1 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:12,760 Speaker 1: This is me Eat Your Podcast coming in you shirtless, 2 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:17,680 Speaker 1: severely folk bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 3 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:29,600 Speaker 1: You can't predict anything. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Me 4 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:32,320 Speaker 1: Eat Your Podcast. This is as high as we've ever 5 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:36,199 Speaker 1: been in that we're in the nineteenth four of a 6 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:41,479 Speaker 1: hotel right now, Seattle, Washington, the Western Um. Yeah, this 7 00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,600 Speaker 1: is the Yeah, as high as we've ever been, looking 8 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:47,280 Speaker 1: out on Puget Sound. And I'm here with couple folks. 9 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:51,199 Speaker 1: But the most important one right now is are you 10 00:00:51,360 --> 00:00:54,480 Speaker 1: still go by professor? You can't be a professor anymore. 11 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,480 Speaker 1: I'm not a professor anymore. Now, So what are you now? Uh? 12 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: Just a citizen, right, I guess? Oh yeah, I can 13 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,560 Speaker 1: say that. We're here with the writer Dan. Now. We 14 00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:07,840 Speaker 1: had this debate earlier because I had always thought I 15 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:12,000 Speaker 1: had always like floorries. That's correct, Okay, I thought this 16 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:16,680 Speaker 1: this guy, your former student, doesn't know that. What were 17 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:19,839 Speaker 1: you trying to tell me? It was? I've always heard flores, yeah, 18 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:25,160 Speaker 1: within Flores, yeah, Flores. Yeah, it's uh, it's because it's 19 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:34,280 Speaker 1: pronounced uh with a Louisiana French accent, like it's floor. Yeah. 20 00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:37,440 Speaker 1: So writer and citizen Dan Flores who I met when 21 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:40,160 Speaker 1: he was Professor Dan Flores years ago. I was in 22 00:01:40,160 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: graduate school and I had to. I think it was 23 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:44,199 Speaker 1: part of the recordment. You take a seminar or something 24 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: outside of your discipline. I was a writing, a writing student, 25 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:54,800 Speaker 1: and I took a class. Um, I took your class. 26 00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:56,920 Speaker 1: What was your that class called? You remember the when 27 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: I was in it was it was an environment all 28 00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 1: writing seminar, I think is what you took. Yeah, And 29 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:06,800 Speaker 1: I was just humiliated in it. Um, way out of 30 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,560 Speaker 1: my league. All these guys I knew all about writing 31 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:12,799 Speaker 1: about things that they were sure happened instead of things 32 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,800 Speaker 1: you thought might have happened. Um. Which is part of 33 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:17,760 Speaker 1: the being a historian. I think that they try to 34 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,160 Speaker 1: train you and that I recall you might have that class. Yeah, 35 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:23,000 Speaker 1: but I was like I was out gone. There was 36 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,960 Speaker 1: some good students in there. Man. But I met Dana 37 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,760 Speaker 1: took that class, and it was just had a profound 38 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:34,560 Speaker 1: impact on me. Um. The body of literature that you know, 39 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:36,760 Speaker 1: we looked at and just like a way of thinking 40 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:41,919 Speaker 1: about things. Um. We had your student on who Who's here? 41 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,519 Speaker 1: Randa Williams on talking about his dissertation he did, and 42 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:50,120 Speaker 1: you were involved in that as an advisor. Yea, um, 43 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:56,040 Speaker 1: but just just again, can you hit what um in 44 00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:59,160 Speaker 1: your own words, like what an environmental historian is and 45 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,280 Speaker 1: does and looks at. It's not it's that terms not 46 00:03:03,400 --> 00:03:07,200 Speaker 1: a term people are familiar with outside of academics and scenes. Yeah, 47 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:09,320 Speaker 1: it's a it's a kind of term that you end 48 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:13,440 Speaker 1: up explaining to people in bars quite a bit, uh 49 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:15,480 Speaker 1: when they ask you, you know what you do or 50 00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:19,560 Speaker 1: what you write about? I mean, basically, it's a it's 51 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,600 Speaker 1: a way of thinking about their relationship between people in 52 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:27,000 Speaker 1: the natural world. And so it's and and doing it 53 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:32,720 Speaker 1: using history, which of course causes you to to examine 54 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:38,520 Speaker 1: changes over time. And so it's a environmental history and 55 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:41,200 Speaker 1: it's only been around for about thirty five or forty 56 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:46,280 Speaker 1: years now as a as a field of study. In fact, 57 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,880 Speaker 1: we're in Seattle right now because the American Society for 58 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:53,880 Speaker 1: Environmental History is meeting here. This is its annual conference, 59 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:56,840 Speaker 1: and it held its first one in nineteen seventy six, 60 00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:59,240 Speaker 1: So they'll give you an idea of how recent this 61 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:02,560 Speaker 1: feel has been around. But it's basically a way to 62 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,960 Speaker 1: uh to look at the history of how people have 63 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:12,560 Speaker 1: interacted with nature and that's a broad enough, uh spectrum 64 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:16,599 Speaker 1: of study that you just get the right and think 65 00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:19,640 Speaker 1: about all kinds of things, you know, not just the 66 00:04:19,760 --> 00:04:25,160 Speaker 1: environmental movement itself or the history of conservation Teddy Roosevelt. 67 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:30,080 Speaker 1: But uh, I mean in Randall's case, for example, he 68 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:37,279 Speaker 1: he got to think and write about how hunters have 69 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:42,120 Speaker 1: played a role in American culture in the twentieth century. 70 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 1: And the thing I've been interested in most in the 71 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:49,560 Speaker 1: last few years has been, uh, animals and the relationship 72 00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:54,279 Speaker 1: between people and animals. Yeah, and you have two books 73 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:56,159 Speaker 1: coming out right now? How many books? How many like 74 00:04:56,400 --> 00:05:00,920 Speaker 1: book length manuscripts have you published? Uh? These two will 75 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:06,039 Speaker 1: be the ninth and tenth. Uh so, and that dates 76 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:08,320 Speaker 1: back to about four My first book came out in 77 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:15,039 Speaker 1: hundreds of academic papers, well hundreds. But I've written an 78 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:18,440 Speaker 1: academic popular and academic articles. Yeah, a lot of a 79 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:21,320 Speaker 1: lot of popular things. I probably have published more popular 80 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:24,760 Speaker 1: things than academic pieces, but I've done I don't know, 81 00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:30,159 Speaker 1: actually I'm just having a hazard guess, but maybe two 82 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:35,120 Speaker 1: or three dozen academic papers and peer reviewed kind of journals, 83 00:05:35,560 --> 00:05:40,239 Speaker 1: and then I often spun off, you know, popular article 84 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:42,599 Speaker 1: or two from those kinds of things. Oh that is 85 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:45,039 Speaker 1: that how you work generally, Like you'll find stuff through 86 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:47,880 Speaker 1: your research that would be like, you know, would be 87 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:50,880 Speaker 1: suitable to a popular audience. Yeah, so you know, I mean, 88 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:53,919 Speaker 1: writing for academic journals is a wonderful things. How you 89 00:05:53,960 --> 00:05:57,240 Speaker 1: make your reputation in a field and get a professorship 90 00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:00,440 Speaker 1: and and all that sort of stuff. But uh, they 91 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:02,520 Speaker 1: don't pay you any money for those kinds of things. 92 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,720 Speaker 1: And I always I mean, I started out as a 93 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:08,240 Speaker 1: magazine writer before I ever became an academic, so I 94 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:10,760 Speaker 1: always had in my mind when I would do an 95 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,960 Speaker 1: academic piece, so how can I spend this off somehow 96 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,560 Speaker 1: as a you know, as a popular article and uh 97 00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:22,400 Speaker 1: reach a bigger audience with it for one thing. Uh, 98 00:06:22,839 --> 00:06:25,120 Speaker 1: make a little bit of change from it as well, 99 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:30,560 Speaker 1: but primarily kind of reach more people. And so yeah, 100 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,039 Speaker 1: a lot of the things I've done is as academic 101 00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:36,279 Speaker 1: and scholarly things have ended up, as you know, either 102 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:39,520 Speaker 1: getting absorbed into a book or or published as a 103 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:41,880 Speaker 1: as a popular article. So what are what are the 104 00:06:41,880 --> 00:06:44,960 Speaker 1: two books you have now? And why in the world 105 00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:48,360 Speaker 1: are you published in two books at the same time. Yeah, 106 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:54,600 Speaker 1: that's an unusual thing. Um, So the books are American Serengetti, 107 00:06:55,680 --> 00:07:00,200 Speaker 1: which is UM just a day or two away from 108 00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:04,039 Speaker 1: officially being out UH. And the subtitle of that book 109 00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:09,400 Speaker 1: is UM the Last Big Animals of the Great Plains. 110 00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:14,040 Speaker 1: And the other book is called Coyote America Unnatural and 111 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:19,080 Speaker 1: Supernatural History. And that book comes out about the middle 112 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: of May. And you're writing them both at the same time. Well, 113 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:26,600 Speaker 1: I wasn't really And you know, the truth is, the 114 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:32,880 Speaker 1: books are connected to one another because UM the Coyote 115 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:39,840 Speaker 1: Book or a Coyote Book was originally contracted to the 116 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:44,040 Speaker 1: publisher of the American Serengetti book, and which was a 117 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:49,520 Speaker 1: university press publisher. And I've retired from the University of 118 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,600 Speaker 1: Montana two years ago, and as I got close to retirement, 119 00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:55,600 Speaker 1: I realized that, so there's not really much point in 120 00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:59,520 Speaker 1: writing books for university presses anymore. I mean, that's really 121 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:03,360 Speaker 1: great when you're a professor and you get rewarded by 122 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: your university for doing that and in the field for 123 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,760 Speaker 1: doing that. But I knew I was about to retire, 124 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:12,760 Speaker 1: and so to reach bigger audiences, I wanted to do 125 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:18,920 Speaker 1: a book. UM start writing books basically for UH commercial presses, 126 00:08:19,600 --> 00:08:24,160 Speaker 1: And so I had acquired an agent who asked me 127 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:26,040 Speaker 1: about three or four years ago, so what are you 128 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:28,559 Speaker 1: working on now? Said, well, I've got a coyote book 129 00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:33,600 Speaker 1: that's contracted to the University of Kansas Press, and uh. 130 00:08:34,080 --> 00:08:37,640 Speaker 1: He said, well, why don't you write a proposal out 131 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:39,120 Speaker 1: of that and let me take it to New York 132 00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:42,080 Speaker 1: and see if I can sell it? And I did 133 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:47,600 Speaker 1: and he did. Uh. The problem was, so that was 134 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:51,560 Speaker 1: all great, but the problem was University of Kansas Press 135 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:55,280 Speaker 1: didn't take all that kindly to us sort of taking 136 00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:58,840 Speaker 1: their book away from them. And so the only way 137 00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:03,400 Speaker 1: to kind of resolve things with with Kansas was to 138 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:07,680 Speaker 1: promise them another book, which, yeah, which they agreed to, 139 00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:10,280 Speaker 1: but they also said, okay, that's fine, we want to 140 00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:14,160 Speaker 1: keep the same deadline you had with us, however, And 141 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:17,959 Speaker 1: so basically this time last year, I had a deadline 142 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,160 Speaker 1: for the Coyote Book in New York of January, and 143 00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:26,240 Speaker 1: I had a deadline for the American Sarrangetty Book in Lawrence, 144 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:32,199 Speaker 1: Kansas of May the first. So I finished up the 145 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:36,640 Speaker 1: Coyote book and uh, in hailed a couple of times, 146 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:40,000 Speaker 1: took a couple of deep breaths, and uh, since I 147 00:09:40,040 --> 00:09:42,120 Speaker 1: was already used to getting up every day and writing 148 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,960 Speaker 1: four or five or six hours. I just kept ongoing 149 00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:48,320 Speaker 1: and in another four months or so, managed to finish 150 00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:51,840 Speaker 1: off that. Yeah, that American sarrang Getty book. But in 151 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:55,920 Speaker 1: a way, you've been researching that book for your entire career. Indeed, 152 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,080 Speaker 1: I had, and I you know, and I had, I 153 00:09:58,080 --> 00:10:02,000 Speaker 1: had written some of it actually, um already, I mean 154 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:06,880 Speaker 1: I ended up I ended up revising pretty considerably the 155 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:10,640 Speaker 1: things that I've already written. But yeah, I had worked 156 00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:14,559 Speaker 1: on Buffalo. Uh years ago. I had written a kind 157 00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:20,360 Speaker 1: of a major scholarly peace about Buffalo that sort of reimagined, 158 00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:24,840 Speaker 1: reconceptualized what happened to him in the nineteenth century. That 159 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:30,400 Speaker 1: became a pretty successful academic article. Yeah, I've I've had 160 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:34,439 Speaker 1: a lot of great luck just telling that story for you, 161 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:39,960 Speaker 1: being like you know what I was reading. Yeah. I 162 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,480 Speaker 1: always credit you, though, man, Yeah, well, I mean yeah, 163 00:10:43,559 --> 00:10:46,199 Speaker 1: and you uh you did credit me, and I appreciated 164 00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:50,120 Speaker 1: that in your in your Buffalo book. But I so 165 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:53,120 Speaker 1: that story I kind of uh you know, I knew 166 00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:56,400 Speaker 1: pretty well, and that provided me with a starting point 167 00:10:56,440 --> 00:10:59,959 Speaker 1: for the chapter that's on Buffalo in this American Staring 168 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:03,360 Speaker 1: Getty book. But Leo the premise of the American when 169 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:04,959 Speaker 1: you say the last big ones, you mean the last 170 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:06,559 Speaker 1: big ones that are here now? Are the last big 171 00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:08,000 Speaker 1: ones like the ones we lost at the end of 172 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:10,760 Speaker 1: the Places scene. Yeah, that's an excellent question. I mean, 173 00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:13,840 Speaker 1: I actually talk about both versions of the American Serengetti. 174 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,920 Speaker 1: The Pleistocene version um doesn't get as much coverage as 175 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,000 Speaker 1: the historic version of the American Serengetti, but I spend 176 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,160 Speaker 1: a good bit of time talking about it because down 177 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:27,200 Speaker 1: to ten thousand years ago, I mean, we really we 178 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:32,360 Speaker 1: had an African analog on the American Great Plains. Uh, 179 00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:36,679 Speaker 1: with all the the charismatic megafauna that we're here. I mean, 180 00:11:36,679 --> 00:11:42,439 Speaker 1: we had elephants in the form of mammoths. We had uh, 181 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:46,920 Speaker 1: we had camels. We had of course, huge herds of 182 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:51,040 Speaker 1: giant bison that were sort of the counterpart to wildebeest 183 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,480 Speaker 1: herds in Africa. We had a lion, the step Line, 184 00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:59,320 Speaker 1: which was actually a larger lion than the African lion. 185 00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:05,560 Speaker 1: We had giant and very grass isisle short faced bear 186 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:09,679 Speaker 1: that was down to about twelve years ago was probably 187 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:12,400 Speaker 1: one of the most formidable predators anywhere in the world. 188 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:17,640 Speaker 1: Some people think that humans weren't able to to migrate 189 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:21,800 Speaker 1: to North America until about fifteen thousand years ago because 190 00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:27,080 Speaker 1: these short faced bears were there at the bearing straight 191 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:32,240 Speaker 1: and they presented such a formidable barrier uh to humans 192 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,960 Speaker 1: that we basically they had to become extinct before humans 193 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,040 Speaker 1: were able to get to North America. So there was 194 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:42,440 Speaker 1: this large beast she area of animals down to ten 195 00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:49,400 Speaker 1: thousand years ago. A giant hunting, very fast hunting hyena. Uh. 196 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:54,160 Speaker 1: There were cheetah like cats that were related to cougars 197 00:12:55,040 --> 00:13:00,000 Speaker 1: um cougars are kind of their descendants, but they were uh, 198 00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:06,599 Speaker 1: curved fang cats, one called a scimitar cat. And of course, uh, 199 00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:10,880 Speaker 1: you know, the the these cats that we imagine from 200 00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:15,959 Speaker 1: the plies to saying running down the calves of of mammoths. 201 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,720 Speaker 1: But most of that beast sherry, with the exception of 202 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:23,440 Speaker 1: five or six animals, when extinct about ten thousand years 203 00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:28,120 Speaker 1: ago in an extinction scenario frankly that we still don't 204 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:31,800 Speaker 1: quite understand. I mean like we don't understand it temporarily. 205 00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:36,760 Speaker 1: We don't understand it temporarily or in terms of costs. 206 00:13:38,480 --> 00:13:44,720 Speaker 1: For example, one of the most common creatures of the Pleistocene, 207 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:50,400 Speaker 1: American Serenghetti were bands of wild horses. Some biologists believe 208 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:56,319 Speaker 1: that they comprised as much as twenty of the biomass 209 00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:00,200 Speaker 1: of grazing animals on the Great Plains down to about 210 00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,360 Speaker 1: eight or nine thousand years ago. And they the thing 211 00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:06,320 Speaker 1: about horses is they migrated across the Bearing Strait and 212 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:08,920 Speaker 1: they ended up in Asia and in Africa, where they 213 00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:13,480 Speaker 1: became zebras and quaggas and and related animals, uh and 214 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:17,920 Speaker 1: European horses. And they survived in all those places. But 215 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 1: for some reason that we don't grasp, about eight or 216 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:24,760 Speaker 1: nine thousand years ago, all those horses became extinct in 217 00:14:24,840 --> 00:14:30,360 Speaker 1: North America. And so we lost this giant biomass of 218 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:34,200 Speaker 1: grazing animals in the form of wild horses that completely 219 00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:39,320 Speaker 1: disappeared from the Pleistocene serengetti. And we don't know exactly why. 220 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:45,360 Speaker 1: I mean, some of the speculation is that they contracted diseases. Um. 221 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,840 Speaker 1: Some of some of these is the blitz Creek hypothesis 222 00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:53,280 Speaker 1: totally out of fashion, though it is not out of fashion. Yeah, 223 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: and so there's a paleog Yeah. The so the ideas 224 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:04,960 Speaker 1: range from the Blitzkrieg that you mentioned, which was popularized 225 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:08,440 Speaker 1: by a paleo biology saying Paul Martin now Paul Martin 226 00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:13,000 Speaker 1: at the University of Arizona, who wrote a bunch of 227 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:16,480 Speaker 1: really compelling books. The most the last one he wrote 228 00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:20,880 Speaker 1: was called Twilight of the Mammoths, and his argument was 229 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:25,640 Speaker 1: that about fifteen thousand years or so ago, humans began 230 00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:28,880 Speaker 1: migrating out of Asia into North America, confronting a bit 231 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:32,920 Speaker 1: of animals that had never seen human predators before. And 232 00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:38,000 Speaker 1: these these people were very accomplished predators with a very 233 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:44,640 Speaker 1: sophisticated tool kit, and the Blitzkrieg model speculates that in 234 00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:49,720 Speaker 1: a period of less than three hundred years, these people 235 00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:55,600 Speaker 1: expanded from Siberia into the America's all the way down 236 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:59,240 Speaker 1: to the tip of South America and wiped out most 237 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:02,600 Speaker 1: of these speed She's that we're confronting human predators for 238 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:05,720 Speaker 1: the first time and just sort of collapsed in the 239 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:11,400 Speaker 1: wake of this assault. It's out on one hand, it's outlandish. 