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Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless,

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Speaker 1: severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening don't eat podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can't predict anything, all right, So recently, uh this

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Speaker 1: has nothing new what we were talking about. But recently

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Speaker 1: we've identified, we've been we've been trying hard to identify

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Speaker 1: a style of humor that is used by uh our

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Speaker 1: man dirt myth who who who's his parents know him

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Speaker 1: as Garrett Smith, whom we love dearly. We're trying to

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Speaker 1: get him a quick tobacco Everybody, please send your emails

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Speaker 1: to get Jared to get Garrett to quit. Uh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Durt Smith's the chronic tobacco user and wor thinking about

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Speaker 1: implementing a tobacco free work space, and it's gonna be

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Speaker 1: like very hard on dirt myth. But dirtmouth humor is

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Speaker 1: explained dirtmouth humor. There actually is no humor involved. There's yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's it's an attempt. It's an attempt at humor, and

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Speaker 1: it's like when the person themselves thinks that what they're

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Speaker 1: gonna do or say, it's gonna be funny. But in

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Speaker 1: essence is if some if you if someone asks you

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Speaker 1: a question like, hey, uh, can you grab me the

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Speaker 1: milk either refrigerator and you open the fridge door and

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Speaker 1: you go, no milk in here, but you actually just

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Speaker 1: looked at a gallon of milk and then you giggle

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Speaker 1: to yourself, Yeah, you don't know, just kidding or it's

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Speaker 1: just it's just kidding humor. That might be the way

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Speaker 1: he'd be like, yeah, I saw a bear and you're

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Speaker 1: in an area with a lot of bears. He'd be like, oh, no, ship, No,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, and its being but it's not funny

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Speaker 1: and it is totally plausible. Anyways. It's a spin on

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Speaker 1: twin light humor, which my old girlfriend identified when we

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Speaker 1: were standing on my the lake I was brought up

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Speaker 1: on and someone said to her, Hey, do you see

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Speaker 1: that sign across the lake? And she said no, and

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Speaker 1: they go, dah, you couldn't see a sign across that

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Speaker 1: lake and she just it's like and she's like, this

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Speaker 1: is a The people in this community use the style

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Speaker 1: of humor that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Are we tying

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Speaker 1: this into anything? No? Okay, but right before we turned

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Speaker 1: the podcast machine and we're talking about dirt, myth humor

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Speaker 1: had dirt Myth just attempted some humor, Dirt, did you

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Speaker 1: just try to say something money to go over? No,

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Speaker 1: Ron made sort of just a low brow kind of us. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: one more thing has nothing to do with anything Yanni.

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Speaker 1: You were just finishing up a couple of odds and

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Speaker 1: ends we were discussing before we turned up the podcast machine.

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Speaker 1: On Yanni, you were a moment ago saying it's actually

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Speaker 1: a recording machine that that you can't tell if a

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Speaker 1: and speaking of in speaking about selecting a mate and

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Speaker 1: selecting a wife, you were telling Dirt Myth that a

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Speaker 1: fella can't identify someone who's gonna be a good mom wife. No, mom,

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Speaker 1: you're actually putting these words in my mouth. No, I

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Speaker 1: just heard you saying this. You're talking about No, I'm

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Speaker 1: not last night right now, Okay, go ahead. You were

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Speaker 1: saying that you you were saying that it somehow is like,

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Speaker 1: uh like when you get married to someone and then

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Speaker 1: you have a child with them, that it's a complete

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Speaker 1: unknown whether or not they're gonna be a good mom

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Speaker 1: or not. There's no way to anticipate paid their mom nous. No,

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Speaker 1: that wasn't me, Yes, it was dude. Well, you're embarrassing me. Now,

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Speaker 1: someone someone else here in the group might have been

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Speaker 1: saying that it was you, and I thought how odd

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Speaker 1: it was, because that does not jibe with the normal

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Speaker 1: kind of things you say about these issues. I was

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Speaker 1: the one that made the point. We were talking about

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Speaker 1: marriage because there this because there's no there's no don't

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Speaker 1: talk about this because you're gonna because there's no nothing.

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Speaker 1: Nothing's good because coming it No. We were giving marriage

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Speaker 1: advice and I was just saying, she didn't want how

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Speaker 1: I feel like that. I think he did that the commitment,

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Speaker 1: the trust in the commitment is more important than being

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Speaker 1: swept off your feet and the whole love thing that

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Speaker 1: was this morning. That was was not what you just

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Speaker 1: said a minute ago. But that was a different conversation

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Speaker 1: that we had the last night. This morning this morning,

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Speaker 1: kids was just discussing basically the same thing. Okay, but

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Speaker 1: like I'm saying, I do not I'm sorry. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I could be just high from stage brush, but I

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Speaker 1: don't remember saying this thing about the mom knowing if

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Speaker 1: someone could be a good mom. Yeah, I do. I

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Speaker 1: have come to think and I don't want to talk.

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Speaker 1: Don't you know this isn't a I don't want to

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Speaker 1: talk about love advice, um, but I have come to

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Speaker 1: I have come to realized that, you know, now, I've

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Speaker 1: been alive so long and married so long that I've

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Speaker 1: been to a lot of weddings, and I've been a

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Speaker 1: lot of weddings where I hear all about uh, people

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Speaker 1: who are like, oh, we're just so in love or

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Speaker 1: more in love than anyone else has ever been in love.

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Speaker 1: And you wouldn't understand this is like such a special

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Speaker 1: love we have. You know, we're so in love. We

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Speaker 1: need a special Yeah, preacher, because because this is so

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't get it right. I'm always like, dude, come

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Speaker 1: talk to me when there's a couple of babies. I'm

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Speaker 1: talking to some youngsters running around the house, and I

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Speaker 1: would love to hear how special it is, because at

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Speaker 1: some point, and it's not all it is, but there

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Speaker 1: are days and times and weeks when it's just a

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Speaker 1: bunch of work. Steve, could I segue into one thing

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Speaker 1: before we talk about sage grouse and hunting? Oh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why not? Now? I mean we're okay. What you're talking

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Speaker 1: about are those guys who postings on Facebook and said,

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Speaker 1: you know, they state their anniversary, and I married my

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Speaker 1: best friend and it drives me crazy because if it's

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Speaker 1: your best friend, you can tell them how good looking

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Speaker 1: that chick at the mall you saw was earlier today.

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Speaker 1: And if you can't tell your wife that she's not

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Speaker 1: your best friend, Ronnie and kind, I remind you of

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Speaker 1: one of your another quote of years that's always been

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Speaker 1: a favorite of mine. What's that it was? I don't

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Speaker 1: even know. I don't even believe this. I just liked

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Speaker 1: it a lot. You said one time you were talking

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Speaker 1: about this is not meant this is not meant to

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Speaker 1: a fend anybody out there. You were somehow on a

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Speaker 1: tirade about people who have their dad be their best

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Speaker 1: and Brownie said, if your dad your best friend, and

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Speaker 1: you don't have any fucking friends unless you less you

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Speaker 1: and your dad used to go in to absolutely great.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, if if your dad your best friend, you

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Speaker 1: don't have one birds because I mean, my dad didn't

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Speaker 1: camp in the backyard a pup tent, you know, scared

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Speaker 1: Bookerman and stuff on. No, he was sleeping with mom.

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Speaker 1: Your best friend is you know, you like, but to

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Speaker 1: an adult level of it, your best friend, you could

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Speaker 1: tell him anything. Your wife can be the best partner

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Speaker 1: in old but you can't tell her everything. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: cannot say, wow, look at the figure on that woman.

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Speaker 1: You can tell you you can tell your best friend

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Speaker 1: that in all relationships, out of respect you have you

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Speaker 1: practice some like you practice some restraint. I'll know and

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Speaker 1: say things to my wife and she won't be annoyed,

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Speaker 1: she said, she will just be like disinterested, and she'll

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Speaker 1: say that. I think that's like that sort of thing

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Speaker 1: is I think best left for the you know, the

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Speaker 1: guys you work with, And I think that's a perfect

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Speaker 1: I need to hear that. Yeah, you know, it's a

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Speaker 1: perfect segue into hunting, social hunting. You hunt with your friends.

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Speaker 1: You know that. Let's let's work. Let's can we We

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Speaker 1: gotta come back around real quick, because I feel like

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Speaker 1: you left it off saying that I somehow said that

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Speaker 1: you can't judge your girlfriend or fiance. Somehow you have

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Speaker 1: an idea of what sort of mom and I'd like

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Speaker 1: to clarify that. I sure do believe that there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of things I think that you can see from

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Speaker 1: a from a person and judge their character, and like

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Speaker 1: being a good mother is definitely one of those things.

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Speaker 1: When I had my first date with my wife. Now,

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Speaker 1: it was a four day long date. So it wasn't

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Speaker 1: like going out to dinner or something. Right, Like, I

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Speaker 1: was living in Alaska and she was living she was

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Speaker 1: living in New York. Right, So when we agreed to

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Speaker 1: go on a date, we went and cruised up and

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Speaker 1: down that we went up like by San Bernardino, Santa Monica,

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Speaker 1: and California, cruised round for a few days. So it

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Speaker 1: was a date, but it was like a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of dates stacked end to end. But I go back

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Speaker 1: up to Anchorage after my first date and I said

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Speaker 1: to uh, you know, we're sitting in my brother's uh

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Speaker 1: drinking beer and my brother's kitchen, and I said to uh,

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Speaker 1: the guys there, I said, I'll tell you what. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna marry her. And my friend Matt Carlson called bullshit me.

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Speaker 1: He's like, you are not you don't what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: So I said, I'll make a bat with you, man,

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Speaker 1: and we I said I'll pick a date, and I

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Speaker 1: can't remember what it was. It was like, I'll be married.

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Speaker 1: I'll be engaged to her a year from today, and

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Speaker 1: I'll be married to her two years from today, and

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Speaker 1: we bet a hundred dollars and we drew up a contract.

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Speaker 1: I signed it, he signed it, My brother signed it

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Speaker 1: as a witness. Two years later, I get a hundred

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Speaker 1: dollar bill in the mail along with the contract. Because

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Speaker 1: I knew, I knew, And part of that was I

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Speaker 1: knew she'd be a I knew she'd be like a

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Speaker 1: very good mom. And wouldn't you know you be I'd

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Speaker 1: be able to trust me with my children, not just

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Speaker 1: with him, but to have him. Yeah, Yanni's so engaged

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Speaker 1: by this, he said, like Morse cold and Flash, here's

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Speaker 1: a segway for you, and you describe. You didn't introduce everybody, Steve,

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Speaker 1: you forgot all right, because I'm because it's gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking a whole bunch. I'm gonna do some introductions. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there is the Levy and the Eagle. Yeah, he was

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Speaker 1: all put back together again. I recently when when Yannie

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Speaker 1: messes knee up, I wrote him off. I heard that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but they fixed his knee and he's back to normal now.

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Speaker 1: Now you can't keep up. It's still good. Um Ron Bam.

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Speaker 1: Lifelong friend hales from Twin Lake, Twin Lake Mission, but

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Speaker 1: also kind of lives in Virginia. I do Shannondoah Valley, Right,

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Speaker 1: would you say that lives on a hilltop that he

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Speaker 1: actually named Beer Mountain? Lives on Beer Mountain. If you

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Speaker 1: send the mail and it says Beer Mountain, Virginia, you

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Speaker 1: look at to me. Just use the right postal code,

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Speaker 1: though I don't actually have my own postal code, Like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, I know what he's got to be talking

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Speaker 1: about it because the beer kids go all the way

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Speaker 1: down the driveway to the mailbox. Brodi Henderson, Brodie say

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Speaker 1: you wanna say any much? So you haven't the word yet.

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Speaker 1: I know, I'm just listening. I've been married. You have

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Speaker 1: a good wife, right, I actually my tenth anniversary was

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Speaker 1: about four days ago. Two children, two children, two little boys,

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Speaker 1: five and one and a half? Is your mom? Is

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Speaker 1: your wife? Like? Could you feel that she's doing a

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Speaker 1: good job as a mom? D Yeah, he had a

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Speaker 1: good feeling, so he wasn't like what Yanni was saying.

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Speaker 1: Then there's uh ed ed Arnett from the biologists with

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Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt. Conservation partnership is how you like to put

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Speaker 1: it in? Sure that works for me? TRC Peak explained

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Speaker 1: the explained the biome that we're in right now. Am

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Speaker 1: I using that word right? Yeah? Explain where we are

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Speaker 1: right now. So we are in southern Wyoming, and what

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Speaker 1: many know is the sage brush. See it's um a

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Speaker 1: landscape that is mostly dominated by sage brush. There's smatterings

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Speaker 1: of aspen draws and and uh and meadows that that

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Speaker 1: are scattered throughout the buy and large this landscape is

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Speaker 1: dominated by sage brush. And we're at about seven thousand

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Speaker 1: feet above sea level. In uh Mark Twain, uh described

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Speaker 1: sage brush as a monarch of the forest. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know that still tonight, but I was telling me A

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Speaker 1: monarch of the forest, an exquisite miniature, that's it. How

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00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:34,000
Speaker 1: how old can a sagebrush plant be? Oh, they can

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00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:36,040
Speaker 1: be well over a hundred and some of the stuff

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00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:37,840
Speaker 1: you were probably walking in today and I was walking

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Speaker 1: in today was over a hundred years old. But we

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Speaker 1: can still be um. They can still be yanked out

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Speaker 1: pretty easy. Yeah, it's pretty shallow soils. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: know that's the the shallows. The soils are pretty shallow.

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Speaker 1: And that's what caused question, not a silly one, is

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Speaker 1: is there an altitude like we're sage brush existing, quits existing?

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00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:03,920
Speaker 1: Or is it always up high like like we are,

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00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:06,960
Speaker 1: Like if you get down to the Great Plains? Is

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00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:09,680
Speaker 1: it so it fades out in the Great Plains? For sure?

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00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:15,000
Speaker 1: Is it? Is? It probably an elevational issue, but I

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Speaker 1: can think of a lot of stage brush below three

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00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:20,400
Speaker 1: thousand feet. Kind of depends on where you're at, for example,

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Speaker 1: it's not necessarily an altitude thing. Yeah. Stage brushes makes

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Speaker 1: up a large part of southeast Oregon, and it's not

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00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:35,680
Speaker 1: seven thousand okay, And explained like its role in the

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Speaker 1: in the in the in the natural systems out here

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00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:40,960
Speaker 1: like what all? What all sort of uses the sage

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Speaker 1: brush seat. And before you do, I'll say that at

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Speaker 1: times you can walk through the sage brush Sea and

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00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:52,800
Speaker 1: it can feel um, really empty. Yeah, And it's been

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00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:56,200
Speaker 1: referred to as the Big empty too, which is a

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00:14:56,240 --> 00:14:59,440
Speaker 1: false impression exactly, but it can seem that way. There's

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00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:03,480
Speaker 1: like it seems like low and kind of monotonous, and

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00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,800
Speaker 1: you sort of missed the details because of the expansiveness.

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00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:10,040
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. When you spend time in

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00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:14,360
Speaker 1: the sage rush see, and especially when you were hunters

246
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:17,280
Speaker 1: who spend time looking and watching for lots of things.

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00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:20,480
Speaker 1: It's teeming with life. There are three hundred and fifty

248
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 1: different species of plants and animals that depend on this

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00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:29,080
Speaker 1: particular ecosystem in one way, shape or form. Summer plants

250
00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:33,760
Speaker 1: and animals, but sage sage grouse are what we call obligates,

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Speaker 1: so they have to have sage brush. Mule deer and

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00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:40,160
Speaker 1: other species don't necessarily have to have at their associates,

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00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:42,840
Speaker 1: but they strongly dependent on it. I mean, you find

254
00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:45,240
Speaker 1: it plenty of plenty of mule deer and sage brush.

