WEBVTT - Ep. 148: American Prairie Reserve 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.320 This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.319 bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:30.120 can't predict anything. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna do this 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.159 an unorthodox fashion, and we're gonna start with intros. I 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.320 feel like the day we were talking and never it 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:41.720 doesn't matter, um as though, dealing cards with introductions, and 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:43.479 then we've got like a bunch of housekeeping issues and 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:45.600 I need to ask Michelle some questions. I need to 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:51.400 get the female perspective on two things. Is that cool, Michelle, Ny, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:53.479 you can introduce yourself. Good morning, I'm be honest for 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:58.120 tell us from the Meat Eater crew. Good morning, I'm 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.880 Sam Longering from the Meat Eater, joining us for the 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.080 first time the first day in the office, excited to 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.200 be here. Get your email hooked up? Yet I do, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.480 I do, and it's already full. So I really enjoyed 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.640 that brief twenty minutes before I had any sort of inbox. 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.600 It was glorious. Yeah, because there's no responsibilities yet. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:19.160 I got like things and I have work you have 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.640 to do, right, Yeah. I finished my last job Friday 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.959 at five, So you do like most people, game it, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.959 so you get two weeks off? Yeah, well I gave you. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.880 I gave my last employer a month and a half notice, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.200 so I figured I better hustle on over here once 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.560 I got done with that. That speaks well to your 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.560 work ethic. Man. Oh thanks, I appreciate that. The Michelle 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.279 Michelle Michelle Chandler from the Meat Eater Crew formally Michelle 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.520 Jorgensen say, who's Michelle? Right? So you did the old switch? Uh? 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.600 I did the switch? Yeah? Can you real quick why? 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.800 I mean, I'm all for it, man, but as you know, 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:53.920 I've I've complained about many times. My wife won't do it. 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.720 She's mean, it's I think my perspective on it's a 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.120 little old fashioned, but I kind of consider it. I 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.080 think he's a great and and he's an honorable man, 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.680 and I'm proud to take his name and yeah, and 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:07.360 to be a part of his family. So I look 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:13.799 at it in that, in that perspective of validation of yeah, yeah, absolutely, 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.079 So I'm really on board with it. My wife just 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.120 thinks it's annoying to go change all your stuff around. 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.120 It's not easy. They don't make it easy, you know, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.320 first stop Social Security and every other agency after that 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.000 kind of yeah, passport, Yeah, we did that the other day. 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.160 For a long time, she's screwed with me by saying 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.160 that when her passport expired, she would do it, and 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.760 she made this so one of her many emails has 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:38.840 uses my last name as like a little nod in 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.360 my direction. But no, she's not. I'm an honorablewler. I 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:48.240 don't know what. Well, yeah, viewpoint of it, Sean. I 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.760 am Sean Gearty, and I'm a founder and managing director 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:57.720 at American Perry Reserve. Right, Ryan Callahan, it's my second 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.760 Monday here. As far as the Mediator crew, you're doing good. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:03.760 We get a lot of emails about you already. I 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.799 mean we have always have gotten a lot of emails 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.640 about you. But we get emails about you people curious. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.280 Do you have categories? No, No, just a lot of 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.560 emails about you. People like here here you talk and 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.160 you want to know more, um, real quick. Ye, honestly, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:25.680 you were wrong about some stuff. Uh, dudes rolled in. 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.320 You were talking about if you were to hire a 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.320 if you were to hire a dude to pack out 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:37.320 your elk, you were ballparking it like a horseman a packer. No, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.480 that wasn't me bambarking it? Who ballparked it? Ed? He 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.240 ballparked it. Yeah, well he was off by a factor 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.680 of a couple hundred. Yeah. I thought he was on 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.880 the light end even then when we're having the discussion. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.520 Felt it. At the time. I was shouting out at 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.000 the radio and I was listening to I was like, 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:55.880 that's a steel dude. A lot of people rolle in 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.520 there like five hundred seven fifty, probably more like someone 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:04.360 was throwing around two fifty depends on he get. Man. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.840 It's like Janice calls me and he's got this picture 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.200 of this giant bowl on Instagram'd be like, you know what, man, 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.160 this one's on me, send me the coordinates. Yeah, but 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.520 you're not a you're not a packer for hire. You're 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.440 just a dude guy. A lot of packers for higher 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.359 also have a hunting license in their pocket. Oh, meaning 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.080 like I would love to come up and give a hand. Yes, No, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.279 I don't. I don't. I don't agree at all, because 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.440 there there's no guesswork. It's like, so this is where 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.919 he was. I feel like pro packers are tight lipped. No, 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:43.280 they're working. You've made that decision, you're working man during 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.839 hunting season. If I was a pro packer and all 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:48.880 I did was go up and visit places where people 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:54.559 have had successful hunts, and then a buddy of mine said, hey, man, um, 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.920 think about heading out this weekend. You got any What 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.120 would you do if you were me and I was 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:04.039 the pro packer? Would I then say, oh, you know what, 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.840 you know where I've pulled three or four bulls out 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:12.360 of in the last week right. I don't know that 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.479 that individual would really have the self restraint to not 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.760 just tell hebody to tell his buddies unless he's a 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.200 real pro. Well, the real pro is getting real pro 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:29.560 tip to keep that stuff under wraps, like you know what, 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.279 really probably also pricey. Here's a little something for you. 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:34.800 Let's not talk about where this bull came out of. 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.760 Guy rode in about um Santa Claus, saying that with 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.640 c W D and all the bands on captive, certain 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.760 moving servants across straight state lines, he thinks that Santa 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.400 Claus is like the mythology of Santa Claus. He's gonna 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.760 come and looking like a grade A a hole for track, 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.160 and he's deer all over the whole earth. I thought, 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.520 what I'm saying, it's a cute point. It's cute, um, Michelle. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:05.599 Two questions from female perspective. One, did you feel that 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.560 when we did the like, you know, the begging and 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.880 like our episode begging and pleading, right, Okay, someone thought 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.240 that it was I don't understand degrading to women. I 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.160 did see that email. Yeah, she was, why can you 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.720 help me with that? Well? First, what I interpreted from 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:27.440 that email was she was saying, Hey, you're assuming that 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:33.000 your audience is all men predominantly men. Right, That's it's 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.080 not true. It's you know, our our numbers. Why was 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.039 she saying we're assuming that. I think she was saying 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.320 or saying that we're assuming, um, that sales pitch should 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.120 only be directed towards men, and that by um pitching 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.160 the you know you're gonna learn how to cook and 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.520 treat your sweetheart well with this fancy meal, that that's 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.760 perhaps all women care about. I don't know it. I 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.320 think if she kind of missed the mark there do Yeah, Kelly, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.480 and I went on you the guy wrote in we 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.760 were talking about I was talking one day about taking 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.400 my daughter out and duck hunting, and her feet got 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.520 cold and she was crying, and I, even though I 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.160 had my wife made me when we had a daughter 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:16.640 at the minute my wife found out we were having 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.600 a daughter, but she made me vow to not treat 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.280 our daughter any different than I would treat our boys. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.520 When it comes to the outdoor pursuits. There's no right. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.280 Expectations are the same, pressures are the same. However, my 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:36.280 daughter laying in the marsh crying struck me as fundamentally 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.760 different than my boy laying in the marsh crying, Like 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.960 it just hit me differently. And a guy wrote in 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.080 to say this very very anecdotal, but a guy wanted 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.760 to talk about how he works. These two guys and 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.680 the guys at the same age, they make the same 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:56.000 amount of money. Very similar. Dudes. Uh, they you have daughters. 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.760 One of them when they take the when he when 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.040 he takes the girls out and they would cry, he 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.600 would give in and bring him back home. The other one, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.520 when his daughters would cry, he'd make him tough about, 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:10.200 give him a tough talking to and make him stick 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.440 it out. Fast forward a couple of decades or whatever 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.280 amount of time, and the ones who got to go 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.600 home when they were cold, um all became drug addicts 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.920 and pole dancers, he was explaining, and the ones who 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:30.160 had the tough it out are assets to our country. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.840 What do you have anything? I'm just telling you what 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.960 a guy wrote, right, I'm telling what a guy wrote 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:42.160 in this is not nothing mean nothing. What do you 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:49.000 when you hear that? What do you feel? I think 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.920 that that's funny. I also think that that's one way 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.720 of looking at it or creating like an upshot of 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.480 a scenario. But I also think there's a lot of 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.320 other factors at play there that no, can't be right, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.280 can't be nuance introduced. Um, you'll think it all stems 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.240 to what happens in like a child's development course in 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.319 life is all set in the dark, Marsh. I think 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.959 life might be a little more enjoyable and simple. But 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.359 I do think that you know, hard, difficult, challenging scenarios 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.640 for kids are important and you know, like they say, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.200 it builds character and uh, I don't know. I think 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.120 I think it's okay. We'll touch back with you when 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.920 you have a bunch of parenting experienced a lot, right. No, 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.440 I'm definitely gonna be, you know, seeking you out for 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.839 some advice. Yeah, anything, all same. We needs to bring 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.959 up before we talk about American Prairie Reserve. Speaking of 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.480 kids being tough, I went skiing for the first day 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.600 yesterday of the season with my kids, and my oldest 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.240 ski all day with a bass layer and then her 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.680 jacket just wide open, and it was fifteen twenty degrees 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.360 up there no wind now. But I'm just like for 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.240 all the times when we go through stuff like that, 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.600 when they're just like in the blind or in the 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.960 boat or wherever, cold and like miserable, and I just 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.640 want to remember when you're up on the ski hill 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.280 and you're just like open the winds blowing right through there, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.319 like you don't give a ship, like not even kind 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.559 of cold, and I was chilly. I had two or 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.120 three layers of wool on, plus a puffy jacket in 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.720 my shell. That's what makes it hard when they're crying 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:40.960 and cold, is you can't tell if they're leveraging because 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.000 you want to be like that day. I want to 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:44.960 be like I would love I would pay any amount 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:46.800 of money to feel what your toes feel like right 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.000 now to know if this is going on or if 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.480 this is like an avenue you're taking. Yeah, a little 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.160 manipulation to get into the next activity, because I would 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.839 be my daughter would not have a difficult time manipulating me. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.719 My boy, I'm all over it. But again, as hard 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.400 as you try, it's like it's just different, and I 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.200 struggle with it being different. Oh one quick thing too, 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:13.880 So speaking of speaking of the episode that we dedicated 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.840 to the meat Eater, Fish and Game cookbook recipes and 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.000 techniques for every hunter and Angler. Uh, we had a 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:25.080 thing happened where um reception of the book we we 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:31.240 didn't we meaning our publisher speaking grout random house like 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.040 like we didn't anticipate the eager reception for that book. 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:36.680 I mean we did, but I didn't know to what 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.120 degree it would happened. And we ran into a little 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.440 problem where it's a good problem to have, where the 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.720 books were gone, like a like a nice good print 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.200 run of books. We're gone the morning of pub day. 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.080 So there's a lot of frustration out there with people 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.600 who are trying to go on BNN dot com, Amazon 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.680 dot com, and there's seeing long lead times on book delivery. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.480 All you know, if you're going to like make your order, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.480 the book will come. We are, They're they're making more books. 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.199 Everything's gonna be taken care of. I know it's a 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.560 little bit frustrating. You still see stuff on our end. 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.400 It's like promoting buying the book even though it's a 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:19.280 long lead time to get it going. But just trust 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.199 bear with us, um the bookleship. It's just been it's 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:26.360 been really exciting to see how fast um the book 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:30.160 went and how popular it's become. But it's uh, you know, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:31.839 it's like a little bit of a pain in there 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:38.320 of having run out. So it's coming Morril ship tons 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.640 more around the way. If you place your order, your 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.040 order will be honored and you will get the book. Um. 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.240 And in the future too, we're gonna also through the 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.160 meat eater dot com. You can go into the store 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.400 and eventually not right now, but eventually will have we'll 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.719 be selling uh signed copies there as well. That's the 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:01.199 ways out. But it'll come good. Okay, Sean, you're ready, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.920 You're ready. How how annoying is it? How annoying is 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.240 it when talking about the American Prayer Reserve? How much 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.720 do you hate it? On a one to ten when 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:16.480 people mention the Buffalo Commons, Is it totally different or 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.200 do you see that there's a continuum of thought one 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.199 being low. One is like that doesn't bother me at all. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.439 Ten is like, why would you bring that up? It's 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.280 has nothing to do with this. I think I go 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:32.800 for a negative too, because it's an exciting portal into 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.319 talking about history and a trajectory of an idea over time. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.040 And that helps people realize because you know when they 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.040 oftentimes they start off it's a negative connotation of Buffalo 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.800 commons and you can actually connect dots to what I 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.360 think is very positive for the public for this project. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:52.800 I like, I like the question. Okay, so then let's 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:54.480 read it out again. I'm gonna give you another one 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.600 ten rate all your expertise and breaking down like Frank Popper, 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.160 Mary Popper, the idea of the buffalo comm and what 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.760 precipitated it? Where are you at on that? Because I'll 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.000 do it, but I'll do like a four. Uh say 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.280 it again, like to tell the story of what the 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:14.000 buffalo like that idea? Right? The sociologist Frank Popper, right, 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.000 and Debora a Deva not Mary, not Mary, that's a 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.960 British woman. And the Dick van Dyke and yeah, Mary Poppins, um, 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:24.840 So so you know it better? You know what better mean? 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.560 Do you want to tell the story? Uh, well, I 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:28.840 can do it and you can correct me where I 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.720 miss briefly you correct me. Um, very very condensed. Yeah, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.560 I just want to It's just an interesting idea. Debra 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.760 and Frank who actually keep in touch with us because 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:40.600 they're kind of watching this you have email a little 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.720 bit and like this project. But there, and what's important 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:49.040 is they're they're demographers from Rutgers University. They're just sociologists. 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.160 They're interested in why do people move about with it, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.840 particularly within the United States, what causes people to move 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.840 north to north to south to north in the eighteen hundreds, 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.120 what caused people to move out of the northeas us 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.320 down into the southwest, and just why why does that? 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.600 How many people are moving when what was the impetus? 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.880 When did the impetus go away? And they stopped moving? 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.840 All that kind of stuff. So they just theorized, as 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.720 they looked at patterns and themes, which sociologists should do, 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.400 what was going on in rural areas all over the world, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.680 actually not just the US, but in rural are list, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.040 particularly where there's lots of agriculture. What they noticed was 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.920 as agriculture like any industry, commercial fishing or logging or 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.840 coal mining, whatever it is. Over time, because of increased efficiencies, 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.440 it needs less and less people to get the same 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.320 amount of things done. So as people found themselves hey, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.480 ten years ago as part of a threshing crew or 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.720 whatever it might have been, as a cowboy, whatever it 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.440 might have been. Uh, and we used to move the 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.680 cows around and stay real close to them. Like now 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.000 the rest rotation rausing, you don't need so many just 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.680 the kind of take care of themselves whatever. But the 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.560 need for people in an egg down and down and 0:15:57.640 --> 0:15:59.400 down every decade. So where do they go. They go 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.480 to the city use because that's where the jobs are. 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.040 So if they noticed the United States no different. Over time, 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.600 particularly twenties and forties, people were beginning to drift towards 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:10.800 urban areas where there's more job choice and you can 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.360 do right by your family economically. And they said, okay, 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.920 what happens and the vacuum that's left behind, and there's 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.720 gonna be lots of eggs being done there. But perhaps 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.360 some of this can would on its own without any 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.240 projects like a pr Revert back to the more of 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.760 the wildness that we heard from Catlan and Bodmer and 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.360 Lewis and Clark and people like that, it may actually 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.360 be revert back and take over some areas of that. 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.600 And they said, even maybe it's the great buffalo will 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.560 come back. Maybe not as many used to be, but 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.720 we have big buffalo herds. And this is about a 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.280 twenty page paper and page eighteen that one thing could 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.360 there could be a buffalo commons out there, and that 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:56.400 ignited the whole thing. People went nuts, obviously, because that's 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:57.800 kind of how that's kind of how that happened. And 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.200 they said, you guys were just demographers, just were just 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.480 saying a potential theory. We're not starting a project to 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.480 go do it. So I think you familar with the 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.520 writer Bill Kittridge his book Hole in the Sky he 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.400 um he he. He has you know, a great many 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.680 environmental concerns and and uh, you know in his writing 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.840 and writes from an environmental perspective, his ranching background. Um. 