WEBVTT - Ep. 072: American Wilderness 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.680 bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening un podcast. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.520 You can't predict anything presented by first light. Go farther, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:30.560 stay longer. UM. All right, So right now we're sitting 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.239 in uh in what do you call this place? We're 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:38.880 in Albuquerque Regional Headquarters. Yeah, this is the Southwestern Regional Office, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.640 the Southwestern Regional Office of the US for US Service. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.239 Do you guys mind going around and saying like what 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.440 you do and what like what your job titles are. 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.360 So I'm Jerry Monzingo. UM, I'm Wildlife Fishing and rare 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:55.040 plant program manager on the Healand National Forest which is 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.440 in southwest New Mexico. And you grew up doing a 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:02.200 little fur trapping. I did? I did? Yeah? Um. When 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.640 growing up, I lived along the HeLa River, which is 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:13.320 headwaters are in the HeLa Wilderness. And my grandpa started 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.080 me out, um probably when I was ten eleven years old. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:22.640 UM gave me three old number two Victor long springs 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.480 that were the springs were just about warring out um, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.280 and that and that started me. I walked to the 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:34.080 river from the house, set out a few traps um. 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.640 And then of course for what muskrats, no coons, raccoons, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:44.800 gray fox, the occasional bobcat, lots of skunks. Um. Occasionally 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.440 you're saying ring ring tales. Yeah, what was like, what 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.400 what's the market like for those bads? You know, that 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.920 was back when fur prices were good. Fur prices were 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.960 good then, Um, you know ring tales were twelve bucks 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.480 a little gray fox was worth Yeah. I started trappling 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.880 right at the tail end of the super good fur prices. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.240 And it was the same single spring number one, single spring, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.160 single long spring victors that that launched me into the biz. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.480 But then you also came out like, ah, you came 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.720 out of a mining family. I did. Yeah. Um, my 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.720 dad worked at the local copper mine. Um, all my life, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.000 that's you know, that's all he knew was the copper mine. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.040 I think he ended up when he retired. It was 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.919 thirty six years at the copper mine. I spent a 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.160 three and a half year stint at the copper mine. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.840 In about a year into that, I figured that wasn't 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.720 for me. Um, it was shift work. I had grown 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.880 up with that my whole life, and a graveyard shift 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.880 around my house me and my sister is always left 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.760 because you know, when somebody's trying to sleep during the 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:52.640 middle of the day and a bunch of kids running 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.880 around the house. Um, and even if it even if 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.320 it wasn't us that woke him up, um, we got blamed. 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.120 So we just it away from the house. I stayed 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:07.320 at the river, fishing, trapping, whatever, just to be clear 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.320 of home, just to be clear of home. And then 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.399 you didn't you mind for you did mining for three years. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.440 I did three and a half years UM and then 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.520 when up going from that into school and came up 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.960 through wildlife mild right. Yeah, when I got out of 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.359 UM high school, what I wanted to do was get 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.240 a degree in wildlife management for sua a career with 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.679 a state agency. At that time, about the time when 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.600 I graduated, the mind shut down. My family was always 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.440 very serious about not being in debt, so really the 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.920 only place that they could afford for me to go 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.560 to school was the local university, which was thirty miles away. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.760 That university didn't offer a degree in wildlife management, nothing 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.600 really even close. So it is a typical seventeen year 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.040 old that thinks they know best. Um, I decided I 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.200 wasn't going to go to college, and my mom decided 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.680 for me that I was. So I went to the 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.760 local college got a associate's degree in welding technology. And 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.040 prior to that, during high school, um the summers and 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.040 during and during the college, I had worked for a 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:17.840 local ranch um in hayfields, working cattle. I got out 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.599 of college with that degree, I went back to the 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.440 ranch for two two years, a little over two years, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.600 making twenty five bucks a day, fourteen sixteen hour days, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.080 sometimes seven days a week, like around what time, what 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.240 year was at oh eighty. I worked at the ranch 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:38.280 in the summers from about eighty one until eighty four 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.159 when I graduated, and then I went back to work 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.400 for a little over two years solid about eighty five 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.440 eighty six. So now when you like, as a as 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.640 a biology is now working, how far from where you 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.400 grew up are you now that you work for the 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.000 Forest Service? Like how close and what proximity to all 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.760 where you were trapping and growing up and and mining 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.120 