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Speaker 1: Some call the sage brush see the big empty because

256
00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 1: as you said, we can walk. You can walk for

257
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,600
Speaker 1: miles and not see anything. But it's so vast that

258
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,880
Speaker 1: if you're not paying attention, you know, you'll miss what's

259
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 1: out there. And there are three d D plus species

260
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:03,720
Speaker 1: of plants and animals that are dependent on this ecosystem.

261
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:06,600
Speaker 1: Some of them are obligates, and an obligate is something

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00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:09,560
Speaker 1: that has to have that particular plant community. In sage

263
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 1: grouse or a good example of that, others like mule deer,

264
00:16:12,520 --> 00:16:15,960
Speaker 1: which use all kinds of different you know, plant communities,

265
00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:19,760
Speaker 1: they associate with sage brush, and they associate very closely

266
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:22,840
Speaker 1: with and it's very important for mule deer. But they're

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00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:25,760
Speaker 1: they're not what we would consider I'm true, obligates. Elk too,

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00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:27,800
Speaker 1: there's elk out in this system right now, but they're

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00:16:27,800 --> 00:16:33,680
Speaker 1: not obligates. Not obligates. Why like, why does the sage grouse?

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00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:38,200
Speaker 1: Why is the obligate the sage brush. That's how they evolved.

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Speaker 1: They evolved in this particular but like in his daily

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Speaker 1: like in its daily life. Is it just that in

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00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 1: its absence they go away? Does he does he rely

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00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:48,200
Speaker 1: on in some absolute they rely on it. They eat

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Speaker 1: exclusively sage grouse in the winter Jesus back that up

276
00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:59,560
Speaker 1: and edited cannibalistic. No, theyclusively sage brush in the wintertime. Yeah,

277
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:01,720
Speaker 1: and in this you know, this time of year, they're

278
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:04,800
Speaker 1: still picking on insects and forbes, but they're starting to

279
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:07,600
Speaker 1: shift into sage brush. But they have evolved and they

280
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:09,359
Speaker 1: don't have a gizzard. I think you knew that. And

281
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:15,200
Speaker 1: so they you know, they question for death quick definition.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I was I was reading one time that No,

283
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 1: a guy a biologists tell me one time a fella

284
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Speaker 1: you probably know you probably, I'm sure in your in

285
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:35,080
Speaker 1: your wanderings you've run into Robert Abernathy, Robert, he was

286
00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:37,760
Speaker 1: telling me one time that a turkey and the turkey polt,

287
00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:39,879
Speaker 1: so you know, when a turkey comes out of the

288
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:44,639
Speaker 1: egg is eating. It needs a lot of protein, and

289
00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 1: they're eating se animal matter, plant matter, and then with

290
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:57,719
Speaker 1: an adult Robert, if you're listening and I'm messing us up,

291
00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:59,800
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I feel like I feel like this

292
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:08,120
Speaker 1: the proportion and in in in their adulthood. It's inverse yea,

293
00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:13,639
Speaker 1: about seventy five percent plant insect matter. That's you know,

294
00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 1: And I didn't look up the you know, the proportions

295
00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 1: for sage grouse before were sitting out and talk, but

296
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,679
Speaker 1: definitely the chicks are eating eating a high proportion of

297
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:28,520
Speaker 1: insects and forbes for material. But that's that's basically what

298
00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:32,280
Speaker 1: they eat is forbes, sage brush and insects in a nutshell.

299
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:34,960
Speaker 1: And that's what you know. They use this for nesting cover,

300
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:38,240
Speaker 1: they use it for wintering habitat. It's food, So they

301
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,040
Speaker 1: are truly obligates of the sage brush ecosystem. And when

302
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,440
Speaker 1: it goes away, and even small proportions, the sage grouse

303
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:48,320
Speaker 1: numbers decline precipitously and it's very well documented the science.

304
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,520
Speaker 1: Now you know you hear like that. I think the

305
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:53,600
Speaker 1: two little fact the ways people hear about sage grouse

306
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:57,560
Speaker 1: all time. It has no gizzard, and it's the biggest grouse.

307
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 1: Ye second largest game bird of second only to the turkey.

308
00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:05,120
Speaker 1: It's the biggest grouse. It's second only to the turkey. Yep, turkeys,

309
00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:08,000
Speaker 1: if you people do consider them the game bird. So yeah,

310
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 1: for sure, the second largest game bird. But it is

311
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: definitely the largest grouse in North America. I'm not sure

312
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:20,159
Speaker 1: if there's a bigger one in Europe or not. Is

313
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,320
Speaker 1: Lly Kelly's Is it a gross? I don't know. I

314
00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 1: thought they were anyway. It's a big damn bird. It's

315
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,280
Speaker 1: the biggest one in North America. You know, in South America,

316
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:36,800
Speaker 1: I hunted um with with indigenous peoples in South America,

317
00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:41,800
Speaker 1: I hunted uh curis house you sent with that bird

318
00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: from your show, Curisaw, crassless curisaw. And those things sit

319
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,639
Speaker 1: up in a tree in their roost and who like

320
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 1: a turkey, And you're sneaking underneath them while they're hooting.

321
00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:57,639
Speaker 1: And those boys don't wait from to come down out

322
00:19:57,640 --> 00:19:59,879
Speaker 1: of the tree. They get under the tree and they

323
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,639
Speaker 1: try to skylight it. It's not that different from the

324
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 1: sudi grass. No, not at all, you know what, it's

325
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,920
Speaker 1: more close to that. So Yanny cool up to know.

326
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:14,440
Speaker 1: I do have a question. I had some groundwork. Yeah,

327
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 1: what would be another I'll but get of the stage

328
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:24,120
Speaker 1: rush community another stage rush, I'll get species. Um the

329
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:28,639
Speaker 1: sage thrasher and pig me rabbits or probably it's with

330
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,840
Speaker 1: the sagebrush couple. What's the thrasher snake? It's no, it's

331
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 1: a it's a song what I referred to earlier today

332
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: and it was reprimanded for sparrow. Actually, actually thrash and

333
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,200
Speaker 1: trash are not far off. You should when we reprimmated you,

334
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:52,480
Speaker 1: you should have said, oh no, you missed me. Thrash

335
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 1: bird not a to trash bird. We had, we had

336
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:00,200
Speaker 1: Bravo went on point. We were many hours in the

337
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:02,879
Speaker 1: hunting and it was a solid point and I finally

338
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:06,119
Speaker 1: I got all excited, cameras going in and everything's cool,

339
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,480
Speaker 1: and these little birds fly out at the stage and

340
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:13,960
Speaker 1: I said, trash birds. Yeah, my old man, My old

341
00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:15,720
Speaker 1: man had the same thing. My old man believed that

342
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:18,879
Speaker 1: there was you had all the game birds, which you

343
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,920
Speaker 1: damn sure knew what their name was. And then blue jays,

344
00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 1: which he despised because he loved the other bird he knew,

345
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:29,159
Speaker 1: which was Robbin's and he knew that blue jays were

346
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,840
Speaker 1: going to kill a robin, So you didn't have any

347
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 1: use for those. All other birds were classified as tweetie birds.

348
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, And I gotta who was

349
00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,080
Speaker 1: I got a friend of the waterfowl biologist, and he

350
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 1: was talking about some of the guys he grew up around,

351
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:51,199
Speaker 1: who in their mind there were two species of ducks.

352
00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:56,320
Speaker 1: There were mallards and scrap ducks. There was an alcohol

353
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: was it you? No? No, the body minds bud. Yeah,

354
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 1: he said, there's mallards and scrap dunts. You know, we

355
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 1: always said, Louisiana, there's two kinds of wildlife. There's game

356
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: and potential game. So all right, so sage grouse, I

357
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:17,200
Speaker 1: want to just like set the mood here. How many

358
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: sage grouse? I'm sure there's an't even be more applicant

359
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 1: species of sage brush. Sketch out their range, their historic

360
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:31,080
Speaker 1: range historically, what all sorts of areas, like, what kind

361
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 1: of collections of states would you live in Arizona? All

362
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: the way into three provinces of Canada, the Great Plains

363
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:40,680
Speaker 1: there basically the Great Plains, and into the Inner Mountain

364
00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 1: west and to the Great Basin, so California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada.

365
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: UM used to be in Arizona, but not anymore. Nebraska

366
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,159
Speaker 1: was the furthest east extent. They're they're gone from two states,

367
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 1: Nebraska and Arizona gone gone, not there anymore. North Dakotas

368
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 1: getting close. They're they're pretty tight, pretty small numbers. Um.

369
00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 1: They actually close their hunting season and we'll probably talk

370
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: more about that later about hunting and such. But not

371
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: to go to May. Every institute of there's this year.

372
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: I didn't check it before it came, but I think

373
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: they were talking about it. I talked to the director.

374
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: But so that's kind of the eastern edge right up

375
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: to the Great Plains and then all the way into

376
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 1: or into the stage step into the Great Base. So

377
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: they go into it. So they're outside of the Great Plains,

378
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: the Great Basin. Yeah, yeah, plains. The Great Planes begin

379
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 1: roughly at like the Hunter the Meridian and go westward

380
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 1: to the Rockies. It's kind of like a thumbshaped thing

381
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 1: actually in uh, Texas panhandled up into Canada. There's no

382
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: state that's entirely great planes. Some people define it by rainfall,

383
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 1: so like like like fourteen inches fourteen or less presentation thing. Yeah,

384
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: there's no state entirely in the Great Plains. But then

385
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 1: these birds jump over and going to the Great Basin.

386
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: So very actually there's very population there an iconic Western

387
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 1: purpose at the time of European contact, or however you

388
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 1: want to define it. How many were there? Those estimates

389
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: are like Buffalo sixty Do you know where the sixty

390
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: million estimate came from? I don't remember. I've heard this, Yeah, okay.

391
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: Colonel Dodge of Dodd's City Fame, once I saw a

392
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: large herd of buffalo. He estimated the width of the

393
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: herd and the time it took, how much time it

394
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: took the pass, which took correspondence with other individuals to

395
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: figure out. Then he took a look at a map.

396
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: I figured out how many there must have been there.

397
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,920
Speaker 1: Took a look at a map, and he's like, hey,

398
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, I know the range of where they are,

399
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: and that was probably all the ones that lived in

400
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: that area. So by my calculations, there were sixty millions,

401
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: and that became the fashionable estimate for over a century.

402
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: And we've heard sixteen million for and I can't remember

403
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: where it comes from, but we've heard sixteen million, you know,

404
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: well before the turn of the center stage grouse. Say, okay,

405
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: because the nowadays the fashionable estimate. Yeah, the fashionable estimate

406
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: for buffalo now is thirty two million. Somebody perfected it

407
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: to get it to thirty two. Yeah, so it was

408
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: sage grouse. It's what, uh, sixteen million before European settlement.

409
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: But no, but it was millions of birds. I mean,

410
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: think about the range of buffalo. I mean they ranged

411
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: much further eastn sage grouse too, so it's a range issue.

412
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: But you know, there were a ship ton of sage

413
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 1: grouse and it has to be just the wild as

414
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: absolutely so now but now it's it's still hard to

415
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: estimate them because we based the counts basically on the

416
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 1: number of males that have ten lecks, and then the

417
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: scientists you can't just say that you're right, I can't, Okay,

418
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's based on the number of males that

419
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 1: attend their breeding grounds, which are called lex so they

420
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: l E K and so all the prairie grouse, sharp

421
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: tailed grouse, lesser and greater prairie chickens, sage grouse. They

422
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: all go to what are called blacks and they're very

423
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 1: high fidelity to that. They go to those year after

424
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: year after year and like a little dance. It's it's

425
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,360
Speaker 1: where the boys go to pick up the girls. It's

426
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: it's a sage grouse singles bar. So they dance and

427
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: they puff and they do all their things in the

428
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: spring to to attract females and just describe, describe the

429
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: topography of a leck, like what make it's actually very flat.

430
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: It's different. It's it's quite different than the say, you

431
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: know what you're used to walking around for sage grouse

432
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: or sagebrush hunting for grouse. It's usually a flat area

433
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: where they can get out and display. They're quite vulnerable

434
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: to predators when they're doing this. Predators they're waiting for

435
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,440
Speaker 1: the stage grouse hold out every yeah, oh yeah, I

436
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: don't think they haven't figured this out. And the raptors

437
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: figured it out pretty fast. They kind of key in

438
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: on it to get to elect um. These birds use

439
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: big landscapes and they are quite capable of traveling long

440
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: distances to aleck um. I'm not sure on the statistics

441
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: on that, but between seasonal ranges they're well documented at

442
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 1: least six thirty miles plus from winter to summer range.

443
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: Those kinds of things, they can travel a long way,

444
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 1: and I they're actually further distances. I just haven't verified it.

445
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: I talked to a friend of mine in Montana, so

446
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: they were moving sixty plus miles um so seasonally, which

447
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 1: really makes it complicated for some of the conservation stuff

448
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: we're working on if you don't know where they're going

449
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: all the time. Back to the numbers, so biologists really

450
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: are dependent on counting those males at these breeding grounds,

451
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: these breeding sites, and then and they're just not all

452
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: of them. You don't you don't always find all of them,

453
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,640
Speaker 1: so there's a detection bias, and they move sometimes they

454
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: may move quite a distance sometimes you know, quarter a

455
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: half mile or more to a different site and for

456
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: whatever reason. But you know, if a biologist doesn't know

457
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 1: to go look, or they're not doing aerial services, they

458
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: may miss. So there's kind of a detection factor that's

459
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: really fine. You can find lecking birds from there, yeah, yeah,

460
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: you can see him from there. So um, but most

461
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: most people county they either you know, they do the

462
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: aerial surveys, but then they'll also send in people the

463
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: ground truth to make sure they're getting the right count.

464
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: But what what they do basically, uh, when they go

465
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: on the left. April is really the peak. Early April

466
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: is a peak, So late March through you know, probably

467
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: about the second week April or so. Bidden by by

468
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: late April, they're pretty much done. But you know, like

469
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: if you wanted to come back out not very far

470
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: from here, there's quite a number of les all around here.

471
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: You come out here in early April and you'd see

472
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: males and emails. But it's really quite a spectacle to

473
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: to see the boys doing their thing. But basically the

474
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: calculation is pretty rudimentary. It's pretty simple. Uh, it's really

475
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: the best we've got right now. There's some people that

476
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: are working on some pretty fancy modeling. But you take

477
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: the number of males counted on lex and you take

478
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: the proportion of females in the population. That's just based

479
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: on like you know, when you guys kill your sage grouse,

480
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: and you will, you're gonna deposit a wing and the

481
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: wing barrel somewhere down the road, and the biologists use

482
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: those wings to tell males from females. That plus capture

483
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: data that they have uh, nesting data, all these kinds

484
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: of things with chicks and and the ones that radio marking.

485
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: All of this data is used to figure out proportions

486
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: of males to females and the population. That's a basic calculation.

487
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: You take the number of males and multiply it by

488
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: the estimated number of females and there's are are. Multiply

489
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 1: it by the proportion and and uh you figure out

490
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: your total little populations. But so does do of every

491
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: male that comes out of egg in the spring at

492
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: one year of age. The next April. All those males

493
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: are gonna lack. They're all gonna go lack. They're gonna try.