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.879 But he had tried to articulate why some why some 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:32.679 people felt that why some people were insulted back by 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:37.199 that idea, And it would be that you had generations 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:41.720 of people on a landscape who had dedicated their lives 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.840 to say like making the desert bloom, or or to 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.920 building communities and creating an economy and for someone to 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.920 and not that the people who proposed the buffalo, not 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.840 that the demographers of sociologists who proposed the Buffalo commons 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.280 um they weren't making a value judgment, so to speak. 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.280 They're just pointing out something that could eventually happen. But 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.520 people did. Some people celebrated the idea, and it was 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.840 and it was, and it was, as Kittridge explained, it's 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.800 like a little bit could be taken to be insulting 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:18.120 by people whose families father's, grandfather's great grandfathers had dedicated 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.800 their lives to like making community, and then for people 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:27.720 to be uh enthusiastic about the idea of that going 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.120 away was an uneasy idea for some people. I think 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.760 you're exactly right. And the interesting thing is that happened 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.560 not too long ago. It was like thirty years ago 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.000 that first paper came out, maybe the longer, but not 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.040 much has changed in terms of phenomenon you just described. 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.240 They are he Uh. Debra and Frank touched a nerve 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.840 when they wrote that, innocuously, they thought, but it was 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.879 the the excitement that you said of other people that hey, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.040 this could be something to watch and be excited about. 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.639 More public eye says better hunting things like that wildness 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.480 coming back. Um, people took offense, and it's I think 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.399 it's justifiably human nature when something is going away that 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:15.119 you cherish, that's precious to you, a a lifestyle and 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.320 growing up in these towns and being proud of small 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.320 town sports and things like that. And you've watched it 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.000 diminished since World War One in many places like a 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.600 northeastern Montana ten per decade decline in population. And then 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.360 someone says this in the early eighties. Whenever that came out, 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.320 you're primed to be highly offended because there's already an 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.760 underlying sadness. Totally understandable. It's a human thing. These are 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.119 not there's no bad actors in this situation. Understandable. And 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.040 someone puts a fine point on it and others start 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.880 to into a ranch or farmer pile on with enthusiasm. Yeah, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.040 and it hasn't changed. What is the American Prairie Reserve. 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.320 We kind of missed that in a real clean way, 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:05.480 like what is it? It's a project to create the 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.800 largest wildlife reserve ever assembled. In the Condell, United States 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.680 to be opened up for republic access for the public's enjoyment, 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.040 with all the wildlife species that were there for roughly 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.560 eleven to twelve thousand years up until about eighteen to 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:27.280 about eighteen nine years. So UM put all that back, 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.679 perhaps not in pure historic numbers, but a lot more 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.720 than is there now and create a lot different ways 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.560 for people to go out and enjoy it and save 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.560 that phenomenon I just described for three or four hundred 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:48.119 years into the future. And doing this requires the purchasing 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:54.720 of privately owned land as a as a small aspect 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.640 of the of the strategies that we're using. One unfortunate 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:02.440 part of it is you have to buy the land. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.040 I say unfortunate because it's a horrendous lift to go 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.359 find the money and then get the land deals done. 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.639 And it's a really really big project. But it's a 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.000 small part of the overall thing, which is putting in 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.639 the visitor infrastructure, helping people understand how to move about 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:25.080 without disrupting UM anything from lex to wildlife corridors to 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.080 whatever else. How do we work with nature and all that. 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.720 There's a lot to be done, and the land private 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.399 land assembled which is a key component to make this 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.720 whole thing work, takes just an extraordinary amount of time 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.080 and effort and stress. So again, because you can have 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.520 a roadblock of a relatively a quarter section of land 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.520 that is absolutely necessary to open up a hundred thousand 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:54.200 acres of land, I think the blocking, Oh, it happens 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.480 over the place. So you know, the last two properties 0:21:57.520 --> 0:21:58.800 we got out there, you can see on the map 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:00.760 the two crow on the p M. As people are 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.640 now the instant people here, we get uh, some part 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.600 of a property, they'll say can I go out on that? Say? Yes, 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:10.760 this way, this way. We've got to fix this bridge. 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:12.480 We don't want to falling off the bridge. Wait until 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.199 we fix this bridge across the Judas. But you can 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.920 come in here part here right across our private land, 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:19.840 access all this public land on top of the big 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:21.879 sag or whatever. We get maps we hand out to 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.040 people you can download on events and maps or whatever 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.879 you want to use um to show people how to 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.000 move about and excess every single piece of public land 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.600 that's on there. And so that's let me I think, 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:38.240 let me, I think some people. I'm just gonna guess 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.320 Steve that people are interested in our technique and our 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.200 strategy and all that, but some of them behind it 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.200 is why a lot of us quit our day job 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:46.960 to do this. My life was going just fine on 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:49.560 my early forties, a lot more lucrative than working for 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:51.840 a nonprofit. I can tell you that why would you 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.840 do this? And this is really really exciting to be 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.359 a part of. I'll just speak personally. Don't look for 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:00.280 the on the website. I'm not speaking holistically for a 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.119 p R right now, but to me and I started 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:05.720 thinking about this at the w w F. Guys that 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:06.680 are going, how do you think we had to go 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:08.320 about this? And there's a lot of it was really 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.320 interesting time. But I started. I started hunting with my 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.840 dad and probably first we first rather than leaving me home, 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.520 you're talking about your little kids. He probably finally acquiesced 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:22.639 and let me go when I was seven or eight, 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:25.040 so that'll be in the mid nineteen sixties. In Montana. 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:26.719 I grew up mostly in Great Falls. My dad had 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:29.240 L camps. He guided a good bit. He had L 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.959 camps in the high Woods, then west of Augusta, Soun 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:35.000 River Canyon across Gibson Lake in that area, back behind 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.080 sal L Flats, and all that stuff in the sixties. 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:40.440 But even coming out onto the flats around hayst Apute, 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:42.800 or we'd be down in the dear Born a lot 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:45.679 from you old year, come out here in this country 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:48.680 for prong worn whenever he'd fortunate enough to get a tag. 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:50.960 That's pretty exotic to come out to the northeastern Montana 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:53.520 from Great Falls looked like the end of the earth, 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.840 it felt like. But we would go true ranches and 0:23:57.960 --> 0:23:59.520 he would have the name on a piece of paper. 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:02.560 There's no electronics back then, knocking on the door, go 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:05.480 in and sit down, have hot chocolate and sit there 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:07.080 for an hour and a half and talk with the rancher. 0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:10.400 And we would have access and they'd say, well, here's 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.320 my private section. You go in there. Please close the 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:13.840 gate and go over here, and you can park in 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:15.440 that corner. Just climb right over the top of it. 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:17.199 You'll have all this public land, but you can if 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:18.960 you see something on a private that's fine. How many 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:20.600 tags you got? My dad, I got an a tag 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:22.600 and a beat tag. Okay, you know, we just I 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:24.760 watched this discussion from the time I was eight years old, 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:27.840 Lots and lots and lots of times all over the state, 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.600 not too much in the southwest, Dylan. We didn't honestly 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:33.920 didn't get down there, but there was a way of 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:36.680 operating at that time. And this just sounds trite and 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:39.680 too simple, but I hope this can be a part 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:41.959 of bringing that back. I hope when people look at 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:43.680 a pr they go, that's how it kind of used 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:45.359 to be. But you don't even have to sit in 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:48.200 the kitchen. You don't have to take that step. So 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:50.280 if you got to some prayer various other areas, you 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:52.399 can see exactly where you go. We took down the 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:54.960 gates and we put in cattle guards. That eliminates a 0:24:55.000 --> 0:24:58.159 lot of problems. Uh, put in cattle guards, and the 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:00.520 idea of leaving gates open goes away that it's our 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:03.280 it's at our expense, and we say we want you 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:05.480 to be able to find this. We have some warnings 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:07.879 about getting stuck. So you know, a gumbo is we 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:09.840 we lose a lot of people out there, they eventually 0:25:09.840 --> 0:25:12.439 get out. Nobody has been lost forever, but a lot 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.639 of surprises. People haven't seen gumboo before. But U I, 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:19.680 if you look at just me personally, I'd like to 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:22.040 take it back to how things were like fifty years 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.560 ago and it was better because I've been here, I've 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:26.600 I know this. I've been around hunting all big game 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:29.560 hunting all my life, and bird hunting is a part 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:31.600 of culture in our family. My mom hunted with her 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:36.280 at six um. It's things have changed and all this 0:25:36.560 --> 0:25:40.080 to me. I've listened to your thing on Public Access. 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:41.760 You should I can't Hember when it was, but I 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:45.800 listened to your show on Public Access and people are 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:48.760 you guys are getting into the details on corner hopping. 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:50.840 I just thought, how dumb is it that we've gotten 0:25:50.880 --> 0:25:53.920 to this place that you know, do you own the 0:25:54.000 --> 0:25:57.440 airspace above that corner? It just seems can use a 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:01.080 pole vault. No, I guess people in airspace And it's 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:04.200 just something's happened and I'd like to just I think 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:07.360 it's become silly. And what I'd like is a three 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:09.800 and a half three three and a half million acre 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:12.879 area that's well taken care of, you don't wreck it 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:15.080 and a lot of yeah, who's running around on motorcycles 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:18.800 and tear it up that people can go this makes sense. 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.440 We've we've we've we've rejected some of the silliness. It 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:24.800 doesn't mean you can do anything you want, because people 0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:29.240 wreck things quickly if there's not rules and parameters and sideboards. Anyway, 0:26:29.320 --> 0:26:31.000 just so I wanted to know what's behind this. It's 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:34.640 not it's not a wonky technical business thing. There's personal 0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:37.320 motivation behind it by me. And now we got over 0:26:37.400 --> 0:26:41.680 forty employees, our new CEO. She's terrific, Alison Fox. It's 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:43.600 put together a group of people that have really really 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:46.800 fired up about what I'm I've just described. So when 0:26:47.920 --> 0:26:52.560 are you, like, is it fair to say that you're 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:56.880 the architect, like the original architect of a pr um 0:26:57.720 --> 0:27:02.840 architect would be a push maybe general contractor yeah, I 0:27:02.880 --> 0:27:05.639 guess the idea. Explain how the idea came about, and 0:27:05.960 --> 0:27:08.040 if you're real good, tied into what we just talked 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:10.959 about with the buffalo. If I'm real good, help me out, Michelle. 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:16.920 Remind me if I space this out, um the idea. 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:19.560 If you had a number of historians here in the room, 0:27:19.640 --> 0:27:22.200 we would all probably argue about which decade it came about. 0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:25.840 But let's just get back in the relative early eighteen hundreds, 0:27:25.880 --> 0:27:28.239 after the French fur trappers from Hudson Bay had come 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:32.080 out and started describing this incredible wildlife phenomenon that they 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:34.840 saw ten fifteen years for Lewis and Clark out here. 0:27:35.280 --> 0:27:37.560 Lewis and Clark chronicled that because the President said, you 0:27:37.600 --> 0:27:40.040 shall write down every single thing you see, so inadvertently 0:27:40.040 --> 0:27:42.680 we got these great journals, particularly the three hundred mile 0:27:42.800 --> 0:27:45.239 right spot that we're seeing, we're working in that they 0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:47.720 didn't see anywhere on their four thousand mile round trip 0:27:47.800 --> 0:27:50.720 walking from St. Louis to the coast and back. But 0:27:50.880 --> 0:27:53.720 later on other people came to and corroborated what was there. 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.520 George Catlin, the painter who's out probably twenty times nineteen 0:27:58.600 --> 0:28:01.240 thirties in the nineteen forty, has wrote some incredible books, 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:04.560 but in the nineteen thirty six he said, every time 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:06.600 I come out here, he didn't use the words and 0:28:06.640 --> 0:28:10.080 paraphrasing blown away by the wildlife situation in this one 0:28:10.160 --> 0:28:13.720 particular spot about three hundred miles wide south of into 0:28:13.760 --> 0:28:16.320 what we now call the Brakes region, the six county area. 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:18.760 And he were back to Congress and said, we ought 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:22.080 to say this beautiful thing as a nation's park. This 0:28:22.280 --> 0:28:24.360 is forty years for the Park Service even got going. 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:26.440 He said, this has got to be saved. That it's 0:28:26.480 --> 0:28:29.240 going away. Beaver's getting trapped out of here. There's hunters 0:28:29.280 --> 0:28:31.320 already happened. There's no cows at this time. There wasn't 0:28:31.359 --> 0:28:34.159 cows from the twenty years, just bison and all that 0:28:34.480 --> 0:28:40.840 was Callen kind of nailed it did. Sorry about that. 0:28:41.360 --> 0:28:46.680 That was the dark ages May thirties. Sorry about that, um, 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:48.760 getting used to my little echo chamber here with my 0:28:48.840 --> 0:28:54.280 headset um. But afterwards a lot of other people said 0:28:54.360 --> 0:28:56.719 the same thing. Park Service came up in the night. 0:28:56.800 --> 0:28:58.600 Now we had a as you know, the Park Service 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:01.800 got going in the e teen set eighteen seventies with 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:04.160 the Elbow Stone, and we had a golden era of 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:07.000 building parks. And I think if Catlan had still been alive, 0:29:07.080 --> 0:29:08.760 he'd say, well, of course they're gonna pick this. This 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:11.400 is gonna thick fit in the suite of parks that 0:29:11.480 --> 0:29:14.800 people are imagining Roosevelt and everybody else. But we had 0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:17.440 a pretty darn good run. But our last one, Grand 0:29:17.440 --> 0:29:20.240 Titon National Park we did in nineteen fifty. We haven't 0:29:20.280 --> 0:29:23.560 done anything big since. We call the stop seventy years 0:29:23.640 --> 0:29:27.360 of nothing, no more parks. We did amazing things Yosemite 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:33.160 and Grand Canyon and every glades on well topography. Aesthetics 0:29:33.440 --> 0:29:37.000 mostly was about aesthetics, and for the most part, if 0:29:37.000 --> 0:29:38.760 you go back and take a look at it and uh, 0:29:39.080 --> 0:29:42.520 look at ken Burns, you know, greatest idea films and 0:29:42.600 --> 0:29:45.040 things like that pretty much was for views and getting 0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:48.000 people out of nature, but nature as through the viewer 0:29:48.360 --> 0:29:52.200 aesthetic view, and they passed over the grass lands. So 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:56.560 other people, particularly some f TOVP biologists David Daniel Lickman 0:29:56.800 --> 0:29:59.800 and Uh and uh in Uh Colorado in the nineties, 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:01.920 said gosh, we really blew it. We should make a 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:04.080 some day, we should get red of this park idea 0:30:04.120 --> 0:30:07.479 back up and make some sort of protected area here. Um, 0:30:08.200 --> 0:30:10.640 the paupers didn't really go that far. We already talked 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:13.480 about them. The guy who really probably nailed it, I 0:30:13.560 --> 0:30:15.800 think who deserves the credits a guy named Robert Scott, 0:30:15.960 --> 0:30:19.240 Bob Scott. He was a rare book dealer in Missoula, Montana, 0:30:19.400 --> 0:30:20.960 and he came up with who knows what He camped 0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:25.120 with the Big Open, Ok, he did the Big Open. 0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:28.520 The Big Open was first time he said. The Buffalo 0:30:28.640 --> 0:30:31.440 Commons was a demographic shifts statement that was happening in 0:30:31.440 --> 0:30:34.040 the world. Real people going to the cities and perhaps 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:36.200 certain areas could would be rewild and on their own. 0:30:37.040 --> 0:30:40.120 Bob Scott in the early to mid nineties said, there 0:30:40.160 --> 0:30:44.040 ought to be a protected area right here, five million 0:30:44.120 --> 0:30:46.959 acres to thirds south of the third north of the river. 0:30:47.520 --> 0:30:49.720 We'll call it. We're gonna call it the Big Open. 0:30:49.800 --> 0:30:51.640 That will be the name of the thing, just like 0:30:51.760 --> 0:30:53.720 Big Ben National Park. But you can hunt in it. 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:57.160 I'm going to bring everything back full ecology. I've got 0:30:57.280 --> 0:30:59.840 his papers like thirty pages long. He wrote it in 0:30:59.880 --> 0:31:02.360 the eighties. He was the first to totally nail it, 0:31:02.560 --> 0:31:04.400 and he went around talked to college students all of 0:31:04.400 --> 0:31:07.560 the United States. He was a huge cult hero. Had 0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:11.880 a hard time starting any any business uh too around it, 0:31:12.000 --> 0:31:14.800 and he got more than can you imagine the blowback 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:18.400 in the eighties. Timing is everything right? So that was 0:31:18.440 --> 0:31:20.920 a big one nature conservancy. He can say more about 0:31:20.960 --> 0:31:23.320 bomb he's a great guy. But but back up in 0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:26.400 the Big Open a minute. Yeah. So he was like, like, 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:29.000 can you set the stage a little bit, like set 0:31:29.080 --> 0:31:31.160 the table about what is up there where you have 0:31:31.640 --> 0:31:37.800 the CMR. You have large federally managed lands already in place. 0:31:38.920 --> 0:31:42.120 What we have up there, well, I think Bob rightly, 0:31:42.600 --> 0:31:45.680 he's a very astute um. He said, this is the 0:31:45.760 --> 0:31:48.200 thing is this can be affordable. One of the reasons 0:31:48.280 --> 0:31:51.959 we stopped making National Park because we got got extremely contentious, 0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:53.920 just really hard in the park to service just said 0:31:53.920 --> 0:31:55.880 it wasn't because they were out of money. They're hard 0:31:55.920 --> 0:31:57.960 of being beat on, like this is not the highest 0:31:57.960 --> 0:31:59.760 and best use in Grand Teton. It was a lot 0:31:59.840 --> 0:32:02.480 to get that shoehorned in and then be done. That 0:32:02.600 --> 0:32:04.640 was rough, you know, the Snake River Land Company and all. 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:06.280 How to get that in It got to be very, 0:32:06.400 --> 0:32:09.440 very difficult and contentious because you're excluding so many activities, 0:32:10.000 --> 0:32:15.280 excluding activities ranching, farming, everything else, excluding commerce and in 0:32:15.760 --> 0:32:20.320 our our society, you know or capitalism. Uh, it better 0:32:20.480 --> 0:32:22.640 be able to make money some way or it's gonna 0:32:22.680 --> 0:32:26.000 often an awful, amazing intrinsic value. That's really clear to 0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:27.760 everyone that we back away and not want to make 0:32:27.760 --> 0:32:30.960 money on that piece of land. So, yeah, it got difficult. 0:32:31.000 --> 0:32:34.040 But he said, how about this. It's already there because 0:32:34.040 --> 0:32:36.560 we have b O M land, we have state sections. 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:38.400 We have one point one like an acres of the 0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:43.280 c MR Native Americans, both bell Nap and Fort Peck 0:32:43.320 --> 0:32:46.720 Reservation will be into this and all the puzzle pieces 0:32:46.760 --> 0:32:48.200 are there. You only have to get a little bit 0:32:48.240 --> 0:32:51.080 of private land glued all together. Airbrush it bring the 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:54.720 animals back. Not mammoths and mastodons and short faced bearers, etcetera, 0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:56.600 but the stuff that was there just a hundred and 0:32:56.600 --> 0:32:59.840 fifty years ago before it's eradicated. We're so close, We're 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:04.200 so close. And that's what he crystallized when he talked 0:33:04.200 --> 0:33:09.240 about the big Open. How did he have a square 0:33:10.160 --> 0:33:13.640 mileage idea of what would be like an adequate size 0:33:13.920 --> 0:33:16.840 five million grasslands park? He's he kept he up and 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:19.800 said five million acres And for for context, what's Yellowstone 0:33:20.440 --> 0:33:23.840 two point one two two? Okay, So to make a 0:33:24.040 --> 0:33:29.560 to to make a patchwork of federally managed lands, state lands, 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:35.040 reservation lands, and then private purchase lands, you would make 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:38.920 something twice as big as a grassland. I don't want 0:33:38.920 --> 0:33:42.760 to call it the park, But what's the good word? Honestly, Bob, 0:33:44.120 --> 0:33:46.680 if he somehow here's this podcast down the note, he 0:33:46.760 --> 0:33:49.400 may write an email and say, SHAUNO slightly off, are 0:33:49.440 --> 0:33:52.120 really off? But it's probably the closest model we have 0:33:52.200 --> 0:33:55.200 out there is the Blackfoot challenge over by Alvando is 0:33:55.240 --> 0:33:57.400 what are he's shooting for. He was assuming ranchers would 0:33:57.400 --> 0:34:00.160 stay there, and he was assuming they would allow they 0:34:00.200 --> 0:34:02.200 were a lot of hunting on their properties. But what 0:34:02.280 --> 0:34:03.840 he was trying to get them to do is tolerate 0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:07.960 by in order of magnitude more wildlife out there, use 0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:10.719 less fences. Bring the idea of cowboys back, push your 0:34:10.760 --> 0:34:13.480 cattle around, bison, go that way. Problemly with that way, 0:34:13.520 --> 0:34:15.200 oh go that way, you got your you move your 0:34:15.239 --> 0:34:20.040 cows around kind of deal. So, managing fenceless cattle operations 0:34:20.080 --> 0:34:22.239 in the midst of wildlife abundance, I think he was 0:34:22.440 --> 0:34:26.680 very much blackfoot challenge oriented. So Bob please write and 0:34:26.719 --> 0:34:28.680 correct me on that. But I think so that's the model, 0:34:28.800 --> 0:34:32.759 not a park. Uh not no hunting, Uh, definitely. He 0:34:32.840 --> 0:34:35.400 was big into access. It's pretty you know, it's very 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:40.320 very interesting. Surprisingly, how close um to what to what 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:43.279 we're doing? What happened? Then? Are you comfortable with how 0:34:43.360 --> 0:34:47.800 we're walking through this? Yeah? You know, it's great gold outside, 0:34:47.840 --> 0:34:50.600 it's warming here. I'm good. So what was the what 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:53.080 was the next? Like? If we imagine that this is 0:34:53.120 --> 0:34:58.719 like a continue there's some sort of continuum of inspirational thought. Right, 0:34:58.960 --> 0:35:01.719 two more steps, really important ones, and all the way along. 