240 00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:14,840 Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you look at the if, 241 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:19,920 Speaker 1: when you look at how where things went extinct win 242 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:23,240 Speaker 1: and when people showed up there, and then you have 243 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:27,200 Speaker 1: things like Mammoth's on Wrangle Island, up until four thousand 244 00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:29,880 Speaker 1: years ago, and no one had ever stepped foot on wrangle. 245 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:33,920 Speaker 1: It just gets weird, man, it does get weird, and 246 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:37,480 Speaker 1: it's Martin argued, and other people have argued that as 247 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:40,080 Speaker 1: humans spread out of Africa, we actually kind of did 248 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:42,840 Speaker 1: this all over the world. Uh. You know, some of 249 00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:45,040 Speaker 1: the really good examples of it are, for example, in 250 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:49,640 Speaker 1: the islands of Polynesia, where as soon as humans arrive, 251 00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:56,920 Speaker 1: um for instance in a y uh thirty, some species 252 00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: of flightless birds become extinct within a couple of hundred 253 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:04,679 Speaker 1: years because they're such easy targets for human hunters. And 254 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:10,040 Speaker 1: humans usually arrived with dogs and sometimes with hawks, and 255 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,040 Speaker 1: this suite of animals that we bring along with us 256 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:17,560 Speaker 1: as domestic that's sort of play a role. And and 257 00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:20,920 Speaker 1: the simplification of the ecologies of all these far flung 258 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:23,800 Speaker 1: places that we get into. Yeah, in Europe. And I'm 259 00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:25,800 Speaker 1: not arguing, like I don't know enough to argue for 260 00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:27,360 Speaker 1: it against it, but I'm just talking about the parts 261 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:30,719 Speaker 1: that are compelling is that Europe had versions of all 262 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:32,600 Speaker 1: these things we're talking about in the American when what 263 00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:35,160 Speaker 1: you describe as the American serengetti, but they went through 264 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,640 Speaker 1: it thirty years ago, and we know that humans were 265 00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:42,320 Speaker 1: like that. You know that the human hunters like basically us, 266 00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:45,600 Speaker 1: like people that were they alive today, could fly an airplane. 267 00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:50,480 Speaker 1: You know that they arrived there around those times and 268 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:52,000 Speaker 1: you saw the same thing happened again. But on the 269 00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:54,240 Speaker 1: other hand, it's just like, how in the world could 270 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:58,119 Speaker 1: you kill them all? Yeah, it's uh, it's it's with 271 00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,440 Speaker 1: atladdles and that's the primary su primary weapon they had 272 00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:07,359 Speaker 1: at laddles and sometimes just stabbing spears, but lay the 273 00:18:07,440 --> 00:18:09,320 Speaker 1: other ones out. I kind of hijacked it with the 274 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:13,160 Speaker 1: blitz screen thing is so fascinating. It's not as fun 275 00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:15,480 Speaker 1: as it's more fun than the things like the disease. 276 00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:21,040 Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And so uh, the best evidence, by 277 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,800 Speaker 1: the way, for the blitzkrieg is in North America is 278 00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:29,960 Speaker 1: with mammoths. I mean we we've only recently, for instance, 279 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 1: actually discovered kill sites of horses in North America from 280 00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:41,040 Speaker 1: there have been some discovered in the last seven or 281 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,960 Speaker 1: eight ten years. Yeah, and those are the first one. 282 00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:48,359 Speaker 1: So part of the problem with the blitzkrieg model is that, Okay, 283 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,240 Speaker 1: so if that's your model, then you expect to go 284 00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:55,000 Speaker 1: out there and archaeology paleoarchaeology is going to yield up 285 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:57,760 Speaker 1: all these sites with slaughtered animals, sort of the way 286 00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:03,040 Speaker 1: it does in Europe. At with horses in France. I mean, 287 00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:06,359 Speaker 1: there's a spot in France where something like thirty or 288 00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:10,520 Speaker 1: forty thousand horse carcasses were killed and butchered by human 289 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,639 Speaker 1: hunters driving off cliffs. Well, I mean, that was the 290 00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:15,520 Speaker 1: speculation for a long time. It looks like what they 291 00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:18,520 Speaker 1: were actually doing was driving them into corrals. They were 292 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:22,800 Speaker 1: driving them into corral. Such a horrific vision driven off 293 00:19:22,800 --> 00:19:26,399 Speaker 1: a cliff's yeah, it's a horrific vision. And there's a 294 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:29,880 Speaker 1: there's a wonderful nineteenth century illustration of horses pouring off 295 00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:33,600 Speaker 1: a cliff in France. But it looks as if what 296 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:36,320 Speaker 1: they actually were doing were billing corrals and crawling them 297 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:39,080 Speaker 1: and then then kill them. Some people argue, in fact 298 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:42,199 Speaker 1: that the reason we have modern horses, which most of 299 00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:46,040 Speaker 1: which spring from European and African sources, is because about 300 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:48,920 Speaker 1: six thousand years ago we domesticated them before we could 301 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,680 Speaker 1: kill them all off. We finally domesticated them, and that's 302 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:57,520 Speaker 1: what enabled them to serve in the mythology of plains 303 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:01,840 Speaker 1: tribes horses sometimes play a role, or am I wrong? 304 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:05,199 Speaker 1: I remember someone pointing out that, like the like this 305 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:10,280 Speaker 1: idea of of the mounted planes hunter was a two 306 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:15,119 Speaker 1: was like a brief phenomenon's it started to years ago. 307 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:17,479 Speaker 1: But they're like, how could it be so ingrained? How 308 00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:20,520 Speaker 1: could the horse become so quickly so ingrained in the mythology. 309 00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:23,600 Speaker 1: It just had such a profound impact on them. Well, 310 00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:27,160 Speaker 1: I mean, some some tribes. I saw an exhibit in 311 00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:30,639 Speaker 1: in Calgary several years ago that was curated by the 312 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:35,399 Speaker 1: Blackfoot Confederacy and at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and 313 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:41,560 Speaker 1: and these Blackfoot elders said in the text of this 314 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:50,320 Speaker 1: exhibit that there mythological stories remembered horses from thousands of 315 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,480 Speaker 1: years ago, and so they argued that they had preserved 316 00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:57,520 Speaker 1: a memory of horses from back in the Plies to Saine, 317 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:04,120 Speaker 1: and when in the seventeen hundreds they encountered European horses, 318 00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,880 Speaker 1: they were able to draw on some mythology about these animals. Um, 319 00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:12,440 Speaker 1: you hear the term collective memory, Yeah, and a collective 320 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:14,840 Speaker 1: tribal memory is I mean, you know, I don't denigrate 321 00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,960 Speaker 1: that at all. It's it's entirely possible that that was 322 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:24,000 Speaker 1: the case. But I would say that Martin's argument about 323 00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:28,159 Speaker 1: a blitzkrieg is most evident with mammoths, where we do 324 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:34,920 Speaker 1: have kill sites with projectile points like Clovis points embedded 325 00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 1: in the skeletal material of the recovered animals, and they're 326 00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:43,000 Speaker 1: there are a lot of of Clovis sites with mammoths. 327 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,320 Speaker 1: Do you remember that you and I visited one of 328 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:47,680 Speaker 1: those slights together, Well, I wrote about that. That's sort 329 00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:52,240 Speaker 1: of like that's how the American Serengetti book opens, In fact, 330 00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:54,680 Speaker 1: is when that with that visit that you and I 331 00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:58,600 Speaker 1: made over to Blackwater Draw, uh and sort of giving 332 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:02,000 Speaker 1: ourselves our own personal tour because I were called. We 333 00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:03,760 Speaker 1: drove all the way over there from Santa Fe and 334 00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,159 Speaker 1: the place was close, so we just hopped over the 335 00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:10,560 Speaker 1: fence and and gave ourselves a tour. But uh, yeah, 336 00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,399 Speaker 1: so the Blackwater Draw, I mean, that's that's the the 337 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:20,400 Speaker 1: the original Clovis site in North America where butchered mammoths 338 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:25,240 Speaker 1: were first found with with evidence of human hunting. But 339 00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:27,439 Speaker 1: there's not much evidence for the other animals. I mean, 340 00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:29,760 Speaker 1: you'd think that there would be all these camel sites 341 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:35,360 Speaker 1: out there with butchered remains and points and horse sits 342 00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,280 Speaker 1: and and so that's been one of the problems more 343 00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,600 Speaker 1: recently last ten or fifteen years with the Blitz Creeg 344 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,160 Speaker 1: model is that there's not there aren't the sites out there. 345 00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:47,159 Speaker 1: Maybe we just haven't found them, but except for the 346 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,119 Speaker 1: mammoth site, there's not much out there. There's a I 347 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:55,000 Speaker 1: believe at Lyndenmeyer, the Lindenmeyer site near Fort Collins, Colorado, 348 00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,800 Speaker 1: there was a foreshaft made from a camel bone. Yeah. Yeah, 349 00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:02,480 Speaker 1: So there's evidence obviously that they were using yeah, picking 350 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,479 Speaker 1: it up. They were at least exploiting the remains of camus, 351 00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:07,439 Speaker 1: whether they were camels where they were killing or not. 352 00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,040 Speaker 1: So what is the horse sight that turned up? It's one. 353 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:14,000 Speaker 1: It's one near Boulder, Uh, Colorado. Uh. And I've not 354 00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:17,320 Speaker 1: read much about it or visited it, but it's one 355 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:22,080 Speaker 1: that uh was unearthed I don't know, maybe seven eight 356 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:26,360 Speaker 1: years ago. So there is a horse sight near Boulder 357 00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:33,400 Speaker 1: that shows evidence of human butchering and evidently human kills 358 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:36,879 Speaker 1: of horses. The problem with that, of course, is that 359 00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,040 Speaker 1: you'd think if the horse comprised thirty of the biomass 360 00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,000 Speaker 1: of all these grazing animals. There would be scores of 361 00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,840 Speaker 1: sights like that, and we've struggled to try to find 362 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:52,360 Speaker 1: any at all. So that's led some people to say, Okay, 363 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,840 Speaker 1: what actually happened to these animals was a changing climate. 364 00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,600 Speaker 1: We know that about the time, so two things happened. 365 00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:01,840 Speaker 1: A copy said about the time all these animals disappeared, 366 00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:06,840 Speaker 1: humans arrived from Asia and the climate started changing, and 367 00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:12,800 Speaker 1: the climate was cycling into a much warmer and drier regime. 368 00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,840 Speaker 1: And so one of the arguments about what happened to 369 00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:21,560 Speaker 1: all these original American Serengeti animals is that they basically 370 00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,200 Speaker 1: succumbed to a changing climate. They were evolved to kind 371 00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:30,200 Speaker 1: of an ice age climate, and when the climate turned 372 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:34,480 Speaker 1: warm and dry, uh, it basically dried up their habitat, 373 00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,320 Speaker 1: and so they disappeared as a result of that. And 374 00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:41,760 Speaker 1: then one of the more most recent explanations is a 375 00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:48,119 Speaker 1: disease explanation, which is so far mostly speculative because we 376 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,200 Speaker 1: don't other than people saying, Okay, we can't figure this out. 377 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,560 Speaker 1: There's got to be some other reason, and maybe it's disease. 378 00:24:56,080 --> 00:25:00,880 Speaker 1: The problem is that right, carnivore exactly and I think 379 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,200 Speaker 1: people focus on all these large animals, but we lost 380 00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,160 Speaker 1: many many small animals, lost a lot of small animals, 381 00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:10,320 Speaker 1: although at least in In Martin's argument, it's mostly the 382 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:13,040 Speaker 1: large animals and a lot of the small animals are intact. 383 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:17,200 Speaker 1: But Martin even argues that I mean, so, for instance, 384 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:21,240 Speaker 1: some of the I mean horses specialized in stiper grasses 385 00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,400 Speaker 1: and needle and thread grasses, and those grasses are still 386 00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,320 Speaker 1: all over the West. So it's like the fodder that 387 00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:32,080 Speaker 1: they were grazing is still there, but the animals disappeared. 388 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,320 Speaker 1: So the truth is right now. This is one of 389 00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:42,160 Speaker 1: the great mysteries of North American environment. I would too, 390 00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,240 Speaker 1: I'd love to know anybody had to keep the secret, 391 00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,199 Speaker 1: but we have not figured it out yet. All we 392 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:54,080 Speaker 1: know is that that version, that much uh African like 393 00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:59,119 Speaker 1: version of the Serengetti disappeared between eight and twelve thousand 394 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,800 Speaker 1: years ago. So what do you call in the Serengetti like? 395 00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:06,960 Speaker 1: Lay it off me. In terms of geography, it's the 396 00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,520 Speaker 1: It's basically the American Great Plains, so the Hunter Meridian 397 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,120 Speaker 1: to the Rockies. Yeah, it's the hundredth meridian. Uh. In 398 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,800 Speaker 1: some instances for some species slightly further east. Uh, but 399 00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,680 Speaker 1: basically about the hundredth meridian to the Rockies and from 400 00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:28,920 Speaker 1: Texas uh into Alberta and Saskatchewan. So just for people 401 00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,560 Speaker 1: to get a grasp on it to be like the 402 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:37,639 Speaker 1: Texas Panhandle, right western Oklahoma, western Kansas exactly, kind of 403 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: all of the Colorado, all of the Dakotas, yeah, all 404 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:46,720 Speaker 1: the all the dakotassa, portions of New Mexico, Yeah, eastern 405 00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,560 Speaker 1: New Mexico and up into a handful of Canadian provinces, 406 00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:54,480 Speaker 1: right yeah, up, And basically the plains sort of start 407 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,840 Speaker 1: grading as you go farther north, they begin to grade 408 00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:02,560 Speaker 1: into aspen motts uh at about oh, I don't know, 409 00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,720 Speaker 1: maybe the fifty second parallel fifty one or fifty second 410 00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,159 Speaker 1: parallel as you go north, and the Canadian US border 411 00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:14,080 Speaker 1: is the parallel. So a couple of degrees north of 412 00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:20,000 Speaker 1: the Canadian border, you start losing the savannah's the grasslands, 413 00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,440 Speaker 1: and you began to have that country broken up by 414 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:27,639 Speaker 1: copses of trees. So that's basically it. So it's this, 415 00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:34,920 Speaker 1: it says long north south stretching uh province east of 416 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:40,359 Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains that stretches about fifteen to sev hundred 417 00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,600 Speaker 1: miles north and south, and from the Rockies eastward goes 418 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:49,200 Speaker 1: maybe four hundred miles. So it's that area, and that 419 00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:56,040 Speaker 1: area for eight hundred thousand years has been one of 420 00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:03,439 Speaker 1: the marvels of the world in terms of enormous numbers 421 00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:09,440 Speaker 1: of big animals, grazers and all the predators that that 422 00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,560 Speaker 1: preyed on them. And yeah, so that's it. So earlier 423 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,119 Speaker 1: you're talking about I asked you if you meant the 424 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:18,879 Speaker 1: ones that used to be here are the ones that 425 00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,080 Speaker 1: you here? Now you're taking like the whole dynamic view 426 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,240 Speaker 1: of it. What's here? What's here? Now? Do you get 427 00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,640 Speaker 1: into who lived and why do they live? I guess 428 00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,239 Speaker 1: because you can't. You can't say why they lived if 429 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:33,200 Speaker 1: you don't know what why the other ones succumbed. I mean, 430 00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,360 Speaker 1: it's uh. You know, this is one of the things 431 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:39,680 Speaker 1: about sort of ecological history or environmental history is that, 432 00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,240 Speaker 1: you know, as John Muir said about things, everything is 433 00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,840 Speaker 1: connected everything else, and so it becomes kind of impossible 434 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:50,200 Speaker 1: to just look at a snapshot, say the nineteenth century, 435 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,880 Speaker 1: when we know there were millions of buffalo and the 436 00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:57,959 Speaker 1: Great Plains without understanding how they got there, and the 437 00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,400 Speaker 1: reason they were there in our historical account from the 438 00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,960 Speaker 1: nineteenth century is because of that extinction that happened ten 439 00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:11,960 Speaker 1: thousand years ago. Only a small handful of animals survived 440 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:17,360 Speaker 1: that extinction. Bison were one of the primary survivors of it. 441 00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:25,040 Speaker 1: Gray wolves became a primary survivor, grizzly bears, uh, coyotes, 442 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,280 Speaker 1: elk of course, pronghorn antelope, which is really one of 443 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:36,320 Speaker 1: the most fascinating animals of the Great Plains, because those 444 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:43,240 Speaker 1: animals are still completely adapted to the Pleistocene serengetti they are. 445 00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:49,960 Speaker 1: They're able to outrun Pronghorns can outrun today their fastest 446 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:55,440 Speaker 1: pursuers by twenty And the reason they run so much 447 00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,880 Speaker 1: faster than gray wolves do, for instance, is because they 448 00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:04,200 Speaker 1: evolved to outrun cheat us and hunting hyenas. And so 449 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,880 Speaker 1: here they are ten thousand years later, still adapted to 450 00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:13,720 Speaker 1: out running all these animals that disappeared thousands and thousands 451 00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,520 Speaker 1: of years ago. You know, I was I touched on 452 00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:18,680 Speaker 1: this a little bit in something I did recently, and 453 00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,080 Speaker 1: I pointed out there uh great reluctance to jumping. Yeah, 454 00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,720 Speaker 1: and it had many many people come forward with videos 455 00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:29,160 Speaker 1: and photos of them in fact jumping, but a great 456 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,600 Speaker 1: reluctance to jump, great reluctance because they evolve done on 457 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:40,880 Speaker 1: grassland plains without the necessity of jumping very very little timber. 