WEBVTT - Ep. 44: Jim Posewitz 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:05.760 Hey, everybody, Welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.680 I've been O'Brien and in this episode, I'm joined by 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.080 a man that I've wanted to have on this podcast 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.520 since I picked up a microphone to start the thing. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.239 And that made is Jim Posewitz and Jim pozzwits against 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.880 to me and to many others, a conservation legend. If 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.639 you don't know who he is, shame on you, your bastards. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.840 Listen up. He is a legend in Montana. He had 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.320 a thirty two year career at the Montana Department of Fish, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.400 Wildlife and Parks and then doing so, helped create the 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:40.720 Ecological Services Division and help protect his adopted home state 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.720 of Montana at the Rocky Mountain Front, the Yellowstone River 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:49.040 and some groundbreaking tactics to protect these places from development 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.120 of all shapes and sizes. He has a lifelong passion 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:58.080 for writing, and as you're hearing this podcast, pend a 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:00.960 book called Beyond Fair Chase East that was a national 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:06.400 bestseller sold over seven hundred thousand copies, and just wrote 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.560 his autobiography called My Best Shop. And he's a man 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:16.120 that his living the conservation ethic and some of the 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.400 stories he tells in this podcast some of the ways 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.600 he shapes the foundational elements of hunting in our pursuits 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.760 are seminal to what we do. And it's very special 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.360 to me to be able to sit in his home 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.760 and listen to him speak about these issues. I loved it. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.759 And to help out with this conversation, I brought along 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.559 Sam Longern. He's a mediator. He's part of the Mediator 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.480 editorial crew here in Bozeman and is a devotee and 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.840 follower of Mr pos Wits and has talked to him 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:49.720 many times before and and I believe it would help 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:55.480 out with the conversation. So without further ado, please enjoy 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:03.880 Jim posits. Jim, how are you, sir? I have fine, Sam. 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:08.160 How about yourself? I'm doing quite well. We're all doing well. Good, 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:09.880 we're all doing well well. Thanks for having us in 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.280 your home. That's good to good to be in Helena. UM, 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.359 it's good to meet you. Well, my pleasure. Yeah, I 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.799 would like to see the young guard coming to the front. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.120 We're trying to do what we're trying to do our 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.600 best generationally. UM. I always like to to begin some 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.040 of these things with a description of of where we 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.680 are since people can't see where we are, okay, so 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.600 I imagine from sitting in this room that there are 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.240 and already from chatting prior to hitting record, that there 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.440 are a lot of artifacts of your life in this room, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.640 many of them, um, including a giant mule deer in 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.679 the corner. Um. So give us a quick description of 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.400 the rumor sitting in and where we are. People. The 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.480 room we're sitting in was built around UM nineteen o nine, 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.160 and I happened to come across it later in life 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.400 meeting of a organization called the Forever Wild Endowment, and 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.760 the Forever Wild Endowment was having meetings in this room 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:18.400 and uh, this building the this is an add on 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.000 to the building original building, but at the time it 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.240 was owned by Donna Metcalfe Lee Metcalf's widow, and so 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.320 I told her she ever wanted to sell it, I 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:37.080 could use uh Downtown Helena office space. And so that's 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.080 how I came to own the building. Was I bought 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.520 it from the widow of Lee Metcalf and he is, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:46.040 of course one of the inaugural inductees into Montana Outdoor 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.720 Hall of Fame. As you are also a member, I'm 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.800 also a member and and uh, that's a growing cadree 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.920 of cool dudes. I got to write that down. Let 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.120 go over to the podcast early on. Um, there's a 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.080 lot of things in here. You were talking earlier, of 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:06.800 course about your giant yel deer that you killed. So 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.040 give us a quick rundown on this this giant I'm 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.760 gonna take a picture of it. Everybody can see how 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.560 big this thing is. But what year did you kill 