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:03.239 I think what I want to make sure is people 0:35:03.360 --> 0:35:05.439 feel like there's a lot of credit to pass around. 0:35:05.520 --> 0:35:06.960 This is like a rugby game. The ball has been 0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:10.040 going down through the ages and people working hard, trying 0:35:10.080 --> 0:35:12.239 to crystallize and trying to change hearts and minds to 0:35:12.320 --> 0:35:15.680 see how this can work. So from Catlin to Lick 0:35:15.800 --> 0:35:18.920 to Uh to UM, I'm gonna skip over the because 0:35:18.920 --> 0:35:20.680 I don't think the Poppers are trying to push anything. 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:23.720 They're just making a statement. But Bob Scott, Bob Scott 0:35:23.760 --> 0:35:27.800 was pushing hard. And it's in the Poppers interesting to 0:35:27.880 --> 0:35:30.719 me because that was I remember I would have been 0:35:30.760 --> 0:35:32.480 too young remember one it was proposed, but that was 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:37.520 the first idea I heard about this and it was 0:35:37.560 --> 0:35:40.680 like a really just interesting concept. So I I bring 0:35:40.760 --> 0:35:44.640 it up because in my understanding of that landscape and 0:35:44.840 --> 0:35:47.359 in this story, that was my point of entry. Well, 0:35:47.400 --> 0:35:51.759 I think you're right to see it's not only did 0:35:51.800 --> 0:35:54.520 you intersect time when you're old enough to have consciousness 0:35:54.600 --> 0:35:58.320 to see it, but it's also they were trying to say, guys, 0:35:58.360 --> 0:36:00.960 this is a trend, and I in I spent more 0:36:01.000 --> 0:36:03.600 time in for profit business than I have a nonprofit business. 0:36:03.680 --> 0:36:05.440 And trends. I want to talk about that later. If 0:36:05.480 --> 0:36:08.440 we can't put something in the queue, is what trends. 0:36:08.520 --> 0:36:10.839 It's really important to take a look at long, long 0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:13.160 term trends. That's all they're trying to say is, guys, 0:36:13.239 --> 0:36:15.000 here's a trend that we see because we think about 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:16.400 every day. We just want to put it out there 0:36:16.440 --> 0:36:20.160 that it's happening in Brazil, over the world, that's happening here, 0:36:20.200 --> 0:36:21.560 so you might want to think about it. That was 0:36:21.600 --> 0:36:23.600 their point of view. Uh. Now, if you're gonna get 0:36:23.640 --> 0:36:26.080 mad at somebody, get mad at Bob Scott Army or 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:28.919 Nathanservance he or WF because we're really talking about doing something. 0:36:29.480 --> 0:36:32.320 So the next really important nature Conservancy of Montiana and 0:36:32.400 --> 0:36:35.600 deserve a lot of credit for crystallizing that. Moving forward 0:36:35.640 --> 0:36:38.319 in the early nineties and mid nineteen nineties, they took 0:36:38.320 --> 0:36:41.040 a look at well, if you were if if by 0:36:41.160 --> 0:36:43.040 chance anybody was to try to fire up this not 0:36:43.160 --> 0:36:45.719 the park Service idea after titon, but try to save 0:36:45.760 --> 0:36:48.000 a big space, I mean, really go for it with guts. 0:36:49.040 --> 0:36:50.759 Try to save a big space where in the northern 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:53.520 Great Plains all five states and two provinces of Canada. 0:36:53.560 --> 0:36:55.680 We're in the Northern Great Plains at the bioregion. I 0:36:55.719 --> 0:36:57.319 mean it's a it's a it's an eco region they 0:36:57.360 --> 0:36:59.680 call it. Where would be the best spots to really 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:04.120 really go big? And they didn't. They identified ten thunder 0:37:04.160 --> 0:37:10.520 basin and places in South Dakota were thunder basin. Uh. Now, 0:37:10.640 --> 0:37:13.440 my buddy from wis gonna kill me. Thunder basin is 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:16.880 in southern Colorado? Is a right south Dakota. I'm not familiar. 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:20.200 Look it up, gonna look it up. And I'm my 0:37:20.239 --> 0:37:22.239 buddy is from WFF just cringing right now because I 0:37:22.239 --> 0:37:23.719 don't know where it is because I haven't been there. 0:37:23.760 --> 0:37:28.720 But anyway, the uh. And they wrote a seminal article 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:30.800 on if you were to do it, here's ten spots 0:37:30.960 --> 0:37:34.200 top ranked if someone was going to do it. We're 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:36.520 not saying we're gonna do it. And so they got 0:37:36.800 --> 0:37:40.279 were a whilelife on a cast of characters, probably eight 0:37:40.400 --> 0:37:44.239 or nine really innovative thinkers inside w WF w w 0:37:44.280 --> 0:37:47.560 f US not out of Switzerman. And they took a 0:37:47.640 --> 0:37:50.200 look at Dan, this is amazing. Let's take the ball 0:37:50.320 --> 0:37:53.080 again and run with it, and how can we how 0:37:53.160 --> 0:37:55.840 can we get something going that actually someone like the 0:37:55.880 --> 0:37:58.040 fuse on this, just get someone to consider doing it. 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:01.800 As they looked at the ten uh, this area in 0:38:01.840 --> 0:38:04.560 Montana came up probably in the top two or three 0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:07.560 for a variety of reasons. So much public land is 0:38:07.560 --> 0:38:11.680 already there, so hopefully this is this is a misjudgment. 0:38:11.760 --> 0:38:15.359 But people can't possibly howl about it because its public land. 0:38:15.520 --> 0:38:17.359 It's the public's land, or turn it over to the public, 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:20.080 taking down keep out signs and fences, more wildlife. What's 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:23.759 not to like? Turned out there is plenty that I learned. Um, 0:38:24.400 --> 0:38:28.840 the public Uh, it can be upset about. Um. So 0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:31.520 it's it's affordable. It's really really important trying to buy 0:38:31.560 --> 0:38:33.759 all this land with costume. Maybe I don't know, twenty 0:38:33.840 --> 0:38:35.400 billion dollars to do if you had to buy it 0:38:35.400 --> 0:38:37.560 all private, right, But because you don't have to buy 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:39.040 at all or hard to buy anything at all to 0:38:39.080 --> 0:38:42.680 make the model work, it's affordable. Really important from TNC 0:38:42.920 --> 0:38:45.880 to their credit in w WS is the amount of 0:38:45.960 --> 0:38:48.239 intact grassland that has not yet been plowed. It's been 0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:50.880 there for thousands of years, looks like it did all 0:38:50.880 --> 0:38:54.520 the way back to the Wisconsin Glacier, right, and then 0:38:54.680 --> 0:38:57.879 the wildlife history. So in some of those other places big, 0:38:58.920 --> 0:39:03.600 yes they're cheap, um, yes, the lands intact, but there's 0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:08.400 no record of them having the the population numbers and 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:11.200 the diversity of wildlife that all those people I mentioned 0:39:11.280 --> 0:39:14.360 earlier saw, Even though they didn't meet each other, they 0:39:14.400 --> 0:39:18.280 all reported the same thing. This is just unbelievable cornercope 0:39:18.320 --> 0:39:21.400 of wildlife here from grassland birds, waterfowl, you know, the 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:25.200 angulusts of predators everything. So because in an open grassland 0:39:25.280 --> 0:39:28.319 environment that had um a history. Yeah, so you had 0:39:28.320 --> 0:39:34.839 a unique history. Bison, l mulder, white tailed deer, grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes, badgers, yea, 0:39:35.320 --> 0:39:39.080 all the grassland birds everything. It was just and we 0:39:39.120 --> 0:39:41.360 can talk, we can take a whole podcast. Why was 0:39:41.440 --> 0:39:43.120 that as a compared to the town their tan areas. 0:39:43.120 --> 0:39:44.759 How Come there wasn't that kind of stuff and that 0:39:44.880 --> 0:39:48.319 we'd see in the sandhills in Nebraska or upan Saskatchewan, 0:39:48.400 --> 0:39:50.360 our Calgary. How come it wasn't just didn't have that 0:39:50.440 --> 0:39:54.000 kind of concentration. But that's for another time. But it did, 0:39:54.360 --> 0:39:58.239 so I think, and then what happened was uh, what's 0:39:58.400 --> 0:40:02.040 keep this short, but word Wildlife Fund was struggling to 0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:04.040 figure out a model because there are no models to 0:40:04.600 --> 0:40:08.600 copy anywhere in the world. Blackfoot challenges something like it 0:40:08.800 --> 0:40:12.040 a little bit. But the landowners stay in the fences, 0:40:12.080 --> 0:40:14.560 stay up in the public a lot is not allowed 0:40:14.680 --> 0:40:18.200 onto their property. So the music bears can move up 0:40:18.239 --> 0:40:20.600 and down the Old Stone to Yukon Corridor, but you're 0:40:20.640 --> 0:40:22.440 not able to move as freely as that bear is 0:40:22.480 --> 0:40:25.880 because you're crossing private property. The added thing with our 0:40:26.000 --> 0:40:28.680 model was it would be open to the public and 0:40:28.800 --> 0:40:31.320 we take down science and take down fences and invite 0:40:31.360 --> 0:40:33.719 people out to enjoy this. And that's where we're a 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:37.759 little bit different than what was happening over there. So 0:40:38.239 --> 0:40:41.200 um uh wide open at the public owns this land, 0:40:41.239 --> 0:40:43.719 we're actually going to count the private land as accessible 0:40:43.840 --> 0:40:45.759 to We want to be able to walk across it 0:40:45.840 --> 0:40:47.840 and not get locked out and have the donor holes 0:40:47.880 --> 0:40:50.719 and corner hopping, all that stuff you guys are familiar with. 0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:53.560 So so when you hit on corner hop I think 0:40:53.600 --> 0:40:56.520 it'd just be helpful for everybody listening if if you 0:40:56.640 --> 0:41:00.279 kind of just to jump back, say like if you 0:41:00.400 --> 0:41:02.760 had to buy all of it. It would cost twenty billion. 0:41:03.360 --> 0:41:08.319 So like the grid system out here, the Jeffersonian grid system, UM, 0:41:08.440 --> 0:41:13.080 we have private sections UM that can basically open up 0:41:13.120 --> 0:41:17.640 the access to public sections UM. And so just like 0:41:17.760 --> 0:41:20.960 quick and dirty you guys, I think basically you have 0:41:21.080 --> 0:41:26.600 like a third deeded and if if hundred roughly a 0:41:26.680 --> 0:41:31.439 hundred thousand deeded, roughly three hundred thousand that you count 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:35.080 as part of the A p R. Yeah, and that's 0:41:35.120 --> 0:41:37.880 how the ratio is going so far. It's a good question. 0:41:38.320 --> 0:41:41.000 People can be lost right now. Yeah. I think what's 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:43.960 important is go now that you did that, you bet 0:41:44.000 --> 0:41:49.400 you better do it. I guess the Jefferson what do 0:41:49.480 --> 0:41:53.040 you mean check if you had to buy all of it? 0:41:54.400 --> 0:41:56.520 So then you're saying we didn't have to buy all 0:41:56.600 --> 0:41:59.719 of it, and that that is the deal. You have 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:04.120 this checkerboarded landscape where there's public land that can be 0:42:04.239 --> 0:42:07.960 blocked by private land. So UM, you can have two 0:42:08.160 --> 0:42:15.640 sections of UM BLM or UH state land UM that 0:42:16.520 --> 0:42:19.880 you cannot get to because you have a section or 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:23.800 two sections of private ground. UM. So you buy the 0:42:23.840 --> 0:42:28.800 private ground and you essentially have two extra sections of 0:42:29.000 --> 0:42:32.719 land because that public land the private ground was the 0:42:32.760 --> 0:42:37.440 gateway to the public land. Is that helpful? Yeah? The 0:42:37.520 --> 0:42:40.719 Jeffersonian part would be when they were parceling out and 0:42:40.880 --> 0:42:46.960 handing out chunks of land, they would often create a 0:42:47.239 --> 0:42:52.799 pattern of federally owned or state owned and privately owned 0:42:52.880 --> 0:42:55.400 land that resembled when looking at the grid work, that 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.400 resembled the checkerboard where things are joined up corner to corner. 0:42:59.000 --> 0:43:01.400 Sections of land joined corner to corner, so you didn't 0:43:01.680 --> 0:43:05.000 wind up with big, contiguous pieces of ownership. In some areas, 0:43:05.239 --> 0:43:11.560 nice tidy squares. UM typically spurn off a railroad lines. M. 0:43:12.440 --> 0:43:18.600 That's cool. I'm happier, Okay, But I feel we're missing 0:43:18.680 --> 0:43:21.000 something right now, Like I think I want to touch 0:43:21.080 --> 0:43:28.040 on um, what is I feel we haven't done this yet, 0:43:28.560 --> 0:43:32.360 Like what is the a p R? What is the 0:43:32.400 --> 0:43:35.600 American Prairie Reserve? We kind of missed that in a 0:43:35.719 --> 0:43:43.440 real clean way, Like what is it? It's a project 0:43:43.880 --> 0:43:48.160 to create the largest wildlife reserve ever assembled in the 0:43:48.200 --> 0:43:52.240 continent United States, to be opened up for a public 0:43:52.320 --> 0:43:56.520 access for the public's and enjoyment with all the wildlife 0:43:56.560 --> 0:43:59.520 species that were there for roughly eleven to twelve th 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:03.120 yars up until about eighteen to about eighteen nine years. 0:44:03.200 --> 0:44:09.279 So um put all that back, perhaps not in pure 0:44:09.400 --> 0:44:12.920 historic numbers, but a lot more than is there now, 0:44:14.000 --> 0:44:16.000 and create a lot different ways for people to go 0:44:16.120 --> 0:44:19.040 out and enjoy it and save that phenomenon that I 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:21.760 just described for three or four hundred years into the future. 0:44:22.920 --> 0:44:30.560 And doing this requires the purchasing of privately owned land 0:44:31.920 --> 0:44:35.120 as a as a small aspect of the of the 0:44:35.880 --> 0:44:40.920 strategies that we're using. One unfortunate part of it is 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:43.200 you have to buy the land. I say unfortunate because 0:44:43.239 --> 0:44:47.279 it's a horrendous lift to go find the money and 0:44:47.400 --> 0:44:50.200 then get the land deals done. And it's a really 0:44:50.520 --> 0:44:52.960 really big project, but it's a small part of the 0:44:53.040 --> 0:44:57.160 overall thing, which is putting in the visitor infrastructure, helping 0:44:57.239 --> 0:45:00.879 people understand how to move about without disrupt thing um 0:45:01.280 --> 0:45:05.200 anything from lex to wildlife corridors to whatever else. How 0:45:05.239 --> 0:45:07.960 do we work with nature and all that. There's a 0:45:08.000 --> 0:45:11.960 lot to be done, and the land private land assembled, 0:45:11.960 --> 0:45:14.640 which is a key component to make this whole thing work, 0:45:14.840 --> 0:45:18.760 takes just an extraordinary amount of time and effort and stress. 0:45:19.120 --> 0:45:21.480 So again, because you can have a roadblock of a 0:45:21.600 --> 0:45:27.240 relatively a quarter section of land that is absolutely necessary 0:45:27.320 --> 0:45:30.360 to open up a hundred thousand acres of land. I 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:34.600 think the blocking, Oh what happens over the place. So 0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:37.440 you know the last two properties we got out there, 0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:38.800 you can see on the map the two crow on 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:41.879 the piano. As people are now the instant people here. 0:45:41.960 --> 0:45:46.520 We get some part of a property, they'll say can 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:49.000 I go out on that? Say yes, this way, this way. 0:45:49.080 --> 0:45:50.759 We've got to fix this bridge. We don't want to 0:45:50.800 --> 0:45:52.680 falling off the bridge. Wait until we fix this bridge 0:45:52.960 --> 0:45:55.480 across the Judas. But you can come in here part 0:45:55.560 --> 0:45:57.960 here got right across our private land. Access all this 0:45:58.040 --> 0:45:59.919 public land on top of the big sag or whatever. 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:01.799 We get maps we hand out to people you can 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:04.800 download on events and maps or whatever you want to 0:46:04.920 --> 0:46:07.920 use um to show people how to move about and 0:46:08.000 --> 0:46:10.920 excess every single piece of public leile that's on there. 0:46:11.680 --> 0:46:15.440 And so that's let me I think, let me I 0:46:15.520 --> 0:46:18.479 think some people. I'm just gonna guess Steve that people 0:46:18.480 --> 0:46:20.480 are interested in our technique and our strategy and all that, 0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:23.520 but some of them behind it is why a lot 0:46:23.560 --> 0:46:25.279 of us quit our day jobs to do this. My 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:27.800 life was going just fine on my early forties a 0:46:27.840 --> 0:46:29.759 lot more lucrative than working for a nonprofit. I can 0:46:29.800 --> 0:46:32.279 tell you that why would you do this? And this 0:46:32.440 --> 0:46:35.279 is really really exciting to be a part of. I'll 0:46:35.320 --> 0:46:37.600 just speak personally. Don't look for the on the website. 0:46:37.640 --> 0:46:40.680 I'm not speaking holistically for a p R right now, 0:46:41.600 --> 0:46:44.279 but to me and I started thinking about this at 0:46:44.320 --> 0:46:45.600 the w WF. Guys that are going, how do you 0:46:45.600 --> 0:46:47.040 think we got to go about this? And there's a 0:46:47.040 --> 0:46:50.200 lot of it was really interesting time. But I started. 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:55.200 I started hunting with my dad and probably first me first, 0:46:55.360 --> 0:46:57.399 rather than leaving me home. You're talking about your little kids. 0:46:58.040 --> 0:47:00.920 He probably finally acquiesced and let me go when I 0:47:01.040 --> 0:47:02.680 was seven or eight. So let'll be in the mid 0:47:02.800 --> 0:47:05.600 nineteen sixties in Montana. I grew up mostly in Great Falls. 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:08.359 My dad had L camps. He guided a good bady 0:47:08.400 --> 0:47:10.440 had L camps in the high Woods then west of 0:47:10.480 --> 0:47:13.200 Augusta from the Sun River Canyon across Gibson Lake in 0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:15.520 that area, back behind some L flats and all that 0:47:15.600 --> 0:47:18.520 stuff in the sixties, but even coming out onto the 0:47:18.560 --> 0:47:21.040 flats around Haystapute or we'd be down in the Deer 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:24.200 Born a lot from you, old dear come out here 0:47:24.280 --> 0:47:27.640 in this country for prong worn whenever he'd fortunate enough 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:29.279 to get a tag. That's pretty exotic to come out 0:47:29.320 --> 0:47:32.400 to the northeastern Montana from Great Falls looks like the 0:47:32.480 --> 0:47:36.080 end of the earth, it felt like. But we would 0:47:36.120 --> 0:47:38.239 go true ranches and he would have the name on 0:47:38.280 --> 0:47:41.360 a piece of paper. There's no electronics back then, knocking 0:47:41.400 --> 0:47:43.720 on the door, go in and sit down, have hot chocolate, 0:47:43.800 --> 0:47:45.640 and sit there for an hour and a half and 0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:48.920 talk of the rancher. And we would have access and 0:47:49.000 --> 0:47:51.080 they'd say, well, here's my private section. You go in there. 0:47:51.120 --> 0:47:52.759 Please close the gate and go over here, and you 0:47:52.840 --> 0:47:54.520 can park in that corner. Just climb right over the 0:47:54.560 --> 0:47:56.080 top of it. You'll have all this public land, but 0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:58.080 you can if you see something on the private that's fine. 0:47:58.120 --> 0:47:59.680 How many tags you got, my dad, I got an 0:47:59.680 --> 0:48:02.040 eight gonna be tag? Okay, you know, we just I 0:48:02.120 --> 0:48:04.200 watched this discussion from the time I was eight years old. 0:48:04.400 --> 0:48:07.239 Lots and lots and lots of times all over the state, 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:10.040 not too much in the southwest, Dylan, we didn't honestly 0:48:10.080 --> 0:48:13.320 didn't get down there. But there was a way of 0:48:13.400 --> 0:48:16.080 operating at that time, and this just sounds trite and 0:48:16.160 --> 0:48:19.080 too simple. But I hope this can be a part 0:48:19.160 --> 0:48:21.360 of bringing that back. I hope when people look at 0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:23.279 APR they go, that's how it kind of used to be. 0:48:23.840 --> 0:48:25.240 But you don't even have to sit in the kitchen. 0:48:26.120 --> 0:48:27.880 You don't have to take that step. So if you 0:48:27.920 --> 0:48:30.080 got to some prayer, various other areas, you can see 0:48:30.120 --> 0:48:32.239 exactly where you go. We took down the gates and 0:48:32.280 --> 0:48:36.279 we put in cattle guards. That eliminates a lot of problems. Uh, 0:48:36.480 --> 0:48:38.520 put in cattle guards, and the idea of leaving gates 0:48:38.560 --> 0:48:41.000 open goes away. It's at it's our it's at our expense, 0:48:41.680 --> 0:48:43.239 and we say, we want you to be able to 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:45.880 find this. We have some warnings about getting stuck. So 0:48:46.120 --> 0:48:48.080 you know, a gumbo is we we lose a lot 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:50.080 of people out there. They eventually get out. Nobody has 0:48:50.120 --> 0:48:53.080 been lost forever, but a lot of surprises. People haven't 0:48:53.080 --> 0:48:57.560 seen GUMBOO before. But I if you look at just 0:48:57.680 --> 0:48:59.880 me personally, I'd like to take it back to how 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:02.680 things were like fifty years ago, and it was better 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.000 because I've been here, I've I know this. I've been 0:49:05.000 --> 0:49:08.000 around hunting all big game hunting all my life, and 0:49:08.200 --> 0:49:10.000 bird Hunting is a part of culture in our family. 0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:13.919 My mom hunted with her at six um. It's things 0:49:13.960 --> 0:49:18.279 have changed and all this to me. I've listened to 0:49:18.360 --> 0:49:20.480 your thing on Public Access. You show. I can't hearb 0:49:20.560 --> 0:49:22.200 when it was, but I listened to your show on 0:49:22.239 --> 0:49:26.520 public Access and people are you guys are getting into 0:49:26.600 --> 0:49:29.359 the details on corner hopping. I just thought, how dumb 0:49:29.480 --> 0:49:32.800 is it that we've gotten to this place that you know, 0:49:32.880 --> 0:49:35.600 do you own the airspace above that corner? It just 0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:39.279 seems can use a pole vault. No, I guess people 0:49:39.360 --> 0:49:42.680 own airspace. And it's just something's happened and I'd like 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:46.120 to just I think it's become silly. And what I'd 0:49:46.160 --> 0:49:48.360 like is a three and a half three three and 0:49:48.360 --> 0:49:51.400 a half million acre area that's well taken care of. 0:49:51.640 --> 0:49:53.359 You don't wreck it and a lot of yah who's 0:49:53.400 --> 0:49:56.919 running around on motorcycles and tear it up that people 0:49:56.960 --> 0:49:59.960 can go This makes sense. We've we've we've we've red 0:50:00.000 --> 0:50:02.320 e acted some of the silliness. It doesn't mean you 0:50:02.320 --> 0:50:05.320 can do anything you want because people wreck things quickly 0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:08.759 if there's not rules and parameters and sideboards. Anyway, just 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:10.440 so I want you to know what's behind this. It's 0:50:10.480 --> 0:50:14.080 not it's not a wonky technical business thing. There's personal 0:50:14.280 --> 0:50:16.759 motivation behind it by me. And now we got over 0:50:16.840 --> 0:50:21.239 forty employees. Our new CEO, she's terrific. Alison Fox's put 0:50:21.280 --> 0:50:23.360 together a group of people that are really really fired 0:50:23.440 --> 0:50:25.840 up about what I'm I've just described. How is the 0:50:26.040 --> 0:50:29.360 how is the money? How do you guys raise money 0:50:29.400 --> 0:50:32.080 to buy the lands that you've bought? And how many 0:50:32.480 --> 0:50:39.319 and how many acres does the American Pray Reserve own? Now, uh, 0:50:40.200 --> 0:50:42.160 I should have a lifeline to call back to the office. 0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:48.200 But I think we're private acres um and owned as 0:50:48.280 --> 0:50:53.279 a squishy owns, just like if you have houses, you 0:50:53.360 --> 0:50:55.120 own some of it in the bank, ons other parts 0:50:55.120 --> 0:50:58.120 of so, but we own better than six of all 0:50:58.200 --> 0:50:59.799 that land you see on the map, free and clear. 0:51:00.000 --> 0:51:02.200 So we manage to balance sheet very very carefully. And 0:51:02.320 --> 0:51:05.960 but yeah, those are our private acres um. I think 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:08.360 all told her a little over four hundred thousand acres 0:51:08.400 --> 0:51:11.320 with state sections as you were describing and BLM sections. 0:51:12.320 --> 0:51:15.239 The way we get the money, I say, unfortunately, because 0:51:15.239 --> 0:51:20.960 it's hard, is just pure fundraising. It's asking people describing 0:51:21.000 --> 0:51:26.240 to people in various ways. Sometimes using social media, sometimes 0:51:26.280 --> 0:51:28.960 on our website, sometimes flying all over the place and 0:51:29.000 --> 0:51:31.480 sitting down one on one if you can finally get 0:51:31.520 --> 0:51:32.800 a dinner with them or something. Say this is what 0:51:32.880 --> 0:51:35.480 I'm doing, we'd like to take this next step. Would 0:51:35.480 --> 0:51:37.560 you like to help us take this next step? People 0:51:37.640 --> 0:51:39.920 hundred years smell, I really appreciate the action you might 0:51:40.000 --> 0:51:42.400 take here because of this, and as they like it. 0:51:42.920 --> 0:51:45.239 They don't always, but if they like it, let's say, 0:51:45.280 --> 0:51:46.920 I'm not gonna get your money right now, but keep 0:51:46.960 --> 0:51:48.759 me informed maybe a couple of years. I'm kind of 0:51:48.800 --> 0:51:50.680 tied up right now some other commitments. So you go 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:53.440 back over and over and over and over again. The 0:51:53.480 --> 0:51:58.319 biggest mixed miscalculation I made leaving for profit business. Uh, 0:51:58.600 --> 0:52:01.160 my own whole company is running. It's been around about 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:05.040 thirty five years in Silicon Valley. I had no idea 0:52:05.080 --> 0:52:07.120 how hard fundraising was going to be. I thought it's 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:09.400 like sales. You know, you just get you do it 0:52:09.480 --> 0:52:11.440 for a while when you're small, and you finally get 0:52:11.480 --> 0:52:13.400 the sales team and you get a VP of sales, 0:52:13.440 --> 0:52:15.600 and you're good that you don't have to do it. 0:52:16.239 --> 0:52:20.040 It's not like that. It's unbelievably difficult, and particularly in 0:52:20.239 --> 0:52:24.000 a very crowded fundraising environment in the world. And if 0:52:24.000 --> 0:52:26.080 you they can look at what people give to philanthropically, 0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:27.759 they give to their churches, they give to their home 0:52:27.840 --> 0:52:29.839 and maters, they get to the arts and way way 0:52:29.960 --> 0:52:33.120 way way down below you've seen these these tow ranked 0:52:33.160 --> 0:52:36.760 list is conservation. It's like a sliver. Within that sliver, 0:52:37.800 --> 0:52:40.320 a lot of competition, a lot of sharp elbows. You 0:52:40.440 --> 0:52:43.160 gotta move it and NonStop. You can hardly stop for 0:52:43.200 --> 0:52:45.640 a brass I've been doing it for seventeen years. Do 0:52:45.719 --> 0:52:52.160 you do you primarily draw small donations from private individuals 0:52:52.280 --> 0:52:55.960 or do you primarily draw like large donations from extraordinarily 0:52:56.040 --> 0:52:59.800 wealthy people. We do everything. Our strategy on fundraising is 0:53:00.000 --> 0:53:03.400 everybody go along. So we've got a huge team that 0:53:03.560 --> 0:53:07.120 focuses on this because unfortunately got to buy the land's expensive. 0:53:08.040 --> 0:53:10.439 The way it works right now is we get money 0:53:10.520 --> 0:53:13.960 from all fifty states in the United States and ten 0:53:14.040 --> 0:53:17.360 different countries around the world. If you put that in 0:53:17.440 --> 0:53:21.040 the top rank, the most people donating to American Prairie 0:53:21.080 --> 0:53:24.920 Reserve are Montanan's and then a descending order down to 0:53:25.000 --> 0:53:27.040 their I can't tell you all fifty how it actually 0:53:27.040 --> 0:53:28.400 stack up, but I can send it to if you 0:53:28.440 --> 0:53:31.440 want to put it on your website or something different. 0:53:31.560 --> 0:53:37.279 Some people, um are what you call sustaining donors. They 0:53:37.400 --> 0:53:39.600 let us hit their credit card for five bucks a month. 0:53:40.000 --> 0:53:43.920 We love those people. Lots of those people adds up 0:53:43.960 --> 0:53:46.799 to a lot of keeping this project moving. So that's 0:53:46.840 --> 0:53:48.799 the big one. That's the really, that's the big thing. 