. So in white tailed deer the worm 1:46:42.080 --> 1:46:46.280 is limited to existing in the maningeal tissue. In these 1:46:46.280 --> 1:46:49.280 other species it can end up in the brain and 1:46:50.280 --> 1:46:55.200 have a major impact, including causing potentially mortality. Is it 1:46:55.320 --> 1:46:58.080 is it reasonable to assume here that white tailed deer 1:46:58.120 --> 1:47:01.120 have been exposed to this for very very long time. 1:47:01.760 --> 1:47:05.120 And what's interesting and this this gets to the common 1:47:05.160 --> 1:47:08.799 earlier about you know, seeing a snail or a slug 1:47:08.840 --> 1:47:12.200 on a pile um. That's something I think you see 1:47:12.280 --> 1:47:14.559 quite a bit when you're in the east. You know, 1:47:14.600 --> 1:47:19.800 these relatively moist forests. This is not an issue that 1:47:19.880 --> 1:47:23.920 we see west of the Great Plains. So this is 1:47:23.960 --> 1:47:28.000 something that in moose populations in Minnesota and Maine has 1:47:28.040 --> 1:47:32.120 been a big issue, but not so much west. And 1:47:32.160 --> 1:47:37.080 it's thought that those grassland biomes that exist between kind 1:47:37.080 --> 1:47:39.799 of the eastern moose populations in the western moose population 1:47:39.880 --> 1:47:42.799 serve as a barrier for the spread of this disease. 1:47:43.120 --> 1:47:46.400 The arid landscapes, right, and those arid landscapes it's poor 1:47:46.439 --> 1:47:52.599 habitat for gastropods, right, So as white tailed deer expand 1:47:52.600 --> 1:47:57.519 their range northward, they bring with them this worm that 1:47:57.600 --> 1:48:00.519 has the potential to have a very different effect on 1:48:00.680 --> 1:48:03.919 moose than it has on deer. And you could understand 1:48:03.960 --> 1:48:07.759 moose that are out there foraging, consuming vegetation, and also 1:48:07.840 --> 1:48:14.080 potentially gastropods, there's plenty of opportunity for dear to infect moose. 1:48:15.200 --> 1:48:19.280 So again getting back to the idea of climate and 1:48:19.320 --> 1:48:22.479 how how changes even if it's a matter of like 1:48:22.560 --> 1:48:26.559 a one year that's particularly warm or dry, and this 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:29.360 is why there's so much complexity in the system. If 1:48:29.360 --> 1:48:31.200 you have a hot and dry year, you know that 1:48:31.200 --> 1:48:34.400 that might be a worse year for gaster pods. If 1:48:34.400 --> 1:48:36.439 it's hot and dry, snails and slugs aren't going to 1:48:36.479 --> 1:48:39.760 be doing as as well. But if you have a 1:48:39.840 --> 1:48:47.720 relatively long window of non snow time, that's gonna be 1:48:47.800 --> 1:48:52.719 a longer window of potential infection when those gaster pods 1:48:52.720 --> 1:48:56.560 can be active. So you have changes in the distribution 1:48:56.600 --> 1:48:59.920 of white tail deer, you have changes in the web 1:49:00.080 --> 1:49:03.000 they're in the climate that have the potential to impact 1:49:03.040 --> 1:49:07.439 the activity and window of exposure opportunity. Through the life 1:49:07.479 --> 1:49:14.439 history of snails and slugs, you have these thermoregulatory considerations 1:49:14.479 --> 1:49:16.559 that the species is already existing kind of at the 1:49:16.600 --> 1:49:20.600 limit of its range, its ability to deal with those conditions, 1:49:21.000 --> 1:49:25.639 you have the ticks, and so there's no one answer, right. 1:49:25.680 --> 1:49:30.240 It's a very complex story, but it gets back to 1:49:30.960 --> 1:49:36.040 the topic of compensatory versus additive mortality. One thing is 1:49:36.080 --> 1:49:39.679 for sure, and it is that the decline of moose 1:49:40.360 --> 1:49:43.240 at the lower limit of their range is not happening 1:49:43.320 --> 1:49:47.679 as a result of hunting. It's happening independent of hunting. 1:49:48.600 --> 1:49:52.839 But it's very hard for wildlife managers to justify issuing 1:49:52.880 --> 1:49:57.080 a lot of tags to hunt a population that's in decline. 1:49:58.040 --> 1:50:00.200 And in another one of the states being affected by 1:50:00.200 --> 1:50:04.280 these dynamics, the state of Minnesota, which has a very 1:50:04.360 --> 1:50:08.280 rich history of moose hunting. Um they made the tough 1:50:08.320 --> 1:50:12.559 call in two thousand thirteen to completely stop their moose hunt, 1:50:13.720 --> 1:50:16.640 and it's some of these same drivers. My understanding is 1:50:16.720 --> 1:50:19.120 in in Maine it's much more of the ticks are 1:50:19.240 --> 1:50:22.080 a way bigger deal. But this story about the ninel 1:50:22.160 --> 1:50:25.160 worms in the northward expansion of white tailed deer, that's 1:50:25.200 --> 1:50:28.080 something in in Minnesota that goes back to nineteen twelve 1:50:28.560 --> 1:50:30.320 was the first year that they were really starting to 1:50:30.320 --> 1:50:32.400 try to figure out we've got these declines and moose 1:50:32.439 --> 1:50:35.040 what's going on. A lot of research has been done 1:50:35.040 --> 1:50:39.800 in Minnesota around these white tail moose interactions. But that's 1:50:39.800 --> 1:50:43.640 an example where UM in the state of Minnesota, they 1:50:44.280 --> 1:50:48.799 ran a population viability assessment a few years ago basically 1:50:48.840 --> 1:50:54.240 looking at recruitment and mortality of the moose population, and 1:50:54.280 --> 1:50:56.880 their projections for the state of Minnesota that it's were 1:50:56.920 --> 1:51:00.200 that it is possible within the next fifty years they 1:51:00.240 --> 1:51:03.799 might not have moose in Minnesota anymore in the absence 1:51:03.800 --> 1:51:11.400 of any further hunting. So totally appreciate Phil's excitement about 1:51:11.479 --> 1:51:16.800 hunting moose, and having now punched my card as a 1:51:16.800 --> 1:51:20.280 bona fide moose hunter, I would strongly encourage him to 1:51:20.280 --> 1:51:26.280 explore possibilities. But these questions, UM, they might seem really 1:51:26.360 --> 1:51:29.200 simple on their surface. Why won't the state of minister 1:51:29.400 --> 1:51:31.679 Why won't the state of Maine issue more moose tags? 1:51:31.680 --> 1:51:33.519 It's hard for me to draw a moose tag. And 1:51:33.560 --> 1:51:37.360 then you start getting into the complexities of the system 1:51:37.439 --> 1:51:43.680 and the specialized evolutionary traits of the moose with this 1:51:43.840 --> 1:51:47.559 disease ecology layered over it, and a changing climate and 1:51:47.600 --> 1:51:50.760 distribution in white tails layered over it, and what I 1:51:50.800 --> 1:51:53.679 take away from that are a couple of things. One, 1:51:54.280 --> 1:52:00.280 these management decisions are very complex and difficult. Two, there's 1:52:00.400 --> 1:52:04.920 huge value in having wildlife professionals on the landscape looking 1:52:04.920 --> 1:52:06.519 into this stuff, trying to figure out what's going on, 1:52:06.600 --> 1:52:13.000 and then applying that science to management decisions. And one 1:52:13.000 --> 1:52:18.599 other point I'd share is there are other issues, other 1:52:18.640 --> 1:52:22.880 interests being considered in the issuance of tags. That moose 1:52:22.920 --> 1:52:27.960 population is also UM, something that plenty of other recreational 1:52:28.040 --> 1:52:31.120 users appreciate and want to see on the landscape. And 1:52:31.600 --> 1:52:34.479 when a state is deciding how many tags to issue, 1:52:34.960 --> 1:52:38.160 they're taking into consideration providing hunting opportunity. They're also taking 1:52:38.160 --> 1:52:43.679 into consideration UM, wildlife viewing, and all the other folks 1:52:43.680 --> 1:52:47.080 that want to be UM involved