458 00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:42,800 Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why when you if 459 00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,840 Speaker 1: you watch prong horns, I mean, their technique for going 460 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,440 Speaker 1: through a barbed wire fence usually is to turn sideways 461 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,640 Speaker 1: and go through the strands. I mean, they don't do 462 00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,720 Speaker 1: what you would think looking at them, a gazelle would do, 463 00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,360 Speaker 1: which would be too easily bound over it, or what 464 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,320 Speaker 1: a mule deer does. Instead, they'll they'll go at a 465 00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:07,280 Speaker 1: fence and go through the strands of barbed wire, sometimes 466 00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:11,800 Speaker 1: in a big cloud of hair. But all those those 467 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:17,720 Speaker 1: creatures then survived, and the reason, for instance, prong horns 468 00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:23,720 Speaker 1: and bison become so numerous is because they inherited grasslands 469 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:28,000 Speaker 1: where most of their grazing competitors have vanished. And so 470 00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,920 Speaker 1: it's possible for bison, for instance, which ten thousand years 471 00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:37,200 Speaker 1: ago probably I mean bison were maybe only five million strong, 472 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,360 Speaker 1: but with all the other grazing animals gone, it's possible 473 00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:46,360 Speaker 1: for bison to expand their populations into the thirty million 474 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,120 Speaker 1: animals that we're here, uh in the nineteen hundreds are 475 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,240 Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, and so it's a it's a version 476 00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:59,240 Speaker 1: of the American Serengetti that sort of is the next 477 00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:04,360 Speaker 1: step down historical timeline, with a smaller contingent of animals, 478 00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:09,040 Speaker 1: but nonetheless one that had so much magic and poetry 479 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,960 Speaker 1: to it that when Europeans began traveling to the Great 480 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,560 Speaker 1: Plains in the early nineteenth century, the early eighteen hundreds, 481 00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,480 Speaker 1: I mean, one of the most common literary motifs of 482 00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:30,080 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century West are these rhapsodies about the multitudes 483 00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:34,440 Speaker 1: of animals that people were were encountering so much that 484 00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:40,560 Speaker 1: I mean European sportsman Uh Sir William Drummond Stewart in 485 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,080 Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, uh Sir George Gore in the eighteen 486 00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:50,120 Speaker 1: fifties took on a little John, bloody little John. These 487 00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:55,800 Speaker 1: guys came over and they basically they conducted uh safaris 488 00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,480 Speaker 1: on the great Planes at the almost slashes at the 489 00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:04,880 Speaker 1: same time that the first safaris were happening in Africa, 490 00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,040 Speaker 1: when British sportsmen were going into South Africa in the 491 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,200 Speaker 1: eighteen thirties, At the same time that William Drummond Stewart 492 00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:16,880 Speaker 1: was was doing these high end guided safari hunts in 493 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:20,000 Speaker 1: the American West out on the Great Plains, and uh, 494 00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,720 Speaker 1: I mean the stories of those are pretty remarkable. Give 495 00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,000 Speaker 1: a snapshot of the abundance of some of the animals 496 00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:32,040 Speaker 1: besides the ones we hear about, like you know, everyone's heard, yeah, 497 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,280 Speaker 1: I mean just you know that looked like clouds moving 498 00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,200 Speaker 1: and took days for the herds of the past. But 499 00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,680 Speaker 1: you never hear someone articulate like how many you know 500 00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,840 Speaker 1: a prong horner antelope we're on the landscape, or how 501 00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,360 Speaker 1: many big horn sheep? Were people ever encountering those in 502 00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:48,520 Speaker 1: a way that would be surprising to us? Now, Oh 503 00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,800 Speaker 1: yeah they were. I mean one of my favorite descriptions 504 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,320 Speaker 1: of those animals is uh John James Otto Buns in 505 00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:57,480 Speaker 1: eighteen forty three. I mean, here, you've got a guy, 506 00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:02,600 Speaker 1: you know who is the most celebrated, uh nature painter 507 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:07,040 Speaker 1: in the United States. Uh. He had just completed in 508 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,880 Speaker 1: eight thirty eight The Birds of America that made him 509 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:17,680 Speaker 1: a worldwide literary and artistic figure. Had gone on a 510 00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:22,680 Speaker 1: book tour of Europe with his hair cascading down around 511 00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,160 Speaker 1: his shoulders and dressed in Buckskins is kind of the 512 00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,800 Speaker 1: classic American noble savage. And he returns to the United 513 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:34,239 Speaker 1: States after this very successful book tour and decides he's 514 00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,480 Speaker 1: gonna do the same thing for the mammals of America 515 00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:39,200 Speaker 1: that he had just done for the birds. He had 516 00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,800 Speaker 1: painted four and thirty five American birds, all life size 517 00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,840 Speaker 1: on the page, and so he decides he can't obviously 518 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:52,200 Speaker 1: paint elk and buy some life size on a page, 519 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,120 Speaker 1: but he's going to try to do something similar. He's 520 00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:59,440 Speaker 1: gonna try to to portray all the great native creatures 521 00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,080 Speaker 1: of North Americ Okay. In order to do that, he's 522 00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,400 Speaker 1: got to make a trip to the west. So he 523 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,360 Speaker 1: and his sons Um and a couple of companions in 524 00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,440 Speaker 1: three go up the Missouri River and he gets into 525 00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:20,120 Speaker 1: western North Dakota um approaching the Montana border, and right 526 00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:25,880 Speaker 1: some of the most extraordinary descriptions of the multitudes of 527 00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:30,040 Speaker 1: animals that he's seeing that I've ever read. I mean, 528 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:38,160 Speaker 1: he says that no one could conceive of the numbers 529 00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:42,800 Speaker 1: of animals of many different varieties that they were seeing 530 00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,800 Speaker 1: day after day after day from the proudest steam vessel, 531 00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,839 Speaker 1: the Omega that was pushing up to Fort Union, and 532 00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,600 Speaker 1: he closed one of my favorite lines of his. He 533 00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:59,880 Speaker 1: wrote his wife a letter and he closed it with 534 00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,160 Speaker 1: he was writing late at night, and he was describing 535 00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:06,080 Speaker 1: for all these animals. He was saying. Every day, he said, 536 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:08,759 Speaker 1: I've never seen so many wolves in my life. I mean, 537 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,399 Speaker 1: we're going up the river and there's a wolf lying 538 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,200 Speaker 1: on the sandbar. There's another one climbing up the bank 539 00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,320 Speaker 1: on the other side. There's some sitting out on sandbars 540 00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,280 Speaker 1: in the middle of the river watching us like dogs. 541 00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:24,279 Speaker 1: There was a picturesque heard of bison at the same time, 542 00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:26,680 Speaker 1: cantering along and in front of us in the river. 543 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,399 Speaker 1: I heard of about thirty elk or swimming the river. 544 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,600 Speaker 1: And the racks of the bulls are projecting out of 545 00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,720 Speaker 1: the water, and the tips are sweeping along the surface, 546 00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:38,960 Speaker 1: and their mountain rams. And he just goes on and on, 547 00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,120 Speaker 1: and he finally says to her, I've got to stop writing. 548 00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:43,880 Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to go to sleep. I'm 549 00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,520 Speaker 1: too excited to keep going. I just I can't write anymore. 550 00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,920 Speaker 1: And he he gives you this, you know, this lived 551 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,680 Speaker 1: sense of what it was like to see all these animals. 552 00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,880 Speaker 1: Now you know what I've done and in the book 553 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,040 Speaker 1: is okay, I've provided the what we think what biologists 554 00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:08,480 Speaker 1: think were the numbers of these animals. We think there 555 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:14,680 Speaker 1: were probably, depending on the climate, between twenty million and 556 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,279 Speaker 1: thirty million bison. Thirty million when the climate was good 557 00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,840 Speaker 1: there were plenty of rains and the grass was lush, 558 00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:25,480 Speaker 1: probably twenty million when there were droughts. And so it's 559 00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,360 Speaker 1: it's not a static figure. It obviously it's consistent of 560 00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,319 Speaker 1: what we see today with wild the numbers I mean 561 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,160 Speaker 1: lesser versions, but I mean it's it's nothing to have 562 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,640 Speaker 1: populations increase and decrease like that, absolutely, and I mean 563 00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:39,800 Speaker 1: pretty on a pretty short time scale and a short 564 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:42,360 Speaker 1: time scale. And that's how that's exactly how it functioned. 565 00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:46,000 Speaker 1: It's it's more a an algebraic kind of equation than 566 00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,560 Speaker 1: it is some static figure. But the static figure that 567 00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:52,720 Speaker 1: we have, and the same thing happened with these animals too, 568 00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:59,680 Speaker 1: for prong horns, is about fifteen million UM four we've 569 00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:07,160 Speaker 1: got at present, let's say about six hundred thousand. Yeah, 570 00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,759 Speaker 1: so from fifteen million, and I mean the one of 571 00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:13,160 Speaker 1: the stories I tell in the book is that the 572 00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,960 Speaker 1: Yano Sticado Plateau of West Texas eastern New Mexico. That's 573 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,120 Speaker 1: the country where you and I went to look at 574 00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,400 Speaker 1: the Black Water draw elephants side. Uh, that was one 575 00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,400 Speaker 1: of the best pronghorn ranges in the West. It probably 576 00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,960 Speaker 1: had during the heyday of pronghorns, as many as two 577 00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,960 Speaker 1: and a half three million pronghorns. Vernon Bailey of the 578 00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,759 Speaker 1: United States Biological Survey made a trip across the Yanno 579 00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:45,520 Speaker 1: Staccato in and at that point he counted thirty two 580 00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,799 Speaker 1: thirty two of them were left in eight h in 581 00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,719 Speaker 1: that particular part of the of the Great Plains. So 582 00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,319 Speaker 1: what happened to all those I mean, you hear like 583 00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,520 Speaker 1: we've gone into such a scruciating detail by what happened 584 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,640 Speaker 1: all the Yeah, you know, like all the facts that 585 00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:06,680 Speaker 1: went into the near extermination of the buffalo or bison, 586 00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,120 Speaker 1: and and uh, you know where what they were being 587 00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,239 Speaker 1: used for in the commodification of them. You never read 588 00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:16,759 Speaker 1: about some guy just stacking up a shipload antelope and 589 00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:19,160 Speaker 1: sending the hides and tongues off in rail cards. But 590 00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,240 Speaker 1: they did that. They did exactly that. And the reason 591 00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,160 Speaker 1: they did that was because after the Civil War, I mean, 592 00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:31,480 Speaker 1: you've got this this large contingent of young American men 593 00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,200 Speaker 1: who have fought in the war for both the Union 594 00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:41,279 Speaker 1: and the Confederacy, who no weapons, very well, they know 595 00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:45,600 Speaker 1: how to shoot. And many of them return home, especially 596 00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:50,160 Speaker 1: the Confederates, to a devastated region where you couldn't really 597 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,280 Speaker 1: make a living. And one of the things they did, 598 00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,400 Speaker 1: we think probably as many as twenty thousand of them 599 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,279 Speaker 1: probably did this is they went out onto the Great 600 00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:04,239 Speaker 1: Plains and for as long as the animals lasted, they 601 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,480 Speaker 1: hunted for a living. They hunted for the market, and 602 00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:11,920 Speaker 1: once the bison were gone, they turned to each of 603 00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,279 Speaker 1: the other animals in turn supplying supplying meat locally and 604 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:22,040 Speaker 1: export and export that's right, hides, uh, dried flesh, whatever, 605 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,800 Speaker 1: whatever you could basically get by shooting these animals down 606 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,560 Speaker 1: and selling them to the American or the Canadian or 607 00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:37,720 Speaker 1: the European market. And so once the bison were gone, 608 00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:42,240 Speaker 1: they turned their hand to prong horns and began doing 609 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,360 Speaker 1: exactly what they had done with bison. Two prong horns, 610 00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:48,960 Speaker 1: I mean, they shot them down. They one of the 611 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,040 Speaker 1: things you could do with prong horns. They were reluctant 612 00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,480 Speaker 1: to leave their ranges, their home ranges, and you could 613 00:40:56,520 --> 00:41:01,040 Speaker 1: get a band of them running and they would not 614 00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:06,840 Speaker 1: exit their home range, and people, these hunters on horses 615 00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:10,040 Speaker 1: could just work their way around in the center of 616 00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:14,920 Speaker 1: this this running herd of antelope. And after they would 617 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,560 Speaker 1: make the rounds of about a ten or twelve or 618 00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:20,480 Speaker 1: fifteen mile home range three or four times, they were 619 00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,600 Speaker 1: completely exhausted, and at that point you could almost walk 620 00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:25,799 Speaker 1: up to them and club them in the head. And 621 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,040 Speaker 1: so using techniques like that and also UH in places 622 00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,400 Speaker 1: like the Black Hills, they would surround prong wars in 623 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:34,680 Speaker 1: the winter when the snow was too deep for them 624 00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:37,919 Speaker 1: to get away, and just kill them by I mean 625 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,960 Speaker 1: like like hunters killed harp seals uh in the twentieth 626 00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:46,440 Speaker 1: century and just clubbed them down and basically ripped their 627 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,319 Speaker 1: hides off the Sometimes they would sell the meat, but 628 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,560 Speaker 1: mostly they were selling the hides. But it's not a 629 00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,520 Speaker 1: good it's not a quality high high, but it was 630 00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,880 Speaker 1: what was left the bicenter gone. And so they do 631 00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:03,839 Speaker 1: this in turn to to prong horns to elk um 632 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:09,080 Speaker 1: and I mean by nine five the big horn rams 633 00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,880 Speaker 1: of the Great Plains UH, the mountain sheep are gone 634 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,799 Speaker 1: to in places like the Northern Plains bad lands, they're gone. Yeah, 635 00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,000 Speaker 1: and in the and in that case, you also have 636 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,640 Speaker 1: like you we mentioned earlier, like there's always this idea 637 00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,640 Speaker 1: that disease may have played a role. I think with 638 00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:26,640 Speaker 1: big horn sheep. As sheep came out, you also have 639 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,800 Speaker 1: doubt about it. And you know you have pneumonia which 640 00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,719 Speaker 1: may with that particularly am one might have been more devastating, 641 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:35,560 Speaker 1: like people now and then try to make the case 642 00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,840 Speaker 1: that what happened that you can't explain what happened to 643 00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:43,160 Speaker 1: the buffalo unless you look at disease. I don't know 644 00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:45,200 Speaker 1: if that that just seems to be an idea that's 645 00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,640 Speaker 1: sort of always out there. No, it's definitely there, and 646 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,719 Speaker 1: I think it's it's correct. The problem with it, And 647 00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,160 Speaker 1: I mean, so here's an example of it. We know 648 00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:59,160 Speaker 1: that the last eight hundred to a thousand bison that 649 00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,560 Speaker 1: we're out there that were being rounded up to provide 650 00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,600 Speaker 1: the nucleus of the herds we have today, they almost 651 00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:10,319 Speaker 1: hall all had bovine tuberculosis. Uh. They were infected with that. 652 00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:16,319 Speaker 1: Some of the herds ended up uh getting brucellosis by 653 00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:20,080 Speaker 1: nine hundred. Not all of them did, but some of 654 00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:24,120 Speaker 1: them ended up with brucellosis, which is another exotic disease. 