0:53:48.880 --> 0:53:51.879 We're trying to grow. And there's some thousands of people 0:53:51.920 --> 0:53:55.120 in that arena. But to buy these properties, you also 0:53:55.239 --> 0:53:58.160 do have to have in your portfolio a certain number 0:53:58.239 --> 0:54:01.200 of bigger donors. So they're forty or fifty people out 0:54:01.239 --> 0:54:02.920 there that can give that. We have to travel a 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:05.680 lot to see summer in Montana most unfortunately or not 0:54:06.480 --> 0:54:08.520 so even have a cup of coffees of plane ride 0:54:09.400 --> 0:54:14.040 expensive and difficult, time consuming, but they will sometimes give 0:54:14.120 --> 0:54:15.839 us enough to get, you know, with a few other 0:54:15.920 --> 0:54:19.000 people enough to take a run out of particular medium 0:54:19.040 --> 0:54:21.000 sized piece of property or something like that. So it's 0:54:21.000 --> 0:54:24.040 everybody maybe everything Steve so across the gamut. Have you 0:54:24.080 --> 0:54:26.920 guys had pieces of land that would fall within the 0:54:27.040 --> 0:54:29.080 area you're trying to do this come up for sale, 0:54:29.200 --> 0:54:31.160 but you weren't in a position to to try to 0:54:32.080 --> 0:54:34.239 make a play on it, or are you usually able 0:54:34.320 --> 0:54:36.360 to when something comes up for sale to get in 0:54:36.440 --> 0:54:39.399 there and try to be a purchaser. Uh, the only 0:54:39.520 --> 0:54:43.640 time that was not the case where things there's a 0:54:43.680 --> 0:54:46.560 short anomaly, and that was in the tech crash. Couldn't 0:54:46.560 --> 0:54:48.279 have been a dumber time to start this project in 0:54:48.320 --> 0:54:50.560 two thousand one, because the tech crash. Tech crash happened 0:54:50.600 --> 0:54:52.840 in two thousand two. Anybody I knew had money, they 0:54:52.840 --> 0:54:56.440 didn't have money anymore. It's pretty bleak. That was the 0:54:56.560 --> 0:54:59.160 only time for about a three year run when there 0:54:59.280 --> 0:55:01.319 was not property out there that we would like to buy. 0:55:02.480 --> 0:55:05.520 Since then, since I'd say about two thousand six, if 0:55:05.600 --> 0:55:08.120 and I've been around every property we've deal, deal we've done, 0:55:08.120 --> 0:55:11.560 we've done twenty nine of them so far. Any snapshot 0:55:11.600 --> 0:55:13.520 in time on that whole continuum until this morning, and 0:55:13.600 --> 0:55:16.120 this morning is still true. There's far more property for 0:55:16.239 --> 0:55:18.080 sale on this map than we can afford to buy. 0:55:18.880 --> 0:55:22.719 So there's like six and more than half of those 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:24.279 people have called us and say, before we go on 0:55:24.280 --> 0:55:27.680 the multiple listings, would you like to do it? Because 0:55:27.800 --> 0:55:29.760 you know, with the rumor real they know how we operate, 0:55:30.200 --> 0:55:32.319 fair price, all that kind of stuff. We perform well, 0:55:33.360 --> 0:55:36.239 it's frustrating because we don't have the money to buy 0:55:36.320 --> 0:55:38.600 all six at once. That's always the case. It used 0:55:38.640 --> 0:55:41.319 to be like there's two and there's like four. I'm 0:55:41.320 --> 0:55:43.960 probably about five or six years ago. Now there's probably five, six, 0:55:44.000 --> 0:55:46.799 seven properties any given time, any morning, I can come 0:55:46.840 --> 0:55:50.520 in and see which ones are there. It's just a 0:55:50.600 --> 0:55:52.839 matter of you know, you do something like the pan 0:55:52.920 --> 0:55:54.879 of the two crow, and you gotta at a rabbit 0:55:54.960 --> 0:55:57.040 going through the snake, and you've gotta get that digested 0:55:57.120 --> 0:55:59.920 before you can go eat some more rabbits. Right, that's 0:56:00.040 --> 0:56:03.239 bad analogy, but it's uh. It makes us. It makes 0:56:03.320 --> 0:56:06.120 us feel it's hard to you can't move and just 0:56:06.239 --> 0:56:08.080 go wow, I'd love to be able to do this. 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:11.759 And what happens is we eventually we lose those two 0:56:11.800 --> 0:56:15.680 other buyers. Generally someone will buy it and plow it 0:56:15.840 --> 0:56:20.880 up for farming or another reason we lose properties actually 0:56:21.080 --> 0:56:22.600 is we're in a we're in a bit of a 0:56:22.640 --> 0:56:24.839 buying that other people don't have to deal with. We're 0:56:24.840 --> 0:56:28.120 a nonprofit. We're audited every year, so it kind of 0:56:28.160 --> 0:56:30.560 looks like this room. People have never seen before, come 0:56:30.600 --> 0:56:32.640 into the table, open up their laptop, except they have 0:56:32.680 --> 0:56:35.680 white shirts and ties on, and they're the auditors, and 0:56:35.760 --> 0:56:37.480 they audited every move we make, and they tear our 0:56:37.520 --> 0:56:39.279 books apart, and I see where we got our money, 0:56:39.320 --> 0:56:40.800 how we spent it, and all that kind of stuff. 0:56:40.840 --> 0:56:42.320 One thing you got to do is a nonprofit to 0:56:42.360 --> 0:56:47.399 spend your donor money responsibly. So if we're paying out 0:56:47.520 --> 0:56:50.719 of fair market value of that range, they'll soon go 0:56:51.480 --> 0:56:53.760 why are you doing that? You're just throwing money around. 0:56:53.800 --> 0:56:57.920 That's not responsible. You can lose your status as a nonprofit. 0:56:58.040 --> 0:57:00.480 You're done. You can become a four provit, which can't 0:57:00.480 --> 0:57:02.000 be a non profit by doing that. So we have 0:57:02.120 --> 0:57:04.560 to work with an a range. If we had more time, 0:57:04.600 --> 0:57:07.040 another podcast to show you a map of where property 0:57:07.120 --> 0:57:09.040 that I just would have loved to have had up 0:57:09.080 --> 0:57:12.239 on one ninety one by Fort Bell nap Uh, and 0:57:12.520 --> 0:57:14.479 we did have the money to do it. We thought 0:57:14.560 --> 0:57:16.800 in the range. For instance, we get to the very 0:57:16.840 --> 0:57:18.400 top of the range, we call up and say we'd 0:57:18.440 --> 0:57:20.240 like to get this offer before somebody else gets this, 0:57:20.280 --> 0:57:21.720 and they go that, I'm not even gonna put that 0:57:21.760 --> 0:57:24.040 in front of the owner. We already have two offers 0:57:24.120 --> 0:57:27.280 well above that when we back off and they're bought 0:57:27.320 --> 0:57:30.000 by local ranchers, they're not by Californians to buy out 0:57:30.040 --> 0:57:33.000 build a ten thousand square foot house. We just lost 0:57:33.120 --> 0:57:35.880 one south of the two crow actually down by win It. 0:57:36.240 --> 0:57:40.640 It was really really perfect for us. Three ranchers bought 0:57:40.680 --> 0:57:42.440 it and they paid more than we're willing to pay. 0:57:43.280 --> 0:57:44.760 So I got a story after a story of that. 0:57:44.880 --> 0:57:47.120 There's a lot of painful ones that we would have 0:57:47.240 --> 0:57:49.320 loved to have had it some up and around Malta 0:57:49.400 --> 0:57:51.680 when a state legislature beat us out one day on 0:57:51.720 --> 0:57:54.320 a phone call on auction. We got to the top 0:57:54.360 --> 0:57:57.160 of what we think we could justify and we had 0:57:57.200 --> 0:57:59.560 to back off, and he bought it for more than 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:01.840 are more than we were willing to pay. So that happens. 0:58:02.080 --> 0:58:04.240 There's a misnomer out there that we can pay anything 0:58:04.800 --> 0:58:09.360 and we're driving up prices. Absolutely not completely false. How 0:58:09.440 --> 0:58:12.480 often do you run into situation where a landowner um 0:58:13.040 --> 0:58:15.240 just doesn't want to sell it to you because they 0:58:15.640 --> 0:58:19.800 have an emotional connection to it being a working cattle 0:58:19.880 --> 0:58:23.160 ranch that fits their definition of what that looks like, 0:58:23.680 --> 0:58:27.040 and that their adversarial to the idea that there sort 0:58:27.080 --> 0:58:29.440 of legacy and work on the land would be upended, 0:58:29.440 --> 0:58:31.680 and they don't want to sell it to you less 0:58:31.720 --> 0:58:33.720 than five percent of the time. But it does happen. 0:58:34.840 --> 0:58:36.720 How is it articulated to you when that does happen. 0:58:37.880 --> 0:58:39.680 M I don't want to take the flak from my 0:58:39.760 --> 0:58:43.200 neighbors that I sold to the a p r um 0:58:45.400 --> 0:58:47.600 funny thing though it does happen where someone will say 0:58:47.800 --> 0:58:49.520 I'll sell it to somebody else if they sell it 0:58:49.600 --> 0:58:55.440 to you, that's not my fault. Yeah, yeah, not. But 0:58:55.560 --> 0:59:00.280 the truth is, you guys are technically running cattle right um. 0:59:00.560 --> 0:59:08.560 You you have properties that have um uh leases or BLM. 0:59:08.640 --> 0:59:11.600 In order to keep certain BLM less read you gotta 0:59:11.640 --> 0:59:15.600 have some working component to it. Um yeah, for the 0:59:15.680 --> 0:59:17.920 most part, you need to keep some grazing animal on 0:59:18.080 --> 0:59:21.200 there to maintain your allotments that are associated with your 0:59:21.200 --> 0:59:25.240 base property. You can rest it. The BLM allows you 0:59:25.640 --> 0:59:27.880 rest for two years, three years, and you can ask 0:59:27.960 --> 0:59:32.200 for another extension or whatever. But um yeah, we do lease, 0:59:32.440 --> 0:59:35.000 and we have these numbers wrong throughout whe We got 0:59:35.400 --> 0:59:38.760 somewhere between four thousand and five thousand cows on our 0:59:38.800 --> 0:59:41.040 property right now. Most of the property you're looking at 0:59:41.120 --> 0:59:45.040 is is leased out. UM. Part of that's a business 0:59:45.080 --> 0:59:48.840 decision is a very expensive project. Leasing it out is 0:59:49.040 --> 0:59:51.560 you you rant it until we can get there with 0:59:51.680 --> 0:59:55.160 our model UM to have ice and and other things. 0:59:55.720 --> 0:59:57.840 We lease it out and that helps our overhead costs. 0:59:58.760 --> 1:00:01.600 And some leases as to three years. There's some out 1:00:01.640 --> 1:00:03.480 there that's a big one over in Valley County that 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:05.919 was a twelve year lease. We've had about four thousand 1:00:06.040 --> 1:00:08.240 yearlings on that something like that. So, and that's that's 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:10.800 about clarified as situation where it's land that you own 1:00:11.880 --> 1:00:16.960 and you're allowing a local cattle operator to graze cow 1:00:17.080 --> 1:00:20.479 calf pairs or whatever to graze cattle on your land. 1:00:21.600 --> 1:00:24.640 And are you guys doing some uh, you know, like 1:00:25.440 --> 1:00:28.160 trying out some different practices as part of that lease 1:00:28.840 --> 1:00:31.840 UM as far as uh, do you guys write like 1:00:31.880 --> 1:00:35.920 a grazing management plan or anything like that right now? 1:00:36.400 --> 1:00:40.760 Very specifically we do, and we call it the Crazy 1:00:40.840 --> 1:00:44.280 Scale for Grassland Management and it has nine points on it. 1:00:45.000 --> 1:00:48.000 How do you want to see repairian areas? Look? How 1:00:48.080 --> 1:00:50.080 big we want patch sizes? Like we don't want two 1:00:50.120 --> 1:00:53.680 small fencing pens? Uh total amount of fense for a 1:00:53.720 --> 1:00:57.720 wild easy wildlife movement. So a big priority for US 1:00:58.000 --> 1:01:02.880 is American propiser is trying to maximize for biodiversity, not 1:01:03.080 --> 1:01:07.160 for livestock poundage off take. We're happy to deal with 1:01:07.440 --> 1:01:11.040 livestock producers, but they've got to realize our number one 1:01:11.120 --> 1:01:17.200 thing is we're optimizing for nature and biodiversity. So we'll say, 1:01:17.240 --> 1:01:19.040 if you want to lease on our place, and not 1:01:19.160 --> 1:01:21.160 everybody does, but most people look at and think, Okay, 1:01:21.200 --> 1:01:22.800 it's not so bad. I've changed a little bit. A 1:01:22.880 --> 1:01:24.760 lot of times we'll ask them to have a lower 1:01:24.840 --> 1:01:26.720 stocking rate than they would like to have. Take it 1:01:26.840 --> 1:01:30.320 right to the wall maximum they can have lower stocking rate. 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:32.440 You know, it's too easy to say, but kind of 1:01:32.440 --> 1:01:35.840 the take half, leave half idea, leave half for wildlife, 1:01:35.920 --> 1:01:38.480 for the forbes and the grasses and things for prime 1:01:38.600 --> 1:01:41.880 learn everything else. So lighter touch on the ground with 1:01:41.960 --> 1:01:43.880 a few less CALCIE might like. So you've got to 1:01:44.000 --> 1:01:49.520 accept that. Uh. Sometimes fencing out, repairing areas, UM being 1:01:49.560 --> 1:01:54.440 okay with some fire now and again um having some 1:01:54.880 --> 1:01:58.960 natural uh water course things like less use of spreader 1:01:59.000 --> 1:02:01.480 dikes or no users edderdykes, and being okay with beaver 1:02:01.600 --> 1:02:04.520 dams and things like that. So there's these these sorts 1:02:04.560 --> 1:02:08.439 of things. They're not draconian or particularly arduous. We'll show 1:02:08.440 --> 1:02:09.960 them how to do it, and we give them time 1:02:10.040 --> 1:02:12.280 to get there. But if you don't want to do it, 1:02:12.640 --> 1:02:18.640 um uh within our way of operating, then yeah, well 1:02:18.720 --> 1:02:21.360 maybe we're not a good match. So far, we haven't 1:02:21.360 --> 1:02:24.000 any trouble, trouble leasing out, we don't have anything empty. 1:02:24.240 --> 1:02:27.200 We generally get six seventy phone calls like that. And 1:02:27.320 --> 1:02:31.120 is this a program? Um? Are you guys saying that 1:02:31.440 --> 1:02:34.480 this is going to get phased out over time or 1:02:35.280 --> 1:02:39.080 do you think long term you're gonna have um, you know, 1:02:39.200 --> 1:02:41.320 some chunks that are going to have some grazing long 1:02:41.480 --> 1:02:44.720 term or domestic cattle grazing long term. No, it's a 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:47.680 good point. So I think, Um, one way to look 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:50.680 at this as we're thinking about our our idea is 1:02:51.480 --> 1:02:54.560 down the road. And Ali Fox is a lot younger 1:02:54.640 --> 1:02:57.800 than me, well much more likely see this in in 1:02:58.000 --> 1:03:02.880 situation you have we might call a core reserve area, right, 1:03:03.600 --> 1:03:06.800 and that is going to be a very uh amieba 1:03:06.880 --> 1:03:10.640 like circuitous border. The days are over drawing a square 1:03:10.760 --> 1:03:13.760 on the map like Hillstone Park. The only way it's 1:03:13.840 --> 1:03:15.720 defined as who who will sell to us. We have 1:03:15.800 --> 1:03:17.960 no control over who sells to us, but eventually have 1:03:18.080 --> 1:03:21.640 this corrier that might be between three million acres three 1:03:21.760 --> 1:03:24.760 and a quarter million acre or something like that, and 1:03:24.920 --> 1:03:27.720 in a six county general area north and south of 1:03:27.800 --> 1:03:31.160 the breaks, north and south of the CMR, et cetera. 1:03:32.040 --> 1:03:36.040 Outside of that is a boundary. Or if you see 1:03:36.160 --> 1:03:38.440 the next if you think about another area outside of it, 1:03:38.560 --> 1:03:41.600 maybe like you think about fishing two miles offshore, go 1:03:41.960 --> 1:03:44.080 quite a few miles whatever it might be, forty miles 1:03:44.200 --> 1:03:47.840 around that whole thing, A band around that is a 1:03:48.360 --> 1:03:51.000 is a is all cattle. Frankly, I don't know what's 1:03:51.000 --> 1:03:52.520 going to be there. We don't have a control. I 1:03:52.560 --> 1:03:54.320 can't tell you with four or five years from now, 1:03:54.360 --> 1:03:55.920 but probably the next hundred years is going to be 1:03:56.040 --> 1:03:59.920 very robust cattle industry there. And then even beyond that, 1:04:00.520 --> 1:04:03.640 we believe there are wildlife areas that our Secretary of 1:04:03.680 --> 1:04:06.960 Materior is now talking about, corridors between us and the 1:04:07.040 --> 1:04:10.160 Rocky Mountain Front and corridors down the Greater Door Yellowstone 1:04:10.160 --> 1:04:13.480 ecosystem where elk and other critters can move back and forth. 1:04:13.600 --> 1:04:16.040 So you saw this, somebody around here is knowledgeable about 1:04:16.040 --> 1:04:18.880 which house bill that was. But the zinky just put 1:04:18.920 --> 1:04:20.320 out so that I want to take a look at 1:04:20.400 --> 1:04:23.360 these corridors, wildlife corridors between areas. We gotta start thinking 1:04:23.360 --> 1:04:26.160 about how do we make those sociologically softened so critters 1:04:26.240 --> 1:04:28.400 can move back and forth and these things. So three things. 1:04:28.440 --> 1:04:31.280 There's a core, there's a immediate surrounding area maybe thirty 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:33.720 or forty miles thick. And then there's also this corridor 1:04:33.840 --> 1:04:36.360 idea that's going to these two other big ecosystems. We 1:04:36.480 --> 1:04:39.760 consider this a huge ecosystem of about eight million acres. 1:04:40.000 --> 1:04:42.880 That's where water drains into the milk or drains into 1:04:43.000 --> 1:04:46.600 the Missouri. So in the core to your question, eventually, 1:04:46.680 --> 1:04:50.320 over time we will uh those those property right now 1:04:50.400 --> 1:04:53.400 our stage with cattle on them. Over time, what's happened 1:04:53.440 --> 1:04:55.680 on White Rock, on Drive Forork, on sun Prairie, on 1:04:55.720 --> 1:04:58.440 Sun Prairie North, we'll turn those cattle off and we'll 1:04:58.480 --> 1:05:02.640 turn bison onto them. As the grazer, as a legal grazer, 1:05:03.360 --> 1:05:06.760 because you have to have a grazer. Llamas, sheep, goats, horses, cows, 1:05:06.920 --> 1:05:08.960 buy some. You gotta have something in there or you'll 1:05:08.960 --> 1:05:12.720 lose your allowments. I imagine that like you, you talked 1:05:12.760 --> 1:05:16.640 about your your personal interestingness and you grew up hunting. Um, 1:05:17.240 --> 1:05:21.880 I imagine that a good majority of the donors that 1:05:21.920 --> 1:05:25.680 are really paying high high dollar amounts. Do you guys 1:05:25.720 --> 1:05:29.440 are probably deeply suspicious or adversarial to hunting? Would be 1:05:29.520 --> 1:05:32.280 my guess, Like I know that you even a lot 1:05:32.320 --> 1:05:35.000 of interest from like National Geographic Society, right, and they're 1:05:35.000 --> 1:05:39.680 like very antagonistic to hunters, Like what what? Um? How 1:05:39.760 --> 1:05:41.240 do you how do you weigh that out? Like do 1:05:41.640 --> 1:05:43.760 they know do you talk about that you have an 1:05:43.800 --> 1:05:46.240 interest in hunting? And I know that hunters go on 1:05:46.360 --> 1:05:49.560 there now, But I imagine that the long plan wouldn't 1:05:49.760 --> 1:05:53.040 be that right that they probably don't like that idea. Donors, 1:05:53.520 --> 1:05:58.720 there are one that the majority that's not correct. I 1:05:58.760 --> 1:06:01.360 don't know. That would make are my life even harder 1:06:02.040 --> 1:06:04.280 to get this thing done. It would be very difficult 1:06:04.320 --> 1:06:07.880 that philosophical divide. So I would say there's some as 1:06:07.960 --> 1:06:10.440 far as people who are squeamish about it are queasy 1:06:10.440 --> 1:06:14.360 about it, I don't know. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty, 1:06:14.720 --> 1:06:17.760 I would say something like that, and where they where 1:06:17.800 --> 1:06:20.840 you knocked that down to about three percent that I 1:06:21.000 --> 1:06:23.240 don't want to hear it. I'll say, you know, people 1:06:23.280 --> 1:06:26.200 have been out there for eleven thousand years hunting animals. 1:06:26.320 --> 1:06:29.240 People have been a part of landscape. First it was 1:06:29.280 --> 1:06:32.720 thrusting spears. Later got the idea of at laddles. Later 1:06:32.840 --> 1:06:35.439 at the got the idea of archery. That numbers sitting 1:06:35.480 --> 1:06:38.560 at about fifteen right now for the fashionable keeps going. 1:06:39.080 --> 1:06:41.280 So I think it's going to go deeper. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:06:41.320 --> 1:06:44.720 well may well sixteen maybe because I think I heard 1:06:44.760 --> 1:06:47.640 you on one podcast listen, is it Dan Flores where 1:06:47.640 --> 1:06:49.120 you're talking with I can't remember who you're talking to? 1:06:49.280 --> 1:06:52.400 Was about the idea you correctly said the oldest has 1:06:52.440 --> 1:06:55.400 been found? And was it so the South South and 1:06:55.480 --> 1:06:57.680 South America? Yeah, there's older stuff out of a tex 1:06:58.160 --> 1:07:00.760 out of Austin, Texas. Yeah, so how do you anyway, 1:07:00.840 --> 1:07:03.280 So a long time ago people have been hunting, whether 1:07:03.320 --> 1:07:06.120 they're throwing or checking a rocket something or finally a 1:07:06.240 --> 1:07:08.080 fixed a stone to a spear. So people been hunting 1:07:08.080 --> 1:07:10.040 out here for a long long time, all right, So 1:07:10.880 --> 1:07:16.680 that's in ports most important thing. And uh, I hate 1:07:16.680 --> 1:07:18.960 to use words sustainably, So when we use that, but 1:07:19.160 --> 1:07:21.760 it works seemed to work. Okay, Yeah, there were some 1:07:21.840 --> 1:07:25.400 periods of very unsustainable hunting preper exactly. Also, it's not 1:07:25.440 --> 1:07:28.360 getting too that. But what I would say to people, 1:07:28.600 --> 1:07:30.240 and because this has come up a lot in the 1:07:30.360 --> 1:07:33.320 last seventeen years for sure, is well, why aren't you 1:07:33.400 --> 1:07:35.440 guys are gonna be like a park and not allow hunting, right, 1:07:35.720 --> 1:07:37.880 So look what our what our goal is first and 1:07:37.960 --> 1:07:43.880 foremost is extraordinarily robust wildlife populations, which do not exist 1:07:43.920 --> 1:07:47.280 there now. So our job is to create robust wildlife 1:07:47.320 --> 1:07:50.760 population something you'd see in the serengetti. You're gonna be 1:07:51.720 --> 1:07:54.760 astounded if we are successful. Give us a couple of 1:07:54.840 --> 1:07:56.600 decades to pull this off. It's a lot, a lot 1:07:56.680 --> 1:07:59.400 to do. You're gonna be astounded. So in other words, 1:07:59.440 --> 1:08:01.640 don't worry so much about the hunting. If you have 1:08:01.840 --> 1:08:03.760 that and you have access, or you're happy. Is it 1:08:03.840 --> 1:08:05.840 just a philosophical thing about hunting, or you think they'll 1:08:05.880 --> 1:08:08.960 take all the wildlife away? So I realize, okay, well, 1:08:09.000 --> 1:08:11.400 if you have serengetti like stuff that I can see 1:08:11.840 --> 1:08:13.640 and I can go view it and show my kids 1:08:13.680 --> 1:08:16.720 and my grandkids, then yeah, it all, it all can 1:08:16.880 --> 1:08:19.519 fit for sure. So that takes care of a lot 1:08:19.600 --> 1:08:21.040 of it is that people have been doing this for 1:08:21.160 --> 1:08:24.200 thousands of years and we're not about to let hunters 1:08:24.280 --> 1:08:26.519 knock back and not get back until there's no we're 1:08:26.520 --> 1:08:29.760 not gonna kill everything, right. And I tell them about 1:08:29.800 --> 1:08:31.720 my background in it, and I understand the whole the 1:08:31.800 --> 1:08:34.519 whole sport of it and all that, and it goes 1:08:34.560 --> 1:08:36.800 away pretty close, like, well, I still don't like my hunting. 1:08:37.720 --> 1:08:40.200 And they might say, why do people shoot some many coyotes? 1:08:40.640 --> 1:08:43.760 Why do you have to shoot fifty coyotes? I can't 1:08:43.800 --> 1:08:46.360 explain that to you. Why why did they trap a 1:08:46.479 --> 1:08:48.560 swift fox? What did the fifth swift fox do to you? 1:08:48.640 --> 1:08:50.200 It's the size of a housecat. I don't need to 1:08:50.240 --> 1:08:52.040 trap that thing. I think canna eat it or nail 1:08:52.080 --> 1:08:54.360 it on their wall. Or I can't explain that to you. 1:08:54.640 --> 1:08:56.240 Why do I have to say down with a with 1:08:56.360 --> 1:08:59.840 a tripod and shoot three dogs at a go? What's 1:08:59.840 --> 1:09:02.400 that about? I can't explain that. Let's let's move on 1:09:02.479 --> 1:09:03.519 to other things. You want to give me some money 1:09:03.560 --> 1:09:06.840 for some land, you know? So, yeah, So there are 1:09:06.960 --> 1:09:10.600 some places where I think hunters maybe shooting themselves in 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:12.280 the foot in terms of capturing the hearts and minds 1:09:12.320 --> 1:09:15.360 of the general public. But as far as big as 1:09:15.439 --> 1:09:18.519 far as as far as pure big game feel the 1:09:18.560 --> 1:09:21.560 freezer kind of thing people can people can get that 1:09:21.920 --> 1:09:24.479 for the most you say robust numbers, like if you're 1:09:24.479 --> 1:09:27.320 going to compare it to what Yellowstone has now, Yeah, 1:09:27.760 --> 1:09:32.600 is there like the way that you guys can articulate 1:09:32.680 --> 1:09:36.280 that Yellowstone has three to four thousand, three to four 1:09:36.320 --> 1:09:39.920 thousand bison? Well, I want to be uh, let's make 1:09:40.000 --> 1:09:42.280 my crew that I work with very nervous when I 1:09:42.320 --> 1:09:46.200 started saying numbers. So because you can always argue that 1:09:46.280 --> 1:09:49.080 once you get a number, but bison I gets on 1:09:49.120 --> 1:09:51.760 our website, so I can say that I think we 1:09:51.840 --> 1:09:55.040 could the most importantly Yellowstone and Us, there's a bit 1:09:55.120 --> 1:09:57.599 apples and oranges, because you have size, but you also 1:09:57.640 --> 1:10:02.000 have habitat and elevation bison from six thousand feet to 1:10:02.120 --> 1:10:06.160 over eight thousand feet in that habitat on that on 1:10:06.240 --> 1:10:07.880 the sides of that volcano or in the bowl of 1:10:08.000 --> 1:10:10.639 volcano there. As you know, it's very different than where 1:10:10.720 --> 1:10:15.560 we are att with an amazing forage and again a 1:10:15.640 --> 1:10:18.080 history of wildlife that yellows don't never had, or the 1:10:18.160 --> 1:10:20.519 rocks yellows don't like the habitat's all confined to the 1:10:20.600 --> 1:10:22.880 right parian areas. I mean, like not all, but like 1:10:23.040 --> 1:10:25.559 there's there's a lot of alpine timbered stuff that isn't 1:10:25.920 --> 1:10:28.439 isn't doing much good for those animals. Depends on the species. 1:10:28.479 --> 1:10:31.640 For wolverines or pretty happy to that high stuff. You know, 1:10:31.680 --> 1:10:33.639 it depends. And by the way, you have to realize 1:10:33.640 --> 1:10:35.120 who you're talking to, and I'm talking about just what 1:10:35.200 --> 1:10:37.439 I'm saying, Like when we look at like the size 1:10:37.439 --> 1:10:40.519 of Yellowstone, the fact that it can support you know, 1:10:40.720 --> 1:10:43.719 I mean this number, this is a hotly contested number. 1:10:44.040 --> 1:10:47.439 But the fact that Yellowstone can support three to four thousand, 1:10:47.840 --> 1:10:51.240 knowing that some number are gonna drift out every winter. Uh, 1:10:53.720 --> 1:10:56.920 that I feel like an equal patch of ground out 1:10:56.920 --> 1:10:59.200 where you're talking about would be able to support a 1:10:59.280 --> 1:11:04.240 higher number. Uh. Scientists would say the carrying capacity for 1:11:04.360 --> 1:11:08.599 wildlife where we are is indeed higher than the exact 1:11:08.640 --> 1:11:11.120 same number of acres if you had three million acres 1:11:11.360 --> 1:11:13.640 at Yellowstone smack in the middle of the call it 1:11:13.640 --> 1:11:16.200 there in the volcano, there in three million acres where 1:11:16.240 --> 1:11:19.840 we were are. And but they're looking at numbers. We're 1:11:19.840 --> 1:11:25.040 looking at pollinators, grassland birds, all kinds of game species, predators, 1:11:25.080 --> 1:11:26.920 et cetera. So we're looking at the important thing is 1:11:27.000 --> 1:11:28.800 we think about like a coral reef. We're looking at 1:11:28.920 --> 1:11:31.280 every single thing that moves or breeze or digs or 1:11:31.320 --> 1:11:35.120 flies or whatever. A very small subset of our bigger 1:11:35.200 --> 1:11:38.360 view of wildlife orbout adversity is game animals. But they 1:11:38.439 --> 1:11:43.320 agree that you guys are known for the people's the 1:11:43.479 --> 1:11:45.880 popular understanding of what you're doing as sort of this 1:11:46.040 --> 1:11:51.679 emblematic keystone species is you're known for doing bison recovery. 1:11:51.720 --> 1:11:53.600 I mean, that's like that's in the air, and I 1:11:53.680 --> 1:11:56.040 hope this podcast can help correct that. So help me 1:11:56.120 --> 1:11:57.479 with that. But can you hear me from it? Can 1:11:57.520 --> 1:11:59.240 we talk about that for a Second's talk about bisons? 1:11:59.280 --> 1:12:02.200 So we're should I wrote who damn book about I 1:12:02.320 --> 1:12:04.519 read your book about it. It was quite good, by 1:12:04.560 --> 1:12:08.040 the way, and uh, someone starts. Someone told me it's 1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:10.400 funny to go pay before you go on this podcast. 1:12:10.439 --> 1:12:12.040 You gotta read this book. This book just came out. 1:12:12.080 --> 1:12:14.800 It's really important to read it. Going here another one 1:12:15.040 --> 1:12:16.960 and digging around look on Amazon, I saw the one. 1:12:17.000 --> 1:12:18.720 It was two thousand and six, two thou five something 1:12:18.800 --> 1:12:20.800 like that. Like I read that, where's the new one? 1:12:20.840 --> 1:12:22.240 This is going to be stupid if I don't read 1:12:22.320 --> 1:12:25.080 his book on bison. We got a new cookbook out 1:12:25.160 --> 1:12:28.960 that it's a very important book. But like, just okay, 1:12:29.800 --> 1:12:32.479 I'm super interested in let's talk about I can't tell 1:12:32.479 --> 1:12:35.800 you how interested I am in blackfooted ferrets everything. Okay, 1:12:35.880 --> 1:12:40.679 I am, genuinely, But just because it's it's it's a right. Yeah, 1:12:40.760 --> 1:12:43.680 it's a big thing, and and it's a it's a 1:12:44.240 --> 1:12:45.639 like I said in the title of my book, it's 1:12:45.640 --> 1:12:48.720 an icon. So what could lay out for me what 1:12:48.880 --> 1:12:51.960 it could look like in terms of that animal. I 1:12:52.080 --> 1:12:57.320 think what it could look like is the greatest um 1:12:58.760 --> 1:13:06.400 bison viewing human experience in regards to bison that anybody 1:13:06.479 --> 1:13:10.400 alive today in North America has ever experienced, far beyond Yellowstone. 1:13:10.840 --> 1:13:13.080 That's why I think you can look like. Part of 1:13:13.160 --> 1:13:16.880 that is numbers. We're shooting for regards to bison, a 1:13:17.000 --> 1:13:19.880 minimum of ten thousand. That's a floor to get there. 1:13:19.920 --> 1:13:22.760 That's our goal as a floor. Okay, I think it 1:13:22.880 --> 1:13:25.200 depends on the year. Of course, with Yellowstone, you could 1:13:25.240 --> 1:13:29.719 be thirty one while over five thousand, so imagine ten thousand. 1:13:30.720 --> 1:13:33.320 But because it's the prairie is much more viewable, and 1:13:33.479 --> 1:13:35.559 because of how they they don't have to leave. They're 1:13:35.560 --> 1:13:37.720 in a bowl where we are. They're in a bowl right, 1:13:37.840 --> 1:13:40.560 not on the top. It's a it's a convex situation. 1:13:40.720 --> 1:13:43.200 So and every time you get sun on the south 1:13:43.240 --> 1:13:45.360 side of the slopes there you open up, even thirty 1:13:45.400 --> 1:13:48.120 below zero, you still get open grass and sage brush 1:13:48.200 --> 1:13:50.680 and lots of lots of really good forage without having 1:13:50.720 --> 1:13:54.720 to pack out anywhere else and go somewhere. So I 1:13:54.840 --> 1:13:57.960 think them being able to stay, be located and stick 1:13:58.080 --> 1:14:00.600 there is real good. We can support more numbers and 1:14:00.680 --> 1:14:03.799 people Sometimes people say ten thousand mice, and that's bigger 1:14:03.840 --> 1:14:07.200 than anything in the lower forty eight states. Isn't that 1:14:07.320 --> 1:14:09.960 just gonna be kind of nuts? And I said, well, 1:14:10.200 --> 1:14:12.240 he can look at those six counties there. There's four 1:14:12.360 --> 1:14:18.599 hundred and fifty thousand cows. Four thousand cows, and those 1:14:18.640 --> 1:14:20.800 six counties were working right now. So I think you 1:14:20.880 --> 1:14:23.800 can ten thousand miss back in there. In fact, maybe 1:14:23.880 --> 1:14:26.599 fifteen twenty, and you're still not getting in the way 1:14:26.640 --> 1:14:29.800 of that's a lot of cows. And in Montana there's 1:14:29.800 --> 1:14:31.680 a lot more cows on that there's almost half there's 1:14:31.680 --> 1:14:33.920 almost a half million cows in it. Yeah, two and 1:14:33.920 --> 1:14:35.720 a half million in the whole state, roughly two point 1:14:35.760 --> 1:14:37.880 four two point six depending on the year. Last year 1:14:38.200 --> 1:14:42.599 just about two point five million cows. So yeah, Um, 1:14:42.920 --> 1:14:45.799 do you have the human population in those six counties 1:14:45.840 --> 1:14:50.080 to have fun numbers to balance? Yeah? I imagine the 1:14:50.320 --> 1:14:57.280 big charismatic predators m play into this. Like you talked 1:14:57.280 --> 1:15:03.360 about an intact ecosystem. Um, you know, grizzlies are nosing 1:15:03.439 --> 1:15:09.720 their way out under the Great Plains, Um, wolves are expanding. 