494
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: But Jason Jackson, gobblers, they exactly the gobblers get in

495
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: there and doing the dominant males are the words. They're

496
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: going to breed. But but you're counting them. If not,

497
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: you'd have the factor in how many of those are

498
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: out there? And there are there there's a bias there

499
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: as well. You're not counting them all. There's an observer bias.

500
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: So you and I might see things very differently when

501
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: we go to counterlack um. I mean we try to

502
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: reduce that obviously with the same observer, same lack that

503
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: kind of you to make sure they had a good game.

504
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: I I know, some people you put out there and

505
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: need come back and tell you anything exactly and whether

506
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: to you know, whether and those kinds of things really affected.

507
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: So they leave for the actual breeding, they'll breed, they'll

508
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: breed in the vicinity and on the lack and then

509
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,719
Speaker 1: and then the females leave and they how far did

510
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: they go? Well, it depends on this. You know, some

511
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: of the states document like Wyoming here a friend of

512
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: mine has documented at roughly nine of the females nest

513
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: within four miles of elect but that varies. It can

514
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: be further. So they're going long distances. And you know,

515
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: part of the reason, you know, we have to manage

516
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: and conserve large landscapes is because they use big landscapes.

517
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: We're talking townships, not sections. You know, you know, you

518
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: know the word for what it is where. But let's

519
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: say a turkey, let's say a hand turkey's gonna drop,

520
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, ten eggs, twelve eggs. There was the eight

521
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: eggs on the average in the vicinity right somewhere between

522
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: eight and twelve. Are you familiar with there's a term

523
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: maybe you know, maybe maybe there is no term for it,

524
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: you know, like a female turkey, a female turkey, let's

525
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: she's gonna lay eight to twelve eggs. She needs a

526
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: breed with that male. She like breathes the mail right,

527
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: then drops an egg, breathes the mail, drops the egg,

528
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: breathe the mail, drops the egg. I mean she doesn't

529
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: you know, so she's only dropping one egg every day.

530
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 1: She don't believe that's the way it is with sage

531
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: grounds and flies off. Yeah, so she's got enough in

532
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: her to do that. And I can't remember the term,

533
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: but wants her does she do that? Like one? Because

534
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: what a turkey? She'll lay an egg every day and

535
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: then synchronize the eggs because she won't incubate them until

536
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: they're all down right, so they don't hatch over the

537
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: span of eight to ten days. She heats sinks them.

538
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: You know. Now, I think all game birds practice that

539
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: because it wouldn't make sense to leave four eggs in

540
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: the in the nest and have four chicks. You got

541
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: to take care of them. Absolutely not all right, So

542
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: there we are. We gotta let felicals out there counts

543
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: them up, extrapolate from there based on some informed to

544
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: some assumptions, and you got what how many how many

545
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: of these grouse have we got? Well, a couple of

546
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: years ago when running I were out here hunting, we

547
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: figured there were somewhere between two and two hundred thousand

548
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: and four hundred thousand at that particular time. Now it's

549
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: upwards of four hundred plus thousand, because the numbers are up. Um,

550
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: we've seen a couple of increases in the last few years.

551
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: They really started coordinating back in the mid fifties the

552
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which is the

553
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: professional association of the state wildlife agencies. All the biologist

554
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: get together and and um they have working groups and

555
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: and um. You know, the Prairie Grouse group was you know,

556
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: coordinating this work for a long long time. But the

557
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: formal number starting point for LEC counts is in nixt

558
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: and we've got a long term trend between nineteen sixty

559
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: five and now. Obviously we've increased effort with the whole

560
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: issue of the bird being potentially listed, petitioned and considered

561
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:03,719
Speaker 1: for listing under the ESSA. That increased the research effort

562
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: means listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

563
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: But the Endangered Species Act, just just when you're listened

564
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,720
Speaker 1: under the s A doesn't necessarily mean you have endangered status,

565
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: because you can be listed under the ESA with threats, vulnerable, threatened,

566
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: or what order it threatened, endangered, endangered, extinct. So threatened

567
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: is the UM is the classification that it has a

568
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: high likelihood because of all the threats surrounding it of

569
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: becoming endangered. Endangered is they actually have a high likelihood

570
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 1: of becoming extinct. That's the difference. Gone, gone, gone, Sorry,

571
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: I've lost my podcast, Daddy, God, I forget. I can't

572
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: throw all these terms around. Yeah, so but I'll get

573
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: you very word. Because you were saying that, uh, people

574
00:34:55,239 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: started counting in. So it's been increased interest as we

575
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: realize that something's happening with these birds. So we've increased

576
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: the amount of effort and the monitoring. But the numbers

577
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: go up and down. Game bird populations fluctuate dramatically. I

578
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: mean they can fluctuate in some years just because of

579
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: drought conditions or other factors, and naturally, naturally so that's

580
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: you know, that's what makes a population estimate so hard

581
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: because they do this, you know, I mean, they're very

582
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: short lived and well sage grouse are a little longer

583
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,399
Speaker 1: lived than some other grouse, and we should talk about

584
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: that a little bit as it relates to hunting. But

585
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: they're not like quail and and pheasant. They're a little hardier,

586
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: but they, like the majority, don't die within the first year.

587
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: A chunk of them certainly do, no question, But once

588
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: they hit that first year of age, they have a

589
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:45,840
Speaker 1: They have a good likelihood of living to two to

590
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: four years, and I think some males can live up

591
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: you know, I don't remember what the oldest is, but

592
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:52,839
Speaker 1: it's not It wouldn't be uncommon to find a five

593
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: year old. So they're a lot hardier. They have good

594
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: hoever winter survive pivol. So you know, when we start

595
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the juvenile survival after you know,

596
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: a hard winter, you know, your prairie grouse are oftentimes

597
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: a little hardier, particularly safe grouse, compared to like quail

598
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: and pheasants and some of the other exotics that have

599
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: been introduced, huns and shuckers and those kinds of critters.

600
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 1: They're a lot hardier, like you look at the pheasant

601
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: funny to die exactly. Now. I've seen spots running in

602
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: the woods hunting, not hunting duskies, but I've been hunting

603
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 1: elk or something you find like a fir tree and

604
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: underneath it it's just literal with dusky grouse scat, right,

605
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: I mean just piles on top of piles, on top

606
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: of piles where it seems like that bird said the

607
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: whole winter in that tree, probably roost right, which they

608
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: kind of do, That's what I've been told at least right,

609
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: they'll literally like pick a spot when the snow gets deep,

610
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: and they kind of hang out in one little zone

611
00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: in one tree. Yeah, so do these bird because we

612
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: today hunting saw a couple of areas where it was

613
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: definitely like the poop was very concentrated. Do they do

614
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: the same thing, kind of have their little zone of

615
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,399
Speaker 1: stage and just they do. They use these big landscapes,

616
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 1: but they used specific parts of that landscape. And of

617
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: course if we could figure that out every time, we

618
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: wouldn't we wouldn't be skunked sometimes when we go on.

619
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: But we don't know a lot about winning habitat, you know,

620
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: not that we're focused on winter here, but but they're

621
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: just starting to understand some things about wintering habitat. But

622
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: once those there's there's you know, they're they're gonna have

623
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: the nest, they're gonna they're gonna go away from the

624
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: lack at some distance away from that and nest in

625
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,319
Speaker 1: that landscape. And then when the bird hatches, they're going

626
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: to take them to you know, birdering what we call

627
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: birdering habitat, and quite often that's brood rearing habitat body

628
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 1: and that's where the moms are taking them to to

629
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 1: get that high protein content. A lot, a lot of

630
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: these wet meadows that are around here very very important

631
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: and that's why a lot of private lands are important. Goes.

632
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: Quite often, you know, the wet meadows are concentrated on

633
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: private land because that's what was settled first. So um,

634
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: these these wet stringer meadows are vital to brood ring habitat.

635
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: Winter habitat is a little different. Obviously, these are going

636
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: to be covered with snow and lots of snow, so

637
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,720
Speaker 1: that's totally different. It's gonna be more on higher ridges

638
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: and and um, but it's still gonna have safe wind

639
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: swept exactly all right, So let me let me let

640
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: me back you up, min Brod, Are you cool right now? Nothing?

641
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: Everything you wonder both been taken care of. I have

642
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: a question, Yeah, that sounds interesting. Sage grew in Colorado.

643
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: We kind of talk about Wyoming. Is it just that

644
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: chunk of Wyoming it is close to Wyoming? Or is Colorado?

645
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: I mean, is it chunk of Colorado that's right on

646
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: the border. There's two different areas of Colorado that holds

647
00:38:54,200 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: stage gross northwestern Colorado from just west of Steamboats brings

648
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: out towards craig As as a big chunk habitat. It

649
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: looked like this kind of like yeah, very real similar. Yeah.

650
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: And then there's a smaller chunk of sage house habitat

651
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: in north Park near Walden, Colorado, which only has a

652
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: two day hunting season, smaller populations. Job Brody, thank you

653
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: just talked way back there. All of a sudden just

654
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 1: rolls out some good info. YEA man, get anything else

655
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 1: right now? I want to see a shoot one. Well,

656
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna back end up to something. If every

657
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: just want make sure you're gonna back him up to

658
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: the ford or you're gonna just back him up, back

659
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: them up in time from back him up in time

660
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: in two ways in time. This is a segue kind

661
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: of here's here's what I didn't get. They the numbers

662
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: are like like every not like everything, but like a

663
00:39:57,239 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: lot of things. The numbers are way down from our

664
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: suppositions about what the situation might have been like at

665
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: the time of European contact. Right, okay, but between you

666
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 1: said when there became a concerted effort to sort of

667
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: tally up stage gross in nineteen sixty five, breakdown for me, like,

668
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: what's kind of happened since nineteen sixty five? Like what

669
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 1: are the trends? And I know what you're saying. It's

670
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: hard because they go up and down by fifty percentage points, so, um,

671
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: the long term trend let me let me just say that.

672
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,959
Speaker 1: And a lot of people hang up on these numbers

673
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: and they misinterpret them, and you know, the trends are

674
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: very interesting, but when you see these wild fluctuations, you know,

675
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: right now, we're sixty three percent higher this past year.

676
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, last year was sixty three percent higher

677
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: counts than relative to the counts, but the counts were

678
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 1: the second lowest in history of the nineteen for since

679
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty first lowest, I can't remember way ago or

680
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: it was like I think or something like that year

681
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,319
Speaker 1: the earth is set a new record for the hottest year.

682
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 1: It's not like that. It was like it was like

683
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 1: ninety five, I think something like that in mid nineties

684
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: and in fact, a little bit of pi Let me

685
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: finish this up with a little bit of history. It

686
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 1: all kind of really started in ninety five when people

687
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: really got concerned because that was mid nineties. That was

688
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: one of the lowest points in record. But a lot

689
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: of people have been saying, well, gosh, you know, we've

690
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: got six more birds this year. That's proved positive that

691
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 1: things are on the mend, well sixty three as well,

692
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: within the range of what a bird can do a

693
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: game bird population can do naturally. And it has a

694
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: good spring exactly, and we've been having rain, you know,

695
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: we've been getting rain since and we did pretty good

696
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,440
Speaker 1: this year. It's been dry lately, but we had a

697
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: pretty good spring and so the bird numbers are doing

698
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: pretty well. Plus we've been you know, putting out all

699
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: this conservation on the ground, you know, for stage grouse

700
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: and trying to protect them, and so it's all manifested

701
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: into higher numbers. But if we get a drought again,

702
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: they're gonna drop regardless of The key is is keeping

703
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: them dropping so dramatically low and try and reduce the

704
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: amplitude of that drop. That would be the goal of conservation.

705
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: They're gonna fluctuate, but the deal is trying not to

706
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: have them dropped so freaking much dangerously low. Exactly inasmuch

707
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: as I have followed this, I understand that that, uh,

708
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: when you look at sort of the decline of sage grouse.

709
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna correct me where I'm wrong. I'm

710
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: gonna rattle off some things you hear. I do have

711
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: one more statistic throughout you because I meant to tell you, Uh,

712
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 1: you talked about the long term trend, the long term

713
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: trend from even with all these ups and downs, that's

714
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: where I was going with the crescendo here. The long

715
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 1: term overall trend is point eight percent decline every year.

716
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: So the so what that means is we're still on

717
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: a negative trend over that point every year. That's the

718
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: that's what the current over the course of fifty years since.

719
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: So yeah, damn near so, so basically it results in

720
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: an annual decline of about point eight percent per year,

721
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: and it's still on the decline, so we need to

722
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: stabilize that as well. That's what I'm getting at. Why

723
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: is that? And I'll tell you with the things I

724
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: always he No, I'm not gonna why. There's no point

725
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: for me telling what I always here? Why is that?

726
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: And I know you don't know absolutely, but why? Well?

727
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 1: Have it that loss? Primarily? Yeah, we've lost fifty We

728
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 1: started out a while back talking about the range. We've

729
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,800
Speaker 1: lost them in a couple of states. They're dramatically reduced

730
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: in others. You know, they're in eleven states and a

731
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: couple of provinces now, but they're dangerously low numbers in

732
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: Alberta and and and an other parts of Canada and

733
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: some of the states, like we kind of have to

734
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: be right now, Wyoming as the largest population. I believe

735
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 1: Idaho is is next, the Nevada, then Oregon. So Colorado

736
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: actually only has four percent of the birds, but they've

737
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: got spectacular habitat and Northwest Colorado has broody said and

738
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: and North Park is still pretty good too, but it's

739
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: been habitat loss. We've lost fifty of the range. And

740
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 1: I remember when the calculation started, but somewhere in around

741
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,280
Speaker 1: two thousand or so people started looking at this stuff

742
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: real serious, and they figure about fifty of the of

743
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: the range is going. We're, you know, fifty of our

744
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: uninterrupted sage brush half correct. As a downward trend of

745
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: mule deer populations, it makes that it tracts it interestingly

746
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: close at times. Yeah, because mule deer are again not

747
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: truely obligates, but they are really dependent. Yeah. Interesting. I

748
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 1: heard one time, and I think you probably draw a

749
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 1: parallel here. Someone was talking about, um the notion of

750
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 1: of predators swamping. When you have a population of any

751
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: kind of population that when they when they synchronize, there

752
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: reproduction so that all the young are born synchronized, that

753
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: it puts so much food on the ground all at

754
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 1: once that you're gonna have some of those animals wind

755
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: up getting out of infancy safely because there's just not

756
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: enough predators to get them all at one time. If

757
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: you staggered it out over the course of a month,

758
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 1: it might be a different story. But it's like bam,

759
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: they're they all. You can't get them, And then what

760
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: they're talking. What they're pointing to a certain species of

761
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 1: birds that we'll form these big nesting conglomerations and the

762
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 1: predators just work on the edges like snow and they

763
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 1: never get to the core. And what this thing was

764
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: once you start to break those groups up, you increase

765
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: the edges and you end up seeing like strange things

766
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,720
Speaker 1: happen because and what this, what this kind of alludes

767
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: to is how you know, all the passenger pigeons we

768
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: used to have, how they went so precipitously into extinction

769
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: when it wasn't like why was there a long evening

770
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: period when there was just some Why did it have

771
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: to be there's millions and then none or none? And

772
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: it was like because somehow having any, like having any,

773
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: relied on there being millions, and maybe you like broke

774
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 1: that something like seriously, like something fractured and there's no

775
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: there was no middle ground for the species. Market hunting

776
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: was a good example for her. You get them to

777
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 1: a point and it's just like they just systematically collapse.

778
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: But but sage cross have had to have an autumn. Oh,

779
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: I don't know I was gonna get at with that

780
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: is it doesn't mean necessarily that we've lost fifty of

781
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:16,360
Speaker 1: our sage brush plants. We've lost our like big open

782
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: expanses of stage bush that aren't interrupted by development, right right, Yeah,

783
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,959
Speaker 1: of the original range has been completely lost to either

784
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: cropland development, urbanization, other energy type development whatever. It's been

785
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: just fire, but it's been just lost. So it's gone.