655 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,120 Speaker 1: And one of the diseases that we don't know much 656 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,840 Speaker 1: about the impact of but probably didn't have some impact 657 00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,759 Speaker 1: because there's sure evidence that it was out there is 658 00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:39,200 Speaker 1: that sometime after eighteen hundred, anthrax probably got among the 659 00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,320 Speaker 1: western bison herds. And so these are all Eurasian livestock 660 00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:50,319 Speaker 1: disease with non native animals. Yeah, and especially when when 661 00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:54,160 Speaker 1: oxen and cattle were being driven over the immigrant trails 662 00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:59,239 Speaker 1: through the Buffalo range from the twenties, possibility disease transmition down. 663 00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,880 Speaker 1: There's a possibility as they transfer, and it almost certainly happened. 664 00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,120 Speaker 1: The problem with it is that it's really hard to quantify. 665 00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,319 Speaker 1: We don't really know what what kind of effect it had, 666 00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,879 Speaker 1: except that it probably had a pretty considerable effect. So 667 00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:16,960 Speaker 1: very very obviously the same thing happened with sheep. So 668 00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:21,319 Speaker 1: what what's the time frame like there? When guys, when 669 00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,080 Speaker 1: when you say that you had all these market hunters 670 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:27,120 Speaker 1: who are making money and sometimes good money, hunting for 671 00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,400 Speaker 1: the buffalo hide market, when they had turned their attention 672 00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:33,760 Speaker 1: to analop or turned her attention to helt it still 673 00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,359 Speaker 1: it probably took decades, right, I mean, to get things 674 00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,160 Speaker 1: to such a depleted To get things so depleted that 675 00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,440 Speaker 1: we started to take legal action to try to protect 676 00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:46,200 Speaker 1: animals and regulate hunting didn't happen as slowly as you 677 00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:48,520 Speaker 1: would think. I mean, it was pretty quick because there 678 00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:50,759 Speaker 1: were a lot of guys out there, and a lot 679 00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,120 Speaker 1: of them had become very skilled in doing this. Uh, 680 00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,120 Speaker 1: they knew the weaknesses of the animals. And I mean, 681 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,640 Speaker 1: I'll give you one example, and uh, there's a cowboy 682 00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:09,200 Speaker 1: named George Wolfforth who is rounding up stray cattle um 683 00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,560 Speaker 1: on the Texas Yano Esticado in a canyon where I 684 00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:15,520 Speaker 1: used to live, and I lived in West Texas, Yellow 685 00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:18,640 Speaker 1: House Canyon. He he rides up one morning out of 686 00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:22,960 Speaker 1: Yellow House Canyon, and of course there's this gigantic plateau 687 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,160 Speaker 1: out in front of him that stretches a hundred and 688 00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,880 Speaker 1: fifty miles east and west and north and south about 689 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:33,080 Speaker 1: three hundred miles and at a slight pitch to from 690 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,319 Speaker 1: west to east, that's right. And he rides up on 691 00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:37,520 Speaker 1: this out of the canyon, up on this plateau and 692 00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,480 Speaker 1: it's a foggy morning, and he's sitting on his horse 693 00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:45,920 Speaker 1: looking for strays and sees the fog beginning to lift, 694 00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:48,279 Speaker 1: and as it lifts, and this is night, this is 695 00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,959 Speaker 1: as it lifts. What he sees, he says, as far 696 00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:55,719 Speaker 1: as the eye could see, and the fog made it 697 00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:01,120 Speaker 1: this sort of mystical, unreal kind of image. All he 698 00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,520 Speaker 1: could see on the plane where there were no more buffalo, 699 00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:09,560 Speaker 1: he saw no more wolves, he saw no bears, he 700 00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:14,279 Speaker 1: saw no elk. All he could see were bands of 701 00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:18,120 Speaker 1: prong horns and bands of wild horses. Those were the 702 00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:24,040 Speaker 1: last two surviving animals. And when it was only prong 703 00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:27,279 Speaker 1: horns left, when the elk had either been killed or 704 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,640 Speaker 1: driven into the rockies. Because that's what happened to some 705 00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:33,719 Speaker 1: of these animals, uh, They basically fled to the mountains 706 00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,960 Speaker 1: from this kind of pressure. When it's nothing but wild 707 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:40,680 Speaker 1: horses and prong horns left, the hunters went after the 708 00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:47,400 Speaker 1: prong horns, and mustangers went after the horses. And I 709 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,399 Speaker 1: mean we know, for example, after the horses for what, well, 710 00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,080 Speaker 1: not meat, No, no, not meat. They were after them 711 00:46:54,120 --> 00:47:00,200 Speaker 1: for two things. Basically, they were especially hired cowboys from 712 00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,040 Speaker 1: the ranches that were then beginning to populate the great planes. 713 00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:09,080 Speaker 1: We're shooting them down because they were competition for grass, 714 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,880 Speaker 1: for Yeah, for cattle, and so they were cowboys were 715 00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,640 Speaker 1: hired just to go out and shoot them down. But 716 00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:21,640 Speaker 1: by about nineteen fifteen or so. Uh. And you know 717 00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:23,680 Speaker 1: you have to when you think about wild horses, now, 718 00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,520 Speaker 1: what you have to realize is that wild horses, remember, 719 00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:31,279 Speaker 1: had gone extinct in the place to scene, but we 720 00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:35,000 Speaker 1: had reintroduced them. We Europeans had reintroduced them to the 721 00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:40,520 Speaker 1: America's uh in the fifteen hundreds. And one of the 722 00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:45,080 Speaker 1: remarkable environmental stories in North America is the success of 723 00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,440 Speaker 1: the horse when it's reintroduced to the place where horses 724 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,600 Speaker 1: had evolved. Because North America's where horses had evolved fifty 725 00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,960 Speaker 1: six million years of horse evolution. So what factor drove 726 00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,239 Speaker 1: in to extinction that then went away in time for 727 00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:00,440 Speaker 1: them to come back, We have no I did, but 728 00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,720 Speaker 1: when they were bazaars l But when they were reintroduced, 729 00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:10,160 Speaker 1: they went feral across the Great Plains, I mean in 730 00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:13,359 Speaker 1: an instant. You've written about that, like you've written about 731 00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:19,040 Speaker 1: the the routes they were through trade and theft and wandering. Yeah, 732 00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:22,360 Speaker 1: they got primarily the horses got loose in the West 733 00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,880 Speaker 1: as a result of what's called the Pueblo revolt of 734 00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,080 Speaker 1: six eighty in New Mexico. It's when the Pueblo Indians 735 00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:30,400 Speaker 1: drive the Spaniards out of New Mexico for a dozen 736 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,560 Speaker 1: years and capture all their hurts. I mean they trade, 737 00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,560 Speaker 1: for example, sheep and goats to the Navajos, which is 738 00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,480 Speaker 1: what creates the modern Navajo economy of of hurting those animals. 739 00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:46,640 Speaker 1: And they traded horses up the Rockies. Within about fifty years, 740 00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,320 Speaker 1: horses had gotten from New Mexico all the way into Canada, 741 00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,040 Speaker 1: traded up both sides of the Rocky, both sides of 742 00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:55,520 Speaker 1: the Rockies, which is what creates the Great Plains horse 743 00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,080 Speaker 1: riding Indians. But a lot of horses got away and 744 00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,640 Speaker 1: scattered in to the Plains as a result of the 745 00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:06,000 Speaker 1: Pueblo revolt. And so that's sixteen eighty. We think by 746 00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,400 Speaker 1: eighteen hundred, wild horse urge on the Great Plains probably 747 00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,320 Speaker 1: numbered as high as between one and two million animals. 748 00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:20,600 Speaker 1: I mean, they became the basis of a major economy 749 00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:23,360 Speaker 1: in the West for about a century. How many horses 750 00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:27,200 Speaker 1: live in the US now not wild horses? Uh No, 751 00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,439 Speaker 1: I don't know. I probably knew that figure at some point, 752 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:34,000 Speaker 1: but I don't recall how many, but we've got about 753 00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,520 Speaker 1: forty to fifty thousand wild horses. But one of the 754 00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,120 Speaker 1: interesting things about that that's a controversial animal. It's controversial animal. 755 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:42,480 Speaker 1: And one of the reasons is because it's not the 756 00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:46,480 Speaker 1: Great Plains where they are. They're out in the sagebrush deserts, 757 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:51,120 Speaker 1: so the Great Basin, particularly in Nevada, and so it 758 00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,680 Speaker 1: was the Great Plains where they really went feral when 759 00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:59,120 Speaker 1: they were returned here. And we think probably by nineteen 760 00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,120 Speaker 1: hundred the number may have been as high as three 761 00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:06,760 Speaker 1: million wild horses on the Great Plains. But about nineteen 762 00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:12,440 Speaker 1: fifteen we discovered, uh that Americans had sort of created 763 00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:18,120 Speaker 1: a new economy with pet dogs and cats that needed food, 764 00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:23,200 Speaker 1: and so the Midwest, especially the Kettle Ration Company, began 765 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:28,279 Speaker 1: to build pet food plants. And what happened to most 766 00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,319 Speaker 1: of the wild horses in the West by the late 767 00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:35,520 Speaker 1: teens and twenties was that they ended up getting caught 768 00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:40,680 Speaker 1: by mustangers and shipped by rail to Illinois and turned 769 00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:45,160 Speaker 1: into cans of dug food. In Illinois kept kept slaughtering 770 00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:49,840 Speaker 1: horses up until very recently. Up until very recently, now, JR. Simplot, 771 00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,560 Speaker 1: you know when you buy a French fry you know, 772 00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,200 Speaker 1: very likely came off, you know the result of j R. 773 00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:01,719 Speaker 1: Simplos work. JR. Simplot got his start. Can you explain that? 774 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:06,400 Speaker 1: I'm sorry? Like like he's a simp. JR. Simplot as 775 00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,359 Speaker 1: a major provider of seed potatoes, and I think they 776 00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:11,759 Speaker 1: do a lot of they do, my rights that they 777 00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:15,640 Speaker 1: don't know what they still do provide like McDonald's French. Yeah, 778 00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,240 Speaker 1: he got you know, he got his start. He bought 779 00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:23,759 Speaker 1: uh a bunch of teachers somewhere We're getting paid with 780 00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:28,120 Speaker 1: these bonds because of some school funding shortages, and he started. 781 00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:32,440 Speaker 1: He bought the bonds at fifty cents on the dollar 782 00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:34,880 Speaker 1: or something like that and used and then when the 783 00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,360 Speaker 1: bonds mature, turned around using to buy a bunch of 784 00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,640 Speaker 1: piglets and went out in the desert and fattened all 785 00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,319 Speaker 1: those piglets on wild horse meat. And that was sort 786 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,440 Speaker 1: of the start of Simplot. Then, I when I was 787 00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:49,520 Speaker 1: when I lived in Miles City, Montana, we had a 788 00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:51,920 Speaker 1: guy in his nineties and lived next to us, and 789 00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,120 Speaker 1: in the thirties he had been a must are well. 790 00:51:55,200 --> 00:52:00,839 Speaker 1: He was raising pigs on horse and he said that 791 00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:04,680 Speaker 1: they would have the most beautiful sheen the pigs would 792 00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,520 Speaker 1: get the most beautiful sheen, he said, a very tight 793 00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,840 Speaker 1: curl in the tail, perfectly erect ears like every sign 794 00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,799 Speaker 1: of a well fed pig. He was reluctant to send 795 00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,160 Speaker 1: the pigs to slaughter with meat in their belly. He 796 00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,879 Speaker 1: would finish them on barley, just to clean their system out. 797 00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:25,239 Speaker 1: He said, they would visibly deteriorate quality and before his 798 00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,080 Speaker 1: eyes and barley and he would take a horse, take 799 00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:31,239 Speaker 1: it into the pig pen, shoot the horse tied off 800 00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:33,520 Speaker 1: to a fence post, pull the hide of the tractor, 801 00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,600 Speaker 1: and sell the hide for three bucks. Then he'd give 802 00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:38,080 Speaker 1: the pigs a day or two and they'd eat it 803 00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:40,200 Speaker 1: down to the bone. And then before the bones was 804 00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,040 Speaker 1: splinter he'd going to throw all the bones out of there. 805 00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,880 Speaker 1: One day, him and his brother were cutting wood and 806 00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,400 Speaker 1: he cut his thumb off on the saw. His better 807 00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:55,560 Speaker 1: flicked dead into the pig pen. Pigs eight that send 808 00:52:55,560 --> 00:53:00,680 Speaker 1: those off. That's a great storys day. And he was 809 00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:04,400 Speaker 1: just like, what did finger that? THO? I don't know 810 00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,600 Speaker 1: how to fathom up. Yeah, so someone bought a pig 811 00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:10,360 Speaker 1: that had actually been eating folks. But um, it's just 812 00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:14,480 Speaker 1: like the picture he paints like how horses were used 813 00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:19,640 Speaker 1: and viewed is bizarre. Well, yeah, that's so that's one, uh, 814 00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:21,560 Speaker 1: one way that they were used. I mean, I can 815 00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:25,640 Speaker 1: tell you to others. There was an attempt actually in 816 00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,839 Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties to use horse meat in the United 817 00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:33,279 Speaker 1: States to feed the poor in the eighteen nineties. Yeah, 818 00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,120 Speaker 1: there's a I've got a newspaper article from nine seven. 819 00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:37,960 Speaker 1: In fact, it's over here on the Pacific coast, I think, 820 00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,279 Speaker 1: let's see it from Seattle, someone arguing that's what we 821 00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,120 Speaker 1: ought to do in order to to feed America's poor, 822 00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,279 Speaker 1: is that we should feed them because we've got a 823 00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,720 Speaker 1: lot of horses, with plenty of wild horses too, And 824 00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:55,719 Speaker 1: that's what one good use of horse meat would be, 825 00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,799 Speaker 1: is to feed the poor. But one one way that 826 00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:04,920 Speaker 1: I guarantee you lots of wild horses ended up sacrificing 827 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,920 Speaker 1: their lives for kind of a dual good as people 828 00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:11,240 Speaker 1: saw it in those days, was they would be caught 829 00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:17,840 Speaker 1: and led out, shot and then laced with stryct nine 830 00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:24,080 Speaker 1: in order to kill the one last big animal, charismatic 831 00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:28,440 Speaker 1: animal of the old American serengetti, which was gray wolves. 832 00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:34,279 Speaker 1: And so the technique that the biological survey used for 833 00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,200 Speaker 1: the teens and twenties and into the thirties when there 834 00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:41,160 Speaker 1: were still plenty of horses around in order to poison wolves, 835 00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,000 Speaker 1: uh in large numbers, and to try to eradicate coyotes 836 00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:47,759 Speaker 1: as well, was to lead horses out and shoot them 837 00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:51,920 Speaker 1: and lace the carcass. You'd inject before the vastar system 838 00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:54,200 Speaker 1: shut down, you'd inject the strict nine in there to 839 00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:56,160 Speaker 1: to distribute it, so it would distribute it through the 840 00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:58,960 Speaker 1: through the body. That's right. Yeah, And that was again 841 00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:03,759 Speaker 1: for better grades, for better cattle country to get rid of, 842 00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:09,080 Speaker 1: to get rid of, but on cattle, yeah, for the 843 00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:12,520 Speaker 1: for the sake certainly for the sake of converting that 844 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:19,640 Speaker 1: landscape into a working agricultural society. And you know, I mean, 845 00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:21,560 Speaker 1: one of the things I say in this book is 846 00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:27,200 Speaker 1: first of all, thinking about the great planes as uh, 847 00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:35,120 Speaker 1: this grand wildlife spectacle that you could without any stretch whatsoever, 848 00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:37,520 Speaker 1: referred to as the American Serengeti. Is a kind of 849 00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:40,960 Speaker 1: a way to reconceptualize it. To me, in the proper 850 00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:46,360 Speaker 1: ecological way, this did exist, because we've kind of in 851 00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:49,279 Speaker 1: a way forgotten that it existed. The only story that 852 00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:51,880 Speaker 1: we've preserved out of any of this really is the 853 00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,279 Speaker 1: story of of bison, and we haven't really preserved the 854 00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:58,080 Speaker 1: story of all the grizzly bears that were out on 855 00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:02,120 Speaker 1: the Great Plans, for example, feeding on the bison surplus, 856 00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:04,520 Speaker 1: and the dead animals that bison that drowned in the 857 00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:08,120 Speaker 1: rivers and so forth. We haven't thought too much about wolves, 858 00:56:08,239 --> 00:56:10,840 Speaker 1: or of driving elk into the mountains, or of the 859 00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:14,160 Speaker 1: prong horns slaughter, or of what happened to the wild horses. 