1:15:09.840 --> 1:15:14.760 What what what do you picture the American prairie reserves 1:15:14.840 --> 1:15:19.920 relationship with grizzlies and wolves would be, And what do 1:15:20.000 --> 1:15:21.840 you met, like, what are the what are sort of 1:15:21.920 --> 1:15:28.760 the the obstacles there? I picture those two species, well, 1:15:28.840 --> 1:15:32.360 black bears, cougars, wolves and grizzly bears. I picture them 1:15:32.720 --> 1:15:36.840 being there. And before anybody jumps on that and said, 1:15:36.840 --> 1:15:39.000 well they'll be bring they're they're bringing them in, we're not. 1:15:39.240 --> 1:15:41.800 We can't touch those animals. Uh, they're not going to 1:15:41.840 --> 1:15:43.760 commit any horse trailers with us or anything like that. 1:15:44.880 --> 1:15:46.920 But I've been around already. I mean you already got 1:15:47.000 --> 1:15:50.280 lions there, definitely got lions. They they suspect they got 1:15:50.320 --> 1:15:52.760 back from the little belts about they were completely extirpated. 1:15:52.880 --> 1:15:56.160 They expect they got back me and did nineteen nineties, Uh, 1:15:56.280 --> 1:15:58.080 from the little belts, but they were all gone from 1:15:58.120 --> 1:16:01.920 this particular area. And uh, we can get back to that. 1:16:02.160 --> 1:16:05.320 But most scientists I talked to, including FVP biologists, don't 1:16:05.320 --> 1:16:08.479 believe there's a viable, genetically viable population and putting out 1:16:08.479 --> 1:16:10.800 too many tags right now for it. There really really 1:16:10.880 --> 1:16:14.599 need to do their bottleneck. They're too small, but could 1:16:14.640 --> 1:16:18.000 be a robust population. But what I've seen is again 1:16:18.080 --> 1:16:20.920 we had a cabin up in what's called by Gibson 1:16:20.960 --> 1:16:26.360 Reservoir my dad built was cheap use material from UBC 1:16:26.479 --> 1:16:29.560 lumber and great falls, uh pretender son Over Canyon. And 1:16:29.800 --> 1:16:31.599 when you talked about a grizzly bear in the sixties, 1:16:31.760 --> 1:16:34.439 it was a real anomaly. I mean, if somebody saw one, 1:16:34.600 --> 1:16:37.040 they talked, We talked about it all winter, that somebody 1:16:37.080 --> 1:16:41.320 saw a grizzly bear doing something or track. Well, seventies 1:16:41.400 --> 1:16:43.800 maybe a little bit more, eighties, a little bit more. 1:16:43.840 --> 1:16:46.000 And now you as you know it's so full. A 1:16:46.120 --> 1:16:49.240 huge success story's starting to spill out onto the grasslands 1:16:49.920 --> 1:16:51.680 and it used to be just ten years ago. Kind 1:16:51.680 --> 1:16:53.240 of for a visit in the summer, just take a 1:16:53.280 --> 1:16:55.160 walk about and go back into the mountains. Well, now 1:16:55.200 --> 1:16:57.800 you can't go back upstream of that concentration from her 1:16:57.840 --> 1:17:02.200 habitat standpoint, and they're having young on the grasslands. So 1:17:02.320 --> 1:17:04.800 but then in my mind, I'm thinking Tiber Reservoir, shot 1:17:04.920 --> 1:17:07.519 O conradt, various other places. Now they're east of Fort 1:17:07.560 --> 1:17:11.840 Benton and now they're on this map. They just killed 1:17:11.880 --> 1:17:14.679 two at Denton right there, and now they're by White 1:17:14.720 --> 1:17:18.000 Silver Springs just three weeks ago after we got one 1:17:18.040 --> 1:17:20.320 on a camera trap just a little bit west of Harlowe, 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:25.240 Harlton right, So they are well into that red air already. 1:17:26.120 --> 1:17:30.000 And so that with us doing nothing, wolves are moving 1:17:30.320 --> 1:17:33.960 north also from the southwest in that direction to into 1:17:34.000 --> 1:17:36.599 the crazies and the little belts. Now doesn't take much 1:17:36.640 --> 1:17:40.760 to find out where they are uh expanding, So I 1:17:40.760 --> 1:17:43.120 would expect why would they not get to where we 1:17:43.200 --> 1:17:45.599 are because they're already on this map already doesn't take 1:17:45.680 --> 1:17:49.280 very long. Plus the habitat is fantastic. If you're an omnivore. 1:17:50.439 --> 1:17:53.080 The brakes is terrific, and the history of bears there, 1:17:53.120 --> 1:17:55.600 if you read Paul Shillary's Lewis and Clark among the 1:17:55.640 --> 1:17:59.880 grizzlies encounters every single day as they came to that area. 1:18:00.120 --> 1:18:04.320 They're thick, all right. So no, it's no surprise. It's 1:18:04.360 --> 1:18:06.280 not that much of a stretch to figure out why 1:18:06.320 --> 1:18:07.880 what grizzies want to be here, because that's where they 1:18:07.880 --> 1:18:10.080 were all the time anyway. So what I what I think, 1:18:10.120 --> 1:18:12.200 we gotta we gotta make it okay, And back to 1:18:12.240 --> 1:18:14.320 the frocky mountain front is now. I go back up 1:18:14.360 --> 1:18:17.000 there and I know ranchers who we used to knock 1:18:17.040 --> 1:18:18.559 on the doors when I was a little kid. Now 1:18:18.600 --> 1:18:22.519 I'm sixty, but I still remember that area. And those 1:18:22.600 --> 1:18:25.800 ranchers are like, yeah, we see them. Don't have that 1:18:25.920 --> 1:18:28.679 much of a problem with them. They don't slaughter my cows, 1:18:28.800 --> 1:18:30.800 and we've learned to live with them. There's a couple 1:18:30.800 --> 1:18:33.960 of adjustments you gotta make. But they're not yelling for 1:18:34.040 --> 1:18:35.960 f TOVP to come kill all these bears. They don't 1:18:35.960 --> 1:18:38.320 belong here. They're like great white sharks or something. Take 1:18:38.320 --> 1:18:42.080 them away. Uh, it's become normalized. So to your point, Steve, 1:18:42.120 --> 1:18:44.240 how do I What do I see is that over 1:18:44.240 --> 1:18:45.920 the next ten or fifteen years there'll be a lot 1:18:45.960 --> 1:18:48.040 of anxiety because they've been gone for a long time, 1:18:48.200 --> 1:18:49.920 and then that front edge, that leading edge of the 1:18:49.960 --> 1:18:53.960 wolves of the bears will be People are are looking 1:18:54.080 --> 1:18:56.679 for how do we live with them? F tovps starting 1:18:56.760 --> 1:19:00.680 to do uh seminars, evening seminars in Stanford and Dent 1:19:00.840 --> 1:19:03.080 and other places saying you live in bear country. Now 1:19:03.520 --> 1:19:06.240 here's what we've learned looking two miles to the west 1:19:06.320 --> 1:19:08.320 about how to live with them. You kind of got 1:19:08.439 --> 1:19:11.040 to get ready for this. We don't have the money 1:19:11.080 --> 1:19:13.960 to helicopter every single bearer back to the front. I 1:19:14.000 --> 1:19:17.240 ain't gonna work anymore. Um. So, you know, for a while, 1:19:17.320 --> 1:19:22.400 Wyoming was spending for every grizzly bearon Wyoming, even though 1:19:22.439 --> 1:19:26.320 they were federally protected species. Every grizzly bearon Wyoming, Wyoming 1:19:26.439 --> 1:19:29.840 was spending over half on each baron at state that 1:19:29.920 --> 1:19:35.200 when Idaho spends per kid in public school expensive Yeah, 1:19:36.000 --> 1:19:37.800 I think if and if you're a hunter, and you 1:19:37.840 --> 1:19:39.360 won't have to be p to spend money on things 1:19:39.400 --> 1:19:42.760 you want opening habitat things like that helicopter rides for 1:19:42.840 --> 1:19:45.920 one animal time is taking money away from you getting 1:19:45.920 --> 1:19:49.360 on more land and more social change stuff and getting 1:19:49.400 --> 1:19:52.920 public access and uh, you know, so it's a it's 1:19:52.920 --> 1:19:54.400 a public they don't want to do it either. So 1:19:54.760 --> 1:19:56.960 what I see is them being there is going to 1:19:57.040 --> 1:19:58.840 take a long time, but I think it will get 1:19:58.960 --> 1:20:02.240 normalized exactly how we've seen it in Montana two d 1:20:02.360 --> 1:20:05.400 miles to the west. Very normalized, no big deal. Yeah. 1:20:05.880 --> 1:20:09.120 A thing that happens right now is when a grizzly 1:20:09.160 --> 1:20:12.120 does strike out and oftentimes one a mountain lion strikes 1:20:12.160 --> 1:20:16.360 out into a new country. Um, they get in trouble 1:20:16.400 --> 1:20:18.759 and then they die. I mean they get in trouble 1:20:18.760 --> 1:20:20.400 on the highway getting hit by a car, or they 1:20:20.479 --> 1:20:23.560 get in trouble with just coming up against that the 1:20:23.800 --> 1:20:27.200 human wildlife interface, and they kill something or turn up 1:20:27.240 --> 1:20:29.880 on someone's doorstep like that's usually the end of the 1:20:29.920 --> 1:20:35.440 story because they're going into areas where conflict. The opportunity 1:20:35.439 --> 1:20:37.720 for conflict is rich, especially with an animal doesn't have 1:20:37.800 --> 1:20:40.639 a set core home range that it knows well. He's 1:20:40.680 --> 1:20:42.839 seeing it for the first time too, and they stumble 1:20:42.880 --> 1:20:45.720 into trouble. I think that by if you were to 1:20:46.479 --> 1:20:51.439 create this big block of habitat were they were welcome 1:20:51.640 --> 1:20:54.840 or presented with a place to live, that were they 1:20:54.960 --> 1:20:59.560 were less likely to come up against that wall, the 1:20:59.680 --> 1:21:02.760 very hard wall of civilization. I think that that would 1:21:02.800 --> 1:21:08.799 probably aid in there hanging on and perhaps creating breeding 1:21:08.880 --> 1:21:12.880 pairs and more. You know, static animals, right, they had 1:21:12.920 --> 1:21:15.320 like a spot where they could live, So I mean 1:21:16.040 --> 1:21:20.599 it's definitely something that could assist in the expansion recovery 1:21:20.640 --> 1:21:23.120 of the species, whether or not you took an active 1:21:23.200 --> 1:21:25.320 roll in that or not, just by creating the habitat. Right, 1:21:26.040 --> 1:21:31.120 our role is to create habitat so that everything can 1:21:31.200 --> 1:21:34.760 be there, not to drag it all in we did 1:21:34.840 --> 1:21:36.400 with bison. Is the only way we get them there 1:21:36.439 --> 1:21:39.040 from wind Cave National Park in South Dakota and from 1:21:39.479 --> 1:21:41.400 from Elk Island, Canada. The only way to do it 1:21:41.560 --> 1:21:45.880 is trucks and trailers everything in the beginning, Um, we 1:21:45.920 --> 1:21:50.200 don't need to import anymore. But and uh, swift fox, 1:21:50.320 --> 1:21:52.160 you actually have to put them in a little cage 1:21:52.200 --> 1:21:54.400 and bring them down so they don't get hit across 1:21:54.439 --> 1:21:56.760 the highway and let them out somewhere. Other than that 1:21:58.520 --> 1:22:01.040 everything gets there on its own, like Sugers did Cougar. Well, 1:22:01.600 --> 1:22:05.040 let's go back in this period of time. You guys 1:22:05.120 --> 1:22:08.400 know this. You watched I'm sure you've watched fps movie 1:22:08.720 --> 1:22:11.080 Back from the Brink and read the books and what 1:22:11.240 --> 1:22:15.160 happened out here or every every big horn, every elk, 1:22:15.320 --> 1:22:18.720 every grizly bear, every wolf, everybodyson was completely wiped out 1:22:18.840 --> 1:22:21.639 right in this area. There wasn't one left. The elk 1:22:21.720 --> 1:22:25.719 came back in ranching trucks with FDVP in the nineteen fifties, 1:22:25.800 --> 1:22:29.080 so they were brought back right the Rocky Mountain sheepy. 1:22:29.120 --> 1:22:31.439 I heard you're talking with Garrett and those guys from 1:22:31.439 --> 1:22:34.120 the Sheep Foundation. They brought those back I think from 1:22:34.160 --> 1:22:37.519 Castle Reef and the Rockies Uh to put them back 1:22:37.560 --> 1:22:39.800 in the brakes in like early nineteen sixties or something 1:22:39.880 --> 1:22:42.000 like that, late nineteen fifties. So a lot of stuff 1:22:42.000 --> 1:22:44.200 has been brought back. I think we're pretty much the 1:22:44.360 --> 1:22:46.640 end of truck and stuff in and now it's just 1:22:46.720 --> 1:22:49.479 letting populations grow. The predators will get there on their own. 1:22:49.680 --> 1:22:52.280 And you can tell every year that's the movements are happening. 1:22:52.360 --> 1:22:54.400 It's it's a it's a fore gone it's a historic 1:22:54.439 --> 1:23:02.840 inevitability they're gonna return. Um, what would let's say everything 1:23:02.920 --> 1:23:07.960 was for Let's say you don't like this. Let's say 1:23:09.160 --> 1:23:12.439 let's say everything was for sale right now that you 1:23:12.640 --> 1:23:14.760 that you guys felt like when you got a thing 1:23:14.840 --> 1:23:17.720 like to make this work, it needs to be ex big, right. 1:23:18.400 --> 1:23:20.320 Let's say it was all for sale right now and 1:23:20.360 --> 1:23:24.160 it was just market like standard market value vote a 1:23:24.240 --> 1:23:32.320 cost to buy all of it. Um, you're probably talking 1:23:32.360 --> 1:23:38.639 about another properties between two hundred and three hundred million 1:23:38.680 --> 1:23:43.599 dollars roughly maybe a little more time value of money. 1:23:44.560 --> 1:23:46.479 You have to put a qualifier on there. How much 1:23:46.560 --> 1:23:48.400 time do we get to buy it? If it's all 1:23:48.439 --> 1:23:50.760 available it's all for sale, If we buy it over 1:23:50.840 --> 1:23:53.200 fifteen years, gonna cost more. Cut the time value of 1:23:53.240 --> 1:23:55.840 money and property out there goes up about three percent 1:23:56.000 --> 1:23:58.560 sometimes four percent a year. The longer you wait, the 1:23:58.800 --> 1:24:01.600 much much more expensive. Yet so but that amount of 1:24:01.680 --> 1:24:08.240 money would push this landscape piece up to milk done million, 1:24:08.880 --> 1:24:13.839 four million acres because of the public land leverage aspect 1:24:13.960 --> 1:24:18.400 of it. So yeah, here's how we we often say. 1:24:18.760 --> 1:24:20.640 People say, well, you know, one of the reasons it's 1:24:20.680 --> 1:24:23.800 hard to do these projects they're so darn expensive. That's 1:24:23.800 --> 1:24:26.120 why the government got out of the business, etcetera. But 1:24:26.360 --> 1:24:29.200 we think about this way, this entire project, everything, all 1:24:29.240 --> 1:24:32.200 the management, all the remodeling costs. There's a lot of 1:24:32.240 --> 1:24:33.920 work being done out there, are people doing it right 1:24:33.960 --> 1:24:35.960 now today while I'm sitting here in this warm office. 1:24:37.200 --> 1:24:41.400 Is UM purchasing the land, all the remodeling and the 1:24:41.439 --> 1:24:45.240 operational costs in a very large endowment which will keep 1:24:45.240 --> 1:24:47.559 it going forever, like a university endowment, so you don't 1:24:47.600 --> 1:24:51.280 have to have the vagaries of administrations. And like Yellowstone 1:24:51.320 --> 1:24:54.880 has million dollar maintenance backlog right now, we want to 1:24:54.880 --> 1:24:59.479 avoid that. So endowment's maked into that entire thing. All right, 1:24:59.520 --> 1:25:02.200 about seven a hundred million dollars that's the price of 1:25:02.240 --> 1:25:04.920 the project. Well that's that's that's a lot of money. 1:25:05.400 --> 1:25:07.000 Well think about it this way. I don't know if 1:25:07.000 --> 1:25:09.639 any of you sports fans but watch football or something 1:25:09.720 --> 1:25:15.080 like that. Not at all used to be. So the Raiders, 1:25:15.320 --> 1:25:18.679 Los Angeles Raiders, you know, are the Oakland. They're gonna 1:25:18.720 --> 1:25:20.840 move to Las Vegas. So they just gotta gotta build 1:25:20.840 --> 1:25:23.080 a stadium, right, So the prices stadium at one point 1:25:23.160 --> 1:25:26.760 eight billion dollars. Lanta Falcons just did one just before 1:25:26.800 --> 1:25:29.919 the last Super Bowl one point six billion. Dallas Cowboys 1:25:30.040 --> 1:25:33.919 just did one, one point two billion, Minnesota Vikings, etcetera, etcetera. 1:25:34.479 --> 1:25:36.760 We built up a new football stadium almost every year 1:25:36.800 --> 1:25:39.360 in this country, just like that, from the idea to 1:25:39.520 --> 1:25:43.160 the paint's dry. You're playing games three years average one 1:25:43.200 --> 1:25:47.320 and a half billion dollars. So for the biggest reserve 1:25:47.600 --> 1:25:49.519 ever created the United States, a three and a half 1:25:49.560 --> 1:25:51.639 million acres, a million acres bigger than nell Stone Park, 1:25:52.400 --> 1:25:55.160 less than half the cost of one new football And 1:25:55.160 --> 1:25:59.920 that's a stadium. I'm interested in going to hot dogs. 1:26:00.000 --> 1:26:03.320 You pay some games. I'm just saying, where the heck 1:26:03.320 --> 1:26:05.320 are you gonna get that money? You say, if you've 1:26:05.320 --> 1:26:09.040 got a good idea, money doesn't exactly fall out of 1:26:09.080 --> 1:26:11.360 the sky. But you can tell just by that sports story. 1:26:12.240 --> 1:26:17.400 Entertainment venues, performing arts centers, operas, wings of hospitals are 1:26:17.560 --> 1:26:20.600 regularly in the six eight million dollars. Just like that. 1:26:21.200 --> 1:26:24.479 Martin Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are always losing that amount 1:26:24.520 --> 1:26:28.599 of money today during losing that amount of money today, 1:26:28.600 --> 1:26:33.080 and value during fluctuations in the stock market. Right, So, 1:26:33.240 --> 1:26:35.120 there's a lot of ways to make it seem approachable, 1:26:35.280 --> 1:26:38.160 but it's still a bunch of money. Yeah. Yeah, So 1:26:38.240 --> 1:26:41.280 our our fundraising crew, our fundraising crew, if they could 1:26:41.320 --> 1:26:43.240 call in, they'd say, but tell them that's not easy 1:26:43.320 --> 1:26:48.120 and it's not easy to raise that. Um, it's a 1:26:48.160 --> 1:26:51.120 lot easier raising money for a football stadium or anything else. 1:26:51.840 --> 1:26:53.920 Because people look at it as a big economic driver. 1:26:54.840 --> 1:26:57.240 It doesn't have. It doesn't have a big footprint. Well, 1:26:57.439 --> 1:27:00.240 it's also you have a village, you have it's a 1:27:00.320 --> 1:27:04.000 tribal thing. Okay, I'm I, I have a I have 1:27:04.120 --> 1:27:07.360 my Packers T shirt on. Yeah, we need this much money? 1:27:07.920 --> 1:27:09.800 Where where can I send in my ten bucks or 1:27:09.840 --> 1:27:12.640 whatever else it is, so we don't have in this 1:27:12.760 --> 1:27:14.360 kind of situation where a lot of things around the 1:27:14.360 --> 1:27:16.400 world I work with Geographic. I get back to the 1:27:16.560 --> 1:27:19.200 hunting idea. I think it's not this nuance. They're not 1:27:19.560 --> 1:27:22.679 as I can tell, they're actually into market hunting, including 1:27:22.680 --> 1:27:27.679 the chief scientist Jonathan Bailey. Uh So, no, when National 1:27:27.720 --> 1:27:29.400 Geographic let's go back to that in a second. But 1:27:29.560 --> 1:27:32.640 I think one thing that's hard about conservation I'd like 1:27:32.720 --> 1:27:35.599 to get onto. Actually, while hunters, I think are blowing 1:27:35.680 --> 1:27:39.120 a huge opportunity to make things better in Montana is 1:27:39.160 --> 1:27:41.720 people don't get organized. There's no sense of tribe or 1:27:41.840 --> 1:27:44.439 work together. So you have a few tribes, you have 1:27:44.520 --> 1:27:47.400 ducks unlimited, you have Rocky Mount out Foundation, Deer Foundation, 1:27:47.520 --> 1:27:51.040 back country hunters and anglers, but not enough for critical mass. 1:27:51.560 --> 1:27:54.200 Hunters could not pull off a fundraising thing to build 1:27:54.240 --> 1:27:57.679 the stadium. And hunters are not organized enough to actually 1:27:57.800 --> 1:28:01.680 make big time gutsy conservation happen because they don't want 1:28:01.720 --> 1:28:03.320 to be a part of a big don't want to 1:28:03.360 --> 1:28:05.360 be a part of a bigger tribe like a Packers 1:28:05.400 --> 1:28:08.160 fans or Atlanta fans. And you get things done in numbers. 1:28:08.840 --> 1:28:11.639 You get things done with gusto if you pull together numbers. 1:28:11.720 --> 1:28:14.040 So we have to go beyond Montana to build this 1:28:14.200 --> 1:28:16.880 thing because everyone's sitting back waiting for us to be 1:28:16.960 --> 1:28:18.320 done and say you've done yet, Can I go in 1:28:18.400 --> 1:28:20.880 and shoot something? It's kind of irritating. Yeah. But one 1:28:20.880 --> 1:28:22.680 of the things people say is they say that you 1:28:22.800 --> 1:28:26.519 won't guarantee hunting access and perpetuity. I don't even know 1:28:26.520 --> 1:28:27.880 what the hell that means, because I don't know what 1:28:28.120 --> 1:28:30.840 who has made that guarantee I mean, like, I don't 1:28:30.840 --> 1:28:33.519 know any private ranchers that have made hunting access a 1:28:33.560 --> 1:28:36.560 guarantee and perpetuity for how they would go about doing that. 1:28:37.080 --> 1:28:40.560 But that's a criticism. Well, I think, yeah, the criticism. 1:28:40.640 --> 1:28:43.519 But here's a couple of things on again, I don't 1:28:43.520 --> 1:28:44.519 even know what, Like I said, I don't even know 1:28:44.520 --> 1:28:47.000 what that looks like, how one would draft up a 1:28:47.120 --> 1:28:49.519 guarantee of hunting access and perpetuity. But but it's the 1:28:49.560 --> 1:28:52.599 thing people say, and there's suspicions that what will happen 1:28:52.800 --> 1:28:55.040 is you know all this. I'm just telling you what 1:28:55.120 --> 1:28:57.760 I hear out walking around on the streets right here too. 1:28:58.520 --> 1:29:01.000 The suspicion is what you're going to do, because you're 1:29:01.000 --> 1:29:03.080 gonna do this, and then you're gonna be like, ha, suckers, 1:29:03.160 --> 1:29:06.840 it's a park, right, That's what That's the accusation I've 1:29:06.880 --> 1:29:09.519 heard most frequently leveled at this is that, I mean, 1:29:09.640 --> 1:29:12.320 it has been mixed up in the National Park. I mean, 1:29:12.400 --> 1:29:16.639 just having that that phrase in there has complicated this enormously, 1:29:16.680 --> 1:29:19.479 I imagine, or if you don't even get there. To 1:29:19.600 --> 1:29:21.800 go back to the first part of this conversation, right, 1:29:22.320 --> 1:29:29.519 you got private land, private property rights, in Montana are strong. Um, 1:29:30.200 --> 1:29:32.880 and as we already explained, you got private land that 1:29:33.479 --> 1:29:37.439 is the key to locking up or unlocking a bunch 1:29:37.479 --> 1:29:40.640 of public land. And what is going to guarantee that 1:29:40.880 --> 1:29:45.200 you guys just don't exercise private property rights that everybody 1:29:45.280 --> 1:29:47.080 else does and says, yeah, you know what, Actually we're 1:29:47.080 --> 1:29:49.559 not gonna lay on today because all of that land 1:29:51.880 --> 1:29:55.760 is hunt Like whether the apre are never existed, all 1:29:55.840 --> 1:29:59.040 that land was accessible to hunting. So like you had 1:29:59.160 --> 1:30:01.640 ranchers that their families were hunting, people were out hunting it. 1:30:01.960 --> 1:30:06.200 So and also relative to you gotta also understand like 1:30:07.479 --> 1:30:12.120 the power of the relative perspective. Well, Lewis and Clark 1:30:12.160 --> 1:30:13.960 saw that there are many explanations for why they saw 1:30:14.000 --> 1:30:17.080 the Abunce wildlife they did and what George Catlin saw there. Um, 1:30:18.439 --> 1:30:24.360 granted it's not anywhere near that now, but relative to 1:30:24.520 --> 1:30:30.320 what people are experiencing elsewhere, you're here shifting paradigm syndrome, 1:30:30.920 --> 1:30:35.400 shifting baselines. Yeah, okay, that is still the land of 1:30:35.439 --> 1:30:38.479 milk and honey. Okay, remains relative to everything else that 1:30:38.520 --> 1:30:43.240 people are seeing. That remains like this great wildlife haven. 1:30:44.479 --> 1:30:47.679 So from it, like nothing, you have a struggle hunting. 1:30:47.800 --> 1:30:50.200 Understand the perspective I hear from people. The perspective is 1:30:50.479 --> 1:30:56.240 it's pretty great, it's all open to hunting. Um, why 1:30:56.320 --> 1:31:01.839 would I take the risk of removing millions of acres 1:31:01.880 --> 1:31:04.800 of huntable land from hunting? Was because people are just 1:31:04.920 --> 1:31:08.320 like really suspicious about the long term plan, that's all. 1:31:08.640 --> 1:31:10.040 And I don't even know. Like when I have I 1:31:10.080 --> 1:31:12.240 always say, dude, I don't know. I'd like to talk 1:31:12.320 --> 1:31:19.000 to that guy. All right, Well, I think the shifting 1:31:19.080 --> 1:31:25.120 baseline thing is very interesting to me. Um on two things. 1:31:25.360 --> 1:31:27.280 One is the amount of wildlife that used to be 1:31:27.360 --> 1:31:31.400 out there, so it's it's kind of bit frustrating. Sometimes 1:31:31.439 --> 1:31:33.200 saddens me that people go out there and see what's 1:31:33.200 --> 1:31:35.439 out there now and they think it's good. I don't 1:31:35.439 --> 1:31:38.960 think it's good. I think there can be a lot more. 1:31:39.160 --> 1:31:41.400 And I've covered that country a lot of times and 1:31:41.479 --> 1:31:46.040 airplanes all kinds of aircraft on foot twice now. I've 1:31:46.040 --> 1:31:49.760 walked five miles the entire length of that map west 1:31:49.840 --> 1:31:52.519 to east, biked it on my mountain bike. I've been 1:31:52.560 --> 1:31:55.560 out there hundreds of times, and I was raised to 1:31:55.680 --> 1:31:58.559 look for game. I've absolutely trained to do that as 1:31:58.560 --> 1:32:02.080 a kid right, and a lot of our folks who 1:32:03.000 --> 1:32:04.960 are with a pr big game hunters, and you go 1:32:05.080 --> 1:32:07.680 out there, you go. It's it is really unbelievable. This 1:32:07.920 --> 1:32:12.200 is empty, is absolutely empty. I've had folks from fish 1:32:12.240 --> 1:32:15.840 waving parks uh in aircraft flying back and forth, fly 1:32:15.880 --> 1:32:18.280 a hundred miles, go anything. They said, I can go 1:32:18.320 --> 1:32:21.080 anywhere I want. So they're pilot, fly around, U l 1:32:21.120 --> 1:32:24.360 bend whatever. Seeing in the elk yet nope, go south 1:32:24.439 --> 1:32:27.720 the river twenty more miles seen elk yet, nope, go 1:32:27.800 --> 1:32:30.840 a little further anywhere seeing an elk? Not one? And 1:32:30.920 --> 1:32:34.120 this is a hundred miles slow and slow, or walking 1:32:34.200 --> 1:32:36.960 with us five miles one time. The last time we 1:32:36.960 --> 1:32:38.880 did it, a hundred eighty five miles. We didn't see 1:32:39.200 --> 1:32:41.719 one elk in the you know, in the nine period, 1:32:42.800 --> 1:32:45.360 and you hear Lewis and Clark whoever else coming up. 1:32:45.400 --> 1:32:47.559 They didn't even start hunting until four o'clock in the afternoon, 1:32:47.560 --> 1:32:49.240 and they got done work and they got enough elk 1:32:49.320 --> 1:32:52.640 to feed forty people every night. If you tried to 1:32:52.720 --> 1:32:56.920 walk upstream and started elk hunting, imagine just every night 1:32:57.000 --> 1:32:59.559 your job, two of you, two guys to go out 1:32:59.560 --> 1:33:03.160 and get elk feast forty people. Uh could you do that? 1:33:03.479 --> 1:33:05.680 You have some pretty hungry people in the first three days. Right, 1:33:05.760 --> 1:33:09.519 It's just not the same. So I think one baseline 1:33:09.520 --> 1:33:12.040 that shifted. I think we have an amnesia about what 1:33:12.200 --> 1:33:14.879 used to be there. How do you deal with that amnesia? 1:33:14.920 --> 1:33:17.200 It's a big thing, and there's no one book would 1:33:17.240 --> 1:33:19.560 be nice. But I brought about nine books here that 1:33:19.680 --> 1:33:21.200 you read and you have to take bits and pieces 1:33:21.200 --> 1:33:23.120 from each one and piece the one together and realized 1:33:23.160 --> 1:33:25.280 it spans fifty years. They never met each other. They're 1:33:25.280 --> 1:33:28.400 all saying the same thing. That's an interesting cross referencing 1:33:28.880 --> 1:33:31.920 the other shifting baseline. You're all pretty very young that 1:33:32.000 --> 1:33:35.160 I'm looking around the five of you. But in the 1:33:35.240 --> 1:33:39.360 sixties and seventies, it was a different experience. The baseline 1:33:39.360 --> 1:33:41.640 of walking up to a ranch was like, yeah, go 1:33:41.760 --> 1:33:44.840 ahead in the Deerborn even if somebody who owned the 1:33:44.880 --> 1:33:46.760 deer born in, which they did there in California in 1:33:46.800 --> 1:33:49.080 the late sixties, we calmed down there. My dad found 1:33:49.120 --> 1:33:52.240 out who it was, Gary Cooper's old ranch and Tom 1:33:52.320 --> 1:33:55.120 Mix and we got to hunt mule there. Down there 1:33:55.200 --> 1:33:56.960 is just great or we go want to hunt elk 1:33:57.280 --> 1:34:00.479 or whatever else. It was most likely nless you got 1:34:00.520 --> 1:34:03.960 somebody really crabby. Oh yeah, how I'm gonna be here? Well, 1:34:04.040 --> 1:34:05.360 if we can put our camp over there, just a 1:34:05.400 --> 1:34:07.000 couple of days, got a lot of the year, Is 1:34:07.040 --> 1:34:09.280 that okay? Yeah, it's all right. My dad got really good. 1:34:09.320 --> 1:34:12.000 It was either George Dickle or old Crow. And they 1:34:12.120 --> 1:34:14.800 bring a fifth and you're in. And I got a 1:34:14.840 --> 1:34:16.800 whole bunch of brownies because the lady was very nice 1:34:16.840 --> 1:34:18.640 to me, a little kid. Look, I try to look 1:34:18.680 --> 1:34:23.640 really cold. So another baseline is you guys feel like 1:34:23.960 --> 1:34:26.080 you're locked out because the attitude of change. Now you 1:34:26.200 --> 1:34:28.600 knocked on the door and they say no, or hell no, 1:34:29.640 --> 1:34:32.519 go away, private property, don't bother me, or sorry, it's 1:34:32.640 --> 1:34:35.320 least out. That was not a factor. So you've got 1:34:35.400 --> 1:34:38.280 a baseline now where private property very unlikely you're going 1:34:38.320 --> 1:34:40.400 to get on it. Somebody's gotten to it before me 1:34:41.600 --> 1:34:44.720 an absentee landowner, a grouty landowner, or a hunt another 1:34:44.800 --> 1:34:46.880 hunter that's least it out. That's not that's not what 1:34:47.000 --> 1:34:49.280 I found is normal. So taking it back to normal 1:34:49.400 --> 1:34:52.200 is both wildlife populations and an a p R. Being 1:34:52.280 --> 1:34:55.400 like by the time you get there, the fences are gone, 1:34:56.160 --> 1:34:59.160 the keepout signs are gone, and there's a new sign 1:34:59.240 --> 1:35:01.840 and it says welcome into American Pury Reserve. And that's 1:35:01.880 --> 1:35:05.200 the interest to our private property. That makes sense, and 1:35:05.280 --> 1:35:07.760 you'll see that if you go. I think I think 1:35:07.800 --> 1:35:09.479 that if yeah, I think that that makes sense. I 1:35:09.520 --> 1:35:11.599 think that that would be that that's exciting to people. 1:35:12.120 --> 1:35:13.680 And I know like you have way a bit like 1:35:14.160 --> 1:35:17.599 you guys have a mission and you're driving towards the goal. 1:35:17.720 --> 1:35:20.960 And I don't expect it to be that. Um, I 1:35:21.040 --> 1:35:24.120 don't expect it to be that this is all meant 1:35:24.120 --> 1:35:28.240 to be in service of of humans, like you're doing 1:35:28.320 --> 1:35:33.960 something for wildlife and humans. I have. I have my 1:35:34.040 --> 1:35:37.280 backgrounds of psychology and sociology. I'm very interested in human beings. 1:35:38.040 --> 1:35:40.759 And I think as we pull further away from nature, 1:35:40.800 --> 1:35:43.439 you've probably seen Richard lose flash child in the woods, 1:35:43.479 --> 1:35:47.360 the nature deficit disorder idea. Adults have that disorder too, 1:35:47.840 --> 1:35:49.640 And I think sometimes it's just hard to where do 1:35:49.720 --> 1:35:52.880 I go where something big enough for full full ecology 1:35:53.640 --> 1:35:56.680 is happening. Uh. My wife and I we've probably been 1:35:57.240 --> 1:36:00.120 more thirty seven some lot of years to get there, 1:36:00.120 --> 1:36:02.760 have been to about almost forty different countries around the world. 1:36:03.240 --> 1:36:05.960 Were like diving. You get down on a coral reef, 1:36:06.000 --> 1:36:07.439 you know, you feel really small, but you can we 1:36:07.479 --> 1:36:09.880 see sharks comebine. But you get on a big coral 1:36:09.920 --> 1:36:12.680 reef and Panama or Honduras or somewhere, and you look 1:36:12.760 --> 1:36:15.200 at that and just go that's unbelievable. You're looking at 1:36:15.240 --> 1:36:17.680 the entire thing, how how it all works together, the 1:36:17.720 --> 1:36:21.400 plants and the animals, the little stuff, the big stuff, everything. 