786
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,800
Speaker 1: After fire will come back, but it takes it takes

787
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: decades for some of these fires to restore. It's amazing

788
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: how long it takes a sage of rush to come back. Well,

789
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, Steve, when you forest like we talked, when

790
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 1: you talked about the passenger pigeon, you know they nested

791
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: in the hardwood forests in northern Michigan so predominantly, And

792
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: I mean, you wonder if the stage grouse is that's

793
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: a bird that's just I don't want to say doomed,

794
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: but like it's gonna no matter what we do. Could

795
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 1: it just eventually go away? You know what I mean.

796
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 1: It's like it depends, like you say, big country, big area,

797
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 1: and when that reduces it sounds like it could almost

798
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: be like a passenger pigeon thing without market hunting. I think,

799
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 1: with you know, the conservation efforts that are underway now,

800
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: and we probably need to talk a little bit about that,

801
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: you know, because things have changed dramatically since the mid

802
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: two thousands or so. I'm optimistic, however, we're still still

803
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: chunking away and it remains to be seen. It's kind

804
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: of a big test right now after whether all these

805
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: conservation efforts are gonna work over time. But I think

806
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: the conservation efforts trying to address but basically in the

807
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: eastern part of the range of the Greater stage Grouse,

808
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 1: energy development, which would be the Inner Mountain West and

809
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: where we're sitting right now. You know, energy development, infrastructure development,

810
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: when you know wind energy, oil and gas development, UM, urbanization,

811
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things are major threats. We've

812
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: also had West Nile virus issues in this area. But

813
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:17,800
Speaker 1: in the West, UM, you know, in the Great Basin, Idaho, Nevada,

814
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: Southern Oregon. Fire and cheat grass are real bad combination.

815
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: You get these massive fires that burned really hot and

816
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: then it takes decades for that stuff to come back

817
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: so exactly, and that cheat grass is a real flashy fuel.

818
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 1: It's an annual it's a real problem. UM. And also

819
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:41,400
Speaker 1: conifer encroachment with with juniper encroachment on sage brush habitats,

820
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: and there's a a big effort underway, particularly in a

821
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: Great Basin, but other parts of the country as well,

822
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,719
Speaker 1: Utah and other other other states as well, where they're

823
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: really going after eradicating juniper, which is good for it's

824
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: good for deer, it's good for livestock production, it's good

825
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: for it's good for sage house and one ranger in

826
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: Idaho or not Idaho and Oregon coined the phrase what's

827
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 1: good for the bird is good for the herd, because basically,

828
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: you cut these trees out, maybe even change your grazing

829
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: practice a little bit. It's good for the livestock, it's

830
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: good for the goods for sage grouse, very compatible. But

831
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: those are kind of the major threats um Okay. Now

832
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: explain how it came to be that a year ago

833
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: everyone was on the edge of their seats about us,

834
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: included about whether or not the they were going to

835
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:40,879
Speaker 1: get listed as a threatened species, as a federally as

836
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 1: a federally protected species under the Endangered Species That so,

837
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: as quick as I can give you the timeline, so

838
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,839
Speaker 1: I said, in the mid nineties, biologists now other people think,

839
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: you know, the like the serial litigant. Environmental groups were

840
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: the ones that originally thought about this issue of sage

841
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: grouse populations. It was the biologist with in this Western

842
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 1: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies group that became deeply

843
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 1: concerned in about because that was again one of the

844
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: lowest I think that was the lowest. Uh. That was

845
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: the lowest number of accounts in the history since they've

846
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 1: been counting them. They actually considered petitioning to list. They

847
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 1: decided at that point in time fishing fishing, game agencies,

848
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 1: and they decided it didn't meet all the criteria for

849
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 1: listing at that time. A few years go along, we're

850
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 1: still chunking away habitat um. You know, there was some litigation, UH,

851
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 1: basically the petition. Another petition was filed and UM the

852
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: UH there was a petition to list the bird in

853
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and again because of habitat loss

854
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 1: and declining populations. In two thousand five, it was considered

855
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 1: not warranted for listing. However, there was more litigation UM.

856
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:03,240
Speaker 1: Seemingly UH. The judge was convinced that there are issues

857
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: with the science and and more data were coming in

858
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 1: during these lawsuits and they said, and the court said, basically,

859
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 1: you have to go back and revisit that two thousand

860
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:16,319
Speaker 1: five decision. That decision had to be rendered in two

861
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, And in two thousand and ten the

862
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:24,960
Speaker 1: bird was in fact considered warranted for protections under the essay,

863
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: but precluded. And what that means is, basically, they do

864
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act. But but the

865
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: Fish wife Service has, you know, hundreds of species they're

866
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: dealing with. There were others that had higher priority. So

867
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 1: there was another bit of litigation, and basically the court

868
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 1: ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to make a decision

869
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:52,359
Speaker 1: by September two thousand fifteen. That's how that all manifested.

870
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: And in the interim between two thousand five and and

871
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 1: the two thousand fifteen decision, an awful lot of decision

872
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 1: would be continually informed by whatever is going on. The

873
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 1: decision was going to be based upon two thousand five stuff. No,

874
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 1: not at all new stuff coming in. And between two

875
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:11,399
Speaker 1: thousand you know, in the tooth of air of two

876
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand ten, there was a lot of

877
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: oil and gas development, There were a lot of big fires,

878
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 1: there were a lot of things that were threatened there

879
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: West Nile virus outbreaks. There was new science coming out

880
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 1: showing that crop conversion in Montana, for example, if you

881
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: just converted a small percentage into crop land, you saw

882
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: big drops in sage grouse. So we're starting to really

883
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 1: understand the landscape relationships and the loss of the habitat.

884
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: So that was all informing this. And then and you know,

885
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: the service was ordered by the court in indeed, they

886
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: were ordered to make a decision by But that kind

887
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: of had to happen because nothing was happening. I mean,

888
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say nothing was happening. I apologized to my

889
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: friends that have been working on this forever killed me

890
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 1: for saying that. But a lot of things had been happening,

891
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,760
Speaker 1: but not enough was happening to thwart off a listing.

892
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: And when that listing decision was set in stone in

893
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, people started scrambling trying to figure out what

894
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: to do. The states that hadn't put plans together, all

895
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we're starting to try to figure out

896
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: how they're gonna put their planning. And they had strategies

897
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:19,520
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with sage grounds. All these states have

898
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: been working with sage grounds for for decades, but it

899
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: puts emergency into actually getting meaningful, strong conservation plans and measures,

900
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: and a bunch of private land efforts that were on

901
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: that started happening in about two thousand ten. All of

902
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 1: that really started because of that two thousand ten warranted

903
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: but precluded and then the listing deadline, and you know,

904
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: the Natural Resource Conservation Services Sage Grounse initiative was spawned

905
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten and they put almost a

906
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars into that. I mean, we don't

907
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: see a half a billion dollars floating into very many

908
00:54:55,719 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 1: conservation issues on private lands. So it's been historic and

909
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 1: the states put all their plans together. Wyoming led the

910
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 1: way they started in two thousand and eight. They saw

911
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: the writing on the wall and Governor Dave Freedenthal, then

912
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 1: Governor Dave Freedenhall, and now Governor Mead, who you've spoken

913
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,279
Speaker 1: with a number of times on this issue. You know,

914
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: they they took the took the bull by the horns

915
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: and leadership from the state's perspective and put a pretty

916
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 1: good plan together. Other states have put their plans together,

917
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: but some are they're all varied. Some are better than others.

918
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,839
Speaker 1: But the federal plans are now in place, and these

919
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 1: are land and resource management plans developed by the Bureau

920
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 1: of Land Management and the Forest Service for the sage

921
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 1: brush ecosystem driven by sage grouse. But it's really a

922
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:42,760
Speaker 1: new way of doing business in this ecosystem. It doesn't

923
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: shut off oil and gas, it doesn't shut off grazing

924
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 1: and all of these kinds of things that people are saying.

925
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 1: In some areas, it does, but it tries to reduce

926
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:53,879
Speaker 1: that disturbance which is so detrimental to grouse. But how

927
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 1: do they know. So if in two thousand and fifteen

928
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: they came out and said, Okay, he's got a good plan,

929
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: listing is not warranted. But you're also telling me that

930
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,840
Speaker 1: the point eight percent decline is still happening annually, and

931
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: and the plans haven't all been implemented. So it was

932
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 1: it was speculative. It's speculative, and it's it's a policy

933
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: that came in um. I believe in the mid two thousand's.

934
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 1: Colleague of mine, Steve Williams, was was the architect of

935
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 1: this and and he was then director of the Fish

936
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service and it's called the Peace policy. It's

937
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 1: a policy for evaluation of conservation efforts, and basically it

938
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: gives the Fish and Wildlife Service the ability to consider

939
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:43,279
Speaker 1: things that will happen, but they have to have assurances

940
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:45,360
Speaker 1: that they will be implemented, and they have to have

941
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: some level of appreciation and understanding that they'll be effective.

942
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: So if when, if, when Wyoming put a plan together

943
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: and you and you hear often that Wyoming put a

944
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,279
Speaker 1: good plan together, it was aggressive about is that is

945
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:06,480
Speaker 1: that a fair? Yeah? What? What what was the plan like? If?

946
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 1: I mean, if you had to like just very quickly

947
00:57:08,520 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: give us the opposite of what the plan would be. Yeah.

948
00:57:10,680 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 1: So the main nuts and bolts of it is it

949
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 1: basically allows us a maximum amount of disturbance in a

950
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: landscape surrounding Lex, which is about four miles around Lex,

951
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: because of the data showing that the vast majority of

952
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: females nest within you know, four mile radius of a LEX.

953
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 1: So basically buffering those um and allowing a certain amount

954
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: of disturbance that's backed by at least for now, we

955
00:57:36,200 --> 00:57:38,439
Speaker 1: think it's backed by this at the time was backed

956
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: by the best science available. So it allows a certain

957
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:45,560
Speaker 1: amount of disturbance, which equates to uh, basically one well

958
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 1: pad and an associated road and infrastructure per section of land.

959
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: So imagine thinking about a section and having one well

960
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,560
Speaker 1: pad and a road going into it. That's it across

961
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 1: the landscape. That's the max And and Wyoming has done

962
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: a pretty good job of like enhanced drilling techniques to

963
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 1: get and that's the other ticket, Steve, because it's a

964
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: very good point because you know, at the time when

965
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: cold bed methane was being developed in northeast Wyoming, UM

966
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 1: and you know, out in the Jonah Field and some

967
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: of the country where you did the beaver trapping work

968
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: in the episode. There in the Jonah Field that was

969
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 1: downhill drilling, and I mean you could look over at

970
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 1: the truck and there'd be another from here to the

971
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:29,840
Speaker 1: thirty yards away, and there'd be a wellpad space. The

972
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: spacing was ridiculously close. But now you know, the spacing

973
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: is much much further. The horizontal drilling you can put

974
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: multiple you know, well you know, wells on one pad

975
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: and go out in different directions and get the resource

976
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 1: without the disturbance. So it's changed dramatically. And I don't

977
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 1: remember the exact statistics, but I want to say that

978
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: it basically downhill drilling has been virtually eliminated with the

979
00:58:55,080 --> 00:59:01,280
Speaker 1: horizontal drilling, so it's really helped technology helped reduce the footprint. Certainly,

980
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 1: certainly has Can you say, are you comfortable saying, like,

981
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 1: name a state that has a bad plan, who doesn't

982
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 1: want to play ball. Are you not comfortable doing that? Well,

983
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: I'll just say that the state plans fall on a gradient,

984
00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 1: and some of them are based on voluntary mitigation programs

985
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: and that's kind of it um And others are like

986
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: Wyoming where they have you know, pretty strong statutorial assurances

987
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 1: and you know they have um the executive orders from

988
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: the governor, those kinds of things that really and they're

989
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 1: committing to do it and they're doing it um. So

990
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:39,840
Speaker 1: they fall along a range of gradients. Most of them,

991
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 1: you know, there's a couple of pretty good ones and

992
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: some in the middle and some that are are dependent

993
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,360
Speaker 1: I would say on the federal plans being in place.

994
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 1: And that's kind of a big argument right now because

995
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 1: some in Congress are trying to basically say that the

996
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 1: federal government should use state plans on federal ownership. And

997
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 1: there's there's all kinds of problems with that, uh, starting

998
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:07,040
Speaker 1: with you know, you know, hundreds of years of statues

999
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 1: you know of public lands and having states managed public lands.

1000
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: But again, some of those state plans just simply could

1001
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 1: not with they couldn't address all of the threats. I

1002
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:22,440
Speaker 1: mean fires a really good example, because you know, firefighting

1003
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 1: costs are astronomical as most of us know, and you know,

1004
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: a given state couldn't probably deal with handling those threats

1005
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: on on their own, you know, they're they're dependent on

1006
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:36,920
Speaker 1: federal partners and private partners too. So so one of

1007
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: the things the Bartment of Interior did was, you know,

1008
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:43,560
Speaker 1: with the states was developed as coordinated firefighting and an

1009
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 1: invasive weed plan as well. But the firefighting plan seems

1010
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: to be working, um, and there's just more coordination now

1011
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 1: between counties, states, federal agencies, and private you know, landowners

1012
01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,800
Speaker 1: on firefighting than there ever was in the history of

1013
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: life conservation. And quite frankly, you know, in my history

1014
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:07,080
Speaker 1: as as a biologist, in my career, I've never seen

1015
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 1: anything quite like this. I mean, we've never really seen

1016
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: anything like this since Theodore Roosevelt's days, and when we

1017
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: had to do something or we're gonna lose buffalo, elk,

1018
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 1: mule deer, pronghorn, all these species that were just that

1019
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 1: close to becoming extinct because of market hunting and habitat loss.

1020
01:01:22,320 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 1: Do you think that we were like were we did

1021
01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 1: we come it's close to losing elk? We damned here

1022
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:34,800
Speaker 1: came as close to losing big horns as we are

1023
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: right now. But did we come as close to losing

1024
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: elk as we are right now? Of stage growth? No,

1025
01:01:40,800 --> 01:01:44,480
Speaker 1: I don't think so close. We came closer to losing turkeys.

1026
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 1: That probably closer with turkeys, But yeah, I mean stage

1027
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: grouse were on the verge, and I think that I

1028
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:54,120
Speaker 1: think the urgency, Well, it's like you said earlier. You

1029
01:01:54,120 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 1: know some of these populations there's a tipping point. Every

1030
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:00,520
Speaker 1: population has a tipping point, and they just viral out

1031
01:02:00,520 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: of control. And I've heard one grouse by I'll just say,

1032
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 1: once they get below a hundred thousand, they just spiral.

1033
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:08,360
Speaker 1: At Water's prairie chicken is a really good example. There's

1034
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 1: a handful hanging on in Texas, but they're never going

1035
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 1: to come back. Probably. Can you talk about the Gunnison

1036
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 1: subspecies a little bit. I haven't worked on him as

1037
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: much but it's a subspecies of stage grouse and they

1038
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: are endangered. Correct. Yeah, so they're managed differently than these

1039
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: birds that correct, They now are are managed by the

1040
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: federal government basically. But they're working on that. They're gonna

1041
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:39,800
Speaker 1: they're gonna work on um. I think, UM what led

1042
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:43,920
Speaker 1: to that decision is now being addressed and the services

1043
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:46,439
Speaker 1: working very hard to work with states called the state

1044
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: of Colorado and and you taught to uh to get

1045
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: that decision to bring that population to a point where

1046
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: they can they can take it off the list. Um.