860 00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:16,840 Speaker 1: We've just thought about bison. But if you think of 861 00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:20,920 Speaker 1: it in the hole, it's easier to conceptualize it as 862 00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,960 Speaker 1: this really was an American Serengetti that we had, And 863 00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:27,120 Speaker 1: what's so striking about it to me is that we 864 00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:33,280 Speaker 1: almost wholesale converted it into this agricultural, privatized landscape, agricultural empire, 865 00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:38,440 Speaker 1: whereas the colonial powers in Africa they didn't really do that. 866 00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:40,879 Speaker 1: I mean, they made sure that we ended up with 867 00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:47,000 Speaker 1: Serengeti National Park and the Massimer National Preserve and Kruger 868 00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:50,400 Speaker 1: National Park in the Veld in South Africa. So in 869 00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,040 Speaker 1: Africa we ended up with these big game parks to 870 00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:58,440 Speaker 1: preserve the African version of this and in North America 871 00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,400 Speaker 1: he declared it fly over country. Declared a fly over country, 872 00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:05,480 Speaker 1: and a place that you just ignored that really wasn't 873 00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:09,680 Speaker 1: interesting enough for people to even stay there. I mean, 874 00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,640 Speaker 1: it's been. One of the stories of the Great Plains 875 00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,120 Speaker 1: is that unlike any other region of the United States 876 00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:19,280 Speaker 1: and the twenty twenty first centuries, it endlessly is hemorrhaging 877 00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:23,520 Speaker 1: population and losing people. So one of the I mean, 878 00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:27,960 Speaker 1: the way I end this book is that, um so 879 00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,520 Speaker 1: that it's not a complete downer about what we did 880 00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:34,040 Speaker 1: and it's just all gone. Is that. I mean, one 881 00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,960 Speaker 1: of the really uplifting parts of this story is that 882 00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,560 Speaker 1: you get to the twenty first century and in Montana 883 00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:44,920 Speaker 1: along the Missouri River, we've got this organization called the 884 00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:49,040 Speaker 1: American Prayer Reserve that is so far raised about a 885 00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:52,400 Speaker 1: hundred million dollars in the last ten or twelve years 886 00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:57,360 Speaker 1: in order to try to tie together uh two big 887 00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:01,040 Speaker 1: public lands, the Charlie Russell National wild Life Refuge and 888 00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:05,680 Speaker 1: the Missouri Breaks National Monument with the private lands that 889 00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:07,600 Speaker 1: lie in between them. And what they're trying to do 890 00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:11,080 Speaker 1: is to as ranches come up for sale, to try 891 00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:16,280 Speaker 1: to buy them with yeah, and willing buyers with the 892 00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:23,520 Speaker 1: idea that we can ultimately create this this preserve uh 893 00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:29,480 Speaker 1: that will kind of be really uh a Yellowstone of 894 00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:32,439 Speaker 1: the Great Plains, I mean, and they're hoping for an 895 00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:35,680 Speaker 1: aerial extent that's gonna be twice the size of Yellowstone. Also, 896 00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:38,680 Speaker 1: it's two million acres. They're hoping. American Prairie Reserve is 897 00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,080 Speaker 1: hoping for as much as three and a half to 898 00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:45,160 Speaker 1: four million acres of land where we actually can do 899 00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:48,880 Speaker 1: what has happened in the parks in Africa and recreate 900 00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:53,640 Speaker 1: this American serengetti with all these these animals restored grizzly 901 00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,480 Speaker 1: bears and gray wolves and prong horns and bison of course, 902 00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:03,040 Speaker 1: and you know, possibly uh the full suite of animals 903 00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:05,760 Speaker 1: that were there hundred and fifty years ago. Are they 904 00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:09,400 Speaker 1: seeking a park designation? And you know, no, they're not, 905 00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:12,640 Speaker 1: at least they're not saying they are now. They're they're 906 00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:16,600 Speaker 1: sort of arguing at this point that uh, it's going 907 00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:21,600 Speaker 1: to be uh, it's gonna be private enterprise that creates it. 908 00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:25,840 Speaker 1: It's gotta be accessible to the public. Um, they're running 909 00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:30,160 Speaker 1: black management right now on some of it. Yeah, public 910 00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:35,040 Speaker 1: access hunting we'll see, you know, just to editorialize a 911 00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:38,080 Speaker 1: little bit, I think they'll find tremendous amounts of support 912 00:59:38,400 --> 00:59:41,560 Speaker 1: um with outdoors and if they are ticking, if they 913 00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:44,760 Speaker 1: clarify and articking that that a little bit, but which 914 00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:47,280 Speaker 1: might do them some good. It would do them some good. 915 00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:52,280 Speaker 1: It would bring a constituency that they may not have anticipated, 916 00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:55,840 Speaker 1: I think, because unfortunately just to I don't know if 917 00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:58,680 Speaker 1: it's editorializing or not. But when I hear that, I 918 00:59:58,680 --> 01:00:01,520 Speaker 1: can already hear the voices of you know, a lot 919 01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:03,320 Speaker 1: of people that we deal with every day. When they 920 01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:08,280 Speaker 1: hear that, they're going take it all the way from me. 921 01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:10,720 Speaker 1: But you gott understand that they're dealing with in the 922 01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,800 Speaker 1: private land. They're dealing with private land, already deeded land, right, 923 01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:18,480 Speaker 1: So I mean, in some way you could argue what 924 01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:22,480 Speaker 1: they're doing right now. They're not decreasing access. Um. I 925 01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:24,000 Speaker 1: want to I want to move on to the to 926 01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:26,800 Speaker 1: your your coyote. Yeah, but first I want to ask 927 01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:31,120 Speaker 1: you something because this has always bothered me. Is there 928 01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:33,040 Speaker 1: a proof that there were not elk in the mountains. 929 01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:35,240 Speaker 1: I always hear that this idea that elk were pushed 930 01:00:35,240 --> 01:00:37,160 Speaker 1: into the mountains. Don't you think that it was? There 931 01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:41,160 Speaker 1: was elk across the entire range. They were eradicated in 932 01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:44,960 Speaker 1: some areas and continue to survive in some areas. I 933 01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:47,880 Speaker 1: think there were elk in the mountains. Yeah, yeah, like 934 01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:49,720 Speaker 1: people when people say, I I hear that so much, 935 01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:52,200 Speaker 1: but just doesn't make sense to me. I think, you know, 936 01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:55,440 Speaker 1: there were grizzlies in the mountains, There were elk in 937 01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:57,640 Speaker 1: the mountains. There were there were big horns sheep in 938 01:00:57,680 --> 01:01:00,680 Speaker 1: the mountains. Obviously those animals were also out on the 939 01:01:00,720 --> 01:01:03,600 Speaker 1: Great plains, and they ended up the ones that were 940 01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:06,360 Speaker 1: on the Great Plains ended up either being killed or 941 01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:10,960 Speaker 1: or fleeing to the mountains, but just gradually pushed by pressure, 942 01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:13,560 Speaker 1: because I mean you can you can push animals. I 943 01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:16,200 Speaker 1: mean we see it today, like pressure moves animals. But 944 01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:23,520 Speaker 1: I just have a hard time imagine that they very quickly, Yeah, yeah, 945 01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:25,760 Speaker 1: to to like an alpine environment. I'm guessing that they 946 01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:29,560 Speaker 1: were just evenly distributed, and you saw the great abundance. 947 01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:31,800 Speaker 1: Now we think of him as a mountain animal, but 948 01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:35,320 Speaker 1: they were planes animals. Oh man, they were planes animal 949 01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:40,400 Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, there's no doubt. All right, So layoff 950 01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,040 Speaker 1: the Kyote Book. I call m coylets. I know the 951 01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:46,800 Speaker 1: proper terms maybe coyote. Well, I call it wildly coyote. 952 01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,240 Speaker 1: I don't call him wildly coyote. You know, you don't 953 01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:52,480 Speaker 1: say wild coyote. You know. It's funny. My kids been 954 01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,320 Speaker 1: watching Um I let him watch Looney Tunes just because 955 01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:58,320 Speaker 1: I relate to it, and m they watched a lot 956 01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:02,640 Speaker 1: of road running wildly coyote. And outside of my house 957 01:02:02,720 --> 01:02:05,200 Speaker 1: was a phone pole that like provides part of my 958 01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:09,600 Speaker 1: house that's leaning at a precipitous angle. And my brother 959 01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:11,760 Speaker 1: was visiting. He commented how that phone pole is gonna 960 01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:15,280 Speaker 1: tip over, and my son asked, well, the whole house 961 01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:18,040 Speaker 1: tip over too, And my brother said, I think these 962 01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:25,080 Speaker 1: kids watch too much. They learned physics from Wiley. And 963 01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:28,680 Speaker 1: while Yoe, of course, can fall off the highest cliff 964 01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:32,840 Speaker 1: in the solar system and it, you know, it flattens him. 965 01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:34,920 Speaker 1: But he who gets up and walks away from you 966 01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:39,520 Speaker 1: can't teach your kids the natural laws but water that show. 967 01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:42,640 Speaker 1: But yeah, so, so lay out the Kyote book for me. 968 01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:45,200 Speaker 1: I'm gonna call him kyotes just for consistency. Yeah so, 969 01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:47,440 Speaker 1: and but but what I will say about that is 970 01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:51,000 Speaker 1: and I tell the story and two places in the 971 01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:54,600 Speaker 1: introduction and then in a chapter called prairie Wolves, which 972 01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:57,760 Speaker 1: is what they were originally called in America the books 973 01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:00,680 Speaker 1: Kyote America. The book is called Coyote America, A Natural 974 01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:04,840 Speaker 1: and Supernatural History. But I lay out the story in 975 01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:08,960 Speaker 1: two different places in that book. Why you say coyote 976 01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:12,360 Speaker 1: and I say kyote. Yeah. And I always said, anybody 977 01:03:12,360 --> 01:03:15,680 Speaker 1: who's ever killed one, say yeah, Well, that's that's served. 978 01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:21,560 Speaker 1: That's sort of it. People who killed them, who managed them, 979 01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:26,840 Speaker 1: who attempted to poison them to extermination back in the nineties, 980 01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:30,920 Speaker 1: I'll call them coyotes. And the origin of that too 981 01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:35,120 Speaker 1: syllable pronunciation goes back to the mountain men who were 982 01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:38,800 Speaker 1: in the uh Southwest in the southern Rockies in the 983 01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:42,880 Speaker 1: eighteen thirties and eighteen forties, because they for the first time, 984 01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:47,600 Speaker 1: we're encountering a name other than prairie wolf. Everybody in 985 01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:51,960 Speaker 1: America who first encountered coyotes in the early nineteenth century, 986 01:03:52,040 --> 01:03:54,800 Speaker 1: starting with Lewis and Clark, That's the name Lewis and 987 01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:59,640 Speaker 1: Clark gave them, was prairie wolf. That's what everybody calls 988 01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:05,920 Speaker 1: his old trapping books refuses that name. Yeah, and I 989 01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:07,560 Speaker 1: would be like, what in the healthy time about the 990 01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:08,960 Speaker 1: one day had occurred to me that he talk about, 991 01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:11,240 Speaker 1: But he was writing, Yeah, that's right. And there I've 992 01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:14,640 Speaker 1: seen examples and by nineteen fifteen or so where people 993 01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:17,880 Speaker 1: are still using the term prairie wolf, that was the 994 01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:21,120 Speaker 1: Anglo American name for an animal that they had never 995 01:04:21,160 --> 01:04:26,800 Speaker 1: seen before. Because coyotes, I mean, they back up with 996 01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:29,840 Speaker 1: their evolution a little bit, and because this is a 997 01:04:29,960 --> 01:04:32,960 Speaker 1: really they've got the probably the most fascinating biography of 998 01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:39,000 Speaker 1: any animal in North America. And it is uh a 999 01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:44,600 Speaker 1: surprising and unexpected story really that coyotes have. They are 1000 01:04:44,720 --> 01:04:49,480 Speaker 1: part of the evolution of the canad family that took 1001 01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:54,000 Speaker 1: place in North America beginning five point three million years ago, 1002 01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:59,360 Speaker 1: and that produced all the wolves, all the jackals, and 1003 01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:03,440 Speaker 1: the coyote east of North America all around the world. 1004 01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:08,560 Speaker 1: So all the jackals of Africa and southern Europe, all 1005 01:05:08,600 --> 01:05:12,640 Speaker 1: the wolves of the entire globe all come from the 1006 01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:17,560 Speaker 1: evolution of a North American family of animals, the canad family, 1007 01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:21,640 Speaker 1: that evolved five point three million years ago. Yeah, and 1008 01:05:21,720 --> 01:05:24,320 Speaker 1: so what's so for one thing, it makes coyotes, I 1009 01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:28,280 Speaker 1: mean they're a distinctively North American animal in part because 1010 01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:30,920 Speaker 1: they not only evolved here, we think probably in the 1011 01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:35,240 Speaker 1: southwest is where this family of animals evolved. But unlike 1012 01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:43,160 Speaker 1: jackals and wolves, coyotes never left North America. They remained here. Wolves, 1013 01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,480 Speaker 1: on the other hand, became cosmopolitan, followed the big herds 1014 01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:49,520 Speaker 1: of animals that were migrating across the Bearing Strait and 1015 01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:54,720 Speaker 1: across the the Connectivity Bridge to Europe and ended up 1016 01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:58,600 Speaker 1: in Europe and Asia and everywhere else. Jackals ended up 1017 01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:02,920 Speaker 1: about a million years ago, separating from the coyote line 1018 01:06:03,000 --> 01:06:06,960 Speaker 1: and and getting into Africa and southern Europe. Coyotes never left. 1019 01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:11,480 Speaker 1: They stayed in North America, and they were found only 1020 01:06:11,520 --> 01:06:16,800 Speaker 1: in the West, from the Great Plains westward when America 1021 01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:20,720 Speaker 1: is like Lewis and Clark first encountered them, so nobody 1022 01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:27,240 Speaker 1: who was settling Plymouth or Jamestown ever encountered a coyote. 1023 01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:33,240 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark get to what is now Nebraska in 1024 01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,520 Speaker 1: the fall of eighteen o four, and in the stretch 1025 01:06:36,560 --> 01:06:40,720 Speaker 1: of about it's about three weeks, they encounter all the 1026 01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:45,800 Speaker 1: classic animals of the American West. They encounter the first bison, 1027 01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:49,480 Speaker 1: they've ever seen. Uh. This is in middle of August 1028 01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:52,800 Speaker 1: of eighteen o four. They counter pronkorn antelope they encounter, 1029 01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:57,440 Speaker 1: they say, a deer with strangely large ears that hops 1030 01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:02,320 Speaker 1: rather than runs. The mule deer. Uh. And then they say, 1031 01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:07,360 Speaker 1: and we keep seeing this fox, a kind of fox 1032 01:07:07,440 --> 01:07:09,800 Speaker 1: that nobody has ever seen before. And after about a 1033 01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:13,600 Speaker 1: week or so of describing seeing this fox, one of 1034 01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:16,200 Speaker 1: the hunters in the party finally shoots one, and William 1035 01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:18,440 Speaker 1: Clark lays it out on the grass and he starts 1036 01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:22,600 Speaker 1: looking at it, and he says, this is not a fox. 1037 01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:27,000 Speaker 1: This is some kind of wolf. It's a small wolf. 1038 01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:31,160 Speaker 1: But but this is a wolf. And he says, I 1039 01:07:31,200 --> 01:07:34,160 Speaker 1: think the best name for it, since we're out in 1040 01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:38,160 Speaker 1: the prairies is a prey wolf, And so Lewis and 1041 01:07:38,160 --> 01:07:41,880 Speaker 1: Clark name it a prairie wolf. And for more than 1042 01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:47,160 Speaker 1: a hundred years many Americans refer to coyotes as prai wolves. 1043 01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:55,120 Speaker 1: But in the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties, Americans start 1044 01:07:56,080 --> 01:08:00,720 Speaker 1: going across the plains to Santa Fe. After, for example, 1045 01:08:01,360 --> 01:08:07,000 Speaker 1: Mexico becomes independent of Spain. In one they open up 1046 01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:11,640 Speaker 1: the trade between Missouri and Santa Fe. And so all 1047 01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:16,320 Speaker 1: of these traders are going from St. Louis to Santa Fe, 1048 01:08:16,800 --> 01:08:19,559 Speaker 1: and along with them go mountain men to trap the 1049 01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:23,040 Speaker 1: beaver streams like kick Carson. And when these guys get 1050 01:08:23,080 --> 01:08:26,040 Speaker 1: to Santa Fe and they start pointing out there goes 1051 01:08:26,080 --> 01:08:31,000 Speaker 1: a prairie wolf. The people in Santa Fe say, no, 1052 01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:37,960 Speaker 1: that's a coyote. And so these Americans listen to that 1053 01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:44,680 Speaker 1: word coyote, and what they're actually hearing is a Spanish 1054 01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:50,479 Speaker 1: version of a no waddle Indian word. And or nowat 1055 01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:52,479 Speaker 1: is the name of the language. No what is the 1056 01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:56,960 Speaker 1: language that the Aztecs spoke. And some of the settlers 1057 01:08:57,040 --> 01:09:02,200 Speaker 1: who had gone to to found Santa Fe in sixteen 1058 01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:10,160 Speaker 1: had been either Aztec or know what speakers, Indians who 1059 01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:13,280 Speaker 1: had been probably subjugated by the Aztecs and forced to 1060 01:09:13,280 --> 01:09:17,200 Speaker 1: speak the Essex language. And so they got to Santa 1061 01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:20,040 Speaker 1: Fe and they saw these animals. They used the old 1062 01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:24,920 Speaker 1: Aztec word for them, which was the original pronunciation, was coyote. 1063 01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:31,599 Speaker 1: The Spaniards heard coyot, the Indian word, they converted it 1064 01:09:31,640 --> 01:09:36,759 Speaker 1: to coyote in a Latin pronunciation. And then Anglo Americans 1065 01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:40,840 Speaker 1: started showing up in the eighteen thirties and they they 1066 01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:47,440 Speaker 1: hear coyote and his Frederick Ruxton, one of the chroniclers 1067 01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:49,799 Speaker 1: of the mountain man life and the Southern Rockies, says, 1068 01:09:50,439 --> 01:09:54,920 Speaker 1: as we all sat around the campfires in the Southern 1069 01:09:55,080 --> 01:09:58,960 Speaker 1: Rockies in the thirties and the eighteen forties, you could 1070 01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:04,600 Speaker 1: hear the mex that can say coyote. The Indians say coyote, 1071 01:10:05,120 --> 01:10:09,080 Speaker 1: and all the trappers would say they couldn't pronounce that 1072 01:10:09,120 --> 01:10:14,200 Speaker 1: with three syllables. They would say coyote. And of course 1073 01:10:14,200 --> 01:10:17,920 Speaker 1: those guys went back to Kentucky and Virginia and Illinois, 1074 01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:21,080 Speaker 1: and when they heard people say, so, did you see 1075 01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:23,680 Speaker 1: any prairie wolves out there, they would say, so, you 1076 01:10:23,720 --> 01:10:28,160 Speaker 1: mean coyotes. What we've ended up with, then is kind 1077 01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:33,720 Speaker 1: of a a bifurcatid pronunciation where rural people in America, 1078 01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:35,760 Speaker 1: and as you said a minute ago, people who tend 1079 01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:39,320 Speaker 1: to shoot coyotes, that's what they say. I just that's 1080 01:10:39,360 --> 01:10:44,920 Speaker 1: a coyote. But in the sort of more literary circles 1081 01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:50,679 Speaker 1: of urban places, yeah, they used the term. They used 1082 01:10:50,720 --> 01:10:56,840 Speaker 1: the term coyote as the as the classic pronunciation, and 1083 01:10:56,880 --> 01:10:58,680 Speaker 1: I think it's probably what they're trying to do is 1084 01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:03,719 Speaker 1: to pay homage to the Spanish pronunciation. Nobody says coyote anymore, 1085 01:11:03,800 --> 01:11:06,960 Speaker 1: but but a lot of a lot of people say coyote. 1086 01:11:07,120 --> 01:11:09,760 Speaker 1: That's fascinating, man, I had no idea. Yeah, so they're 1087 01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:13,439 Speaker 1: So that's one of many gems that's in your book. Yeah, 1088 01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:15,400 Speaker 1: that's one of the things that you're going to discover. 