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.360 it and where did you stumble across it? Well, I 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:23.479 meticulously hunted it in nifty five. I was twenty years 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.160 old at the time. It was my third year in Montana, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:32.960 third hunting season in Montana, and may have been just 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.000 after January in fifty six of an extended season at 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.960 the extension of the fifty five hunting season. But it 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.719 was on a tributary to the Madison River called Wolf 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:49.240 Creek and what it was. In fact, in my book 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.839 Beyond Fair Chase, I have a little section on the 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.320 two bucks of Wolf Creek, pointing out that I was 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:01.200 a novice hunter. I had excellent hunting conditions on this 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:07.359 particular day. Uh, real cold, late season, lots of snow. 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.800 We struggled just to get to the base of the hill, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.800 and of course up on the hillside at first light, 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:20.279 we saw a number of deer that end. That deer 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:24.320 was in the group, and I had to get above 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.120 them to hunt them. And in the process of getting 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.560 to the ridgeline above these deer so I could approach 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.400 them from the top down and have better cover and 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.440 that kind of thing, I sorted my way through twenty 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.480 some big horn sheep that were also up on that 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:48.640 slope and trying to do it without alarming them, and uh, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:54.520 we're able to succeed successfully do that. I eventually get 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:59.880 above these deer and uh begin to begin the star 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.360 talk and shoot that buck. And he was about halfway 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:09.360 up a wide open slope and uh there was quite 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.599 a slide when he went down, and that slide was 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.039 visible from the road between Ennis and West Yellowstone. I 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.480 know that road. And uh, the game warden saw that slide, 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:29.120 and he when his name was Todd. He was a 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.760 very vigilant game warden, a good guy. So he goes 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:39.800 and uh waits for us to come out. And it's cold, cold, 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.120 and I dragged the deer down to the to the 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.640 jeep and we take the jeep out and of course. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.120 En route, we almost ran into the game warden coming in, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.520 and he was convinced that I had poached a sheep, 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.920 because that's he knew the sheep were there. He saw 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:04.240 the slide coming off the hillside, and uh, I had 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:10.960 everything tagged and punched correctly. And so, with some reluctancy, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:15.400 finally gave into the fact that, Okay, I guess these guys, 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:21.720 these kids really Yeah, and uh, that's kind of the 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:26.560 story and this footnote to the to that one. Uh, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.280 the next season, I shot one in the same drainage, 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.760 almost as big. And those are the two biggest deer 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:38.160 I've shot and sixty some years of hunting. Yeah, this 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.040 is a giant buck. To look at it now, the 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.480 mass it had holes on his main beans really all 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.960 it's times. It's unbelievable. And I take great pride in 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.480 the fact that I never measured it, because I do 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.320 not want to reduce that value of that experience. Yeah, 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.920 to a mathematical number. To me, it wouldn't didn't make 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.320 any sense. It's a tribute to the longevity that was 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.480 available because of the wild country that was in what 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.240 is now the Lead Metcalf Wilderness. And we're sitting in 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:16.520 a building that was once the Metcalf guesthouse. Imagine your 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.320 life has all kind of through lines like that with 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:23.920 various amazing. It's amazing how how that happens. Uh, I 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.040 can give you another satellite story, and I guess you can. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:33.040 We're here for him, keep it coming, okay. UM. When 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:40.240 I was writing the book Uh right for ore on 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:46.480 the twenty nine twelve election of Theodore Roosevelt, and I 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.439 was working with an illustrator who were in ran the 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.400 framing shop and the framing and there's quite a bit 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.240 of Theodore Roosevelt, both in Rifle in Hand plus the 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:03.239 Taking a Bullet. Uh. Both books focused on theater Roosevelt, 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.880 and I write about Theodore Roosevelt shooting his first buffalo 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.640 in eight three on Little cannon Ball Creek and far 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.960 eastern Montana tributary to the Little Missouri. The guy at 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.920 the framing shop says, Uh, you know, there's a guy 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.600 who comes in here from time to time and he 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:28.559 has me frame memorabilia from the original Bull Moose party 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.760 in nineteen twelve. And I said, oh, what's his name? 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:39.320 And he said, well, it's uh Doug Ferris. Well, Theodore 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.760 Roosevelt's hunting guide for the three hunt was Joe Ferris. 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.160 And I come home and I tell my wife Gail, 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.520 I've got to find Doug Ferris. And she said, well, 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.120 let me make some calls. Not kind of surprised me, 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.360 but I said, fine, you know, you have some help. 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.280 We call around. We find Doug fair Us living in 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.679 a rest home about two or three blocks from our 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.480 state capital. I go and we go and have a 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.280 meeting with him, and it turns out to be Joe 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:18.640 Ferris's grandson. Gail wanted to make the phone call because 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.400 he had been her next door neighbor for ten years 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.559 and never made it. The story never, you know, was exchanged, 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.520 and so she had lived next to the grand son 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:35.280 and Theodore Roosevelt's original hunting guy, and there she was 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.960 married to a man writing books on the right. And 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.480 we find them three blocks from the state capital and 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:46.960 the rest home. And uh. One of the other things 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.280 Theodore Roosevelt did locally was he threw the put the 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:56.520 Elkhorn Mountains into the forest system. And when the nineteen 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:01.480 o five it was the hundredth anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.120 who put the four service together. Basically in the nineteen 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:12.480 o five and during his presidency there, and so we 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.920 had a little celebration over here in the myrnal Looid 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.880 which you can see out this window, and we brought 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.920 uh the Forest Service and my organization at the time, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.520 which was Oryan, the Hunter's Institute. We put together an 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:33.120 evening program on the accomplishments of Theodore Roosevelt creating the 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:37.480 national forest system and how we're surrounded by national forests here. 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:43.719 And we invited Doug Ferris to come. And so here's this. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.600 He's on a walker by this time and he's getting 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.160 quite aged, but with Gayle's help, we get him into 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.960 the meeting room, put him in the front row, stand 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:56.960 him up with the help of his walker, and I 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:02.600 tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt and his hunting guy, Joe, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.880 and then introduced the grandson of Joe Ferris, Doug Ferres, 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.720 and he gets a standing ovation. That must have been 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.079 a powerful moment. It was a moment, you know, it's 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.520 a golden moment, Like I said, from in your life 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.600 that you know, the great life that you've led. There's 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.520 there's so many things that you've achieved and done, but 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.559 some of these stories are just the connection that the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.920 community that we're in, you know, is the satellite story. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.520 And now the main event is pretty interesting too. But 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.520 when you have these intersections and trail crossings and things 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.800 like that, yeah, no one that shared these shared experiences, 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:41.920 the shared passion. You have these people that you just 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.319 and total strangers. Yeah. Absolutely, And and that's part of 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:51.160 the the beauty of the North American model of wildlife 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:56.400 relationship we call it, you know, the fact that in 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.160 a democracy, any seeing, any person that wants to can 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:06.880 participate in anything and including the hunt. And that wasn't assured. 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.880 I mean, you look at our founding documents and fish 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.040 and wildlife is not mentioned. It's all about human rights, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:19.560 human liberties and opportunity and all that. But none of 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.680 the founding documents address who's going to own and be 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.800 responsible for the fish and wildlife and who gets to 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.559 be the hunter. That has to be decided by the courts. 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.520 The court system starts arguing about that in eighteen forty 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:42.840 two over New Jersey oyster fishing in the New Jersey Meadowlands, 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:50.520 and they say because of the Declaration of Independence. The 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.240 Court of Supreme co US Supreme Court says this because 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.679 of the Declaration of Independence, the people are the sovereign, 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.720 and those rights and privileges of sovereignty belonged to the people. 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.360 And if the fish and wildlife resources to be managed 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:10.520 as a public trust for their benefit, huge decision. That 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.880 decision was made sixteen years before Theodore Roosevelt was born, 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:22.800 sixteen years after Theodore Roosevelt dies I was born. That's 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.680 the whole show. Here we are of people in a 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:35.200 democracy finding a way to live with, appreciate, enjoy, and 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:40.440 take care of these products of nature. Are you Are 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:46.320 you proud of um hunters? Are you proud of you know, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:47.800 as you sit here today, are you proud of what 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.200 hunters have done? Oh? Absolutely, If you look at the 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.160 record of achievement. I mean we haven't always been you know, 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:00.560 this dance was not done in ballerina slippers, was clogs 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.640 and cloths and hobnails and other things. But you look 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.880 at the end product, something you can actually go out 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.800 and measure, something that is real, and you look at 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:19.720 a wildlife resource that was marvelously restored. When Theodore Roosevelt 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:24.400 shoots this buffalo in three on Little Cannonball Creek, Montana, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:27.960 he was so excited to get one of the last. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.440 North Dakota had their last commercial slaughter in August of 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:37.640 eighty three. T R showed up in September, huntred for 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.480 nine days before he and Joe find this lone wandering bull. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:53.320 Never inside Jake my start in a journey of a 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:59.120 thousand miles across Montana from the eastern border to within 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.080 sight of the Rock Mountain front and back. Yeah, and 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.600 we're the bone yard of a continent. And does that 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.680 define in that period of time? Because he's as you, 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:10.920 you know, the definition of what a hunter is has 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.640 changed many times. There were millions of years of course, 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:18.080 as our human existence has changed and shifted. Do you 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:22.560 feel like the modern hunter was defined in that perilous time? 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:24.800 You know, through we always we have the people we 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.840 know that defined it. But you do do you really 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.880 feel like it was codified in that in those moments? Well, 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.840 it was codified that it was up to the people. 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.040 I mean, this was a public resource to be managed 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.280 as a public trust. And then, like so many other 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:46.359 things in a democracy, government often stumbles and fails and 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.320 and doesn't persist or whatever reason, and then the people 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.280 in a democracy filled the gaps. I mean, I've worked 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.920 with spent twenty five years working with the Cinembar Foundation 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:04.760 and that as an environmental granting group. In our first 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:10.960 year we passed out three grants. This year. In modern times, 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.640 there are over a hundred and forty or fifty applicants 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:20.600 a year just in Montana looking for grants to advance 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:26.800 a conservation or environmental restoration agenda. So that's the proliferation 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.720 of the NGOs. And if you look back at the 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:36.280 history of the idea of wildlife restoration, introduction of the 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:41.240 Sporting Code and conservation, well you're back in seven. It's 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.680 like four years after tr shoots that first Wandering Loan 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:50.280 Last Bull, he forms the Boone and Crockett Club along 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.879 with the Pin Show and George Bird Grennell and others 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:58.040 for the restoration of big game and for the introduction 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:03.080 of the Sporting Code. No, I mean, I think Roosevelt 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.200 at that time was maybe in there's still late twenties. 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:14.399 He lives to be sixty one, but he lives in 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.720 a time when it was the dramatic destruction of the 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:27.720 America's wildlife was most I guess most dramatic. Yeah, I 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.560 mean never there's nothing but bones out there under press 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.600 like that it seemed like in that time for this content, 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.200 at least you have a a group of people come 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.560 over to escape and aristocracy in the European aristocracy, hunting 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.800 was very different, right, Um, I thought it was very different. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:46.520 It was the very elitist activity, and that you know, 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.960 the hunting ethic, what you might call hunting ethic. In 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:55.080 that scenario, as folks journey to the New World, we lost, 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.200 I would I would say, and I hope you would 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.680 agree that we've lost for a time what hunters really 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.480 worked society as we landed here and manifest destiny took 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.800 over and we started pushing west, and you know, the 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:12.480 first step of survival you gotta eat. In that same 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:19.719 time period, in England, poaching was the number one rural crime. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:26.159 Punishment was often death. One English code said it was 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:31.520 ah if a person was convicted of taking so much 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.640 as a hair, they shall have their eyes gouged out. 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.760 In that same period, in Merry Old England, the rocks, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:48.080 the board, the beaver, the uh wolf, and the reign 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:53.960 there when extinct. They were poached to extinction. At the 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.920 same time period that the colonies were being formed, and 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.480 of course when the king was granting colonial lands to 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:07.119 his buddies. They often included the fishings, hawkings, huntings, and foulings, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.280 and so they were trying to take that European model 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:16.640 and dump it. That gets changed by the oysterman. Sixteen 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.680 years later, Theodore Roosevelt is born, and we are stripping 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.240 the continent of all the game because of their commercial value. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:31.639 Market hunting and other uh theories about our relationship with 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.560 the native people's here are probably likewise is valid, but 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:44.919 there was no conservation ethic evident except in various individuals 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.080 at the local level. I mean James and Granville Steward 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.119 right in here. Eighteen sixty, eighteen fifty seven, that was 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:58.440 one year before tr was born. They become territorial legislators 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.720 in eighteen sixty four, and as territorial legislators in sixty 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.520 four they put through a bill restricting fishing to a 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:13.639 hook and line. And I thought, wow, that was good 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.840 because Montana is being settled by miners, and all miners 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:21.640 have dynamite. Thanks. The truth of the matter was that 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:26.520 was before dynamite was invented. They were doing other means 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.080 of getting the fish out with scenes and changing, just 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:32.639 turning the stream course away and drying up the channel 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:38.000 and picking up the fish. And so our territorial legislators 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:44.359 in eighteen sixty four went in restricted angling to taking 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.760 a fish to a hook and line. That was twelve 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.920 years before Custer died at the at the Little Big Horn. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.240 In the seventy two they began trying to set close 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.120 seasons to start protecting the vanishing remnants of wildlife here. 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.679 So the conservation ethic is in the people and in 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.640 the democracy. It's a form of government in which that 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:13.840 expression can live and get nurtured, and uh gets spread 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.840 and adopted. And well, where do you believe that? Looking 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.000 back at Teddy Roosevelt, where you believe do you think 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.239 there's a seminal moment or a point in his life 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.880 where the seed was planted in him? Yeah? He has. 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.760 There's two writings you need to look at. I couldn't 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.560 quite can't quote him from memory here. But in eighty 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.479 three he shoots that first buffalo and he does this 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.960 war dance around the fallen bull. He gives his guy 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.920 Joe Ferris, a hundred dollars in eighteen eighty three. That's 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:51.159 a small fortune house. Oh, for sure. He shoots the 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:55.280 second buffalo in eighteen eighty nine, somewhere on the southern 0:22:55.320 --> 0:23:00.160 border with Montana, Idaho, probably not too far from Yellowstone, 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:07.040 and his observations then are totally different. He talks about 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.560 this soon to be vanished, this remnant of a vanishing race, 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:17.119 and and of course that, uh that was eighty nine. 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.160 By seven he had formed the Boone and Crockett helped 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:24.000 form Boone and Crockett Club for the introducing the Sporting 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:28.360 code and the restoration a big game. Yeah, and uh 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:34.720 so his conservation epiphany occurred in Montana. I think because 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:36.920 there was no fatalism in his writings then. It wasn't 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:41.120 like we're doomed forever. No. No. And the fact that 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.760 all these guys went back to New York State and 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:46.199 he gathered for a Christmas dinner or something of that 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:53.639 nature and decided to take action. And then in seven 0:23:54.640 --> 0:24:00.240 we dedicated to theater Roosevelt Memorial Ranch up us to 0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:05.800 Deployer as a hundred recognition of the hundredth anniversary of 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:16.119 Roosevelt's conservation. Uh, you know, epiphany and all the marvelous 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:19.480 things he did. You know, you set aside a hundred 0:24:19.520 --> 0:24:23.320 and twenty million acres for conservation purposes when he was 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:26.119 in the White House. Do you believe do you believe 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:28.720 you know obviously that that feeling is in the people, right, 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:33.360 the value for the animals, It is instilled in us. Yeah, 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:35.640 it's these are things that are instilled in us. They 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:38.840 may have been a race for a time as we 0:24:38.960 --> 0:24:42.959 battled with natives and if as we you know, treated 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:47.040 our manifest destiny as it as it was a value. Well, 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.840 I think you know in those days, the fact that 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:55.840 you have this conservation ethic sort of latent in the 0:24:55.960 --> 0:25:01.000 human culture and a lack of direct action or leadership 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:04.840 from the top end, you almost see the repetition of 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:07.960 that in current events. As you think about this, I 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:09.280 don't want to get it. I don't want to fast 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:13.520 forward in time too much as you as you're talking 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:16.520 about this, I'm like that that's that's kind of still happening. 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:21.439 I'll sure they're still trying to get rid of public lands, 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.800 you know, or getting oil well drilled in him and 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:30.320 coal mined under him. And and you know when Roosevelt 0:25:30.440 --> 0:25:36.479 was putting this public of state aside, he was adding uh, 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:41.520 national forests and things in Congress past a the law 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:44.960 they made it. It was an attachment to an agg 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.880 appropriations bill. Again, that kind of shenani seems similar to 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:54.440 today identical, but to prohibit him from setting aside any 0:25:54.640 --> 0:26:03.240 national force in Washington, Oregon, Montana, UH, Colorado, and Wyoming 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:07.640 in one other states six or six states anyhow in 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:12.600 this western bloc, and forbid him from setting aside any 0:26:12.680 --> 0:26:17.360 more national forests. Because it was a writer on agg 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:22.320 appropriations bill, they had the votes to override a veto. 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:26.880 He has seven days to sign or veto the legislation. 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:32.920 In those seven days, he creates twenty two national forests 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:38.320 at sixteen million acres to the forest the state signed 0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:42.040 for executive orders doing that and then signing the bill 0:26:42.160 --> 0:26:46.480 from forbidding him from ever doing it again. And then 0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:50.960 after that he started using national monuments to accomplish similar 0:26:51.480 --> 0:26:56.439 game refuges and bison refuge and things and so. And 0:26:56.520 --> 0:27:01.320 he wrote in his autobiography, my opponents hand springs, in 0:27:01.400 --> 0:27:05.880 their wrath and dire, were their threats, which only attest 0:27:05.920 --> 0:27:14.920 to the efficiency of our action. Still appropriate to the moment. Well, 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:19.679 and you fast forward to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Uh 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:23.879 the first ever national Uh was it North American Wildife? 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:29.240 Come North American Wildlife Conference. I was one year old. Yes, 0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:35.160 I didn't go. I was saying I was there. I'll 0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:39.199 tell you what happened. What happened. So that's another you know, 0:27:39.280 --> 0:27:42.120 because because it's enough to have the ethic right, it's 0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:44.440 enough to say that that we believe that these things 0:27:44.480 --> 0:27:47.919 should be taken care of, but it's it's nothing another 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:50.760 thing to develop how we would pay for that, how 0:27:50.800 --> 0:27:55.360 we would care those things. So take folks through, um, 0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:58.439 what happens at that gathering and kind of what what 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:03.440 it becomes. Well gathering produced the National Wildlife Federation a 0:28:03.560 --> 0:28:11.320 citizen and geo because they government needed help. And uh, 0:28:11.520 --> 0:28:16.480 one of the first things they did was to work 0:28:16.640 --> 0:28:21.440 on producing and introducing the Pittman Robertson Act, which would 0:28:21.440 --> 0:28:25.399 tax firearms and ammunition. And the beauty of that moment 0:28:25.600 --> 0:28:29.040 was the gun manufacturers were lined up with the sportsmen 0:28:30.080 --> 0:28:33.280 in pursuit of the conservation as ethic that would restore 0:28:33.400 --> 0:28:39.880 big game across the entire continent. That went from introduction 0:28:39.920 --> 0:28:44.720 to the President's signature in ninety days for lat and Uh, 0:28:45.720 --> 0:28:48.640 it was Yeah, that was it seems to me like 0:28:48.680 --> 0:28:51.680 a huge difference. Yeah, I mean, it seems if something 0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:55.000 like that were to happen today, if two thousand conservationists 0:28:55.320 --> 0:28:59.680