1047
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: There there's one core population in Gunnison County with with

1048
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 1: a solid number of birds, and then there's a bunch

1049
01:03:03,320 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 1: of satellite populations. And the satellite populations became an issue

1050
01:03:07,640 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: for the service and they some of them were pretty

1051
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: close to blinking out. And it's a hundred birds. And

1052
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: you know, when I talked to my state colleagues, they

1053
01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 1: you know a lot of a lot of them felt

1054
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: that some of those that just there was nothing more

1055
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:21,560
Speaker 1: that could be done. I mean, they've got easements, they've

1056
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: got all the protections that could possibly do so, but

1057
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: they're working together, they're reproducing. It's just UM, at that

1058
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:33,480
Speaker 1: particular juncture. The Service felt like they had to they

1059
01:03:33,480 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: had to go ahead and list the bird um can

1060
01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: I questioning about the SAD Is there any is there

1061
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,200
Speaker 1: any relocation of sagre ell is being done? A little bit,

1062
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: you know, of a little bit um that's that's fairly

1063
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 1: controversial plation. Well, I think some and it's not biologists necessarily,

1064
01:03:52,920 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: that are stirring up the controversy. I think some state

1065
01:03:56,280 --> 01:03:58,959
Speaker 1: legislators wonder why we're moving our birds to somewhere else

1066
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 1: when we when we have to, you know, have impacts

1067
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: on oil and gas industry and the wind industry and others,

1068
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: And now we're shipping our birds to Canada or somewhere else.

1069
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,520
Speaker 1: That's that's a little bit of the controversy. But it's

1070
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:12,520
Speaker 1: been done. And you know, I had a comment on

1071
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:16,480
Speaker 1: the blog post I just had recently on captive rearing.

1072
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:19,800
Speaker 1: Now I can assure you captive rearing is the only

1073
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:23,120
Speaker 1: reason we still have blackfooted ferrets. I guarantee. I went

1074
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:24,880
Speaker 1: to grad school with the guys that went out and

1075
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:27,400
Speaker 1: caught some of those original ones and worked on some

1076
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 1: of the ferret work. We would not have blackfooted ferrets

1077
01:04:30,200 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 1: in this country or condoors for that matter, without a

1078
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 1: captive break. It didn't work with turkeys. Yeah, and I

1079
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 1: don't think it would work with sage grouse. That's kind

1080
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 1: of what I wrote the individual was we weren't at

1081
01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:43,280
Speaker 1: that point. But even if we got to that point,

1082
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:45,400
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced it would work. I've never been done

1083
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:48,320
Speaker 1: with with game birds like that. So although you could

1084
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:51,280
Speaker 1: probably argue, you know, with the exotics that are here,

1085
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:54,760
Speaker 1: there's some some precedent for that, but they essentially do

1086
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,640
Speaker 1: it with pheasants, but it doesn't actually work exactly like

1087
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 1: you established population tenually stock pheasants, you wouldn't I have

1088
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: them exactly. It's like basically like it's basically like a

1089
01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: farm animal that you hunt for exactly, So I don't

1090
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:11,480
Speaker 1: I don't think it would work for sage grouse. So

1091
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: so okay, So where we're at now is the US

1092
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:21,360
Speaker 1: fishing While their service says okay, sounds like everybody's ready

1093
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 1: to play ball. You guys have some good plans put together.

1094
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 1: We trust that you're going to pursue these plans. If

1095
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:36,760
Speaker 1: you had to rate um the adoption and enforcement of

1096
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 1: the plan on a one to ten national average, where

1097
01:05:42,920 --> 01:05:47,640
Speaker 1: are we as far as people being like, I'm doing

1098
01:05:47,640 --> 01:05:51,760
Speaker 1: the plan. Look, I already started. It's kicking ass. I'm

1099
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 1: gonna put my professor head on because I never get

1100
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,080
Speaker 1: perfect scores by any stretch. But I'm not gonna give

1101
01:05:56,080 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 1: an average either. I'm gonna give it a seven. And

1102
01:05:58,680 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 1: the reason I give it that is it was an

1103
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 1: exper not very often, um, but but I wanted, but

1104
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:12,680
Speaker 1: I wanted to get to a ten. I want implementation seven. Well,

1105
01:06:12,720 --> 01:06:17,000
Speaker 1: I think right now just nines in some states. Two. Yeah,

1106
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 1: I think so, And I think, yeah, you said overall,

1107
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 1: so I gave you this, but I think, you know,

1108
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:25,160
Speaker 1: some are just getting started, and the BLM is really

1109
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 1: just getting started. They've been they just released instruction memorandums

1110
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: to the field offices and all that is for everybody

1111
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:33,920
Speaker 1: out there is guidance to the field offices on what

1112
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be doing, on implementing stage grouse conservation

1113
01:06:36,920 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 1: and these plans. And so they've been implementing some things,

1114
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:44,560
Speaker 1: but they're just kitting started. And I think, you know,

1115
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:47,320
Speaker 1: and we've got um a little bit of a hammer.

1116
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:49,560
Speaker 1: The s a kind of hanging over everyone's head. And

1117
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: it's called the five year Review. So they're going to

1118
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:55,720
Speaker 1: review this in That was my next question, and what

1119
01:06:55,840 --> 01:06:59,520
Speaker 1: the service is looking for. You know that there's a

1120
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:03,280
Speaker 1: short document I'll send you. You'll find it intriguing because

1121
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:06,680
Speaker 1: they are looking for exactly what we've been talking about. Implementation.

1122
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:09,600
Speaker 1: Have you did you implement the plans the way you

1123
01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:12,439
Speaker 1: said you would? Did you care about anything but where

1124
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: the numbers are? Well? Okay, okay, like they're they're concerned

1125
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:18,280
Speaker 1: about the numbers too. I mean, they definitely are gonna

1126
01:07:18,280 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 1: look at the numbers. If everyone implements their plans and

1127
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:23,120
Speaker 1: it has no effect, well at that point they might

1128
01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:25,919
Speaker 1: be what are we gonna do if we list them? Yeah,

1129
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 1: well that'll be an interesting challenge for us. If all

1130
01:07:29,960 --> 01:07:33,640
Speaker 1: this actually gets implemented and the numbers still continue to decline,

1131
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: then we're gonna have to readjust. It's gonna get We're

1132
01:07:36,360 --> 01:07:39,240
Speaker 1: gonna have to readjust. And we're talking passenger pigeon, so

1133
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:42,960
Speaker 1: or you know, you're probably talk in es A. They

1134
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:45,760
Speaker 1: may they may list the bird if if if the

1135
01:07:45,840 --> 01:07:49,240
Speaker 1: numbers are not responding again, keeping in mind they fluctuate,

1136
01:07:50,200 --> 01:07:53,000
Speaker 1: you know, within you know, a wide range, as game

1137
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:56,400
Speaker 1: bird populations do. But I'm pretty optimistic. I see what

1138
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 1: you're saying, because you could have a five years stretch

1139
01:07:58,880 --> 01:08:02,600
Speaker 1: of just like per perfect weather conditions, but then the

1140
01:08:02,720 --> 01:08:05,959
Speaker 1: core problems have never been addressed. You might still be like, yeah,

1141
01:08:06,200 --> 01:08:08,800
Speaker 1: we've got some good birds because it's been wet, but meanwhile,

1142
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:14,600
Speaker 1: we've seen sage, sage brush habitat, sage grouse habitat continue

1143
01:08:14,640 --> 01:08:17,120
Speaker 1: to plumb it. Once we get a five year drought,

1144
01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 1: the birds are cooked. And that's exactly it. Because when

1145
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: we have that drought, and I guarantee you we will,

1146
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:24,920
Speaker 1: and oil prices are gonna go back up and there's

1147
01:08:24,920 --> 01:08:27,719
Speaker 1: gonna be more demands for resources on these public lands,

1148
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,920
Speaker 1: then we're gonna really test conservation. Then we're really gonna

1149
01:08:31,960 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 1: see how it works. Because we got in my opinion, Steve,

1150
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:40,800
Speaker 1: we got lucky because the rains came back. If we

1151
01:08:40,840 --> 01:08:43,040
Speaker 1: had stayed in drought, That's part of the reason the

1152
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:46,719
Speaker 1: birds plumbent died like they did, prairie chickens plummeted. I mean, Ronnie,

1153
01:08:46,800 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: we had I mean, you know, across our bird hunting

1154
01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 1: range and all the birds that we hunt was phenomenally.

1155
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:56,880
Speaker 1: Quail really took it hard in those droughty years as

1156
01:08:56,880 --> 01:09:02,120
Speaker 1: they always do, and had those rains come back. I'm

1157
01:09:02,200 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 1: convinced that the Service probably would have listed the bird

1158
01:09:06,320 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: because the numbers would have been even lower and kept

1159
01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: going down. Fifteen we got we got lucky in there

1160
01:09:12,960 --> 01:09:15,679
Speaker 1: on an uptick. It gave us a breather to finish

1161
01:09:15,720 --> 01:09:18,360
Speaker 1: the plans and now get him implemented. So yeah, exactly

1162
01:09:18,400 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: to your point. Now we've got to deal with the

1163
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:22,720
Speaker 1: core of the issues, and that's what the plans are

1164
01:09:22,720 --> 01:09:26,320
Speaker 1: gonna hopefully address. One thing I found interesting looking at

1165
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:32,760
Speaker 1: what kills sage growth that they fly low and they're

1166
01:09:32,920 --> 01:09:39,920
Speaker 1: crashing defenses. Yeah, occasionally they do. How significant is that? Um,

1167
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:42,160
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of talk and going to

1168
01:09:42,280 --> 01:09:47,200
Speaker 1: marking fences, lowering fence heights. Yeah, they definitely kill some birds,

1169
01:09:47,320 --> 01:09:52,080
Speaker 1: but it's not a major threat. Neither is hunting. I mean,

1170
01:09:52,240 --> 01:09:55,320
Speaker 1: you know, hunting has never been identified as a major

1171
01:09:55,439 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 1: threat by the Fish and Wildlife Service or any of

1172
01:09:57,479 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 1: the state agencies. But certainly the individuals they a shot

1173
01:10:00,479 --> 01:10:02,960
Speaker 1: or hit a wire, they're they're they're out of the population.

1174
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:06,840
Speaker 1: The list of major threats, well, you know, again it's

1175
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:11,080
Speaker 1: mostly about habitat loss and disturbance, So you know, it's

1176
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 1: it's pretty short. I mean, it's a long list of

1177
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:16,200
Speaker 1: things that kill sage grouse and cause problems, but the

1178
01:10:16,320 --> 01:10:21,240
Speaker 1: major major threats are really pretty short. Why has Why

1179
01:10:21,280 --> 01:10:25,400
Speaker 1: do some states continue to allow sage growth hunting? Well

1180
01:10:25,439 --> 01:10:28,759
Speaker 1: in part because and I just preface that by saying,

1181
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:31,599
Speaker 1: the state Wildlife Agency has really done a very good

1182
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:36,800
Speaker 1: job of managing hundred hundred UM hunters and in bag

1183
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:41,200
Speaker 1: limits and seasons. I mean, sportsmen have have sacrificed, I'll say,

1184
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:43,000
Speaker 1: and maybe that's not the right word, but we have

1185
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:48,839
Speaker 1: certainly contributed by loss of opportunity UM. And that's that's

1186
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:51,800
Speaker 1: exactly what the states should do. When populations are low,

1187
01:10:52,280 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: they should manage hunter numbers and or UM season and

1188
01:10:56,120 --> 01:10:59,120
Speaker 1: bag limits. In Oregon, it's been a two bird permit

1189
01:10:59,200 --> 01:11:01,360
Speaker 1: system for long as I can remember I moved there

1190
01:11:01,360 --> 01:11:05,559
Speaker 1: in it's still like it's a trophy tag. You get

1191
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:07,439
Speaker 1: two birds a year and that's it. And it's been

1192
01:11:07,479 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 1: that way forever, regardless of whether the numbers are upper down.

1193
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:12,120
Speaker 1: It's just the way they do it. But they may

1194
01:11:12,160 --> 01:11:15,639
Speaker 1: issue more permits SA in the years when they're up.

1195
01:11:16,200 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: The states feel that they're gaining Okay, they're losing some

1196
01:11:19,320 --> 01:11:22,000
Speaker 1: number of birds that are being mechanically removed, Like there's no,

1197
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:27,599
Speaker 1: there's not a habitat destruction. There's not a significant disturbance. Right,

1198
01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:32,519
Speaker 1: They're not affecting um chick survival and mortality. Like but

1199
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:36,040
Speaker 1: so I see that. But like when when a state

1200
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:38,720
Speaker 1: weighs out, Okay, we're gonna lose some birds, but we're

1201
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:42,280
Speaker 1: gonna gain some what by having a hunting season, they

1202
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:45,680
Speaker 1: gained advocates and they gained support, and they provide opportunity

1203
01:11:45,720 --> 01:11:48,640
Speaker 1: for the sports and which are their customers basically and

1204
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:53,080
Speaker 1: again in Montana, recent article I read in Montana of

1205
01:11:53,560 --> 01:11:58,160
Speaker 1: I think undred birds have been radio marked over over

1206
01:11:58,200 --> 01:12:01,920
Speaker 1: about a sixteen year period. Nine of them were hunter

1207
01:12:01,960 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: harvested birds. So they use those statistics to determine that,

1208
01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:09,599
Speaker 1: you know, hunting mortality is like a market recapture. Well,

1209
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:12,680
Speaker 1: it's just radio marked birds that were turned in and

1210
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:16,879
Speaker 1: cause of mortality determined. Nine of those were hunter harvest

1211
01:12:17,040 --> 01:12:23,080
Speaker 1: How many they have three birds, it's just a fraction

1212
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:27,639
Speaker 1: and nine got killed by hunters. So that's one study.

1213
01:12:27,720 --> 01:12:30,400
Speaker 1: Now it's going to vary from area to area. Obviously

1214
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:34,280
Speaker 1: this area that you know, well depends on how much

1215
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:37,920
Speaker 1: how long the hunts exactly. So Wyoming used to have

1216
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:40,160
Speaker 1: I think when I was going to grad school here

1217
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:43,000
Speaker 1: in the eighties, it was a thirty day hunting season,

1218
01:12:43,040 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 1: three day bag limit, and I shot any number of

1219
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:50,080
Speaker 1: stage groups and in that that month AIOD and I

1220
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:52,320
Speaker 1: may have been longer. Montana I think was at least

1221
01:12:52,360 --> 01:12:54,000
Speaker 1: two months, and it might have been a little longer.

1222
01:12:54,520 --> 01:12:57,280
Speaker 1: But again, the states have responded, so they have contracted

1223
01:12:57,320 --> 01:13:00,519
Speaker 1: season lengths. We've been at two weeks, uh two birds

1224
01:13:00,520 --> 01:13:02,639
Speaker 1: a day here in Wyoming for a while. I think

1225
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:05,800
Speaker 1: in thirteen it might are In twelve it was one

1226
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:10,320
Speaker 1: week and two birds foreign possession. So they've adjusted those

1227
01:13:10,360 --> 01:13:14,720
Speaker 1: harvest rates accordingly, and they've actually closed seasons. You know,

1228
01:13:14,800 --> 01:13:19,160
Speaker 1: the northeast part of UH. Wyoming used to have strong

1229
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:22,800
Speaker 1: populations of sage closed now. And are you saying you

1230
01:13:22,800 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 1: can hunt two days? That's North Park so near a

1231
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: wall than just a few game management units around Walden

1232
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:31,120
Speaker 1: in Colorado? Do you ever go hit the two days season?