1089 01:11:15,479 --> 01:11:17,840 Speaker 1: You're also going to discover, as I said, that these 1090 01:11:17,880 --> 01:11:21,439 Speaker 1: are North American animals that evolved more than five million 1091 01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:26,479 Speaker 1: years ago, and one of the fascinating uh consequences of 1092 01:11:26,520 --> 01:11:31,639 Speaker 1: that today is one of the things we've got going 1093 01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:34,280 Speaker 1: on in the eastern United States is the emergence of 1094 01:11:34,280 --> 01:11:41,160 Speaker 1: an animal called the coy wolf, and it's an intermixture 1095 01:11:41,200 --> 01:11:48,719 Speaker 1: and interbreeding between coyotes that, under persecution by the federal 1096 01:11:48,800 --> 01:11:53,519 Speaker 1: government and state governments over the last seventy or so years, 1097 01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:57,160 Speaker 1: have expanded their range out of the West all over 1098 01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,400 Speaker 1: North America, and not just all over North America, not 1099 01:12:00,520 --> 01:12:03,960 Speaker 1: just a Maine and Florida and Virginia, but into all 1100 01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:08,559 Speaker 1: the major cities of the United States. They've done that 1101 01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:13,879 Speaker 1: because they've been persecuted, but it's taken coyotes into places 1102 01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:18,519 Speaker 1: where there are remnant Eastern wolves. And one of the 1103 01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:23,400 Speaker 1: things that's happened is that they are freely interbreeding with 1104 01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:28,080 Speaker 1: the red wolves, the endangered red wolf of the South, 1105 01:12:29,680 --> 01:12:34,640 Speaker 1: and with these Eastern wolves that are still found in 1106 01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:41,280 Speaker 1: eastern Canada and creating a new predator that is on Minnesota, 1107 01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:46,200 Speaker 1: Wisconsin and New York and Virginia and the Deep South. 1108 01:12:46,479 --> 01:12:50,080 Speaker 1: They're creating this animal where they run into Eastern wolves. 1109 01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:52,960 Speaker 1: That's where they run into from the Great Lakes, basically 1110 01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:57,920 Speaker 1: eastward in Canada, and thens are going, yeah, when when 1111 01:12:57,960 --> 01:13:01,559 Speaker 1: they how does of work is it? Is it a 1112 01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:07,960 Speaker 1: male wolf female kyote? It's yeah, it's usually that way. Yeah, 1113 01:13:07,960 --> 01:13:12,719 Speaker 1: it's usually uh, male wolf and female coyote. But evidently 1114 01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:16,680 Speaker 1: there have been crosses that have gone the other way. 1115 01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:20,080 Speaker 1: They produced viable offspring. And the reason they do is 1116 01:13:20,160 --> 01:13:24,599 Speaker 1: because red wolves and Eastern wolves are also from this 1117 01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:28,800 Speaker 1: North American wolf stock that never left North America, and 1118 01:13:28,880 --> 01:13:34,840 Speaker 1: so they're closely related biological aid coyotes, and so they 1119 01:13:34,920 --> 01:13:42,200 Speaker 1: easily interbreed. But in the West where we have gray wolves. 1120 01:13:44,160 --> 01:13:47,959 Speaker 1: Gray wolves, for example, in Yellowstone, when they were introduced 1121 01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:52,120 Speaker 1: into Yellowstone in ninety six, the first thing that happened 1122 01:13:52,560 --> 01:13:56,479 Speaker 1: was that gray wolves knocked the coyote population back in 1123 01:13:56,600 --> 01:14:03,480 Speaker 1: Yellowstone by fifty They gray wolves do not interbreed with coyotes. 1124 01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:07,280 Speaker 1: They kill them. They attack them. And the reason we 1125 01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:11,960 Speaker 1: think this is happening is because gray wolves are are 1126 01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:17,400 Speaker 1: a set of wolves. There are five subspecies of them 1127 01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:24,639 Speaker 1: that left North America, evolved for a couple of million years, 1128 01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:28,920 Speaker 1: probably in Asia and in Europe, and then only began 1129 01:14:29,240 --> 01:14:33,439 Speaker 1: returning to North America about twenty thousand years ago. So 1130 01:14:33,520 --> 01:14:37,200 Speaker 1: they had had enough separate evolution and another part of 1131 01:14:37,200 --> 01:14:40,520 Speaker 1: the globe that by the time they returned to North America, 1132 01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:45,480 Speaker 1: they no longer recognized any biological ties with with coyotes 1133 01:14:45,640 --> 01:14:49,240 Speaker 1: or with American wolves like red wolves, and their reaction 1134 01:14:49,320 --> 01:14:51,519 Speaker 1: to coyotes has not been to interbreed with them, but 1135 01:14:51,600 --> 01:14:56,679 Speaker 1: to basically attack them and kill them. Yeah, and Kyle's 1136 01:14:56,680 --> 01:15:00,080 Speaker 1: returned to favor on foxes. A lot of red fire, 1137 01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:03,760 Speaker 1: there's a lot of gray foxes. And and that's when 1138 01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:07,000 Speaker 1: they roll in. That's that's right. It's the big dog, 1139 01:15:07,080 --> 01:15:10,719 Speaker 1: little dog thing, and it happens at every every level. 1140 01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:15,240 Speaker 1: But I mean, I was telling you, I mean before 1141 01:15:15,280 --> 01:15:19,960 Speaker 1: we we started on air here that what we think 1142 01:15:20,120 --> 01:15:27,960 Speaker 1: explains the cleverness, the wiliness, and the survivability of coyotes. 1143 01:15:28,200 --> 01:15:30,200 Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about this for a second, 1144 01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:35,160 Speaker 1: we managed to wipe wolves out in North America. We 1145 01:15:35,360 --> 01:15:42,240 Speaker 1: extra pated wolves, We did everything we could, even including 1146 01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:47,280 Speaker 1: passing a law in one that earmark coyotes for total 1147 01:15:47,320 --> 01:15:51,240 Speaker 1: extermination in the United States, and have not been able 1148 01:15:51,280 --> 01:15:55,760 Speaker 1: to do it. Despite spending billions of dollars and developing 1149 01:15:56,320 --> 01:16:00,200 Speaker 1: a whole witches brew of poisons to try to eradicate them, 1150 01:16:00,280 --> 01:16:03,080 Speaker 1: we have never been able to do that. So one 1151 01:16:03,120 --> 01:16:05,720 Speaker 1: of the things about the coyotes story is that this 1152 01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:10,519 Speaker 1: is a story that turns upside down. Are our notion 1153 01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:14,439 Speaker 1: about the human relationship to nature, where we think we 1154 01:16:14,600 --> 01:16:18,839 Speaker 1: arrive and everything goes ship bang because nothing in nature 1155 01:16:18,920 --> 01:16:23,640 Speaker 1: is able to resist us. The coyote story is completely 1156 01:16:23,680 --> 01:16:28,760 Speaker 1: the opposite. These guys have forecundity. It's attributed to the 1157 01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:32,519 Speaker 1: fact that for the last twenty thousand years they have 1158 01:16:32,600 --> 01:16:37,560 Speaker 1: been persecuted by gray wolves, and they evolved an ability 1159 01:16:37,720 --> 01:16:42,479 Speaker 1: to survive under persecution and even to colonize new areas 1160 01:16:42,560 --> 01:16:46,400 Speaker 1: under persecution. So what we think is going on is 1161 01:16:46,400 --> 01:16:50,760 Speaker 1: that coyotes haven't evolved their wiliness and their ability to 1162 01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:54,160 Speaker 1: survive and our in our presence and under our persecution. 1163 01:16:54,360 --> 01:16:56,439 Speaker 1: Just as a result of the last two hundred years 1164 01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:59,240 Speaker 1: of us trying to wipe them out, they brought to 1165 01:16:59,360 --> 01:17:02,920 Speaker 1: bear these evolutionary adaptations that go back at least twenty 1166 01:17:02,920 --> 01:17:06,559 Speaker 1: thousand years as a result of their interaction with gray 1167 01:17:06,600 --> 01:17:12,240 Speaker 1: wolves and what they evolved or it was a whole 1168 01:17:12,600 --> 01:17:17,040 Speaker 1: suite of these kind of remarkable adaptations. One of them 1169 01:17:17,080 --> 01:17:23,120 Speaker 1: that's probably the most important one is called fishing fusion adaptation. Now, 1170 01:17:23,160 --> 01:17:27,799 Speaker 1: what it means is coyotes and they're only about nineteen 1171 01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:30,960 Speaker 1: mammal species around the world that can do this. One 1172 01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:33,080 Speaker 1: of the other ones happens to be us. We do this, 1173 01:17:33,560 --> 01:17:37,240 Speaker 1: and what it means is they have the ability to 1174 01:17:37,479 --> 01:17:42,520 Speaker 1: exist both communally in the in coyote terms and packs 1175 01:17:43,479 --> 01:17:49,160 Speaker 1: or as singles and pairs and so, whereas wolves are 1176 01:17:49,320 --> 01:17:53,360 Speaker 1: only pack animals. And it became kind of their Achilles 1177 01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:56,479 Speaker 1: hill when the government was trying to poison them out, 1178 01:17:56,560 --> 01:17:59,240 Speaker 1: because you could kill one wolf out of a pack 1179 01:17:59,800 --> 01:18:02,800 Speaker 1: and use the scent glands of that wolf to bait 1180 01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:07,640 Speaker 1: your your meat cubes, and you would in turn, in 1181 01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:10,120 Speaker 1: a few days, kill every single animal in the pack, 1182 01:18:10,400 --> 01:18:12,800 Speaker 1: as they would be drawn to the scent of that 1183 01:18:12,960 --> 01:18:17,200 Speaker 1: lost companion. But coyotes, when you try to do that, 1184 01:18:17,520 --> 01:18:20,919 Speaker 1: their response is to go into this fish and fusion 1185 01:18:21,040 --> 01:18:24,160 Speaker 1: kind of adaptation and they just scattered to the winds. 1186 01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:27,920 Speaker 1: And what they do is when you're persecuting them and 1187 01:18:28,040 --> 01:18:32,720 Speaker 1: driving their populations down, one of the things coyotes, I mean, 1188 01:18:32,760 --> 01:18:37,000 Speaker 1: we all love how coyotes howl. What they're actually doing 1189 01:18:37,040 --> 01:18:41,240 Speaker 1: with those howls is they're taking a census of the 1190 01:18:41,280 --> 01:18:45,280 Speaker 1: coyote population in a territory. And if they howl at 1191 01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:50,960 Speaker 1: night and they don't hear responsive house from other pairs 1192 01:18:51,040 --> 01:18:56,120 Speaker 1: or packs of coyotes, that triggers an autogenic response to 1193 01:18:56,200 --> 01:18:59,719 Speaker 1: hormonal response in them, so that they have larger litters. 1194 01:19:00,640 --> 01:19:03,439 Speaker 1: And so as you drive the population of them down 1195 01:19:04,200 --> 01:19:06,960 Speaker 1: and they take this howling sensus and don't hear other 1196 01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:11,160 Speaker 1: coyotes in the landscape, they produced larger litters. And what 1197 01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:14,240 Speaker 1: these larger litters often prompt them to do is to 1198 01:19:14,400 --> 01:19:18,200 Speaker 1: go into what's called colonization mode. So they start going 1199 01:19:18,200 --> 01:19:21,560 Speaker 1: out to the ages of their territory and expanding and colonizing. 1200 01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:26,920 Speaker 1: And what it's meant that is that once we started 1201 01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:31,760 Speaker 1: trying to eradicate them. That produced the spread of coyotes 1202 01:19:31,800 --> 01:19:36,440 Speaker 1: all over North America. I mean, in response to our persecution, 1203 01:19:37,040 --> 01:19:41,960 Speaker 1: they scattered everywhere. I once watched a movie, a documentary 1204 01:19:42,040 --> 01:19:49,920 Speaker 1: that was highly critical of coyote hunting, okay, and it 1205 01:19:50,040 --> 01:19:54,120 Speaker 1: was like a pro kyote movie, highly critical of Kyle hunting. 1206 01:19:54,120 --> 01:19:56,000 Speaker 1: And the thing he makes the point, he's like, the 1207 01:19:56,040 --> 01:19:58,920 Speaker 1: more you hunt them, the more we're gonna have. But 1208 01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:01,320 Speaker 1: then I want to think it o. So if that's true, 1209 01:20:01,760 --> 01:20:04,519 Speaker 1: then I would think that you would welcome hunting because 1210 01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:07,559 Speaker 1: you like them, and it makes more of them. It does. Indeed, 1211 01:20:07,960 --> 01:20:12,080 Speaker 1: if you live in and you want them, you should 1212 01:20:12,120 --> 01:20:18,000 Speaker 1: send your cousin in Nebraska. That's right, go out and 1213 01:20:18,040 --> 01:20:20,960 Speaker 1: go out and blast away at them. Yeah, it's so 1214 01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:25,000 Speaker 1: they you know, they make up this this creature that 1215 01:20:25,360 --> 01:20:28,320 Speaker 1: in a lot of ways throws environmentalists for a loop. 1216 01:20:28,840 --> 01:20:31,519 Speaker 1: I mean, I had a conversation a few months ago 1217 01:20:31,640 --> 01:20:33,960 Speaker 1: with a couple of women who wanted to do a 1218 01:20:34,000 --> 01:20:38,040 Speaker 1: coyote documentary, and we sat down over the conversation and 1219 01:20:38,040 --> 01:20:40,040 Speaker 1: it emerged fairly quickly that what they wanted to do 1220 01:20:40,120 --> 01:20:43,320 Speaker 1: was to do a documentary to save the coyote, and 1221 01:20:43,360 --> 01:20:46,160 Speaker 1: so I had to say to them, so you realize 1222 01:20:46,160 --> 01:20:52,080 Speaker 1: that they don't need your help. They are perfectly capable, 1223 01:20:52,240 --> 01:20:55,880 Speaker 1: thank you of saving themselves and go about it in 1224 01:20:55,920 --> 01:21:00,400 Speaker 1: a completely nonchalant manner, trotting by looking at you with 1225 01:21:00,439 --> 01:21:02,760 Speaker 1: those yellow eyes and sort of see you later. You know, 1226 01:21:02,800 --> 01:21:05,439 Speaker 1: so long, it's been good to know you. And they 1227 01:21:05,479 --> 01:21:09,280 Speaker 1: don't really need your help. Uh, they can do it 1228 01:21:09,560 --> 01:21:12,040 Speaker 1: very well on their own. So it's it's not the 1229 01:21:12,120 --> 01:21:14,960 Speaker 1: hand of the handful of a small handful of species 1230 01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:20,720 Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, very small handful of Canada geese. And 1231 01:21:20,800 --> 01:21:23,559 Speaker 1: these guys are you know. The truth is, and if 1232 01:21:23,560 --> 01:21:25,800 Speaker 1: we thought of them this way, I think it might 1233 01:21:25,960 --> 01:21:28,720 Speaker 1: change the way people think of them. I mean, what 1234 01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:33,240 Speaker 1: they are is they're a wolf. They're a small species 1235 01:21:33,520 --> 01:21:37,439 Speaker 1: of wolf. And so what you know, if you if 1236 01:21:37,479 --> 01:21:41,160 Speaker 1: you sit in back East in your study and you 1237 01:21:41,240 --> 01:21:44,719 Speaker 1: lament the loss of wolves in America and you would 1238 01:21:44,720 --> 01:21:48,480 Speaker 1: love to see wolves return to America and a coyote 1239 01:21:48,520 --> 01:21:53,280 Speaker 1: trots through your backyard, that's cause for celebration because the 1240 01:21:53,320 --> 01:21:57,440 Speaker 1: fact is that's what they are, and they have managed 1241 01:21:57,439 --> 01:22:03,160 Speaker 1: to uh to re inhabit our landscapes, including our biggest cities. 1242 01:22:04,040 --> 01:22:06,960 Speaker 1: I mean, one of the great recent stories of coyote 1243 01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:09,800 Speaker 1: was a group of people walking out of a bar 1244 01:22:09,920 --> 01:22:14,720 Speaker 1: in Queen's Last Spring and looked up. They heard a 1245 01:22:14,840 --> 01:22:17,360 Speaker 1: sound and looked up and a coyote was on the 1246 01:22:17,439 --> 01:22:20,600 Speaker 1: roof of the bar and queens looking down at them, 1247 01:22:20,640 --> 01:22:24,479 Speaker 1: and they snapped pictures with their phones, and somebody, of 1248 01:22:24,479 --> 01:22:29,240 Speaker 1: course calls the police, who alert animal control, and the 1249 01:22:29,280 --> 01:22:31,960 Speaker 1: animal control people arrived. The coyote is just sort of 1250 01:22:32,000 --> 01:22:34,559 Speaker 1: walking back and forth along the roof of the bar, 1251 01:22:34,680 --> 01:22:37,440 Speaker 1: and people by now gathered out in the street, traffics 1252 01:22:37,479 --> 01:22:40,200 Speaker 1: going by. Here's this kyote a few feet away, And 1253 01:22:40,240 --> 01:22:42,960 Speaker 1: as soon as the animal control truck comes around the 1254 01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:46,760 Speaker 1: corner with lights on, the coyote looks back behind him. 1255 01:22:46,800 --> 01:22:49,759 Speaker 1: There's an abandoned building with broken glass in the windows, 1256 01:22:49,800 --> 01:22:52,880 Speaker 1: and sort of like some Hollywood action hero, he just 1257 01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:54,639 Speaker 1: sort of hops off the roof of the bar through 1258 01:22:54,680 --> 01:22:57,960 Speaker 1: the broken glass of them. If the building has got 1259 01:23:00,320 --> 01:23:04,400 Speaker 1: that's great man, you know, uh, I kind of we're 1260 01:23:04,400 --> 01:23:06,000 Speaker 1: getting We're I'm gonna wrap it up, but I want 1261 01:23:06,040 --> 01:23:08,920 Speaker 1: to remind remind you something that you said all those 1262 01:23:08,960 --> 01:23:10,559 Speaker 1: years ago when I was in your class. I'm trying 1263 01:23:10,560 --> 01:23:14,000 Speaker 1: to think of what year it would have been somewhere 1264 01:23:14,000 --> 01:23:17,400 Speaker 1: here or something like that. Yeah, we were talking about 1265 01:23:17,400 --> 01:23:23,679 Speaker 1: a famous battle, um Adobe Walls. Tell everyone what the 1266 01:23:23,720 --> 01:23:25,599 Speaker 1: Battle of Adobe Walls was. I know there's like part 1267 01:23:25,680 --> 01:23:27,720 Speaker 1: one in part two. But you you were getting you 1268 01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:31,320 Speaker 1: were driving out a story about where one of the 1269 01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:34,320 Speaker 1: participants from the Indian side, from the Native American side, 1270 01:23:34,320 --> 01:23:38,559 Speaker 1: one of the participants described what went wrong at that battle. 1271 01:23:40,640 --> 01:23:44,680 Speaker 1: Jock supposed to the narrative of what went wrong from 1272 01:23:44,680 --> 01:23:47,760 Speaker 1: them from the Euro American side, So you can. I'll 1273 01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:49,360 Speaker 1: remind you later what it was. But you just at 1274 01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:52,400 Speaker 1: the stage for what that battle was. Yeah, well, I 1275 01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:54,840 Speaker 1: mean and I remember the story. I tell you too. 1276 01:23:55,439 --> 01:24:01,479 Speaker 1: They the Battle of Adobe Walls was battle between buffalo 1277 01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:04,600 Speaker 1: hunters and the Texas Panhandle who were holed up in 1278 01:24:04,640 --> 01:24:08,680 Speaker 1: this old trading fort, uh which is up above the 1279 01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:12,840 Speaker 1: present day Amarillo on the Canadian River, and a group 1280 01:24:12,960 --> 01:24:19,479 Speaker 1: of Comanches and Southern Cheyennes, who, by the Treaty of 1281 01:24:19,560 --> 01:24:22,479 Speaker 1: Medicine Lodge Creek of eighteen sixty eight, knew that buffalo 1282 01:24:22,560 --> 01:24:25,960 Speaker 1: hunters weren't supposed to be below the Arkansas River. The 1283 01:24:27,040 --> 01:24:30,160 Speaker 1: Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek, the Indians that insisted the 1284 01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:33,559 Speaker 1: buffalo hunters have to stay north of the Arkansas in Kansas. 1285 01:24:33,560 --> 01:24:39,080 Speaker 1: And yeah, so here these guys were, these buffalo hunters 1286 01:24:39,080 --> 01:24:42,360 Speaker 1: had crossed the deadline and had gone down into the 1287 01:24:42,360 --> 01:24:45,439 Speaker 1: Texas Panhandle where they weren't supposed to be. And so 1288 01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:51,800 Speaker 1: this group of Comanches and Southern Cheyennes felt perfectly justified 1289 01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:56,880 Speaker 1: in attacking this buffalo hunter camp. And so they mounted 1290 01:24:56,960 --> 01:25:01,080 Speaker 1: up a war party, and about have o'clock in the morning, 1291 01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:04,120 Speaker 1: just as as it was starting to get light, they 1292 01:25:04,160 --> 01:25:07,559 Speaker 1: decided to make a raid on this camp and wipe 1293 01:25:07,600 --> 01:25:13,120 Speaker 1: these guys out. And from the side of the story 1294 01:25:13,160 --> 01:25:17,080 Speaker 1: of the buffalo Hunters, some guy gets up at about 1295 01:25:17,160 --> 01:25:19,760 Speaker 1: four thirty or five in the morning, he's got to 1296 01:25:19,760 --> 01:25:22,000 Speaker 1: go outside and take a whizz, and he's as he's 1297 01:25:22,040 --> 01:25:24,640 Speaker 1: taking a whizz, he looks up on the ridge and 1298 01:25:24,720 --> 01:25:29,120 Speaker 1: he sees silhouetted in the coming twilight of the morning, 1299 01:25:29,600 --> 01:25:32,679 Speaker 1: this group of Indians getting ready to ride down on them. 1300 01:25:33,000 --> 01:25:36,280 Speaker 1: That's one version of what happened. Another is that, uh, 1301 01:25:36,320 --> 01:25:40,280 Speaker 1: this was an old fort and uh a vega or 1302 01:25:40,400 --> 01:25:44,080 Speaker 1: one of the roof beams cracked and it woke somebody 1303 01:25:44,200 --> 01:25:49,000 Speaker 1: up and I walked outside and we're looking around to 1304 01:25:49,040 --> 01:25:54,599 Speaker 1: see what had happened, and looked at old adobe, old 1305 01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:57,600 Speaker 1: adobe building, and this roof beam cracked, and so it 1306 01:25:57,680 --> 01:25:59,960 Speaker 1: woke a couple of them up, and they walked outside 1307 01:26:00,080 --> 01:26:03,840 Speaker 1: and they saw anyway, the Indians launched an attack, which 1308 01:26:03,840 --> 01:26:05,600 Speaker 1: they thought was going to be a surprise attack on 1309 01:26:05,640 --> 01:26:08,120 Speaker 1: the sleeping camp, and it turned out some of these 1310 01:26:08,200 --> 01:26:12,719 Speaker 1: guys were already up, and so they repulse the attack, 1311 01:26:13,760 --> 01:26:18,800 Speaker 1: and the Indians, in attempting to explain it later, so 1312 01:26:18,920 --> 01:26:21,879 Speaker 1: we'll see if this is how you remember. The Indians, 1313 01:26:21,880 --> 01:26:27,120 Speaker 1: in attempting to explain it later, used their own cause 1314 01:26:27,200 --> 01:26:32,280 Speaker 1: effect logic to explain why this had happened the way 1315 01:26:32,320 --> 01:26:37,120 Speaker 1: it had. And their logic was not that damn, we 1316 01:26:37,120 --> 01:26:39,240 Speaker 1: were gonna launch a surprise attack, and some of those 1317 01:26:39,280 --> 01:26:42,479 Speaker 1: guys were already up, and they alerted everybody else. Their 1318 01:26:42,520 --> 01:26:46,120 Speaker 1: logic was on the way to the attack. That morning, 1319 01:26:46,760 --> 01:26:51,800 Speaker 1: one of the Cheyen's has shot a skunk, and it 1320 01:26:51,840 --> 01:26:57,800 Speaker 1: was taboo to arrow a skunk, and so that had 1321 01:26:58,120 --> 01:27:01,880 Speaker 1: screwed the medicine for the whole band, and so when 1322 01:27:01,920 --> 01:27:04,720 Speaker 1: they launched that attack, they no longer had the right 1323 01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:08,280 Speaker 1: medicine with them and in their cause and effect explanation, 1324 01:27:08,760 --> 01:27:15,160 Speaker 1: which we would call a supernatural explanation for why it failed. 1325 01:27:15,760 --> 01:27:19,760 Speaker 1: This was the reason a taboo had been broken, the 1326 01:27:19,800 --> 01:27:23,720 Speaker 1: animals had turned against them, and therefore the attack was 1327 01:27:23,760 --> 01:27:26,400 Speaker 1: a failure. It took me ten years to understand what 1328 01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:31,120 Speaker 1: that story means. I resisted it at first. That's not 1329 01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:34,559 Speaker 1: what happened. What happened was but but when you were 1330 01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:38,320 Speaker 1: telling you, you you were making the point of we have 1331 01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:41,519 Speaker 1: our ways of explaining things, and we have these things 1332 01:27:41,560 --> 01:27:46,280 Speaker 1: that are true to us, you know. And I'm like, 1333 01:27:46,479 --> 01:27:48,120 Speaker 1: a decade later, I'm like, you know, I do I 1334 01:27:48,200 --> 01:27:50,679 Speaker 1: Finally I'm old enough now or I've been around enough now, 1335 01:27:51,240 --> 01:27:53,559 Speaker 1: I'm like, he was right. He's right. It's because the 1336 01:27:53,560 --> 01:27:56,559 Speaker 1: god damn s gone. So you worry about that for 1337 01:27:56,680 --> 01:28:03,280 Speaker 1: ten years. I would return to it periodically. Uh yeah, 1338 01:28:03,320 --> 01:28:06,719 Speaker 1: you never said anything. Ran You didn't say much. Concluding 1339 01:28:06,800 --> 01:28:11,240 Speaker 1: thoughts Man Too Million name one of my favorite podcast today. 