in the conversation. In 1:52:47.120 --> 1:52:56.960 some states are more UM, more geared towards providing maximized 1:52:57.000 --> 1:53:00.519 hunting opportunity. Other states, like what you are saying for 1:53:00.520 --> 1:53:04.320 the state of Washington, maybe they're trying to balance a 1:53:04.400 --> 1:53:08.120 variety of public values when they're coming to these wildlife 1:53:08.560 --> 1:53:14.439 UM management decisions in terms of issuing tag allocations. So 1:53:14.640 --> 1:53:17.000 if you're sitting there in the chair of the biologist, 1:53:17.040 --> 1:53:19.080 whose job it is to say, all right, we are 1:53:19.080 --> 1:53:21.439 going to issue X number of tags this year, and 1:53:21.479 --> 1:53:25.960 you've got the social considerations, you've got the disease considerations, 1:53:26.479 --> 1:53:29.680 You've got all this information at your disposal. It's a 1:53:29.720 --> 1:53:34.200 tough chair to sit in. I think that where someone 1:53:34.200 --> 1:53:39.639 would wind up becoming frustrated is if you were looking at, well, 1:53:39.680 --> 1:53:44.080 we don't have a population problem right now, but we're 1:53:44.120 --> 1:53:51.400 concerned about what climate issues might mean in the future. Therefore, 1:53:51.439 --> 1:53:54.720 we're gonna throttle back hunting because we have a big 1:53:54.800 --> 1:53:57.160 question mark about what's going on ahead. I think that 1:53:57.160 --> 1:54:00.800 people could look at that, you get frustrated, so and 1:54:00.840 --> 1:54:02.479 they could look at it and get frustrated to and 1:54:02.640 --> 1:54:06.400 in the social consideration thing, where you might where a 1:54:06.439 --> 1:54:08.240 state might be like, you know what, We're gonna start 1:54:08.280 --> 1:54:11.760 paying more attention to people who identify as a wildlife 1:54:11.840 --> 1:54:15.960 viewer and make sure that they're having more opportunity and 1:54:16.120 --> 1:54:20.880 shift away from a user group that we used to Yeah, 1:54:21.080 --> 1:54:23.320 like I used to put emphasis on and I could 1:54:23.320 --> 1:54:26.120 see getting like really frustrated with that. Yeah, I can't 1:54:26.120 --> 1:54:29.599 to Another piece of the story that we didn't talk 1:54:29.640 --> 1:54:32.480 about is some of the ongoing research that they've done, 1:54:33.160 --> 1:54:36.520 and one of the more recent moose studies that occurred 1:54:36.640 --> 1:54:40.640 in Maine, they had very high mortality among a number 1:54:40.640 --> 1:54:45.640 of colored individuals, thirty of seventy, thirty of seventy. And 1:54:46.840 --> 1:54:50.760 that's a gross simplification of the study. You've got some 1:54:50.880 --> 1:54:52.440 information in front of you, but I'm just I'm just 1:54:52.480 --> 1:54:55.200 pulling us some filth. Yeah, so Phil knows about the study. 1:54:55.920 --> 1:54:59.320 So if you have indicators like that, you know they're 1:54:59.360 --> 1:55:03.000 investing money and research, They're they're tracking the population. He 1:55:03.040 --> 1:55:09.000 provided some of the historical data and context in his email. UM, 1:55:09.160 --> 1:55:11.520 they have information at their disposal that leads them to 1:55:11.560 --> 1:55:14.600 believe this is a this is a population that is 1:55:14.640 --> 1:55:17.520 in decline. They're trying to get to the bottom of 1:55:17.600 --> 1:55:20.720 what the management options are. But it's not it's not 1:55:20.760 --> 1:55:24.040 like they're just thinking, well down the line, this might 1:55:24.080 --> 1:55:27.200 be an issue, so we're gonna make a very conservative 1:55:27.200 --> 1:55:33.440 management call today. They believe there's a need to act today, 1:55:33.600 --> 1:55:36.080 and they're issuing tags based on the information they have 1:55:36.120 --> 1:55:40.120 at their disposal. I absolutely agree with you that, UM, 1:55:40.160 --> 1:55:44.320 it would be a source of frustration if they were 1:55:44.320 --> 1:55:49.320 taking an overly conservative UM. Management call now thinking there's 1:55:49.360 --> 1:55:52.840 this long term climate trajectory that they're trying to be 1:55:52.880 --> 1:55:56.360 responsive to. That's not the case. They've got an issue 1:55:56.400 --> 1:55:59.080 with declining moose. They've got an issue with high mortality. 1:55:59.600 --> 1:56:02.560 There were about hunting being a source of additive mortality 1:56:02.600 --> 1:56:06.720 to that population, very similar to the call in Minnesota 1:56:07.400 --> 1:56:10.080 to close the hunt. Could they have a few tags 1:56:10.080 --> 1:56:14.360 being issued in Minnesota? Probably so, But at what point 1:56:14.720 --> 1:56:20.200 do you make the call that you've got enough concern, 1:56:20.840 --> 1:56:24.160 sufficient concern about the decline that you need to take action. 1:56:24.840 --> 1:56:27.880 So I think the throttling back of tags, I certainly 1:56:27.920 --> 1:56:33.160 would not UM second guests any of my counterparts there 1:56:33.160 --> 1:56:34.440 in the state who are looking at the day to 1:56:34.480 --> 1:56:36.520 day in and day out and investing time in those 1:56:36.520 --> 1:56:41.760 surveys and having all that information, all that science. UM 1:56:41.800 --> 1:56:44.360 it really puts people on good footing to be able 1:56:44.360 --> 1:56:47.040 to make well informed decisions. And getting back to something 1:56:47.080 --> 1:56:50.640 you said earlier about UM the funding and how you know, 1:56:50.680 --> 1:56:52.920 we should be quick to tell out the fact that 1:56:53.080 --> 1:56:56.640 hunters and fisher fishermen, in their license dollars are going 1:56:56.680 --> 1:56:59.680 to do all this good habit at work. We wouldn't 1:56:59.720 --> 1:57:03.120 have any of these studies occurring in the absence of 1:57:03.120 --> 1:57:06.160 support from the hunting and fishing community. Either. It's not 1:57:06.280 --> 1:57:09.920 just money going to support law enforcement and habits at work, 1:57:10.560 --> 1:57:14.840 it's providing all this scientific information that underpins these management decisions. 1:57:15.640 --> 1:57:19.440 So when you've got such a complicated life history story 1:57:19.480 --> 1:57:23.360 as this ninel worm, think about how much research went 1:57:23.360 --> 1:57:26.360 into picking that apart and understanding what the dynamics are, 1:57:26.760 --> 1:57:28.640 just so you can have information in your hands to 1:57:28.680 --> 1:57:31.480 start to talk about what your management options are. Imagine 1:57:31.520 --> 1:57:33.440 if you're trying to make a management decision about this 1:57:33.840 --> 1:57:36.560 and you don't understand these nuances about the ecology of 1:57:36.560 --> 1:57:39.560 what's happening on the landscape. So I come away with 1:57:39.920 --> 1:57:46.320 just a lot of gratitude and um appreciation for how 1:57:46.520 --> 1:57:50.680 fundamentally difficult some of these management decisions are. As opposed 1:57:50.720 --> 1:57:54.640 to a desire to cast stones. I think it's helpful 1:57:54.680 --> 1:57:57.480 too for someone who starts to think, like, man, I'm 1:57:57.480 --> 1:58:02.880 starting to detect a TI hunting bias in my state 1:58:02.920 --> 1:58:05.360 Fish and Game agency. If you if you feel that, 1:58:05.440 --> 1:58:07.440 I think you should probably go and try to find 1:58:07.720 --> 1:58:13.320 where it's a theme that you're seeing occurring across a 1:58:13.320 --> 1:58:17.520 bunch of different wildlife resources. So if you find that 1:58:17.800 --> 1:58:22.440 deer tags going through the roof, no real change, no dramatic, 1:58:22.760 --> 1:58:28.200 inexplicable change, and bear tag numbers, that's a great suggestion. 