1233
01:13:31,200 --> 01:13:37,560
Speaker 1: I did last year, Spinny birds did. Uh. It's the

1234
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:39,479
Speaker 1: thing I've got. It's the thing I've been curious about

1235
01:13:39,520 --> 01:13:41,719
Speaker 1: for a long time and I think about all the time.

1236
01:13:42,600 --> 01:13:46,920
Speaker 1: Is this idea of um gain an advocacy. I was,

1237
01:13:47,080 --> 01:13:52,720
Speaker 1: I was recently had occasion to have a conversation with

1238
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:58,439
Speaker 1: a professor who teaches animal ethics and he's an animal

1239
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:03,280
Speaker 1: rights advocate. Um, he's pretty true to form. I mean,

1240
01:14:03,320 --> 01:14:08,439
Speaker 1: he does a very strict vegan lifestyle. You can't point

1241
01:14:08,479 --> 01:14:10,560
Speaker 1: to this dude and there's not a lot of hypocrisies

1242
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:14,160
Speaker 1: right Like he he has a set of beliefs, he

1243
01:14:14,240 --> 01:14:16,960
Speaker 1: can defend them and he lives them. You know, he's

1244
01:14:17,000 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 1: not you're like anti hunter who like buys chickens and

1245
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:23,519
Speaker 1: ship at the store, who I just can't even have

1246
01:14:23,680 --> 01:14:25,960
Speaker 1: that have a conversation there. But this guy was fascinating

1247
01:14:25,960 --> 01:14:30,360
Speaker 1: and very bright, and um, we're got this conversation and

1248
01:14:30,840 --> 01:14:35,479
Speaker 1: I was trying to explain to him hunting conservation like

1249
01:14:35,600 --> 01:14:39,559
Speaker 1: hunter conservationists, and I was just you know, as a

1250
01:14:39,560 --> 01:14:45,160
Speaker 1: as a case in point, I just brought up, Uh,

1251
01:14:45,320 --> 01:14:47,400
Speaker 1: I believe I I believe that the situation I sketched

1252
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:49,640
Speaker 1: out for him was. I was mentioning work done by

1253
01:14:49,720 --> 01:14:55,360
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain ELK Foundation. Okay, with how many you know,

1254
01:14:55,680 --> 01:14:59,320
Speaker 1: the the hundreds of thousands of acres they've helped protect

1255
01:14:59,360 --> 01:15:02,519
Speaker 1: and set aside, right, all the work they've done in

1256
01:15:02,600 --> 01:15:05,000
Speaker 1: habitat improvements, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like,

1257
01:15:05,200 --> 01:15:08,479
Speaker 1: the money comes from dudes who like to hunt elk.

1258
01:15:09,040 --> 01:15:11,040
Speaker 1: And these dudes who like to hunt elk like hunting

1259
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:15,640
Speaker 1: elk so much that they go to these banquets and

1260
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:21,120
Speaker 1: whatnot and start giving have a couple of drinks or

1261
01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:24,840
Speaker 1: whatever and start giving giving away money or to sit

1262
01:15:24,880 --> 01:15:28,120
Speaker 1: at home, and just like right checks, They're like, I

1263
01:15:28,200 --> 01:15:30,280
Speaker 1: like to hunt elk, Therefore I will spend a bunch

1264
01:15:30,280 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 1: of money to not only help elk, but I'll spend

1265
01:15:33,439 --> 01:15:35,639
Speaker 1: a bunch of money to help elk habitat and increase

1266
01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:40,559
Speaker 1: elk habitat. And he was saying, matisar rip and shooting

1267
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:46,840
Speaker 1: star over there. He was saying, it's a shame that

1268
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:52,080
Speaker 1: it takes that. And I'm like, yeah, but you just

1269
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:55,040
Speaker 1: have to open you have to be a pragmatic individual.

1270
01:15:56,120 --> 01:15:57,880
Speaker 1: He's like, why can't they give all that money and

1271
01:15:57,960 --> 01:16:00,280
Speaker 1: not go hunting. I'm like, because they if they didn't

1272
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:03,799
Speaker 1: go hunting, they wouldn't have even been aware of the problem.

1273
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:07,639
Speaker 1: And when and gave the money, Yeah, you don't give

1274
01:16:07,720 --> 01:16:10,120
Speaker 1: the money first. It's like, you know, like it took

1275
01:16:10,160 --> 01:16:12,200
Speaker 1: me until I was in my mid thirties to get

1276
01:16:12,200 --> 01:16:16,799
Speaker 1: serious about conservation right, and like spending a conversation because

1277
01:16:17,360 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 1: it's like, you go hunt ducks first, then you say

1278
01:16:22,840 --> 01:16:28,679
Speaker 1: I want more ducks and better conservation. But no one

1279
01:16:28,840 --> 01:16:31,840
Speaker 1: who's ever seen a duck or an elk or a

1280
01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:35,559
Speaker 1: sage grouse. It's just like, I'm sorry, but generally those

1281
01:16:35,600 --> 01:16:39,559
Speaker 1: people are not gonna be like, man, we need to

1282
01:16:39,560 --> 01:16:41,960
Speaker 1: do something about stage brush. And it was like he's like, well,

1283
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:43,600
Speaker 1: it's just too bad that that's the case. I'm like,

1284
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:45,080
Speaker 1: you know what, it's too bad that all kinds of

1285
01:16:45,080 --> 01:16:47,519
Speaker 1: ship is all kinds of ways. But at the point

1286
01:16:47,560 --> 01:16:49,200
Speaker 1: you just have to kind of open up your mind

1287
01:16:49,240 --> 01:16:53,559
Speaker 1: to the fact that that's that's frankly, that's how it works. Well,

1288
01:16:53,600 --> 01:16:55,840
Speaker 1: the next series of questions is do you like open

1289
01:16:55,960 --> 01:16:59,160
Speaker 1: natural spaces? Yeah? Sure, I love the open natural space. Well,

1290
01:16:59,200 --> 01:17:01,640
Speaker 1: what do you pay? You know what, what do you

1291
01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:05,559
Speaker 1: pay into wildlife conservation? A lot of those folks don't

1292
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:07,559
Speaker 1: want to give money. Like I always tell people, buy

1293
01:17:07,560 --> 01:17:09,400
Speaker 1: a duck stamper, buy a hunting license. You don't have

1294
01:17:09,520 --> 01:17:11,400
Speaker 1: to go, just buy it. It goes to the game

1295
01:17:11,439 --> 01:17:13,880
Speaker 1: and fish and they use that for habitat conservation all kinds.

1296
01:17:13,880 --> 01:17:16,040
Speaker 1: Of a matter of fact, it's a fit for all

1297
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:18,559
Speaker 1: you folks that don't hunt at all and then don't

1298
01:17:18,600 --> 01:17:22,200
Speaker 1: spend deadly on wildlif conservation. Go buy a duck stamper,

1299
01:17:22,439 --> 01:17:28,479
Speaker 1: goes to wetlands habitat exactly which is going to run

1300
01:17:28,479 --> 01:17:31,000
Speaker 1: out by a duck stamp. Well, part of their philosophy

1301
01:17:31,040 --> 01:17:33,640
Speaker 1: there is that, well, no, it goes to hunting. It

1302
01:17:33,680 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 1: goes toward hunting and hunter management. So philosophically they struggle

1303
01:17:37,160 --> 01:17:40,200
Speaker 1: with that. But we have been trying to crack that

1304
01:17:40,320 --> 01:17:44,519
Speaker 1: damn nut for since I've been in the profession and forever.

1305
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:47,640
Speaker 1: How do you tax the non consumptive user and get

1306
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:50,040
Speaker 1: them excited about things? We can't get people excited about

1307
01:17:50,080 --> 01:17:53,200
Speaker 1: sage grouse. Most sportsmen you say, hey, you know, we

1308
01:17:53,320 --> 01:17:56,000
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta work on the sage grouse thing. It

1309
01:17:56,080 --> 01:17:59,880
Speaker 1: doesn't resonate. What resonates is the sagebrush ecosystem. The fact

1310
01:18:00,000 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 1: that this is home to the kinds of critters that

1311
01:18:02,880 --> 01:18:06,320
Speaker 1: you like, pronghorn, elk, mule deer, those kinds oft the

1312
01:18:06,320 --> 01:18:09,800
Speaker 1: and sage grass. That gets them excited. Then you start

1313
01:18:09,840 --> 01:18:13,160
Speaker 1: putting the big picture together, and I think, really, you know,

1314
01:18:13,520 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: people they don't see the big picture. They can't see

1315
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:18,800
Speaker 1: the forest for the trees. And there was there was

1316
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:21,800
Speaker 1: a time with stage grass were exactly viewed as a

1317
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:25,920
Speaker 1: premier game bird, you know, several decades ago. Right, I've

1318
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:28,439
Speaker 1: heard so many people say, oh you oh, they're terrible

1319
01:18:28,479 --> 01:18:34,040
Speaker 1: to eat. You know, it's crazy, but you know people

1320
01:18:34,040 --> 01:18:37,080
Speaker 1: didn't even chase them hardly back in the day. Yeah,

1321
01:18:37,120 --> 01:18:38,639
Speaker 1: but I mean that kind of thing that people said

1322
01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:42,240
Speaker 1: about everything. Yeah, everything, they say it about anything to

1323
01:18:42,320 --> 01:18:50,920
Speaker 1: eat stage So all right, look into crystal ball. Matter

1324
01:18:50,920 --> 01:18:53,479
Speaker 1: of fact, we should do a time castle. He has

1325
01:18:53,520 --> 01:18:56,080
Speaker 1: to shovel in his truck. We'll make a time castle,

1326
01:18:56,160 --> 01:18:58,479
Speaker 1: will bury it right here, and we'll come dig it

1327
01:18:58,560 --> 01:19:03,960
Speaker 1: up in uh in five years. What are they? What?

1328
01:19:03,960 --> 01:19:07,120
Speaker 1: What's the what's the service? Gonna say? The federal you know,

1329
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:10,840
Speaker 1: the US Fish and Wildlife Service, it's gonna take a gander.

1330
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:18,040
Speaker 1: And don't give me something like optimistic bs or don't

1331
01:19:18,040 --> 01:19:21,519
Speaker 1: give me pessimistic bs. Give me the straight dope, the

1332
01:19:21,680 --> 01:19:25,760
Speaker 1: straight dope, like if you actually had to get it right,

1333
01:19:25,800 --> 01:19:27,920
Speaker 1: you had your your time capsule had to be right.

1334
01:19:29,600 --> 01:19:33,720
Speaker 1: We're gonna get it right on stage grouse. And I

1335
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:34,880
Speaker 1: want you to be telling me the truth, but I

1336
01:19:34,920 --> 01:19:36,920
Speaker 1: don't want to be doing like your job right now.

1337
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:44,360
Speaker 1: I can't help but be optimistic. But no, I I

1338
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,400
Speaker 1: I I think they'll come to not warranton in five

1339
01:19:47,479 --> 01:19:51,479
Speaker 1: years and not Yeah, they'll continue with the not warranted decision.

1340
01:19:52,800 --> 01:20:03,599
Speaker 1: I um for the true tes of these conservation plans,

1341
01:20:03,640 --> 01:20:06,840
Speaker 1: you know, And again it's all predicated on them getting

1342
01:20:06,880 --> 01:20:11,240
Speaker 1: implemented right now. You know, the the work of putting

1343
01:20:11,280 --> 01:20:14,719
Speaker 1: all of this planning together and the science is done now,

1344
01:20:14,840 --> 01:20:17,000
Speaker 1: they just got to get it on the ground. They

1345
01:20:17,000 --> 01:20:19,479
Speaker 1: do the work, and the private landowners are way ahead

1346
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:22,160
Speaker 1: of the game. They are doing the work. They are

1347
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:25,200
Speaker 1: they're doing the work. Man, They're putting a lot of

1348
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:29,240
Speaker 1: money into it, and a lot of good, very proactive

1349
01:20:29,320 --> 01:20:33,479
Speaker 1: conservation ranchers just just good ranchers, just good people. They

1350
01:20:33,520 --> 01:20:36,360
Speaker 1: know they know how to manage their land. Not everybody does,

1351
01:20:36,439 --> 01:20:38,840
Speaker 1: but the good ones are doing it right just right

1352
01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:42,120
Speaker 1: over the hill. Here's my friend that it was in

1353
01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:51,080
Speaker 1: that article. Great guy doing good things, And um, I

1354
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:56,200
Speaker 1: think we'll get there in But um, there's not a

1355
01:20:56,200 --> 01:20:59,479
Speaker 1: lot of room to screw up. There's not a lot

1356
01:20:59,520 --> 01:21:02,280
Speaker 1: of room. Just grew up because I don't know when

1357
01:21:02,320 --> 01:21:04,439
Speaker 1: oil is gonna hit again. I don't know when the

1358
01:21:04,479 --> 01:21:08,600
Speaker 1: next boom for something on our you know, extractive resources

1359
01:21:08,600 --> 01:21:11,559
Speaker 1: in our public lands are gonna hit hard. There doesn't

1360
01:21:11,600 --> 01:21:14,360
Speaker 1: ground to a stop, but it's slowed weight and slowed

1361
01:21:14,400 --> 01:21:18,080
Speaker 1: wede and it gave us a breather. You know. Again,

1362
01:21:18,120 --> 01:21:21,400
Speaker 1: if we'd had eighty dollar barrel oil and a drought,

1363
01:21:21,560 --> 01:21:24,080
Speaker 1: I don't know how the service wouldn't have have I

1364
01:21:24,160 --> 01:21:26,559
Speaker 1: give you, I'll give you a comparison. Lesser prairie chickens

1365
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:32,559
Speaker 1: were listed in May. They were contemplated in petition for listing.

1366
01:21:33,880 --> 01:21:36,160
Speaker 1: So this isn't just stage grounds. This has been happening

1367
01:21:36,200 --> 01:21:39,040
Speaker 1: around the around the country, you know, with various game

1368
01:21:39,080 --> 01:21:43,000
Speaker 1: bird population Lesser prairie chickens were really declining, and finally

1369
01:21:43,040 --> 01:21:45,960
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen they decided to list them. In

1370
01:21:46,000 --> 01:21:49,880
Speaker 1: the previous two years, now, mind you, there were I

1371
01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:52,880
Speaker 1: think an estimated hundred and twenty thousand lesser prairie chickens.

1372
01:21:52,920 --> 01:21:55,240
Speaker 1: I think at ninety five when they were contemplating this

1373
01:21:56,280 --> 01:21:59,760
Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, I believe it was you know,

1374
01:22:00,040 --> 01:22:04,960
Speaker 1: below a hundred thousand, and the population had twice based

1375
01:22:04,960 --> 01:22:09,280
Speaker 1: on leccounts and these crude population estimates they have in

1376
01:22:09,320 --> 01:22:11,080
Speaker 1: the two years they were trying to make the decision.

1377
01:22:11,200 --> 01:22:13,120
Speaker 1: How do you not list the bird? They're estimated at

1378
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:16,960
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand birds? Where are they know? They're on the

1379
01:22:17,040 --> 01:22:20,840
Speaker 1: uptick because the rain and conservation, so they're on the uptick.

1380
01:22:20,840 --> 01:22:22,400
Speaker 1: I don't know where they're sitting right now. But the

1381
01:22:22,479 --> 01:22:26,200
Speaker 1: range wide population goal is now sixty thousand. I thought

1382
01:22:26,240 --> 01:22:27,880
Speaker 1: the number was too low. I mean, it's half of

1383
01:22:27,920 --> 01:22:31,120
Speaker 1: what they were when they originally were petitioned. But it's

1384
01:22:31,320 --> 01:22:33,720
Speaker 1: you know, it's still double what what the birds were

1385
01:22:33,720 --> 01:22:37,160
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. So they've they've come up,

1386
01:22:37,320 --> 01:22:39,679
Speaker 1: but you know, drought will hit that region again too.

1387
01:22:39,760 --> 01:22:42,639
Speaker 1: So my point is is the true test of these

1388
01:22:42,640 --> 01:22:46,559
Speaker 1: conservation plans is is in the making. And I'll tell

1389
01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:48,840
Speaker 1: you the wild card in our crystal ball jumping ahead

1390
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:52,360
Speaker 1: in our time machine is fire. You can have a

1391
01:22:52,479 --> 01:22:55,400
Speaker 1: two thousand acre fire and nothing flat in some of

1392
01:22:55,439 --> 01:22:58,759
Speaker 1: this country, and if it's not taken care of, it'll

1393
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:01,519
Speaker 1: it'll taken care of me. And if it's not put out,

1394
01:23:02,000 --> 01:23:04,880
Speaker 1: you can burn a lot acres pretty fast. That's a

1395
01:23:04,920 --> 01:23:08,479
Speaker 1: whole other conversation now, and a half because you're and

1396
01:23:08,520 --> 01:23:13,479
Speaker 1: that's you're perpetuating a problem. You've already created. This stuff

1397
01:23:13,600 --> 01:23:18,840
Speaker 1: used to burn all the time in not severe way,

1398
01:23:19,960 --> 01:23:23,600
Speaker 1: so now we've prolonged it where we have tinder boxes

1399
01:23:24,320 --> 01:23:26,160
Speaker 1: and now we're in a situation where we have to

1400
01:23:26,240 --> 01:23:30,000
Speaker 1: like keep doing the screw up to make up for

1401
01:23:30,040 --> 01:23:34,800
Speaker 1: the bigger screw up. It's not a bad point, it's

1402
01:23:34,800 --> 01:23:36,880
Speaker 1: a good point. I mean, the cheat grass is really

1403
01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:40,719
Speaker 1: perpetuated in a great basin, you know. That's that's really

1404
01:23:40,800 --> 01:23:44,920
Speaker 1: really created an untenable situation for those guys, and it's hard.

1405
01:23:44,960 --> 01:23:47,920
Speaker 1: They're they're making some advances on how to address cheat grass,

1406
01:23:47,960 --> 01:23:50,519
Speaker 1: but man, that's a big problem. My brother, one of

1407
01:23:50,560 --> 01:23:55,600
Speaker 1: my both my brothers are a collegists um. One of

1408
01:23:55,640 --> 01:23:59,679
Speaker 1: them has always worked on these plant ecosystems, aired land,

1409
01:23:59,720 --> 01:24:04,720
Speaker 1: you know, range land ecosystems, and has done a lot

1410
01:24:04,760 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 1: of work on cheat grass. And right now he's focused

1411
01:24:08,600 --> 01:24:16,880
Speaker 1: almost exclusively on uh shrub regeneration, getting sage brush and

1412
01:24:16,920 --> 01:24:21,280
Speaker 1: other shrubs to come back on degraded landscapes or disturb landscapes.

1413
01:24:22,200 --> 01:24:25,080
Speaker 1: That he does. He does work all over the West,

1414
01:24:25,120 --> 01:24:27,439
Speaker 1: but yeah, he's in he's based in Montana and allows

1415
01:24:27,439 --> 01:24:29,519
Speaker 1: to us like coal mine, Like when you do open

1416
01:24:29,640 --> 01:24:33,800
Speaker 1: you know, open surface coal mines part of the remediation process.

1417
01:24:34,320 --> 01:24:36,240
Speaker 1: You know, at the time you could get away with

1418
01:24:36,400 --> 01:24:38,160
Speaker 1: just being like, oh, you know, we put it up

1419
01:24:38,160 --> 01:24:41,200
Speaker 1: in grass. Now you're like, no, it needs to be

1420
01:24:41,560 --> 01:24:43,519
Speaker 1: you know, it's the more of the mind frame of

1421
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:45,200
Speaker 1: no needs to be kind of back to like what

1422
01:24:45,240 --> 01:24:47,760
Speaker 1: it was. But it's very difficult to do. And um,

1423
01:24:47,800 --> 01:24:49,360
Speaker 1: he spends a lot of time working on that, and

1424
01:24:50,920 --> 01:24:54,240
Speaker 1: he's and he talks about he talks about the sage

1425
01:24:54,520 --> 01:24:58,720
Speaker 1: grouse issue has had a has had an impact on

1426
01:24:58,760 --> 01:25:01,719
Speaker 1: his work because it's effective where money flows. Yeah. Absolutely,

1427
01:25:01,760 --> 01:25:04,320
Speaker 1: they're pumping tons of money into it. Is he getting

1428
01:25:04,360 --> 01:25:08,679
Speaker 1: some of that? Yeah? I mean, you know I always

1429
01:25:08,680 --> 01:25:11,760
Speaker 1: hesitate to because the things he works on are you

1430
01:25:11,760 --> 01:25:15,120
Speaker 1: know that there's you know, it's nuanced and sensitive. And

1431
01:25:15,400 --> 01:25:18,479
Speaker 1: I don't what does he say he was here, What

1432
01:25:18,479 --> 01:25:22,600
Speaker 1: does he say about reclamation time? It takes decades in

1433
01:25:22,640 --> 01:25:27,640
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, but you have to But I'm

1434
01:25:27,680 --> 01:25:30,720
Speaker 1: just curious. Yeah, I'm not a restoration ecologist. He had

1435
01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:33,640
Speaker 1: some sort of he had the most, he had the

1436
01:25:33,680 --> 01:25:37,280
Speaker 1: most groundbreaking. Uh. He was telling me that he had

1437
01:25:37,320 --> 01:25:40,080
Speaker 1: the what he felt was gonna be the most impactful

1438
01:25:40,120 --> 01:25:45,759
Speaker 1: thing of his career, something he found out about regenerating shrubs.

1439
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:49,639
Speaker 1: What do you got, You got a little marriage advice?

1440
01:25:51,080 --> 01:25:55,040
Speaker 1: Can we talk about today's hunt? Was that too early?

1441
01:25:55,200 --> 01:25:58,040
Speaker 1: Just not a lot to say? It was a big hunt,

1442
01:25:58,680 --> 01:26:01,120
Speaker 1: not a lot of harvesting. Yeah, we covered a lot

1443
01:26:01,160 --> 01:26:03,320
Speaker 1: of ground, man, But I just feel like we're um,

1444
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:05,439
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, like, you know, my my

1445
01:26:06,040 --> 01:26:11,880
Speaker 1: sage grouse, my lifelong sage grouse harvest today is one

1446
01:26:12,000 --> 01:26:15,880
Speaker 1: because I've never focused on hunting them. I run into them, uh,

1447
01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:18,880
Speaker 1: because I like to, you know, being like generally a

1448
01:26:18,880 --> 01:26:21,880
Speaker 1: big game hunter. I run into him hunting antelope. I

1449
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:25,320
Speaker 1: run into them out messing around. Um. We used to

1450
01:26:25,400 --> 01:26:27,000
Speaker 1: run into a lot of them when we did a

1451
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:30,320
Speaker 1: lot of late season rabbit hunting on the planes. Um,

1452
01:26:30,400 --> 01:26:32,800
Speaker 1: but you know, the seasons are short, never lined up,

1453
01:26:33,479 --> 01:26:35,679
Speaker 1: and I'm just not This the first time I've ever

1454
01:26:35,720 --> 01:26:38,719
Speaker 1: like devoted This is the first time I've ever devoted

1455
01:26:38,720 --> 01:26:42,559
Speaker 1: a day to finding some and like any kind of thing,

1456
01:26:42,600 --> 01:26:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, you can cold roll well, as I know

1457
01:26:44,479 --> 01:26:47,120
Speaker 1: very well from this spring, we cold rolled into a

1458
01:26:47,120 --> 01:26:49,320
Speaker 1: new turkey hunting spot and there's no one talking about

1459
01:26:49,360 --> 01:26:53,479
Speaker 1: listing turkeys right now we've got turkeys and then far

1460
01:26:53,560 --> 01:26:55,200
Speaker 1: more stage than we had them at the time of

1461
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:58,800
Speaker 1: European contact. We rolled into a new turkey spot this

1462
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:01,679
Speaker 1: spring and had our asses handed to us for about

1463
01:27:01,720 --> 01:27:04,040
Speaker 1: three days in a row. So it's like any kind

1464
01:27:04,040 --> 01:27:07,800
Speaker 1: of like real hunting, um, any kind of real hunting,

1465
01:27:07,800 --> 01:27:10,960
Speaker 1: there's a learning curve, man, And it's like, you know,

1466
01:27:11,280 --> 01:27:12,960
Speaker 1: if you just if you just think you're gonna cold

1467
01:27:13,040 --> 01:27:15,880
Speaker 1: roll into a new spot and start knocking the hell

1468
01:27:15,920 --> 01:27:18,559
Speaker 1: out of everything, you either don't know where you're tom

1469
01:27:18,600 --> 01:27:21,840
Speaker 1: bar or you've had some really unusual hunts in your life.

1470
01:27:22,880 --> 01:27:25,560
Speaker 1: So we were last weekend and didn't find them in

1471
01:27:25,680 --> 01:27:28,800
Speaker 1: my honey holes either. And they move around. Yeah, So

1472
01:27:28,840 --> 01:27:31,720
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, it's like it's really it's I'm

1473
01:27:31,760 --> 01:27:35,040
Speaker 1: really reluctant to have to have a bad day and

1474
01:27:35,080 --> 01:27:37,160
Speaker 1: talk about how it was a bad hunt. We had

1475
01:27:37,200 --> 01:27:39,280
Speaker 1: something to happen to night. Those interesting as we got

1476
01:27:39,280 --> 01:27:41,360
Speaker 1: to uh, we messed with the badger for a while

1477
01:27:41,960 --> 01:27:45,759
Speaker 1: and um and uh you know him, not not messing

1478
01:27:45,800 --> 01:27:49,120
Speaker 1: him like you know, just observed him to the point

1479
01:27:49,120 --> 01:27:51,560
Speaker 1: where he got frustrated with us and gave us a

1480
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:54,960
Speaker 1: couple of hisses. But uh, you know it was we

1481
01:27:55,040 --> 01:27:59,000
Speaker 1: had a fun day. But um no, it's it's interesting,

1482
01:27:59,040 --> 01:28:00,439
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you're trying to learn something new.

1483
01:28:01,280 --> 01:28:04,200
Speaker 1: Anything you stood up? Yeah? Any what's going on? Hes tired?

1484
01:28:04,240 --> 01:28:08,000
Speaker 1: I'm getting smoked out. I've been getting smoked out, so

1485
01:28:08,040 --> 01:28:10,439
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get out of there. You mean you

1486
01:28:10,479 --> 01:28:13,519
Speaker 1: know your body makes it, Eddie. Yeah, it's not from

1487
01:28:13,560 --> 01:28:20,519
Speaker 1: the fire. Oh, because you're really sensitive to Ron cigarette smoking. Yeah, cigar,

1488
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:25,000
Speaker 1: small cigar, place than run smoke some run. Ron's only

1489
01:28:25,080 --> 01:28:27,519
Speaker 1: I've ever met my entire life the chain smoke, swish

1490
01:28:27,600 --> 01:28:31,360
Speaker 1: or sweets. Oh, you got to give it a try.

1491
01:28:31,400 --> 01:28:36,439
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, that's all you got, Yanni. You're getting

1492
01:28:36,439 --> 01:28:42,840
Speaker 1: sick of that smoke. Yeah, Ron, I would like to say,

1493
01:28:44,240 --> 01:28:49,000
Speaker 1: as a lifelong bird hunter, how frustrating it is to

1494
01:28:49,280 --> 01:28:54,680
Speaker 1: try to do I feel like the guy I used

1495
01:28:54,720 --> 01:28:56,519
Speaker 1: to take guys to South Dakota after I had my

1496
01:28:56,640 --> 01:28:58,840
Speaker 1: learning curve, and I take friends of South Dakota, you

1497
01:28:58,880 --> 01:29:03,040
Speaker 1: know a couple of them, Steve m And within sometimes

1498
01:29:03,080 --> 01:29:06,400
Speaker 1: a half a day they start going, well, you know

1499
01:29:06,400 --> 01:29:10,360
Speaker 1: what we ought to try, you know, And I found myself,

1500
01:29:10,400 --> 01:29:14,600
Speaker 1: like talking to Garrett today while we're walking overthinking the

1501
01:29:14,640 --> 01:29:17,800
Speaker 1: hell out of it, you know, like, Okay, you know

1502
01:29:17,880 --> 01:29:19,479
Speaker 1: what we should say, No, you know what we should

1503
01:29:19,840 --> 01:29:23,439
Speaker 1: I'll bet you it's this. It was so frustrating because

1504
01:29:23,479 --> 01:29:26,160
Speaker 1: everything else I've hunted, it's kind of like I've never

1505
01:29:26,280 --> 01:29:29,600
Speaker 1: hunted I've never hunted an applicant species, and it just

1506
01:29:29,680 --> 01:29:32,320
Speaker 1: kind of today it just drove me a little mad,

1507
01:29:32,479 --> 01:29:36,800
Speaker 1: crazy thinking, Okay, this looks like really good cover, because

1508
01:29:36,800 --> 01:29:39,160
Speaker 1: I think birds that need really good cover. And then

1509
01:29:39,160 --> 01:29:41,599
Speaker 1: we talked to somebody like no, no, don't go into

1510
01:29:41,760 --> 01:29:44,720
Speaker 1: waist high cover, going the knee high cover, and like

1511
01:29:44,720 --> 01:29:47,160
Speaker 1: we have, but there's less cover here. Why wouldn't the

1512
01:29:47,160 --> 01:29:49,800
Speaker 1: bird want more cover? And it was just it's a

1513
01:29:49,880 --> 01:29:52,640
Speaker 1: very frustrating day. I'm I'm ready to go at it

1514
01:29:52,640 --> 01:29:55,960
Speaker 1: again tomorrow. Already, my knees are dad ib profits kicked in.