is your work now? Like right there? Yeah, it's right there. Yeah, 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.440 So I grew up in a Do you work now 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.920 in places you were familiar with as a kid? Yeah? Yeah, 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.800 you know, I didn't do a whole lot of hunting 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.200 and all on the National Forest growing up, um, and 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.800 we gathered fuelwood there to heat our house. I grew 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:24.240 up hunting with my my grandfather, um on my mom's side, 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.320 because my dad just my dad wasn't an outdoorsman, and 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.000 my grandfather's family had settled in the cliff La Valley, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.240 you know, in the late eighteen hundreds, um, along the river, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.640 and so he he knew all the local folks that 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.479 had been there a long time. He you know, it 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.159 was friends with the large land owners, the ranchers. So 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.520 my early time was hunting private property. I mean I 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.039 fished some on the National Forest, um, because it was 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.919 you know, an hour's drive and hike basically into the 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.200 heel of wilderness from my house where I grew up. UM. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.800 So I did spend a lot of time along the 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.560 river in the forest, but most of my early hunt 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:13.200 and all was done um on private land. Yeah. How 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:15.679 long you've been with the Forest Service now? Twenty two years? 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.720 I was twenty two years. Yeah, long time and on 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.960 the same forest for twenty two years, which is very 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.040 you don't see that very often people stay in that long. 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.120 But it's I love the country, I love my job, um, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.400 and I really have no desires to go somewhere else. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.040 If you're doing good work, I leave. Yeah, now, Beyord, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.880 you're from far off. Yeah, I grew up in Seattle. Yeah. 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:46.880 Where How did you come to be here and do 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.919 what you're doing? I was a long, long journey. I 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.000 you know, I grew up playing on public lands in 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.920 the Northwest. You know, my dad was before he had 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.000 me and my my brother and sister, was an alpine climber. 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.320 Climbed all over the world. Yeah, so a guy. I 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.400 think he was like on the on the cusp of 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.520 doing some pretty big things. And you know, as as 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.800 things go in the mountains, never never quite pulled off 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.120 some of these big climbs. But so he instill in 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.680 that's really early, this kind of ethic of or passion 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.440 for the outdoors, and was dragging us all over the 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.520 Cascades growing up. And so have many a fond memory 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.240 of camping trips and backpacking all over the place growing up. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.640 And so left Seattle when I was eighteen after after 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:28.360 get out of high school, went to school on the 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.200 East Coast. Um had an interest in environmental issues due 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.120 to that upbringing and and you know, growing up in 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.160 Seattle and just hearing a lot about Yeah, there's a 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:36.840 lot of interest that part of the world, as I'm 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.520 sure you know about environmental issues and sustainability and it's 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.280 kind of a weird, like I'm not a climber, but 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.920 it's it's a real next is for the climbing world. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.560 It is, it is. I mean there's some some really 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.720 famous folks who uh yeah, who who grew up there, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.160 um lived there today in the in the climbing world, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:55.800 alpine climbing in particular. You think you talked about rock 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.560 it's them down in Yosemite. And he spent a lot 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.000 of time down there too. But yeah, well international, yeah, 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:06.680 exactly exactly. So Um anyway, went to school, studied, uh 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.040 studied environmental studies as an undergrad had a kind of 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.600 interest in international applications of that that sort of feel 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:15.960 to study. And so along the way, I spent about 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.640 a year in China. I went to grad school and 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.760 and uh did an environmental science degree, And based on 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.960 my experience in China, wanted to get some other exposure 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.920 in India being another huge kind of developing country. You 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.520 know that's going to be um amazingly significant on the 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.000 world stage and in the context of environmental issues. And UM, 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.280 during my time abroad, you know, what I really missed 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.360 was was the outdoors, you know, in our public lands. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.160 And and so I did a lot of reflecting. I 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.640 missed my family and friends too, of course, and I 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:48.760 was meeting experts who had spent their whole lives abroad, 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.280 their whole adult lives anyway, and UM, it just kind 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.199 of concluded, this is not the lifestyle that I want 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.559 to live. And UM, I think, you know, there's a 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:57.560 lot of good, important work that we can be doing 0:08:57.960 --> 0:08:59.960 at home. So I kind of did this mental ship 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:01.400 in terms of where I thought I was going to 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.400 be taking my career. Came back and had an opportunity 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.040 to to start up with the Forest Service in Washington 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.560 d C. I was joked, that's like a backwards career path. Um. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.720 You know, looks like Jerry started in the field on 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.520 a national forest and UM, you know those who aspire, um, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.040 worked their way up to d C towards the end 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.480 of their careers and had the chance to start out 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:25.240 there and fascinating experience. Met a lot of really great 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.040 people who had rich careers and turned around after two 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.920 years there and went um did a brieft in eastern 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.720 Washington on the Calville National Forest, and then went down 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.800 to the Cleveland National Force in southern California for about 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.520 four or five years before coming out to Albuquerque. And 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.960 part of your deal like just say caves, caves. Yeah, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.600 So I'm I'm the regional program manager for a wilderness, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.880 wild sink, rivers and caves and and it's kind of 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.200 an odd, odd grouping of programs at face value, but 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.920 the rationale behind it is that we have um federal 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.199 law that protects each of these resources. And so I'm, 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.360 in essence the specialist um protect our special places within 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.360 the region. That's that's my job. In a nutshell, what 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.160 does the law that protects caves? Like, I know, like 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:07.839 when you say, when you say wilderness, so as we're 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:09.840 gonna we're gonna as we're gonna be discussing it today 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.559 when we say wilderness, like we're talking about wilderns of 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:17.000 the Capital w like federally designated wilderness. We'll get into 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.840 what that is. But and wild and scenic rivers that's 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.000 its own piece of legislation. Right when we when we 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.240 designate generally a stretch of river, right, explain it and 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.439 explain the cave thing, and how like what kind of 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.120 administration occurs around caves. I I had no idea there 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.719 was anything like that. Yeah. So so, yeah, wilderness is 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.480 actually kind of the odd odd one out in that bunch, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.679 in the sense that it's just a broader landscape that's 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.800 gets protected where you have rivers and caves that are 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.280 discrete resources. And so wild Rivers um So that Wild 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:53.120 Rivers Act passed in nine, basically allows Congress to designate 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.600 stretches of free flowing so you know, rivers that are 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.679 free of dams and other impoundments and diversions, rivers that 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.959 have um hy degree of water quality, and what we 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.240 call outstandingly remarkable values. Um So, these really, when you 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.880 look at a regional or national context, these really special values. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.800 They might be fisher widlife species, that might be a recreation, 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.680 They might be scenery or geologic resources. And so there's 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.760 got to be something about that free flowing river that 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.920 has really kind of really specially unique qualities. And so 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.760 we placed that protection over it. Wild sc Rivers Act 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.760 really in a in a nutshell, um it prohibits damn 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.160 building is the biggest, most direct thing any kind of 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:30.120 any kind of firk hydroelectric type of project is outright prohibited. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.040 And then we have this mandate as managers to protect 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.640 that free flowing condition, to protect water quality and protect 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:42.760 those outstandingly remarkable values. That was next. So that was 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:44.960 kind of they're both in that era of really significant 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.280 major environmental legislation being passed in this country, and you 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.240 get into the seventies and you have you know, the 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.280 Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.559 and so I was really the heyday of these big 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.760 and Nixon that's right, yeah, SA, of course, yep, yep. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.320 And then right down the caves, you because I didn't 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.240 know there's any kind of special there's like a there's 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.079 like a protective designation for caves, that's right. So there's 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.440 a Federal Cave Resources Protection Act, kind of like the 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.920 Wild Stink Rivers Act, and it basically says that or 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.800 Congress has the ability. Actually actually in this case, Congress 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:17.920 doesn't have the ability. They differ. They delegate that to 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.160 the agency to to identify and protect significant caves. And 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.280 so it's similar to wild sink rivers. It's these caves 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:29.160 that have some special unique value to them again recreation, wildlife, um, 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.280 scientific values. And so that law, once we designate as 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.240 an agency these caves is significant. We have to protect. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.600 We're required by a lot of protective special values. Got you. Yeah, 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.480 how many stretches of river have our wild scenic rivers 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.840 because that's all over the country. Yeah, Like I used 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.520 to fish small mouth on one a stretch of the 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.080 Delaware River, Yeah, which is like very you know, I 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:59.079 mean it's houses, cottages, right, So it's not like wilderness 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:03.440 is so wilderness designations Like a criticism is that they're 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.760 all high country in the not a criticism, but like 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:09.559 when someone looks at the scope and it feels like 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.600 a very Western issue because they're in these like very 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.600 remote areas in the mountains generally at higher altitude. But 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.440 in the wild scenic rivers, man, I mean they're all 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.840 over the plaster or the east, you know. Yeah, we 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:23.680 shake with wilderness. It's like the rock and ice, you know, 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.680 back in the day where there were no other you know, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.599 really immediately accessible economic values, and so they were remote, undeveloped, 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.200 and it's a lot of the early wilderness where these 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:33.800 kind of rock and ice type of places, and there 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.400 are people doing good work to try to diversify the system. 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.880 So we have representative set of ecosystems that you know, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.000 are are protected as wilderness. And like you said, rivers 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.200 um a little different all over the country. Off the 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:46.559 top of my head, you know, because it's spent all 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.840 my time thinking about the southwest UM. I don't know 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.520 the number of rivers designated UM, you know, but it's 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.600 not even it's not whole rivers, so it's segments. So 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.160 we have one here in New Mexico and the Rio 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.280 Chama that designate wild Stink River and it's right between 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.800 two dams. Yeah. But but again in that stretch, you know, 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.040 there are no effects to the free flow, so the 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.480 river is free to do its thing, meander across the landscape. 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.040 You know, you go through those channel formation processes and 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.480 UM has a whole slew of outstanding they remarkable values. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.000 And so that's kind of a unique thing people always 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:21.640 talk about, like that's kind of weird. It's you know, 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.120 it's a river that's damn controlled, but you call it 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.600 free flowing and it's not about UM. You're looking at 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.200 the entirety of the river. Itself. I mean, there are 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.080 very few rivers in the West that would be free 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.960 flowing for their full duration, the HeLa maybe being one 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.800 of them. Is there a river that is protected from 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:43.000 its headwaters all the way down to the mouth or confluence, 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.960 not in the Southwest? Um? I would? I would? I 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.040 would say, I mean, I can let me typ step 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.600 back in The reason the Wild Sink Rivers Act passed 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.960 was really a response to this this heyday of damn 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.600 building and kind of the early and middle part of 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.160 the twentieth century, the exactly the Floyd Domini area. And 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.000 so there have been a lot of damns built by 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.400 the time the Act passed. And so I again, that's 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.720 a question. I I you know, stuff I should probably know, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.640 but I would. I would hazard a guess that we 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.520 might have something in Alaska, But I'm not aware of 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.760 anything in the lower forty eight because there was so 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.640 much river development. And that's not to say it doesn't exist, 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:18.520 just not off the top of my head. But we 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.520 went through so much river development before we got to 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.440 that point in sixty eight when Congress passed that act that, um, 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.480 you know, it was about protecting some of these really 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.000 high value segments that we had left at that we're 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.160 not yet developed. Yeah, I want to get into I 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.760 want to move on and introduce Carl, but reintroduced Carl. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.680 But I want to get into like what was going 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.760 on why so much of this stuff came out of 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.640 the sixties. Yeah, and like what was happening culturally at 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.920 the time. But Carl. Yeah, Now, Carl joined us before. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.520 He's been on the show a couple of times and 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.480 then joined us before and told the fascinating story of 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.800 the Wisconsin supersow. That's right? Is that what it's called? 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.160 Wisconsin super Soo, Wisconsin super sow and um, but yeah, 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.560 just revive people's memories on what what your story is. Yes, 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.920 I work here in the Southwestern Regional Office. I'm the 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.520 regional wildlife Ecologist. Um. The cliff Notes version of my 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.800 journey to this agency is growing up in northwest Lower Peninsula, Michigan, 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.960 for getting a little fur trapping, a little bit, getting 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.480 really good at doing chores for private landowners. Um. And 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.840 I had a a platte book that I pasted pages 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.520 of on the wall and took a highlighter and drew 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.280 outlines around the properties where I had obtained permission to 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:39.040 hunt fish camp trap and really didn't have easy access 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.240 to public land. So I was bailing hay, doing chores, 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.560 um splitting wood, and over time I accumulated what in 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:49.960 hindsight now looks a lot to me like a map 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.080 of a national forest where have little in holdings where 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.600 you don't have access, especially those eastern nationally crazy on 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.800 maps right. Um. And then I went to college for 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.440 natural resources program. I too spent some time working overseas 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.960 in China as I was working on my PhD, and 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:12.720 through that experience realized that we are way luckier here 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.480 in this country than I had acknowledged growing up. And 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.080 as I was finishing up grad school and considering different 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.800 career tracks, UM, I became increasingly interested in getting involved 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.719 with our public land system. So once I wrapped up 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.000 my my degree at the University of Wisconsin and Madison, 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.560 UM I looked west of the Mississippi, really zeroed in 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.000 on states that had a very high ratio of public 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:44.199 land to population. And uh, my wife, who also grew 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.159 up in Michigan, was interested in states where the winners 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.639 weren't quite as long and gray and rugged. And so 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:56.159 those two key criteria helped us really zero in on 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:58.840 the Southwest and on New Mexico in particular. So we 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:04.800 moved down here in late and started working for the U. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.000 S d A. Forest Service on the Lincoln National Forest. 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.920 And during my relatively short tenure with the organization, I've 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.040 had a chance to work at our Washington office headquarters, 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.159 um work at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and now 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.960 I'm based here out of the regional office. And the 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.720 position covers eleven National forests between Arizona and New Mexico, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.040 and then there are also four National Grasslands administered by 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.679 the CIBOLA, and those also fall under the purview of 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.240 the position. I have. So anything related to wildlife monitoring 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.320 on a scale that expands beyond a single forest would 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.439 be something I would work on. As an example. And 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.439 you drew a bull moose tag in Idaho, man, I 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.360 got I gotta say so. One of the things, aside 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:52.920 from a lot of public land, one of the things 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.080 that drew me to New Mexico was the ability to 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.120 hunt elk, mule, deer, and pronghorn. Growing up in Michigan 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.840 all about white tails. I love white sales. White tail 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.919 hunting is amazing, don't get me wrong, But you know, 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.119 reading all the Western hunting magazines growing up, I was like, God, 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.720 I would love to be able to chase this diversity 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.400 of big game. So I moved to New Mexico. And 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.239 my strategy with applying for big game tags here. You know, 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.480 you get three choices in New Mexico. I put choices 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.919 that are great for first and second, and then my 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.359 third choice is always just please give me a tag. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.280 So my third choice elk tag is the tag I've 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.560 drawn every year. I've had an archery elk hunt every 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:34.919 year I've been here. And then this year I failed 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.600 to draw an elk hunt, and I was so sour. 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:39.880 You know, It's like I moved west to hunt elk 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:41.719 and now I do not have an elk tag. And 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:44.159 it turns out there is no better cure for not 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:50.680 drawing an elk tag than to draw moose tag. You know. Uh, 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.119 just quick thing I'll add man here about like the 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.479 Platt books. When I was a kid, I worked like 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.920 I I hunted a trap Mosqueton County, Ottawa County, nue 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.639 Ego County, and and there they have township um and 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.480 townships or six miles by six miles, And Plat books 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.400 would come in township plat books or no, you get 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.080 a county, but to be broken down. And I remember 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.840 going around like I would identify. I would go through 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.560 plat books, identify every place I wanted to where I 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.800 wanted my trap lines, and I would make a list 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.480 on a legal pad. And my old man would, you know, 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.320 late summer every year, just as a favor, would get 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.399 on the phone and he grew up doing sales, you know, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.919 because he was an insurance salesman. He would get on 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:33.880 the phone and just work that list. And I mean 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:38.240 he would score, Like if I put a name down, 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.560 he would get on the phone and right away would 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.440 be like some he'd find some connection to church whatever, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.960 fraternal organizations ain't something, you'd find some connection. He would 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.000 just check them off. And I had yeah, and I 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.760 would put that up in my little trapper area, had 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.560 all those plat maps, all my property circle, and it 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.800 was like, yeah, you'd build out a thing. And that 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:01.400 One of the things that drew me to public land 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:06.600 was the amount of sort of administrative duties surrounding maintaining 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.480 like a network of properties. And then when you would 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.000 look at these states that had like a bunch of 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:16.280 public landing realized, Oh my god, what a shortcut did 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.560 you just have? Like this? This? Uh, you know this 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.760 is right to go out there and be out there, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.080 and that's it. No one, no one can tell you know, 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:28.800 as long as you're a law abiding person, no one 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.199 can tell you no. Um. But yeah, So back to 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.639 have a quick question, Carl. Have you stepped foot on 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:40.080 all those forests and grasslands that you oversee? Now, No, 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.320