WEBVTT - Ep. 145: A Life of Service 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me eat podcast calling at you shirtless severely 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.599 bug bitten in my case underwear listening podcast. You can't 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:28.200 forget anything, alright, Virgil, let's just start out and have 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.560 you just get right into it. Introduce yourself, like right 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.680 off for anybody even says anything interesting. Thanks Steve. I'm 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:38.480 Virgil Warm director and Idaho Fishing Game. Um, it's the 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.520 greatest job in the world. Like, that's the top that's 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:45.040 the top dog individual. Well, I have you, but yeah, 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.000 in our agency, um, the director uh oversees the operations 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.760 of the entire agency and you, guys in the crowning 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.400 achievement of your career, right, is this passage of the 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.320 new pine squirrel season? Well, I won't say it's a 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:05.520 crowning achievement. Yeah. A couple of years ago, one of 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.960 our commissioners just asked the question can we kill Plaine squirrels? 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.280 You know, they're commonly known as red squirrels, And the 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:20.119 the answer was they're protected wildlife. And then he goes, why, Yeah, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.920 I don't know, it's always been that way. Yeah. This 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.080 came up because we I was just talking about how 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.520 last night we were eating some pine squirrels for dinner. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:34.839 And I was saying, how everywhere that I've ever lived 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:41.240 lists the pine squirrel or red squirrel um as a 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.880 non protected, non game species mean no close season, no 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:46.760 bag limit. And I would have never have guessed the 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.920 Idaho was an exception to that, because like people don't 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.520 really get after them. You know, they're a common household pest, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.720 because if a squirrel gets in your attic, it's probably 0:01:54.720 --> 0:02:00.000 a pine squirrel. In the northern tier States, um, they pray. 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:06.160 A surprising thing is they pray on snowshoe hair leveretts. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.840 Do you know that in in Alberta, they did a 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.040 mortality study on snowshoe hairs and most of the ones 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.320 that went missing were found in pine squirrel mittens. I 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.120 got a body that watch would kill a bird one time. 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.799 A Yeah, they like to kill. They like to kill 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.840 snowsh your hair leveretts, and they're like the baby birds 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:28.680 out of nests. But we'll see the pine scenes. They're 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.160 they're stashes, their mittens, whatever you want to call them, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.040 become an important food source in the winter for some 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.520 birds and other wildlife because they can get into those 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:40.880 stashes and you see grizzlies in the spring will come 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.119 out and excavate them, you know, pull them all out. 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.359 So you guys realize there's no season for him, and 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.000 what kind of magic needs to happen. You know, It's 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.080 not as easy as just waving a wand and saying 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.080 the season's open. We had to go through rulemaking to 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.160 make them non protected first, and then we had to 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.120 go through the process of proposing a season, getting public comment, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.040 and then the Commission approving it. They just finally approved 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.920 that at their last commission meetings. So we will have 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.639 a pine squirrel season from one extreme to the other. 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.880 It's eight per day, twenty four in possession, so and 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.440 it's got an open season that'll be from August through 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.720 marcht one, so you know there's a close period and 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:31.799 that conforms with our open season for other um rabbits 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.200 and other small games. So just for consistency reasons, we 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.920 kept all of that. You're gonna run them like small game. 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.040 Do you guys have any regulations around and I don't 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.200 imagine you have thriving populations of fox and gray squirrels. Uh, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.040 we do have thriving populations of fox and gray squirrels, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.240 mostly in urban areas, and uh, there is no protection 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.320 on those. You can kill as many of those as 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.360 you want because they're because they're a non native. There 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.000 are non native non protected wildlife because most of them 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.040 are in urban areas were discharged of firearms is prohibited. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.960 Um that we don't see much use of them, although 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.520 there are a few folks, uh that that utilize them. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.040 I mean, I'm a Missouri native. I was raised. Probably 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.560 the first thing I killed was either a rabbit or squirrel, 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.920 so one of the two had to be what I 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:30.720 was shooting at exactly. Um next to Virgil Chris, Chris 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:32.480 just hanging out. Chris is the old friend of mine 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:33.919 who should you should come out of the show a 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.320 lot more? I want to Yeah, I mean my friends, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.320 I'm not a big podcast listener. I watched the show 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.559 of the Mediator show all the time, but my friends 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:42.920 listened to it all the time. I told him when 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.160 I was doing today, they said, seriously, are you kidding me? 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:50.640 Anti podcast listen? No, Um, I'm not. But to steal 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.280 an old favorite phrase of yours that you stole from 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.240 Ian Fraser. You know, hunting or fishing is something I'd 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.400 rather do than talk about. So um, I'm not Antipope cast. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.719 I just I write a lot, and I need uh. 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.359 When I'm done writing, I need to get out of 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:11.320 the word world. You know. Just listen to silence, you know. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.360 I remember reading somewhere that people are saying you can't 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.360 appreciate music without appreciating silence, because music is an interruption 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.120 of silence. Sure. I bet John Cage would love that, right. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.479 I don't know who said, I'm just gonna act like 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.520 I said that. I remember an old squirrel hassan fop 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.080 for meal that you made. You remember that? Yeah, man, Yeah, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:31.760 we used to get after him right here in town, 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.599 right here. But uh, you know live trap nowise and squirrels? 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.360 Oh is that how you're getting them? In? Other ways? 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.600 We go, we go honest, we go out of state 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:46.320 that we'd go, you know, hunt them around. Uh plug 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:49.040 your book real quick. Okay, Well, my my last book 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.279 is called Body of Water. It's a nonfiction book from 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.840 Milkweed Editions about uh really that centers around a man 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.600 named David Pender who was the first Bahamian bone fishing guy. Uh. 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.760 He went to uh he grew up on a small 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.400 island called deep Water Key, and a rich Floridian man 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:13.719 named Gil Drake, Floridian man named Gil Drake actually bought 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:18.440 an island from the Crown um the English Crown called 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.440 deep Water Key and hired David Pender too excavate the 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.680 mangroves from the island, and over time hired Pender to 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.560 be his first fishing guide bone fish guide in the Bahamas. 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.640 So Pender made about five dollars a day at the time, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:39.000 and over the last fifty or so years, the bone 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.400 fishing industry has become the trux of the eco to 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.440 tourism industry in the Bahamas, so a hundred and fifty 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.159 million dollars a year. Basically, this little fish that we 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:55.479 used to throw into Purina food bags has become the 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.400 crux of an island, the entire island's economy. Really, first 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.000 bone fish I ever saw, and this is the way 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.560 after bone fish became what bone fish are. The first 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.039 one I ever saw is leading dead on the side 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.080 of the road. Where is that Mexico? He's done on 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.160 the side of the road with the weirdest thing. I 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.160 was like, Oh, it's not how you want to see 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.520 your first bone fish. In the r day, a buddy 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.760 mine from Hawaii sent me a picture just a classic 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.440 grip and grim with a whole bunch of dead bonefish 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.280 lander because they make fish patties out of here, they 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.480 call it. Then they don't. They catch mountain deep water, 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.560 huge bonfish my brother called a big bone fish and 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.080 a hundred feet of water in Hawaii. Right, So they 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:33.880 don't look like they're like a flats fish. They're they 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.000 act like they're just a fish to eat, a bony 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:40.040 ass fish to eat. Right. I remember your your discussion 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:45.320 in meat Eat or the book about your first experience 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.880 releasing these fish. That's when I found my first dead 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.600 one on the side of the road like a road 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.560 killed bone fish, and then caught my first ones and 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.640 let them go. And meanwhile we like killed every other fish. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.080 We didn't know what it was to like fuel our 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.280 journey to let bone and fish go because you gotta 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.640 eat something. We pull fish out like what's that, I 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.040 don't know, eat it and let all that, let all 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.240 the old ones go. Did you ever end up beating 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.920 a bone fishing bone fish one? What was it? Like? 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.640 You said, just boning paying the fine white flesh. Totally fine, 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.240 you gotta pick it. To quote and Fraser again, who 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.200 I think might have stole this from John McPhee, but 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.360 he's talking about eating rochad right, and he said, it's 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.320 kind of like fixing a watch, like picking the meat, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:32.719 like all the bones. You know. It feels like you're 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.040 like dismanling a watch to get it apart. But I 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.800 ate one down there, barracoutaite a lot of those kind 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.480 of fish. But it's a cool book. We should maybe 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:43.880 sometimes dedicate the whole conversation about the books. It tells 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:45.640 the story about a fish that no one cares about 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.800 becoming a fish that's like a billion dollar industry. Yeah, 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.600 we should. I'll come back anytime. I'm glad you're living 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.000 in Bozeman. Now. I remember when you used to speaking 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.920 of picking fish, remember fishing for whitefish and making something. 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.640 I was talking about that yesterday. Yeah, tedious, but great recipe. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.280 Um on down the line. Oh yeas w you have 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.840 headsets on? What are you doing? Just monitoring? They're just 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:17.400 taking yeah, entourage. Oh yeah, let's go ahead. Then we're 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.240 gonna dive into and then we're gonna dive into all things, uh, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.800 fisheries and wildlife management. Yeah, tell us from the Meat 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.920 Eater Crew, Virgil, can you start out I have a 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:31.800 thousand things to ask you. One of the questions I 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.160 want to ask you later once we get going, is 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:39.079 when you hear hunters and anglers talk bad about fish 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.040 and game, what are the most legitimate complaints and what 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.200 are the least legitimate complaints? But I don't want to 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.360 talk about that yet, but just know that that's coming, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.600 so dig deep to try to give a thing like 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.440 what is the most legitimate complaints that you found in 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.600 your career in the lifetime of service? I think first, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.320 I think could be interesting to talk about where your 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.840 department sort of ends, and you can make it general 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:08.559 like the IDAHO right is your area of expertise, but 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.199 you probably enough exposure from all the other agencies to 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.880 like like where where does what does the Game Commission? 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.040 And what is its relationship to your department? And and 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.000 how do you move from one of those? I think 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.040 that this is this is something that's not well understood, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.640 and it might be a good basis for the conversation here. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.240 That really is And I certainly our Game Commission Idahoe 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.959 Fish and Game Commission is integral to our agency. Uh. 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:41.760 They are the policy and regulatory setting body for the 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:47.000 department Officient Game. As director, I set as the director 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.200 of the Idaho Department of Fishing Game. I'm also a 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.960 non voting member of the Idaho Fishing Game Commission. My 0:10:54.000 --> 0:11:00.960 other title is Secretary Officient Game, and that interfaces the Department, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.760 through the Director and the Commission in Idaho. The Director 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.679 serves at the pleasure of the Commission, a seven person 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:13.880 board appointed by the Governor UH for staggered four year terms. 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.360 They can be appointed to two terms confirmed by the 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.960 Senate as confirmed by the state Senate. Our commissioners are 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.400 as a director appointed by a commission, I do not 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.719 have to go through that that political process with the legislature. 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.360 They do that, and so that's the firewall or the 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:41.480 buffer that's there. But the governor selects those commissioners and 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.480 the commission. The governor selects the commissioners, the commissioner selects you, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.760 the director, and you have a term limit of two 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.520 terms for the commissioners, so they can serve two four 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.040 year terms. And then they turn out the director has 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.120 no term limit, so you can keep going and keep 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:02.280 goingment Now it's you serve the pleasure and so at 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.600 any time for commissioners decide they want somebody new, you've 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.640 got your walking papers. How many commissioners are there seven 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.000 and that varies, okay, but they set the rules. So, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.360 for instance, we talked about and I don't want to 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.280 put too much into this because it's a pretty small 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.240 issue pine squirrel season that has the goal of the 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:27.800 commission right, correct, But the Commission draws so much of 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.480 their information from the Department because the Commission's not doing 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:36.079 not game surveys. So that's where the Department and Commission 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:40.760 are linked in. The first initiative in the state of 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.080 Idaho was approved by voters in the state that created 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.240 the Commission prior to ninety eight. We were formed as 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.520 an agency in eight the Department Official Game prior to that, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.640 the director was appointed by the governor. It was completely 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.600 partisan and most of the st spoils the war and 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 it is and many of the staff were non professional 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.600 and it was a very partisan UH structure. Decline of 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.400 trying to recover Elkords, trying to get hunting back and 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.720 going in the twenties and thirties, UH failed miserably because 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:21.120 we didn't have that professional workforce out there doing the 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.680 survey work. The initiative formed the Commission and put the 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.280 Commission in its position of hiring the director and gave 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:36.480 very specific roles to each body and the department access 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:40.760 staff and managers of that public trust that's out there. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:47.680 The Commission is the the trust holder along with the 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.400 legislature UH, they are the ones that are responsible for 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.679 how to how to UH deal with that trust. We 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.760 just make recommendations and manage it per their direction. So 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.080 up until the time pine squirrels were protected, that was 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:09.440 the direction. Then they decided they as the UH trust manager, 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.520 they wanted to do something different. We said, there's not 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.440 a problem biologically. They went on with the rules. And 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:22.080 so we interact very closely with our commission. Who how 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.680 often does the Commission butt heads of the department like 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.480 meaning presuming there's people in the Commission who have an 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.120 extagrind right like because they're from different walks of life, 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.000 is it happens? We don't see it a lot. UH. 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.880 Generally the Commission tries to work as a team together, 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.360 but they are appointed to represent geographic areas of the state, 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.440 and they're they're pretty much they have a district and 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.960 those that district is very similar to our administrative regions. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.240 So we've got seven of those. And every so often 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:58.120 you see um a difference in the way that the 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:05.240 commissioners themselves to go. As director, I manage the agency 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:11.200 to make recommendations. Where we have a disconnect is if 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:16.680 for some reason, through public input, somebody wants a season change. 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.160 But someone said, hey, there's I'm seeing fewer and fewer deer, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.120 and then you look and you he actually is probably 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.200 seeing fewer and fewer deer. Let's say it's legitimate, and 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.080 as an individual, I suspect that that's the case they 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.520 are seeing. But our survey work, we look at it 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:36.800 and we go, you know, we killed more deer last 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.680 year in that unit than we've ever killed before. Our 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.600 survey information says that the buck doo ratios in there 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.080 are above policy. And so you have that disconnect between 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.360 what you see in the spot you hunt and what 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.760 we see when we try to manage a larger piece 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.240 of real estate. And so that goes to the commission. 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.760 They get public input all the time, like that. We're 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.360 in the idle of it right now with some deer 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.160 setting stuff that's going on, Like tell me what you mean, 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.080 white tailed deer. We're we're adopting a new white Tailed 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.440 Deer plan, and in that process the question of do 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.760 we know what we're talking about in this particular piece 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.760 of real estate versus what the data is for game 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.200 management units on a larger piece. And and so the 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.320 Commission is in a situation where the biological information would 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:29.640 suggest one thing, and what individuals that are motivated to 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.280 get involved in the decision making process show up at 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.360 a public meeting say that isn't right. And you know what, 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.280 they're probably not wrong about where they're hunting, what they 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.680 see their specific spot, but what it does that mean 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.080 that that's the way it is everywhere. And that's the 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.400 kind of wisdom and balancing that the Commission has to 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.000 go through to sort through. Here's the science as we're 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.840 trying to present it to you, and here's the public 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.960 input that has some veried input. We can tell you 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.720 all about this, but I can't say that what Joe 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:10.119 Hunter over here sees is incorrect. And so that is 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.639 where the beauty of the Commission processes. They're there to 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:19.080 balance out perhaps the scientific information that we provide them 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.399 with some of the input from the public of what 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:26.480 they desire. As trust Um users, they're the they're the 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.160 ones who get the benefit of that public trust of wildlife. 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.600 We manage it. The Commission is a trustee for that 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.640 and and so we go back and forth through that 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:41.159 process UH constantly with with our commission. Most of the 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:46.640 time nine ten per cent of what is out there 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.320 for public input, we get good public input. We get 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.760 agreement with the biological information it goes through. We just 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:58.240 approved phishing regulations for three years, a new phish management 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.080 plan for six years. At this last commission neating two 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.760 weeks ago took fifteen minutes, no dissenting anything. It took 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.520 a year, took a year of public input to get 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.959 to that point. But by the time we got to 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.399 that point, we didn't have any issues. That's not true 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:22.679 with our deer, elk and other wildlife management issues. We 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.280 had no dissenting votes on point squirrels, So that one 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:32.160 went pretty easy. Brings people together together. But but white 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.480 tail deer are a big thing right now. They tell 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.080 me what because there's a lot of them, not a 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.919 lot of them we're seeing um because of way hunting 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.720 occurs in Idaho with the ability to move around. We 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.280 have a white tail tag for the late season white 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.840 tail hunt. UM that that you have to decide whether 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.919 you're gonna hunt during the early mule deer in general 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.800 deer season, or whether you want to hunt white tail only. 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.359 And you get that white tail tag. A lot of 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:04.120 people prefer white too, I do, and and consequently they 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.800 all go to these really neat spots and so they're 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.639 seeing a lot more hunters. So you're out there driving 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.600 around where you go buy and you see six camps 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.280 in the spot you didn't see but one camp four 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:19.760 or five years ago. Then you go out hunting and 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:24.560 you don't see the deer immediately. There's a problem. And 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.320 this is occurring in the clear Water and several other 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.919 units around that, coupled with loss of access on private lands, 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:39.199 creates this uh perception that hunting for me isn't as 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.920 good as it used to be, and people perception is 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.280 correct for that person. People are attributing this to forcing 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.760 people to make this decision about what they want to hunt. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.240 That's part of it. They're also saying there's too many 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.960 non residents, and non residents can be both people from 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.680 out of state as well as people like myself from 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.600 Boise coming up into their area to hunt UH. And 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.119 it's it's that social tension that comes with using a 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.960 resource out there. And as users, you've probably all seen that. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.320 I know, I do. Uh. You see it whether you're 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.120 fishing or hunting. I get away from it by hunting 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.080 later in the season so I don't have to deal 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.119 with it, or I fish later in the season or 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.880 during the shoulder periods. Montana, as an example, has their 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.920 shoulder hunting seasons that they use right now. To try 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.359 to distribute some of that, we try to use our 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.560 regulations to do that, but it at some point we 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:41.880 still have the people seeing something different than what are 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.600 biological data. So some of the and I'll jump to 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.199 your question, you know, what are the legitimate complaints for us? 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.199 Add something. One of the writers that writes for us 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.240 on our website, Pat dirk And, did a piece for 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:03.840 us about comparing success rates hunter success rates with surveys 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.520 about hunter satisfaction. He's the basic I mean, just to 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.280 really take something long and complex and make it short, 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.280 as people are just generally not happy, not happy, Like 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.199 you take a relative picture a year to year of 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.040 like what was good hunting and bad hunting, then to 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.320 ask people to put a personal spin on it that 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.600 generally viewed as being more negative than it was. I 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.359 wouldn't totally agree with that dot our survey that we 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:37.120 recently did on um mule, they're in whitetail hunters. Everybody's happy. No, 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.960 I don't know, and I'm gonna say everybody's better, but 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:44.760 but most people are satisfied or very satisfied. Based on 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:49.280 the survey work we did. It varies depending on the geography, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.119 it varies on what they're after. One of the things 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.360 that we are in Idaho by commission direction, we're an 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.960 opportunity state. We're all about being able to hunt every year. 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:04.360 We're all about giving people that chance to get out 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:09.080 there and to accomplish that. We have to have that 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.000 that ability to hunt every year, you're going to have 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:18.080 fewer older growth animals than you would if if you 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:23.400 didn't go for that opportunity. And so that is an 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:31.600 opportunity state versus a on a quality state. Utah has 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.360 UH and this is based on their public input down 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.080 there and a large number of hunters there in different 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.800 productivity chose years ago to go with a quality system 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.760 that produced a larger proportion of the herd as four 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:52.240 point animals. Idaho has quality. Don't get me wrong. It's 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.480 just we manage the productivity of that herd so that 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.239 we can utilize that productivity for as many hunters as 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:04.280 possible while still producing a pretty good number of four 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.640 point animals, whether they're mule deer or whitetail. We talked 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:09.359 about this too as being like some states are kind 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:14.120 of split. The Colorado's quality on a mule deer opportunity 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:16.879 on elk correct and and part of it has to 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.280 do with the number of animals that are there. In general, 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:21.760 ar mule deer haven't been doing as well as our elk, 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.280 although in Idaho, with with some of the work we've 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:27.800 been doing, as well as the easy winners we've had 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.720 and the better survival on fonds, our mule deer are 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:34.800 really up. But half of our deer harvest is whitetail 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.479 in Idaho. The other half is all those dudes up 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:40.680 in the Panhandle. And it's because we got a lot 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:43.440 of them, and and people are turning onto them because 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.120 they taste better. Now that's just my that's my bias. 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.359 I'll put it this way. When my wife is not 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:55.119 a hunter, but she is a consumer, and when I 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:59.040 go hunting, I generally get orders as to what she 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:02.880 prefers that bring home and and uh a white tail 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:05.680 are much higher on the list than a stinky old 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.840 mule deer. As she puts it, now, I find them 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.880 both very flavorful. I like the flavor. They're both distinct 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:17.280 and different, and enjoy eating both. In the ticket, she puts, 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:20.159 just keep telling her just get your own ticket and 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:26.960 come out hunting with me. But really, late, I want 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:28.399 to get in your bio from it. But lay a 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:31.760 good piece of marriage advice on us. Listen to your spouse, 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:37.720 bring home my white til. Can I ask a question 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:42.000 about so when you guys are prioritizing, um, you know, 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.080 an initiative or or you know this uh the new 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:49.600 squirrel uh listing. I mean, are you thinking, well, that's 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:52.359 gonna be an economic boon for the state. I mean 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:54.640 it's the squirrel thing, or I'm kidding a little bit. 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:59.920 But how how much are you prioritizing like revenue potential 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:05.160 revenue over the resource or is it certainly um? Idaho 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:10.000 gets no general funds okay. Our revenue is generated by 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:14.800 predominantly license sales, as well as contract money and the 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:18.560 excise tax on hangingd fishing equipment. Pittman, Robertson and Danel Johnson. 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:22.399 What's the contract money. Contract money is mitigation money like 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:25.919 from Bonneville Power to operate hatcheries for the mitigation of 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:31.320 dam's Idaho Power of Vista, Um, gosh, you name it. 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:35.360 We get contract money to work with a b p A. 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:38.159 As an example, we've got contract money to do sage 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.160 grousework for the Fish and Wildlife Service, but a lot 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:43.840 of it most of its mitigation money to operate hatcheries 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:48.760 for hydro power development, meaning the hydro power development impedes 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:50.520 fish movements and they got to make up for that 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:53.320 by running a hand correct, it's the state runs the 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:56.359 hatches for We operate the hatcheries that they built for 0:25:56.400 --> 0:26:00.119 those facilities, and and so that's a huge piece of 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:04.840 our budget. But as far as the discretionary funds that 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.040 we get, it's almost all license money, a little tiny 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.240 bit off of non game license plate sales. We have 0:26:11.280 --> 0:26:15.119 a license plate system and that generates UH together about 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:19.680 two million dollars that runs that UH non game program 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:22.879 um that we have in the state. So back to 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:26.920 your question about what do we get. Do we take 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:32.720 economics into consideration. If it was a conservation issue where 0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:34.840 you should hunt or not hunt? The answer is no. 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:39.720 But when you're looking at the way you conduct a hunt, 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:44.240 the way you you set seasons, how you allocate those 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:48.119 tags to residents and non residents. Definitely, revenue is on 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:50.520 the table as it as an item to take a 0:26:50.560 --> 0:26:54.080 look at, But by and large the Commission isn't as 0:26:54.160 --> 0:26:59.159 concerned with revenue as they are the social aspects of 0:26:59.160 --> 0:27:04.040 how this effect hunters in the field. Um, I'll give 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:05.879 you an example. We dive into this. I mean, the 0:27:05.920 --> 0:27:09.399 Commission just recently closed steelhead fishing in the state of Ida, 0:27:10.440 --> 0:27:16.679 and the economic effects of that are huge. Well, I 0:27:16.720 --> 0:27:21.440 got a lot of but we had a public meeting 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:25.520 last week in Riggins. Now. Riggins is on the Salmon River, 0:27:26.560 --> 0:27:31.360 a very small community, uh that has mostly natural resource 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:34.720 based economy. Used to be timber that's gone. Now it's 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:38.119 hunting and fishing, I mean, and whitewater rafting on the 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.720 main Salmon River. And the closure of a winter steelhead 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:46.600 fishery is millions of dollars to a community that is 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:53.719 probably getting a third of their financial revenue from steelhead fishing, 0:27:53.760 --> 0:27:57.000 another third from chinook, and the rest of it from 0:27:57.160 --> 0:28:01.600 other outdoor based recreation activities, and so it hits a 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:06.400 community like that hard over Christmas. Goodness, who's grinch here? 0:28:07.080 --> 0:28:12.080 And I get it. Talked the numbers, I'm guessing why, 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:15.199 but talking about what precipitated the closing. One of the 0:28:15.240 --> 0:28:21.040 people decided no we um UM. We got served with 0:28:21.080 --> 0:28:26.040 a notice of intent to be sued. UM and about 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:28.800 forty five days ago who was bringing the suit? It 0:28:28.920 --> 0:28:34.000 was a group of five fish advocacy groups and river groups. 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:38.239 UH that I felt like that the what we call 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:40.920 mixed stock fishery where we fish on the hatchery fish 0:28:41.000 --> 0:28:45.600 these mitigation fish and there are wild listed steelhead in 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:49.479 the river with him, felt that our fishery was harming 0:28:49.520 --> 0:28:53.479 those wild fish. Technically, the problem is we don't have 0:28:53.560 --> 0:28:57.440 a permit to have that mixed stock fishery. It expired 0:28:57.480 --> 0:29:00.320 in two thousand and ten. The federal age and see 0:29:00.360 --> 0:29:05.720 responsible for that permit UH National Marine Fishery Service has 0:29:05.960 --> 0:29:08.920 failed to issue that permit to us since two thousand 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:12.000 and ten. We have submitted it every year. We have 0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:15.600 complied with the terms of the permit, but they have 0:29:15.760 --> 0:29:20.160 been working on other areas that were very important for permitting. 0:29:20.840 --> 0:29:23.520 UM and I can get into the technicalities of that, 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:26.840 but the point is we are guilty of not having 0:29:26.840 --> 0:29:31.760 a permit. So here we're getting a notice Noah or 0:29:32.040 --> 0:29:35.200 National Marine Fishery Services, go ahead and fish without the permit, 0:29:35.320 --> 0:29:38.760 comply with the terms you submitted. We don't have time 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:40.920 to go through the process to give you that permit, 0:29:41.200 --> 0:29:43.600 but we're not going to prosecute you under the Endangered 0:29:43.640 --> 0:29:48.720 Species Act. The Endangered Species Acts as a citizens lawsuit 0:29:48.840 --> 0:29:52.160 feature in it that allows private citizens to sue somebody 0:29:52.280 --> 0:29:56.240 violating it. That was I mean, this has been going 0:29:56.320 --> 0:29:59.880 on for eight years and then we get this notice 0:30:00.040 --> 0:30:05.080 intent to sue. If you go to court and are 0:30:05.320 --> 0:30:09.200 found to be guilty, I guess you would say we're 0:30:09.240 --> 0:30:13.080 not in compliance, then the state has to pay all 0:30:13.080 --> 0:30:17.920 the legal fees of the plaintiffs. And knowing what we knew, 0:30:18.480 --> 0:30:22.240 we felt that it was not useful to go through 0:30:22.360 --> 0:30:27.400 a legal defense when we really didn't have the permit 0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:30.520 trying to convince a judge, and in all likelihood the 0:30:30.520 --> 0:30:33.440 plaintiffs would have asked the judge for an emergency closure 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:37.480 while they started in and the end result would be 0:30:37.720 --> 0:30:40.440 we would be paying the legal fees and we would 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:44.520 have a closed steelhead system. By closing the season, we 0:30:44.680 --> 0:30:48.760 preclude them from taking us to court. So now the 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:51.880 decision to open it back up is still with the commission. 0:30:52.480 --> 0:30:58.040 The permit will be done in March next spring. Were 0:30:58.400 --> 0:31:01.240 a black eye, right, yeah, I and and deservedly so 0:31:03.080 --> 0:31:07.320 we are. We probably could have been a little more 0:31:07.360 --> 0:31:12.560 aggressive with seeing that this could happen. But frankly, I 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:15.400 knew for well, I've been director for eight years and 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:17.720 the whole time I knew we've been playing doing this, 0:31:18.160 --> 0:31:21.240 and I felt because National Marine Fishery Service wasn't going 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:23.880 to prosecute us, that we were okay. I never thought 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:27.680 about our conservation friends and these other entities taking us 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:32.000 to court. Are these fisher Are these angler based groups? 0:31:32.280 --> 0:31:37.120 For a couple of them are angler based groups, A 0:31:37.160 --> 0:31:40.560 couple of them are river based groups, angler groups desiring 0:31:40.600 --> 0:31:44.520 more wild fishing. Yeah, they've got a different agenda, and 0:31:44.560 --> 0:31:47.560 I'll be honest with you. Part of the agenda they 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:52.080 were willing to not sue us if we agreed to 0:31:52.200 --> 0:31:57.320 go to no bait, single barbelous hooks fly fishing only 0:31:58.000 --> 0:32:01.640 banned the useful boats. So they were trying to say 0:32:01.680 --> 0:32:04.000 this was a conservation issue. But then they had this 0:32:04.240 --> 0:32:07.400 string of things that would have precluded most of our 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:10.880 steelhead anglers from going fishing, just so that group could 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:14.600 get out there, the Catch and Release group basically, and 0:32:14.640 --> 0:32:17.960 are the people of Riggings and that whole kind of 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:23.520 valley there. They upset mostly you guys were They're upset 0:32:23.600 --> 0:32:26.120 that we allowed this to get to where it is. 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:28.880 But at the public meeting we had last week going 0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:32.800 into town, there was a sign um, you know, public 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.600 meeting so and so play such and such time, and 0:32:35.640 --> 0:32:38.280 they had the name of one of these groups just 0:32:38.360 --> 0:32:43.320 plastered on there said not welcome. So yeah, they're they're 0:32:43.360 --> 0:32:46.560 they're doing. I have a meeting tomorrow with the board 0:32:46.720 --> 0:32:50.640 of one of these groups. The season doesn't take effect 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:54.320 until December the seventh, I think, is when it closes. 0:32:56.960 --> 0:33:00.360 Terrible day, um, but we've got a little bit time 0:33:00.360 --> 0:33:03.280 in here. We're still negotiating. We had a negotiated settlement 0:33:03.280 --> 0:33:06.280 two weeks ago, and then when all of the planeffs left, 0:33:06.320 --> 0:33:09.120 they came back a day later and said, no, we're 0:33:09.120 --> 0:33:11.000 going to back away from our agreement. So I got 0:33:11.040 --> 0:33:14.160 a couple of quick questions. First, for Chris, uh, you're 0:33:14.280 --> 0:33:16.880 you're you're a fishing guide straight over to that country 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:18.480 at all I do not. I know, I couldn't had 0:33:18.480 --> 0:33:20.480 that far down river. No, I grew up still heading 0:33:20.680 --> 0:33:23.680 in Michigan. So, um, we don't have these problems. Now 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:27.000 we don't have these problems. But now I'm still lying 0:33:27.000 --> 0:33:29.600 the bank with them down there, right. I spent most 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:31.760 most of the winter righting. So as soon as I'm 0:33:31.800 --> 0:33:34.480 off the river in late October, I'm hanging up the 0:33:34.560 --> 0:33:37.440 rods and the waiters and chasing the bird dog around. 0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:39.960 But um, but do you hear guys griping about this? 0:33:40.040 --> 0:33:42.000 So I didn't. I didn't even know about it, which 0:33:42.040 --> 0:33:44.000 tells you how how often much I've been in the 0:33:44.000 --> 0:33:46.239 woods in the last month or so. But all you know, 0:33:46.360 --> 0:33:50.640 most of the Missoula single Missoula fishing guides head over 0:33:50.640 --> 0:33:53.240 there for for a good month, and you know, drag 0:33:53.240 --> 0:33:58.560 a trailer over and right. For sure. It's fascinating to 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:03.560 me and and uh surprising too. Now here's my question 0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:08.400 for you, Virgil, on this issue. The average letter writer 0:34:08.640 --> 0:34:12.400 who writes in with a complaint. Um, let's say you 0:34:12.400 --> 0:34:14.160 were to take all those people and make a pool 0:34:14.239 --> 0:34:16.440 of them, So forget the average You're gonna take a 0:34:16.440 --> 0:34:18.080 pool of all the people that have written a letter 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:21.160 of complaint, how many of those individuals if if you 0:34:21.200 --> 0:34:23.520 had to guess what percentage of those individuals would be 0:34:23.560 --> 0:34:26.319 able to articulate the issue to the extent that you 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:30.160 just articulated it to me right now? Is it well 0:34:30.320 --> 0:34:33.759 understood or do you find or are you baffled by 0:34:33.800 --> 0:34:38.640 how not well understood it is. I'm baffled by how 0:34:39.080 --> 0:34:42.480 not well understood it is. We're pushing the envelope. This 0:34:42.920 --> 0:34:47.120 closure only occurred less than two weeks ago. In fact, 0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:51.120 it'll be two weeks ago Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, and 0:34:51.160 --> 0:34:53.600 so we're we're trying to get the word out there. 0:34:54.200 --> 0:34:57.960 The form letters that I've been inundated with simply aren't accurate. 0:34:59.120 --> 0:35:03.319 The misunderstand ending that there is a conservation benefit to 0:35:03.400 --> 0:35:08.880 this closure, Uh is wrong. Okay, that there is a 0:35:09.000 --> 0:35:13.640 catch and release mortality on these listed steelhead, but that 0:35:13.800 --> 0:35:17.480 is less than three of handling, and that's a worst 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:21.560 case scenario. That's what that's what we use in our permit, 0:35:22.120 --> 0:35:24.960 and we predict that three out of a hundred fish 0:35:25.000 --> 0:35:27.920 handled may die as a result of that catch and 0:35:27.920 --> 0:35:31.040 release fishery, and that's the impact that we will have 0:35:31.120 --> 0:35:36.600 on these wildfish while we're catching and keeping hatchery fish. Okay, 0:35:36.640 --> 0:35:40.160 and it's something all the states do. I mean, Washington 0:35:40.280 --> 0:35:42.320 has their permit in hand, they got a couple of 0:35:42.360 --> 0:35:46.040 years ago. They got there's first. So the Washington part 0:35:46.040 --> 0:35:49.320 of the Snake River will stay open even though ours 0:35:49.360 --> 0:35:54.319 will close because it's it's border water. Oregon doesn't have 0:35:54.360 --> 0:35:57.200 their permit for this fishery, but they're going to continue 0:35:57.200 --> 0:35:59.520 to fish because they didn't get sued, you know, and 0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:03.360 so he had It's a very selective um legal actions 0:36:03.400 --> 0:36:05.319 going to continue to fish or in the state of 0:36:05.320 --> 0:36:09.200 Oregon will continue fish, as will Washington on the Snake 0:36:09.320 --> 0:36:13.640 River portion. Our Salmon River and Clearwater rivers would be 0:36:13.680 --> 0:36:16.680 the ones that are predominantly affected by this, as well 0:36:16.719 --> 0:36:20.960 as Idaho licensed anglers who fish Hell's Canyon the Snake 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:24.240 River portion. But you could continue to fish by buying 0:36:24.239 --> 0:36:26.719 a Washington license. That's the absurdity of some of this. 0:36:27.560 --> 0:36:30.800 But the bottom line is the catch and release fishery 0:36:31.120 --> 0:36:35.440 is not the issue here. Um. This is partially a 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:40.680 social issue. This is partially an issue of these advocacy 0:36:40.760 --> 0:36:44.920 groups trying to make a point that Idaho isn't doing 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:50.719 enough as a state on down river issues, and so 0:36:50.920 --> 0:36:54.160 they're hitting us at home with a legal action on 0:36:54.200 --> 0:36:59.160 our sport fisheries. And it really doesn't hurt the department. 0:37:00.200 --> 0:37:02.960 It hurts the local communities, right you have. I mean, 0:37:03.000 --> 0:37:08.359 you you gave that, Um, you gave some percentages. But 0:37:08.600 --> 0:37:11.600 what's what's the dollar figure? You know in the town 0:37:11.640 --> 0:37:17.040 of Riggans. We've done the economic evaluation and I'm going 0:37:17.080 --> 0:37:21.840 to say the town of Riggins for this winter fishery 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:24.799 is a million and a half dollars if my numbers now, 0:37:24.920 --> 0:37:28.480 it doesn't sound like a lot of money. Not. I mean, 0:37:28.520 --> 0:37:30.760 there's less than a thousand people there in the wintertime. 0:37:30.760 --> 0:37:34.560 There's probably half that been a big chunk of change. 0:37:34.560 --> 0:37:37.239 Be factor in population is a big deal. Clear Water, 0:37:37.480 --> 0:37:41.480 you know, or Pheno that area there, Um, it gets 0:37:41.560 --> 0:37:44.040 hit hard and the outfitters and guides that rely on 0:37:44.120 --> 0:37:46.520 that and cater to that. I mean, I got a 0:37:46.560 --> 0:37:49.000 heartfelt letter from a guide up on the clear Water 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:52.279 and and he said, cash, it couldn't come at a 0:37:52.320 --> 0:37:54.560 worse time. He goes, I don't make a lot of 0:37:54.600 --> 0:37:57.160 money during this period of time, but it's gonna cost 0:37:57.200 --> 0:37:59.520 me five thousand dollars in the next six weeks. It's 0:37:59.560 --> 0:38:03.120 going to run my Christmas with my kids. Gosh, I 0:38:03.200 --> 0:38:06.439 just almost get into tears over something like that, and 0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:10.000 it's like, well, dang, should we have not closed it? 0:38:10.960 --> 0:38:13.160 Let it go to court fought and try to keep 0:38:13.160 --> 0:38:16.160 it open as long as possible. We're still having that 0:38:16.200 --> 0:38:19.880 active discussion right now. But these actions that appear to 0:38:19.960 --> 0:38:24.600 be just about the department and its management really are 0:38:24.600 --> 0:38:27.440 about people and the people who use the resource and 0:38:27.480 --> 0:38:31.799 the communities that benefit from those resources. Walk me through 0:38:31.800 --> 0:38:34.279 how you how you wound up where you are now? 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:36.799 Like that, Were you aiming through your career in fish 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:38.960 and wildlife to wind up in this position? Or does 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:44.880 it never? I'm by training, I'm a fisheries scientist. I 0:38:45.040 --> 0:38:48.520 was worked as a fisheries biology undergraduate degrees in education. 0:38:48.560 --> 0:38:51.600 I taught high school, came to Ido, worked on fish 0:38:51.880 --> 0:38:55.080 on steelhead as a matter of fact, and my yeah, 0:38:55.160 --> 0:38:58.600 and I worked on steelhead and cutthroat. Um got on 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:03.480 with the department to over forty years ago, uh and 0:39:03.600 --> 0:39:06.360 worked on the South Fork and the Snake River in 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:10.160 Idaho on cutthroat trout in the late seventies and early eighties, 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:13.880 on a problem we were having there with declining numbers 0:39:13.880 --> 0:39:18.240 in size of fish, and got an opportunity to manage 0:39:18.239 --> 0:39:22.600 that fishery for about seven years. And that included that 0:39:22.760 --> 0:39:25.359 area that I was manager over, including the Henry's Fork 0:39:25.920 --> 0:39:27.680 and the South Fork of the Snake and some of 0:39:27.719 --> 0:39:31.520 that greatest fishing country and well in the world. Maybe 0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:36.160 maybe Montana is close, but you know, we'll we'll give 0:39:36.239 --> 0:39:38.279 them since wire in Montana, I'll give him a little 0:39:38.320 --> 0:39:44.319 credit for having good fisheries. But the bottom line is 0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:46.520 then I just worked my way up when I had 0:39:46.560 --> 0:39:51.120 an opportunity and various positions as state fish manager, fishery 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:56.400 research manager, I was bureau chief over our communications program 0:39:56.520 --> 0:39:59.640 for a while, fisheries chief. I did a stint in 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:03.359 Oregon as director for a year, went over there and 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.440 um learned a lot. I consider it now as a 0:40:06.480 --> 0:40:09.880 one year sabbatical to a different state and had an 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:12.960 opportunity to come back Tita, who as a deputy director 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:16.280 and turned into a director's job. So it's a really 0:40:16.320 --> 0:40:18.759 short bio when you get down to it. It's just 0:40:19.600 --> 0:40:22.080 a lot of different opportunities and jobs, but it's all 0:40:22.120 --> 0:40:26.240 doing the same thing. It's working with people to manage 0:40:26.280 --> 0:40:30.279 their resources to provide what they want while having that 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:34.799 foundation in our mission statement, which is preserved, protect, perpetuate, 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:39.880 and manage for the benefit of the people. That resource 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:44.240 can only be used when it's preserved, protected, and perpetuated. 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:48.200 And when it is used, it's primary use is hunting, fishing, 0:40:48.239 --> 0:40:52.680 and trapping. That is in the code that formed our agency, 0:40:52.719 --> 0:40:55.440 that was given to us in by the people of 0:40:55.440 --> 0:40:59.239 the state. It was approved by the people in the 0:40:59.239 --> 0:41:04.320 state in um. A lot of people said, well that's dated, 0:41:04.560 --> 0:41:08.000 you know that was that was eighty some odd years 0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:10.640 I guess it was eighty years ago and it's no 0:41:10.680 --> 0:41:16.480 longer valid. Well, in two thousand twelve, we had an 0:41:16.520 --> 0:41:21.560 initiative in this or we had a constitutional amendment the 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:25.600 right to hunt fishing trap, and in that amendment it 0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:29.360 had the right to hunt fishing trap is held uh 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:32.360 to be a right for the people as a whole, 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:37.440 not individuals as much, and that the primary method of 0:41:37.520 --> 0:41:41.000 managing wildlife in the state of Idaho is hunting, fishing, 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:44.080 and trapping. So if you're gonna manage wildlife population should 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:46.440 do it with hunting, fishing and trapping. That got approved 0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:52.680 by seventy public right they want the public to do it. 0:41:52.960 --> 0:41:55.319 That was approved by seventy of the people in two 0:41:55.400 --> 0:41:58.520 thousand twelve. Now if that is at an endorsement of 0:41:58.600 --> 0:42:01.839 the night and their should have moved it forward. So 0:42:02.360 --> 0:42:08.000 what we in Idaho have is the benefit of knowing 0:42:08.960 --> 0:42:14.040 from a participation in an in an election what it 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:18.400 is the really big goals are. And that makes my 0:42:18.480 --> 0:42:20.920 job easy. If you flip the card over I gave you. 0:42:21.000 --> 0:42:24.440 On the back, there is our mission statement that's in code. 0:42:24.960 --> 0:42:27.879 That's the whole thing written out there, and it's three 0:42:27.920 --> 0:42:30.799 sentences long on the back of everybody's card. Now it's 0:42:30.800 --> 0:42:34.239 on the back of mine. But that's that's something I 0:42:34.360 --> 0:42:37.000 do so that I can because whenever I doubt what's 0:42:37.040 --> 0:42:38.920 going on, I just flip that over and read through 0:42:38.920 --> 0:42:41.520 it again. It's like, Okay, everything I need to know 0:42:42.239 --> 0:42:48.680 is right there. So in Idaho, Uh, I'm switching gears 0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:51.759 here a little bit um in Idaho. When you get 0:42:51.800 --> 0:42:54.160 when you get an email in the subject in the 0:42:54.200 --> 0:42:58.360 subject line is steel ahead or the subject line is 0:42:58.360 --> 0:43:00.480 grizzly bears? Which one are you more like? Oh no, 0:43:02.080 --> 0:43:04.200 because this is like you spent a lot of time 0:43:05.239 --> 0:43:11.480 certainly um endangered species as a whole, and um, those 0:43:11.520 --> 0:43:15.680 two add in stage grounds and uh yeah, that's occupied 0:43:15.680 --> 0:43:19.719 a fair amount of our time. Um, I will take 0:43:19.760 --> 0:43:21.719 the steel head one any day of the week over 0:43:21.800 --> 0:43:24.120 grizzly bear because you have a lot of person I 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:27.520 have some of that, and we have more biological we have. Oh, 0:43:28.080 --> 0:43:36.080 it's less value laden relative to managing fish. You know, 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:39.680 a wild steelhead is a phenomenal creature. I mean they 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:42.520 are there's nothing nothing like them on the end of 0:43:42.520 --> 0:43:45.960 a fly rod and any kind of tackle, they're just awesome. 0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:50.279 They'd be cruising around out the ocean and uh on 0:43:50.320 --> 0:43:53.320 the hatchery steelhead isn't far below that. But that certainly 0:43:53.400 --> 0:43:56.319 to have have that creature in your hand. But they're 0:43:56.360 --> 0:44:00.400 still generally not thought of as individuals. They thought of 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:04.400 as a population, as a run, as a school, you 0:44:04.400 --> 0:44:09.480 know that type. That's a good point and and consequently 0:44:09.719 --> 0:44:14.000 the emotional attachment to them doesn't go to the individual level. 0:44:15.120 --> 0:44:24.520 With megafauna, both big animals you know, bears, wolves, uh, cougars, um, 0:44:24.719 --> 0:44:28.560 you name it, deer and elk um. It's lesser degree 0:44:28.600 --> 0:44:30.359 than the other ones. Your name, Well, I guess you're 0:44:30.360 --> 0:44:35.680 doing it in order. Yeah, we call them charismatic megafauna, 0:44:36.000 --> 0:44:40.799 you know, big charismatic critters, and and they come with 0:44:40.920 --> 0:44:44.360 a whole different set of values where people try to 0:44:44.440 --> 0:44:48.560 humanize those animals and their behavior, and consequently having a 0:44:48.600 --> 0:44:53.160 discussion about biology with folks who have that becomes way 0:44:53.200 --> 0:44:56.680 more difficult. Can you sketch out um and go back 0:44:56.719 --> 0:44:57.840 as far as you want. You can go all the 0:44:57.840 --> 0:45:00.680 way back to vour whatever to help was, or you 0:45:00.680 --> 0:45:02.480 can go back the last two or three years. But 0:45:02.560 --> 0:45:07.000 sketch out where Idaho sits and where things stand right now, 0:45:07.080 --> 0:45:09.800 and do the grizzly one. And you can personalize that. 0:45:09.880 --> 0:45:11.799 You can editorialize it however you want to do. But 0:45:11.800 --> 0:45:14.520 it's like tell a little narrative. We should be celebrating 0:45:14.840 --> 0:45:18.680 the recovery grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. We should 0:45:18.680 --> 0:45:21.920 be ready to celebrate the delisting of grizzly bears here 0:45:21.920 --> 0:45:24.880 in the Northern Rockies in the Northern Continental Divide, just 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:28.240 north of where we're at here in Missoulu right now. Um, 0:45:28.719 --> 0:45:32.919 but I know in the in the Tri state area there, uh, 0:45:33.200 --> 0:45:37.360 we have an excellent grizzly bear population that's properly managed. 0:45:37.920 --> 0:45:42.719 We've got exceeded the management goals. We've answered every scientific 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:47.320 question in a legal arena, and to still have those 0:45:47.360 --> 0:45:54.760 bears on the list because of legal issues, judicial issues, 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:58.959 to me, undermines the whole benefit of the Endangered Species Act. 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:05.320 We the agency that's in charge of like the agency 0:46:05.360 --> 0:46:07.680 that oversees the population. Right now, they're saying it should 0:46:07.680 --> 0:46:11.160 be delisted. Correct, Fish and Wildlife Service themselves believes it 0:46:11.160 --> 0:46:14.600 should be delisted. They're the ruins who delisted it. They've 0:46:14.600 --> 0:46:18.279 been told to relist them until such time as they 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:23.319 answer these legal questions. Now we will get them delisted, Okay, 0:46:23.400 --> 0:46:26.840 whether it was last year, whether it's next year or 0:46:26.920 --> 0:46:32.440 three years out, because the population is secure, nothing about 0:46:32.480 --> 0:46:36.680 answering these legal questions. But this isn't about whether the 0:46:36.680 --> 0:46:39.960 population is secure or not. It is about the fact 0:46:40.000 --> 0:46:45.800 that folks do not believe that the management tool of choice, 0:46:46.120 --> 0:46:50.480 again going back to our constitutional amendment is hunting. So 0:46:50.640 --> 0:46:54.360 when we have more bears or problem bears, our choice 0:46:55.000 --> 0:46:57.439 is to have a hunter go out and take care 0:46:57.480 --> 0:47:00.479 of that, versus having our staff go out and trap 0:47:00.560 --> 0:47:02.560 the bear and get rid of it. Now we're gonna 0:47:02.640 --> 0:47:05.240 have to do a combination, But I would much prefer 0:47:05.719 --> 0:47:08.480 to use a hunter who buys a license and a 0:47:08.560 --> 0:47:11.719 tag to go out on his own time to take 0:47:11.760 --> 0:47:14.640 that animal and keep the population and check for the 0:47:14.719 --> 0:47:18.839 social needs of the communities around there, then send one 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:21.239 of my staff out there to trap the bear and 0:47:21.239 --> 0:47:25.279 then euthanize it unceremoniously. I believe that we have a 0:47:25.280 --> 0:47:29.319 lot more respect for that wildlife we interact with in 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:32.839 that manner than we do with wildlife that we just 0:47:32.960 --> 0:47:35.919 euthanize in a in a manner to kind of take 0:47:35.960 --> 0:47:39.240 care of that nuisance. UM. Do you right now feel 0:47:39.280 --> 0:47:44.680 as though do you feel that as though the fight 0:47:44.719 --> 0:47:48.200 around grizzly bear delisting will want of being worse than 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:49.880 what happened around wolves, or do you feel like it 0:47:49.880 --> 0:47:52.080 will follow that same pattern off you had like some 0:47:52.080 --> 0:47:54.600 stops and starts, you had some lawsuities, but he eventually 0:47:54.640 --> 0:47:58.400 wound up at least and Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. You wound 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:03.160 up with delisted will wolves and regulated hunting UM or 0:48:03.160 --> 0:48:05.120 do you think this is fundamentally different it will play 0:48:05.160 --> 0:48:08.160 out in a different way. It's I think it's fundamentally 0:48:08.239 --> 0:48:10.600 the same, uh, And I do think it will play 0:48:10.640 --> 0:48:15.320 out in a similar manner, But the anti hunting aspects 0:48:15.360 --> 0:48:19.319 of it is even larger with grizzly bears than it 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:24.000 is with wolves, although it's very large with with wolves. Uh, 0:48:24.040 --> 0:48:29.319 it's um. It's a very strong community of people out 0:48:29.320 --> 0:48:33.120 there who believe in their values. And at the same 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:37.560 time it's it's part of where the frustration is. Because 0:48:38.040 --> 0:48:44.720 delisted wildlife normal wildlife are under the sovereign trust responsibilities 0:48:44.719 --> 0:48:48.120 of each individual state. There are a lot of people 0:48:48.360 --> 0:48:53.600 that don't believe they're being heard and their needs are 0:48:53.640 --> 0:48:58.319 being addressed by our commission. And I can tell you 0:48:58.360 --> 0:49:01.400 they're being hurt. What you mean, like, what? What? What? 0:49:01.440 --> 0:49:04.440 Groups of people? Give you an example. One of the 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:07.240 things that we were told they wanted was a buffer 0:49:07.320 --> 0:49:12.320 around Yellowstone Park so we wouldn't have a celebrity bear 0:49:12.560 --> 0:49:15.120 going outside of the boundary and getting shot and then 0:49:15.200 --> 0:49:20.120 running back into the park. And and so I get, 0:49:20.160 --> 0:49:23.200 I get that big enough already needs to become bigger, 0:49:23.239 --> 0:49:27.120 and so the park we But they're saying, well, you 0:49:27.200 --> 0:49:31.200 ignored us when we asked for that. No, we didn't 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:34.319 ignore it. We took it into serious consideration and looked 0:49:34.320 --> 0:49:37.120 at it and said it was unmanageable to do because 0:49:37.160 --> 0:49:40.160 grizzly bears can roam as much as sixteen to twenty 0:49:40.239 --> 0:49:43.120 five miles outside of the park, and a wounded animal 0:49:43.160 --> 0:49:45.840 could go right back in, whether it is a hundred 0:49:45.920 --> 0:49:50.080 yards from the border at the border or five miles out, 0:49:50.239 --> 0:49:53.200 you know, And it just wasn't a tenable thing for 0:49:53.280 --> 0:49:57.319 us to address relative to that. But they were hurt. 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:01.040 It was discussed, but the vision didn't go the way 0:50:01.040 --> 0:50:05.080 they wanted it. So they want to federalize management of 0:50:05.160 --> 0:50:08.200 these species. And under the Endangered Species Act, that's a 0:50:08.320 --> 0:50:11.360 Fish and Wildlife Service or its National Marine Fishery Service 0:50:11.440 --> 0:50:16.400 for fishing and pinnipeds, for seals and sea lions and 0:50:16.600 --> 0:50:19.879 um they wanted to to. They want to federalize as 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:22.920 many species as possible so the state doesn't have the 0:50:22.960 --> 0:50:26.160 final say. And I believe at core that's a lot 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:30.480 of what's going on here. When when the delisting happened 0:50:30.680 --> 0:50:35.040 in bears where what now has proved to be temporarily delisted, 0:50:35.560 --> 0:50:40.120 you had three states that we're looking at assuming management. Okay, 0:50:40.280 --> 0:50:43.600 you had Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and you want up 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:45.719 having like three what appeared to me to be three 0:50:45.840 --> 0:50:50.440 very different responses to this in the hunting question, okay, 0:50:50.640 --> 0:50:54.840 where Montana was fixing to sort of sit out the 0:50:54.920 --> 0:50:56.920 hunting season, and I felt that that was kind of 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.480 a lame move. This is just me personally talking on 0:50:59.320 --> 0:51:01.839 there's not Virgil. I'm not speaking for Virgil in their 0:51:01.880 --> 0:51:04.799 the Idle Fishing Game or anyone. Just personally, I thought 0:51:04.840 --> 0:51:06.759 it was a kind of a lame move because they're 0:51:06.800 --> 0:51:08.680 sort of be like, I don't want the black eye. 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:10.600 I don't want to be caught in the controversy. I'm 0:51:10.640 --> 0:51:13.359 gonna see how it plays out with Idaho and whelming Now, 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:16.920 Wyoming has kind of hosts more of that little subset 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:19.879 of the population of bears. They host more anyone else. 0:51:19.920 --> 0:51:22.719 They were pretty aggressive. They were talking about, you know, 0:51:22.760 --> 0:51:28.080 harvest and killing two grizzly bears. Idaho, in a curious way, 0:51:28.520 --> 0:51:30.400 came in where they were going to issue a tag. 0:51:32.000 --> 0:51:36.399 That's symbolic, right, It's symbolic, But that was our allocation. 0:51:37.160 --> 0:51:40.279 So the tri state plan that we all three of 0:51:40.360 --> 0:51:46.560 agreed to allocates the available mortality to the states based 0:51:46.560 --> 0:51:49.480 on the size of the geography. I don't only have 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:54.000 six of that grizzly bear range, and so we get 0:51:54.040 --> 0:51:58.480 a smaller portion of that available mortality to utilize. So 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:01.040 it wasn't just a symbolic no. No. It wasn't like 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:02.480 we want to do it, but we don't really want 0:52:02.480 --> 0:52:04.200 to do it, so we do on our allocation was 0:52:04.320 --> 0:52:10.040 like one point four one point five bears, okay, and yeah, 0:52:10.120 --> 0:52:12.480 had I would have liked to borrowed a half a 0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:17.920 bear from Montana or Wyoming, so that Tana's allocation was 0:52:19.040 --> 0:52:22.120 I don't it was like seven or eight I think 0:52:22.560 --> 0:52:24.880 I I. It may have been in the teens. I 0:52:24.880 --> 0:52:29.920 I don't remember, but it's intermediate to Wyoming being the largest, 0:52:30.480 --> 0:52:33.279 Montana the next, and Idahoe the smallest. How much you 0:52:33.280 --> 0:52:36.120 talked to those guys a lot? Oh yeah, we we 0:52:37.960 --> 0:52:40.360 We really don't. I I will tell you that the 0:52:40.800 --> 0:52:45.800 tri state UH working relations between Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho 0:52:45.920 --> 0:52:51.319 are top notch. We formed that during the wolf delisting things, 0:52:51.440 --> 0:52:57.040 and we continually have constant and routine interactions. But the 0:52:57.080 --> 0:52:59.400 other thing you have to understand is what states is. 0:52:59.560 --> 0:53:02.040 We don't all manage exactly the same to get the 0:53:02.080 --> 0:53:06.960 same output. The way I structure are hunting seasons under 0:53:07.200 --> 0:53:11.799 the ability may be different than the way Wyoming or 0:53:11.880 --> 0:53:15.080 Montana does it, but it is still under the same 0:53:15.120 --> 0:53:17.719 state sovereignty, trying to provide for the needs of the 0:53:17.760 --> 0:53:21.200 people that they have and as long as it is 0:53:21.800 --> 0:53:26.520 above the bounds of conservation, there's really nothing wrong with that. 0:53:26.600 --> 0:53:29.839 It's the way Utah does trophy. There's nothing wrong with 0:53:29.880 --> 0:53:33.439 what Utah is doing with their trophy muletare managed. That's 0:53:33.480 --> 0:53:37.080 what they chose to do. There's nothing wrong with Idaho 0:53:37.280 --> 0:53:41.520 doing our management as opportunity. That's what we chose to do. 0:53:42.480 --> 0:53:46.839 The differences are actually great to have because each state 0:53:46.920 --> 0:53:50.480 is an experiment and wildlife management above that conservation threshold 0:53:50.640 --> 0:53:53.520 that we can learn from each other. You have to 0:53:53.520 --> 0:53:56.160 share information. We share information all the time. We have 0:53:56.280 --> 0:53:59.960 a group we call the Western Association Official Wildlife Agents. 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:03.919 These and that group we come together twice a year 0:54:04.239 --> 0:54:07.840 and interact with each other a lot. When I have 0:54:07.840 --> 0:54:10.120 a meeting coming up in early January, and that's where 0:54:10.160 --> 0:54:13.600 I'll meet with Montana Unwyolming again to discuss grizzly beary 0:54:13.640 --> 0:54:16.120 issues and how to move forward. Were you guys on 0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:18.160 the grizzly bear thing? Did you did you issue the tag? 0:54:18.560 --> 0:54:22.759 We did issue the tag. Did you keep the person anonymous? Um? Yes, 0:54:22.840 --> 0:54:26.160 we well with the name is available about any other 0:54:26.280 --> 0:54:30.600 information about them is not by state law that they 0:54:30.640 --> 0:54:32.880 had to call him up, and I guess so the 0:54:32.880 --> 0:54:36.680 Commission took action at the last Commission meeting to brain 0:54:36.800 --> 0:54:41.759 check that um opportunity to that individual for next year 0:54:42.360 --> 0:54:44.440 because it was suspended by the U. S. Fish and 0:54:44.480 --> 0:54:49.000 Wildlife Service. Once they were relisted, they can't have directed 0:54:49.040 --> 0:54:53.200 sport mortality under yes, A does I don't have salvage 0:54:53.200 --> 0:55:00.480 requirements for black bearths meet salvage requirements not me. The 0:55:00.800 --> 0:55:07.160 Commission changed the meat retrieval portion of that one decade 0:55:07.239 --> 0:55:10.160 or so ago. Yeah, And as I was guessing, they 0:55:10.160 --> 0:55:12.680 weren't going to do a meat salvage requirement on grizzly bears. No, 0:55:12.960 --> 0:55:16.359 that is not part of the requirement. And again that's 0:55:16.360 --> 0:55:19.320 some of the variation you get from among states. Someone 0:55:19.360 --> 0:55:22.719 told me how they were in a meeting and it 0:55:22.800 --> 0:55:24.640 was like a it was a public comment period, and 0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:28.319 some hunters were saying, well, you know, we should do 0:55:28.400 --> 0:55:31.360 a you know, we're we're proposing this idea of a 0:55:31.400 --> 0:55:34.719 meat salvage requirement, and some of the people who were 0:55:34.719 --> 0:55:38.439 opposing the hunt we're sort of saying, like, uh, what's 0:55:38.440 --> 0:55:40.759 the term I'm looking for when you say don't like 0:55:40.880 --> 0:55:44.239 not infantilize, what does the word indulge. No, that's not it. 0:55:44.480 --> 0:55:46.440 That's what I'm looking for. I don't know they're saying, like, 0:55:46.520 --> 0:55:52.200 don't you know, don't do it man Kelly. It was 0:55:52.200 --> 0:55:53.640 telling me the story and I can't remember the word 0:55:53.640 --> 0:55:56.160 they use for it, but they're kind of like, don't 0:55:56.239 --> 0:56:01.440 do this phony symbolic thing to greenwash this. But that 0:56:01.520 --> 0:56:04.120 came to the word that he said that was used. 0:56:04.160 --> 0:56:07.520 But they were sort of like rather than rather than 0:56:07.760 --> 0:56:11.960 the opposition figures saying like, yes, I opposed the hunt, 0:56:12.000 --> 0:56:14.040 but there is gonna be one. I agree that there 0:56:14.040 --> 0:56:16.319 should be a meat salvage requirement. They wanted to make 0:56:16.360 --> 0:56:21.239 sure it looked as bad as possible, agreed. I. No, No, 0:56:21.480 --> 0:56:23.919 that's gonna confuse things too much. I'd rather there wasn't 0:56:23.920 --> 0:56:27.840 because it's easier for us to bash it. Right. You. Certainly, 0:56:27.960 --> 0:56:32.600 one of the things that we know as wildlife managers 0:56:33.440 --> 0:56:36.680 for you and as hunters on your behalf, is that 0:56:37.400 --> 0:56:42.719 support for hunting, that is, for traditional consumptive purposes in 0:56:42.800 --> 0:56:45.920 the United States is very high. A recent survey that 0:56:46.000 --> 0:56:51.360 I saw presented that was presented this last spring showed 0:56:51.400 --> 0:56:56.279 that over the American public is supportive of traditional regulated 0:56:56.360 --> 0:57:03.359 hunting activities. Were consumption is part of it, depending then on, 0:57:03.520 --> 0:57:07.399 and that's been pretty stable. We don't have to win 0:57:07.600 --> 0:57:11.520 support as hunters, We just have to keep it. Part 0:57:11.520 --> 0:57:14.920 of what you're talking about, Steve, is how do we 0:57:15.000 --> 0:57:19.320 regulate our own behavior so we maintain that support for 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:25.880 that traditional hunting based activity that we so value. I 0:57:25.920 --> 0:57:28.600 believe that the use of a red squirrel where you 0:57:28.720 --> 0:57:32.160 described the meal you got off of it, is in 0:57:32.360 --> 0:57:36.680 keeping with that traditional activity that we know gives us 0:57:36.720 --> 0:57:40.120 a lot of support whether people hunt or not. We 0:57:40.160 --> 0:57:43.040 do know from other surveys that when you label this 0:57:43.160 --> 0:57:46.880 trophy hunting, when all you're out there for is the 0:57:47.000 --> 0:57:52.080 trophy without the consuming, it is a very conservative. But 0:57:52.520 --> 0:57:57.840 support from the public surveyed across the United States drops 0:57:57.920 --> 0:58:03.640 into the mid twenties. And so the anti hunters are 0:58:03.680 --> 0:58:09.240 trying to portray grizzly bear hunting as a trophy activity, 0:58:09.440 --> 0:58:14.840 not a population management activity, not anything else, and successfully 0:58:14.880 --> 0:58:18.520 then they turn the tables. We have to as hunters 0:58:18.720 --> 0:58:21.439 take a look at how we interact with the wild life. 0:58:21.480 --> 0:58:26.280 That we take the almost spiritual aspect of both taking 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:29.320 that life as well as the consumption, whether it's the 0:58:29.440 --> 0:58:32.760 use of the fur or the meat or the bone 0:58:33.200 --> 0:58:36.800 in whatever manner, we've got to take and keep that 0:58:36.920 --> 0:58:41.240 front and center as we propose changes in hunting seasons 0:58:41.280 --> 0:58:44.160 and how we interact with our wildlife and fish for 0:58:44.240 --> 0:58:48.480 that matter. So, just to wrap up on grizzlies, if 0:58:48.520 --> 0:58:52.280 you look at a crystal ball and be dead, honest, Okay, 0:58:52.400 --> 0:58:54.760 don't tell me what you want to be dead? Honest, 0:58:54.800 --> 0:58:57.120 where is it gonna wind up? They'll be delisted. It 0:58:57.160 --> 0:58:59.560 will take another year or two to work through the 0:58:59.640 --> 0:59:03.720 legal system. Will persist on that, Uh, simply because the 0:59:03.760 --> 0:59:08.400 population itself is so strong, I mean, all the habitats occupied, 0:59:08.680 --> 0:59:12.240 it's actually plateaued out and uh and as long as 0:59:12.280 --> 0:59:15.960 we're able to delist it based on that distinct population 0:59:16.040 --> 0:59:21.280 segment that it was listed under for that Yellowstone ecosystem. 0:59:21.320 --> 0:59:24.200 The same will be true for the Northern Continental Divide. 0:59:24.240 --> 0:59:27.400 It takes in Glacier National Park. That will get delisted 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:31.680 at some point, as well. Other populations that we've got 0:59:31.800 --> 0:59:35.560 like in the selkirks Um, these little populations that are 0:59:35.600 --> 0:59:40.920 reliant on Canada. We don't believe we'll ever achieve the 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:44.560 populations that are called for in the recovery plans because 0:59:44.600 --> 0:59:47.560 they're so small and ISO it's hard to picture the 0:59:47.640 --> 0:59:50.560 Northern Cascades, which might might or might not have one 0:59:50.640 --> 0:59:54.080 in it like at this very second good example of that. 0:59:54.200 --> 1:00:00.320 And so uh, I think the greater Yellowstone in Northern 1:00:00.320 --> 1:00:03.880 Continental divide, where you have like maybe maybe a thousand 1:00:03.920 --> 1:00:06.200 in the other world. Yeah, I mean, um, I don't 1:00:06.240 --> 1:00:09.080 know what's in the Northern Continental Divide, but I think 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:13.920 the fashionable And so the answer is yeah, Yeah, there's 1:00:14.640 --> 1:00:18.200 nothing to be gained by not d listing though, and 1:00:18.280 --> 1:00:20.400 there's a lot to be gained by doing that. It's 1:00:20.440 --> 1:00:23.040 a success of the es A. All of financial and 1:00:23.120 --> 1:00:25.880 human resources going into the e s A process go 1:00:26.000 --> 1:00:28.360 away and we can put our efforts on something else 1:00:28.400 --> 1:00:31.880 that's more important and uh and get on with it. 1:00:32.040 --> 1:00:36.360 And that's been my My complaint about how e s 1:00:36.440 --> 1:00:40.919 A has been used is it's it's being used two 1:00:41.400 --> 1:00:45.560 achieve other needs. It's just like this lawsuit over our 1:00:45.600 --> 1:00:49.200 steel head permit. They're not suing us for conservation purposes 1:00:49.200 --> 1:00:52.560 on steelhead, they're suing us to get other things that 1:00:53.560 --> 1:00:57.160 they haven't don't feel they've been heard on and um, 1:00:57.520 --> 1:01:01.440 and and that's a misuse of of the endangered species. 1:01:01.440 --> 1:01:03.600 That's the thing that saddens me about seeing how the 1:01:03.720 --> 1:01:07.479 Endangered Species Act is uses it. It's oftentimes in these 1:01:07.480 --> 1:01:11.160 big public battles, becomes about something very different than what 1:01:11.160 --> 1:01:14.200 it's supposed to be talking about. Like the conversations we're 1:01:14.200 --> 1:01:16.760 having around grizzlies right now. We're not having a conversation 1:01:16.800 --> 1:01:20.200 about whether the populations were covered. It's just that like, 1:01:20.640 --> 1:01:22.840 I know what I want. You know that people can 1:01:22.840 --> 1:01:26.120 look at it. I know what I want. Um, I'm 1:01:26.120 --> 1:01:28.880 not really interested in the main question that governs that, 1:01:29.160 --> 1:01:33.720 like population stability, but I'm gonna use components of the 1:01:33.880 --> 1:01:36.920 essay as a tool to get what I want. And 1:01:37.000 --> 1:01:39.640 what I want is I damn sure don't want some 1:01:39.800 --> 1:01:43.640 redneck shooting a grizzly bear. Certainly like their perspective on it. 1:01:45.480 --> 1:01:50.280 I understand that, and that we've seen that social angst 1:01:50.400 --> 1:01:56.520 over large predatory wildlife goes down tremendously when they have 1:01:56.600 --> 1:02:01.320 a ticket in their pocket, permit to kill that because 1:02:01.440 --> 1:02:07.040 the control shifted from the Fishing Wildlife Service to the 1:02:07.120 --> 1:02:11.600 hunter himself or herself, as the case maybe we saw 1:02:11.640 --> 1:02:15.320 it with wolves. Oh my gosh. They angst over wolves 1:02:15.400 --> 1:02:18.240 and the predation they were having on both livestock as 1:02:18.240 --> 1:02:21.560 well as wildlife was huge. The number of letters we 1:02:21.600 --> 1:02:25.600 got from sportsmen was unbelievable. As soon as we opened 1:02:25.600 --> 1:02:29.320 a season and people could buy or permit, that went 1:02:29.360 --> 1:02:34.440 way down. Yeah right, no, now, not even close. I 1:02:34.440 --> 1:02:37.080 mean we dropped their numbers by a few hundred, were 1:02:37.120 --> 1:02:41.800 cropping them off, but it did change their behavior. But 1:02:41.960 --> 1:02:47.720 we have reduced live livestock depredations. Uh, and we've we've 1:02:47.760 --> 1:02:51.840 shifted their behavior around. They now understand what humans are 1:02:52.240 --> 1:02:55.800 and tend to stay away. We still have hotspot problems 1:02:55.840 --> 1:02:59.520 with wolf predation, but most of it's on on our 1:02:59.640 --> 1:03:02.200 uncular it's on our dear and elk. Uh, it's not 1:03:02.280 --> 1:03:06.520 as much on livestock. We we've really used hunting as 1:03:06.520 --> 1:03:11.920 well as directed kill by our agency and its staff 1:03:11.960 --> 1:03:17.640 and the US Wildlife Services to reduce that tremendously. And um, 1:03:17.760 --> 1:03:21.600 we're making some inroads on elk management as well. We're 1:03:21.640 --> 1:03:24.240 killing enough of them that elk populations have jumped back 1:03:24.360 --> 1:03:29.000 up in some areas it did and it still has 1:03:29.040 --> 1:03:31.919 some holes. I mean, we've got twenty seven elk elk 1:03:32.080 --> 1:03:35.920 zones in the state, and of that, seven of them 1:03:35.920 --> 1:03:39.960 aren't meeting objectives. Five of those are almost certainly the 1:03:40.000 --> 1:03:44.760 result of predation UH. Two of them a combination of 1:03:44.800 --> 1:03:49.560 that and other factors. UM. So we've we've changed that. 1:03:49.800 --> 1:03:54.600 Originally we were at I think eleven zones weren't meeting objectives, 1:03:54.880 --> 1:03:57.920 and so we've pushed that back down UH to a 1:03:57.960 --> 1:04:01.880 lower number. UH. And those mostly backcountry units, we can't 1:04:01.960 --> 1:04:04.160 we're not get enough hunters in there. We don't have 1:04:04.200 --> 1:04:07.680 livestock in there, so we don't have wildlife services in 1:04:07.720 --> 1:04:12.720 there directly killing animals that are our request. We're trying 1:04:12.720 --> 1:04:15.800 that in the Lolo zone just over the hill here, 1:04:16.480 --> 1:04:19.200 where we sent wildlife services in there as an experiment 1:04:19.280 --> 1:04:22.880 to kill wolves to try to reduce their numbers to 1:04:22.920 --> 1:04:26.840 a point we can see populations come back like that. 1:04:26.880 --> 1:04:29.840 It doesn't have it doesn't have to be egg does no. No. 1:04:30.040 --> 1:04:34.280 We we use them UM. In fact, I prefer to 1:04:34.400 --> 1:04:36.680 use them. They're they're cheaper and better at it than 1:04:36.720 --> 1:04:39.840 our staff are because they got the right equipment and 1:04:39.880 --> 1:04:42.160 training to get in and get that taken care of 1:04:43.600 --> 1:04:47.840 to handle that. And we have found that we can 1:04:48.080 --> 1:04:51.080 remove enough wolves to get a response, but it's a 1:04:51.120 --> 1:04:54.680 garden weeding operation. I mean, they were very productive. They 1:04:54.680 --> 1:04:56.720 come back, so you've got to go back in there. 1:04:56.840 --> 1:04:59.280 And what we need is to get enough hunters and 1:04:59.320 --> 1:05:02.320 trappers in there once we get the numbers down, to 1:05:02.400 --> 1:05:04.720 keep the numbers down so we don't have to keep 1:05:04.760 --> 1:05:07.800 paying a third entity for our own staff to go 1:05:07.880 --> 1:05:10.920 in there and do that. And whether we can get 1:05:11.000 --> 1:05:13.200 there in a place like the Low Lo or the 1:05:13.200 --> 1:05:16.760 middle Fork of the Salmon or the Cellway and some 1:05:16.880 --> 1:05:21.520 of these really thick backcountry panhandle units is yet to 1:05:21.520 --> 1:05:24.280 be seen. We're working with the trappers in the state 1:05:24.800 --> 1:05:27.680 UH to try to enhance their ability to get in 1:05:27.720 --> 1:05:33.000 there by changing some seasoned structures, bag limits, trap check 1:05:33.120 --> 1:05:36.000 limits and stuff like that, working very closely to adjust 1:05:36.040 --> 1:05:39.960 those to try to get to a better place with 1:05:40.080 --> 1:05:43.680 being able to use sport trapping as a means of 1:05:43.680 --> 1:05:47.320 control as well. And UH, I'm pretty excited about that. 1:05:47.440 --> 1:05:51.440 But we've only been at this now for I guess 1:05:51.680 --> 1:05:53.920 eight nine years, and we've only been out from underneath 1:05:53.920 --> 1:05:56.120 the umbrella of Fishing Wildlife Service. We had a five 1:05:56.200 --> 1:05:59.880 year probationary period where we couldn't do a lot of things. 1:06:00.080 --> 1:06:02.800 We've really only been at this about three years with 1:06:02.920 --> 1:06:06.600 trans new stuff, and you're gonna see us continue to 1:06:06.640 --> 1:06:09.120 do that. What do you think will end up happening 1:06:09.240 --> 1:06:10.880 in the northern Great Lakes? And this is like we're 1:06:10.880 --> 1:06:14.600 getting like way outside of your purview. But do you 1:06:14.640 --> 1:06:17.280 think that that there's light at the end of the tunnel. 1:06:17.520 --> 1:06:21.680 There is a bill in Congress to delist wolves nationwide 1:06:22.080 --> 1:06:25.760 across the board. They're just done. Whether that stands a 1:06:25.840 --> 1:06:28.880 chance of getting through in this it's a little too 1:06:28.880 --> 1:06:33.760 you like, um, a little too elastic. Yeah, I all 1:06:33.800 --> 1:06:37.640 I know is in them in in that particular area, 1:06:37.840 --> 1:06:42.240 that's probably their best chance for delisting because of the 1:06:42.240 --> 1:06:45.600 way the judicial order is on them. Up there. It's 1:06:45.600 --> 1:06:50.280 a little different, um, but it's it's gonna be they're out. 1:06:50.480 --> 1:06:54.680 They don't have a population problem there. It's it's again 1:06:54.720 --> 1:06:57.760 they're tied up in this legal mess that they can't 1:06:57.760 --> 1:07:00.720 get out. And there it's around the question of just populations. 1:07:01.200 --> 1:07:03.160 I don't want to get us like terribly into the weeds, 1:07:03.160 --> 1:07:05.880 but there it winds up being again like nitpick that 1:07:06.040 --> 1:07:09.880 it's like nitpicking little legal things and they're not arguing 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:11.920 about the main question, right the main question being like 1:07:11.960 --> 1:07:15.680 are there enough wolves? There's questions within that geography. There's 1:07:15.760 --> 1:07:20.400 no there's no benefit being derived of e s A. 1:07:21.200 --> 1:07:25.240 That's where I think the question. It's the it's the 1:07:25.360 --> 1:07:28.800 nuances of the Endangered Species Act and somebody arguing over 1:07:28.840 --> 1:07:33.600 the definition of a distinct population segment or some other 1:07:33.720 --> 1:07:37.920 aspect of the s A. That many attorneys are very 1:07:37.920 --> 1:07:41.000 good at arguing in a court of law, and it's 1:07:41.120 --> 1:07:44.800 not a great benefit of their pocket what probably given 1:07:44.800 --> 1:07:48.520 them given the way they're reimbursed. There's there's a number 1:07:48.520 --> 1:07:54.880 of scholarly articles on on the reimbursement of of the 1:07:54.960 --> 1:07:57.960 legal people that are taking these suits. It's a cottage industry. 1:07:58.400 --> 1:08:00.840 I can I can image me to essay lawyer. But 1:08:00.920 --> 1:08:03.080 at the same time, it is their right to take 1:08:03.120 --> 1:08:05.840 those legal actions and that's just the way it is. 1:08:05.920 --> 1:08:09.320 And until Congress decides to change something on that, it's 1:08:09.440 --> 1:08:10.960 it's what we have to deal with. Well, I don't 1:08:11.000 --> 1:08:13.000 want to blow that. I don't want to be mistaken 1:08:13.000 --> 1:08:14.720 for someone who wants to blow the whole system up. 1:08:14.720 --> 1:08:16.599 I just wanted to all end. I wanted to all 1:08:16.760 --> 1:08:19.080 end the way I wanted to end, but not I'm 1:08:19.120 --> 1:08:23.240 not I'm not adversarial to the process. I'm like like 1:08:23.280 --> 1:08:26.599 a sports fan, right, you appreciate the rules, but you're 1:08:26.640 --> 1:08:28.960 just rooting for your own teeth. So I just like 1:08:29.040 --> 1:08:30.400 to see it end up in a way that I 1:08:30.400 --> 1:08:32.880 wanted to end up. But I want jump in another one. 1:08:35.400 --> 1:08:39.080 Until the other day when someone they they officially verify 1:08:39.240 --> 1:08:42.640 that a Mountain Cariboo came down to Montana. Right, I 1:08:42.680 --> 1:08:44.559 missed that. I'm still back with the grizzly that was 1:08:44.840 --> 1:08:47.439 on the golf course and Stevensville. If you heard about 1:08:47.439 --> 1:08:50.160 that too, Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. 1:08:50.200 --> 1:08:54.160 I think they verified it. I think some guys had pound. Yeah, 1:08:54.200 --> 1:08:56.080 they found some flirting with the board, and I think 1:08:56.080 --> 1:08:58.920 they might have it, might be lured him over, It 1:08:59.040 --> 1:09:02.120 might be verified and step foot into Montana, which would 1:09:02.160 --> 1:09:05.800 be the first time since the twenties or something. But Idaho, 1:09:06.160 --> 1:09:08.640 right had the except for that. And I don't know 1:09:08.760 --> 1:09:10.559 enough about that to know how freakish that is if 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:13.200 it's one that just packed up and straight a hundred miles. 1:09:13.240 --> 1:09:19.439 But Idaho has been the the state of the lower 1:09:19.479 --> 1:09:21.240 in the Lower Fort the idol has been the state 1:09:21.680 --> 1:09:24.519 where we have had or the last decades we've had 1:09:24.560 --> 1:09:27.920 some number of caribou flirting with the border. And if 1:09:28.000 --> 1:09:29.960 you were gonna have a cariboo in the US, it 1:09:30.080 --> 1:09:33.080 was presumably, I mean, it was gonna be one in Idaho. 1:09:34.120 --> 1:09:39.439 And that population is soffe. Do you see what's your 1:09:39.439 --> 1:09:42.320 take on it? Is this like a a big meaningful 1:09:42.360 --> 1:09:43.760 thing or is it wind up being that it was 1:09:43.800 --> 1:09:47.400 such kind of of a little bit of a fluke 1:09:47.479 --> 1:09:49.320 and you can't read too much into it that they're 1:09:49.320 --> 1:09:53.440 now not there, Like, give me the mile high perspective 1:09:53.479 --> 1:09:57.280 on it. From my standpoint, this was almost preordained. I'm 1:09:57.320 --> 1:10:02.639 giving limitations of the habitat at given the small, low 1:10:02.680 --> 1:10:06.080 productivity of the of the herd and the fact that 1:10:06.160 --> 1:10:09.719 it was reliant predominantly on Canada with a few animals 1:10:09.720 --> 1:10:13.240 coming in. The critical mass we needed of thirty to 1:10:13.320 --> 1:10:17.760 sixty animals we achieved I think the mid thirties and 1:10:17.840 --> 1:10:19.320 number of years ago, and then we've been on a 1:10:19.400 --> 1:10:22.439 downhill slide since. So they having a population of three 1:10:22.479 --> 1:10:25.280 or four. In fact, Canada's kind of come in and 1:10:25.320 --> 1:10:28.679 take those animals and removal to put them in protective 1:10:28.720 --> 1:10:32.080 custody to try to preserve the genetics and use those 1:10:32.120 --> 1:10:36.240 animals to breed some more in in uh captive rearing, 1:10:36.840 --> 1:10:40.080 and then reintroduce them at some other point to bolster 1:10:40.160 --> 1:10:44.840 the remaining population. Part of the problem was predation with 1:10:44.960 --> 1:10:48.640 the establishment of wolves in that area in addition to 1:10:48.720 --> 1:10:52.840 the already existing cougar population that was there, it tipped 1:10:52.880 --> 1:10:58.040 them over. It was that combination of factors. And at 1:10:58.080 --> 1:11:02.000 one point we had actually given permission to Canada to 1:11:02.080 --> 1:11:04.559 hire people to come in and kill wolves in northern Idaho, 1:11:05.280 --> 1:11:09.240 uh and they did that, but that wasn't enough because 1:11:09.280 --> 1:11:12.760 it's not just wolves. It was a combination of wolves 1:11:12.920 --> 1:11:16.559 and probably black bears on on on the young ones 1:11:17.040 --> 1:11:21.280 as well as cougar in there, and because their habitat 1:11:21.360 --> 1:11:24.880 is so small, it was easy for the predators to 1:11:25.120 --> 1:11:29.400 pick on them uh there and so this was preordained 1:11:30.040 --> 1:11:33.599 from my standpoint, Steve, it's also an appropriate action. One 1:11:33.600 --> 1:11:38.000 of the things just basically saying we're done, we can't 1:11:38.000 --> 1:11:41.760 do anymore, We're going to triage this out. And this 1:11:41.840 --> 1:11:45.320 is a situation where we did not know how to 1:11:46.200 --> 1:11:51.080 overcome the limitations to that population. We took those animals 1:11:51.080 --> 1:11:55.439 and put them into a captive rearing situation. Maybe we'll 1:11:55.479 --> 1:11:58.960 figure it out. But we we've decided that the use 1:11:59.040 --> 1:12:02.679 of resources for those few animals that were declining their 1:12:02.720 --> 1:12:07.280 extinction was not a good use of resources. Let's go 1:12:07.400 --> 1:12:11.240 into the captive rearing game. Let's try to see if 1:12:11.280 --> 1:12:13.760 we can understand this in the future as we work more, 1:12:14.120 --> 1:12:17.880 get better at managing other factors, habitat, predation, what have you, 1:12:18.560 --> 1:12:21.200 and then we can put the resources to managing something 1:12:21.240 --> 1:12:24.639 we know how to fix for some other species. And 1:12:24.840 --> 1:12:30.160 that that idea of conservation triage under ESA as controversial 1:12:30.240 --> 1:12:33.040 as the dickens. There's folks like myself to think it's 1:12:33.080 --> 1:12:35.639 the way you go. We do it medically on something. 1:12:35.760 --> 1:12:38.840 There are yeah, some of them. You just say, I 1:12:38.880 --> 1:12:41.800 don't know what to do, and no amount of money 1:12:42.200 --> 1:12:44.599 poured on it is going to make any difference because 1:12:44.600 --> 1:12:46.919 we don't know what to do. Because what a reasonable 1:12:47.000 --> 1:12:51.360 number of population be in that I can't tell you 1:12:51.360 --> 1:12:54.679 what the recovery plan was. Thank for the Idahoe portion, 1:12:54.800 --> 1:12:58.559 it was just around a hundred animals. They're flirting around 1:12:58.600 --> 1:13:00.840 a dozen, seven to a dozen, right, and then it 1:13:00.960 --> 1:13:03.920 just it went down to single digits and you know, 1:13:04.000 --> 1:13:06.200 and it was a time where they were either going 1:13:06.240 --> 1:13:08.400 to go away on their own, or we take a 1:13:08.479 --> 1:13:10.880 few and you didn't see a way to buy your 1:13:10.880 --> 1:13:13.840 way out of it. No, not with There wasn't any 1:13:13.840 --> 1:13:17.720 way and to do it effectively. And so the Canadians 1:13:18.080 --> 1:13:22.800 chose to offer this opportunity and boom they're out. So 1:13:23.120 --> 1:13:27.120 that's that idea that there are. Did we give up 1:13:27.120 --> 1:13:31.280 on them, not totally, but we recognized there was nothing 1:13:31.360 --> 1:13:33.840 more to be done right at this moment in time 1:13:34.120 --> 1:13:37.120 with that species. We damn near got there with Saki salmon. 1:13:37.960 --> 1:13:40.599 I mean, I was on the original Saky recovery team 1:13:40.600 --> 1:13:44.240 when we got down to one male, lonesome Larry came back. 1:13:44.280 --> 1:13:48.040 One year, we had four fish come back. The next year, 1:13:48.520 --> 1:13:52.120 we had zero another year and then seven. I mean 1:13:52.280 --> 1:13:54.880 that was a four years fan and that's a complete 1:13:54.880 --> 1:14:00.759 generation zero, four and seven for the returning populations Sakai 1:14:00.840 --> 1:14:04.080 salmon coming back to Red Fish Lake in Idaho. We 1:14:04.120 --> 1:14:08.160 took all of those fish out of their natural habitat, 1:14:08.439 --> 1:14:13.040 put them in a hatchery and Eagle Idaho, and expanded 1:14:13.080 --> 1:14:17.360 their genetics such that we did not go into what's 1:14:17.400 --> 1:14:20.719 called in breeding depression. We used every trick in the book, 1:14:20.720 --> 1:14:24.360 and there were some really amazing tricks that our staff used. 1:14:24.680 --> 1:14:27.800 Now we're stocking millions of fish in there to try 1:14:27.840 --> 1:14:31.160 to build that population back up while we expand. The 1:14:31.200 --> 1:14:37.720 population came from those from that, from those yeah, from 1:14:37.720 --> 1:14:41.760 those thirteen fish that we had dinner ad right, that's 1:14:41.760 --> 1:14:46.000 four or five seven, yeah, twelve fish um that we 1:14:46.080 --> 1:14:49.719 had to work with. We now have a full blown 1:14:49.840 --> 1:14:55.200 hatchery operating that we built with BPA mitigation money. And 1:14:55.240 --> 1:14:59.439 it was expensive, but we didn't waste our time trying 1:14:59.479 --> 1:15:02.760 to douce them in on site because the numbers were 1:15:02.800 --> 1:15:06.920 too small and numerically we couldn't get over the hurdle. Well, 1:15:07.040 --> 1:15:08.960 fish are different because you can't go pull a hundred 1:15:08.960 --> 1:15:11.640 eggs out of caribou. That's true, you know. Now we 1:15:11.640 --> 1:15:13.800 can get four thousand eggs out of a saki and 1:15:14.640 --> 1:15:18.280 consequently it is a different game from that standpoint. But 1:15:18.400 --> 1:15:21.200 my my point being is we have to make some 1:15:21.240 --> 1:15:24.200 of these hard decisions at some point in time not 1:15:24.280 --> 1:15:27.439 to spend money certain ways or human resources as the 1:15:27.479 --> 1:15:32.520 case maybe and um and move forward. That's conservation triosh 1:15:32.920 --> 1:15:36.599 where we make those decisions versus everything is important. We've 1:15:36.600 --> 1:15:39.320 got to pour all the resources into it, but there's 1:15:39.360 --> 1:15:42.839 not enough to take care of it when you, uh, 1:15:43.160 --> 1:15:46.040 you've been at this game a long time in this business, 1:15:46.120 --> 1:15:50.639 right and now you're in kind of a pinnacle position. 1:15:50.920 --> 1:15:53.160 When you look at like these tough decisions, do you 1:15:53.600 --> 1:15:57.840 do you imagine that there are some that will that 1:15:57.920 --> 1:15:59.800 will haunt you or that you'll have a sort of 1:16:00.000 --> 1:16:03.000 I guess he is the guy who What do you 1:16:03.040 --> 1:16:04.400 think about that? Where do you feel like you're so 1:16:05.560 --> 1:16:07.760 sort of part of a process, right and if if 1:16:07.800 --> 1:16:09.840 it wasn't, you would be someone else and that person 1:16:09.880 --> 1:16:11.800 would probably end up doing the same thing. Or do 1:16:11.800 --> 1:16:15.040 you feel like you're putting like the personal like Virgil 1:16:15.120 --> 1:16:18.599 More stamp on things that are going to affect future 1:16:18.640 --> 1:16:20.600 generations and they'll look back and be like, that was 1:16:20.640 --> 1:16:24.720 the guy certainly messed it all up, or or conversely 1:16:24.760 --> 1:16:28.160 the guy that made it perfect. Well, I'll take responsibilities 1:16:28.200 --> 1:16:31.120 for the screw ups because that's the way it works. 1:16:31.240 --> 1:16:36.360 But the successes are never a single person um, they're 1:16:36.479 --> 1:16:39.800 they're always a group. But the successes that I've been 1:16:39.840 --> 1:16:42.960 part of them that I'm most proud of are forming 1:16:43.040 --> 1:16:48.320 strong collaboratives among all of the users out there that 1:16:48.400 --> 1:16:53.200 can agree on how to move forward. And that's that's 1:16:53.200 --> 1:16:58.000 a challenge given the di visitness in society today. But 1:16:58.120 --> 1:17:02.040 the closer you get people to the resource on the ground, 1:17:03.560 --> 1:17:06.280 the easier it is for them to all focus on 1:17:06.320 --> 1:17:09.600 what they love. So if we're talking about trying to 1:17:10.120 --> 1:17:14.960 manage Yellowstone cutthroat across its entire range, gosh, that's a 1:17:14.960 --> 1:17:17.640 big area across several states. But if you want to 1:17:17.640 --> 1:17:20.479 talk about managing Yellowstone cutthroat in the South Fork of 1:17:20.520 --> 1:17:24.400 the Snake, I can bring those users together. We can 1:17:24.400 --> 1:17:27.120 sit down and form up a collaborative. We've done it 1:17:27.479 --> 1:17:29.880 on the clear Water, We've done it in the oy He's, 1:17:29.920 --> 1:17:31.960 We've done it on the Koutney River, We've done it 1:17:32.840 --> 1:17:36.720 in in Montana with the Blackfoot Initiative. The ones that 1:17:36.760 --> 1:17:40.720 I'm familiar with, and that is the challenge, is to 1:17:40.800 --> 1:17:44.599 find the right sizing of bringing people together that care 1:17:44.640 --> 1:17:51.719 about that place, that land, and the geographical geographic size 1:17:51.800 --> 1:17:55.160 that people can embrace. Some of them are massive, like 1:17:55.240 --> 1:17:58.559 the oy He's. It's a big geography, but it's it's 1:17:58.560 --> 1:18:01.800 a resource people can race and get their mind around 1:18:01.880 --> 1:18:05.120 as they try to come up with solutions to maintaining 1:18:05.200 --> 1:18:10.200 lifestyle and wildlife resources and plant resources down there and 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:14.720 they initiative was a huge success and still is. And 1:18:14.760 --> 1:18:19.760 we've got ranchers working with conservation groups, working with other 1:18:20.040 --> 1:18:24.679 NGOs to to keep a lifestyle on the ground because 1:18:24.760 --> 1:18:28.439 everybody cares about that sage brush community down there. We 1:18:28.560 --> 1:18:31.799 see it in the clear Water basin. People care about 1:18:31.960 --> 1:18:35.639 that resource there in the lifestyle it has. It's hard, 1:18:35.720 --> 1:18:38.000 it takes a lot of work. That's when I'm most 1:18:38.000 --> 1:18:42.439 proud of every collaborative that I've ever been associated with 1:18:43.080 --> 1:18:46.720 that has been successful is because everybody came together with 1:18:46.800 --> 1:18:51.360 that common value and and it's really satisfying things and 1:18:51.520 --> 1:18:55.559 that isn't dependent on an individual. Then if that person leaves, 1:18:56.200 --> 1:18:59.960 it has momentum of its own. Uh So I feel 1:19:00.120 --> 1:19:03.200 some problems. Look, if you look at the Cutthroat in general, 1:19:03.800 --> 1:19:06.360 it's just too like it has the approached on the 1:19:06.400 --> 1:19:12.960 micro level. I think the management schemes for that level 1:19:14.280 --> 1:19:17.880 need to be uh The issues associated with the south 1:19:17.920 --> 1:19:21.439 Fork of the Snake and maintaining the spawning tributaries there 1:19:21.439 --> 1:19:25.600 and dealing with the rainbow trout intergression are unique to 1:19:25.640 --> 1:19:32.640 that area and require localized work. Uh. Public bient. The 1:19:32.680 --> 1:19:35.480 way Wyoming is doing it as different because their geography 1:19:35.840 --> 1:19:39.240 is different. The way Yellowstone Park is doing it is different, 1:19:39.840 --> 1:19:43.719 um and it's its own community up there with Yellowstone Cutthroat. 1:19:43.800 --> 1:19:46.840 Montana has a slightly different approach on it, but it's 1:19:46.840 --> 1:19:49.960 all getting at the same thing, and it's it's reliant 1:19:49.960 --> 1:19:52.479 on that. Now. We have a tri state agreement on 1:19:52.600 --> 1:19:55.160 Yellowstone Cutthroat that we put in place in the eighties 1:19:55.680 --> 1:19:58.960 and said, here's the things we all agree on are 1:19:58.960 --> 1:20:02.880 going to be common death missions and common management concepts. 1:20:03.880 --> 1:20:06.400 We're going to manage for purity of cutthroat, and that 1:20:06.520 --> 1:20:09.959 purity is defined this way, you know, by what proportion 1:20:10.000 --> 1:20:13.160 of integration is there and how we use those fish 1:20:13.160 --> 1:20:16.560 and transport them around. We agreed on those basic concepts, 1:20:16.800 --> 1:20:18.960 but then we went out and built these management things 1:20:18.960 --> 1:20:21.640 on a localized basis. I'm curious about, if I can 1:20:21.680 --> 1:20:26.639 interrupt just uh something you said about the those collaborative efforts. 1:20:26.680 --> 1:20:30.960 I mean, if you had to pinpoint something that made 1:20:30.960 --> 1:20:33.439 them work, because I've been part of plenty collaborations that 1:20:33.439 --> 1:20:36.439 didn't work, what would what would it be? It's usually 1:20:36.479 --> 1:20:40.960 some big controversy, the one that I'm no, I'm serious, 1:20:40.960 --> 1:20:42.960 and sometimes we're right at the middle of it. And 1:20:43.000 --> 1:20:46.519 that's where I take responsibility for being at fault. And 1:20:46.600 --> 1:20:49.320 I'll do this on behalf of my agency more than anything. 1:20:49.360 --> 1:20:53.360 But years ago in the Henry's Fork drainage, we've got 1:20:53.360 --> 1:20:57.160 on on Park Reservoir. On Park Reservoir gets uh utah 1:20:57.240 --> 1:20:59.720 chubs in them. That ties up the biomass and our 1:20:59.720 --> 1:21:02.880 ability to grow hatchery fish in there for sport fishing. 1:21:02.960 --> 1:21:05.240 You gotta back up on that one. People are gonna 1:21:05.240 --> 1:21:08.200 your tom about okay, I mean some people who know 1:21:08.240 --> 1:21:12.000 about this, Okay, Well, anyway, we get competition between fish 1:21:12.080 --> 1:21:15.559 species and non game species like a utah chub, which 1:21:15.600 --> 1:21:19.479 is an exotic. Uh. We're in there eating all of 1:21:19.640 --> 1:21:23.559 the zooplankton and and food and tying it up in 1:21:23.640 --> 1:21:27.479 their bodies biomass. I'm sorry, I did get carried just 1:21:27.600 --> 1:21:30.200 like what the Utah shub was, and it was sub 1:21:30.320 --> 1:21:32.160 is a mental. It's a great big mental. They got 1:21:32.479 --> 1:21:34.160 in there, and they got in there. We can have 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:36.760 a way through bait puckets and what have you, but 1:21:37.360 --> 1:21:40.160 the bottom line is we have periodically gone in there 1:21:40.280 --> 1:21:44.360 and poisoned that system with a poison called ropano. It's 1:21:44.400 --> 1:21:48.720 an extract out of a root from South America and 1:21:48.800 --> 1:21:52.200 it it blocks the oxygen I take at the cellular 1:21:52.320 --> 1:21:54.759 level in the brain and they just die. And you've 1:21:54.840 --> 1:21:58.360 done some South American fish poisoning. That's where we learned 1:21:58.360 --> 1:22:03.120 it from the natives down there. Uh well, I haven't 1:22:03.120 --> 1:22:07.640 done that. I'd like to go sometime. And anyway, in 1:22:07.720 --> 1:22:11.759 the process of doing the one that I the last 1:22:11.800 --> 1:22:15.360 one of these, we drew Island Park Reservoir way down 1:22:16.160 --> 1:22:19.559 and we do that to limit the amount of poison 1:22:19.560 --> 1:22:21.240 that has to be put in the system and then 1:22:21.320 --> 1:22:24.920 detoxed as it flows out of there. And we usually 1:22:24.920 --> 1:22:29.439 close the damn drought down, dump the toxin in, do 1:22:29.560 --> 1:22:32.840 all the tributary strait, try to kill the chubs, close 1:22:32.880 --> 1:22:35.200 the gates on the dam, and fill it back up well. 1:22:35.200 --> 1:22:37.559 In the process of trying to get the minimum pool 1:22:37.680 --> 1:22:43.040 possible to save money, they drew the pool down so 1:22:43.120 --> 1:22:45.880 low it cut through the sediment that had built up 1:22:45.880 --> 1:22:49.360 in the reservoir, and all that sediment flushed into the 1:22:49.400 --> 1:22:54.000 Henry's Fork at Harriman Ranch, the fly fish mecca down there, 1:22:54.479 --> 1:22:59.920 and it accumulated terribly habitat and it did it created 1:23:00.000 --> 1:23:05.720 some problems that created such a public outcry about the 1:23:05.760 --> 1:23:10.160 Bureau of Reclamation and Fishing Game mismanaging this reservoir and 1:23:10.240 --> 1:23:13.400 having effects on the wild trout fishery in the Henry's 1:23:13.439 --> 1:23:19.960 Fork Below that the Henry's Fork UH Coalition formed up 1:23:21.000 --> 1:23:25.240 under guidance of the Henry's Fork Foundation as well as 1:23:25.280 --> 1:23:28.519 the local irrigators there that were upset, and they formed 1:23:28.560 --> 1:23:31.800 one of the most successful collaboratives we have today and 1:23:31.920 --> 1:23:35.840 included everybody in it. But it was an incident that 1:23:35.960 --> 1:23:39.759 created that, and if you look around you'll find often 1:23:39.840 --> 1:23:43.360 there was an incident or an activity or a legal 1:23:43.400 --> 1:23:48.040 action that caused something. They finally brought people together because 1:23:48.080 --> 1:23:50.040 they know we got to fix this so this doesn't 1:23:50.080 --> 1:23:54.599 happen again. And that's just one example of the Henry's 1:23:54.600 --> 1:23:59.479 Fork Watershed Council forming up. That was thirty years ago. 1:23:59.640 --> 1:24:02.160 The had and put from irrigators too. Yeah they're a 1:24:02.200 --> 1:24:05.960 big I want water, and you boys figure out the 1:24:06.000 --> 1:24:12.720 fishing situation, and so fast forward, the dam was rebuilt, 1:24:12.880 --> 1:24:15.439 a hydro project was put on it a few years later, 1:24:15.960 --> 1:24:19.120 and because of that collaborative, the needs of the fish 1:24:19.200 --> 1:24:22.559 and the irrigators were worked out among the collaborative and 1:24:22.640 --> 1:24:27.000 fed to the agencies so we could implement them as 1:24:27.040 --> 1:24:32.000 trust managers uh for them, and that's the way it 1:24:32.040 --> 1:24:34.639 should be. Too often we get put in a position 1:24:34.680 --> 1:24:37.960 of why did you make that decision instead of implementing 1:24:38.000 --> 1:24:40.360 things that the community as a whole comes up with. 1:24:41.040 --> 1:24:47.760 I see our agency and our staff as catalyst, if 1:24:47.800 --> 1:24:51.640 at all possible, for catalyzing that kind of community interaction, 1:24:52.520 --> 1:24:56.120 so we can come up with these Certainly, ultimately the 1:24:56.120 --> 1:24:59.360 Commission made me making some of these decisions, but trying 1:24:59.360 --> 1:25:03.080 to get people to come together instead of us standing 1:25:03.080 --> 1:25:05.160 in the middle of the circle getting shot at by 1:25:05.200 --> 1:25:09.519 all sides because they're dissatisfied with what we're proposing to 1:25:09.520 --> 1:25:12.479 try to balance everything out. We're better if we're part 1:25:12.479 --> 1:25:14.960 of the circle and everybody comes up with an idea 1:25:15.000 --> 1:25:19.599 that's implementable in consensus or as much as you can now. 1:25:19.640 --> 1:25:22.200 That works until somebody doesn't consent, and then you get 1:25:22.200 --> 1:25:25.240 these tangents out there. But it is by and large 1:25:25.479 --> 1:25:28.320 working very well. It's where the focus is right now 1:25:29.000 --> 1:25:32.360 and natural resource management of our public lands, especially in 1:25:32.400 --> 1:25:36.920 the resources on those public lands. Do you find areas 1:25:36.960 --> 1:25:42.040 where there's a lot of public apathy? It surprises you 1:25:42.080 --> 1:25:45.760 buy the lack of input. Yes, I'm always amazed on 1:25:46.360 --> 1:25:49.240 certain issues that you think are just gonna blow things up. 1:25:49.479 --> 1:25:52.439 We'll put a proposal or an idea out there, we 1:25:52.520 --> 1:25:55.520 have nothing, We'll have a public meeting or a workshop. 1:25:55.760 --> 1:26:01.080 Three people will show up. I think what we're doing 1:26:01.200 --> 1:26:04.479 right here though, with a podcast, what we can do 1:26:04.600 --> 1:26:08.240 with social media to try to get this information out 1:26:08.760 --> 1:26:13.920 on a broader sense. Because I'm old enough, I still 1:26:13.960 --> 1:26:15.479 like to sit down and have a cup of coffee 1:26:15.479 --> 1:26:19.200 and read my paper. Okay, but I'm realizing now that 1:26:19.240 --> 1:26:21.320 my paper is only three pages long, and if I'm 1:26:21.320 --> 1:26:23.479 going to really get any information, I'm gonna have to 1:26:23.479 --> 1:26:26.240 sit down at least with my tablet and my cup 1:26:26.280 --> 1:26:28.880 of coffee and and read through that. And if I've 1:26:28.880 --> 1:26:31.400 got a tablet, then I can hot link in to 1:26:31.560 --> 1:26:34.479 the to the next level of information if I desire, 1:26:34.520 --> 1:26:36.479 and that might lead me then to some of these 1:26:36.479 --> 1:26:40.920 other discussion groups and information from folks like yourself that 1:26:40.960 --> 1:26:44.800 are going to help us hopefully engage people in a 1:26:44.840 --> 1:26:49.200 different manner of community as we work forward with these things. 1:26:49.520 --> 1:26:51.839 Part of the reason these folks are here, the two staff, 1:26:52.160 --> 1:26:54.320 are to help us with that in terms of how 1:26:54.320 --> 1:26:56.479 do we get how do we do that. How do 1:26:56.520 --> 1:26:59.320 we communicate better? I came up during an era where 1:26:59.320 --> 1:27:01.320 we did a mag scene and we had a TV show. 1:27:02.080 --> 1:27:06.960 No one does magazines that in newspaper articles. I mean, 1:27:07.000 --> 1:27:12.280 it was all print or media driven under an analog system. Uh, 1:27:12.560 --> 1:27:15.880 we need to and our transgressing, you know, getting into 1:27:15.880 --> 1:27:18.679 the digital stuff. I think the building we're in here 1:27:18.800 --> 1:27:24.000 right now is an example of that digital technology. We're 1:27:23.120 --> 1:27:26.120 at quite the ONEX World headquarters because it just moved 1:27:26.160 --> 1:27:30.640 next door. Okay while we're at their annex A one 1:27:30.680 --> 1:27:32.600 thing I was going to throw in there. Um, you 1:27:32.640 --> 1:27:35.080 know you mentioned the apathy. I've been to some of 1:27:35.080 --> 1:27:37.679 those meetings where two or three people in fact this summer, 1:27:37.760 --> 1:27:39.800 I think I talked to you about this stuff that 1:27:39.880 --> 1:27:41.960 d e Q is doing on the Upper clerk Fork 1:27:42.000 --> 1:27:44.760 and um, you know, if you go down to the bar, 1:27:44.920 --> 1:27:47.599 you go down to Charlie B's, everyone will talk about it. Everybody, 1:27:47.600 --> 1:27:51.120 every fishing guy's got an opinion about it. But I 1:27:51.160 --> 1:27:54.360 think some of that apathy is derived from the fact 1:27:54.400 --> 1:27:57.000 that no one knows who's really accountable for stuff. I mean, 1:27:57.240 --> 1:28:00.760 you tell the story about the res are getting drawn 1:28:00.760 --> 1:28:04.479 down and this massive sediment coming out. Um, you know, 1:28:04.520 --> 1:28:07.200 I would imagine I don't know that this for a fact, 1:28:07.200 --> 1:28:09.720 but that that fishing community down there was probably going, 1:28:10.080 --> 1:28:13.160 who's accountable for this? Who's who's making up for you know, 1:28:13.240 --> 1:28:16.160 this money that we're losing, etcetera, etcetera. And I think 1:28:16.720 --> 1:28:19.080 some of that apathy comes out of the fact that 1:28:19.120 --> 1:28:24.720 people figura, well, no matter what they yeah, yeah, I 1:28:24.720 --> 1:28:26.920 find I I think that that's true because you hear 1:28:27.120 --> 1:28:28.760 so many of these issues, some of the ones we've 1:28:28.760 --> 1:28:31.960 touched on today. You hear people talk about them and 1:28:32.000 --> 1:28:34.360 they're very passionate about it, but the minute they open 1:28:34.439 --> 1:28:36.360 the mouth, I'm like, you know what, you're not equipped 1:28:36.400 --> 1:28:39.519 to talk about this, bro right, just by a handful 1:28:39.520 --> 1:28:42.280 of things you just said, like you're behind, you're not 1:28:42.360 --> 1:28:47.400 caught up. Yeah, And I mean, Virgil, you articulated that 1:28:47.479 --> 1:28:51.400 those collaborations so well, and it sounds like when those 1:28:51.439 --> 1:28:54.120 people come together there has to be some level of 1:28:54.160 --> 1:29:00.559 compromise and those different entities or collaborative management by its 1:29:00.720 --> 1:29:04.320 nature is give and take. I mean, it's but it 1:29:04.640 --> 1:29:09.840 also builds on relationships and understanding a core understanding that 1:29:10.600 --> 1:29:14.360 my need and value really isn't that much different. Example 1:29:14.439 --> 1:29:18.920 being the rancher who has a piece of property but 1:29:19.040 --> 1:29:25.600 relies on the public sagebrush grasses to have his um lifestyle, 1:29:25.720 --> 1:29:28.639 his ranching lifestyle. He's got a ranche, but he needs 1:29:28.640 --> 1:29:37.639 the grays Catalan and and he values that environment because 1:29:37.680 --> 1:29:41.080 it's home. He knows it as well as anybody because 1:29:41.120 --> 1:29:44.599 he's lived there for maybe three or four generations, uh, 1:29:44.600 --> 1:29:50.439 in his family. And we can't exclude their needs and 1:29:50.479 --> 1:29:55.360 be successful. Example being sage grouse. Sage grouse need water 1:29:55.479 --> 1:29:59.240 for an important part of their brood rearing. Even in 1:29:59.320 --> 1:30:01.880 Idaho with all the public lands we have, which is 1:30:03.000 --> 1:30:05.479 federal another five percent of state, I mean, it's huge, 1:30:06.479 --> 1:30:10.000 almost all the waters on private land that's what was homesteaded. 1:30:10.320 --> 1:30:13.080 And so if you put a rancher out of business 1:30:13.120 --> 1:30:15.160 because you're saying you can't graze up here because of 1:30:15.240 --> 1:30:19.720 endangered species, and they pull their whole operation into their 1:30:19.880 --> 1:30:22.960 little piece of land that has all the water, and 1:30:23.040 --> 1:30:26.240 they began to feed there and utilize all the habitat 1:30:26.320 --> 1:30:28.679 up the sage grounds suffer in the long run because 1:30:28.760 --> 1:30:32.840 it's disconnected. We need the community. Now they get that 1:30:33.479 --> 1:30:36.200 what's good for the herd is good for the bird. 1:30:36.520 --> 1:30:41.439 Is the catchphrase that we use now right, and and 1:30:41.520 --> 1:30:47.240 that's exactly right. We want these operational ranches out there 1:30:47.760 --> 1:30:50.479 that are part of the landscape and can be managed 1:30:50.680 --> 1:30:55.559 in conjunction with other resources we value. They've seen it 1:30:55.600 --> 1:30:58.200 in the past. They know what can be done. We've 1:30:58.240 --> 1:31:00.280 seen it, and so now it's just a at or 1:31:00.280 --> 1:31:03.360 a bank. Sure, we don't restrict any of our activities 1:31:03.360 --> 1:31:05.360 to the point that everybody just gives up and goes home. 1:31:06.000 --> 1:31:09.479 And that's that's collaboration. That's the thing I warned about 1:31:09.520 --> 1:31:12.760 all the time, or think about. One thing about wildlife 1:31:12.760 --> 1:31:16.439 issues is what happens when you create the damage that's 1:31:16.479 --> 1:31:20.160 done when you create a spotted owl where the spot 1:31:20.280 --> 1:31:22.280 at out a conversation around the spot at all, the 1:31:22.320 --> 1:31:25.160 spot at all like ceased to be a bird and 1:31:25.200 --> 1:31:28.920 it became like this, this symbol of something, and it 1:31:29.000 --> 1:31:31.519 became like a thing of animosity, and it became a 1:31:31.560 --> 1:31:34.559 symbol of divisiveness. And when you allow some of these 1:31:34.600 --> 1:31:38.360 conflicts to go to fester and don't strive for some 1:31:38.439 --> 1:31:41.240 compromise and like people are coming to a mutual understanding 1:31:41.240 --> 1:31:43.439 of what they need to go, you end up having 1:31:43.479 --> 1:31:47.120 these like these like wildlife fatalities in terms of like 1:31:47.160 --> 1:31:49.800 what the species stands for. And it's painful to watch 1:31:49.840 --> 1:31:52.160 it happen, Like if you've heard the howl of a wolf, right, 1:31:52.200 --> 1:31:54.280 it's beautiful, but it's painful to watch it happen where 1:31:54.280 --> 1:31:56.639 people Like when I hear that noise, I think about 1:31:56.680 --> 1:31:59.320 like my needs not being listened to, man, and that's 1:31:59.360 --> 1:32:01.360 the only thing I'm here ring right there, And it 1:32:01.400 --> 1:32:04.680 sucks to see that happened to to wildlife. And I 1:32:04.720 --> 1:32:06.679 think the way they had that off is to usually 1:32:07.680 --> 1:32:10.240 you know, these ways like finding out like what you need, 1:32:10.280 --> 1:32:13.040 but also giving room to other people to also live 1:32:13.080 --> 1:32:15.160 their lives and have their needs be met. And it's 1:32:15.200 --> 1:32:18.080 like it's hard to do. I used to not look 1:32:18.080 --> 1:32:19.680 at these issues that way. When I was younger. I 1:32:19.680 --> 1:32:21.280 looked at him in a very rigid way, where like 1:32:21.320 --> 1:32:23.679 I was right, you were wrong, and you were stupid 1:32:24.080 --> 1:32:26.640 and I was really smart. Know, then do it? You know? 1:32:26.920 --> 1:32:29.439 And then the more you round and watch successes and 1:32:29.439 --> 1:32:31.479 failures around some of the stuff, do you more you realize, Man, 1:32:32.000 --> 1:32:34.719 you're never gonna get there with that attitude. That's correct. 1:32:35.880 --> 1:32:38.120 We never got to the question, what are some like 1:32:38.800 --> 1:32:42.439 big fit, what are the fishing game grapes, fish game. 1:32:42.479 --> 1:32:49.400 Don't know what they're talking about. They killed all the Uh, 1:32:49.680 --> 1:32:52.840 we want more big fish. You know, that would be 1:32:53.600 --> 1:32:59.040 there's no big fish simplistically, but certainly if the legitimate complaint. 1:32:59.120 --> 1:33:03.000 You ask what thegitimate complaint is, and it would be 1:33:03.840 --> 1:33:07.759 that we don't know everything about the spot you hunt. 1:33:08.840 --> 1:33:10.880 When you come to me and you say, do you 1:33:10.880 --> 1:33:14.599 know how many deer or what the buck doo ratio 1:33:14.960 --> 1:33:20.480 is in you know, Timber Creek of unit five, I'm 1:33:20.520 --> 1:33:22.800 gonna go no, but I can tell you what the 1:33:22.800 --> 1:33:25.320 buck doo ratio is in units three, four, and five 1:33:25.920 --> 1:33:29.280 overall from the combined survey work we've done. But no, 1:33:30.240 --> 1:33:34.240 we don't know that. And it is a legitimate complaint 1:33:34.360 --> 1:33:40.960 that we have set management goals based on larger survey units. 1:33:41.760 --> 1:33:44.800 And this person complaint is you don't know what you're 1:33:44.800 --> 1:33:47.320 talking about relative to Temper Creek. Because I sat the 1:33:47.360 --> 1:33:50.000 same blind for twenty five years and I always see 1:33:50.040 --> 1:33:53.200 acts of this year. I saw why, and it's legitimate 1:33:53.960 --> 1:33:57.160 from the standpoint of what they see. We talked about 1:33:57.200 --> 1:34:01.200 that earlier, and what we're trying to do now is 1:34:01.280 --> 1:34:05.840 look at different ways of censusing wildlife to understanding what's 1:34:05.880 --> 1:34:12.799 out there. Going from the traditional UH site based survey 1:34:12.880 --> 1:34:16.639 work where we have to see them, count them, UH, 1:34:16.880 --> 1:34:21.040 kill them, assess them, whatever the case may be, to 1:34:21.280 --> 1:34:25.599 something that provides a different level of that. I mean 1:34:25.640 --> 1:34:28.680 remote cameras. It's still kind of seeing, but we can 1:34:28.720 --> 1:34:30.320 get a lot more of them out there. I mean 1:34:30.360 --> 1:34:33.520 I just saw him bringing a truckload to remote cameras 1:34:33.520 --> 1:34:36.040 into our office that we boxed up and sent out 1:34:36.080 --> 1:34:38.320 to all the regions. I mean hundreds of these things 1:34:38.360 --> 1:34:42.760 that we're putting out and in matrix to try to 1:34:42.800 --> 1:34:47.000 get better understanding of what's in Timber Creek as an example, 1:34:47.600 --> 1:34:51.920 versus just the larger units based on aerial flights. UM. 1:34:52.160 --> 1:34:57.559 We're using UH hair snags and scatter analysis pulling DNA 1:34:57.840 --> 1:35:02.120 out of these animals so that we contract families. We 1:35:02.160 --> 1:35:05.400 can tell you by looking at UM d N A 1:35:05.720 --> 1:35:09.679 from wolf scats whether or not that represents a family 1:35:09.800 --> 1:35:14.439 unit and whether or not they were successful with getting 1:35:14.720 --> 1:35:18.920 a pair of getting a brood off just by getting 1:35:19.160 --> 1:35:23.280 proper sampling of pieces and parts because we can type 1:35:23.280 --> 1:35:30.400 those our ability today with advanced computer analysis and the 1:35:30.439 --> 1:35:32.640 speed at which we can do things from when I 1:35:32.720 --> 1:35:37.960 started my career uh is, I can't even fathom it. 1:35:38.040 --> 1:35:41.519 I mean, DNA analysis is a good example. We have 1:35:41.800 --> 1:35:46.719 the DNA makeup of every hatchery fish we stalk out 1:35:47.920 --> 1:35:51.280 and and and it's it's amazing that we have parental 1:35:51.360 --> 1:35:54.639 based stock analysis. You take a fish in the ocean, 1:35:55.040 --> 1:35:57.559 I can take a fin clipper a swab off of 1:35:57.600 --> 1:35:59.680 that fish, can run an analysis and I can tell 1:35:59.720 --> 1:36:01.599 you which hatchery it came out of, and which female 1:36:01.680 --> 1:36:05.639 produced it and and that, and I can do it 1:36:05.840 --> 1:36:09.080 darn near in a couple of days. I mean, it 1:36:09.080 --> 1:36:12.160 would have taken you months to pull something like that 1:36:12.200 --> 1:36:14.960 off before, and not with that specificity. But I got 1:36:15.040 --> 1:36:17.360 a lab full of people that are cranking this stuff out, 1:36:17.400 --> 1:36:20.839 and it's going on all over the place, and and 1:36:21.560 --> 1:36:26.479 we're advancing and trying to push the limit. That's the science, 1:36:26.560 --> 1:36:30.160 that's the science fiction almost of wildlife management. As we 1:36:30.200 --> 1:36:34.200 move forward, it doesn't eliminate the hands on stuff, the 1:36:34.400 --> 1:36:36.920 trapping of animals to put collars on them so we 1:36:36.960 --> 1:36:39.880 can go in and assess how they died, whether it 1:36:40.040 --> 1:36:45.439 was predation, natural whatever. Get better at that, um we 1:36:45.560 --> 1:36:48.000 still have a lot of that, the fun stuff jumping 1:36:48.000 --> 1:36:50.400 out of a helicopter on a on a calf elk 1:36:50.479 --> 1:36:53.760 and wrestling it to the ground. Uh. Catching fish in 1:36:53.840 --> 1:36:56.759 a trap and putting tags on them. That's fun. Handling 1:36:56.760 --> 1:36:59.519 wildlife is really a kick. It's what got me into 1:36:59.600 --> 1:37:04.240 this business. Uh, and learning from that. But we're we're 1:37:04.320 --> 1:37:08.200 trying to get better at this. And you know, drone 1:37:08.200 --> 1:37:12.360 technology and infrared technology isn't quite there yet. But I 1:37:12.360 --> 1:37:15.719 mean these satellite collars we put on elk now beam 1:37:15.760 --> 1:37:18.320 up to satellite back down to the computer. They're instantly 1:37:18.320 --> 1:37:20.640 on a map, and we can program them to do 1:37:20.720 --> 1:37:24.479 it every five minutes, every hour, every ten hours, depending 1:37:24.520 --> 1:37:26.800 on what we want. And we're able to use that 1:37:26.880 --> 1:37:30.000 to help landowners understand where an elker it is relative 1:37:30.000 --> 1:37:34.080 to depredation on their haystack. And and that's real time 1:37:34.280 --> 1:37:38.320 management while we track some stuff around. So you're working 1:37:38.320 --> 1:37:40.080 towards being able to tell that guy what's going on 1:37:40.080 --> 1:37:42.800 in front of his blood. That's the legitimate complaint. We've 1:37:42.840 --> 1:37:46.479 heard it. We're working on it, using technology and trying 1:37:46.479 --> 1:37:51.559 to put more resources into it. Uh. Fortunately in Idaho, 1:37:52.160 --> 1:37:56.080 our finances are secure for the time being. We went 1:37:56.080 --> 1:37:58.679 through a low like everybody else when the economy tanked. 1:37:59.640 --> 1:38:04.720 Are revenues dropped by uh, real quick. Why are you 1:38:04.880 --> 1:38:08.759 tied to the economy, because people, that's good question, Steve. 1:38:08.880 --> 1:38:12.080 We're tied to the economy because half of our licensed 1:38:12.160 --> 1:38:15.280 revenue comes from non residents, but there are only ten 1:38:15.800 --> 1:38:20.040 of our hunters. And in the past say that again. 1:38:20.040 --> 1:38:22.519 I want people to hear this. Half of our revenue, 1:38:22.520 --> 1:38:25.799 our licensed revenue, which is around forty four million dollars 1:38:25.840 --> 1:38:27.920 a year, half of that, a little over half of 1:38:27.960 --> 1:38:33.880 it comes from non resident hunters. Now, we have a 1:38:33.920 --> 1:38:39.599 lot of non resident fishermen, but they don't generate nearly 1:38:39.640 --> 1:38:42.040 the same money because they're buying one day. It's it's 1:38:42.040 --> 1:38:45.240 a high volume, low cost problem. The economy goes south, 1:38:45.640 --> 1:38:47.760 people are like, I can't, I can't go to idle hunting. 1:38:47.800 --> 1:38:51.200 This year. We did not realize how sensitive it was. 1:38:51.439 --> 1:38:54.160 We'd never seen it before. But when the economy tanked 1:38:54.160 --> 1:38:58.559 in two thousand nine. We have a quota on non 1:38:58.640 --> 1:39:04.320 resident hunting permits in Idaho. Um it's thirteen thousand, five 1:39:04.400 --> 1:39:09.240 hundred elk tags fifteen thousand, five hundred deer tags. When 1:39:09.320 --> 1:39:14.120 those are gone for general hunting, they're gone. We've never 1:39:14.160 --> 1:39:17.639 sold We've never not sold those out up until two 1:39:17.640 --> 1:39:21.360 thousand nine, No kid, no kidding, we always sold them out, 1:39:21.360 --> 1:39:25.679 so half of our revenue was guaranteed. And and we 1:39:25.680 --> 1:39:29.040 we did three things. We raised the price of non 1:39:29.080 --> 1:39:31.880 resident fees so we didn't have to raise them on resident. 1:39:32.640 --> 1:39:36.520 Our elk herds tanked because of predation and other habitat 1:39:36.600 --> 1:39:41.439 related issues, and the economy tanked. All three of those 1:39:41.479 --> 1:39:44.360 things combined over a four year period to drive our 1:39:44.560 --> 1:39:50.640 revenues UH down by nine million dollars UH. It was huge, 1:39:50.680 --> 1:39:55.280 It was huge. And what we found is non residents 1:39:55.320 --> 1:40:00.320 are elastic in their coming here and further analysis, that 1:40:00.479 --> 1:40:03.520 was partially the perception that our elk herds had collapsed 1:40:04.040 --> 1:40:07.280 and it wasn't worth it. The other part was a 1:40:07.280 --> 1:40:10.120 big portion of those people who stayed away were skilled 1:40:10.160 --> 1:40:16.880 trades folks construction. Construction got hit hardest, and those guys 1:40:16.920 --> 1:40:20.639 were selling their trucks to feed the family they were 1:40:20.680 --> 1:40:25.080 they were not working because the housing market collapsed. Then 1:40:25.360 --> 1:40:27.360 as soon as the economy started coming up about a 1:40:27.400 --> 1:40:32.280 year behind that, and then people got over the price increases. Man, 1:40:32.360 --> 1:40:36.080 we we discounted nonresident products we marketed to them. But 1:40:36.280 --> 1:40:38.600 the last two years we sold all of our nonresident 1:40:38.640 --> 1:40:41.160 product out again, does this state keep trying? I mean, 1:40:41.160 --> 1:40:44.520 I'm sure they do, but um, I know, the Montana 1:40:44.560 --> 1:40:48.799 Guides and Outfitters Association just put out a reported said 1:40:48.920 --> 1:40:53.200 the outdoor recreation industry in Montana brings in like seven 1:40:53.200 --> 1:40:59.479 point one billion annually. We have those numbers for hunting 1:40:59.600 --> 1:41:05.679 and fishing in Idaho. I believe the direct economic benefit 1:41:05.920 --> 1:41:09.320 is one point four billion. Okay, I know who has 1:41:09.360 --> 1:41:13.599 an economy of about sixties six billion, So that gives 1:41:13.600 --> 1:41:16.439 you some sense of where it fits. It's a pretty 1:41:16.439 --> 1:41:21.479 sizeable number. And and then wildlife viewing adds about another 1:41:21.520 --> 1:41:24.200 six million to that. So we're about a two billion 1:41:24.280 --> 1:41:28.760 dollar uh economic activity in the state on a wildlife 1:41:28.760 --> 1:41:34.439 based economic activity, all outdoor based recreation is I think 1:41:35.360 --> 1:41:39.120 it's a six billion Okay, it's it's it's at that 1:41:39.240 --> 1:41:42.479 six billion dollars figures. So you know, just under ten 1:41:42.520 --> 1:41:45.200 percent of the economy of the state is outdoor based 1:41:45.800 --> 1:41:49.639 and a third of that is based on wildlife. So 1:41:49.840 --> 1:41:53.360 it's yeah, it's important, and we can drill that down. 1:41:53.439 --> 1:41:55.400 We've been the surveys. If you want to know how 1:41:55.479 --> 1:41:58.759 much people what the economic benefits are of somebody fishing, 1:41:58.960 --> 1:42:02.080 Um Uh, Henry's like, I can go to the file 1:42:02.120 --> 1:42:04.439 and pulling information up and today I mean fish they caught, 1:42:04.640 --> 1:42:06.840 how much money they spent, how they much money spent 1:42:06.880 --> 1:42:10.440 on groceries and housing. We've got that information from surveys 1:42:10.479 --> 1:42:12.559 and we can give it to county commissioners who can 1:42:12.600 --> 1:42:15.719 live at the local working group. And it's big. It's big. 1:42:16.080 --> 1:42:21.120 So tell me a classification of grape that you feel 1:42:21.240 --> 1:42:24.559 is illegitimate, Like, what's the thing you guys in your 1:42:24.600 --> 1:42:28.760 business people are like, oh, fishing game and you're like, man, 1:42:28.840 --> 1:42:32.560 that just isn't fair. There's probably two One is you 1:42:32.680 --> 1:42:37.040 never listen. You never listen to us, You never do 1:42:37.160 --> 1:42:42.439 what I want done, and and I get it, but 1:42:42.520 --> 1:42:46.599 it's not a legitimate complaint given the amount of public 1:42:46.640 --> 1:42:52.280 input that our agency seeks. The requirements for public input 1:42:52.400 --> 1:42:55.320 of a state agency are minimal. I mean it's like 1:42:55.400 --> 1:42:59.479 one public meeting before the commission makes decision. Gosh, we 1:42:59.560 --> 1:43:03.519 have dozens, if not hundreds of public meetings over a 1:43:03.640 --> 1:43:08.280 year in advance of regulations, setting opportunities for input electronically 1:43:08.280 --> 1:43:11.439 in other ways. So I don't consider those to be 1:43:11.760 --> 1:43:17.800 legitimate complaints because there's so many opportunities What that might 1:43:17.880 --> 1:43:20.439 mean is I told him my opinion and it wasn't 1:43:20.479 --> 1:43:24.280 reflected and what ultimately happened. So the other one is 1:43:25.640 --> 1:43:28.679 you don't know what you're talking about. In other words, 1:43:28.840 --> 1:43:32.400 will do a survey, whether it's a social survey that 1:43:32.520 --> 1:43:36.240 asked for uh, Steve, you get a survey from us 1:43:36.240 --> 1:43:40.120 and it says, uh, you know, are you satisfied with 1:43:40.280 --> 1:43:47.400 deer hunting? Um? Would you be satisfied with? Uh? Fewer 1:43:47.800 --> 1:43:52.400 large bucks but more hunting opportunity? A bunch of social 1:43:52.439 --> 1:43:55.920 science questions that we worked with the university design and 1:43:55.960 --> 1:43:58.000 they go back and they go, we don't believe any 1:43:58.040 --> 1:44:02.800 of this. Yeah, it doesn't conform with my opinion, so 1:44:02.840 --> 1:44:06.080 we don't believe it. And so and we see the 1:44:06.160 --> 1:44:09.920 same thing from deer and elk population surveys. They go 1:44:10.600 --> 1:44:13.360 because they didn't see it, We don't believe that. You 1:44:13.439 --> 1:44:16.439 do not know what you're talking about. That is not 1:44:16.560 --> 1:44:20.880 a legitimate complaint. Okay. We are a science based organization, 1:44:21.280 --> 1:44:25.839 whether it's social science, whether it's biological science. I'll stand 1:44:25.840 --> 1:44:28.120 on our science. And I can tell you, having been 1:44:28.200 --> 1:44:32.200 a in a leadership role in a state agency for 1:44:32.280 --> 1:44:37.080 over a decade and working nationally among my peers and 1:44:37.120 --> 1:44:39.840 other state agencies. I can tell you that in the 1:44:39.880 --> 1:44:42.960 Inner Mountain West, we have some of the finest fish 1:44:42.960 --> 1:44:47.240 and wildlife scientists in the world. And in Idaho we 1:44:47.280 --> 1:44:50.559 know more about predation management and ungulent management than just 1:44:50.640 --> 1:44:53.320 about anybody in the world. I mean, we're we're on 1:44:53.400 --> 1:44:56.880 top of the game and and I'm proud of that. Now, 1:44:56.920 --> 1:44:59.800 do we have things we don't know. Absolutely. Do we 1:45:00.000 --> 1:45:03.880 have more to learn and more to do, absolutely, But 1:45:04.040 --> 1:45:08.200 don't say we don't know what we're doing. Just understand 1:45:08.280 --> 1:45:10.800 we don't know everything and we're still trying to get that. 1:45:10.960 --> 1:45:15.080 So that would be what I would consider. The other 1:45:15.160 --> 1:45:17.519 thing that really bothers me that I consider is when 1:45:17.600 --> 1:45:22.880 people personalize their interaction with department staff. I don't like Steve, 1:45:23.840 --> 1:45:30.120 Steve didn't approach me properly. Um that very well could be. 1:45:30.160 --> 1:45:35.479 And every complaint I get of a negative interaction with 1:45:35.880 --> 1:45:41.360 staff is fully investigated and responded to, and so I 1:45:41.479 --> 1:45:45.160 end up knowing that most of these are not legitimate. 1:45:45.200 --> 1:45:50.080 In fact, it's it's very seldom that I find one 1:45:50.280 --> 1:45:52.880 in the time that I've spent investigating these over the 1:45:53.000 --> 1:45:57.360 last twenty years, that you find a complaint it's usually 1:45:57.479 --> 1:46:03.200 because the individual didn't get the outcome, whether it was 1:46:03.240 --> 1:46:06.519 he got a citation where he got information he didn't want, 1:46:06.680 --> 1:46:09.559 or whatever the case may be. And ultimately, when you 1:46:09.640 --> 1:46:13.800 go back through and and find the facts, it's it's 1:46:13.840 --> 1:46:17.599 not there. And that doesn't mean that the person didn't 1:46:17.720 --> 1:46:22.160 feel that way, but that didn't actually happen that way. 1:46:22.280 --> 1:46:25.920 That's one of the advantages of tape recorders and video cams. Uh. 1:46:25.960 --> 1:46:29.160 It pretty much takes care of we I've actually seen 1:46:29.200 --> 1:46:33.000 people look at those and go, oh, I had no 1:46:33.120 --> 1:46:36.680 idea I did that. You know, they don't remember that 1:46:36.880 --> 1:46:39.759 part of it. You know, that's it's we have selective 1:46:39.800 --> 1:46:42.800 memory as humans, and it's just the way it happens sometimes. 1:46:43.640 --> 1:46:46.960 Has it been, um what we miss say? Any of 1:46:46.960 --> 1:46:48.599 you were dying to get into that we can get in? Well, 1:46:48.720 --> 1:46:50.760 I I will say one of the other things that 1:46:50.840 --> 1:46:53.360 I think is important and important to all of you 1:46:53.360 --> 1:46:56.640 guys around the table is public access. Certainly, in a 1:46:56.680 --> 1:46:59.280 public lands state, we tend to think of and take 1:46:59.320 --> 1:47:02.400 our Public Act access, but we also have a huge 1:47:02.400 --> 1:47:05.640 amount of private land. And in Idaho we had an 1:47:05.680 --> 1:47:08.439 out of state person from Texas come in and buy 1:47:08.560 --> 1:47:13.760 up UM a hundred thousand plus acres of timber land 1:47:14.160 --> 1:47:17.879 and immediately fenced and closed at all the public access 1:47:17.920 --> 1:47:22.200 where the UH Corporate Timber Company had allowed public access 1:47:22.240 --> 1:47:25.719 on it before. UH. It was a huge eye opener 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:31.360 UH to sportsman and us to suddenly have lost a 1:47:31.520 --> 1:47:34.719 big chunk of a hunting unit that was very important 1:47:34.760 --> 1:47:38.200 to folks, and it caused us to really start thinking 1:47:38.240 --> 1:47:42.120 about how do we enhance our ability to protect these 1:47:42.240 --> 1:47:46.360 large corporate lands from being closed so that the public 1:47:46.400 --> 1:47:49.760 can continue to enjoy the wildlife that they own that 1:47:49.800 --> 1:47:52.639 we manage for them on those private lands as well. 1:47:53.400 --> 1:47:56.840 So two years ago the legislature gave us some additional 1:47:57.000 --> 1:48:00.360 funds with a fee increase we asked for. UH. Part 1:48:00.400 --> 1:48:02.920 of it went to pay for depredation damage, to increase 1:48:03.040 --> 1:48:05.880 in the license increase, license fee increations, like what you're 1:48:05.920 --> 1:48:08.160 doing with that money and what we're doing, and a 1:48:08.200 --> 1:48:10.960 part of it was to enhance what we call access. Yes, 1:48:11.680 --> 1:48:13.360 it's a program we've had for a lot of a 1:48:13.400 --> 1:48:16.439 lot of years, but it was bubbling along with three 1:48:16.560 --> 1:48:18.880 or four hundred thousand dollars, most of it coming in 1:48:19.040 --> 1:48:24.639 from our lottery big game tag super Hunt. People would 1:48:24.640 --> 1:48:28.040 buy those chances, and that was funding our accesses program. 1:48:28.080 --> 1:48:33.599 Now you pay money on every license sold, whether it's hunting, fishing, 1:48:33.600 --> 1:48:36.759 it's a five dollar fee. A portion of that five dollars, 1:48:36.800 --> 1:48:40.719 about half of it goes into the access account. And 1:48:41.000 --> 1:48:46.000 now we're we've added about one point four million UH 1:48:46.080 --> 1:48:51.120 to that account. Uh, so effectively tripling what we've got 1:48:51.120 --> 1:48:54.880 available for access yes. Uh and that money goes towards 1:48:54.880 --> 1:48:59.480 me can privately and be the corporator just private deeded properties. 1:48:59.680 --> 1:49:02.960 It's to direct public access to that there to that 1:49:03.040 --> 1:49:05.640 land to hunt and fish, or through that land to 1:49:05.680 --> 1:49:07.840 get to public lands. Either way, we can do it 1:49:07.880 --> 1:49:10.880 either way. We've had real success for upland bird hunting 1:49:10.880 --> 1:49:12.840 and some stuff like that around the Boise area and 1:49:12.920 --> 1:49:14.920 some of the southern part of the state. We've not 1:49:15.040 --> 1:49:17.280 had a lot of success in the large corporate lands 1:49:17.280 --> 1:49:21.240 in the center in northern part of the state. UM. 1:49:21.439 --> 1:49:25.160 We also had a threat to state lands. Our state 1:49:25.280 --> 1:49:28.680 lands are about four million or about two point four 1:49:28.720 --> 1:49:32.880 million acres and they were under threat of lease for 1:49:32.920 --> 1:49:35.960 exclusive use. We've had some people saying, I want to 1:49:36.120 --> 1:49:40.120 lease this state section that's next to my private land 1:49:40.400 --> 1:49:43.760 for exclusive use for hunting. And fishing. So far we've 1:49:43.760 --> 1:49:47.880 been able to sidestep that, but state law requires the 1:49:48.720 --> 1:49:52.680 Department of Lands to generate maximum revenue for schools for 1:49:52.760 --> 1:49:54.960 the School Trust Fund. Some guys willing to pay more 1:49:55.000 --> 1:49:58.120 than what the public we don't have any choice. So 1:49:58.360 --> 1:50:02.439 we just signed an agreement with Department of Lands, approved 1:50:02.439 --> 1:50:06.920 by the Landboard and our Commission, that we use a 1:50:06.960 --> 1:50:11.200 portion of that access sus money. We're paying departmental Lands 1:50:11.280 --> 1:50:17.400 for all access to their lands, um every bit of 1:50:17.400 --> 1:50:21.599 it for hunting, fishing, and wildlife based recreation. So we've 1:50:21.640 --> 1:50:26.599 preserved the opportunity now and diminish the likelihood of an 1:50:26.600 --> 1:50:33.040 adverse um exclusive use agreement on those lands. That's that's 1:50:33.080 --> 1:50:37.559 gonna cost us about dollars a year. Do you feel 1:50:37.600 --> 1:50:40.559 all in all, you guys are right now every year 1:50:40.720 --> 1:50:43.920 adding to accessible acre do you think I had a 1:50:43.920 --> 1:50:49.000 net loss when when all things are considered. UM, I 1:50:49.040 --> 1:50:53.080 hope to announce shortly that we have an agreement on 1:50:53.160 --> 1:50:57.639 private timber land that will secure access to another million 1:50:57.680 --> 1:51:01.880 acres of of land in the next couple of weeks, 1:51:02.280 --> 1:51:04.960 and with that agreement we will have a net game. 1:51:06.280 --> 1:51:11.040 So we're using that additional money, and we went out 1:51:11.120 --> 1:51:17.160 for proposals for what we call large corporate landholders. What 1:51:17.160 --> 1:51:21.600 would you propose to us for a fee that we 1:51:21.640 --> 1:51:24.559 could pay you to gain access for handing and fishing 1:51:24.920 --> 1:51:28.479 to your large corporate lands. We have those proposals, were 1:51:28.520 --> 1:51:34.880 evaluating those proposals, were very close to agreeing to some 1:51:35.040 --> 1:51:37.840 of those proposals at this point in time. That will 1:51:37.880 --> 1:51:41.639 add in excess of a million acres. Yeah, I'm I'm 1:51:41.640 --> 1:51:43.439 really proud of that and the staff work that went 1:51:43.479 --> 1:51:47.720 into it. My hats off to our legislature for allowing 1:51:47.760 --> 1:51:51.599 that increase to be dedicated to that purpose as well. 1:51:52.479 --> 1:51:55.599 But it's it's a biggie and I see that as 1:51:55.680 --> 1:52:01.320 giving us the annual financial resources uh needed to secure 1:52:01.360 --> 1:52:06.080 this into the future. So um, I just wanted to 1:52:06.080 --> 1:52:09.040 get that in there, Steve that that of all the 1:52:09.080 --> 1:52:11.880 things we hear from sportsman, even in a public state, 1:52:12.720 --> 1:52:15.919 is access. They want more access or I lost my access. 1:52:16.080 --> 1:52:18.840 What you said, it's and uh somebody shut it down. 1:52:18.840 --> 1:52:22.800 A private entity bought that forty acres or twenty or 1:52:23.040 --> 1:52:26.880 three sixty or whatever it is, and it's now posted. Uh. 1:52:26.920 --> 1:52:29.880 It's it's important that we're actually meeting here at the 1:52:29.880 --> 1:52:33.720 on X place because this idea of where are you 1:52:33.840 --> 1:52:38.800 at and trespass is very important and private landowners are 1:52:38.880 --> 1:52:42.920 very sensitive to trespass. But how do you know? There's 1:52:42.960 --> 1:52:46.280 some posting requirements, but it's still in a big open 1:52:46.320 --> 1:52:48.560 state like this where you wander up one side of 1:52:48.600 --> 1:52:50.240 the mountain down the other and you come in on 1:52:50.240 --> 1:52:51.960 the backside and you walk up to a fence it's 1:52:52.000 --> 1:52:54.200 next to the road and it's posted, and you didn't 1:52:54.240 --> 1:52:57.280 see anything when you came down the other side. Where 1:52:57.439 --> 1:53:00.599 is it your responsibility to know where you're at versus 1:53:00.800 --> 1:53:05.200 the landowner's responsibility to post? And we're moving responsibility to know? 1:53:05.520 --> 1:53:09.280 I agree, and Idaho there is some posting responsibilities of 1:53:09.360 --> 1:53:13.920 the private landowner on non agricultural land basically timber and 1:53:14.000 --> 1:53:17.680 range land. But I think we're very quickly moving to 1:53:17.720 --> 1:53:20.479 the point where you've got to know where you're at 1:53:20.520 --> 1:53:25.120 all the time near it's your responsibility, not the landowners 1:53:25.200 --> 1:53:29.599 to know it. It is. But again, does everybody carry, 1:53:29.840 --> 1:53:34.400 you know, a smartphone or a GPS around with them? No? Uh, 1:53:34.479 --> 1:53:37.400 most of us do that are avid, but not everybody 1:53:37.439 --> 1:53:40.439 else does. And so part of it is getting the mapping, 1:53:40.520 --> 1:53:43.760 getting the information out there, and again the technology to 1:53:43.800 --> 1:53:47.439 do that, and uh, certainly talking about it, letting people 1:53:47.479 --> 1:53:50.479 know that in Idaho, you can go on our website 1:53:50.520 --> 1:53:53.200 and we have a hunt planner. You say, I want 1:53:53.200 --> 1:53:54.800 to go hunt white tailed deer and I want to 1:53:54.840 --> 1:53:56.960 hunt it in Timber Creek and game I use my 1:53:57.000 --> 1:53:59.559 example again. It'll pull up the maps to show you 1:54:00.040 --> 1:54:05.960 it is an excellent spot, right, that's better. Uh, And 1:54:05.960 --> 1:54:08.120 and it'll tell you the land ownership, it'll tell you 1:54:08.200 --> 1:54:11.719 the regulations, It'll tell you everything about that piece of land. 1:54:12.240 --> 1:54:14.920 However you want to scale it to look at what 1:54:15.000 --> 1:54:18.479 you can do in that area. And couple that with 1:54:18.600 --> 1:54:22.280 these machines and and uh some other third party software, 1:54:22.320 --> 1:54:24.240 so you know where you're at all the time, you're 1:54:24.240 --> 1:54:30.400 good to go. And and I've still got I would 1:54:30.560 --> 1:54:34.200 have to say dozens. That's probably hundreds of quad maps 1:54:34.240 --> 1:54:37.560 that are folded up in in the under. The came 1:54:37.560 --> 1:54:39.880 to the seat of my truck and I pull those 1:54:39.920 --> 1:54:42.320 things out and jam them in my backpack. I still 1:54:42.360 --> 1:54:46.320 carry a real compass with me because these things aren't reliable. 1:54:46.400 --> 1:54:50.120 The batteries go dead, you don't have access. I forgot 1:54:50.160 --> 1:54:52.680 to download that so it was on residence. I still 1:54:52.880 --> 1:54:55.000 still value paper maps. I think they still have a role. 1:54:55.480 --> 1:54:58.360 I agree, and I think it's something that uh we 1:54:58.520 --> 1:55:03.600 as mentors hunters should be teaching them. UH. And if 1:55:03.600 --> 1:55:05.919 there's a last thing I want to say about Idaho 1:55:05.920 --> 1:55:09.400 being the opportunity state and the need for us as 1:55:09.520 --> 1:55:14.680 hunters and anglers to mentor people in to teach them 1:55:14.800 --> 1:55:20.200 the ethics and the responsible interaction with wildlife, the respect 1:55:20.360 --> 1:55:23.680 for that wildlife, live or dead, that needs to be 1:55:24.040 --> 1:55:29.280 there as we utilize it, consume it, enjoy it, uh, 1:55:29.720 --> 1:55:33.960 reveling the experiences around the campfire, which we all do. Uh, 1:55:33.960 --> 1:55:36.800 those are important. I'm proud to say that in Idaho 1:55:37.240 --> 1:55:40.920 we have a thing called the passport. If you're a 1:55:41.000 --> 1:55:45.840 hunter and you know somebody that's never hunted, and it 1:55:45.880 --> 1:55:49.640 doesn't make any difference whether they're a kid or an adult. 1:55:50.040 --> 1:55:54.240 Somebody moves into town and sees that you're a hunter, 1:55:55.080 --> 1:55:57.360 I would really like to go up, but they don't 1:55:57.360 --> 1:55:59.800 have hunter head or anything else. You can go down 1:55:59.840 --> 1:56:03.320 to the to the license vendor and as a hunter, 1:56:03.440 --> 1:56:07.640 you can sponsor that person and get a passport. That 1:56:07.960 --> 1:56:13.720 is what's the cost of it, three seventy dollar seventy five. 1:56:14.160 --> 1:56:15.920 Then you can if you want to take them deer hunt, 1:56:15.920 --> 1:56:18.520 You buy a deer tag to go with it, go 1:56:18.640 --> 1:56:21.560 out and shoot birds for how long that year and 1:56:21.640 --> 1:56:23.200 then that then that person has to get it together 1:56:23.240 --> 1:56:26.600 and go take It's one time opportunity to mantor somebody. 1:56:26.600 --> 1:56:31.320 But it's great it it gets this obstacle. Oh gosh, 1:56:31.320 --> 1:56:32.800 I'd really like to go with you, but I don't 1:56:32.880 --> 1:56:36.680 have for sure I can get that for you. You're 1:56:36.760 --> 1:56:39.360 ready to go up again. We came up against that 1:56:39.400 --> 1:56:44.080 over Thanksgiving weekend because um, we're all kind of half 1:56:44.240 --> 1:56:46.960 doing Thanksgiving family stuff, we're all kind of half hunting, 1:56:46.960 --> 1:56:49.920 and me ran out of deer tags. We started looking 1:56:49.920 --> 1:56:52.440 at people didn't have a tag and be like, we 1:56:52.720 --> 1:56:55.560 get this person licensed stuff. And this is the way 1:56:55.600 --> 1:56:57.840 you can do it. If you had a movie that 1:56:57.920 --> 1:57:01.000 it never hunted before, just take them down and get it. 1:57:01.080 --> 1:57:03.560 And they've got to be accompanied by a license hunter. 1:57:04.560 --> 1:57:06.520 But it's neat. And you can take kids as young 1:57:06.560 --> 1:57:09.640 as eight that haven't had a chance to do hunter ed. 1:57:09.800 --> 1:57:12.880 If you're a parent or a guardian or whatever is 1:57:12.920 --> 1:57:14.920 that word is an idhole, kid can hunt, hunt deer 1:57:15.000 --> 1:57:17.960 or whatever. Eight years of age, they can hunt uh, 1:57:18.120 --> 1:57:21.440 small game and birds they can't hunt there until they're 1:57:21.480 --> 1:57:26.200 ten break off. That's what That's what I thought. Yeah, 1:57:26.200 --> 1:57:28.000 and you know you just broke your silence, But what 1:57:28.040 --> 1:57:30.960 else is on your mind? Man? Kind of on the 1:57:31.000 --> 1:57:37.000 opportunity um theme, Idaho does trophy species where you can 1:57:37.040 --> 1:57:40.200 only apply for one of the there's three, right you 1:57:40.200 --> 1:57:43.880 guys to go sheep and moves. Were you around when 1:57:43.920 --> 1:57:47.880 that was put the place? That system? And then just 1:57:48.040 --> 1:57:49.720 what are your general thoughts on it? Because that we 1:57:49.800 --> 1:57:51.840 really like it. I mean, I like the way that 1:57:51.800 --> 1:57:53.680 it's set up that you guys don't do the bonus 1:57:53.720 --> 1:57:55.920 points and their preference points and all that to deal 1:57:55.960 --> 1:57:59.920 with that big mess um. And then they put the 1:58:00.000 --> 1:58:03.000 ones in lifetime back and the ones in lifetime that's correct. 1:58:03.360 --> 1:58:05.680 We no longer call them trophy species. There once in 1:58:05.720 --> 1:58:09.040 a lifetime species again, getting at that perception, I mean, 1:58:09.160 --> 1:58:12.880 you can really never draw it again, not not for 1:58:13.120 --> 1:58:16.840 a once in a lifetime. So example of that and 1:58:16.880 --> 1:58:19.520 the answer is, yeah, I was around, and our commission 1:58:20.040 --> 1:58:24.560 has the authority to do bonus points. They they look 1:58:24.640 --> 1:58:28.240 at it about every five to six years. It comes 1:58:28.280 --> 1:58:33.600 back up, uh, and every time we provide them the 1:58:34.480 --> 1:58:37.760 information about what it means they always have backed away 1:58:37.760 --> 1:58:40.240 from it in Idaho. But you make a lot of 1:58:40.240 --> 1:58:43.520 money doing both points. From a financial standpoint, I will 1:58:43.560 --> 1:58:46.200 tell you the last time this came up about seven 1:58:46.240 --> 1:58:49.480 years ago, when we were tanking financially. It was looking 1:58:49.480 --> 1:58:51.600 pretty darn good to me as a director trying to 1:58:51.640 --> 1:58:54.080 figure out how to keep from getting deeper into the whole. 1:58:54.680 --> 1:58:57.520 But it is a pyramid scheme from a sportsman standpoint, 1:58:57.520 --> 1:59:00.200 I'll be honest with you, depending on which method is, 1:59:00.200 --> 1:59:04.360 there's so many different ways to do it. But if 1:59:04.400 --> 1:59:10.080 you keep getting the opportunity to use your points, if 1:59:10.120 --> 1:59:13.040 it goes up sequentially every year because more people are 1:59:13.040 --> 1:59:16.200 getting into it, you've created a pyramid scheme that those 1:59:16.240 --> 1:59:19.520 who get in first or near the bottom are okay, 1:59:19.640 --> 1:59:22.240 But those who come into the bottom may have four 1:59:22.360 --> 1:59:24.800 or five six years before they even get to that point. 1:59:25.080 --> 1:59:27.880 And depending on how many jam into it, it may 1:59:27.920 --> 1:59:30.680 not get there for some species. And that's what we 1:59:30.920 --> 1:59:35.000 looked at is for very hard to draw species big 1:59:35.040 --> 1:59:39.040 horn sheep, mountain goat, uh, you may not get there 1:59:39.080 --> 1:59:42.560 even with bonus points, for you know, many bonus points. 1:59:42.560 --> 1:59:44.720 I'm going into the montet, the big horn sheep, draw 1:59:44.920 --> 1:59:48.160 this year because they square him here. Not enough. I'm 1:59:48.200 --> 1:59:51.920 going in with three pints and so lifetimes where the 1:59:51.960 --> 1:59:55.840 bonus points that still run into sub chance drawn. This heck, 1:59:56.160 --> 1:59:58.840 and that's what you get into, is the squaring thing. 1:59:58.960 --> 2:00:02.120 The other methods of trying to make sure everybody in 2:00:02.160 --> 2:00:07.760 there eventually gets one UM. But the commission has chosen 2:00:08.000 --> 2:00:11.040 our commission, and this has gone back as far as 2:00:12.480 --> 2:00:15.200 years ago when it first came up. I remember I 2:00:15.280 --> 2:00:17.040 was a fisheries guy at the time when I heard 2:00:17.080 --> 2:00:22.120 the first discussion, and we've continue to give that presentation 2:00:22.200 --> 2:00:24.720 over the years to new commissions as they come on. 2:00:25.320 --> 2:00:28.720 And that presentation is, by the way, online on our website, 2:00:28.760 --> 2:00:30.840 so every want to look at it. It has some 2:00:30.920 --> 2:00:34.200 gaming stuff in there that helps you understand how the 2:00:34.280 --> 2:00:38.160 various techniques work and what the end result is. It 2:00:38.240 --> 2:00:44.200 does work okay for moderate level UH controlled hunts, ones 2:00:44.320 --> 2:00:48.960 that have under twenty to one odds UM and if 2:00:49.000 --> 2:00:50.800 it's less than five to one odds, you don't need 2:00:50.800 --> 2:00:52.680 it anyway, you're gonna get one in a couple of 2:00:52.800 --> 2:00:56.200 years without that. But in that intermediate range it works 2:00:56.200 --> 2:00:58.760 really good to guarantee if you'll stay in there for 2:00:58.800 --> 2:01:01.880 three to five years, you'll get tech on the higher 2:01:01.880 --> 2:01:05.120 than twenty two one, it falls apart, and that's part 2:01:05.120 --> 2:01:07.160 of the problem is where do you use it and 2:01:07.200 --> 2:01:11.240 how do you apply it relative to that. So our 2:01:11.240 --> 2:01:13.920 commission has just chosen to stay away from it, but 2:01:13.960 --> 2:01:18.080 there's no guarantee they'll stay like that whatsoever. That could 2:01:18.160 --> 2:01:24.280 change overall or the constituents, it's a split. We have 2:01:25.200 --> 2:01:28.520 what I would consider a mobile group of hunters that 2:01:28.560 --> 2:01:32.880 moves around multiple states and hunts. We have a lot 2:01:32.920 --> 2:01:36.360 of our majority of our hunters just hunting Idaho. The 2:01:36.400 --> 2:01:39.760 folks who move around to other states like points because 2:01:39.800 --> 2:01:41.720 they can pile them up in all the different states, 2:01:41.720 --> 2:01:44.440 and they spend a lot of money accumulating that, buying 2:01:44.520 --> 2:01:47.120 tags and what have you, so they can accumulate that. 2:01:47.320 --> 2:01:52.240 They seem to like that because they've covered their board. Uh, 2:01:52.600 --> 2:01:58.160 the residents don't necessarily, they're they're more place oriented with 2:01:58.240 --> 2:01:59.920 the way they do things, and they just want to know, 2:02:00.000 --> 2:02:02.760 oh that they've got an equal chance with everybody else, 2:02:02.800 --> 2:02:06.040 and that's their kid or grandkid has that equal chance 2:02:06.920 --> 2:02:10.560 like everybody else. So yeah, and then back to the 2:02:10.560 --> 2:02:13.760 once in a lifetime, I just killed a moose last 2:02:13.840 --> 2:02:17.000 year my a nice bowl on the south fork of 2:02:17.040 --> 2:02:21.000 the Snake. I a tag after seven years. No, it 2:02:21.040 --> 2:02:27.440 took me seven years retirement. Yeah right, it doesn't work 2:02:27.480 --> 2:02:30.960 that way, unfortunately. But the seven years and you drew. 2:02:31.240 --> 2:02:33.600 I drew one killed a nice bowl last year. I'm done. 2:02:34.040 --> 2:02:36.520 Now I can put in for a cow tag if 2:02:36.560 --> 2:02:39.040 we've got a population and is growing too fast and 2:02:39.120 --> 2:02:41.919 I want to take some cows out. That's not limited, 2:02:42.800 --> 2:02:47.240 but I'm done on moose in Idaho. We just had 2:02:47.240 --> 2:02:50.720 a friend who drew. I supposed to be what Friday, 2:02:50.840 --> 2:02:54.400 thirties right, yeah, i'd say early and to be done. 2:02:54.600 --> 2:02:59.600 You're just done. Yeah. So bighorn sheep, we have two species, 2:02:59.600 --> 2:03:01.680 so you can get one for each, the desert Big 2:03:01.680 --> 2:03:04.680 Horn and the rocky mountainto Big Horn, so you can 2:03:05.000 --> 2:03:08.840 have two opportunities there, but mountain goat one and you're done. 2:03:09.040 --> 2:03:12.120 You know, it's pretty terrible in this state. They made 2:03:12.120 --> 2:03:15.120 it that you can uh, you can buy bonus points, 2:03:15.120 --> 2:03:16.840 not whether you're in the drawer or not. So even 2:03:16.840 --> 2:03:19.800 though my kids aren't old enough to actually hunt, I 2:03:19.840 --> 2:03:21.760 can get I got them a little, I got them 2:03:21.760 --> 2:03:25.320 all numbers. They can start buying. They can take their 2:03:25.320 --> 2:03:28.480 allowance or their dad is do it for him and 2:03:28.560 --> 2:03:31.920 buy them bonus points someone they're like twenty, my little 2:03:31.960 --> 2:03:36.320 kid could have seventeen bonus points. That's horrible. I'm taking 2:03:36.360 --> 2:03:40.000 advantage of it because it's there, but it's horrible. It's 2:03:40.000 --> 2:03:44.480 so guilty doing it. It's what just games the system 2:03:44.520 --> 2:03:48.360 and blows it up because they shouldn't let they shouldn't 2:03:48.440 --> 2:03:50.840 let people let me do stuff like that. And you 2:03:50.880 --> 2:03:52.640 know you're part of the problem. You're gonna go ahead 2:03:52.640 --> 2:03:55.000 and do it anyway, you know, in this state, like 2:03:55.160 --> 2:03:58.680 they assigned so when you get a L that there's 2:03:58.720 --> 2:04:02.880 like a customer none and your customer number is your 2:04:02.920 --> 2:04:05.560 birthday and then the number after this is how many 2:04:05.600 --> 2:04:09.440 people with your birthday have it? So meaning like when 2:04:09.440 --> 2:04:12.120 they when the LS system came in, my LS numbers 2:04:12.200 --> 2:04:13.680 number three. I mean I was the third guy with 2:04:13.720 --> 2:04:16.480 my birthday to get to apply for a number. Now 2:04:16.520 --> 2:04:19.400 they're as signing numbers that are up in the hundreds, right, 2:04:20.160 --> 2:04:22.840 But when my little kids who are three, five and eight, 2:04:23.520 --> 2:04:25.320 I went down to get them a l S numbers 2:04:25.320 --> 2:04:28.640 and they're all number one, Like no one with those. 2:04:29.040 --> 2:04:30.720 I know I'm ahead of the game because no one 2:04:30.760 --> 2:04:33.360 with that birthday has gone and done it yet, so 2:04:33.400 --> 2:04:36.360 they're gonna kill it. I just can't decide how far 2:04:36.360 --> 2:04:38.080 I'm gonna run with this because I do feel guilty 2:04:38.080 --> 2:04:39.880 about it. I almost might not even not do it. 2:04:40.000 --> 2:04:42.920 Came aside, well, you'll get like me at some saying 2:04:43.000 --> 2:04:47.800 you'll have to do that with your grandchildren. Get expensive. Right, 2:04:48.960 --> 2:04:52.760 there's a multiplication one on the follow up question when 2:04:52.800 --> 2:04:56.080 you're um, when the economy tank and you're trying to 2:04:56.080 --> 2:04:58.760 figure out a way to get some more money. Did 2:04:58.880 --> 2:05:02.080 dedicated sales set ever come up? Because there's some couple 2:05:02.120 --> 2:05:05.480 of stays have done very well with that. We've looked 2:05:05.480 --> 2:05:08.880 at it. UM oh gosh. Five years ago, we did 2:05:08.960 --> 2:05:12.080 a thing called the Wildlife Summit, and it was trying 2:05:12.080 --> 2:05:15.400 to bring all folks together to talk about wildlife on 2:05:15.400 --> 2:05:20.120 a statewide basis. And UM an outcome of that was 2:05:20.320 --> 2:05:23.880 trying to build understanding of the needs of all wildlife 2:05:23.880 --> 2:05:28.720 and that we weren't able to generate enough revenue UH 2:05:28.760 --> 2:05:31.840 to take care of the needs of the of non 2:05:31.920 --> 2:05:37.400 game and other wildlife that was out there. UM a 2:05:38.240 --> 2:05:42.320 what I call a loose coffee clatch of conservation groups. 2:05:43.360 --> 2:05:48.000 After that was done, we did a survey of Idaho 2:05:48.080 --> 2:05:51.120 ones to see whether or not they would support an 2:05:51.120 --> 2:05:55.360 initiative that would either dedicate a portion of the sales 2:05:55.440 --> 2:06:02.280 tax or support an increase. The the increase was less 2:06:02.280 --> 2:06:06.000 than people just weren't willing to do that. It was 2:06:06.240 --> 2:06:10.760 slightly over of the folks were willing to support a 2:06:10.760 --> 2:06:16.280 dedicated portion of the existing sales tax. Okay, So the 2:06:17.800 --> 2:06:21.680 folks that know the politics of initiatives and everything said 2:06:21.760 --> 2:06:24.560 that given where we were at in the political cycle 2:06:24.640 --> 2:06:30.680 with elections and everything else, that that was not Probably 2:06:31.320 --> 2:06:33.879 they could get the signatures to get it on the ballot, 2:06:33.880 --> 2:06:37.200 but they weren't sure whether it would make it. And 2:06:37.400 --> 2:06:42.680 it depends on whether or not you have an entity 2:06:42.760 --> 2:06:45.240 that's well funded that will oppose it. If you don't 2:06:45.280 --> 2:06:48.600 have any well funded opposition, you can run these things through. 2:06:49.160 --> 2:06:52.880 But because we're getting at sales tax, whether it's an 2:06:52.960 --> 2:06:56.560 increase or a piece of the existing, opposition was going 2:06:56.600 --> 2:07:01.640 to be huge, and so that particular loose coffee clatch 2:07:01.680 --> 2:07:05.040 of folks backed away from that at this point in 2:07:05.080 --> 2:07:07.440 time for the state of Idaho. The beautiful people in 2:07:07.520 --> 2:07:10.440 Missouri pulled it off. They did, and being a Missourian 2:07:10.560 --> 2:07:13.320 I was in college during the time that that stuff 2:07:13.400 --> 2:07:16.520 was going forward, and it took them twelve years of 2:07:16.600 --> 2:07:24.560 trying different ways. They tell right, because when it passed, 2:07:24.600 --> 2:07:27.480 it passed with I mean not quite unanimous, but but 2:07:27.560 --> 2:07:31.480 it was a high support and and it did it. 2:07:32.000 --> 2:07:34.200 They went with a pop tax and a beer tax 2:07:34.240 --> 2:07:36.680 and failed on that. They tried all kinds of things 2:07:36.720 --> 2:07:39.040 before they came up with the one eighth of one 2:07:40.240 --> 2:07:43.960 sales tax increase, which has been the gold standard. UM 2:07:44.120 --> 2:07:47.040 Florida does a real estate transfer tax. Every time a 2:07:47.040 --> 2:07:50.240 piece of real estate sells. There's a piece of that fee. 2:07:50.440 --> 2:07:51.960 You know, all those fees you pay when you buy 2:07:51.960 --> 2:07:53.680 a piece of property. Well there's a little piece of 2:07:53.720 --> 2:07:55.760 that in there now that goes to the Wildlife Fund, 2:07:56.360 --> 2:07:59.360 and that's working for them down there. It went down 2:07:59.400 --> 2:08:03.680 when things tanked, but it went back up. UM Arkansas 2:08:03.720 --> 2:08:07.400 and Iowa went with a similar sales tax system as 2:08:07.480 --> 2:08:12.200 Missouri and uh. Arkansas got there through. Iolway got there through, 2:08:12.280 --> 2:08:15.040 but they didn't fund it. So you know, the mechanisms 2:08:15.080 --> 2:08:17.880 are but they didn't initiate it. Sins most everybody that dips, 2:08:17.960 --> 2:08:21.840 like the hunting fish, they just have a dip tip. 2:08:22.680 --> 2:08:25.160 I'm with you on that. So there is a solution, 2:08:25.200 --> 2:08:27.640 though I don't want to leave this before I speak 2:08:27.680 --> 2:08:31.600 to a solution that's live in Congress right now, and 2:08:31.640 --> 2:08:36.080 it's called restoring America's Wildlife fact and it's following it 2:08:36.120 --> 2:08:41.800 would it would take the royalties from oil and gas 2:08:42.000 --> 2:08:47.080 and mining on shore offshore. It's all of that royalties, 2:08:47.160 --> 2:08:51.760 and and that royalty package is around twelve fourteen billion 2:08:51.800 --> 2:08:56.040 a year right now. UM. It would dedicate one point 2:08:56.080 --> 2:09:01.200 three billion of that into the Pittman Robertson Fund, a 2:09:01.280 --> 2:09:03.960 subset of it which double the food. It would double 2:09:04.000 --> 2:09:08.480 the fund, and it would then that money would come 2:09:08.480 --> 2:09:10.400 back to the states based on the size of the 2:09:10.440 --> 2:09:12.800 state and the population, very similar to the way we 2:09:12.880 --> 2:09:15.720 do pr for hunting, which is a number of hunting 2:09:15.720 --> 2:09:19.280 licenses and the size of the state comes back to 2:09:19.320 --> 2:09:23.640 the state to manage a very familiar mechanism for the 2:09:23.680 --> 2:09:27.160 states to get financial resources to manage all wildlife. That's 2:09:27.160 --> 2:09:29.720 a re allocation. Isn't that a new tax. This is 2:09:29.720 --> 2:09:32.880 a re allocation of of a fund. It is the 2:09:32.920 --> 2:09:36.440 fund that the Land of Water Conservation Fund taps into 2:09:36.600 --> 2:09:41.720 right now. Uh. And so there is legislation our own 2:09:41.880 --> 2:09:44.400 Senator Rish in the state of Idaho is sponsoring it 2:09:44.480 --> 2:09:47.440 on the Senate side. It's got over a hundred co 2:09:47.560 --> 2:09:51.920 sponsors on the House side right now support it does. 2:09:52.160 --> 2:09:54.440 The House support is in a hundred and five and 2:09:54.440 --> 2:09:59.440 it's split almost equally down the middle. The co sponsorship 2:09:59.480 --> 2:10:01.600 on the Senate, it I'm not as sure of, but 2:10:01.720 --> 2:10:05.520 the co sponsors before I'm familiar with or bipartisan, so 2:10:05.640 --> 2:10:08.040 and the Senate works different than the House on that 2:10:08.040 --> 2:10:15.080 stuff anyway. UM, So we're hoping that they'll get to 2:10:15.200 --> 2:10:18.160 get a major hearing on this. We've had some smaller hearings, 2:10:19.080 --> 2:10:23.400 but it's moving forward, you know. It's it was classified 2:10:23.400 --> 2:10:26.360 as a moon shot to get it through this Congress 2:10:26.400 --> 2:10:29.280 with between now and the time they adjourn in December, 2:10:29.560 --> 2:10:32.280 but it's still live and Senator Rish was trying to 2:10:32.320 --> 2:10:35.720 get a hearing going on it. Um. This would be huge, 2:10:36.200 --> 2:10:40.680 UH for a state like Idaho. If we got our allocation, 2:10:41.800 --> 2:10:44.480 it would be on the order of fifteen to seventeen 2:10:44.480 --> 2:10:48.440 million dollars annually. So you know, take that our total 2:10:48.520 --> 2:10:52.160 t d j p R allocation is about that much. 2:10:52.560 --> 2:10:57.520 So it puts the the UH Wildlife Diversity Non Game 2:10:57.640 --> 2:11:01.320 Program on the same footing and allows us to have 2:11:01.480 --> 2:11:06.200 the resources to manage all wildlife populations. The fear A 2:11:06.240 --> 2:11:10.240 lot of hunters and anglers fear loss of control of 2:11:10.280 --> 2:11:15.000 their commissions and departments through this, and and it's not 2:11:15.240 --> 2:11:18.360 an illegitimate fear. But I go back to my home 2:11:18.400 --> 2:11:21.920 state of Missouri and see what happened there. I mean, 2:11:22.080 --> 2:11:25.760 they pumped a hundred and ten million dollars a year 2:11:26.320 --> 2:11:29.920 into their budget. It's the majority of their budget. They 2:11:29.960 --> 2:11:33.400 got about another sixty million I think in license sales 2:11:33.760 --> 2:11:36.800 and then other money in there. There about twice as 2:11:36.840 --> 2:11:40.840 big budget wise as the state of Idaho with with 2:11:40.880 --> 2:11:45.800 what they've got back there. But hunting and fishing is 2:11:46.160 --> 2:11:50.160 better and stronger there now as a result of having 2:11:50.840 --> 2:11:57.120 that collaborative of all users getting things done. And so 2:11:57.280 --> 2:12:00.360 when you look at the case histories of state that 2:12:00.480 --> 2:12:03.720 have had this additional money, Florida being the other example, 2:12:04.360 --> 2:12:09.400 hunting and fishing there is actually booming with those additional resources. 2:12:10.280 --> 2:12:13.920 It will mean some changes in in how we go 2:12:14.000 --> 2:12:17.200 about interacting with the public on allocation of budget. But 2:12:17.320 --> 2:12:19.760 certainly I don't think it's to be feared, it's to 2:12:19.840 --> 2:12:22.200 be managed. Yeah, that that'd be my perspective on it. 2:12:22.280 --> 2:12:25.360 I understand how I understand the viewpoint of people being 2:12:25.440 --> 2:12:28.720 leary about new voices sitting around the table, new voices 2:12:28.760 --> 2:12:33.000 at the table. Um, I get that. I still think that. Uh. 2:12:33.120 --> 2:12:36.640 I still think it's better to go with the money 2:12:36.880 --> 2:12:40.640 and and you know, play the game however you need 2:12:40.680 --> 2:12:42.280 to play it, but put to go with the extra 2:12:42.320 --> 2:12:44.640 funding and and then sort the rest out after the 2:12:44.640 --> 2:12:46.400 factor at least go into it with the right kind 2:12:46.400 --> 2:12:49.560 of mind frame and well our track record where we 2:12:49.600 --> 2:12:54.080 have financial resources and focus. If there's a sensitive species 2:12:54.120 --> 2:12:56.760 out there, I can keep them off the list or 2:12:56.800 --> 2:12:59.120 I can get him off the list again with that 2:12:59.200 --> 2:13:01.320 kind of financial resources. I know we can do it 2:13:01.480 --> 2:13:05.160 because we've done it and um, and I'm I would 2:13:05.160 --> 2:13:10.120 be anxious to to see that pulled off. Um, we'll 2:13:10.120 --> 2:13:12.960 see again. It's a moon shot, but it's live and 2:13:13.000 --> 2:13:16.000 it's moving forward. We've been two years moving this forward. 2:13:16.440 --> 2:13:18.520 The group that put it together was a group called 2:13:18.560 --> 2:13:23.360 the Blue Ribbon Panel, and uh, Johnny Morris from bass 2:13:23.400 --> 2:13:28.080 Pro now Cabella's Too, UM was the co chair along 2:13:28.120 --> 2:13:31.080 with governor a former governor of Freeden Fall from Wyoming, 2:13:31.240 --> 2:13:37.720 and most everybody on that panel were NGOs and private business. 2:13:38.080 --> 2:13:40.200 It wasn't a bunch of government folks. They're the ones 2:13:40.240 --> 2:13:43.160 that looked at this and said yeah, and then that 2:13:43.320 --> 2:13:46.000 their first recommendation was this one point three billion. That's 2:13:46.000 --> 2:13:50.080 where we focused. The second one is increasing our relevancy 2:13:50.160 --> 2:13:54.200 to all people about wildlife management. Money goes a long 2:13:54.240 --> 2:13:57.840 ways to helping that, but certainly, how do we as 2:13:58.040 --> 2:14:01.600 hunters and anglers show the use of hunting, fishing, and 2:14:01.640 --> 2:14:06.200 trapping for wildlife management is relevant to everybody? And I 2:14:06.240 --> 2:14:09.560 think that's a big part of of the challenge that 2:14:09.640 --> 2:14:12.280 we have in the future as hunters and anglers is 2:14:12.320 --> 2:14:16.240 to maintain relevancy. We've got the support. We've got that 2:14:16.400 --> 2:14:20.400 mid seventies support for traditional hunting, even higher for fishing. 2:14:20.880 --> 2:14:22.920 We just got to hang onto it, and we do 2:14:22.960 --> 2:14:26.440 it by doing what we know as hunters and anglers 2:14:26.480 --> 2:14:29.880 we are, and that's conservationists first, and we lead the 2:14:29.880 --> 2:14:33.120 way with our own actions and activities to get this 2:14:33.120 --> 2:14:37.839 stuff done. Good Your final thoughts, Chris Man, No virgils 2:14:37.880 --> 2:14:44.240 just schooling me. All the fantastic Virgil for Department of 2:14:44.280 --> 2:14:52.440 Interior or something right that means d C. It's I've 2:14:52.480 --> 2:14:54.480 I've learned a ton of one of the last thing 2:14:54.560 --> 2:14:58.240 I was gonna ask you maybe was done so your 2:14:58.680 --> 2:15:04.800 access yes program. Yes, is Idaho Fishing Game the only 2:15:04.920 --> 2:15:12.400 state entity in charge of procuring more public access. We 2:15:12.520 --> 2:15:18.120 have the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation that has 2:15:18.240 --> 2:15:24.120 responsibility for trail access for both motorized and foot travel, 2:15:25.160 --> 2:15:29.360 and we work very closely with them. Uh. They also 2:15:29.440 --> 2:15:32.720 have responsibility for some voating access. We have our own 2:15:32.760 --> 2:15:37.520 voting access program, they have their's counties have some responsibility 2:15:37.560 --> 2:15:41.000 because they get a piece of the DJ Daniel Johnson funds. 2:15:42.120 --> 2:15:52.760 But as far as um land based hunting and fishing 2:15:53.520 --> 2:15:58.040 and trapping were it, Uh. The others are directed at 2:15:58.080 --> 2:16:04.880 more generalized recreation or motorized or powerboat recreation in that 2:16:05.000 --> 2:16:08.240 particular case, and compared to what we're putting on the 2:16:08.240 --> 2:16:12.760 table financially, it's a very small piece of that. It 2:16:12.880 --> 2:16:16.280 seems like in Idaho and Montana as well. The public 2:16:18.040 --> 2:16:21.600 the economy benefits so much from our public land that 2:16:22.680 --> 2:16:26.080 you know, more entities should be putting chips on the 2:16:26.120 --> 2:16:28.879 table to procure it. I think some of the NGOs 2:16:28.880 --> 2:16:33.960 are huge players there, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Uh. They 2:16:34.000 --> 2:16:38.160 do and and they they've been very uh cooperative, collaborative. 2:16:38.560 --> 2:16:40.560 They've got money to bring to the table that they'll 2:16:40.600 --> 2:16:45.039 match with anything you've got. And the Mule Dealer Foundation 2:16:45.240 --> 2:16:49.000 to a lesser degree is part of that. Uh. Those 2:16:49.040 --> 2:16:53.680 are the two primary players. Trout Unlimited does some for 2:16:53.800 --> 2:16:59.280 stream access, for flying, for fishing um, and we've got 2:17:00.120 --> 2:17:05.800 some some other players in there. But I don't want 2:17:05.840 --> 2:17:07.760 to dismiss some of those n g O s that 2:17:07.800 --> 2:17:12.440 have been very uh focused and effective, particularly Rocky Mountain 2:17:12.480 --> 2:17:15.800 Elk with their initiative to get access through private land 2:17:15.840 --> 2:17:19.840 to public land. They've been able to really do some 2:17:19.879 --> 2:17:25.560 good things. Sir. Awesome, thank you, thank you man. We 2:17:25.600 --> 2:17:27.600 did We did a deep dive. Man, that's a lot 2:17:27.600 --> 2:17:34.680 of fun. I uh uh enjoy this stuff. To Dingle Johnson, yep, 2:17:35.000 --> 2:17:37.480 you got it all. Give me some more time. We'll 2:17:37.480 --> 2:17:40.280 give you more. Well, you know, I want to have 2:17:40.320 --> 2:17:43.200 you back how long you're you're retiring, right, I am, 2:17:43.280 --> 2:17:47.920 I'll be retiring in January for a big ship talking session. 2:17:50.560 --> 2:17:53.080 Better yet, I'll have you come over. And I don't 2:17:53.080 --> 2:17:54.520 know if this stuff works on the back of a 2:17:54.600 --> 2:17:58.120 jetboat while we're trolling for steelhead um, we can we 2:17:58.160 --> 2:18:00.320 can plug it all into an inverter and will make 2:18:00.360 --> 2:18:02.680 this stuff work, and and we can do a live 2:18:02.720 --> 2:18:04.960 fish and she did a live ice fishing show one time. 2:18:05.080 --> 2:18:07.039 I can do that too. I've got a place on 2:18:07.120 --> 2:18:09.400 Cascade Reservoir and we can scoot right out on the 2:18:09.440 --> 2:18:13.160 ice and uh catch some of those trophy perch that 2:18:13.200 --> 2:18:22.520 we've got there, ye yellow perch yea. Well we're pushing 2:18:22.560 --> 2:18:27.879 eighteen inches eighteen yeah, and uh it's it's still got 2:18:28.080 --> 2:18:30.800 to three year classes in there that are grown into that. 2:18:30.920 --> 2:18:35.199 So it's a fish you know, fish story. I gotta 2:18:35.200 --> 2:18:37.760 get this right. But no, they are like Wally, these 2:18:37.760 --> 2:18:41.680 things are huge. I mean fourteen and sixteen inch perch 2:18:42.200 --> 2:18:45.320 our routine up there. Yeah, you catch three of those 2:18:45.360 --> 2:18:48.480 and you've got dinner. That's great. Yeah, it is. It 2:18:48.640 --> 2:18:51.560 is great. So stay tuned and thank you good all right, 2:18:52.000 --> 2:19:01.080 thank you two