1515
01:29:56,000 --> 01:29:59,000
Speaker 1: I feel good. I've had a beer. But I've never

1516
01:29:59,080 --> 01:30:03,800
Speaker 1: hunted a species. Was that aggravating before? Yeah, I think

1517
01:30:03,800 --> 01:30:05,880
Speaker 1: that It's the part of the problem is you look

1518
01:30:06,640 --> 01:30:09,599
Speaker 1: out there, like normally when you're hunting a game bird,

1519
01:30:10,680 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 1: you pretty quickly learn to sort of identify where you

1520
01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:18,439
Speaker 1: can rule out you know, of the area. Don't go

1521
01:30:18,439 --> 01:30:21,320
Speaker 1: into the hardwoods after grouse. Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll find

1522
01:30:21,479 --> 01:30:24,880
Speaker 1: focusing on things and you you sort of look at

1523
01:30:24,920 --> 01:30:26,680
Speaker 1: and you just start seeing it in the way of

1524
01:30:26,720 --> 01:30:28,320
Speaker 1: like that's where they're going to go. It could be

1525
01:30:28,360 --> 01:30:32,400
Speaker 1: really simple like the sunflower patch for morning does or

1526
01:30:32,439 --> 01:30:35,000
Speaker 1: could be just like you know, you just look into

1527
01:30:35,240 --> 01:30:39,479
Speaker 1: uh an alder standard poplar stand and you're like, you

1528
01:30:39,560 --> 01:30:41,840
Speaker 1: see the parts where the grouse that hang out, like

1529
01:30:42,439 --> 01:30:45,639
Speaker 1: just some undergrowth, see a thorn apple tree and there, Yeah,

1530
01:30:45,680 --> 01:30:51,040
Speaker 1: there all food. The whole valley is food. It's yeah,

1531
01:30:51,160 --> 01:30:55,240
Speaker 1: it's it's very tough. When they're concentrating in the meadows,

1532
01:30:55,600 --> 01:30:58,719
Speaker 1: you can hit those, you know, but they've scattered, They've

1533
01:30:58,800 --> 01:31:00,880
Speaker 1: they've moved around. Like I said, we were out here

1534
01:31:00,960 --> 01:31:05,080
Speaker 1: last weekend hunting where I thought they would be pretty

1535
01:31:05,080 --> 01:31:07,240
Speaker 1: predictive where I thought it to be and I've shot

1536
01:31:07,280 --> 01:31:09,960
Speaker 1: him before and not to be had and they hadn't

1537
01:31:09,960 --> 01:31:13,040
Speaker 1: been harassed by hunters and moved around. Yeah, so they

1538
01:31:13,080 --> 01:31:18,040
Speaker 1: were moving around the landscape. Broody. What do you got, oh? I.

1539
01:31:18,040 --> 01:31:22,360
Speaker 1: I just think it's pretty important to reiterate how especially

1540
01:31:22,439 --> 01:31:24,600
Speaker 1: for a lot of guys that are big game hunters,

1541
01:31:24,600 --> 01:31:29,120
Speaker 1: how linked stage gross are too so much more popular

1542
01:31:29,200 --> 01:31:33,200
Speaker 1: game animals like mule deer and antelope, Like, if you

1543
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:37,080
Speaker 1: like shooting giant mule deer bucks, you should be worried

1544
01:31:37,080 --> 01:31:42,880
Speaker 1: about sage grass also, I think, so, don't you. I mean,

1545
01:31:43,880 --> 01:31:47,519
Speaker 1: wherever sage grass live, a good chance it's mule deer

1546
01:31:47,520 --> 01:31:50,760
Speaker 1: winter range. And you know we've been looking at nice

1547
01:31:50,760 --> 01:31:53,800
Speaker 1: antelope bucks the whole time we've been here too. So

1548
01:31:56,240 --> 01:31:59,080
Speaker 1: Michael Cling thought, I don't know accounts accounts of the thought,

1549
01:31:59,600 --> 01:32:02,000
Speaker 1: it's never very complete, has a question mark on the

1550
01:32:02,080 --> 01:32:07,599
Speaker 1: end of it. It's like, I hope that I want

1551
01:32:07,680 --> 01:32:15,479
Speaker 1: to believe in the idea that industry and wildlife can

1552
01:32:15,520 --> 01:32:18,840
Speaker 1: continue to find a way to work together. When I

1553
01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:22,559
Speaker 1: was young, before I got I developed the pragmatism that

1554
01:32:22,600 --> 01:32:26,599
Speaker 1: comes with age. When it comes with age, I had,

1555
01:32:26,720 --> 01:32:30,320
Speaker 1: like I you know, I was acutely aware of environmental issues,

1556
01:32:31,240 --> 01:32:34,320
Speaker 1: and you know, in my twenties, and my solution was

1557
01:32:34,760 --> 01:32:42,639
Speaker 1: that you would just destroy every road and and revert

1558
01:32:42,720 --> 01:32:47,560
Speaker 1: everything back into like a pure wilderness. Over time you

1559
01:32:47,600 --> 01:32:50,719
Speaker 1: started to be like, you know what, And I still

1560
01:32:50,720 --> 01:32:52,640
Speaker 1: love you know, I I love the idea of that,

1561
01:32:52,680 --> 01:32:57,280
Speaker 1: But you go like that's not gonna work because people, um,

1562
01:32:57,320 --> 01:33:04,320
Speaker 1: including myself, we you fossil fuels, we have families, we

1563
01:33:04,360 --> 01:33:07,599
Speaker 1: have jobs, we have income we need to support. Yeah,

1564
01:33:07,640 --> 01:33:11,519
Speaker 1: it's like it's like, you know, it's just we rely

1565
01:33:12,040 --> 01:33:17,280
Speaker 1: on minerals, we rely on fossil fuels. Our economic health

1566
01:33:17,479 --> 01:33:19,880
Speaker 1: depends on those things. And when you become if you

1567
01:33:19,920 --> 01:33:23,080
Speaker 1: become a student of the world, you realize that one

1568
01:33:23,120 --> 01:33:27,320
Speaker 1: of the worst things that can happen to wildlife is

1569
01:33:27,640 --> 01:33:37,200
Speaker 1: societal impoverishment. Impoverished societies, Impoverished societies who have, you know,

1570
01:33:39,120 --> 01:33:45,320
Speaker 1: sustain endemic levels of unemployment, failed states. Okay, impoverished societies

1571
01:33:45,360 --> 01:33:49,439
Speaker 1: do not do well with wildlife. Africa. Now, I remember

1572
01:33:49,479 --> 01:33:51,760
Speaker 1: going to like, you know, I remember going to the

1573
01:33:51,760 --> 01:33:54,439
Speaker 1: Philippines bringing my and being like, holy smokes, is this

1574
01:33:54,560 --> 01:33:59,479
Speaker 1: gonna be good fishing? Right the Philippines coral reefs, seven

1575
01:33:59,520 --> 01:34:04,559
Speaker 1: thousand islands. Dude, you can't find a fish. It's like,

1576
01:34:05,160 --> 01:34:11,200
Speaker 1: impoverished cultures that don't have strong leadership wildlife suffers immensely.

1577
01:34:12,320 --> 01:34:15,640
Speaker 1: So I'm like, yes, there is a great benefit to wildlife,

1578
01:34:15,640 --> 01:34:20,679
Speaker 1: to having an economically strong society of people who earn

1579
01:34:20,800 --> 01:34:23,759
Speaker 1: a livable wage. It just is like It's hard to explain,

1580
01:34:23,800 --> 01:34:29,200
Speaker 1: but there's a correlation there. Wealthy wildlife is luxury that

1581
01:34:29,280 --> 01:34:33,320
Speaker 1: can be supported by wealthy societies. So I've come to overtime,

1582
01:34:34,920 --> 01:34:41,839
Speaker 1: really root for our ability to be an advanced, wealthy

1583
01:34:41,920 --> 01:34:45,839
Speaker 1: society that can attack things like poverty and can attack

1584
01:34:45,920 --> 01:34:51,200
Speaker 1: unemployment and still find a way to coexist with sustainable

1585
01:34:51,280 --> 01:34:56,880
Speaker 1: amounts of wildlife. And I think that watching right now,

1586
01:34:56,920 --> 01:35:00,800
Speaker 1: you can watch a handful of things play out. What's

1587
01:35:00,840 --> 01:35:08,320
Speaker 1: happening in with with fisheries, redfish or red snapper, like

1588
01:35:08,400 --> 01:35:12,439
Speaker 1: various fisheries in the Gulf States. You look and you

1589
01:35:12,439 --> 01:35:17,439
Speaker 1: you you see that struggle um looking at wolves, grizzly bears,

1590
01:35:17,520 --> 01:35:21,280
Speaker 1: sage grouse in the West, you see the struggle where

1591
01:35:22,080 --> 01:35:25,920
Speaker 1: it's You might take a superficial look and be like, oh,

1592
01:35:25,960 --> 01:35:31,280
Speaker 1: it's industry against wildlife and their diametrically opposed. But then

1593
01:35:31,439 --> 01:35:33,240
Speaker 1: as you get a little more like if you get

1594
01:35:33,280 --> 01:35:35,479
Speaker 1: a little more nuanced, a little more complex look at it,

1595
01:35:35,520 --> 01:35:41,479
Speaker 1: you realize that the struggle is finding the technologies in

1596
01:35:41,520 --> 01:35:46,400
Speaker 1: the intelligence and the restraint to allow those two things

1597
01:35:46,439 --> 01:35:49,000
Speaker 1: to function together. It's not that one is going to

1598
01:35:49,080 --> 01:35:53,080
Speaker 1: defeat the other. It's that you're gonna find a way

1599
01:35:55,000 --> 01:35:58,240
Speaker 1: two allow them to come together. I heard a guy

1600
01:35:59,160 --> 01:36:04,200
Speaker 1: talking about climate change and he was saying that the

1601
01:36:04,280 --> 01:36:08,840
Speaker 1: answer isn't gonna be personal restraints. The solution will wind

1602
01:36:08,920 --> 01:36:12,960
Speaker 1: up being technological. It won't be because some people canceled

1603
01:36:13,000 --> 01:36:15,240
Speaker 1: their vacation because they didn't want to fly on a

1604
01:36:15,280 --> 01:36:18,719
Speaker 1: plane because they didn't want to increase their carbon footprint.

1605
01:36:19,160 --> 01:36:22,960
Speaker 1: It'll be because like technology, something fixes it. Yeah, that

1606
01:36:23,080 --> 01:36:26,160
Speaker 1: we think of, you know, and you just it's like

1607
01:36:26,240 --> 01:36:28,840
Speaker 1: I just want and like we're saying, like, you know,

1608
01:36:29,200 --> 01:36:32,080
Speaker 1: very like drilling technologies. If you want to get interested

1609
01:36:32,080 --> 01:36:33,920
Speaker 1: in wild life, it's like you might also kind of

1610
01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:37,200
Speaker 1: become interested in drilling technologies and in all these other

1611
01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:41,440
Speaker 1: things that make it so uh just make it frustrating.

1612
01:36:41,479 --> 01:36:44,040
Speaker 1: And what you wind up not having is and it's

1613
01:36:44,080 --> 01:36:46,400
Speaker 1: and it's really refreshing to have him. It feels great

1614
01:36:46,479 --> 01:36:51,000
Speaker 1: is having bad guys and like the world, you know,

1615
01:36:51,720 --> 01:36:54,240
Speaker 1: there's just not a lot of there are some there

1616
01:36:54,240 --> 01:36:58,720
Speaker 1: are not a ton of real bad guys. I agree,

1617
01:36:59,439 --> 01:37:02,800
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are focused on some

1618
01:37:02,960 --> 01:37:08,000
Speaker 1: aspect and they might weigh things differently, and you're trying

1619
01:37:08,000 --> 01:37:10,080
Speaker 1: to talk to them, be like, yeah, I agree what

1620
01:37:10,160 --> 01:37:13,479
Speaker 1: you're talking about is important, but can you just tip

1621
01:37:13,479 --> 01:37:16,760
Speaker 1: it a little bit towards what I'm talking about. I'm

1622
01:37:16,800 --> 01:37:20,240
Speaker 1: not asking you to ignore what you're talking about, but

1623
01:37:20,400 --> 01:37:23,760
Speaker 1: just listen a little it's what I'm saying too. That's

1624
01:37:23,760 --> 01:37:26,920
Speaker 1: where the extremes on both ends of this particular issue,

1625
01:37:27,240 --> 01:37:31,880
Speaker 1: to me, have been mildly marginalized because a lot of

1626
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:35,320
Speaker 1: people came together to seek that balance, because without the

1627
01:37:35,360 --> 01:37:38,360
Speaker 1: public support of any of this, we don't have conservation

1628
01:37:38,400 --> 01:37:40,759
Speaker 1: in this country. I mean, if you asked a basic

1629
01:37:40,880 --> 01:37:44,719
Speaker 1: question of the population, would you be willing to pay

1630
01:37:44,760 --> 01:37:46,960
Speaker 1: ten cents a gallon more for sage grouse? What do

1631
01:37:46,960 --> 01:37:50,280
Speaker 1: you think the answer would be? I would say absolutely absolutely,

1632
01:37:50,360 --> 01:37:52,840
Speaker 1: They would know I would say that I would, Yeah,

1633
01:37:52,920 --> 01:37:56,000
Speaker 1: you and I would. But I think the majority of

1634
01:37:56,040 --> 01:38:00,000
Speaker 1: the public would say, now in the context that question,

1635
01:38:00,040 --> 01:38:02,679
Speaker 1: and but I think when you put that bigger picture

1636
01:38:02,760 --> 01:38:07,639
Speaker 1: perspective and that balanced ideal out there about what these

1637
01:38:07,640 --> 01:38:13,639
Speaker 1: ecosystems really provide, then they may they would understand general

1638
01:38:13,680 --> 01:38:16,040
Speaker 1: public what you're saying. Would you pay it ten cents

1639
01:38:16,040 --> 01:38:18,760
Speaker 1: more for stage grouse? Probably not. Would you pay ten

1640
01:38:18,800 --> 01:38:21,360
Speaker 1: cents more for three hundred and sixty species that rely

1641
01:38:21,479 --> 01:38:29,720
Speaker 1: on a certain system. Can we do nine? I'm up

1642
01:38:29,720 --> 01:38:34,519
Speaker 1: for nine? Uh yeah. Final thoughts has been marriage advice

1643
01:38:34,560 --> 01:38:37,640
Speaker 1: anything like that. No marriage advice. I've been married ten

1644
01:38:37,720 --> 01:38:41,360
Speaker 1: years now, so good for you. Yeah, Ed Coker sand

1645
01:38:41,400 --> 01:38:43,880
Speaker 1: Hill crane. That's a bird at uh that's a bird

1646
01:38:43,920 --> 01:38:47,000
Speaker 1: that won't menu around. And now they're doing pretty good. Yep,

1647
01:38:48,400 --> 01:38:53,160
Speaker 1: doing good. Just uh, we do appreciate you having with

1648
01:38:53,200 --> 01:38:58,040
Speaker 1: you guys. I uh appreciate what you do. The I'm

1649
01:38:58,040 --> 01:39:00,280
Speaker 1: glad you got out to experience this eCos to him

1650
01:39:00,320 --> 01:39:03,639
Speaker 1: because it's something else and so far, so far, our

1651
01:39:03,720 --> 01:39:08,719
Speaker 1: party hasn't reduced stage gross population one bit at all. See,

1652
01:39:08,720 --> 01:39:12,559
Speaker 1: it's a fraction of the mortality. That's where they get

1653
01:39:12,560 --> 01:39:15,240
Speaker 1: that hunter. Hunter has not much impact on the space.

1654
01:39:16,600 --> 01:39:21,440
Speaker 1: These hunters, Steve and I have not had zero impact.

1655
01:39:21,520 --> 01:39:24,559
Speaker 1: Like we looked into it and they don't do Steve

1656
01:39:24,640 --> 01:39:26,720
Speaker 1: wrote me an email. I got a last conclusion with

1657
01:39:26,920 --> 01:39:29,960
Speaker 1: Steve wrote me, you know, you know when we get

1658
01:39:29,960 --> 01:39:33,880
Speaker 1: out there, maybe we should social restraint and came up

1659
01:39:33,880 --> 01:39:37,240
Speaker 1: with like maybe we should just shoot just get one.

1660
01:39:37,320 --> 01:39:39,360
Speaker 1: We're gonna get one, And I wrote you back, let's

1661
01:39:39,400 --> 01:39:44,320
Speaker 1: find one first, and that's what we're still doing we're

1662
01:39:44,360 --> 01:39:47,760
Speaker 1: still trying to find a better day. Wise words, all right,

1663
01:39:47,840 --> 01:39:48,559
Speaker 1: thanks for listening.