1340 01:28:11,320 --> 01:28:15,439 Speaker 1: I think, Um, I have a clarifying question. Well, I 1341 01:28:15,479 --> 01:28:17,320 Speaker 1: have a couple of things. Well, I'm wondering if we 1342 01:28:17,320 --> 01:28:19,280 Speaker 1: have enough time, because I think we could if it's 1343 01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:21,040 Speaker 1: all right with you, if you can chat a little 1344 01:28:21,080 --> 01:28:23,360 Speaker 1: bit longer. I would love to hear to talk about 1345 01:28:24,120 --> 01:28:26,480 Speaker 1: just the bit if we could get like the very 1346 01:28:27,000 --> 01:28:31,640 Speaker 1: abridge version of the bison, the bison story story, but 1347 01:28:31,840 --> 01:28:38,479 Speaker 1: his his influential paper here, and then coyotes. It's always 1348 01:28:38,560 --> 01:28:40,439 Speaker 1: kind of this myth that you hear about, like the 1349 01:28:40,479 --> 01:28:43,400 Speaker 1: more you shoot him, the more there's gonna be. So really, 1350 01:28:43,439 --> 01:28:46,839 Speaker 1: what what what what you explain that is to be true? 1351 01:28:47,400 --> 01:28:50,479 Speaker 1: Like there they are going to produce more offspring the 1352 01:28:50,520 --> 01:28:53,840 Speaker 1: more pressure you're putting on them whatever poisoning shooting. Yeah, 1353 01:28:53,880 --> 01:28:57,040 Speaker 1: So one of the ways that we know it's different 1354 01:28:57,080 --> 01:29:01,040 Speaker 1: from what it could be is that we had about 1355 01:29:02,120 --> 01:29:07,920 Speaker 1: seventy years in Yellowstone, for example, of healthy coyote population, 1356 01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:13,879 Speaker 1: nobody hunting them, no wolves there because wolves are eliminated 1357 01:29:13,880 --> 01:29:17,880 Speaker 1: from Yellowstone by about and we don't get wolves there 1358 01:29:17,880 --> 01:29:23,040 Speaker 1: again until we have this period of about seventy years 1359 01:29:23,520 --> 01:29:27,600 Speaker 1: where there's a coyote population that biologists can study that 1360 01:29:27,920 --> 01:29:31,200 Speaker 1: don't get pressured either by people or by gray wolves. 1361 01:29:31,880 --> 01:29:36,840 Speaker 1: And what they did is very interesting. Their population rose 1362 01:29:36,960 --> 01:29:41,000 Speaker 1: to this carrying capacity plateau and it never got any bigger. 1363 01:29:42,320 --> 01:29:47,080 Speaker 1: And so as soon as wolves arrived, what happened was 1364 01:29:47,640 --> 01:29:52,519 Speaker 1: the kyote population dropped by almost half, but then under 1365 01:29:52,560 --> 01:29:57,080 Speaker 1: wolf pressure, it has begun to build back to its 1366 01:29:57,280 --> 01:30:03,000 Speaker 1: original size and large, and they have scattered out of 1367 01:30:03,000 --> 01:30:07,559 Speaker 1: the park. So it's almost like this test case of 1368 01:30:07,640 --> 01:30:11,519 Speaker 1: the theory of whether or not it's pressure that causes 1369 01:30:11,560 --> 01:30:14,719 Speaker 1: them both to colonize and expand their range and also 1370 01:30:14,840 --> 01:30:17,680 Speaker 1: caused their causes their population to rise. And so the 1371 01:30:17,680 --> 01:30:22,400 Speaker 1: guy who's done this study also did UM for his 1372 01:30:22,520 --> 01:30:29,400 Speaker 1: PhD dissertation. He studied UH the Hanford Preserve around Hanford, 1373 01:30:29,439 --> 01:30:32,120 Speaker 1: where the same thing was true. There were no wolves, 1374 01:30:32,600 --> 01:30:37,840 Speaker 1: people weren't shooting, trapping, or poisoning. It's in Washington State, 1375 01:30:37,880 --> 01:30:43,559 Speaker 1: it's the Handford Nuclear site. And what he discovered was 1376 01:30:43,680 --> 01:30:49,200 Speaker 1: the same phenomenon that without pressure, their populations rise to 1377 01:30:49,600 --> 01:30:53,240 Speaker 1: this caring capacity level and then they they don't get 1378 01:30:53,280 --> 01:30:56,920 Speaker 1: any bigger. And the reason they don't is because it's 1379 01:30:57,000 --> 01:31:00,840 Speaker 1: not so much the litter sizes fall. They followed to 1380 01:31:01,040 --> 01:31:04,280 Speaker 1: maybe four or five pups, whereas when they're under pressure 1381 01:31:04,320 --> 01:31:07,479 Speaker 1: sometimes they'll have thirteen or fourteen pups. But the litter 1382 01:31:07,520 --> 01:31:10,839 Speaker 1: size were followed about four or five pups. And because 1383 01:31:10,960 --> 01:31:15,839 Speaker 1: the UH, the population of coyotes was at the carrying 1384 01:31:15,840 --> 01:31:19,880 Speaker 1: capacity of the resources, they would not often be able 1385 01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:24,439 Speaker 1: to get all those pups raised without losing a couple 1386 01:31:24,520 --> 01:31:27,040 Speaker 1: of them or maybe three of them, because there just 1387 01:31:27,320 --> 01:31:31,200 Speaker 1: wasn't weren't enough resources out there to raise the entire litter, 1388 01:31:31,479 --> 01:31:35,040 Speaker 1: and so that seemed to be the the what provided 1389 01:31:35,080 --> 01:31:39,040 Speaker 1: the ceiling um. So, I mean, we actually do have 1390 01:31:39,280 --> 01:31:42,600 Speaker 1: a couple of these sort of test cases where you 1391 01:31:42,640 --> 01:31:45,280 Speaker 1: can observe what happens if they don't have any pressure 1392 01:31:45,320 --> 01:31:49,120 Speaker 1: on them, and Yellowstone is probably the best one. But 1393 01:31:49,240 --> 01:31:51,479 Speaker 1: as I said, there's this this at least one other 1394 01:31:51,520 --> 01:31:56,320 Speaker 1: one too that people have studied. Because he hasn't got 1395 01:31:57,320 --> 01:32:00,479 Speaker 1: he wanted him to explain that, I know, the fog 1396 01:32:00,600 --> 01:32:05,559 Speaker 1: question with the coyote the then does that flip like 1397 01:32:05,600 --> 01:32:08,680 Speaker 1: the whole freederor control thing to like basically, kill more 1398 01:32:08,720 --> 01:32:12,360 Speaker 1: coyotes equals more big bucks. How does that relate to 1399 01:32:12,400 --> 01:32:16,320 Speaker 1: that you're not and just the research that you've done 1400 01:32:16,360 --> 01:32:20,160 Speaker 1: and your yeah, well, I mean there's a so for example, 1401 01:32:20,520 --> 01:32:24,280 Speaker 1: state of Utah um with a Mule Deer Protection Act 1402 01:32:24,320 --> 01:32:27,600 Speaker 1: few years ago, you know, created a bounty on let 1403 01:32:27,640 --> 01:32:34,320 Speaker 1: stay bounty on coyotes. They did that almost two years 1404 01:32:34,520 --> 01:32:40,280 Speaker 1: to the day after a major study came out on 1405 01:32:41,120 --> 01:32:45,800 Speaker 1: coyote effects on mule deer populations in Idaho. It was 1406 01:32:45,840 --> 01:32:49,120 Speaker 1: a result of about a ten year study on coyotes 1407 01:32:49,120 --> 01:32:52,200 Speaker 1: and mule deer, and the conclusion of this study, authored 1408 01:32:52,200 --> 01:32:56,720 Speaker 1: by about fifteen or sixteen biologists, was that coyotes had 1409 01:32:56,960 --> 01:33:01,680 Speaker 1: virtually no effect on mule deer populations. And I mean, 1410 01:33:02,040 --> 01:33:05,479 Speaker 1: this is one of those classic instances, almost like like 1411 01:33:05,640 --> 01:33:10,320 Speaker 1: climate science or something, some major study comes out and 1412 01:33:10,720 --> 01:33:17,080 Speaker 1: next door, the neighboring state completely ignores it and nonetheless 1413 01:33:17,120 --> 01:33:20,120 Speaker 1: goes ahead and puts a bounty on coyotes in order 1414 01:33:20,160 --> 01:33:23,880 Speaker 1: to save mutle here. So the science that's out there 1415 01:33:24,200 --> 01:33:26,720 Speaker 1: indicates I mean, and this science goes back to the 1416 01:33:26,840 --> 01:33:31,480 Speaker 1: nineteen thirties really when the Murray brothers were studying coyote 1417 01:33:31,960 --> 01:33:36,720 Speaker 1: depredations in Yellowstone and in Jackson Hole. Because the biological 1418 01:33:36,760 --> 01:33:40,200 Speaker 1: survey actually they wiped out wolves. They decided, I mean, 1419 01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:42,400 Speaker 1: you know, you can kind of see the transparency of it. 1420 01:33:42,840 --> 01:33:47,760 Speaker 1: It's the government bureau, our major target is gone. We 1421 01:33:47,880 --> 01:33:51,479 Speaker 1: gotta survive some way. So they proclaim the coyote is 1422 01:33:52,240 --> 01:33:55,240 Speaker 1: the arch predator of our time. It turns out, actually 1423 01:33:55,280 --> 01:33:57,360 Speaker 1: most of that predation that was going on that was 1424 01:33:57,400 --> 01:34:00,599 Speaker 1: really coyotes and not wolves. So we need government needs 1425 01:34:00,600 --> 01:34:03,960 Speaker 1: to keep funding us, and we need to continue to 1426 01:34:03,400 --> 01:34:06,760 Speaker 1: to do this predator control thing. And they send the 1427 01:34:06,880 --> 01:34:12,720 Speaker 1: Murray brothers out to study coyote predation on game animals 1428 01:34:13,040 --> 01:34:16,080 Speaker 1: as the arch predator of our time in Yellowstone and 1429 01:34:16,160 --> 01:34:21,160 Speaker 1: Jackson Hole, and both the Murray brothers, o Loss and 1430 01:34:21,240 --> 01:34:30,000 Speaker 1: Adolph both argue that we have no evidence that coyotes 1431 01:34:30,120 --> 01:34:36,760 Speaker 1: are causing the population of sheep, muled ere, prong horns, 1432 01:34:37,000 --> 01:34:42,200 Speaker 1: big horns, elk, any of those animals to go down. 1433 01:34:42,560 --> 01:34:46,040 Speaker 1: I mean, it's true and bad winners. They will sometimes 1434 01:34:46,360 --> 01:34:50,040 Speaker 1: manage to kill a calf, and you can certainly find 1435 01:34:50,479 --> 01:34:53,160 Speaker 1: as the Bureau had as hunters had arguable, we can 1436 01:34:53,200 --> 01:34:55,639 Speaker 1: open their stomachs up after we poise them and it's 1437 01:34:55,680 --> 01:34:59,120 Speaker 1: got elk meat. But the Mury brothers watched them close 1438 01:34:59,200 --> 01:35:03,320 Speaker 1: enough to realize it's scavenged. I mean, these elkers are 1439 01:35:03,520 --> 01:35:06,600 Speaker 1: then bad winners, their animals dying, and for sure the 1440 01:35:06,640 --> 01:35:10,640 Speaker 1: coyotes are going out and scavenging on the dead animals, 1441 01:35:10,680 --> 01:35:15,120 Speaker 1: but they're not out there hauling down elk in packs 1442 01:35:15,160 --> 01:35:18,440 Speaker 1: of little coyotes nipping at their heels. The same conversations 1443 01:35:18,479 --> 01:35:20,960 Speaker 1: happened right now in the East with white tails, where 1444 01:35:20,960 --> 01:35:24,000 Speaker 1: a lot of even though study after study keeps coming 1445 01:35:24,040 --> 01:35:27,000 Speaker 1: out saying, you know, I think that the white tailed 1446 01:35:27,000 --> 01:35:29,400 Speaker 1: decline we've been seeing in the last you know, five six, 1447 01:35:29,439 --> 01:35:34,680 Speaker 1: seven years is contemporaneous with coyotes coming in. UM. It 1448 01:35:34,760 --> 01:35:37,800 Speaker 1: seems that maybe it's not what's really going on here. 1449 01:35:37,920 --> 01:35:39,559 Speaker 1: There could be other factors that play. And there's a 1450 01:35:39,600 --> 01:35:44,639 Speaker 1: great reluctance with people to accept that because it's it's 1451 01:35:44,680 --> 01:35:49,400 Speaker 1: a it's just it's clean. Yeah, we like, we love skapegoats. 1452 01:35:49,439 --> 01:35:51,439 Speaker 1: You know, it's clean. It's clean to think that way. 1453 01:35:51,680 --> 01:35:55,719 Speaker 1: I got friends in Wisconsin, good friends who on one hand, 1454 01:35:55,800 --> 01:35:57,920 Speaker 1: advocate and we need to shoot more white tails. We've 1455 01:35:57,960 --> 01:36:00,320 Speaker 1: got too many white tails. That's we've got unhealth. They heard, 1456 01:36:00,320 --> 01:36:04,519 Speaker 1: there's too much risk of disease transmission. I gotta shoot 1457 01:36:04,560 --> 01:36:10,400 Speaker 1: coyotes because they're going after the deer. So well, they 1458 01:36:10,400 --> 01:36:13,080 Speaker 1: don't want the coyote to get the deer. You know, 1459 01:36:13,240 --> 01:36:15,080 Speaker 1: they want to they want to put their tag on it. 1460 01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:19,200 Speaker 1: But but I do, you know, I do. I had 1461 01:36:19,200 --> 01:36:23,439 Speaker 1: a guy recently telling me that the thing he and 1462 01:36:23,439 --> 01:36:27,439 Speaker 1: he see, he's a very student observer of the natural 1463 01:36:27,439 --> 01:36:29,519 Speaker 1: world in his area in Kentucky, and he was saying, 1464 01:36:29,640 --> 01:36:32,439 Speaker 1: he's he says, I'll tell you one thing that happened 1465 01:36:32,439 --> 01:36:36,720 Speaker 1: when coyotes came in here. He says, fucking groundhogs vanished. 1466 01:36:38,840 --> 01:36:40,920 Speaker 1: No one else is crying for groundhogs. But he's like, 1467 01:36:40,960 --> 01:36:44,400 Speaker 1: that's one thing I do think is exactly attributable, because 1468 01:36:44,439 --> 01:36:47,040 Speaker 1: I think they came in and just hammered the groundho 1469 01:36:47,200 --> 01:36:49,439 Speaker 1: I'm sure they probably did that, you know. And what 1470 01:36:49,600 --> 01:36:53,759 Speaker 1: people in in in New York and Chicago and Denver 1471 01:36:53,920 --> 01:36:55,920 Speaker 1: and l A I'll argue is that you know your 1472 01:36:55,960 --> 01:36:59,439 Speaker 1: pets aren't safe when coyotes are in town. That's the 1473 01:36:59,520 --> 01:37:02,280 Speaker 1: that's that that argument is the least interesting to me. Yeah, well, 1474 01:37:02,280 --> 01:37:04,400 Speaker 1: that's just that's you know, for for a lot of 1475 01:37:04,439 --> 01:37:06,920 Speaker 1: people living in the suburbs. That's the thing that I mean. 1476 01:37:06,920 --> 01:37:10,479 Speaker 1: I just saw online the other day a couple that 1477 01:37:10,600 --> 01:37:15,760 Speaker 1: had invented a coyote vest and you put it on 1478 01:37:15,800 --> 01:37:19,880 Speaker 1: your little dog and it's got these spikes coming out 1479 01:37:19,880 --> 01:37:23,040 Speaker 1: of the vest and some sort of quills that come 1480 01:37:23,120 --> 01:37:25,479 Speaker 1: up off the back of its neck, and it's supposed 1481 01:37:25,520 --> 01:37:29,000 Speaker 1: to repel coyote attacks. And I mean they're advertising on 1482 01:37:29,040 --> 01:37:32,120 Speaker 1: the internet that they've got these coyote vest that you 1483 01:37:32,160 --> 01:37:36,599 Speaker 1: can buy. But I mean, what's actually going on is 1484 01:37:37,040 --> 01:37:39,800 Speaker 1: it's not everybody thinks. What's happening is that coyotes in 1485 01:37:40,040 --> 01:37:45,080 Speaker 1: urban situations, you know, they're scarvenging. They're scavenging garbage from 1486 01:37:45,080 --> 01:37:47,680 Speaker 1: the back of the McDonald's and the burger king, and 1487 01:37:47,720 --> 01:37:51,639 Speaker 1: they're they're eating cats, and they're eating poodles and stuff. 1488 01:37:52,439 --> 01:37:54,800 Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is what they do in urban 1489 01:37:54,800 --> 01:37:56,679 Speaker 1: areas is the same thing they do in rural areas. 1490 01:37:56,720 --> 01:38:00,800 Speaker 1: They basically go after mice and rats. Operation they eat 1491 01:38:00,840 --> 01:38:03,080 Speaker 1: a lot of grassopers, a lot of fruit, and primarily 1492 01:38:03,120 --> 01:38:06,400 Speaker 1: mice and rats. And although they do kill cats and 1493 01:38:06,439 --> 01:38:10,040 Speaker 1: they do kill small dogs, it's not because they're eating them. 1494 01:38:10,320 --> 01:38:15,200 Speaker 1: It's because they regard them as intra guild competitive predators. 1495 01:38:15,520 --> 01:38:17,840 Speaker 1: And they see a cat or a small dog out there, 1496 01:38:17,840 --> 01:38:20,320 Speaker 1: and their response to that is that this is another 1497 01:38:20,360 --> 01:38:24,320 Speaker 1: predator that's invaded my territory, and so they will kill them. 1498 01:38:24,400 --> 01:38:27,479 Speaker 1: But I mean, very rarely will they haul them off 1499 01:38:27,479 --> 01:38:30,200 Speaker 1: and chow down on them. I mean, this is just 1500 01:38:30,240 --> 01:38:34,040 Speaker 1: another one of the urban myths about coyotes that's out 1501 01:38:34,080 --> 01:38:37,080 Speaker 1: there from the perspective of the pet owner, it probably 1502 01:38:37,120 --> 01:38:40,160 Speaker 1: doesn't matter. So it doesn't matter the animal is dead, 1503 01:38:42,320 --> 01:38:44,600 Speaker 1: or it might be better actually if they haul the 1504 01:38:44,640 --> 01:38:47,320 Speaker 1: cat down to the den of pups. And actually the 1505 01:38:47,360 --> 01:38:52,759 Speaker 1: cat gott was made some use of. But yeah, coyote vests, 1506 01:38:52,880 --> 01:38:57,400 Speaker 1: so you can you can acquire one, no doubt soon 1507 01:38:57,479 --> 01:39:01,240 Speaker 1: for your cat as well as your dog. That was 1508 01:39:01,280 --> 01:39:03,960 Speaker 1: your follow up question. You wanted to know about bison 1509 01:39:04,000 --> 01:39:10,880 Speaker 1: though the story, well, the the chapter that I do 1510 01:39:10,960 --> 01:39:14,559 Speaker 1: in American Serengetti on Bison, uh is a it's a 1511 01:39:14,640 --> 01:39:18,760 Speaker 1: new take, and so it's not the it's not a 1512 01:39:18,800 --> 01:39:23,479 Speaker 1: regurgitation of my original story, although I do I do 1513 01:39:23,600 --> 01:39:26,800 Speaker 1: build on that. And what that story argued was that 1514 01:39:27,920 --> 01:39:30,599 Speaker 1: what we've thought about what happened to bison is far 1515 01:39:30,640 --> 01:39:34,360 Speaker 1: too simple. I mean, we've basically always argued that, you know, 1516 01:39:34,439 --> 01:39:36,840 Speaker 1: they they were still sixty million of them at the 1517 01:39:36,920 --> 01:39:39,880 Speaker 1: end of the Civil War, and these buffalo hunters go 1518 01:39:39,920 --> 01:39:43,120 Speaker 1: out in the space of twenty years, they managed to 1519 01:39:43,160 --> 01:39:46,920 Speaker 1: wipe out sixty million animals in the market hunt, and 1520 01:39:47,120 --> 01:39:49,880 Speaker 1: that's what happened to him. And what I argued in 1521 01:39:49,960 --> 01:39:55,320 Speaker 1: that piece back in was that the truth is uh 1522 01:39:55,520 --> 01:39:58,840 Speaker 1: the bison herds. For one thing, we're never that big. 1523 01:39:59,160 --> 01:40:02,760 Speaker 1: They were only about how that size. And secondly, they 1524 01:40:02,760 --> 01:40:09,080 Speaker 1: were dwindling visibly as early as eighteen fifty because of 1525 01:40:09,120 --> 01:40:15,000 Speaker 1: a whole group of causes that kind of came together 1526 01:40:15,080 --> 01:40:19,200 Speaker 1: like a perfect storm in the fourties and eighteen fifties. 1527 01:40:19,200 --> 01:40:22,800 Speaker 1: And UH one of them certainly was the market hunt, 1528 01:40:22,880 --> 01:40:27,200 Speaker 1: although it wasn't the hide the American hide hunters who 1529 01:40:27,320 --> 01:40:31,800 Speaker 1: responsibly primarily was Indians being caught up in the the 1530 01:40:31,840 --> 01:40:37,240 Speaker 1: buffalo robe trade that was sponsored by the fur companies. 1531 01:40:38,360 --> 01:40:41,360 Speaker 1: Hides with hair on right and and tanned by Indian 1532 01:40:41,400 --> 01:40:44,040 Speaker 1: women who were who were the processors, who were the 1533 01:40:44,120 --> 01:40:48,360 Speaker 1: labor force, and the men would go out and and 1534 01:40:48,439 --> 01:40:52,000 Speaker 1: procure the animal, and the women would take the pelt 1535 01:40:52,040 --> 01:40:55,400 Speaker 1: off and then tan the the robe and produced this 1536 01:40:55,560 --> 01:40:58,840 Speaker 1: marketable commodity that was then traded to UH, to the 1537 01:40:58,840 --> 01:41:04,360 Speaker 1: fur trade company. So there was there was blankets and 1538 01:41:04,840 --> 01:41:08,240 Speaker 1: for all kinds of things, primarily primarily as people were 1539 01:41:09,400 --> 01:41:13,679 Speaker 1: sort of competing for the last big buffalo hunting grounds. 1540 01:41:13,880 --> 01:41:18,000 Speaker 1: In many instances, UH, what they were getting in trade 1541 01:41:18,160 --> 01:41:23,960 Speaker 1: were firearms and ammunition and powder. UH, metal goods of 1542 01:41:24,000 --> 01:41:28,800 Speaker 1: all kinds, certainly textile blankets and beads and things, but 1543 01:41:29,120 --> 01:41:34,080 Speaker 1: often firearms and ammunition because there was a there was 1544 01:41:34,120 --> 01:41:39,080 Speaker 1: a competition for these last grounds of of huntable animals. 1545 01:41:39,160 --> 01:41:43,040 Speaker 1: I mean the Lakota people, the Western Lakotas were driving 1546 01:41:43,080 --> 01:41:45,760 Speaker 1: across the Great Plains from east to west during all 1547 01:41:45,840 --> 01:41:50,760 Speaker 1: these times, taking away the buffalo grounds of the Pawnees, 1548 01:41:51,120 --> 01:41:55,040 Speaker 1: the buffalo ultimately the buffalo grounds of the crows Uh 1549 01:41:55,080 --> 01:41:58,519 Speaker 1: in order to to exploit the herds themselves. So it 1550 01:41:58,600 --> 01:42:03,920 Speaker 1: was kind of this capitalist market fueled inner tribal competition 1551 01:42:04,080 --> 01:42:07,760 Speaker 1: for the the last remaining resource. So that was one 1552 01:42:07,800 --> 01:42:11,320 Speaker 1: of the causes, but there were others. One was the 1553 01:42:11,400 --> 01:42:15,600 Speaker 1: spread of horses across the plains, again, which ate the 1554 01:42:15,640 --> 01:42:20,519 Speaker 1: same grass uh drank the water that bison drank, and so, 1555 01:42:20,720 --> 01:42:23,680 Speaker 1: and the horse numbers were becoming high enough that the 1556 01:42:23,680 --> 01:42:27,040 Speaker 1: competition between horses and bison was getting to draw down 1557 01:42:27,080 --> 01:42:31,320 Speaker 1: the size of the buffalo herds. And there was as 1558 01:42:31,360 --> 01:42:38,240 Speaker 1: well the fact that diseases, exotic bovine diseases whose impact 1559 01:42:38,280 --> 01:42:42,320 Speaker 1: we can't really quantify, but things like bovine tuberculosis and 1560 01:42:42,360 --> 01:42:45,280 Speaker 1: anthrax were having an impact by the eight forties because 1561 01:42:45,320 --> 01:42:48,480 Speaker 1: of the immigrant trails that were going across the plains. 1562 01:42:48,560 --> 01:42:54,800 Speaker 1: And then perhaps the one that's uh the easiest to 1563 01:42:54,800 --> 01:42:59,040 Speaker 1: to assess in terms of quantifying is the change in 1564 01:42:59,200 --> 01:43:03,000 Speaker 1: climate that was happening in the eighteen forties and eighteen fifties. 1565 01:43:03,000 --> 01:43:05,880 Speaker 1: And what what was going on was that what we 1566 01:43:06,040 --> 01:43:09,640 Speaker 1: called the Little Ice Age, about a two hundred and 1567 01:43:09,680 --> 01:43:13,479 Speaker 1: fifty year period of much cooler, wetter temperatures in the 1568 01:43:13,479 --> 01:43:18,240 Speaker 1: northern hemisphere, was coming to an end in the eighteen 1569 01:43:18,320 --> 01:43:21,280 Speaker 1: fourties and eighteen fifties, and as it came to an end, 1570 01:43:21,680 --> 01:43:24,920 Speaker 1: it was producing a series of droughts. Uh, there was 1571 01:43:24,960 --> 01:43:27,439 Speaker 1: a a drought on the Great Plans in the eighteen 1572 01:43:27,479 --> 01:43:29,680 Speaker 1: fifties and early eighteen sixties that was probably the most 1573 01:43:29,760 --> 01:43:32,000 Speaker 1: severe drought that we have a record of in the 1574 01:43:32,080 --> 01:43:35,519 Speaker 1: last thousand years. And as it drew down the carrying 1575 01:43:35,520 --> 01:43:39,320 Speaker 1: capacity of the grasslands, what this meant was that buffalo 1576 01:43:39,920 --> 01:43:41,840 Speaker 1: didn't have as much grass to eat, and so the 1577 01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:48,200 Speaker 1: numbers were plummeting as a result of deteriorating environmental conditions 1578 01:43:48,240 --> 01:43:52,200 Speaker 1: for them. And one final thing that I talked about, 1579 01:43:52,280 --> 01:43:54,559 Speaker 1: I talked about all of these causes in this article, 1580 01:43:54,600 --> 01:43:58,920 Speaker 1: which argued for this multiplicity of causes The one other 1581 01:43:58,960 --> 01:44:01,599 Speaker 1: one I talked about was the fact that in the past, 1582 01:44:01,720 --> 01:44:04,879 Speaker 1: when conditions like this had prevailed on the Great Plains, 1583 01:44:05,960 --> 01:44:09,720 Speaker 1: Buffalo had tended to migrate westward into the mountains where 1584 01:44:09,760 --> 01:44:13,280 Speaker 1: there was more grass and lusher conditions, and eastward out 1585 01:44:13,320 --> 01:44:16,400 Speaker 1: into the prairies towards the Mississippi River, where there would 1586 01:44:16,439 --> 01:44:19,960 Speaker 1: be more more grass and more rainfall. But by the 1587 01:44:20,000 --> 01:44:26,599 Speaker 1: eighteen forties, American Indian policy had basically placed something like 1588 01:44:27,520 --> 01:44:34,360 Speaker 1: five thousand Eastern Indians in Kansas and Oklahoma in the 1589 01:44:34,000 --> 01:44:38,759 Speaker 1: Indian Territory as a part of the removal policy, most 1590 01:44:38,960 --> 01:44:42,759 Speaker 1: famous aspect of which is the Cherokee Trail of Tears, 1591 01:44:42,800 --> 01:44:45,400 Speaker 1: where they're taken out of the southeast and put out 1592 01:44:45,400 --> 01:44:50,840 Speaker 1: in Oklahoma. And that puts this body of people right 1593 01:44:50,880 --> 01:44:54,759 Speaker 1: in the way of where Buffalo would formally have spread 1594 01:44:54,840 --> 01:44:58,679 Speaker 1: eastward in order to to sort of relieve the pressure 1595 01:44:58,720 --> 01:45:01,080 Speaker 1: of a drought out on the pla. So they don't 1596 01:45:01,080 --> 01:45:05,600 Speaker 1: have any refuges to expand into anymore, and they're just 1597 01:45:05,720 --> 01:45:09,520 Speaker 1: kind of caught out in a deteriorating Great Plains landscape 1598 01:45:09,560 --> 01:45:14,000 Speaker 1: with all these other effects. And so the argument became 1599 01:45:14,080 --> 01:45:17,840 Speaker 1: that by eighteen fifty, I mean we actually probably only 1600 01:45:17,840 --> 01:45:22,839 Speaker 1: have maybe twelve fourteen million buffalo left on the Great Planes, 1601 01:45:23,040 --> 01:45:26,400 Speaker 1: not sixty million, So by the end of the Civil War, 1602 01:45:26,520 --> 01:45:29,160 Speaker 1: that makes it quite a bit easier for the white 1603 01:45:29,200 --> 01:45:32,360 Speaker 1: hight hunters to arrive and sort of shoot down the 1604 01:45:32,400 --> 01:45:36,080 Speaker 1: remaining animals. So that was the story that I did 1605 01:45:36,160 --> 01:45:39,519 Speaker 1: in and I certainly fold a good bit of that 1606 01:45:39,600 --> 01:45:42,639 Speaker 1: into the chapter on Buffalo. But I try to tell 1607 01:45:42,680 --> 01:45:47,280 Speaker 1: a sort of a bigger story in in this chapter 1608 01:45:47,400 --> 01:45:50,679 Speaker 1: in American Serengetti about Buffalo and and the main thing 1609 01:45:50,720 --> 01:45:54,880 Speaker 1: that I take on is our supposition that we all have. 1610 01:45:55,080 --> 01:45:57,760 Speaker 1: I mean, you can go online and find find t 1611 01:45:57,920 --> 01:46:01,840 Speaker 1: shirts that sort of argue for this that it was 1612 01:46:01,880 --> 01:46:06,680 Speaker 1: a conspiracy between the federal government and the American military 1613 01:46:06,720 --> 01:46:12,280 Speaker 1: that wiped out the Buffalo. People still, yeah, they still 1614 01:46:12,320 --> 01:46:17,320 Speaker 1: talk about it, and the scapegoat of it is Philip Sheridan. 1615 01:46:18,280 --> 01:46:21,439 Speaker 1: And Philip Sheridan you can go online right now and 1616 01:46:21,479 --> 01:46:24,400 Speaker 1: find a T shirt with this quote on the front 1617 01:46:24,439 --> 01:46:29,519 Speaker 1: of it. Philip Sheridan is supposed to have made this 1618 01:46:29,720 --> 01:46:34,240 Speaker 1: speech in Austin, Texas in the early eighteen seventies when 1619 01:46:34,240 --> 01:46:38,080 Speaker 1: the Texas legislature. As the story is told over and 1620 01:46:38,120 --> 01:46:42,800 Speaker 1: over again, was considering a bill to outlaw the hide 1621 01:46:42,840 --> 01:46:47,360 Speaker 1: hunt in the Texas Panhandle, and Sheridan supposedly goes to 1622 01:46:47,439 --> 01:46:50,719 Speaker 1: Austin and stands up in front of Texas legislature and says, 1623 01:46:51,160 --> 01:46:54,799 Speaker 1: you can't do this. What you should be doing, in fact, 1624 01:46:55,360 --> 01:47:00,160 Speaker 1: is making sure that those animals are wiped out in 1625 01:47:00,320 --> 01:47:04,360 Speaker 1: order to be able to put the Indians on reservations 1626 01:47:04,439 --> 01:47:08,599 Speaker 1: and open up the planes to the festive cowboy and 1627 01:47:08,640 --> 01:47:12,440 Speaker 1: the speckled cattle. And he goes on to say, instead 1628 01:47:12,479 --> 01:47:18,599 Speaker 1: of uh detigrating these buffalo hunters, you should give them 1629 01:47:18,640 --> 01:47:22,519 Speaker 1: a medal. They should be recognized as American heroes. And 1630 01:47:22,560 --> 01:47:25,920 Speaker 1: the medal should have a discouraged planes Indian on one 1631 01:47:26,000 --> 01:47:29,720 Speaker 1: side and a dead buffalo on the other side. And 1632 01:47:29,760 --> 01:47:34,559 Speaker 1: so this story gets told, I mean, amazingly enough, no 1633 01:47:34,720 --> 01:47:37,880 Speaker 1: historian had ever looked at the origin of this story. 