1:36:22.200 --> 1:36:25.640 And I think, unfortunately, from a trestle standpoint, what most 1:36:25.680 --> 1:36:28.280 people think about the outdoors when they drive around, uh, 1:36:28.400 --> 1:36:31.679 they see fences and cows or crops, which is cool. 1:36:31.760 --> 1:36:33.600 The nothing against that. We own a beef company, so 1:36:33.640 --> 1:36:37.560 I'm not against cattle, that's for sure. But I have 1:36:37.640 --> 1:36:43.920 a statistic here. This came from Natural Natural Agricultural Service statistics. 1:36:45.040 --> 1:36:51.759 You guys know how many acres are in montanae million acres? 1:36:52.840 --> 1:36:55.280 How many acres in agriculture ranching and farming on a 1:36:55.360 --> 1:36:59.920 nine three million, fifty nine million, fifty nine million acres 1:37:00.240 --> 1:37:04.479 at our ninety three is an egg that's of the 1:37:04.520 --> 1:37:08.240 surface of Montana's and agriculture. So I think normally, of course, 1:37:08.280 --> 1:37:10.599 when you go out there and drive around. That's mostly 1:37:10.640 --> 1:37:12.600 what you're gonna see. So I think, though there's a 1:37:12.720 --> 1:37:15.840 there's a coral reef like thing out there, to just 1:37:16.040 --> 1:37:19.120 be stunned by the beauty and be stunned by the 1:37:19.200 --> 1:37:23.719 diversity and the richness of wildlife and nature and bio diversity, 1:37:23.840 --> 1:37:25.960 just knock your socks off. I think it used to 1:37:26.040 --> 1:37:28.200 be like that. It can be again without putting a 1:37:28.439 --> 1:37:32.000 dent in the agricultural industry, not a dent or a 1:37:32.000 --> 1:37:34.639 worldfold supply anything else. So that's not to me. That's 1:37:34.640 --> 1:37:37.439 what's really exciting, and make it accessible to people. As 1:37:37.520 --> 1:37:40.759 far as as far as saving things permanently, the answer 1:37:41.000 --> 1:37:43.879 is yes, in due time. And you're taking a snapshot 1:37:43.960 --> 1:37:45.640 in time. You're looking at the first third of a 1:37:45.760 --> 1:37:49.160 really big construction project. So if I'm building a house 1:37:50.080 --> 1:37:53.120 and you know, the sheet rockers there and and there's 1:37:53.160 --> 1:37:55.880 no tapers lining the sheet rockers, framers and plumbers and 1:37:55.960 --> 1:37:58.040 concrete k lock and you walk in and say where 1:37:58.040 --> 1:38:00.040 do you want this couch? Say hang on, hang on, 1:38:00.120 --> 1:38:02.640 it's a total mess right now. I'll give me a 1:38:02.720 --> 1:38:04.800 couple of months and then I'll tell exactly where the 1:38:04.880 --> 1:38:07.760 couch is going to be permanently and forever, in perpetuity 1:38:07.840 --> 1:38:09.160 that you want to know where that couch is going 1:38:09.200 --> 1:38:11.439 to go. I don't know yet. I haven't even stood 1:38:11.439 --> 1:38:13.400 in the living room. The walls aren't up yet. So 1:38:13.479 --> 1:38:15.799 when you say, how come you're not putting permanent easements 1:38:15.800 --> 1:38:19.000 across your land right now, because we don't even understand 1:38:19.080 --> 1:38:21.920 the land. It's huge. The last property we bought is 1:38:21.960 --> 1:38:25.320 fifty two acres. That's our twenty nine one. Just to 1:38:25.400 --> 1:38:27.400 get to know that and how the wildlife moves around. 1:38:27.479 --> 1:38:29.360 How do we know where to put a permanent easement? 1:38:29.479 --> 1:38:33.040 Right now it's in block management. Go out and enjoy it. 1:38:33.479 --> 1:38:36.000 Ten twelve years from now, we'll know where we put 1:38:36.080 --> 1:38:40.599 something that sticks forever. One of the problems of conservation easements. 1:38:40.800 --> 1:38:44.040 I hate to say, but we'd be much more likely 1:38:44.080 --> 1:38:46.599 to put conservation easements where and I we have Montana 1:38:46.640 --> 1:38:48.800 landry lands easements. We're already starting to do something. Nobody 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:50.960 knows about that, but we're starting to put things in easements. 1:38:51.680 --> 1:38:54.000 You've got to be awfully careful. If you were able 1:38:54.040 --> 1:38:56.200 to sit down with the easman entity every ten years 1:38:56.240 --> 1:38:59.799 and say, how's it working. Could we shift the footprint 1:39:00.000 --> 1:39:02.680 of the building envelope over here, or we made a 1:39:02.720 --> 1:39:04.920 mistake on that road. It's too close to the creek bed, 1:39:05.000 --> 1:39:07.400 and it's really messing up the travel of this particular species. 1:39:07.439 --> 1:39:09.519 The frontwarmer don't like at their spoots or whatever. If 1:39:09.600 --> 1:39:11.200 we go up around this hill over here and then 1:39:11.240 --> 1:39:14.800 down this other side and they go, you had your chance. 1:39:15.080 --> 1:39:19.000 Never ever, ever is that discussable ever. So when I 1:39:19.080 --> 1:39:23.000 come from business, nothing in nature is like that. Nature evolves, 1:39:23.120 --> 1:39:28.200 it's adaptable, it's resilient, it's shucks and jives with new information. 1:39:28.640 --> 1:39:30.880 And I don't want to be trapped at this point 1:39:31.040 --> 1:39:34.599 into something that is never discussable again. No matter if 1:39:34.640 --> 1:39:38.640 you made a horrible mistake, you can't change it. So 1:39:38.800 --> 1:39:40.680 fish walking parks do the same thing. They want to 1:39:40.720 --> 1:39:43.520 put easements on we would like to we like FWP. 1:39:44.120 --> 1:39:47.680 I'm in the block management all that right now. They 1:39:47.720 --> 1:39:51.080 want to put rest rotation grazing on the private land. 1:39:51.080 --> 1:39:54.639 If they do conservation easements and rest rotation grazing, even 1:39:54.720 --> 1:39:57.160 the BOM is beginning to break open. And look at 1:39:57.160 --> 1:40:00.320 they have eleven experiments around the west right now taking 1:40:00.360 --> 1:40:04.320 a look at the change or evolution towards something called 1:40:04.520 --> 1:40:09.080 outcome based grazing management outcome based, so I can read 1:40:09.080 --> 1:40:10.280 to you what you want to hear. What that says. 1:40:11.439 --> 1:40:17.000 Outcome by based grazing emphasizes conservation performance, ecological, economic and 1:40:17.160 --> 1:40:21.280 social outcomes, and cooperative management of public lands. This will 1:40:21.320 --> 1:40:23.960 help demonstrate that permitted livestock grazing on public lands can 1:40:24.000 --> 1:40:27.080 operate under a less rigid framework than is commonly used 1:40:27.120 --> 1:40:30.400 in order to better reach agreed upon habitat and vegetation goals, 1:40:31.080 --> 1:40:34.559 shared conservation, stewardship of public lands while supporting you such 1:40:34.600 --> 1:40:37.519 as livestock grazing and other things. So what they're saying 1:40:37.680 --> 1:40:40.280 saying is, rather than forcing you to use a technique 1:40:40.360 --> 1:40:42.880 like rest rotation grazing, we're going to force you to 1:40:43.040 --> 1:40:47.200 nail the outcome good looking forage for you. Yes, you 1:40:47.240 --> 1:40:50.240 can extract, it's an extracting industry. Extracts some to go 1:40:50.280 --> 1:40:52.200 in your cow and raise the poundage. But there's gotta 1:40:52.200 --> 1:40:55.519 be left for wildlife, a lot left for wildlife. Shaggy 1:40:55.640 --> 1:40:59.160 mosaic of habitat not grow. You know. I love the 1:40:59.200 --> 1:41:02.720 outdome outcome outcome based grazing idea that the BM is 1:41:02.800 --> 1:41:05.719 now spearheading. That's really cool. I think it's very smart. 1:41:05.800 --> 1:41:10.120 They're experimenting and adapting rather than saying rest rotation forever, 1:41:10.400 --> 1:41:12.720 even five years from now, rest rotation at the b 1:41:12.840 --> 1:41:15.840 all end all no innovation possible. I don't think that's 1:41:15.880 --> 1:41:17.400 a good way to look. So we're gonna be pretty 1:41:17.400 --> 1:41:20.040 slow and f VP easements if we have to put 1:41:20.080 --> 1:41:22.240 in rest rotation. Not that we don't like the ftervup, 1:41:22.479 --> 1:41:25.640 but they're forcing a technique. I often use the analogy 1:41:25.800 --> 1:41:27.679 is I like a lot of history books. I'm reading 1:41:27.720 --> 1:41:32.960 one right now. But ships in the in the lates undreds, 1:41:33.560 --> 1:41:36.519 and these Spanish course airs and the privateers, they got 1:41:36.600 --> 1:41:38.559 these boats to chase down the big boats that were 1:41:38.640 --> 1:41:40.559 laiden with all kinds of products, and they just they 1:41:40.600 --> 1:41:42.880 couldn't carry as much, but they're super fast. Well they 1:41:42.960 --> 1:41:45.920 set up the sales and everything. Uh French, I'm sorry, 1:41:45.920 --> 1:41:48.320 French course airs, and they catch all the they catch 1:41:48.400 --> 1:41:51.599 these ships, and they would their ship couldn't one ship, 1:41:51.640 --> 1:41:53.320 couldn't take at all, but they brought three. But they're 1:41:53.320 --> 1:41:55.800 really fast, chase them down, take all their stuff and 1:41:55.880 --> 1:41:59.320 then leave with it. And it was well known technique. 1:42:00.080 --> 1:42:02.080 And the people who are hauling stuffs, So how do 1:42:02.120 --> 1:42:04.400 you how do you beat that ship, and we could 1:42:04.400 --> 1:42:07.320 have said, right, there is the Spanish. The French coursairs 1:42:07.400 --> 1:42:11.320 are so fast that that's the end of the shipping innovation. 1:42:11.720 --> 1:42:13.960 Let's just go with those forevermore. This is what the 1:42:14.000 --> 1:42:18.840 French nable use his coursair's sailing ships right forever. We'll 1:42:18.880 --> 1:42:20.840 try to run one of those in the America's Cup today, 1:42:21.120 --> 1:42:23.160 I'm not gonna do very well. Right, And the idea 1:42:23.160 --> 1:42:26.759 of rest rotation being and I've talked with Alan Savory 1:42:26.880 --> 1:42:29.400 over email. He knows about our project, likes our project, 1:42:30.360 --> 1:42:33.400 our rust Horn maze. Idea of rest rotation great for 1:42:33.479 --> 1:42:36.360 the time, but there's probably gonna be given a hundred years. 1:42:37.200 --> 1:42:39.680 I bet it will evolve. And locking down on this 1:42:39.880 --> 1:42:41.880 now as the best and we can quit thinking about 1:42:41.920 --> 1:42:44.960 there's no innovation necessary. I think it's the right way 1:42:44.960 --> 1:42:48.439 to go. So we're gonna be slow on Easeman's because 1:42:48.479 --> 1:42:51.920 Eastman's are forever. We'll we'll protect it, but just give 1:42:51.960 --> 1:42:53.519 us some time to get to know our land so 1:42:53.600 --> 1:42:55.240 we know what we're doing. Let me ask you about 1:42:55.240 --> 1:42:57.800 another manage that makes sense, It makes perfect sense. I 1:42:57.840 --> 1:43:00.679 want to ask about another management obstacle I could foresee 1:43:00.800 --> 1:43:06.880 and how you picture this um when you get the 1:43:07.400 --> 1:43:09.840 If you build a contiguous block and it's a lot 1:43:09.920 --> 1:43:13.240 of mixed ownership, there's gonna be federal lands, state lands, 1:43:13.439 --> 1:43:18.200 privately held lands, tribal lands, and block, it's gonna be 1:43:18.280 --> 1:43:22.760 really hard to get everyone on the same page in 1:43:22.920 --> 1:43:26.160 terms of management. Meaning there are places right now where, 1:43:27.040 --> 1:43:30.680 for instance, like bison, what you imagine functioning as wildlife, 1:43:31.240 --> 1:43:35.640 but in this state they fall into the domain of 1:43:36.160 --> 1:43:38.960 the Department of Livestock under a lot of situations. So 1:43:39.640 --> 1:43:42.360 you know, what is the calm? What is the conversations 1:43:42.400 --> 1:43:45.760 you're having with federal land managers if you look toward 1:43:45.840 --> 1:43:48.360 the future, what are the conversations where you're saying, we 1:43:48.400 --> 1:43:51.559 want to look like this, and we want the chunks 1:43:51.640 --> 1:43:57.400 that are under your administration to assist this. But it 1:43:57.479 --> 1:44:01.240 seems that you're gonna have these internal, very hard borders 1:44:01.920 --> 1:44:08.519 where management goals, management practices are anything but unified. Yeah, 1:44:08.960 --> 1:44:11.800 it's a good concern, but I feel just the opposite. 1:44:12.000 --> 1:44:18.519 I'm quite optimistic about being able to come to a 1:44:20.240 --> 1:44:23.599 shared set of practices. We're never going to own the BLM. 1:44:23.720 --> 1:44:25.680 They own that and run that. We're never going to 1:44:25.720 --> 1:44:29.040 manage the public's wildlife. That's FWP. I'm not going to 1:44:29.120 --> 1:44:33.679 own or run the state lands. But uh an example 1:44:34.000 --> 1:44:37.759 sun prairie on your map there, that's about uh twenty 1:44:39.040 --> 1:44:41.439 thousand acres shrines, So you're up into a nearly forty 1:44:41.479 --> 1:44:44.040 square miles of land. It's big. A lot of bison 1:44:44.120 --> 1:44:46.120 on there. So what we have when we first got 1:44:46.160 --> 1:44:49.040 there there was miles and miles across fencing fencing out 1:44:49.080 --> 1:44:51.439 the state sections and the BLM pieces which is the 1:44:51.520 --> 1:44:55.240 light blue on that map. Dr the BLM. They go, 1:44:55.320 --> 1:44:56.720 what do you want to do? We said, well, this 1:44:56.840 --> 1:44:58.920 is different where we would like to take a cattle 1:44:58.960 --> 1:45:00.800 off and put bison on and and we'd like you 1:45:00.880 --> 1:45:04.080 a round grazing, and we'd like to have no interior fences. 1:45:04.360 --> 1:45:06.320 And we showed them lots and lots of science papers 1:45:07.439 --> 1:45:12.599 to about how bison can mostly rotate themselves, and um 1:45:13.240 --> 1:45:16.240 that we will at that time. It wasn't at that time, 1:45:16.280 --> 1:45:18.599 it is many years ago. We said, we will. Can 1:45:18.640 --> 1:45:21.280 you test, can you judge us on outcomes? Come down 1:45:21.320 --> 1:45:23.120 and take a look at the habitat after we've been 1:45:23.160 --> 1:45:25.200 there for a few years. First we asked them, what 1:45:25.240 --> 1:45:27.760 do you want this to look like? Which sometimes a 1:45:27.800 --> 1:45:30.160 lot of Landers don't do. We invited the blom who said, 1:45:30.200 --> 1:45:31.479 take a look at this. Tell us what you want 1:45:31.560 --> 1:45:33.960 to what you want us to look like. I'd like 1:45:34.080 --> 1:45:37.000 this little taller. These fours are pretty, forbes are pretty 1:45:37.040 --> 1:45:40.080 hammered um. I'd like to have this looking like this, 1:45:40.240 --> 1:45:43.160 et cetera. Plant diversity. Plant. Hete things like that, and 1:45:43.400 --> 1:45:45.479 some hit hard, some not so hard because they're big 1:45:45.520 --> 1:45:48.599 in the grassland birds as they should be in different habitat. 1:45:49.280 --> 1:45:51.639 So we started with outcome based grazing and two thousand 1:45:51.640 --> 1:45:54.600 and five with our first property. Eventually they said, you know, 1:45:54.720 --> 1:45:56.320 you guys seem to know what you're doing. They let 1:45:56.400 --> 1:45:58.919 us take down the fences between our private and our bom. 1:46:00.080 --> 1:46:01.720 Later the state did the same thing. We took down 1:46:01.760 --> 1:46:04.840 the fences between those two entities in the state and 1:46:04.960 --> 1:46:08.280 we have two or three state sections inside there. If 1:46:08.320 --> 1:46:10.320 you go to Sun Prairie and Earth, I think, Steve, 1:46:10.360 --> 1:46:13.400 what you'll see is a example of the future. You 1:46:13.479 --> 1:46:16.439 go out there, you see first, you see you species, 1:46:16.479 --> 1:46:19.160 You see elk, and you see some We don't have 1:46:19.280 --> 1:46:22.639 very many prong horn. They're starting to come back. Mule deer, 1:46:23.360 --> 1:46:25.360 a little bit of white tail not not usually on there, 1:46:25.920 --> 1:46:30.000 and bison and those animals walk across b OM and 1:46:30.080 --> 1:46:32.600 then State and then private and there's no fences. They 1:46:32.640 --> 1:46:35.000 have no idea who they are. What's really cool, we 1:46:35.080 --> 1:46:37.160 have a campground out there as full ail counters right now, 1:46:37.720 --> 1:46:39.559 right in the middle of sun prairie where you're looking 1:46:39.600 --> 1:46:42.720 at the hunters. Also they know where they are, but 1:46:42.800 --> 1:46:44.960 there's no indicate, there's no signs, and there's no fences. 1:46:45.040 --> 1:46:48.000 They walk across unimpeded, across the landscape. They're going private 1:46:48.080 --> 1:46:50.960 to BLM to state to private. It all looks and 1:46:51.040 --> 1:46:54.120 feels the same. That's a big area that's half the 1:46:54.160 --> 1:46:56.720 size of the entire Gallton Valley here. So that's a 1:46:56.840 --> 1:47:00.680 microcosm of the future. We've done it once. All I 1:47:00.720 --> 1:47:02.880 gotta do is scale that up. It can happen. And 1:47:02.960 --> 1:47:05.600 the agencies are particularly the on the ground people have 1:47:05.680 --> 1:47:08.320 to vp real good to work with. We don't see 1:47:08.360 --> 1:47:10.640 eye to eye on everything, No way, we don't. They 1:47:10.680 --> 1:47:17.280 don't want to move as fast as us um with 1:47:17.680 --> 1:47:20.360 ficial walking parks. One is the oil. One is the 1:47:20.400 --> 1:47:22.280 need for rest rotation grazing. Do we really have to 1:47:22.360 --> 1:47:25.960 do that? Okay? One is necessary then amount of hunter 1:47:26.080 --> 1:47:29.320 days if we do a conservation easement. Uh So the 1:47:29.360 --> 1:47:31.040 ease ments we're hav a little bit difficulty right now 1:47:31.080 --> 1:47:33.519 because we put a conservation easement, they'll say, we want 1:47:33.520 --> 1:47:36.160 a thousand hunter days on that piece of property. Well, 1:47:36.200 --> 1:47:38.400 a thousand hundred days right now is okay. But what 1:47:38.520 --> 1:47:41.160 if we're down to only this many big horns? How 1:47:41.200 --> 1:47:44.200 do we control that later on or there on our 1:47:44.240 --> 1:47:46.040 private property? What if it starts to get out of 1:47:46.040 --> 1:47:48.040 control in terms of people driving off road and things 1:47:48.120 --> 1:47:52.479 like that. It's, uh, this is never discussable again, right, 1:47:52.680 --> 1:47:55.040 So we're gonna go slow on that. But in terms 1:47:55.160 --> 1:48:00.960 of strike agreements every year, however, well, we're we inherited 1:48:01.080 --> 1:48:05.920 some purchase properties that already had F. TOBP. Easeman on them, 1:48:06.280 --> 1:48:09.120 and some of the part, some parts, some aspects of 1:48:09.160 --> 1:48:14.000 the Easeman's feel too draconian to us and unchangeable and undiscussable. 1:48:14.640 --> 1:48:16.840 So we're gonna wait a little while before we do 1:48:16.920 --> 1:48:19.160 more until we're absolutely certain that a thousand hundred days 1:48:19.200 --> 1:48:22.559 of the right or number seven or twelve or whatever else. 1:48:22.760 --> 1:48:26.519 We gotta get to know the properties. So what we 1:48:26.600 --> 1:48:28.560 do agree on lots of things like we'd like to 1:48:28.640 --> 1:48:32.519 have um more of certain critters prong worn whatever it 1:48:32.600 --> 1:48:35.640 might be, and working on prong oar and studies right 1:48:35.680 --> 1:48:38.920 now are engaged collaborating with them on the possibility of 1:48:39.000 --> 1:48:43.840 reintroduction of possibility of re introduction of swift fox. Uh. 1:48:43.880 --> 1:48:45.920 They have an interest, We have an interest. It's all 1:48:45.920 --> 1:48:48.280 about timing. Let's guy seem like an easy win because 1:48:48.280 --> 1:48:50.639 I can't believe there's a big anti swift fox lobby. 1:48:51.479 --> 1:48:56.439 You never know they might buy. They're about that big. Yeah, 1:48:57.640 --> 1:49:00.360 that's like pretty cuddly man. No one's gonna get pissed. 1:49:00.560 --> 1:49:02.240 No one's because most people are never gonna know they're 1:49:02.240 --> 1:49:08.360 there anyway, right, And they're nocturnals maybe prairie dog shooters, Yeah, 1:49:08.400 --> 1:49:10.240 but they but they will tell you that there's too 1:49:10.280 --> 1:49:12.600 many prairie dogs. They'll be glad to have the assistance. 1:49:12.680 --> 1:49:14.519 So fox don't eat prairie dogs. They eat bugs and 1:49:14.520 --> 1:49:17.360 grasshoppers and stuff like. Don't need dogs. Praye dogs are 1:49:17.360 --> 1:49:20.439 bigg than they are. We We we pounded in the 1:49:20.479 --> 1:49:23.560 one down in uh in Mexico that the winter. So 1:49:24.120 --> 1:49:25.479 I think so, I think, I think that I think 1:49:25.479 --> 1:49:27.840 the important thing bom the range cons the on the 1:49:27.880 --> 1:49:32.639 ground ft EP guys. Um uh, we're interested in for instance, 1:49:32.680 --> 1:49:34.000 you know, I really want to get to before you, 1:49:34.080 --> 1:49:35.360 so don't end us till I get to this. It's 1:49:35.400 --> 1:49:39.360 really important how I see hunters and what hunters can do. Um, 1:49:39.720 --> 1:49:42.160 that's putters that might trust us in our long term visions. 1:49:42.200 --> 1:49:44.320 Well hunters can do at the A p r H 1:49:44.400 --> 1:49:46.600 in Montana. I think I think you know, being in 1:49:46.720 --> 1:49:50.679 hunting and the sixties and seventies as you know, definitely 1:49:50.720 --> 1:49:52.040 big in the hunting member of the n r A, 1:49:52.120 --> 1:49:54.360 all that kind of stuff is just living in hunting 1:49:54.400 --> 1:49:56.920 camps and sting. But I think hunters are making some 1:49:57.000 --> 1:50:00.600 mistakes now that are hindering were things they want to 1:50:00.640 --> 1:50:03.719 go uh in this state, whether it's access or population 1:50:03.800 --> 1:50:06.120 numbers or whatever else it might be. So let me 1:50:06.200 --> 1:50:07.880 know when you want to get into that. So ahead, 1:50:08.120 --> 1:50:09.640 how much time we have? How much time we got 1:50:10.120 --> 1:50:11.760 get time to do all that? Well, I got a 1:50:11.800 --> 1:50:14.920 lot of questions, A lot of questions. Can we jump 1:50:14.960 --> 1:50:18.400 back to the relationship with f WP, So I think 1:50:18.439 --> 1:50:20.680 we missed a big one is where he has at 1:50:20.760 --> 1:50:24.200 on the bison conversation right, because we got wild bison 1:50:24.640 --> 1:50:27.720 and we got live stock. You guys have bison has 1:50:27.800 --> 1:50:32.120 livestock right now? Correct, and you man and you're that 1:50:32.560 --> 1:50:36.400 there's some benefits to that, um, But long term goal 1:50:36.600 --> 1:50:39.800 is bison has wildlife. So can you comment on like 1:50:39.960 --> 1:50:43.400 where I'm assuming right that that is the long term 1:50:43.560 --> 1:50:46.720 term goal? Correct? Yeah, I as we get a lot 1:50:46.720 --> 1:50:48.560 of bison right now, about eight hundred or so, and 1:50:48.640 --> 1:50:50.200 we're on a floor. We have to flatline him now 1:50:50.200 --> 1:50:52.320 because we're waiting for our next approval of the next 1:50:52.360 --> 1:50:54.559 piece of property where we can go out like some prairie. 1:50:55.160 --> 1:50:57.880 So we're in phase going around this block again to 1:50:57.960 --> 1:50:59.600 where we are allowed to put bison out on the 1:50:59.640 --> 1:51:01.800 bl So we have to hold but that that'll take 1:51:01.840 --> 1:51:04.560 off at some point. I can't predict when when you 1:51:04.640 --> 1:51:07.439 get approval for our environmental assessment and we go, um, 1:51:07.600 --> 1:51:10.360 but I think that's one thing like earlier you hit 1:51:10.400 --> 1:51:14.320 on it. Well, like yeah, to satisfy um, the grazing 1:51:14.520 --> 1:51:19.560 piece of this BLM least we turn that over. We 1:51:19.640 --> 1:51:21.760 turned cattle off and we turned bison on, and then 1:51:21.800 --> 1:51:26.680 a lot of people are probably like, well, bison's wild animal, right, Yeah, Well, 1:51:26.720 --> 1:51:29.920 in this case you get us satisfy the least. But 1:51:30.600 --> 1:51:34.280 turning bison has livestock onto that lease. So bison have, 1:51:34.400 --> 1:51:37.760 as you know, a very funny dual citizenship status in 1:51:37.880 --> 1:51:43.439 Montana ours. There's nothing, um confusing about it. They are livestock. 1:51:44.160 --> 1:51:46.479 We pay a livestock fee about four dollars and twenty 1:51:46.520 --> 1:51:48.479 cents a year on every single animal, just like you pay. 1:51:48.520 --> 1:51:50.840 You pay like fifty on a cow for twenty or 1:51:50.840 --> 1:51:55.040 whatever on a bison. Um, they are a livestock animal 1:51:55.439 --> 1:51:59.280 on paper, meaning you pay the BLM just as listeners understand, 1:51:59.439 --> 1:52:02.559 you pay the BLM a fee to be able allowed 1:52:02.600 --> 1:52:05.200 to run your livestock on BLM land, same way a 1:52:05.200 --> 1:52:08.040 cattle ranchement buck sixty for a cow calf, just like 1:52:08.280 --> 1:52:12.760 exact same prices account, exact same price account yep. And 1:52:13.040 --> 1:52:14.439 the other thing I was just talking about was the 1:52:14.479 --> 1:52:17.120 Department of Livestock fee. There's a lot of fees associated 1:52:17.160 --> 1:52:20.680 with having livestock to different entities, so we pay exact 1:52:20.720 --> 1:52:24.160 same as cows. In some cases more. Department Livestock charges 1:52:24.200 --> 1:52:26.120 for some reason, more for a bison than for a cow. 1:52:27.640 --> 1:52:31.920 Uh So right now, I foresee for quite some time 1:52:32.040 --> 1:52:33.639 because as you take a look at trends, I want 1:52:33.680 --> 1:52:35.160 to get back to some of that the trends. You 1:52:35.200 --> 1:52:38.000 look at the trend of bison on the way to 1:52:38.080 --> 1:52:41.639 becoming wildlife. I think it will eventually happen down the road, 1:52:41.840 --> 1:52:43.880 but it's not happening very fast. So I think our 1:52:44.280 --> 1:52:47.000 our bison are going to be livestock for quite some 1:52:47.200 --> 1:52:49.800 time to come on. Perfect okay with that, probably beyond 1:52:49.880 --> 1:52:54.320 my career lifetime. I'm guessing, is there anything good? I 1:52:54.360 --> 1:52:56.559 think the way I look at it, you know, are 1:52:56.600 --> 1:52:59.800 we gonna try to ram it through somehow? I think 1:53:00.240 --> 1:53:01.800 the way I look at it back to we started 1:53:01.840 --> 1:53:04.920 the podcast with um looking at females. Let's go back 1:53:04.960 --> 1:53:07.840 to females, and funny, Michelle just raised her hand. I 1:53:07.880 --> 1:53:11.120 think I look at it like women's suffrage. And it 1:53:11.240 --> 1:53:13.760 was in the late eighteen forties and this big meeting 1:53:13.800 --> 1:53:15.320 in Seneca, New York, where they all of a sudden 1:53:15.320 --> 1:53:19.439 they realized women should have the right to vote. Susan B. 1:53:19.520 --> 1:53:22.440 Anthony and a bunch of other folks started different organizations 1:53:22.479 --> 1:53:24.200 and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and push. 1:53:24.720 --> 1:53:28.120 But that that that first seminal meeting where they got 1:53:28.120 --> 1:53:29.920 the epiphany the women should have the right to vote 1:53:30.000 --> 1:53:31.800 was in Lady eighteen forties and Seneca in New York. 1:53:32.360 --> 1:53:34.040 And you know when they got the right to vote. 1:53:36.400 --> 1:53:38.519 I mean, how obvious is that's when all those guys 1:53:38.600 --> 1:53:41.240 got together and decided to give them next Some of you, well, 1:53:41.280 --> 1:53:43.760 it's about time. Maybe even some of this we think 1:53:43.800 --> 1:53:45.559 that was a big mistake that they ever got who knows, 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:48.519 but but you know that took. Think how long that 1:53:48.640 --> 1:53:53.160 took and how obvious that is. I think Poles keep saying, 1:53:53.320 --> 1:53:55.760 I don't know, a little over sixty in Montana, it's 1:53:55.800 --> 1:53:58.639 like to see wild bison in Montana. That's one indicator 1:53:58.760 --> 1:54:01.599 of a trend. They just became our national mammal. That's 1:54:01.600 --> 1:54:05.799 another indicator of a trend. Remember that, Uh, every animal 1:54:05.920 --> 1:54:08.200 moves creusily bear, you just name, it, goes anywhere it 1:54:08.240 --> 1:54:12.160 wants in Montana except for one who's who's our national mammal? 1:54:12.200 --> 1:54:14.200 And city of the people in Montana. Every time you 1:54:14.280 --> 1:54:17.599 pull more people want to But look at women's suffrage 1:54:18.439 --> 1:54:21.160 seventy years to get the right to vote. After people 1:54:21.240 --> 1:54:22.920 realize it was the right thing to do, and that 1:54:23.040 --> 1:54:24.880 was and a lot of people even in ninety were 1:54:24.920 --> 1:54:27.880 still upset that it happened. And I think bison. I 1:54:27.960 --> 1:54:31.080 don't know it could you know, sometimes historic inevitability, whether 1:54:31.160 --> 1:54:35.280 it's legalized marijuana, gay marriage, right to vote, bison and 1:54:35.400 --> 1:54:39.040 Montana can take a long, long, long time. What waste? 1:54:39.040 --> 1:54:41.120 What was your question, Michelle? He kind of answered it. 1:54:41.120 --> 1:54:43.760 I was gonna say, beyond social tolerance and acceptability of 1:54:43.840 --> 1:54:47.240 this animal, what other factors do you think are inhibiting 1:54:47.320 --> 1:54:52.040 that acceptance? I think at different times, like inn the 1:54:52.080 --> 1:54:54.640 women's suffrage example, at different snapshots in time along that 1:54:54.880 --> 1:54:58.800 continuum until uh, it actually occurs and you tip over 1:54:58.880 --> 1:55:01.720 the edge and it's there. I think at the moment 1:55:01.760 --> 1:55:03.160 we're sitting in right now, which is kind of the 1:55:03.240 --> 1:55:06.600 only thing I can live with because it's today, is 1:55:06.760 --> 1:55:09.040 lack of understanding of the animal itself because it's been 1:55:09.080 --> 1:55:15.440 gone for so long. So the people that are most afraid, concerned, UM, skeptical, 1:55:15.560 --> 1:55:20.880 whatever it might be. UM. I find the there's a correlation. 1:55:21.560 --> 1:55:24.280 The people that have the most vehemence against it have 1:55:24.440 --> 1:55:27.720 had the least experience with the animal. Our direct neighbors 1:55:27.760 --> 1:55:30.040 who see them all the time across the fence. Here's 1:55:30.080 --> 1:55:32.200 our cows, and there's our bison, hundreds and hundreds of bis, 1:55:32.240 --> 1:55:33.720 and even watching them on the runt. When they're really 1:55:33.760 --> 1:55:36.760 going at it, they go, not a big deal, because 1:55:36.800 --> 1:55:40.480 they've been desensitized. They know us, and they know the 1:55:40.520 --> 1:55:43.080 bison because they see him all the time. The people 1:55:43.160 --> 1:55:45.440 that are most hot about it. The further your weight 1:55:45.520 --> 1:55:47.720 get away from our bison, the more people get upset 1:55:47.760 --> 1:55:50.480 and start seeing those signs, those huge green signs that 1:55:50.560 --> 1:55:53.640 say don't buffalo me. Yeah, there's all kinds of signs. 1:55:54.640 --> 1:55:58.080 So but I ask you a question, Michelle. At the moment, 1:55:58.160 --> 1:56:00.160 it's just lack of understanding because it's been gone so 1:56:00.280 --> 1:56:05.440 long that, yeah, you also have there's like this there's 1:56:05.480 --> 1:56:09.960 this big sort of theoretical debate about them where it's 1:56:10.000 --> 1:56:13.200 like clashing worldviews, but the debate will get hung up 1:56:13.280 --> 1:56:17.720 on there's details along the way, you know, like like 1:56:17.920 --> 1:56:20.680 with like in Yellowstone, there's kind of like we're sort 1:56:20.680 --> 1:56:22.839 of in this this debate about like what is this animal, 1:56:22.880 --> 1:56:26.240 what's our relationship to it? Is it wildlife? Is it livestock? 1:56:26.600 --> 1:56:29.240 But then the debate gets hung up on like a 1:56:29.400 --> 1:56:33.640 snag like brucellosis, right, and brucellois Like this this disease, 1:56:33.920 --> 1:56:36.560 the disease spread issue. It winds up being that you 1:56:36.640 --> 1:56:41.000 can avoid the big conversation about where we headed as 1:56:41.040 --> 1:56:45.200 a people, what is that relationship with wildlife and native 1:56:46.120 --> 1:56:48.600 flora and fauna. And you go like, well, yeah, but 1:56:48.800 --> 1:56:51.400 you know, let's let's hang it up on brucellosis for 1:56:51.440 --> 1:56:54.080 a minute. And I think that will always there will 1:56:54.120 --> 1:56:58.040 always be a thing of the day where the debate 1:56:58.120 --> 1:57:01.640 centers around that. You know, there's and you know, and 1:57:02.200 --> 1:57:03.800 that's probably not even issue because you guys probably have 1:57:03.840 --> 1:57:07.160 quarantined disease free. We do. In the early two thousand's 1:57:07.280 --> 1:57:08.920 that was a really big one of the bruce loosis. 1:57:09.040 --> 1:57:10.800 But then we sat down with a lat of rancher 1:57:10.840 --> 1:57:13.040 groups sometimes you know, fifty at a time and circle 1:57:13.080 --> 1:57:16.600 of chairs and Second Creek Hall and Phillips County and 1:57:16.800 --> 1:57:18.800 US and they say, tell us what you're doing and 1:57:19.040 --> 1:57:23.760 they ask really good questions, um, and we said, here's 1:57:23.800 --> 1:57:27.320 how we do it. We at the source when Cave 1:57:27.520 --> 1:57:31.200 National Park, that the time alkhala Ash. We we do 1:57:31.360 --> 1:57:34.560 all twenty diseases, reportable diseases about the department livestock, not 1:57:34.680 --> 1:57:36.720 just bruce loosis. Make sure they don't have it. As 1:57:36.760 --> 1:57:40.600 they load up, they get TB tuberculosis checked on both sides, 1:57:40.600 --> 1:57:43.120 of the border, just a law. So they have to 1:57:43.160 --> 1:57:45.000 be quarantined here, but it's for t b When they 1:57:45.040 --> 1:57:46.640 get here, they sit for a couple of months, then 1:57:46.680 --> 1:57:50.280 they go out onto the landscape. We also do testing, 1:57:51.320 --> 1:57:54.800 random testing, knock them down with tranquilizer, darts, take care 1:57:54.840 --> 1:57:56.680 and blood samples, send that in so we get a 1:57:56.720 --> 1:58:00.040 report every year how the herd health is doing. A 1:58:00.040 --> 1:58:03.000 lot of people don't test that much. Uh so, and 1:58:03.080 --> 1:58:05.920 those tests are available to anybody who wants them. Ranchers 1:58:05.920 --> 1:58:07.560 want a hard copy, just come over. We'll give you 1:58:07.560 --> 1:58:09.760 a hard copy. We'll show you exactly what got back. 1:58:09.880 --> 1:58:13.240 So completely open book and transparent on that. So the 1:58:13.360 --> 1:58:15.400 Bruce loisis actually it pops up a little bit here 1:58:15.440 --> 1:58:19.040 and there, but since really after two thousand and ten, 1:58:19.080 --> 1:58:21.760 two thousand eleven, it's really tapered off to that's gone 1:58:22.040 --> 1:58:23.760 for the most part. A little bit here and there, 1:58:23.800 --> 1:58:28.760 but mostly it's gone. And now the the idea of 1:58:28.840 --> 1:58:31.120 wild bison and what they will do to us and 1:58:31.400 --> 1:58:34.640 damaging property, and that's say like then it becomes you 1:58:34.680 --> 1:58:37.120 get my point, there will always be another thing, and 1:58:37.200 --> 1:58:40.320 so then it's like, well the integrity offenses, Yeah, that's 1:58:40.480 --> 1:58:42.720 really what's at issue for me is the integrity offenses. 1:58:43.280 --> 1:58:45.880 And now we'll talk about that for a long time. 1:58:46.040 --> 1:58:48.400 Bison crash are you know bison crash fenches and we'll 1:58:48.400 --> 1:58:50.760 say fish wealving parks one of the best things they've done. First, 1:58:50.800 --> 1:58:53.360 a lot of good things they do. It's a good organization. 1:58:53.400 --> 1:58:55.720 They helped us design the most wildlife friendly of fence 1:58:55.760 --> 1:58:58.640 we could possibly imagine wildlife and people friendly fence. So 1:58:58.720 --> 1:59:00.440 it's forty four inches at the top up so i'll 1:59:00.480 --> 1:59:02.760 can sail over. We've got a lot of cameras that 1:59:02.800 --> 1:59:05.800 show elk sailing over prong horn underneath eighteen inches off 1:59:05.800 --> 1:59:07.240 the deck, off the bottom, and so the prong warm 1:59:07.280 --> 1:59:08.960 can hit it at some pretty good speed. They don't 1:59:08.960 --> 1:59:10.160 have to go back and forth and back and forth. 1:59:10.880 --> 1:59:12.840 And then there's one hot wire. Bison don't like that 1:59:12.920 --> 1:59:16.160 hot wire all solar paneled or it's all solar powered 1:59:16.200 --> 1:59:18.640 and one on a quarter mile increments so the whole 1:59:18.640 --> 1:59:21.760 fans doesn't go down. But you watch wildlife, we want 1:59:21.800 --> 1:59:24.200 to make it like gortex sort of. All wildlife can 1:59:24.240 --> 1:59:26.480 go back and forth. Better stop the bison. That's a trick. 1:59:26.840 --> 1:59:29.440 That is a trick as amazing to watch these cameras 1:59:29.480 --> 1:59:33.200 and a five point boilock lazy as judgmental, but all 1:59:33.240 --> 1:59:35.120 the other up over. He sticks his head through the 1:59:35.200 --> 1:59:38.600 fourth and fifth wire, just jams through that wire and 1:59:39.240 --> 1:59:41.080 the camera shaking over the place. But he's rubbing that 1:59:41.160 --> 1:59:43.760 hot wire and his belly couldn't care less nothing that 1:59:43.840 --> 1:59:46.240 nothing bothered bother about that heat. That hot wires with 1:59:46.320 --> 1:59:48.200 the bison. They don't like it, so they back off, 1:59:48.920 --> 1:59:51.680 they stay away. So we use one hot wire to 1:59:51.920 --> 1:59:53.800 keep them where they are. The other thing we use 1:59:54.040 --> 1:59:57.280 is tons of water and amazing forage. They're happy at home. 1:59:57.760 --> 2:00:00.280 When you're happy at home, there's not a I sure 2:00:00.320 --> 2:00:03.520 to go in that direction. So yeah, some people talk 2:00:03.520 --> 2:00:05.280 about fences, but then we show them our fences and 2:00:05.320 --> 2:00:08.120 they go, wow, that actually keeps them in. And we 2:00:08.240 --> 2:00:11.360 got more than a decade and hundreds of ice and 2:00:11.440 --> 2:00:14.480 experience behind us that we know what we're doing. So 2:00:14.600 --> 2:00:16.680 you don't. You don't have an epidemic of escape. Ees 2:00:18.000 --> 2:00:20.360 get a lot of cows on our on our property. 2:00:20.400 --> 2:00:21.880 But that's how it is out there, and you call 2:00:22.000 --> 2:00:25.440 somebody to go, I think these are your cows. Because 2:00:25.480 --> 2:00:27.800 the people on that side have salmon tools and you 2:00:27.880 --> 2:00:30.480 have angers. These are definitely black. Do you want us 2:00:30.520 --> 2:00:32.040 to put them in a crill and say no? Can 2:00:32.080 --> 2:00:33.680 you hold until next week? And that's just how it 2:00:33.760 --> 2:00:36.240 is out there, you know, particularly bulls, they get to 2:00:36.320 --> 2:00:37.840 fight and push through a fence and then they start 2:00:37.920 --> 2:00:40.000 walking down a ditch and just going on walk about 2:00:40.120 --> 2:00:46.480 and everybody's pretty pretty easy going. Yeah about cows. Um, 2:00:46.920 --> 2:00:51.480 you had a lot of questions. Yes, I'm good, I'm done, 2:00:51.920 --> 2:00:54.320 all right. I mean I got questions that I still have. 2:00:54.560 --> 2:00:59.280 I want to talk about hunters if I don't know 2:00:59.280 --> 2:01:00.320 if you guys are into hun but I want to 2:01:00.320 --> 2:01:02.800 talk about you. I got deep Montana roots, just as 2:01:02.840 --> 2:01:04.840 it sounds like you do. And I was doing a 2:01:04.880 --> 2:01:07.520 lot of digging on you guys are gonna out Montana 2:01:07.560 --> 2:01:10.040 each other? Now? No, no, are you older than me? 2:01:11.360 --> 2:01:17.840 Um uh. But it's like a lot of the core 2:01:18.120 --> 2:01:23.120 arguments against APR are can kind of be summed up 2:01:23.160 --> 2:01:25.880 like this, right. So one thing that I got from 2:01:25.960 --> 2:01:30.040 multiple folks is like, oh yeah, Sean Garrity he uh, 2:01:30.200 --> 2:01:34.240 he's a real smooth talker. Where's tight jeans and slip 2:01:34.320 --> 2:01:38.840 on shoes? Okay? Um? Which I think is hilarious, right 2:01:38.960 --> 2:01:44.960 because every rancher in eastern Montana. They were pretty tight 2:01:45.080 --> 2:01:48.480 jeans and slip on shoes. They're just called cowboy boots, right, um. 2:01:48.800 --> 2:01:50.560 And that's how like a lot of these arguments are 2:01:50.640 --> 2:01:55.280 like driving up land property values. Um. But to me, 2:01:56.240 --> 2:01:59.000 and we talked about it a bunch and use this 2:01:59.120 --> 2:02:01.760 word access in the beginning of this thing. We we 2:02:01.920 --> 2:02:04.839 hit it pretty good. But you know, like our Secretary 2:02:04.840 --> 2:02:07.480 of the Interior at one point he was trying to 2:02:07.600 --> 2:02:10.600 hijack the word access as a place where you can 2:02:10.680 --> 2:02:13.360 drive your r V and hook it up to power 2:02:13.440 --> 2:02:16.640 and water. Right that that's not the access that you 2:02:16.720 --> 2:02:21.280 and your dad enjoyed on the Rocky Mountain front, Bob Marshall, Right, um, 2:02:22.600 --> 2:02:27.360 And so I know a lot of folks, myself included, 2:02:27.440 --> 2:02:31.800 is like there there's a hole here that I think 2:02:32.120 --> 2:02:34.080 and and I think everybody in this room is going 2:02:34.120 --> 2:02:37.320 to agree with you that hunters do plenty of shooting 2:02:37.320 --> 2:02:43.120 themselves in the foot. Um. But it's it's hard and 2:02:43.200 --> 2:02:45.640 we do good. We're doing better I think every year 2:02:45.840 --> 2:02:51.160 on activating hunters around issues and getting that united voice 2:02:51.240 --> 2:02:53.800 that I'm in full a greeance man. We need to 2:02:53.880 --> 2:02:56.240 get a hell of a lot better at that, um. 2:02:58.080 --> 2:03:01.000 But it's like, so, how is ap are going to 2:03:01.080 --> 2:03:04.600 define access? Right? And I had one real snide comment 2:03:04.720 --> 2:03:07.160 where they're like, well, yeah, access might be you gotta 2:03:07.240 --> 2:03:10.240 go drive around in one of their lifted up sprinter 2:03:10.360 --> 2:03:16.040 vans and their Serengetti model, right, um. And and you know, 2:03:16.120 --> 2:03:18.240 I'm I'm not guarantee. I'm not gonna say anything you 2:03:18.240 --> 2:03:22.640 don't already know, right, but you know, if you're looking 2:03:22.760 --> 2:03:26.640 for more funding, like every nonprofit is is like, is 2:03:26.760 --> 2:03:29.960 there can you guys add something into your mission statement 2:03:30.040 --> 2:03:32.320 that is bulletproof and long term and says, yeah, we 2:03:32.400 --> 2:03:36.640 are going to guarantee access to hunters. We're gonna guarantee 2:03:36.760 --> 2:03:43.240 hunting long term, and that's why we're gonna swing these 2:03:43.520 --> 2:03:46.840 hunters over and be like more favorable long term. And 2:03:48.040 --> 2:03:51.200 maybe we're providing a big chunk at uh dollars for 2:03:51.400 --> 2:03:56.560 the fund? Is there is there some middle ground there? Okay? 2:03:57.640 --> 2:03:59.879 Are you guys, are you guys iron clad on allowing 2:04:00.280 --> 2:04:02.200 um swift box or might you change your mind about 2:04:02.240 --> 2:04:05.160 swift fox allowing some fox? Yeah, oh we're working hard 2:04:05.160 --> 2:04:07.800 to get him in there. So that's absolutely, But you 2:04:07.840 --> 2:04:09.400 don't need to leave it open. You're gonna change your 2:04:09.400 --> 2:04:12.360 mind about it about no, but it's not in our 2:04:12.360 --> 2:04:16.960 mission statement. Were all that statement though, here's the reason 2:04:17.040 --> 2:04:19.800 why is I think to your question, why are we 2:04:19.880 --> 2:04:21.480 not going to put that in the mission mission statement. 2:04:21.480 --> 2:04:23.480 I've looked at this statement for a long time and 2:04:23.560 --> 2:04:25.640 we've made it simpler and shorter. We're trying to make 2:04:25.680 --> 2:04:30.480 it more universal and uh so that it fits a lot, 2:04:30.840 --> 2:04:32.960 because if I put that in there for hunters, this 2:04:33.080 --> 2:04:34.720 is what is to me, that would be what a 2:04:34.800 --> 2:04:38.240 politician would do. I'm gonna promise this for hunters, et cetera. 2:04:38.280 --> 2:04:39.600 And then you go down the road I just walked 2:04:39.600 --> 2:04:42.080 three blocks down. Then I'm gonna promise this for snowma builders. 2:04:42.520 --> 2:04:44.760 They are on a promises for skydivers. Then I'm gonna 2:04:44.760 --> 2:04:47.720 promise this for Audubon people in bird watchers, And pretty 2:04:47.760 --> 2:04:49.320 soon you got yourself all tangled up in a lot 2:04:49.360 --> 2:04:52.440 of promises that don't match up. So I'm gonna pick 2:04:52.560 --> 2:04:56.480 something really big, not amorphous and squishy. But you know 2:04:56.560 --> 2:04:59.800 the seven Points of the North American Hunting North American Conservation, 2:05:00.320 --> 2:05:04.120 there's seven foundation calls him the Seven Sisters. Those are 2:05:04.200 --> 2:05:07.240 pretty those are pretty high high level things and it 2:05:07.280 --> 2:05:09.360 doesn't say this and this and this and access to 2:05:09.480 --> 2:05:11.840 or whatever amounts it might be right, and that has 2:05:12.000 --> 2:05:14.040 endured for a very long time. I think you could 2:05:14.080 --> 2:05:16.000 use some tweaks. Have some comments about that, and there's 2:05:16.040 --> 2:05:18.280 tons of contradictions with it. They're not there's there's tons 2:05:18.320 --> 2:05:20.680 of things that exceptions. Yeah, well there's ton of things 2:05:20.720 --> 2:05:23.120 that aren't that we're doing that don't jive with the model. 2:05:23.160 --> 2:05:26.280 It's not working right, Yeah, privatization, all that kind of stuff. 2:05:26.360 --> 2:05:29.400 So what I want to do is try to include 2:05:29.440 --> 2:05:33.160 everybody and uh and uh you know we we want 2:05:33.160 --> 2:05:36.440 to do is include everybody in our mission statement, but 2:05:36.600 --> 2:05:38.720 not get screwed down so tight that we made this 2:05:38.800 --> 2:05:41.160 promise back in two thousand seventeen to something whatever it 2:05:41.240 --> 2:05:44.360 might be. We'll hear people say, well, you just you 2:05:44.520 --> 2:05:46.760 have this in block management the two crow because this 2:05:46.880 --> 2:05:49.320 other place over here on the p N, which is 2:05:49.320 --> 2:05:52.320 true where you can't hunt helk. There's no elk hunting allowed. 2:05:52.880 --> 2:05:55.200 The reason why is we don't have any elk on 2:05:55.240 --> 2:05:58.440 the p N and the populations out there are pathetic 2:05:58.720 --> 2:06:01.680 as it is. Let us old robust populations will open 2:06:01.720 --> 2:06:04.320 at the elk. You can hunt mule deer, sharp tail, 2:06:04.720 --> 2:06:06.760 pheasants and all kinds of other stuff on the p N, 2:06:06.920 --> 2:06:08.880 but no elk because there isn't any. We did give 2:06:08.920 --> 2:06:11.600 out two big horn sheep tags on the PN because 2:06:11.640 --> 2:06:14.040 I have to vpace regions six four ask us to 2:06:14.080 --> 2:06:17.680 do that. But yeah, we're going to try to build 2:06:17.760 --> 2:06:20.160 right now. We're trying to build robust populations. We take 2:06:20.280 --> 2:06:23.240 all this flax. See they lied. You can't hunt elk 2:06:23.320 --> 2:06:25.280 on the on the two crow there against are on 2:06:25.360 --> 2:06:28.839 the on the PN there against hunters. Life is nuanced. 2:06:29.360 --> 2:06:31.600 You have been a lot of black management properties where 2:06:31.600 --> 2:06:35.560 they have don't touch rules. Yeah, I hunted husant on 2:06:35.760 --> 2:06:38.920 show in showto you know north a Shota on Solid 2:06:39.040 --> 2:06:41.280 Road up there for pheasants on block management and you 2:06:41.360 --> 2:06:43.840 come on. You get to do the morning. You get 2:06:43.960 --> 2:06:46.320 three guns, doesn't matter how many people party. Three guns. 2:06:46.680 --> 2:06:49.000 You're off at noon because another crew comes in and 2:06:49.160 --> 2:06:51.360 Sundays only because the runners are at church. They don't 2:06:51.360 --> 2:06:53.440 want to there on Saturdays because it's too loud. All 2:06:53.600 --> 2:06:57.120 kinds of restrictions. They're not against hunting. So there's five 2:06:57.160 --> 2:06:58.360 of us. One of us has to leave a gun 2:06:58.400 --> 2:07:00.360 in the trunk truck. We just block with the ox. 2:07:00.440 --> 2:07:03.240 You know, you just got to adjust. But mostly what 2:07:03.360 --> 2:07:06.000 we get critiqued by is I want to be able 2:07:06.040 --> 2:07:09.560 to hunt and trap everything, or you're not in the hunters. 2:07:09.840 --> 2:07:11.720 I think life is not that black and white. And 2:07:11.800 --> 2:07:15.400 because of that black and whiteness, frankly, permeates some of 2:07:15.440 --> 2:07:19.720 the honey community. That's why hunting's losing some public support. Frankly, 2:07:19.960 --> 2:07:23.480 it's just too aggressive, too in your face to blunt, 2:07:23.880 --> 2:07:26.720 and nature is nuanced, and so is a big project 2:07:26.800 --> 2:07:32.880 like this. Okay, was was the big advice? That's it. No, 2:07:33.640 --> 2:07:35.320 I was just answering one of his many questions. Here 2:07:35.800 --> 2:07:38.280 here's the advice I think you guys could help with. 2:07:38.400 --> 2:07:39.880 Maybe you'll say, no, we don't want to do that. 2:07:40.240 --> 2:07:43.440 That's your you guys a job. So one of the 2:07:43.480 --> 2:07:45.320 things we get with fish five from parks and they're 2:07:45.360 --> 2:07:47.080 not against this, they're just going, guys were in a 2:07:47.120 --> 2:07:50.160 buy in here. Um, some of this is region six, 2:07:50.240 --> 2:07:52.640 some region four, and we'll say we'd love to have 2:07:52.840 --> 2:07:55.840 more of this particular thing. So let's just focus on oak. 2:07:56.320 --> 2:07:59.680 That's not so touchy, okay, And we said there, you know, 2:08:00.120 --> 2:08:02.720 as best we could tell the carrying capacity from science 2:08:02.720 --> 2:08:04.440 standpoint out here for elk is if you have four 2:08:04.800 --> 2:08:07.080 fifty cows, there could be a lot of elk out 2:08:07.120 --> 2:08:10.800 here this whole area, whole region. The counts might be 2:08:10.920 --> 2:08:13.720 six or seven thousand, a little bit more elk out there, 2:08:13.840 --> 2:08:16.440 not much in a huge area. Again, you can spend 2:08:16.480 --> 2:08:18.360 an awful lot of time and I have hunting around 2:08:18.840 --> 2:08:20.680 any time of the year, you canna have a hard 2:08:20.720 --> 2:08:25.280 time find an elk. All right, So robust populations of elk, 2:08:25.320 --> 2:08:27.400 how do we get there? And how are quotas are 2:08:27.440 --> 2:08:32.640 population criteria set in the North American conservation model says 2:08:32.680 --> 2:08:35.880 wildlife is stept through science and we talked to people 2:08:35.920 --> 2:08:40.440 in the region. They go, no landowner tolerance, So it 2:08:40.480 --> 2:08:42.320 has nothing to do with science and carring capacity and 2:08:42.320 --> 2:08:43.960 where elk can be and can we fit this many 2:08:44.000 --> 2:08:47.280 in here? It's social science. Yeah, So like I said, 2:08:47.280 --> 2:08:50.480 it is social science exactly. So you go to a 2:08:50.880 --> 2:08:54.120 you go they say, we would like to raise quotas, 2:08:54.640 --> 2:08:58.240 but we get extreme pushback from a rancher and this 2:08:58.280 --> 2:08:59.600 is going to get onto something you can do, I 2:08:59.640 --> 2:09:02.760 think from a ranchers saying the elk reading me out 2:09:02.800 --> 2:09:06.400 of house and home. Uh, you're mismanaging me. You're the 2:09:06.840 --> 2:09:09.120 it's the public's wildlife. It's on my place that's eating 2:09:09.160 --> 2:09:12.960 my stuff. You're mismanaging it. Population overall, populations about you 2:09:13.040 --> 2:09:16.760 need to go down. Those people say something to the legislature. 2:09:16.840 --> 2:09:18.720 Legislature says something that they have to be be commissioned. 2:09:18.720 --> 2:09:20.800 Commission says lower those quotas. I'm getting a lot of 2:09:20.840 --> 2:09:23.080 heat up here in Helena. Quotas go down. And that's 2:09:23.160 --> 2:09:25.520 where a lot of the underground guys are of no 2:09:25.680 --> 2:09:27.520 animosity towards you have to be a few folks. They're 2:09:27.560 --> 2:09:31.000 in a difficult bind. So imagine the scenario. I just think, 2:09:31.120 --> 2:09:32.920 as in Spain last year with my wife and we 2:09:33.000 --> 2:09:36.280 were eating this unbelievable prestido, and I had time to 2:09:36.320 --> 2:09:40.120 think about philosophical things. I start imagine, I know the 2:09:40.160 --> 2:09:42.960 front pretty well. It's where I grew up. Imagine had 2:09:43.040 --> 2:09:46.200 a rancher and they're ranching cows out on the front 2:09:46.240 --> 2:09:49.040 somewhere west of Shoto, right just in those slopes underneath castle. 2:09:49.120 --> 2:09:51.520 Read for sun or or saw tooth, and that a 2:09:51.600 --> 2:09:54.480 lot of you guys have been up there before, and uh, 2:09:55.120 --> 2:09:58.280 somehow they're reading something. They go, gosh, you see what 2:09:58.400 --> 2:10:01.320 these what purshuto selves for like a you know, per pig, 2:10:01.400 --> 2:10:03.720 which you make and I gotta do a feed of 2:10:03.800 --> 2:10:05.760 acorns and things like that. We gotta we don't get 2:10:05.760 --> 2:10:08.080 ourselves about three hundred hogs. Add them to our cow 2:10:08.240 --> 2:10:10.880 situation and as a portfolio and make a whole lot 2:10:10.920 --> 2:10:12.880 of money. And we can get acorns, which is what 2:10:12.960 --> 2:10:15.760 you feed them. We finish them on acorns from California 2:10:15.800 --> 2:10:17.200 is super cheap. They're trying to get rid of them. 2:10:17.320 --> 2:10:19.400 So they do all that, get the hogs feed of acorns, 2:10:19.480 --> 2:10:21.720 make these beautiful product, cut them all up, and then 2:10:21.760 --> 2:10:24.320 they they have to air dry or age for about 2:10:24.400 --> 2:10:27.480 four weeks. So they hang them in the forest on 2:10:27.600 --> 2:10:30.000 private lands, their private land, and they hang bake front 2:10:30.040 --> 2:10:33.280 shoulders and bad bat on the back quarters in the 2:10:33.360 --> 2:10:36.120 forest to air dry. Right, this is a rocky mound 2:10:36.120 --> 2:10:39.280 in front. They're hanging ham all through the forest the 2:10:39.400 --> 2:10:42.480 grizzly bear country, but grizzly bears are evenly distributed twenty 2:10:43.400 --> 2:10:47.320 thousand acres thud acres group grizzly bear terrator home range 2:10:47.360 --> 2:10:50.080 something like that. And thing goes pretty good for about 2:10:50.120 --> 2:10:51.760 a week or so. One morning they walk out and 2:10:51.800 --> 2:10:54.120 there's nine grizzly bears and their forest having a great 2:10:54.160 --> 2:10:57.280 time with those hams. All right, call up f w P. 2:10:57.760 --> 2:11:00.120 We've got a grizzly problem here, and they got what 2:11:00.960 --> 2:11:04.360 So I got nine grozzly bears eating my stuff? So well, 2:11:04.400 --> 2:11:06.960 do you have a fence around that? No? Why should 2:11:07.000 --> 2:11:09.600 I have to fence that. That's the public's wildlife. Your 2:11:09.680 --> 2:11:12.600 mismanager them, we need to knock down the overall population 2:11:12.680 --> 2:11:15.520 of bears. This is untenable for me. It's costing me 2:11:15.880 --> 2:11:19.120 a lot of money. All right, So you hear that 2:11:19.200 --> 2:11:21.919 story and go where do I fall in this equation? 2:11:22.480 --> 2:11:24.400 How do I think about that? Moving over to where 2:11:24.440 --> 2:11:29.000 we're working, you have some ranchers and they've moved into 2:11:29.360 --> 2:11:32.240 definitely elk habitat, kind of grizzly bear habitat elk habitat, 2:11:32.920 --> 2:11:34.600 and they'll get along with cows or just fine and 2:11:34.640 --> 2:11:37.840 all that. But they've been buying hay on the open market, 2:11:37.960 --> 2:11:40.720 you know, big one ton bail, one ton round mills. 2:11:41.640 --> 2:11:43.720 They decided to produce their own, so they plow in 2:11:43.880 --> 2:11:46.880 about three acres of alfalfa in the middle of native 2:11:46.920 --> 2:11:49.120 grassland habitat that's been out there for thousands of years 2:11:49.160 --> 2:11:51.560 in the middle of elk country. Elk might be evenly 2:11:51.600 --> 2:11:55.320 distributed all over the landscape. Long about August, you go 2:11:55.520 --> 2:11:57.640 just about two more weeks and alfalfa is looking great. 2:11:57.680 --> 2:12:01.640 It's like electric green neon out there. About two more weeks, 2:12:01.640 --> 2:12:03.800 I'm gonna cut this and we lost some nice bills 2:12:03.840 --> 2:12:06.240 and relatively cheap except for the diesel fuel to cut 2:12:06.280 --> 2:12:08.520 it and roll it. And they go out there just 2:12:08.680 --> 2:12:10.560 two weeks before they're gonna cut it and there's three 2:12:10.960 --> 2:12:13.760 elk in their alf alpha field. They called ft w 2:12:13.920 --> 2:12:16.600 P and say they're eating me out of house and home. 2:12:16.880 --> 2:12:19.720 You got to lower these quotas. This is ridiculous. There's 2:12:19.760 --> 2:12:22.640 there's way too many elk out here. And if l 2:12:22.720 --> 2:12:25.160 P says you got a fence around it, no, why 2:12:25.200 --> 2:12:26.600 why should I have to have do that as a 2:12:26.680 --> 2:12:28.720 cost of doing business. To have that fence around that, 2:12:29.640 --> 2:12:32.360 you're mismanaging the elk. And that is the crux those 2:12:32.400 --> 2:12:35.960 conversations actually go on. There's elk in my alf alpha fields. 2:12:36.560 --> 2:12:40.560 Push those animals down so that they'll leave me alone 2:12:40.600 --> 2:12:43.000 and stop costing me so much money. En ft VP 2:12:43.080 --> 2:12:45.120 would say, how about some cost share? How about we 2:12:45.200 --> 2:12:46.840 could help you fence that out. We can't pay for 2:12:46.880 --> 2:12:48.480 everything because we're kind of we don't have a much 2:12:48.520 --> 2:12:51.280 money right now, much budget. We can bring you some 2:12:51.400 --> 2:12:53.440 materials and maybe even help you a little bit, but 2:12:53.560 --> 2:12:55.720 you you pay for half, we'll pay for half. Why 2:12:55.800 --> 2:12:58.000 should I have to pay you for wildlife. It's the 2:12:58.040 --> 2:13:00.720 public's wildlife. You're mismanaging it. Get him out of here, 2:13:01.200 --> 2:13:02.800 and I want the quotas. And then he calls that 2:13:02.880 --> 2:13:06.640 calls the Senator to the commission back to the people 2:13:07.280 --> 2:13:09.280 they have to be p in Glasgow and said lower 2:13:09.360 --> 2:13:11.480 those quotas. And a lot of times the f W 2:13:11.640 --> 2:13:13.520 pill probably come in there and say, well, why don't 2:13:13.560 --> 2:13:15.240 you let people on there to hunt them. That's a 2:13:15.280 --> 2:13:17.160 pretty good way to get elk to run away is 2:13:17.200 --> 2:13:18.920 to let people shoot at them, at least for a 2:13:19.000 --> 2:13:21.360 little while. Second week August a little tough if you 2:13:21.400 --> 2:13:23.040 have a shoulder, seas and the backs up into that 2:13:23.120 --> 2:13:25.960 when they really hit things hard. Yeah, when they're keeping 2:13:25.960 --> 2:13:28.520 away from your haystacks and things like that. But anybody 2:13:28.520 --> 2:13:31.320 who might hear this story, it's a cultural thing. There's 2:13:31.360 --> 2:13:33.760 no right or wrong. So some people might say, well, 2:13:33.840 --> 2:13:36.080 Sean just said it's exactly right. That rancher with the 2:13:36.080 --> 2:13:38.320 grizzly bears is in a world that hurt after we 2:13:38.520 --> 2:13:40.720 should take care of that. Or the rancher with the 2:13:40.960 --> 2:13:43.680 alfalva field after should take care of that. It's exactly right. 2:13:43.760 --> 2:13:47.160 It's the public's wildlife being mismanaged other people. I don't know, 2:13:48.160 --> 2:13:49.600 you've got some of you guys, maybe I don't know 2:13:49.640 --> 2:13:52.000 what you're thinking, would say, you know, that is a 2:13:52.080 --> 2:13:54.520 cost of doing business. If you're gonna put an unnatural 2:13:54.680 --> 2:13:57.080 thing out in the middle of that country, be at 2:13:57.160 --> 2:14:01.320 Hams or bright Green alfalfa, it's your responsibility fail and 2:14:01.320 --> 2:14:03.480 set out because you're pulling these those elk are trailing 2:14:03.520 --> 2:14:06.080 from fifteen miles away to come hit your stack right, 2:14:06.120 --> 2:14:08.840 whether it's rolled up or veiled or whatever else. And 2:14:08.920 --> 2:14:11.040 after EP goes, I wish we had more money because 2:14:11.800 --> 2:14:14.600 when the conversation I'm in a lot of conversations the ranchers, 2:14:14.680 --> 2:14:16.280 it gets down it's not that they don't like yelk. 2:14:16.320 --> 2:14:18.400 They actually like yelk. A lot of them are bow hunters. 2:14:18.720 --> 2:14:20.560 It's not about the species, it's about what they do 2:14:20.680 --> 2:14:23.760 to their operation. It's finance, which is a good news 2:14:23.840 --> 2:14:25.880 for I think for you guys, because if you can 2:14:25.920 --> 2:14:29.120 come up with more money connecting the docks here, if 2:14:29.160 --> 2:14:30.400 we can come up with a whole bunch more money 2:14:30.960 --> 2:14:32.840 and we can fence that help that rancher and fence 2:14:32.880 --> 2:14:35.440 out that field, they will quick complain and the f TOVP, 2:14:36.000 --> 2:14:39.000 the college from legislature and the commission stopped, and populations 2:14:39.040 --> 2:14:41.120 from go up, and you will have lots more elk 2:14:41.600 --> 2:14:43.800 out there, a lot more elk out there. All it 2:14:43.960 --> 2:14:48.080 is just finding some money. What we have found, for instance, 2:14:48.200 --> 2:14:51.080 this is the important thing we have found, for instance 2:14:51.120 --> 2:14:53.920 with our wild Sky program, where ranchers or get paid 2:14:53.960 --> 2:14:58.000 to be more wildlife friendly, wildlife tolerant, should say everything 2:14:58.120 --> 2:15:01.160 by the way, wolves, cougars, elk, whatever it might be. 2:15:01.760 --> 2:15:04.200 We pay them money for that, substantial money on top 2:15:04.240 --> 2:15:06.000 of what they sell to in the commodity market. So 2:15:06.000 --> 2:15:08.960 it's an extra bonus, and that money is enough to 2:15:09.080 --> 2:15:11.440 tip the behavior in the direction being more wildlife friendly. 2:15:11.560 --> 2:15:14.360 That's one example. So I think there are a number 2:15:14.400 --> 2:15:17.160 of things that hunters could do to conjurept some more money. 2:15:17.240 --> 2:15:19.600 If you want to hear them. I got six ideas 2:15:19.680 --> 2:15:22.120 for that. And if we can get more money into 2:15:22.160 --> 2:15:25.480 the game, you can get those ranchers feeling better, those 2:15:25.560 --> 2:15:27.400 quotas will go up and you're gonna see a lot 2:15:27.480 --> 2:15:29.840 in the more robust populations out there. Hit me with 2:15:29.880 --> 2:15:33.320 the top three. Top three. Yeah, this is ways hunters 2:15:33.360 --> 2:15:38.120 could get more money to create more wildlife friendly Sean 2:15:38.160 --> 2:15:41.920 Garretty's top three ways in which hunters could pump more 2:15:42.000 --> 2:15:47.400 money to make a more wildlife friendly habitat regime out 2:15:47.440 --> 2:15:53.200 there in the United States of America. Some wildlife equaling 2:15:53.240 --> 2:15:55.040 more alilive so that you can hunt it, you can 2:15:55.120 --> 2:15:57.760 chase it around, Yeah, and have more fun. You got 2:15:57.800 --> 2:16:01.840 my attention. Everybody wins the really big ones. I think 2:16:02.360 --> 2:16:05.040 there was the what was the what was the Act 2:16:05.080 --> 2:16:10.880 of nineteen six with a with Pittmanstoration Act, And all 2:16:10.920 --> 2:16:15.000 they did was charge on They put a tax on guns, right, 2:16:15.320 --> 2:16:17.760 and ammunition and ammunition, and then the one there's the 2:16:17.760 --> 2:16:21.560 one that followed up later on fishing equipment. If you 2:16:21.680 --> 2:16:25.400 actually lobbied I'm guessing back country or somebody has lobbyists 2:16:25.440 --> 2:16:28.640 and lobbied together in Montana and so we want to 2:16:28.680 --> 2:16:30.640 do something like that, we want to tax all kinds 2:16:30.720 --> 2:16:32.520 of stuff. Oh yeah, man, we're all over this. They 2:16:32.560 --> 2:16:37.840 won't do it. So the backpack tax next idea, So yeah, 2:16:37.840 --> 2:16:40.240 I just say that comes up constantly. We want to 2:16:40.280 --> 2:16:43.800 we want to actually be taxed more, be really organized, 2:16:43.879 --> 2:16:45.680 not just one group, but a whole a whole bunch 2:16:45.680 --> 2:16:47.960 of people hammer on this, hire some lobbyists until you 2:16:48.000 --> 2:16:52.119 finally get it through. Took three tries, I think three 2:16:52.200 --> 2:16:54.320 runs of the legislature to get rid of snide heepleach 2:16:54.400 --> 2:16:56.680 mining takes a while. You gotta stay on it, don't 2:16:56.879 --> 2:16:59.320 don't give up. So we were at tax backpack skis 2:16:59.400 --> 2:17:01.720 birding a. It meant everything because yeah, guns and am 2:17:01.879 --> 2:17:06.080 ar tex, the manufacturers are paying third everything. There has 2:17:06.120 --> 2:17:09.640 been some other proposals to like specific to a species, 2:17:09.760 --> 2:17:13.080 like okay, well what if we lobbied for uh an 2:17:13.120 --> 2:17:17.600 additional dollar specific to getting bison back on that style 2:17:17.720 --> 2:17:19.640 license plate? And they'll go to it. Whatever. If you 2:17:19.720 --> 2:17:22.039 can go up against industry and get Sinai heap leach 2:17:22.120 --> 2:17:24.280 mining out of Montana, you guys can do this if 2:17:24.320 --> 2:17:27.840 you're organized and persistent as hell. Only if you persist 2:17:27.920 --> 2:17:29.440 not just throw it all. We tried once to give 2:17:29.440 --> 2:17:31.600 it up. Do we hammer we hammerun this all the time. 2:17:31.680 --> 2:17:33.560 I love the idea of a backpack ta gotta do that. 2:17:33.959 --> 2:17:37.880 Next one is let's make a note of that. Here's 2:17:37.879 --> 2:17:40.640 another team. This is interesting is you got to broaden 2:17:40.680 --> 2:17:43.480 out and let other people help. So I know a 2:17:43.560 --> 2:17:46.320 lot of biology game biologist from FTVP. Of course we 2:17:46.400 --> 2:17:48.440 could being in the business who work with them. Uh. 2:17:48.520 --> 2:17:50.920 Jeff Hagner actually used to work for APR, who used 2:17:50.959 --> 2:17:52.520 to be ahead of Fish Walking Park. So he and 2:17:52.560 --> 2:17:55.000 I spent lots and lots and lots of hours on 2:17:55.040 --> 2:17:58.160 airplanes and cars and things like that. For him, it was, 2:17:58.320 --> 2:17:59.840 you know, we got a job after being with that 2:18:00.000 --> 2:18:02.480 TVP I talked about. He said, a lot of interesting 2:18:02.480 --> 2:18:05.360 antidutes every time. So why don't we raise hunting fees 2:18:05.440 --> 2:18:07.560 to get more money or are there other ways to 2:18:07.600 --> 2:18:10.240 get more money because the revenue is going down doubled 2:18:10.600 --> 2:18:13.320 I mean not too long ago. They doubled nonresident fees, right, 2:18:13.600 --> 2:18:16.480 but I mean resident. I'm talking residents. And so they 2:18:16.520 --> 2:18:18.960 said we can't put this wildlife stamp idea. We went 2:18:19.040 --> 2:18:20.880 on the road and said, how about wildlife stamp. We 2:18:21.040 --> 2:18:22.640 can get people that we get all these artists do 2:18:22.680 --> 2:18:25.720 these cool stamps, like a duck stamp church people who 2:18:25.760 --> 2:18:28.320 don't hunt, but they'll buy the stamps for twelve bucks 2:18:28.320 --> 2:18:32.040 apiece because it's done by world class artists. He said. 2:18:32.080 --> 2:18:34.959 Everywhere we went, particularly in Livingston, that got shouted down 2:18:35.040 --> 2:18:37.600 by hunters, So why would they not want that. It's 2:18:37.680 --> 2:18:40.800 more money to manage game and make things work better 2:18:40.879 --> 2:18:43.280 at all, go into game management. He said. You know 2:18:43.320 --> 2:18:46.199 what people said, and it was hunting guides and hunters, 2:18:46.320 --> 2:18:48.720 and the loudest, most volatile one was over in Livingstone 2:18:48.720 --> 2:18:51.680 one night. He said, we just backed off. Hunters said, 2:18:51.800 --> 2:18:54.480 we don't want anybody else at the table besides hunters 2:18:54.920 --> 2:18:58.840 deciding what happens with Montana wildlife. And what a great 2:18:58.959 --> 2:19:02.039 idea to get lots of money for people who are't 2:19:02.040 --> 2:19:03.560 going to compete with you and try to shoot that deer. 2:19:03.560 --> 2:19:04.680 They just want to go out and look at birds, 2:19:04.680 --> 2:19:06.320 and they were glad to buy a stamp so they 2:19:06.360 --> 2:19:08.040 can help, so you can have more grosshand birds than 2:19:08.040 --> 2:19:11.240 whatever else. I think hunters chased away other people because 2:19:11.240 --> 2:19:13.640 you want to own the discussion. That's a big mistake. 2:19:14.080 --> 2:19:17.600 I think there's lots of people in Montana wildlife viewing 2:19:17.800 --> 2:19:21.560 is on a dramatic increase, decades long increase. There's a 2:19:21.600 --> 2:19:23.400 lot of money in those people pockets and you're leaving 2:19:23.400 --> 2:19:26.800 it on the table. Here's that one. Another one with sports. 2:19:27.160 --> 2:19:28.360 So I don't know if any of you golf or 2:19:28.360 --> 2:19:32.120 ski at Bridge Bowl or whatever. Definitely no golfing. I 2:19:32.200 --> 2:19:34.280 don't golf either. Okay, let's not go with that joke. 2:19:34.360 --> 2:19:37.800 I'm golf. My father was a golfer. So anybody downhill, 2:19:37.840 --> 2:19:41.920 ski ever you're hunting, is not keeping up with the 2:19:42.000 --> 2:19:46.320 increasing price of sports. About my first season pass in 2:19:46.400 --> 2:19:47.880 Bridge or Bowl, I think it was a hundred and 2:19:47.959 --> 2:19:49.760 ten dollars. Seemed like a king's ransom of the time. 2:19:49.800 --> 2:19:52.720 Almost killed me to pay that much money. I mean 2:19:52.840 --> 2:19:56.280 that was uh didn't leave any money for gas to go, 2:19:56.440 --> 2:19:58.200 so it's a bad move. I had to hitchhike or 2:19:58.480 --> 2:20:02.520 you know, get rides up there and call. And now 2:20:02.800 --> 2:20:04.840 let's see at Bridge of Bowl, I think a season 2:20:04.879 --> 2:20:07.560 passes eight hundred bucks. If you want to go skiing 2:20:08.560 --> 2:20:12.200 one day, I think it's fifty nine dollars for one day, 2:20:13.000 --> 2:20:15.959 and you can get a ten past thing for five 2:20:16.440 --> 2:20:19.720 ten bucks to go. So just look at other sports 2:20:20.320 --> 2:20:23.280 like golfing for three hours that okash forty bucks for 2:20:23.480 --> 2:20:26.480 one time for three hours skiing one time from nine 2:20:26.600 --> 2:20:28.920 thirty until four o'clock in the afternoon and fifty nine bucks. 2:20:29.760 --> 2:20:32.879 So you can get an elk hunting season pass ten 2:20:32.959 --> 2:20:35.200 bucks for your general tag and with the elk tag 2:20:35.240 --> 2:20:47.000 now fifteen dollars always okay anyway, so if you can, so, 2:20:47.080 --> 2:20:49.760 do you want to go ell hunting in Montana for 2:20:49.840 --> 2:20:51.480 gosh six one of the best places in the world. 2:20:51.520 --> 2:20:53.560 You want to go hunting Montana? Ten bucks for general 2:20:53.600 --> 2:20:56.880 tag and it's it's ten dollars, so twenty bucks six 2:20:57.240 --> 2:21:01.600 d I'm just talking about for get that, not on residents, 2:21:01.640 --> 2:21:04.560 you guys sitting right here right you get a season 2:21:04.640 --> 2:21:07.440 passed to hunt elk in Montana for four straight months 2:21:07.600 --> 2:21:10.959 for twenty bucks and FTW pieces. Every time we try 2:21:11.000 --> 2:21:15.200 to raise it, people come absolutely on glued. Yeah, so 2:21:15.480 --> 2:21:17.840 you'll know you'll never hear okay, Okay, So I know 2:21:17.959 --> 2:21:20.879 you're like throwing out like general recommendations for general folks. 2:21:20.959 --> 2:21:23.360 I don't think that. I mean, I think general we did. 2:21:23.560 --> 2:21:25.160 How long did it take? You're not paying up, Sam, 2:21:25.200 --> 2:21:28.440 You probably know how long was the duck stand set 2:21:28.520 --> 2:21:32.120 of fifteen bucks? Oh, I mean like forty fifty years. 2:21:32.160 --> 2:21:35.040 They didn't even get it adjusted for inflation. When ye know, 2:21:37.160 --> 2:21:39.400 I think the hunters can't come, so you know, if 2:21:39.480 --> 2:21:41.240 you can't. So, if you can't do it, we want 2:21:41.280 --> 2:21:43.040 it all man, if you can't, Yeah, we want it 2:21:43.080 --> 2:21:45.280 from not to pay. I don't care if those dumb 2:21:45.280 --> 2:21:47.560 skiars pay that much of those golfers or voters or 2:21:47.560 --> 2:21:50.080 anybody else. We don't want our tags going up. And 2:21:50.160 --> 2:21:52.360 I hear I actually argue, you know, on a chair 2:21:52.440 --> 2:21:54.520 lift with people, someone who's got an eight hundred dollars 2:21:54.600 --> 2:21:56.600 key tags, saying if I have to pay twice what 2:21:56.680 --> 2:21:59.440 I'm paying now, I'm done. I cannot. Yeah, with that 2:21:59.520 --> 2:22:02.680 bottle I West whiskey cost you forty five bucks, and 2:22:02.840 --> 2:22:05.360 that MOSSI Oaks stretchy thing you're just showing me the 2:22:05.480 --> 2:22:07.480 day there was ninety bucks. Let's just take all the 2:22:07.480 --> 2:22:09.480 stuff out of your car and put you in to 2:22:09.560 --> 2:22:11.640 strip you too, your stand there naked for a few minutes. 2:22:11.800 --> 2:22:13.920 I want to price everything that you used to hunt. 2:22:14.440 --> 2:22:18.520 And you can't pay bucks for ELK tag. Yeah, I 2:22:18.560 --> 2:22:20.440 think I think a couple of year ones are things 2:22:20.480 --> 2:22:23.320 that people are already talking about but they're not doing it. Yeah, 2:22:23.320 --> 2:22:25.400 there are things that people already talking about. There's a 2:22:26.280 --> 2:22:31.640 robust conversation. You know, I like them. There's a lot 2:22:31.879 --> 2:22:34.440 of movement. They're the one I really agree with you on. 2:22:34.640 --> 2:22:39.920 I think that the Yeah people are really resistant understanding, 2:22:40.000 --> 2:22:42.520 like knowing where the money goes and the good that 2:22:42.600 --> 2:22:45.360 it does. I think there's an irrational resistance to paying 2:22:46.640 --> 2:22:49.400 the fair price for the opportunity. So the f DPS revenues, 2:22:50.080 --> 2:22:52.360 there are fifty nine million dollars a year that they 2:22:52.480 --> 2:22:55.760 get for game stuff. They do other stuff fish million 2:22:55.920 --> 2:22:58.200 bucks a year. If you get that to a hundred 2:22:58.240 --> 2:23:00.240 million bucks or d twenty million bucks or heard in 2:23:00.280 --> 2:23:02.160 fifty million bucks, now we're gonna start to get a 2:23:02.200 --> 2:23:04.280 lot more access and a lot more animals. That's the 2:23:04.360 --> 2:23:06.800 most point to pay. Those ranchers defense that stuff out, 2:23:06.920 --> 2:23:10.440 they're calm, more wildlife. But it gets down to money, 2:23:10.480 --> 2:23:12.360 I believe. So if the easiest thing, if none of 2:23:12.360 --> 2:23:14.320 this stuff, because legislation would change and all that kind 2:23:14.360 --> 2:23:17.240 of stuff, Hunting groups could also get together. F to 2:23:17.320 --> 2:23:20.640 VP has an f to VP foundation, there's nothing in it. 2:23:21.400 --> 2:23:24.520 It might have almost nothing in it. If you guys 2:23:24.560 --> 2:23:27.760 all got together form some organization you just raise money for. 2:23:27.800 --> 2:23:30.040 They have to be f foundation, just just like kPr 2:23:30.280 --> 2:23:33.680 money straight into that raise three four million bucks a year. 2:23:35.240 --> 2:23:38.480 That's a lot offenses around Alfalva fields. That makes a 2:23:38.560 --> 2:23:41.080 lot of ranchers happy. That gets the f t VP 2:23:41.320 --> 2:23:43.520 Regions six, Region four off the hook. No more screaming 2:23:43.520 --> 2:23:45.039 at him. You've got too many elk here or bears. 2:23:45.080 --> 2:23:47.640 He might purshoot it or whatever else. Now I'm happy. 2:23:47.680 --> 2:23:49.600 I'm cool because I'm a hunter. Two. If I'm a rancher, 2:23:49.640 --> 2:23:51.040 a lot of them are, and now all of a 2:23:51.040 --> 2:23:54.279 sudden those quotas can go up. Just give just today 2:23:54.360 --> 2:23:55.840 when I leave right a check to the F to 2:23:55.879 --> 2:23:58.200 B Foundation. You don't have to ask anybody, no change 2:23:58.240 --> 2:24:00.400 of Congress or laws or anything like that. Just give 2:24:00.440 --> 2:24:03.560 them the money, but ear market for that. I want 2:24:03.600 --> 2:24:06.320 it for wildlife damage. I wanted to be helped for 2:24:06.360 --> 2:24:10.600 wildlife damage and fill that bucket up. Fundraising is hard, 2:24:10.800 --> 2:24:13.439 but you guys, if you got with your with Steve's 2:24:13.480 --> 2:24:17.000 reach and that mouthpiece, the reach that he has and 2:24:17.120 --> 2:24:18.840 just said, I want you guys, just like I want 2:24:18.879 --> 2:24:21.240 you to buy Snaze boots, I want you to buy 2:24:21.320 --> 2:24:24.360 my cookbook or whatever else. Oh, by the way, you guys, 2:24:24.600 --> 2:24:26.200 do not go to sleep tonight until you write to 2:24:26.280 --> 2:24:28.320 check the f TVP found. It's a big damn country 2:24:28.360 --> 2:24:30.920 and Montage is Blee state. You're talking to a lot 2:24:30.959 --> 2:24:33.959 of hunters here, though. What if everybody, what if everybody 2:24:34.000 --> 2:24:38.600 wrote fifty bucks fifty bucks every guide everybody wrote fifty bucks, 2:24:39.600 --> 2:24:43.959 you'd get millions or by by three duck stamps, whatever 2:24:44.040 --> 2:24:46.000 it is. But you guys ought to be jamming for 2:24:46.120 --> 2:24:49.280 millions order that foundation. But you say to the foundation head, 2:24:49.680 --> 2:24:54.280 I want this earmarked only for wildlife damage uh mitigation, 2:24:54.720 --> 2:24:56.959 and pretty soon we'll have wildlife coming out of ears. 2:24:57.400 --> 2:24:59.520 You guys can control it. You know, we do a 2:24:59.560 --> 2:25:02.520 thing here, hot tip offs. That's your hot tip? Is it? 2:25:03.000 --> 2:25:06.080 What do you think of it? I love it, man. 2:25:06.320 --> 2:25:10.840 I wish everybody would give thousands of dollars tomorrow, so there. 2:25:11.240 --> 2:25:13.119 I wish they would buy ten duck stamps and give 2:25:13.200 --> 2:25:17.000 thousands tomorrow to their fishing Game agency. But I don't 2:25:17.040 --> 2:25:19.119 not I don't not wish they would do it. That's 2:25:19.120 --> 2:25:23.600 a good point though, right, It's like in the enclosed circles. 2:25:23.640 --> 2:25:26.560 I kind of spend this argument different ways. But um, 2:25:27.120 --> 2:25:30.760 you know, hunters as a group, that's just you can 2:25:30.840 --> 2:25:34.480 pick any group, and there's some nasty examples out there too. 2:25:34.600 --> 2:25:38.800 But hunters are can be a diverse group, and there's 2:25:38.840 --> 2:25:42.560 plenty of hunters in this Bell curve that are spending 2:25:42.680 --> 2:25:46.240 a lot of money, a lot more money um than 2:25:46.320 --> 2:25:48.800 that fifty bucks every single year to a lot of 2:25:48.840 --> 2:25:51.320 different groups, right, trying to get this ball rolling and 2:25:52.320 --> 2:25:55.200 keep it going right. So, yeah, man, there's there's plenty 2:25:55.200 --> 2:25:59.040 of folks within our our ranks that are doing the 2:25:59.040 --> 2:26:01.680 bare minimum. And a long time ago we said, you know, 2:26:02.440 --> 2:26:06.359 buying your duck stamp and you're hunting and conservation licenses, 2:26:07.440 --> 2:26:10.880 it's just not enough anymore. It used to be, you know, 2:26:11.000 --> 2:26:19.360 the price would mission. But yeah, just like just there's 2:26:19.480 --> 2:26:25.080 you're I'm looking to wrap her up. Yes, But there's 2:26:25.120 --> 2:26:30.920 also like big historical stuff, you know, the the hunters 2:26:31.000 --> 2:26:34.360 that we grow up dreaming about, Okay, that we tell 2:26:34.440 --> 2:26:38.480 the narratives of and talk about. John Coulter Um. You 2:26:38.600 --> 2:26:40.600 mentioned the guy that you know, the guy that was 2:26:40.600 --> 2:26:42.000 a chart One of the guys was a charge of 2:26:42.080 --> 2:26:44.400 hunting game to supply the Lewis and Clark expedition was 2:26:44.480 --> 2:26:46.600 a feller by the name of John Coulter. Um. We 2:26:46.720 --> 2:26:51.480 all know Daniel Boone, Um, Davy Crockett, Jed Smith, Okay, 2:26:52.840 --> 2:26:55.320 are sort of the the legacy that has shaped the 2:26:55.480 --> 2:26:59.080 identity of American hunters where guys that didn't pay to 2:26:59.160 --> 2:27:00.720 go out and be in the wood, they got paid 2:27:00.760 --> 2:27:02.280 to go out and be in the woods. So there's 2:27:02.280 --> 2:27:06.400 like your body, you know, there's this there's this this 2:27:06.600 --> 2:27:10.200 thing that it's like you have the right to go 2:27:10.440 --> 2:27:15.119 out and extract said resources without a lot of um 2:27:16.040 --> 2:27:17.920 push back and red tape. And there's people that have 2:27:17.959 --> 2:27:20.440 an expectation about that, and I think that those expectations 2:27:21.040 --> 2:27:26.039 need to get up to speed. I agree, But there 2:27:26.280 --> 2:27:28.720 is a there's a way if you want to look 2:27:28.760 --> 2:27:31.080 at it, like where did our mind frame come from? 2:27:31.320 --> 2:27:33.760 That that's mine. I should be allowed to go out 2:27:33.800 --> 2:27:37.600 and get it. Uh, you don't need It's not hard 2:27:37.680 --> 2:27:40.400 to understand how we came to view it that way. 2:27:41.480 --> 2:27:46.959 So when something when something has a real long track record, 2:27:47.080 --> 2:27:49.879 like a mentality that has a long track, it's difficult 2:27:49.920 --> 2:27:52.480 to spend it. And people did a big move towards 2:27:53.160 --> 2:27:57.119 changing it. And you know during the Franklin Roosevelt administration 2:27:57.200 --> 2:28:01.560 with the Wildlife Restoration Act um when we had to 2:28:01.760 --> 2:28:03.360 you know, when people are like had to start doing 2:28:03.400 --> 2:28:05.640 a duck stamp. That's a big step. People had to 2:28:05.680 --> 2:28:08.360 start using non toxic shot to hunt waterfall, Like, oh 2:28:08.440 --> 2:28:10.960 my god, I'd rather quit duck hunting to do that. Right, 2:28:11.320 --> 2:28:15.560 So you have people go not kicking and screaming into 2:28:15.560 --> 2:28:19.400 the future, but kicking and screaming into the present. Man, 2:28:19.480 --> 2:28:22.959 I mean, it's like hard. So, but anyone that's involved 2:28:23.000 --> 2:28:26.680 in wildlife policy in any kind of serious way, and 2:28:26.720 --> 2:28:29.880 anyone's involved in hunting and fishing in America in any 2:28:29.959 --> 2:28:35.000 kind of serious way, realizes and really better realized that 2:28:35.440 --> 2:28:40.720 fund that wildlife costs money. It's here because we've made 2:28:41.120 --> 2:28:42.800 It's not here by accident. It used to be here 2:28:42.879 --> 2:28:45.240 by accident, and it was here despite all of our 2:28:45.280 --> 2:28:48.000 best efforts to remove it. Now it's here for the 2:28:48.080 --> 2:28:50.640 simple reason that we've decided that it's valuable and that 2:28:50.680 --> 2:28:52.800 we're gonna make sacrifices to have it beyond the ground. 2:28:52.920 --> 2:28:57.560 And it's like that's why around it, like hunting seasons, 2:28:58.760 --> 2:29:00.720 it's here because we decided to have it be here. 2:29:01.000 --> 2:29:02.560 And what we've got missed. I think you're on a 2:29:02.680 --> 2:29:05.320 very good track. You're important track. One thing that got 2:29:05.400 --> 2:29:07.680 miss kind of snuck up on people like a ski resort. 2:29:07.840 --> 2:29:10.200 When I started skiing the seventies of Bridge of Bowl, 2:29:10.760 --> 2:29:13.080 Why why the tags keep going on, the price to 2:29:13.200 --> 2:29:15.440 keep going up when you look at the infrastructure that's 2:29:15.480 --> 2:29:17.520 there to create a good experience for you, from a 2:29:18.000 --> 2:29:21.880 keeping the ski patrol warm with a little hut, those chairlifts, obviously, 2:29:22.200 --> 2:29:25.920 safety things, uh people, all that kind of stuff. Well, 2:29:25.959 --> 2:29:28.480 but when we decided to put that structure around FTVP 2:29:28.640 --> 2:29:31.480 and say there's seasons on hunting, so we don't eradicate 2:29:31.560 --> 2:29:35.480 everything anymore, and somebody has to maintain that structure. Fish 2:29:35.520 --> 2:29:39.680 Walton Parks has nearly seven hundred employees. That's game wardens 2:29:39.720 --> 2:29:43.560 and trucks and laptops and radios and gas and buildings, 2:29:43.760 --> 2:29:46.160 all that stuff and going out there and buying easements 2:29:46.160 --> 2:29:50.640 and buying property. That's a huge infrastructure, expensive instructure infrastructure 2:29:50.680 --> 2:29:53.360 there so that you can have a great hunt. They're 2:29:53.360 --> 2:29:55.320 out there while we're sitting here drinking coffee. They're out 2:29:55.320 --> 2:29:58.240 there busting their ass, resting somebody trying to open this 2:29:58.560 --> 2:30:01.320 was closing the gate. What we're doing a talk slide show, 2:30:01.560 --> 2:30:05.440 doing disease research. But these are good people. Have to 2:30:05.520 --> 2:30:08.480 be a pete and they are broke because people go, 2:30:08.560 --> 2:30:10.680 I shouldn't have to pay for hunting ten bucks, you 2:30:10.800 --> 2:30:13.120 raise it, twelve bucks. Can't do it while we load 2:30:13.160 --> 2:30:16.920 our bourbon and our guns in our truck. I don't. 2:30:16.959 --> 2:30:18.879 I shouldn't have to pay for It's a rights, god 2:30:18.959 --> 2:30:21.000 given right. Well, it's not a god given right to 2:30:21.040 --> 2:30:23.880 ski a bridge of bowl for free. Uh, there's a 2:30:24.160 --> 2:30:26.680 huge cost. You live in a capital of society. Hunters 2:30:26.720 --> 2:30:28.960 need to pay up and we'll everybody'll be happy. It's 2:30:29.000 --> 2:30:31.240 not that much money compared to what your god on 2:30:31.320 --> 2:30:34.080 your body when your archery hunting. You just take the 2:30:34.120 --> 2:30:36.480 cost to your poly pro maybe your boots in one sock. 2:30:36.600 --> 2:30:38.760 That's all you gotta give. I feel like, um, you 2:30:38.840 --> 2:30:41.040 know that. I take that point well. But at the 2:30:41.120 --> 2:30:44.840 same time, I really believe that FBP should really hold 2:30:44.879 --> 2:30:48.200 other users accountable too, in terms of like really giving back. 2:30:48.280 --> 2:30:51.119 They try try with the stamp. Hunters shout them down, 2:30:51.920 --> 2:30:54.160 but hunters won't shot them down. If they want to 2:30:54.200 --> 2:30:58.880 do like um uh, ski tax I could, I'll make 2:30:58.920 --> 2:31:01.920 you personal guarantee if they want to impose a thirteen 2:31:01.959 --> 2:31:05.160 to fourteen percent tax on ski equipment in order to 2:31:06.120 --> 2:31:10.040 um fund wildlife in America. I can promise you you 2:31:10.080 --> 2:31:11.720 won't hear a lot of great from us. But that's 2:31:11.720 --> 2:31:16.800 not true. We've had this discussion. It is true. No, no, no, no, 2:31:17.080 --> 2:31:19.680 it's true that hunters are are like the way that 2:31:19.760 --> 2:31:21.640 it is now at the table, and there aren't a 2:31:21.640 --> 2:31:24.000 lot of other voices. Well, just they should give the 2:31:24.080 --> 2:31:27.560 money but have no input alright, looking to wrap her up. 2:31:29.240 --> 2:31:32.880 I appreciate the call out. I don't mean I'm not 2:31:32.959 --> 2:31:34.920 trying to be obnoxious. No no, no, no no. Some 2:31:35.000 --> 2:31:37.560 people will obviously take it that way and we'll be offended. 2:31:38.120 --> 2:31:40.920 I appreciate. Yeah, people are always offended by everything. Someone's 2:31:40.920 --> 2:31:44.920 offended by us trying to sell our book, which is 2:31:44.959 --> 2:31:51.760 a public service. Someone that was it just no, it's great. 2:31:52.040 --> 2:31:54.240 I appreciate hearing that from the from the outs and 2:31:54.360 --> 2:31:56.680 not really from the outside. I mean, you're I consider 2:31:56.720 --> 2:31:58.960 you one of us, but I think we need to 2:31:59.040 --> 2:32:01.400 be doing more of that. You gotta work together and 2:32:01.400 --> 2:32:04.040 the solutions are the solution, just not do it's not 2:32:04.240 --> 2:32:05.879 it's not undoing. I mean when people say, how did 2:32:05.879 --> 2:32:06.920 in the world do you think you could take on 2:32:07.000 --> 2:32:10.240 this project from scratch, a private enterprise the Race seven 2:32:10.320 --> 2:32:12.400 or a million dollars and build this whole thing. He's 2:32:12.440 --> 2:32:15.440 gotta get organized and execute over a very long period 2:32:15.480 --> 2:32:16.960 of time. Can't just give up because he hit a 2:32:17.000 --> 2:32:19.879 few frustrating bombs. So that's well, you guys can do it. Yeah, 2:32:19.959 --> 2:32:23.440 well we've done an extraordinary amount of work. Yeah on 2:32:23.520 --> 2:32:28.760 behalf of American Wildlook. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, uh and you 2:32:28.840 --> 2:32:30.600 know we should do a lot better work going forward. 2:32:31.640 --> 2:32:34.600 Thank you very much. Tough questions, you know you did 2:32:34.680 --> 2:32:37.160 some of them. You dodged a couple did Yeah, a 2:32:37.200 --> 2:32:39.440 little bit. But it was good. It was good. I 2:32:39.520 --> 2:32:41.160 liked it because you know what, it wasn't a dodge. 2:32:41.200 --> 2:32:43.480 You just don't know. I understand sometuff I don't. I know. 2:32:43.920 --> 2:32:46.560 The older I get you guys are you're young, you older, 2:32:46.600 --> 2:32:48.200 you get, the less certain you are about a lot 2:32:48.240 --> 2:32:50.640 of stuff. Can I give you you said it? Can 2:32:50.720 --> 2:32:52.680 I give you a concluder? Oh you're allowed to having. 2:32:53.320 --> 2:32:55.240 I'm not gonna let anyone else have a concluder. I 2:32:55.280 --> 2:32:57.119 had looked. I'm not gonna take a concluder, but I'll 2:32:57.200 --> 2:32:59.920 let you have a concluder. He just do you, guys, concluder. 2:33:00.760 --> 2:33:03.360 Here's I like people to take away. They probably even 2:33:03.440 --> 2:33:05.880 you guys might have another thousand questions. I'm glad to 2:33:05.920 --> 2:33:09.600 come back anytime to try to answer them. Some things 2:33:09.640 --> 2:33:11.360 something that didn't sound quite right. So we're gonna get 2:33:11.360 --> 2:33:13.040 back in here and straighten this out. Whatever it was, 2:33:13.200 --> 2:33:16.720 you know, glad to do it. Please do people listening, 2:33:16.760 --> 2:33:18.440 what I like you to take away is you can 2:33:18.480 --> 2:33:22.560 count on us to keep going. So we've done property acquisitions. 2:33:22.600 --> 2:33:24.960 We're adding about thirty five thousand acres a year to 2:33:25.000 --> 2:33:28.280 our model. We will work our butts off to keep 2:33:28.320 --> 2:33:32.200 this thing going and keep adding more wildlife habitat or 2:33:32.280 --> 2:33:35.360 work really hard to take that habitat and moving into 2:33:35.400 --> 2:33:38.560 something that is going to support a huge amount of wildlife, 2:33:39.040 --> 2:33:42.040 but also change the baseline for which what is normal 2:33:42.160 --> 2:33:44.680 today in Montana. And when you come out, you'll see 2:33:44.760 --> 2:33:48.959 less fences, you'll see less takeout keep out signs, more 2:33:49.040 --> 2:33:51.680 signs saying welcome to prairie American Prairie Reserve on our 2:33:51.760 --> 2:33:54.760 private land. And we want to make things like corner 2:33:54.840 --> 2:33:57.160 hopping and all that kind of stuff moot because the 2:33:57.240 --> 2:33:59.840 fancy needed there. We've already done that. We can show 2:33:59.879 --> 2:34:02.320 you and thousands and tens of thousands of acres where 2:34:02.320 --> 2:34:04.480 we've already done that where it's a it's a You 2:34:04.480 --> 2:34:06.200 don't have to say that. You just walk right across 2:34:06.240 --> 2:34:09.360 our private the checker the world of checkerboard goes away 2:34:09.360 --> 2:34:13.080 because he can't see it anymore. Right, But um, we'll 2:34:13.080 --> 2:34:16.320 also put in infrastructure. We're just finishing our second really 2:34:16.360 --> 2:34:19.680 big campground right on one where it'll be open in 2:34:19.720 --> 2:34:21.440 the spring. But there's hunters and other so we're put 2:34:21.480 --> 2:34:23.920 in campgrounds fifteen bucks a night. If you think that's 2:34:23.920 --> 2:34:25.720 the exorbitant, you can camp on the BLM right next 2:34:25.760 --> 2:34:29.360 door for free. Gorilla camp. We're doing a two mile 2:34:29.400 --> 2:34:31.160 wide hut to hut system, one of the biggest hut 2:34:31.200 --> 2:34:34.200 systems in North America. There's hunters using those huts right now. 2:34:34.360 --> 2:34:37.000 Based on the p N. We're moving west to east 2:34:37.040 --> 2:34:38.800 all the way across towards the fourth back down. So 2:34:38.920 --> 2:34:41.480 we'll put in things for you, will buy, the land, 2:34:41.879 --> 2:34:45.360 will remodel, land, will work on wildlife populations. We'll put 2:34:45.440 --> 2:34:47.920 in places for you to stay and make it easy 2:34:48.000 --> 2:34:49.600 for you to move about. Try to take it back 2:34:49.640 --> 2:34:53.080 in some ways to the old days. But you guys 2:34:53.160 --> 2:34:57.840 can help us, mostly by helping barking up the wrong 2:34:57.959 --> 2:35:00.680 tree by hammering on us for acts us. All I 2:35:00.720 --> 2:35:03.120 can say is, don't worry about it. Come talk to me, 2:35:03.280 --> 2:35:06.440 Come talk to anybody or CEO Ali Fox. Just ask 2:35:06.520 --> 2:35:09.800 you guys really serious about public access, and then once 2:35:09.840 --> 2:35:12.600 you feel good about that, help us build wildlife populations. 2:35:12.959 --> 2:35:14.800 And you can do that by some ideas we just 2:35:14.840 --> 2:35:17.480 talked about in the last half hour. The issue is 2:35:17.520 --> 2:35:20.680 a population. So it's because everybody's chasing around tiny little 2:35:20.720 --> 2:35:23.200 fragments of what used to be there. We can grow 2:35:23.280 --> 2:35:25.960 that up big. Everybody's gonna win. But you got to 2:35:26.000 --> 2:35:28.959 help the ranchers. They're working on three percent margins. They 2:35:29.040 --> 2:35:31.160 need some help, no matter what you think, whether they 2:35:31.200 --> 2:35:33.879 should share the cost ordever else. Just let's just help. 2:35:34.520 --> 2:35:37.520 We'll get more wildline. So that's what I'd say. We'll 2:35:37.600 --> 2:35:42.360 keep working, all right, you have the weight to save 2:35:42.400 --> 2:35:48.840 your concluders. I had a good one ahead. If you 2:35:49.920 --> 2:35:53.400 I want to hear, I'm pushing and I feel like 2:35:53.560 --> 2:35:55.160 you know I'm gonna push it. Like he was saying 2:35:55.160 --> 2:35:57.320 about what the bisons like, the farther away you are 2:35:57.520 --> 2:36:01.200 from them. That like I'm anxious about bison. I don't 2:36:01.200 --> 2:36:03.040 even because I don't know that much about him. You know, 2:36:03.080 --> 2:36:05.200 I just know what's on the park. So the same 2:36:05.280 --> 2:36:07.120 thing with APR. It's like people need to go up 2:36:07.160 --> 2:36:09.760 there and check it out. Like you said, it's wide 2:36:09.800 --> 2:36:11.520 open right now, go check it out and go see 2:36:11.560 --> 2:36:13.800 what's going on there. There's hunting opportunities up there now, 2:36:13.840 --> 2:36:15.440 we don't need to talk about what they are. Go 2:36:15.560 --> 2:36:17.280 online and go check it out. And I think a 2:36:17.360 --> 2:36:19.800 lot less people would be scared of the whole thing 2:36:19.959 --> 2:36:22.760 if they just probably took a drive up through beautiful 2:36:22.840 --> 2:36:24.960 Montana and go and check it out. In fact, come 2:36:25.000 --> 2:36:27.119 on right now today as we're sitting here, there's people 2:36:27.120 --> 2:36:29.360 out in the snow hunting bison. There you go, go 2:36:29.760 --> 2:36:33.640 on some bison. Sam, Oh yeah, I was just gonna 2:36:33.640 --> 2:36:35.640 say that. My dad thinks that you already have your 2:36:35.680 --> 2:36:39.880 ten thousand bison floor there. Not too long ago, we 2:36:39.959 --> 2:36:41.680 walked out of the tent in the morning, goes Sam, 2:36:42.200 --> 2:36:45.520 come look, there's thousands of bison. I'm like, what are 2:36:45.520 --> 2:36:47.320 you talking about? Like I think they only have like 2:36:47.400 --> 2:36:50.560 a thousand bisons. And I come out and it's you know, 2:36:50.640 --> 2:36:54.200 it's that grainy first light kind of dawn. Where were 2:36:54.280 --> 2:37:01.200 you Yeah, yeah, And and I go, well, yeah, I 2:37:01.240 --> 2:37:03.200 see those those three that are right up there in 2:37:03.240 --> 2:37:05.240 the foreground. Like He's like, do what you see all 2:37:05.240 --> 2:37:10.080 those other ones? I was like those that stage brush? No, 2:37:10.240 --> 2:37:12.080 but what But what what I wanted to say was 2:37:12.200 --> 2:37:14.160 that first time I went out in that that country, 2:37:14.200 --> 2:37:18.640 I was reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, biography of 2:37:18.720 --> 2:37:23.800 merywether Lewis and and talking about this area. Uh Stephen 2:37:23.840 --> 2:37:27.760 Ambrose said that it is the area that's least changed 2:37:28.000 --> 2:37:31.039 since Louis saw it. And that was just so inspiring 2:37:31.120 --> 2:37:33.000 to me in that moment because I was like six 2:37:33.080 --> 2:37:37.480 seven miles back in hiking chasing around elk Um and 2:37:37.480 --> 2:37:41.640 it's just magnificent country. And it always uh plays with 2:37:41.680 --> 2:37:44.600 my imagination too to think about what it looked like, 2:37:45.120 --> 2:37:47.160 you know, that two years ago when they saw it, 2:37:47.280 --> 2:37:49.640 and how cool would be to have that kind of 2:37:49.879 --> 2:37:54.200 population level again for wildlife someday. God, it's great glad 2:37:54.240 --> 2:37:56.560 to getting out there. We're trying to get people to 2:37:56.600 --> 2:37:58.960 see it. It's a long ways and so many people 2:37:58.959 --> 2:38:00.920 who have questions actually ever been there? A lot of 2:38:01.040 --> 2:38:03.240 Montana's I've never even seen it. I'll call you my 2:38:03.240 --> 2:38:12.240 as little wedge one in um Boy. I've talked a 2:38:12.280 --> 2:38:14.040 lot about a lot of good stuff. I gotta have 2:38:14.120 --> 2:38:17.280 you back. I'm glad to come back. Yeah, I definitely 2:38:17.320 --> 2:38:20.440 need to make field true. What's it and that's all 2:38:20.480 --> 2:38:23.360 I got? All right, everyone, thanks for joining us.