1:58:28.280 --> 1:58:31.480 Turkey season is still long, water foul season is still long. 1:58:31.880 --> 1:58:35.080 Fish trees are still right. But there's this one anomaly, Like, man, 1:58:35.120 --> 1:58:37.120 they're really cutting back on moose. You probably look at 1:58:37.160 --> 1:58:40.000 that and but like this is probably about moose. I 1:58:40.040 --> 1:58:42.400 think that's a fair assessment and not seeing some like 1:58:42.560 --> 1:58:44.560 general thing where they're generally being like, you know what, 1:58:44.800 --> 1:58:46.919 let's try to get fewer hunters out of the landscape. 1:58:46.920 --> 1:58:49.680 But anyway we can think of and will manipulate data 1:58:49.720 --> 1:58:53.880 and use you know, hypothetical scenarios that could occur in 1:58:53.880 --> 1:58:59.320 the future as a justification to throttle back hunter participation. Um, 1:58:59.560 --> 1:59:02.080 you gotta get a big picture. And that's in contrast 1:59:02.120 --> 1:59:05.960 to a statewide bear hunting closure or a statewide lion 1:59:06.040 --> 1:59:08.360 hunting closure that's not at all rooted in any kind 1:59:08.400 --> 1:59:10.280 of science. Yeah, well, you know what, Maine, I'm sure 1:59:10.280 --> 1:59:12.040 you followed this. There was a they try to do 1:59:12.080 --> 1:59:16.360 a referendum to ban uh baiting and the hounds for bears, 1:59:16.600 --> 1:59:19.040 which would basically make you know, a lot of hunting 1:59:19.080 --> 1:59:22.680 mane very difficult and it got soundly defeat defeated by 1:59:22.720 --> 1:59:25.720 the voting public. So there you even have. You still 1:59:25.800 --> 1:59:33.120 have a strongly pro hunting, yeah, voting population in Maine, 1:59:33.360 --> 1:59:38.839 like they trounced that thing, that initiative referendum. So hopefully 1:59:38.920 --> 1:59:42.360 that story helps a bit. But dude, if this guy 1:59:42.360 --> 1:59:44.840 listened to seventy podcasts a one month, I'm having to 1:59:44.840 --> 1:59:46.840 think he's gonna get to this and and and find 1:59:46.880 --> 1:59:53.120 where we addresses concerns. Hopefill draws his tag, Fee's gonna 1:59:53.200 --> 1:59:54.680 run into him and put in for I at home. Man, 1:59:54.680 --> 1:59:56.600 when Pete draws, is gonna have some other guys come 1:59:56.640 --> 1:59:58.200 in and like blow out his area and be like 1:59:58.240 --> 2:00:02.080 you na mean? Phil? Is it a quick question? Can 2:00:02.280 --> 2:00:06.240 those miningel worms transmit to humans? There is not any 2:00:06.320 --> 2:00:09.600 evidence in the literature I've come upon that um indicates 2:00:09.600 --> 2:00:11.160 that to be the case. But there is a host 2:00:11.200 --> 2:00:14.880 of other species I talked about mule, deer, elk, caribou, um, 2:00:15.160 --> 2:00:17.920 domestic sheep, and goats, And then your bro might be 2:00:17.920 --> 2:00:20.760 interested to notice, Steve, but llamas and alpacas can also 2:00:20.840 --> 2:00:24.360 be infected with miningel worm. I didn't want to have 2:00:24.400 --> 2:00:28.640 to think about quitting any more. Else. Yeah, well you 2:00:28.720 --> 2:00:33.120 are you eating him raw? I mean I have sounded 2:00:33.240 --> 2:00:40.240 very trigger gnosis like parasites swimming around in you can 2:00:40.280 --> 2:00:42.160 I give a couple of points just to just to 2:00:42.240 --> 2:00:44.120 add a little bit, a couple of points that came 2:00:44.160 --> 2:00:46.000 from at our net when I put this moose question 2:00:46.040 --> 2:00:47.720 to him. Yeah, he had a couple of good points. 2:00:48.160 --> 2:00:52.000 He usually does, so he has He bullet points out 2:00:52.080 --> 2:00:55.560 a few things to think about here. Um. He points 2:00:55.600 --> 2:00:59.960 out that residents always have top priority for special trophy animals, 2:01:01.120 --> 2:01:03.440 and in Maine only ten percent of the tags for 2:01:03.480 --> 2:01:06.440 each of the four management units. So Maine divides this 2:01:06.520 --> 2:01:11.200 moves up into four management units. Only ten percent even 2:01:11.200 --> 2:01:15.280 go to non residents. So he goes on to say 2:01:15.360 --> 2:01:18.760 that a non residents odds stay proportionately the same as 2:01:18.800 --> 2:01:22.800 everyone else and vary with how many Georgia and other 2:01:22.840 --> 2:01:27.320 nonresident guys are applying for any given tag. Um. He 2:01:27.400 --> 2:01:31.120 says that people in Maine are inherently conditioned to having 2:01:31.160 --> 2:01:36.560 a very conservative number of hunting tags. Uh, I mean, 2:01:36.600 --> 2:01:40.680 they'd like to play it safe, and proposed increases in 2:01:40.760 --> 2:01:45.000 tag allocations are often met with considerable pushback. He says 2:01:45.000 --> 2:01:49.520 there's a cultural social aspect here that a person from 2:01:49.520 --> 2:01:54.600 Georgia may not fully appreciate um because apparently a few 2:01:54.640 --> 2:01:57.360 years ago the department did get more aggressive and issued 2:01:57.400 --> 2:02:01.400 more tags, more moose tags, and happened to coincide with 2:02:01.440 --> 2:02:05.000 one of the big tick outbreaks that resulted and higher 2:02:05.000 --> 2:02:08.920 than expected mortality. It was a double whammy, if you will, 2:02:09.320 --> 2:02:11.120 and they took a lot of ship from the public. 2:02:13.000 --> 2:02:16.480 He also says, in the last ten years, they've perfected 2:02:17.000 --> 2:02:22.360 better survey methods, data and modeling approaches, and they're probably 2:02:22.400 --> 2:02:27.480 operating now on better population estimates than they were operating 2:02:27.520 --> 2:02:31.880 on in past years. So they may have had assumptions 2:02:32.000 --> 2:02:35.000 about how many moves they had that were different than 2:02:35.040 --> 2:02:38.080 what they're now thinking is true. And if you're shooting 2:02:38.120 --> 2:02:41.720 for those certain percentages, you're going to see a lowering 2:02:41.760 --> 2:02:46.600 just because you're operating on better information. He also goes 2:02:46.640 --> 2:02:49.400 down and say this where tick outbreaks have had the 2:02:49.480 --> 2:02:53.800 highest impact, the department would like to kill more animals 2:02:53.840 --> 2:02:57.879 to reduce densities. But as you might guess, the public 2:02:58.000 --> 2:03:01.840 doesn't get that too well, meaning they're gonna say you 2:03:01.880 --> 2:03:05.640 want to kill more moose who are already dying from ticks, 2:03:06.440 --> 2:03:11.000 and they're gonna push back on this good stuff, man, 2:03:12.720 --> 2:03:18.760 deadly edly. Um uh, I didn't even get to the 2:03:18.800 --> 2:03:23.480 main thing I wanted to talk about. Man, what was that? 2:03:24.000 --> 2:03:27.640 We've covered some ground, dude, Oh my god? What it 2:03:27.680 --> 2:03:31.920 maybe I want to talk about? Was the Okay, ny, 2:03:31.960 --> 2:03:33.880 how long we've been talking here. We've been going for 2:03:33.920 --> 2:03:36.240 a while. We could do one more at all if 2:03:36.280 --> 2:03:37.760 you can do it in ten minutes. This is my 2:03:37.800 --> 2:03:42.800 concluding thought. We have over the months, got many, many 2:03:42.800 --> 2:03:46.080 requests for comment about an issue that's going on in 2:03:46.080 --> 2:03:50.560 Alaska that's been generating a ton of headlines here in 2:03:50.600 --> 2:03:52.760 the lower forty eight in the national medium. It has 2:03:52.800 --> 2:03:58.800 to do with something that's happened with certain hunting practices 2:03:58.960 --> 2:04:05.960 being banned on certain lands in Alaska. UM. To give 2:04:05.960 --> 2:04:12.480 you a little bit of background, Uh, states manage their 2:04:12.480 --> 2:04:16.120 own wildlife, and with exceptions of if something is protected 2:04:16.160 --> 2:04:19.960 under the Endangered Species Act or it has federal oversight 2:04:19.960 --> 2:04:24.600 because it's migratory and actually moves very fluidly across geopolitical boundaries, 2:04:25.080 --> 2:04:27.160 right then the federal government was going to provide some 2:04:27.200 --> 2:04:31.360 management oversight so that one state is inadvertently screwing another 2:04:31.400 --> 2:04:34.920 state over, meaning you kill all the ducks. Let's just 2:04:34.960 --> 2:04:38.160 say you were to kill all the ducks in Alaska, Well, 2:04:38.200 --> 2:04:40.440 a dude in Texas is gonna have, you know, or 2:04:40.520 --> 2:04:45.120 a dude down in the you know, the valley in California. 2:04:45.240 --> 2:04:48.000 You've just screwed that guy over. So there's some insulation 2:04:48.120 --> 2:04:50.760 from one state making a bad move on migratory stuff. NASA, 2:04:50.760 --> 2:04:53.000 we might have federal oversight, but generally if things aren't 2:04:53.320 --> 2:04:56.040 you know, another example like marine mammals, there's a Federal 2:04:56.080 --> 2:04:59.440 Marine Mammal Protection Act, but generally the state manages on 2:04:59.520 --> 2:05:03.720 wildlife as it sees fit um. In two thousand fifteen, 2:05:05.040 --> 2:05:09.960 during the Obama administration, there was a ruling that came 2:05:10.000 --> 2:05:14.840 through the Interior Department at the time that eliminated certain 2:05:15.200 --> 2:05:19.040 management tools or certain things that the State of Alaska 2:05:19.080 --> 2:05:22.920 at times allowed, and they limited their ability. They eliminated 2:05:22.960 --> 2:05:27.879 the state's ability to use certain management tools on federal 2:05:28.880 --> 2:05:35.360 preserve land in Alaska. This did not affect the remainder 2:05:35.400 --> 2:05:39.320 of the state. So about thirteen percent of Alaska is 2:05:39.640 --> 2:05:44.680 federal preserve and they said, on this thirteen percent of Alaska, 2:05:44.880 --> 2:05:48.240 we're gonna eliminate such things as the ability to um 2:05:48.240 --> 2:05:52.040 shoot caribou from a boat, so you'd use a boat 2:05:52.120 --> 2:05:55.520 to go shoot a swimming cariboo. Um, that you would 2:05:55.560 --> 2:06:00.280 be able to use dogs or bait for hunting bears, 2:06:01.480 --> 2:06:06.080 that you would have wolf and bear seasons that were 2:06:06.160 --> 2:06:12.680 opened during spring like denning and calving and pup raising 2:06:12.680 --> 2:06:18.280 times of year. This was like deeply unpopular with the 2:06:18.320 --> 2:06:24.120 Alaska Department Fishing Game because it would be similar to 2:06:25.520 --> 2:06:27.240 let's say you have a city like let's let's say 2:06:27.320 --> 2:06:29.320 take New York and they have all their traffic laws 2:06:29.320 --> 2:06:32.080 and their traffic laws work very well. No one can 2:06:32.120 --> 2:06:34.160 look and say, man, your traffic laws are screwed up. 2:06:34.200 --> 2:06:37.120 But we're gonna do something. If a road passes by 2:06:37.160 --> 2:06:39.760 a federal building, We're gonna give you a different set 2:06:39.800 --> 2:06:41.800 of traffic laws that we would like you to enforce. 2:06:42.240 --> 2:06:43.880 It's not based on the fact that there's a problem 2:06:43.920 --> 2:06:47.520 with your traffic laws, just we've decided that we think, 2:06:48.360 --> 2:06:51.520 um that a few things should be different. That you 2:06:51.560 --> 2:06:56.400 should drive on the uh left side of the road 2:06:57.000 --> 2:06:59.280 if you're passing federal property, and we'd like you to 2:06:59.320 --> 2:07:01.760 go in and have the little discrepancies on your landscape 2:07:01.800 --> 2:07:06.200 these management discrepancies with how you're handling traffic and the 2:07:06.280 --> 2:07:10.960 police there might be like, uh, one was the problem. 2:07:11.120 --> 2:07:13.480 You're not showing us, you're not demonstrating that we've done 2:07:13.520 --> 2:07:17.280 something wrong. You're making our jobs much more complicated. It's 2:07:17.320 --> 2:07:20.520 more complicated for the public to understand what's going on. 2:07:21.000 --> 2:07:24.320 So we just generally don't like the fact that you're 2:07:24.360 --> 2:07:29.600 inserting yourself here in this way. Um, and it created 2:07:29.800 --> 2:07:33.440 some real like states rights federal rights issues. So now 2:07:33.800 --> 2:07:37.760 the State Department, I'm sorry, Now the Interior Department is 2:07:37.840 --> 2:07:43.000 moving to correct this and they're setting the regulations back 2:07:43.160 --> 2:07:46.600 to the way they were prior to this earlier law 2:07:46.640 --> 2:07:50.600 that went into place in making it that the state 2:07:50.640 --> 2:07:54.280 can manage wildlife as it sees fit on federal preserves 2:07:54.320 --> 2:07:56.960 as they had always done except for this narrow window 2:07:57.040 --> 2:08:00.320 of time of three years when they weren't able to 2:08:00.320 --> 2:08:05.360 do certain practices of the state. As the way it's 2:08:05.440 --> 2:08:10.040 covered though, and the media is it's like they're changing 2:08:10.080 --> 2:08:14.640 the laws so that people can now go dig cubs 2:08:14.680 --> 2:08:19.320 out of the den and kill them. Okay, where does 2:08:19.360 --> 2:08:21.440 that come from? When someone says that, what are they 2:08:21.480 --> 2:08:23.400 talking about? What they're talking about is this. There are 2:08:23.400 --> 2:08:27.640 some areas in Alaska where they have a lot of 2:08:27.720 --> 2:08:30.600 black bears. Let's say they have tons of black bears, 2:08:31.200 --> 2:08:34.280 not a lot of harvest upset black bears, and for 2:08:34.400 --> 2:08:37.280 management's sake, they just say that there's no close season 2:08:37.320 --> 2:08:41.400 on black bears. A person is allowed to black bears 2:08:41.400 --> 2:08:45.760 a year, no close season. Someone might look at that 2:08:45.840 --> 2:08:49.040 and be like, oh, if that's the case, I suppose 2:08:49.160 --> 2:08:52.680 that means you could go dig a bear out of 2:08:52.680 --> 2:08:55.520 its den and kill it. But does that mean that 2:08:55.600 --> 2:09:00.520 anyone actually does this? Already right now, seven percent of 2:09:00.560 --> 2:09:03.920 Alaska is already open to people pulling cubs out of 2:09:03.960 --> 2:09:06.720 dens and killing them. I can't think of a single 2:09:06.960 --> 2:09:12.240 instance where this has happened outside of the Koyakuk and 2:09:12.600 --> 2:09:16.760 Native Alaskan group, an indigenous group who resides along the 2:09:16.840 --> 2:09:20.880 Yukon and Koyukon rivers. They traditionally hunt bears in the 2:09:20.920 --> 2:09:23.080 winter by digging them out of Den's a practice that 2:09:23.120 --> 2:09:26.760 they have engaged in for thousands of years. That's how 2:09:26.800 --> 2:09:28.720 they hunt. Now, if you're the kind of person who 2:09:28.720 --> 2:09:31.640 likes the sort of cultural imperialism that would come in 2:09:31.680 --> 2:09:33.880 and tell an indigenous group of people who has acted 2:09:33.920 --> 2:09:35.760 a certain way for many thousands of years and live 2:09:35.800 --> 2:09:39.200 in harmony with its environment. That they've got it all wrong, 2:09:39.720 --> 2:09:43.200 that they're not sportsmanlike because they have a traditional use 2:09:43.320 --> 2:09:45.400 practice of eating bear met in the winter that they 2:09:45.400 --> 2:09:47.200 pull out of den's, then go ahead and be that 2:09:47.280 --> 2:09:49.840 kind of guy. But as far as what goes on 2:09:50.080 --> 2:09:54.440 with regular hunters, like people who are operating under sport 2:09:54.480 --> 2:09:58.560 hunting licenses, it is not a practice to dig cubs 2:09:58.640 --> 2:10:01.200 out of their dens and kill them. There's no like need, 2:10:01.400 --> 2:10:04.960 there's no demand. It would be like saying this, if 2:10:05.000 --> 2:10:08.240 you live in New York and you open your trash 2:10:08.320 --> 2:10:12.040 can up and you find a little nest of rat 2:10:12.360 --> 2:10:17.360 babies in your trash can, Okay, it would theoretically be 2:10:17.600 --> 2:10:22.400 legal for you to take a dull knitting needle and 2:10:22.960 --> 2:10:27.120 slowly kill all those rat babies with a dull knitting needle. 2:10:27.520 --> 2:10:30.280 Theoretically one could go do that. So to say that 2:10:30.320 --> 2:10:34.240 people in New York are allowed to kill rats that 2:10:34.280 --> 2:10:36.200 they find in their home or in their garbage cans, 2:10:36.240 --> 2:10:38.280 you could put it that way, or you could be 2:10:38.280 --> 2:10:40.200 the kind of guy who says it's not illegal for 2:10:40.280 --> 2:10:43.960 people in New York to brutally slaughter baby rats with 2:10:44.120 --> 2:10:48.800 dull knitting needles. Because sure, I'm sure if you're the 2:10:48.880 --> 2:10:51.600 kind of person who reads that that way. Yeah, another 2:10:51.600 --> 2:10:53.400 way it would be to put it is that you're 2:10:53.400 --> 2:10:57.240 allowed to like control rats in your home. So like 2:10:57.520 --> 2:10:59.680 the constant twisting is the other thing is an article 2:10:59.680 --> 2:11:02.720 and you see news which like because you're because you're 2:11:02.720 --> 2:11:06.040 allowed to already bait bears depending on where you are 2:11:06.080 --> 2:11:09.520 in in a three percent or eighties seven percent of Alaska, 2:11:09.920 --> 2:11:12.840 it's like, now you can kill bears using donuts and bacon, 2:11:13.120 --> 2:11:16.200 Like the journalists went to such specificity they've called out 2:11:16.240 --> 2:11:18.280 like they're like, what would be the most egregious sort 2:11:18.280 --> 2:11:20.320 of bear bait? I guess it would be donuts and bacon, 2:11:20.600 --> 2:11:25.560 And I'll use that as a headline to explain my story. 2:11:26.520 --> 2:11:28.720 Or that they said you can use a spotlight to 2:11:28.760 --> 2:11:32.960 go kill baby cubs in their den. This isn't something 2:11:32.960 --> 2:11:36.960 anyone's doing. And in fact, just because the state has 2:11:37.000 --> 2:11:40.360 the ability to make it legal in this new thirteen 2:11:40.400 --> 2:11:42.080 percent of their land masks and they've already had the 2:11:42.120 --> 2:11:44.040 ability to make it legal and eight seven percent of 2:11:44.040 --> 2:11:46.640 their land masks doesn't mean that it already is you 2:11:46.680 --> 2:11:51.320 can kill caribou from a boat in a couple a 2:11:51.320 --> 2:11:56.160 couple extremely remote locations north of the Brooks Range. It's 2:11:56.160 --> 2:12:00.560 a practice generally done by subsistence in digital. This hunters 2:12:00.560 --> 2:12:04.760 who traditionally target caribou as they go through as their 2:12:04.800 --> 2:12:08.560 migration paths take them across some major rivers because other 2:12:08.640 --> 2:12:11.640 than that, these are inaccessible areas and you cannot get 2:12:11.680 --> 2:12:14.040 into the areas and transport the meat back. So they 2:12:14.120 --> 2:12:17.880 hunt along rivers, and there's certain bottleneck points where migrating 2:12:17.920 --> 2:12:21.000 herds of thousands of cariboo will come and encounter a river. 2:12:21.280 --> 2:12:24.680 It's the only place these people have an opportunity to 2:12:24.920 --> 2:12:28.200 intersect these herds of cariboo, and that's where they hunt them, 2:12:28.280 --> 2:12:31.800 is on the river. There is nowhere. In fact, I've 2:12:31.840 --> 2:12:34.840 hunted all over Laska, I've never hunted in the unit 2:12:35.440 --> 2:12:37.960 where you could kill a caribou from a boat in 2:12:38.000 --> 2:12:42.480 the water. So the fact that the state can allow 2:12:42.520 --> 2:12:45.720 it doesn't even mean that it can be allowed. Where 2:12:45.720 --> 2:12:49.280 I hunt black bears in Alaska, the state could say 2:12:49.360 --> 2:12:50.920 you can go dig them out of a den, but 2:12:51.040 --> 2:12:55.360 you can't. There's a specific season, in a specific quota. 2:12:55.800 --> 2:12:57.960 You have to apply for a permit. You would get 2:12:58.000 --> 2:13:00.520 the permit about once every two years if you apply. 2:13:00.840 --> 2:13:03.040 When you apply, you have to specify whether you want 2:13:03.040 --> 2:13:05.880 to hunt the spring or the fall season. They both 2:13:05.920 --> 2:13:09.400 have pramp date parameters around them. If you wound a 2:13:09.480 --> 2:13:13.560 bear and don't recover, you notch your tag. It's that 2:13:13.840 --> 2:13:19.440 specific in the legality of it. Okay, So it's not 2:13:19.560 --> 2:13:21.640 that now Alaska is going to make it that I 2:13:21.640 --> 2:13:24.000 could go over there and dig baby bears out of 2:13:24.040 --> 2:13:26.560 their dens and torture them to death, because you already 2:13:26.560 --> 2:13:29.240 can't anyway. But when they look at when they're trying 2:13:29.240 --> 2:13:34.320 to do these management practices of maintaining stable populations of 2:13:34.400 --> 2:13:38.760 cariboan moves often with an eye tord, providing subsistence cultures 2:13:38.880 --> 2:13:42.960 access two readily available protein sources, and these are things 2:13:43.040 --> 2:13:45.360 they can do in certain cases when they decide they 2:13:45.440 --> 2:13:47.840 might want to. Doesn't mean it's gonna now be like 2:13:47.880 --> 2:13:53.080 the wholesale slaughter of baby animals everywhere. It's just it's 2:13:53.160 --> 2:13:58.960 egregious how poorly represented this has been in the media. Yeah, 2:13:58.960 --> 2:14:01.840 some of the headlines are outrageous. It's almost become like 2:14:01.880 --> 2:14:06.360 a joke to kill bears with bacon and doughnuts. It's like, yeah, 2:14:06.560 --> 2:14:09.640 it's probably not gonna be bacon and donuts, it's gonna 2:14:09.640 --> 2:14:13.760 be dog food. Oh my god, it drives me nuts. 2:14:13.960 --> 2:14:15.800 I don't even. It's like, I don't, I can't even. 2:14:16.000 --> 2:14:18.240 I don't even know where to begin when talking about this. 2:14:18.680 --> 2:14:21.200 I read an article that, uh that there was an 2:14:21.440 --> 2:14:25.680 animal advocacy group from Florida that traveled up to Anchorage 2:14:25.880 --> 2:14:31.040 to protest all of this, the bear cup killing, and um, 2:14:31.320 --> 2:14:34.520 they were met with a group, a college group of 2:14:34.720 --> 2:14:39.360 kids that were all indigenous Native American kids that changed 2:14:39.440 --> 2:14:43.200 their mind. I think the group is called Protest one. 2:14:43.840 --> 2:14:47.680 I'm remembering it correctly, and two advocates are going up 2:14:47.800 --> 2:14:51.480 to protest for it and uh publicly speak out against 2:14:51.560 --> 2:14:57.040 it in this like college club explained it to them 2:14:57.160 --> 2:15:00.600 their traditional use practice correct, and they went to Florida 2:15:00.640 --> 2:15:04.200 and had a public statement or released that they change 2:15:04.240 --> 2:15:07.480 their position on it. This NBC News article points out, well, 2:15:07.480 --> 2:15:10.000 it kind of the right of the NBCY article kind 2:15:10.040 --> 2:15:12.280 of goes crazy because pretty soon he's like talking about 2:15:13.040 --> 2:15:14.560 all of a sudden, it has something to do with 2:15:14.600 --> 2:15:16.920 how Donald Trump's kids have been up to a lask 2:15:16.920 --> 2:15:18.600 on it. It's like this guy is like grabbing its 2:15:18.640 --> 2:15:21.280 straws right, like trying to drag anything in and in it. 2:15:21.360 --> 2:15:25.480 He says, like things that are cruel. Okay, so let's 2:15:25.520 --> 2:15:28.640 let's talk about that for a minute. If there's if 2:15:28.680 --> 2:15:31.200 there's a group of people who traditionally hunt cariboo as 2:15:31.200 --> 2:15:33.920 they're swimming across the river, do you understand anatomy and 2:15:33.960 --> 2:15:36.840 ballistics and stuff so much that you're saying that that's 2:15:36.920 --> 2:15:41.680 cruel or are you talking about something else? Because I 2:15:41.720 --> 2:15:45.320 don't really know. I don't really buy that that shooting 2:15:45.360 --> 2:15:48.480 a caribou at point blank range out of a boat 2:15:49.600 --> 2:15:51.320 they're usually shooting in the head when they do this, 2:15:51.760 --> 2:15:55.560 that that's more cruel then when he's standing on the ground. 2:15:55.840 --> 2:15:58.240 So you're like, you're trying to like introduce these sort 2:15:58.280 --> 2:16:01.440 of you're trying to introduce these sort of like subjective 2:16:01.840 --> 2:16:04.560 words into a discussion where they don't really fit, Like 2:16:04.680 --> 2:16:08.800 it's not a cruelty issue that you kill a caribou 2:16:08.920 --> 2:16:11.560 in the water versus on land. I think what you're 2:16:11.640 --> 2:16:13.680 trying to get at, what this writer is trying to 2:16:13.680 --> 2:16:17.360 get at as some idea of like sportsmanlike and I'll 2:16:17.360 --> 2:16:20.520 ask them to like, Okay, Are you really concerned with 2:16:20.520 --> 2:16:25.120 what sportsmanlike or not is that? Are you honestly concerned 2:16:25.120 --> 2:16:27.360 with that? Are you honestly concerned with what's cruel or 2:16:27.400 --> 2:16:31.720 not cruel? Or do you kind of just hate the idea? 2:16:32.520 --> 2:16:33.840 And I would love to know if the sun bitch 2:16:33.879 --> 2:16:36.280 eats me, because I guarantee does. But you just kind 2:16:36.320 --> 2:16:42.840 of like hate the idea of people utilizing like renewable resources, 2:16:42.920 --> 2:16:45.640 and you're gonna jump on any little point you can 2:16:45.680 --> 2:16:51.280 find to make it seem bad. I sent that to 2:16:51.680 --> 2:16:53.879 the buddy of mine sent that article to me, and 2:16:53.879 --> 2:16:55.800 I've already seen it, but he's like, oh, you mean 2:16:55.840 --> 2:16:59.000 to tell me that NBC News wasn't open to nuance. 2:17:02.080 --> 2:17:05.480 It's just, oh my god, it's maddening. Michelle, what are 2:17:05.480 --> 2:17:09.440 your concluding thoughts? I agree with you, it's maddening. Um. 2:17:09.480 --> 2:17:13.320 But I've been thinking about how our discussion on identifying 2:17:13.360 --> 2:17:16.880 and sharing our values and motivations of why we hunt, 2:17:17.280 --> 2:17:20.560 how that kind of should be introduced and tied into 2:17:20.879 --> 2:17:23.039 the hunt purity scale. I think those should be some 2:17:23.120 --> 2:17:25.880 variables that we add and uh, I think by the 2:17:25.959 --> 2:17:30.240 end of this grand experiment and UH with meat eater, um, 2:17:30.280 --> 2:17:34.840 we're gonna end up with a really refined tool scale 2:17:35.480 --> 2:17:37.800 the problem. And I love the hunt purity scale idea 2:17:37.840 --> 2:17:40.240 introduced my my brother. I think that it's gonna wind 2:17:40.280 --> 2:17:42.640 up needing to have like a lot of emotional factors. 2:17:42.640 --> 2:17:45.720 In fact, you know, I have to start capturing state 2:17:45.760 --> 2:17:48.560 of mind, right, Yeah, Like how do you define success? 2:17:49.320 --> 2:17:54.080 There's variables within that, Like it's it's really have their 2:17:54.080 --> 2:17:59.920 own personal scales scales. There's like it reveals a trem 2:18:00.000 --> 2:18:04.000 in this amount of bias. So in crafting a hunt 2:18:04.000 --> 2:18:11.560 purity scale that doesn't reveal personal bias or regional specific activities, 2:18:12.200 --> 2:18:15.600 like it might be like a person in Texas would 2:18:16.480 --> 2:18:19.800 uh like inherently they wouldn't get a high score on 2:18:19.920 --> 2:18:24.080 my brother's Hunt Purity scale because he puts he puts 2:18:24.120 --> 2:18:27.680 the land management on his own hunt purity scale. So 2:18:27.720 --> 2:18:30.000 he if he kills the elk on public land, he 2:18:30.040 --> 2:18:33.400 considers it like harder and more rewarding. But if you 2:18:33.440 --> 2:18:38.520 live in a state that's privately held, his hunt purity 2:18:38.520 --> 2:18:41.400 skill doesn't do you any good. It's a lot of 2:18:41.400 --> 2:18:45.000 personal a lot of personal bias, but super interesting to 2:18:45.080 --> 2:18:48.840 think about how those how those subjective values play into 2:18:49.080 --> 2:18:54.520 that whole idea. Carl concluding thoughts, well, you had it, 2:18:54.560 --> 2:18:57.120 you had when you wanted to get into like a 2:18:57.160 --> 2:18:58.959 real one. I do, I have a concluder, so ye 2:18:59.200 --> 2:19:01.560 can you? Can you hit your concluders off? Quiet? You 2:19:01.600 --> 2:19:05.400 still think about those cold beers? Depends what kind of 2:19:05.400 --> 2:19:10.440 beer it is. Oh no, if I get side tracked 2:19:10.520 --> 2:19:14.240 right now, it's still still Turkey, still golblers. But John No, 2:19:14.560 --> 2:19:18.119 I'll just go ahead and in the name of time 2:19:18.160 --> 2:19:21.480 and efficiency, I'll pass today because we have a lot 2:19:21.520 --> 2:19:24.200 ahead of us today. So beat beat. Yeah, I don't 2:19:24.200 --> 2:19:30.360 have any any singers here, you know, nothing can drop 2:19:30.400 --> 2:19:35.440 that product. Big epiphanies. Yeah, stay tuned, that's coming. Um yeah, 2:19:35.520 --> 2:19:38.160 thanks for thanks for inviting men, So stay tuned at 2:19:38.160 --> 2:19:41.040 stone Glacier dot com, lots lots of coming. Is that 2:19:41.080 --> 2:19:44.760 what it is Stone Glacier dot com. Yes, yeah, hell 2:19:44.800 --> 2:19:49.119 of a website. Good backpacks, Yeah, like them, they're backpacks 2:19:49.120 --> 2:19:54.160 the formative website. Lots thanks to Pete Man. Like info videos. 2:19:55.480 --> 2:19:57.600 You go there, you know exactly what's going on with 2:19:57.600 --> 2:20:02.320 your pack. They're good, man, I'm telling you man. The 2:20:02.360 --> 2:20:06.280 packs though, it's like there's a little bit like when 2:20:06.320 --> 2:20:07.880 you get it packed, you kind of gotta like that 2:20:08.360 --> 2:20:12.160 does stuff. At first you're like, uh what, But to me, 2:20:12.280 --> 2:20:14.560 you start like figuring out how it all works. It's 2:20:14.600 --> 2:20:17.119 like a whole different deal. But some people just want 2:20:17.160 --> 2:20:20.480 like a bag hooked to a shoulder strap, right, which 2:20:20.480 --> 2:20:22.160 is the kind of backpass we had when we were kids. 2:20:22.200 --> 2:20:25.400 Are like canvas sacks with two leather straps on them. 2:20:25.440 --> 2:20:28.039 But once you get a bag, at first you're like, oh, man, 2:20:28.200 --> 2:20:29.520 like I got a mess with it. But once you 2:20:29.600 --> 2:20:31.920 learn to mess with it, it changes everything. Yeah, it's 2:20:31.920 --> 2:20:34.160 a technical piece of gear, and like any piece of 2:20:34.160 --> 2:20:36.480 technical piece of gear, there's a learning curve with it, 2:20:36.520 --> 2:20:40.240 and we certainly encourage people to master that learning curve 2:20:40.280 --> 2:20:43.160 before you you're standing over a dead elk. Yeah. That 2:20:43.200 --> 2:20:46.000 it's like an adaptable it's like an adaptable type of 2:20:46.000 --> 2:20:50.320 backpack that like does a bunch of different things. Yeah, 2:20:50.360 --> 2:20:54.960 they packed meat. Holler yeah okay, Carl. Literally all right, 2:20:55.040 --> 2:20:57.400 So yesterday was a long day. I had like a 2:20:57.440 --> 2:21:00.520 full work day and then flew up from Albuquerque to 2:21:00.680 --> 2:21:05.280 Bozeman And can I interrupt you from it? Yeah? Yeah, 2:21:05.360 --> 2:21:08.360 it didn't take long, man, But I'm not gonna say 2:21:08.360 --> 2:21:10.320 another word appens. But I want to point something out. 2:21:10.800 --> 2:21:14.000 I'd like you to justify this. I like to think 2:21:14.520 --> 2:21:19.360 that when someone does a concluder that it's informed by 2:21:19.400 --> 2:21:22.560 what happened here today. But you're throwing a concluder at 2:21:22.640 --> 2:21:28.200 us that is like a preconceived concluder. Yeah, it is 2:21:28.920 --> 2:21:32.480 has your So this is my question. Is your concluder? 2:21:32.920 --> 2:21:35.000 And I don't care, but do you feel that your 2:21:35.040 --> 2:21:38.840 concluder has been influenced by today's conversation? Oh? Yeah, Oh really, Okay, 2:21:38.840 --> 2:21:41.720 go ahead, I'm done. Yeah, because you know, you've had 2:21:41.720 --> 2:21:45.440 a chance to talk a little bit about um kind 2:21:45.440 --> 2:21:51.600 of the the psychology, the the spiritual aspects of being 2:21:51.640 --> 2:21:54.320 involved actively in these systems. We've talked about that a 2:21:54.320 --> 2:21:56.720 bit today and I did take the conversation there because 2:21:56.720 --> 2:22:00.120 it's been on my mind. And UM, where I was 2:22:00.160 --> 2:22:03.200 going with my concluder is that yesterday was a long 2:22:03.280 --> 2:22:06.280 day and when I finally got into Bozeman last night 2:22:06.400 --> 2:22:07.800 was putting my head on the pill. I had a 2:22:07.800 --> 2:22:11.039 hard time falling asleep right off the bat, and I 2:22:11.080 --> 2:22:17.240 had these these few sort of recent um pieces of 2:22:17.280 --> 2:22:21.040 information floating around in my head in in an interesting concoction, 2:22:21.240 --> 2:22:23.400 and I'll try to lay it out so folks can 2:22:23.440 --> 2:22:26.680 follow me here. But what happened was I got picked 2:22:26.760 --> 2:22:30.720 up by a by a hired car at the airport 2:22:31.000 --> 2:22:33.880 and was driving along with this dude, you know, making 2:22:33.879 --> 2:22:41.280 some small talk apt apot dependent uh ride ride hailing service. 2:22:42.320 --> 2:22:44.280 And you know, I'm making small talk with the driver, 2:22:44.400 --> 2:22:48.040 a nice guy, um, talking about our families, and he 2:22:48.360 --> 2:22:50.840 mentioned he'd been married for thirty six years, right, and 2:22:50.840 --> 2:22:52.800 I'm coming up on my tenth anniversary this year. I 2:22:52.840 --> 2:22:55.880 was like, he's still yea. And so when I meet people, 2:22:56.200 --> 2:22:58.600 you know, I'm a fan of trying to tap into 2:22:58.680 --> 2:23:01.320 the wisdom of our elders, you know, So if I 2:23:01.360 --> 2:23:04.200 meet somebody who's been married for thirty six years, I'm 2:23:04.200 --> 2:23:08.040 always interested to hear some words of wisdom. So I 2:23:08.080 --> 2:23:13.200 took the conversation there, and he, I think, saw that 2:23:13.280 --> 2:23:17.840 as an opportunity to proselytize a little bit about his faith. 2:23:19.600 --> 2:23:22.039 And he's like, as long as you're asking me for advice, 2:23:22.080 --> 2:23:23.520 I'll tell you what I think is the main piece 2:23:23.520 --> 2:23:26.320 of advice. Yeah, yeah, which is cool. I mean I'm 2:23:26.360 --> 2:23:29.440 open minded, and I've got friends from all different religious 2:23:29.440 --> 2:23:32.920 backgrounds and secular backgrounds, and I'm always interested to hear 2:23:32.959 --> 2:23:36.920 what folks believe at their cores. And so this guy 2:23:37.840 --> 2:23:44.560 he summarized his perspectives on his religious faith as being 2:23:46.120 --> 2:23:51.680 the goal of trying to walk through life as if 2:23:51.680 --> 2:23:57.000 you're in a crowd without pushing anybody, Like navigating through 2:23:57.040 --> 2:24:01.640 a crowd without pushing anybody, all right. And I've never 2:24:01.680 --> 2:24:04.320 heard anybody refer to the refer to their faith in 2:24:04.320 --> 2:24:07.040 that manner. So I thought that was an interesting sort 2:24:07.040 --> 2:24:10.720 of piece of wisdom. And I think right now, um, 2:24:10.720 --> 2:24:14.200 in our in our culture as a country and in 2:24:14.440 --> 2:24:16.840 our culture as a globe, there's a lot of people 2:24:16.879 --> 2:24:21.119 pushing each other, um. And so this idea of trying 2:24:21.160 --> 2:24:25.160 to navigate in a way where you're mindful of other people, 2:24:25.400 --> 2:24:29.440 still moving, still moving, but mindful, right, I thought that 2:24:29.520 --> 2:24:31.640 was cool. And then as I was trying to fall 2:24:31.640 --> 2:24:33.120 asleep less and I was thinking about that, and then 2:24:33.160 --> 2:24:36.119 I was thinking about a couple of papers, like scientific 2:24:36.160 --> 2:24:39.360 papers that will include in the show notes so people 2:24:39.360 --> 2:24:41.120 can dive a little deeper if they're interested in this. 2:24:41.760 --> 2:24:43.680 And they're both very very recent papers that have been 2:24:43.720 --> 2:24:47.840 picked up in the popular press. Um. The first paper 2:24:48.720 --> 2:24:54.200 is titled the Biomass Distribution on Earth, and this group 2:24:54.240 --> 2:25:01.320 of scientists UM basically tried to assess in terms of 2:25:01.440 --> 2:25:05.320 carbon weight, if you take all the life on the planet, 2:25:05.520 --> 2:25:09.360 how is it distributed? And then how has it changed 2:25:10.160 --> 2:25:13.080 during the time that human beings have been on the planet. 2:25:13.879 --> 2:25:16.680 And there's some incredible takeaways. And if if folks are 2:25:16.720 --> 2:25:19.600 even remotely interested, UM, please take a look at the 2:25:19.600 --> 2:25:22.520 paper itself, because I'm going to do a very huge 2:25:22.560 --> 2:25:25.600 disservice by just skimming. Give us, give us a zinger, 2:25:26.080 --> 2:25:32.400 a few stats. Okay, so right now today, and and 2:25:32.480 --> 2:25:35.680 this is the units here are giga tons, which is 2:25:35.720 --> 2:25:38.280 like a huge amount of carbon. It's some if you 2:25:38.320 --> 2:25:43.160 imagine one kilogram and then put twelve zeros after it, 2:25:43.640 --> 2:25:45.959 that's a gig a ton of carbon. And the reason 2:25:46.040 --> 2:25:48.280 they chose giga tons of carbon is because it it 2:25:48.400 --> 2:25:51.039 controls for all the creatures who have like a lot 2:25:51.080 --> 2:25:55.000 of water in their bodies, so it kind of normalizes 2:25:55.040 --> 2:25:59.959 among plants and animals. But a couple of takeaways are 2:26:00.080 --> 2:26:05.240 that humans represent an infinitesimal fraction of the total weight 2:26:05.280 --> 2:26:08.760 of biomass, but during the course of our existence, we 2:26:08.840 --> 2:26:12.400 have influenced this distribution of biomass, unlike anything that has 2:26:12.440 --> 2:26:16.240 ever existed in the history of the planet, right, And 2:26:16.280 --> 2:26:23.960 we've done that by reducing the amount of wild animals 2:26:24.120 --> 2:26:27.879 and dramatically increasing the amount of domestic animals to the 2:26:27.879 --> 2:26:35.879 point that today um livestock represents zero point one gigatons 2:26:36.800 --> 2:26:42.120 of the biomass compared to wild mammals representing zero point 2:26:42.240 --> 2:26:46.800 zero zero seven gigatons. And that's for mammals. If you 2:26:46.840 --> 2:26:52.840 look at birds, domestic birds zero point zero zero five 2:26:53.640 --> 2:26:57.320 compared to wild birds zero point zero zero two. So 2:26:57.400 --> 2:26:59.160 there are more and this is in terms of biomass, 2:26:59.200 --> 2:27:02.320 more bio massive domestic birds more than twice as much 2:27:02.640 --> 2:27:05.560 biomass of domestic birds as wildbirds. The other day, my 2:27:05.640 --> 2:27:08.440 kid was asking me if there were more roly polies 2:27:08.560 --> 2:27:12.800 or people, there are more roly pollies. I said, there's 2:27:12.840 --> 2:27:15.760 more roly polies in your state than there are people 2:27:17.400 --> 2:27:22.360 on Earth. But then we got into like adjusting for size, 2:27:22.400 --> 2:27:25.160 and I was explaining that as far as large mammals go, 2:27:25.560 --> 2:27:30.480 there are far more people than any large mammal of 2:27:30.560 --> 2:27:33.440 comparable weight. And if you if you want to go 2:27:33.480 --> 2:27:37.640 with weight, if you take humans and our live stock 2:27:38.520 --> 2:27:45.280 and put us together, we outweigh the entire world. Of 2:27:45.400 --> 2:27:50.800 vertebrates except fish. There are more humans and livestock in 2:27:50.879 --> 2:27:54.560 terms of biomass than all of their vertebrates if you 2:27:54.560 --> 2:27:56.400 put fish out of the equation, because there's a there's 2:27:56.400 --> 2:27:58.600 a lot of weight and fish, and it's in the 2:27:59.160 --> 2:28:05.240 water covers our planet. Right, So the paper talks about 2:28:05.400 --> 2:28:09.160 our contributions to species loss and biomass loss during the 2:28:09.200 --> 2:28:13.200 coortinary mega fontal extinction. We get a back up from it. Yeah, 2:28:13.959 --> 2:28:17.920 everything with a backbone on land, everything with a backbone, 2:28:18.040 --> 2:28:23.440 it's not a fit. Does all the whales? Yeah, the 2:28:23.480 --> 2:28:27.160 blue whale being the largest creature. To check this out, 2:28:27.240 --> 2:28:29.480 marine mammals, if you want to go to marine mammals, 2:28:31.040 --> 2:28:37.640 they have declined from point zero two giga tons to 2:28:37.840 --> 2:28:41.040 point zero zero four giga tons, which is a fivefold 2:28:41.120 --> 2:28:46.560 loss in marine mammal biomass as a result of human exploitation. 2:28:47.920 --> 2:28:53.720 So this paper is really fascinating, um and in particular 2:28:54.160 --> 2:29:00.560 the conversation about the change that this you know, horrified 2:29:00.920 --> 2:29:06.640 primate that represents just a tiny little fraction of the 2:29:06.640 --> 2:29:12.920 global biomass has contributed to just shifting the distribution. So 2:29:14.040 --> 2:29:18.680 today now the vast majority of of biomass is woody 2:29:18.800 --> 2:29:25.480 vegetation fifty giga tons of um total carbon fifty giga 2:29:25.520 --> 2:29:31.000 tons of that as plants, but based on land use change, 2:29:31.560 --> 2:29:35.680 it's estimated in the paper we have lost half the 2:29:35.720 --> 2:29:42.879 global biomass of plants. So if you consider that the 2:29:43.080 --> 2:29:47.120 implications associated with our our existence, our growth, and our 2:29:47.160 --> 2:29:50.720 ability to thrive on the planet, we have had, you know, 2:29:51.040 --> 2:29:54.560 to put it, very mildly and outsized impact on the 2:29:54.600 --> 2:29:57.960 ecology of the Earth. So I've been thinking about that paper, okay, 2:29:58.080 --> 2:30:01.520 and then coupled with the taxi driver, hold on for 2:30:01.520 --> 2:30:06.760 a minute, I promise I'm going to conclude shortly. Then 2:30:06.760 --> 2:30:09.520 there's this other paper that will also post about the 2:30:09.600 --> 2:30:14.080 changing attitudes people have towards natural resources. And this is 2:30:14.080 --> 2:30:17.560 a paper published by some researchers from Colorado State and 2:30:17.600 --> 2:30:21.119 Ohio State in biological conservation. The lead authors guy named 2:30:21.120 --> 2:30:26.240 Michael Manfredo, and they talk about people who either have 2:30:28.000 --> 2:30:31.440 domination type values towards wildlife and they also refer to 2:30:31.520 --> 2:30:35.200 these as more traditional values. So the idea that wildlife 2:30:35.200 --> 2:30:39.800 are here to benefit people. Um, you know, this idea 2:30:39.840 --> 2:30:43.920 of like the subservience of wildlife to human beings as 2:30:43.959 --> 2:30:48.520 opposed to mutualist values which are on the rise as 2:30:48.560 --> 2:30:53.920 we become more detached from the land increasingly urbanized. These 2:30:54.040 --> 2:30:59.039 mutualist values, which are along the lines of, you know, 2:30:59.120 --> 2:31:01.400 treating these others BECs in a way where we give 2:31:01.440 --> 2:31:04.800 them deference. That's on the rise now that we've completely Yeah, 2:31:04.840 --> 2:31:06.360 the people who are most likely to live in a 2:31:06.360 --> 2:31:09.560 place where they have completely displaced, well, most likely to 2:31:09.600 --> 2:31:10.880 be like, you know what, we should treat it all. 2:31:11.200 --> 2:31:14.440 We should have mutual respect now that we've vanquished it. Yes, 2:31:14.560 --> 2:31:17.199 so they talk about this paper really focuses on how 2:31:17.840 --> 2:31:23.360 this this trend towards more mutualistic attitudes about wildlife is 2:31:24.040 --> 2:31:27.039 is already driving and will continue to drive a lot 2:31:27.080 --> 2:31:32.640 of conflict around fish and wildlife management decisions. But in 2:31:32.680 --> 2:31:34.480 the paper they also talk about this idea of being 2:31:34.640 --> 2:31:41.160 a pluralist, which is someone who feels like fish and 2:31:41.160 --> 2:31:47.000 wildlife cannon should be used sustainably, but also that fish 2:31:47.040 --> 2:31:50.160 and wildlife warrant a high degree of reverence and appreciation 2:31:50.360 --> 2:31:51.879 and we need to figure out how to co exist 2:31:51.959 --> 2:31:56.400 with them. That's called pluralism. Pluralist. Yeah, so somebody sign 2:31:56.480 --> 2:31:58.720 me up, dude, totally, I'm right there with you. When 2:31:58.720 --> 2:32:01.240 they when this paper talks abou ut pluralists. I felt 2:32:01.280 --> 2:32:04.120 like that's hit in the mark and this is something 2:32:04.240 --> 2:32:05.920 we could talk a lot more about. But in the 2:32:05.920 --> 2:32:09.440 interest of my concluding thought, I had this paper about 2:32:09.480 --> 2:32:13.200 the changing distribution of biomass on the landscape on on 2:32:13.240 --> 2:32:18.520 the on the planet, the planetary landscape, coupled with this 2:32:18.640 --> 2:32:23.560 idea of a growing disconnect between our species and the 2:32:23.640 --> 2:32:26.920 systems in which we evolved, in the systems that still 2:32:26.959 --> 2:32:29.280 still sustain us, right the flow of energy from the 2:32:29.320 --> 2:32:33.600 Sun to our bodies, and having all that coupled with 2:32:33.640 --> 2:32:38.520 this idea that my drivers shared last night of trying 2:32:38.560 --> 2:32:43.600 to navigate in a crowd without pushing. And I wonder 2:32:44.120 --> 2:32:47.800 if we as a species are capable of finding a 2:32:47.800 --> 2:32:55.560 way to operate where we thrive and we can extend 2:32:55.640 --> 2:33:00.520 this idea of not pushing to all of the non 2:33:00.800 --> 2:33:08.840 human inhabitants of the planet we occupy. Yeah, it's a 2:33:08.840 --> 2:33:11.320 good concluder. I don't care if you did have that 2:33:11.320 --> 2:33:16.520 pretty thought up the warrants it. That's what when I'm 2:33:16.520 --> 2:33:19.279 when I'm up at night land there trying to fall asleep, 2:33:19.320 --> 2:33:23.320 that's kind of stuff that's in my mind. And that's 2:33:23.320 --> 2:33:28.760 the kind of stuff that makes me feel supremely fortunate 2:33:29.240 --> 2:33:34.560 and privileged and grateful to be in this line of work, 2:33:36.840 --> 2:33:39.360 to be involved on a day to day basis. Yeah, 2:33:39.440 --> 2:33:43.039 with these tough kind of questions and conversations, you know, 2:33:43.080 --> 2:33:45.960 and whether we're talking about h