1634 01:47:37,920 --> 01:47:42,280 Speaker 1: It's told by a buffalo hunter in nineteen oh five, 1635 01:47:42,960 --> 01:47:45,960 Speaker 1: during the conservation period of Teddy Roosevelt, at a time 1636 01:47:46,000 --> 01:47:48,760 Speaker 1: when we were trying to save buffalo and a lot 1637 01:47:48,800 --> 01:47:52,400 Speaker 1: of people thought of these buffalo hunters as having been 1638 01:47:52,560 --> 01:47:56,719 Speaker 1: murderers of all these animals. And this buffalo hunter named 1639 01:47:56,800 --> 01:48:00,280 Speaker 1: John Cook writes a memoir published in nineteen o five 1640 01:48:00,400 --> 01:48:05,000 Speaker 1: called The Border in Buffalo, and he produces this speech 1641 01:48:05,400 --> 01:48:08,519 Speaker 1: which is something like patents speech. At the beginning of 1642 01:48:08,560 --> 01:48:11,719 Speaker 1: that movie. You can almost see the American flag rippling 1643 01:48:12,160 --> 01:48:19,000 Speaker 1: behind Sheridan as he says all this. And historians, journalists, 1644 01:48:19,960 --> 01:48:24,360 Speaker 1: the buffalo field campaign up in Yellowstone have just bought 1645 01:48:24,439 --> 01:48:27,680 Speaker 1: this thing, hook, hook, line and sinker, and nobody has 1646 01:48:27,840 --> 01:48:31,840 Speaker 1: ever bothered to go back and say, first of all, 1647 01:48:32,960 --> 01:48:38,200 Speaker 1: the Texas ever actually trying to pass a law to 1648 01:48:38,320 --> 01:48:42,000 Speaker 1: outlaw the buffalo hunt in the Panhandle. Did Philip Sheridan 1649 01:48:42,240 --> 01:48:46,040 Speaker 1: ever actually go to Austin, Texas and make a speech 1650 01:48:46,560 --> 01:48:50,040 Speaker 1: in front of the Texas legislature. And the answer to 1651 01:48:50,120 --> 01:48:54,800 Speaker 1: both those is, Texas never considered such a law. And 1652 01:48:54,840 --> 01:48:56,920 Speaker 1: in fact, when a law like this came up in 1653 01:48:56,960 --> 01:49:01,400 Speaker 1: the national legislature, it was the Texas component that thought 1654 01:49:01,439 --> 01:49:05,519 Speaker 1: it tooth and nail at the national level. Philip Sheridan, 1655 01:49:05,600 --> 01:49:07,879 Speaker 1: we have no record that he ever went to Austin, 1656 01:49:07,960 --> 01:49:12,479 Speaker 1: Texas and made such a speech. And the source of 1657 01:49:12,520 --> 01:49:17,280 Speaker 1: the story, then you realize, is this buffalo hunter who's 1658 01:49:17,320 --> 01:49:19,880 Speaker 1: writing his memoir at a time when buffalo hunters are 1659 01:49:19,880 --> 01:49:22,519 Speaker 1: being castigated. And when you look closely at the story, 1660 01:49:22,720 --> 01:49:26,640 Speaker 1: he even starts it out with this disclaimer of it 1661 01:49:26,800 --> 01:49:31,920 Speaker 1: is said that the Texas legislature was considering. So he 1662 01:49:32,000 --> 01:49:35,880 Speaker 1: does this kind of removes himself from it. It's not me, 1663 01:49:36,320 --> 01:49:40,240 Speaker 1: it is said, however, And so I tell this story 1664 01:49:41,040 --> 01:49:44,400 Speaker 1: in this chapter in order to try to disabuse people. 1665 01:49:44,479 --> 01:49:49,600 Speaker 1: Dispatch a grand student down the guy who would you 1666 01:49:49,720 --> 01:49:52,640 Speaker 1: remember this because that happened when you were at Montana, 1667 01:49:53,600 --> 01:49:57,280 Speaker 1: Dan Brewsters his name. He is now the director of 1668 01:49:57,280 --> 01:50:00,960 Speaker 1: the Buffalo Field Campaign. Yeah, and is now the director 1669 01:50:01,040 --> 01:50:03,160 Speaker 1: of And he's the grad student who went down to 1670 01:50:03,200 --> 01:50:05,559 Speaker 1: Austin to try to find all this and came back 1671 01:50:05,600 --> 01:50:08,559 Speaker 1: from his spring break in a week of being down there. 1672 01:50:08,600 --> 01:50:11,519 Speaker 1: He was working for the Buffalo Field Campaign then and said, man, 1673 01:50:11,560 --> 01:50:17,679 Speaker 1: I gotta say it's not there. And so a friend 1674 01:50:17,680 --> 01:50:20,439 Speaker 1: of mine who works in the National Archives, knowing that 1675 01:50:20,520 --> 01:50:25,519 Speaker 1: I was working on this, dug up for me the 1676 01:50:25,640 --> 01:50:31,280 Speaker 1: sort of the ultimate sort of reversal of this. I mean, 1677 01:50:31,320 --> 01:50:34,600 Speaker 1: I don't know if this will rescue Philip Sheridan's reputation 1678 01:50:34,720 --> 01:50:40,840 Speaker 1: or not, but Philip Sheridan was in Montana Territory in 1679 01:50:40,840 --> 01:50:45,519 Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, and heard about buffalo hunters shooting down 1680 01:50:45,800 --> 01:50:52,320 Speaker 1: buffalo right and left, and wrote a telegram to Washington saying, 1681 01:50:52,880 --> 01:50:58,479 Speaker 1: I want this buffalo hunting stuff stopped right now. We 1682 01:50:58,560 --> 01:51:01,280 Speaker 1: are going to end up with Indians who don't have 1683 01:51:02,200 --> 01:51:05,400 Speaker 1: a bite to eat this summer because these white guys 1684 01:51:05,439 --> 01:51:08,559 Speaker 1: are shooting down all these animals. We've got to stop 1685 01:51:08,600 --> 01:51:12,360 Speaker 1: this bubble. I'm not shooting you. And so I quote 1686 01:51:13,360 --> 01:51:20,439 Speaker 1: Shardan's exact opposite story than what he's been credited as 1687 01:51:20,479 --> 01:51:25,599 Speaker 1: saying in history, this story is everywhere. It's everywhere. When 1688 01:51:25,640 --> 01:51:27,680 Speaker 1: I was kind of immersed in this whole world, it 1689 01:51:27,720 --> 01:51:29,760 Speaker 1: was like, it's just like, oh, I had already know, 1690 01:51:29,840 --> 01:51:33,000 Speaker 1: excepted I've heard about that, and I just like always 1691 01:51:33,240 --> 01:51:36,960 Speaker 1: dismayed about how many people point that out. Yeah, it's everywhere. 1692 01:51:37,040 --> 01:51:42,760 Speaker 1: So one of the things, it's a comfortable, easy thing. 1693 01:51:43,040 --> 01:51:47,240 Speaker 1: Well it's I mean, so think about it. We tried 1694 01:51:47,280 --> 01:51:49,680 Speaker 1: to claim that, you know, in the aftermath of the 1695 01:51:49,720 --> 01:51:53,160 Speaker 1: Civil War, that the Civil War is not about slavery. 1696 01:51:53,240 --> 01:51:57,840 Speaker 1: It's about the Southern way of life. It's about preserving 1697 01:51:58,439 --> 01:52:01,599 Speaker 1: a culture in the South. I have a brother back 1698 01:52:01,640 --> 01:52:07,479 Speaker 1: in in Texas who still argues this, And so I 1699 01:52:07,520 --> 01:52:11,520 Speaker 1: mean That's the reason these kinds of stories are comfortable 1700 01:52:11,520 --> 01:52:14,960 Speaker 1: to us is that it removed the responsibility for the 1701 01:52:15,040 --> 01:52:19,639 Speaker 1: action in history from us to some agency out there, 1702 01:52:19,720 --> 01:52:23,680 Speaker 1: like the federal government that everybody is always quick to 1703 01:52:23,720 --> 01:52:28,719 Speaker 1: take aim at. And so it wasn't we. We didn't 1704 01:52:28,720 --> 01:52:32,920 Speaker 1: do it. The federal government in the military did this, 1705 01:52:33,960 --> 01:52:36,680 Speaker 1: I mean, and the truth is, of course we did it. 1706 01:52:37,000 --> 01:52:41,560 Speaker 1: American citizens did it. The market hunt did it. Unrestrained 1707 01:52:41,640 --> 01:52:45,080 Speaker 1: capitalism did it. I've tried. When I was writing about 1708 01:52:45,200 --> 01:52:50,120 Speaker 1: high Hunters and in my Buffalo book, I don't think. 1709 01:52:50,120 --> 01:52:51,160 Speaker 1: I don't know if I ever, I don't think I 1710 01:52:51,200 --> 01:52:53,400 Speaker 1: actually wrote this. But when I was talking about it, 1711 01:52:53,960 --> 01:52:56,479 Speaker 1: I would say, let's let's it sound like I'm condemning 1712 01:52:56,520 --> 01:52:59,479 Speaker 1: these guys. I want to say, in all honesty, I 1713 01:52:59,479 --> 01:53:02,559 Speaker 1: would have been right out there with them. Yeah, there 1714 01:53:02,600 --> 01:53:04,320 Speaker 1: were a lot of guys who were broke after the 1715 01:53:05,320 --> 01:53:09,920 Speaker 1: How in the world would they have even like you 1716 01:53:10,040 --> 01:53:14,160 Speaker 1: got some guy pushing the plow, he said, the Ohio 1717 01:53:14,240 --> 01:53:18,080 Speaker 1: Valley or coming out of Pennsylvania right next to no 1718 01:53:18,320 --> 01:53:23,120 Speaker 1: education or no education quite possibly illiterate, has never been 1719 01:53:23,160 --> 01:53:27,800 Speaker 1: out there, did It's like that? He's like, I'll go 1720 01:53:27,840 --> 01:53:30,240 Speaker 1: out there and fix them Indians and shop. It's just like, 1721 01:53:30,840 --> 01:53:34,960 Speaker 1: not what he's going out there for. He was going 1722 01:53:35,000 --> 01:53:40,479 Speaker 1: out there for under like money, adventure. You know. It's 1723 01:53:40,520 --> 01:53:44,519 Speaker 1: like the grand picture wasn't there. I would like as 1724 01:53:44,560 --> 01:53:46,600 Speaker 1: much as like I grew up, you know, I saw one. 1725 01:53:46,640 --> 01:53:48,639 Speaker 1: It's earlier today. I grew up shopping for a trap 1726 01:53:48,680 --> 01:53:51,559 Speaker 1: line in Canada. It's like if I was alive at 1727 01:53:51,640 --> 01:53:53,439 Speaker 1: that time, If I was alive at that time, I 1728 01:53:53,479 --> 01:53:58,080 Speaker 1: would have been like, you're ship me, let's go before 1729 01:53:58,120 --> 01:54:01,320 Speaker 1: they're gone. Well, it's hell, you what, I can't say 1730 01:54:01,360 --> 01:54:04,599 Speaker 1: that I wouldn't have been right out there too. Uh, 1731 01:54:04,840 --> 01:54:07,240 Speaker 1: it's impossible to say at the time. But it's like, yeah, 1732 01:54:07,280 --> 01:54:09,960 Speaker 1: it's a simple you know. You take these like kind 1733 01:54:10,000 --> 01:54:13,479 Speaker 1: of like everyday motivations, the kinds of things people still 1734 01:54:13,520 --> 01:54:16,280 Speaker 1: do and still think about, and apply it in that 1735 01:54:16,400 --> 01:54:20,040 Speaker 1: context at that time, and that's yeah, the kinds of 1736 01:54:20,040 --> 01:54:24,559 Speaker 1: things you wind up with. There were some of these 1737 01:54:24,560 --> 01:54:26,880 Speaker 1: buffalo hunters like John Cook, the guy who wrote this 1738 01:54:27,040 --> 01:54:29,840 Speaker 1: memoir who I mean, they defended it all to the end, 1739 01:54:29,840 --> 01:54:33,520 Speaker 1: even when society had turned against it. Um. I mean. 1740 01:54:33,520 --> 01:54:35,920 Speaker 1: There was a guy down in Texas, Jay Wright Moore, 1741 01:54:36,280 --> 01:54:39,480 Speaker 1: who used to lead parades in his buffalo hunter outfit. 1742 01:54:39,920 --> 01:54:42,600 Speaker 1: And he had this book, Buffalo Bone Days, and that's right, 1743 01:54:42,680 --> 01:54:46,680 Speaker 1: Buffalo Bone Days. And his stock speech was that all 1744 01:54:46,800 --> 01:54:51,280 Speaker 1: the buffalo between the Brazis River and the Platte didn't 1745 01:54:51,320 --> 01:54:56,360 Speaker 1: amount to one homesteader family somewhere in Kansas, and so 1746 01:54:56,840 --> 01:54:59,840 Speaker 1: don't go mourning all those buffaloes. That didn't amount to 1747 01:55:00,080 --> 01:55:03,200 Speaker 1: a single thing, one homestead or family in Manita more 1748 01:55:03,280 --> 01:55:07,320 Speaker 1: than that. But there were some of them buffalo Jones, 1749 01:55:07,640 --> 01:55:10,320 Speaker 1: you know, in in Kansas. I mean, you know about 1750 01:55:10,400 --> 01:55:12,840 Speaker 1: this guy, Steve, I know, I mean, he sort of 1751 01:55:12,880 --> 01:55:16,839 Speaker 1: spent the rest of his life stricken with guilt about 1752 01:55:16,880 --> 01:55:19,160 Speaker 1: what he had done. He said, I spent my entire 1753 01:55:19,280 --> 01:55:22,920 Speaker 1: youth trying to wipe these animals out, and now I'm 1754 01:55:22,920 --> 01:55:25,880 Speaker 1: gonna try to atone for that wickedness by attempting to 1755 01:55:26,040 --> 01:55:29,880 Speaker 1: save some of them for America in the twentieth century. Yeah, 1756 01:55:29,920 --> 01:55:33,400 Speaker 1: he'd ride out, try to rope up calves and then 1757 01:55:33,440 --> 01:55:36,480 Speaker 1: put them on cow that's right, put him on cows 1758 01:55:36,480 --> 01:55:39,280 Speaker 1: to get milk. Yeah. And he knew from his hunts 1759 01:55:39,320 --> 01:55:43,960 Speaker 1: where some buffalo, even when everybody thought they were all gone, 1760 01:55:44,040 --> 01:55:46,520 Speaker 1: he knew there's some of them left in the Texas 1761 01:55:46,520 --> 01:55:49,280 Speaker 1: Panhandle where used to hunting those brakes along the automoskado. 1762 01:55:49,560 --> 01:55:51,680 Speaker 1: I guarantee I can go down and find something. He did. 1763 01:55:51,720 --> 01:55:54,240 Speaker 1: He went down and found a group of about sixty 1764 01:55:54,560 --> 01:55:57,320 Speaker 1: And this was seven or eight years after everybody was 1765 01:55:57,400 --> 01:56:00,680 Speaker 1: convinced that there were no more buffalo on the other planes. 1766 01:56:01,320 --> 01:56:04,520 Speaker 1: I mean, but these guys, you know, they knew how 1767 01:56:04,520 --> 01:56:06,560 Speaker 1: to hunt, and they knew guns, and a lot of 1768 01:56:06,600 --> 01:56:10,040 Speaker 1: times that's all they knew how to do. And so 1769 01:56:10,720 --> 01:56:13,080 Speaker 1: here was an opportunity to make some money from it, 1770 01:56:13,360 --> 01:56:16,040 Speaker 1: and they went out and and did it. But when 1771 01:56:16,040 --> 01:56:17,880 Speaker 1: you got twenty thousand of them out there on the 1772 01:56:17,920 --> 01:56:22,240 Speaker 1: planes and doing it, the ultimate result is ultimate result 1773 01:56:22,400 --> 01:56:28,080 Speaker 1: is in our time we only get to read books 1774 01:56:28,080 --> 01:56:31,840 Speaker 1: about this or see movies about it. And one of 1775 01:56:31,880 --> 01:56:34,320 Speaker 1: the things that kind of excites me about the idea 1776 01:56:34,360 --> 01:56:38,680 Speaker 1: of the American Prairie Reserve and recreating the Americans Serengetti, 1777 01:56:39,320 --> 01:56:44,320 Speaker 1: is I want to experience it myself. I don't want 1778 01:56:44,320 --> 01:56:46,760 Speaker 1: to just read a book about what it was like 1779 01:56:47,360 --> 01:56:51,200 Speaker 1: or see go see The Revenant to see what the 1780 01:56:51,280 --> 01:56:53,680 Speaker 1: West was like. I mean, I want to, you know, 1781 01:56:53,760 --> 01:56:57,080 Speaker 1: as thora said, I wanna I want an entire heaven 1782 01:56:57,120 --> 01:56:59,280 Speaker 1: and an entire earth. I don't want to think that 1783 01:56:59,400 --> 01:57:02,360 Speaker 1: some demigo has come along before me and pluck the 1784 01:57:02,400 --> 01:57:11,440 Speaker 1: best of the stars out of the sky. Yeah, so 1785 01:57:11,480 --> 01:57:14,120 Speaker 1: you're rooting for it, the return of the American Serengetti 1786 01:57:14,320 --> 01:57:21,680 Speaker 1: a man. Absolutely, it's a noble cause there's a lot 1787 01:57:21,760 --> 01:57:27,280 Speaker 1: of you know, there's a lot of arguing. A lot 1788 01:57:27,320 --> 01:57:30,560 Speaker 1: of arguing needs to happen in Phillips County, Montana. I 1789 01:57:30,560 --> 01:57:33,800 Speaker 1: think there's a lot of a lot of arguments gonna happen. 1790 01:57:35,040 --> 01:57:39,280 Speaker 1: I certainly agree, Yeah, I certainly agree with the goal. Um, 1791 01:57:39,320 --> 01:57:43,360 Speaker 1: it's gonna be like all worthwhile things, it's gonna it's 1792 01:57:43,360 --> 01:57:47,120 Speaker 1: gonna amount to a fight, you know. Yeah, Well getting 1793 01:57:47,360 --> 01:57:51,240 Speaker 1: Yellowstone was you know, that was that was not a 1794 01:57:51,320 --> 01:57:53,320 Speaker 1: huge fight, but it was something of the fun we 1795 01:57:53,360 --> 01:57:57,080 Speaker 1: all everyone listen, everyone's come to agree. Roosevelt is great man. 1796 01:57:57,160 --> 01:57:59,560 Speaker 1: Everything you do is great. You think at the time 1797 01:58:00,440 --> 01:58:03,080 Speaker 1: when he says, hey, I got an idea, Yeah, people 1798 01:58:03,120 --> 01:58:07,920 Speaker 1: were piss well, they were living about the Grand King. 1799 01:58:08,000 --> 01:58:10,360 Speaker 1: And you know when he when he made it into 1800 01:58:10,400 --> 01:58:13,840 Speaker 1: a national monument. I mean, people were furious about that, 1801 01:58:14,000 --> 01:58:18,240 Speaker 1: especially in Arizona and uh In Arizona Territory. I mean, 1802 01:58:18,240 --> 01:58:21,320 Speaker 1: they were absolutely furious about it. But as Roosevelt said, 1803 01:58:21,400 --> 01:58:25,720 Speaker 1: you know, nothing man is going to be able to 1804 01:58:25,760 --> 01:58:29,080 Speaker 1: do to it is going to improve improve what it is. 1805 01:58:29,560 --> 01:58:32,320 Speaker 1: The ages have been at work on it, and so 1806 01:58:33,280 --> 01:58:35,800 Speaker 1: all we can do is detract from it. The best 1807 01:58:35,840 --> 01:58:38,880 Speaker 1: thing to do is is to preserve it as it is. 1808 01:58:38,920 --> 01:58:42,560 Speaker 1: And I think in this American Serengetti issue, it's not 1809 01:58:42,680 --> 01:58:46,800 Speaker 1: that we have a remnant thing that we can preserve. 1810 01:58:46,840 --> 01:58:49,640 Speaker 1: We're gonna have to recreate that and that's gonna be 1811 01:58:49,800 --> 01:58:53,080 Speaker 1: That's an even that's an even bigger task. Yeah, it's 1812 01:58:53,080 --> 01:58:57,360 Speaker 1: different than setting something Christine aside. Yeah, recreating something is 1813 01:58:57,400 --> 01:59:00,640 Speaker 1: a bigger project. But it's kind to me on the 1814 01:59:00,680 --> 01:59:04,720 Speaker 1: scale of of setting you know, the world's first national 1815 01:59:04,760 --> 01:59:08,120 Speaker 1: park aside in the form of Yellowstone. Uh. And so 1816 01:59:08,200 --> 01:59:10,640 Speaker 1: it's kind of a one of these big vision things 1817 01:59:10,680 --> 01:59:14,200 Speaker 1: for our time, the way Yellowstone was for people in 1818 01:59:14,240 --> 01:59:22,360 Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Yeah, there's a it's coming up now, 1819 01:59:22,400 --> 01:59:25,040 Speaker 1: like just in in the political environment where people look 1820 01:59:25,080 --> 01:59:29,560 Speaker 1: at chunks of wild land and like the wild land 1821 01:59:29,640 --> 01:59:33,680 Speaker 1: sort of has to justify its existence. It's like, well, 1822 01:59:33,680 --> 01:59:39,960 Speaker 1: it's sitting there doing nothing as though every minute wild 1823 01:59:40,000 --> 01:59:42,480 Speaker 1: places they're supposed to be like to lay out their 1824 01:59:42,560 --> 01:59:46,520 Speaker 1: ledgers improve at any given moment, like what their value 1825 01:59:46,920 --> 01:59:49,880 Speaker 1: is in the moment when I think that the more 1826 01:59:49,920 --> 01:59:53,240 Speaker 1: accurate way of thinking about wild places is it's like 1827 01:59:53,320 --> 01:59:54,600 Speaker 1: money in the bank. What am I doing with it 1828 01:59:54,720 --> 01:59:57,320 Speaker 1: right now? It's setting there, and that ship is getting 1829 01:59:57,320 --> 02:00:00,080 Speaker 1: more and more valuable every minute, and I don't know. 1830 02:00:00,240 --> 02:00:02,440 Speaker 1: I might not cash it, my children might not cash it, 1831 02:00:02,640 --> 02:00:05,839 Speaker 1: my grandparents might not cash it, right or my grandchildren 1832 02:00:05,880 --> 02:00:07,400 Speaker 1: might not cash it. But at the same time, it's 1833 02:00:07,440 --> 02:00:11,800 Speaker 1: just something they're getting exponentially more valuable as time it 1834 02:00:11,800 --> 02:00:13,840 Speaker 1: goes by. And it's like disgusting to me that somehow 1835 02:00:13,840 --> 02:00:15,560 Speaker 1: people look at chunk or ground and it has to 1836 02:00:15,640 --> 02:00:19,680 Speaker 1: justify itself in terms of in terms jobs. All the 1837 02:00:19,720 --> 02:00:23,480 Speaker 1: leopold he had this line where he said that, uh, America, 1838 02:00:24,240 --> 02:00:27,480 Speaker 1: just in case. All the Leopold's are one of the 1839 02:00:27,520 --> 02:00:31,080 Speaker 1: fathers of the modern conservation movement, and Avid Hunter and Fisherman, 1840 02:00:31,600 --> 02:00:34,120 Speaker 1: and he had this line where he said that we've 1841 02:00:34,520 --> 02:00:40,640 Speaker 1: become like hypochondriacs about our economic health, where we're incapable 1842 02:00:40,680 --> 02:00:44,160 Speaker 1: of being healthy, where we view our economic health as 1843 02:00:44,240 --> 02:00:47,760 Speaker 1: like you know, soul full of anxiety about it that 1844 02:00:47,840 --> 02:00:51,000 Speaker 1: we can't realize that we're actually okay, you know, And 1845 02:00:51,040 --> 02:00:53,000 Speaker 1: I think that the way wild lands need to just 1846 02:00:53,200 --> 02:00:57,240 Speaker 1: like in sort of some kind of petty economic way, 1847 02:00:57,640 --> 02:01:00,440 Speaker 1: account for what they're doing in the job cycle, all right, 1848 02:01:01,400 --> 02:01:04,840 Speaker 1: Like who's creating more jobs. It's a thing like in 1849 02:01:04,960 --> 02:01:06,800 Speaker 1: hunting and fishing right now, so many people are starting 1850 02:01:06,880 --> 02:01:08,680 Speaker 1: starting saying like, okay, we gotta do we should do 1851 02:01:08,760 --> 02:01:14,840 Speaker 1: conservation work because look at the economic imprint of hunters 1852 02:01:14,880 --> 02:01:17,360 Speaker 1: and fishermen. You know, we contribute all these billions of 1853 02:01:17,360 --> 02:01:20,360 Speaker 1: dollars to the economy every year. And I went up 1854 02:01:20,360 --> 02:01:23,160 Speaker 1: thinking to myself, okay, so let's say you did that 1855 02:01:23,200 --> 02:01:26,400 Speaker 1: same math and realized that having clean air and clean 1856 02:01:26,440 --> 02:01:29,760 Speaker 1: water and wild places is costing us money. Does that 1857 02:01:29,800 --> 02:01:32,880 Speaker 1: mean we feel differently about it? Like that doesn't change 1858 02:01:32,880 --> 02:01:35,920 Speaker 1: my perspective on it. I'm not like, oh, yeah, you're right, 1859 02:01:36,000 --> 02:01:37,880 Speaker 1: we should have wilderness because we're making money off it. 1860 02:01:38,720 --> 02:01:40,320 Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, I hear that. I'm like, 1861 02:01:40,440 --> 02:01:42,680 Speaker 1: you know, that's great, but it doesn't change my opinion 1862 02:01:42,840 --> 02:01:44,600 Speaker 1: one way or the other. I don't like it less 1863 02:01:44,680 --> 02:01:48,840 Speaker 1: or more. Now that you've justified it's value. To me, 1864 02:01:49,080 --> 02:01:53,480 Speaker 1: that's that's trying to think in about values that are 1865 02:01:53,520 --> 02:01:58,000 Speaker 1: sort of outside economic determinism and trying to insert them 1866 02:01:58,000 --> 02:01:59,880 Speaker 1: into that kind of model. But I mean there's some 1867 02:02:00,040 --> 02:02:04,040 Speaker 1: things that you don't put price tax on. I mean, 1868 02:02:04,080 --> 02:02:06,040 Speaker 1: there are a lot of the It seems to me 1869 02:02:06,120 --> 02:02:11,440 Speaker 1: the finer sentiments in the human spirit are not really 1870 02:02:11,920 --> 02:02:16,320 Speaker 1: things that you add up in ledgers. Um. Yeah, I mean, 1871 02:02:16,360 --> 02:02:18,800 Speaker 1: you know, I still believe in that old, that great 1872 02:02:18,840 --> 02:02:23,520 Speaker 1: old Wallets Stigner line about the geography of Hope. That's 1873 02:02:23,600 --> 02:02:28,400 Speaker 1: kind of to me what wild places represent. So I mean, 1874 02:02:28,440 --> 02:02:31,920 Speaker 1: we we've as our population grows around the globe, I mean, 1875 02:02:31,920 --> 02:02:35,720 Speaker 1: we're gonna be putting more pressure on wild places and 1876 02:02:35,800 --> 02:02:41,600 Speaker 1: shrinking the possibility of biodiversity. Uh. And that's the theme 1877 02:02:41,720 --> 02:02:45,200 Speaker 1: of the modern era. So every opportunity, it seems to 1878 02:02:45,240 --> 02:02:49,080 Speaker 1: me when you can take a stand against that and 1879 02:02:49,120 --> 02:02:53,879 Speaker 1: even reverse it with something like this American prairie reserve idea, 1880 02:02:54,320 --> 02:02:58,360 Speaker 1: I mean, I'm that that makes me want to endorse 1881 02:02:58,400 --> 02:03:01,680 Speaker 1: it and and work on behalf of it, because I 1882 02:03:01,720 --> 02:03:05,320 Speaker 1: think the the primary theme is in the other direction. 1883 02:03:06,640 --> 02:03:14,720 Speaker 1: So yeah, this this American Serengetti, American Prairie Reserve Project 1884 02:03:14,880 --> 02:03:17,520 Speaker 1: is kind of an opportunity to do good in the 1885 02:03:17,600 --> 02:03:23,839 Speaker 1: classic old Aldo Leopold Teddy Roosevelt fashion. And it's probably 1886 02:03:23,840 --> 02:03:26,080 Speaker 1: one of the reasons that, you know, groups like the 1887 02:03:26,200 --> 02:03:30,560 Speaker 1: National Geographic for instance, and the Grosvenor family are really 1888 02:03:30,600 --> 02:03:33,800 Speaker 1: excited about it because it does have a little bit 1889 02:03:33,840 --> 02:03:39,000 Speaker 1: of a whiff of that old time big vision conservation. 1890 02:03:39,880 --> 02:03:44,840 Speaker 1: Uh thinking, did you know, Uh, Leopold's kid is a hydrologist. 1891 02:03:45,480 --> 02:03:50,200 Speaker 1: I believe I've never I don't think i've ever met him. 1892 02:03:50,920 --> 02:03:53,480 Speaker 1: I could be messing up. I think he has a son, Luna. Yeah, 1893 02:03:56,080 --> 02:03:57,720 Speaker 1: I could be. I could messing this up too, but 1894 02:03:57,720 --> 02:04:01,200 Speaker 1: I think it's kind of right. He says, Uh. Rivers 1895 02:04:01,240 --> 02:04:04,560 Speaker 1: are the gutters through which run the ruins of continents. 1896 02:04:05,960 --> 02:04:07,520 Speaker 1: It's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one too. 1897 02:04:09,080 --> 02:04:11,360 Speaker 1: We could toss good clothes for these guys are after 1898 02:04:11,440 --> 02:04:15,000 Speaker 1: a long time. All Right, I don't have any concluding thoughts. 1899 02:04:15,960 --> 02:04:18,920 Speaker 1: That was a fine conclusion. Now, thank you for your time. 1900 02:04:20,320 --> 02:04:24,200 Speaker 1: Former professor, current author Dann Floor. He's going and find 1901 02:04:24,200 --> 02:04:27,080 Speaker 1: your books. You can get him on Amazon, pre order 1902 02:04:27,160 --> 02:04:29,640 Speaker 1: them or order them, order one, pre order one. Yeah, 1903 02:04:29,720 --> 02:04:31,120 Speaker 1: I think that's the way it is. Now you can 1904 02:04:31,200 --> 02:04:35,200 Speaker 1: order American Serengetty and pre order Coyote America and Kaudy 1905 02:04:35,240 --> 02:04:38,360 Speaker 1: America is not very far away, about six weeks or so. Yeah, 1906 02:04:39,080 --> 02:04:42,320 Speaker 1: order now, you get it early, all right, Thanks man, 1907 02:04:42,480 --> 02:05:34,400 Speaker 1: you're bad. Thanks asstsstssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss