WEBVTT - Ep. 132: Sheep on the Mountain 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.280 This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.320 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:26.720 can't forget anything, all right, I want to get to 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:28.720 I want to do all the introductions and explain where 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.840 we're at. But first I've a quick question, is based 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.720 off of painting that I just ran into in the 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.360 entryway of the Wild Cheap Foundation. Um do wolves get 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.880 after big horns? I think I think, um mountain line 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:45.839 and clay mountain line probably a little bit more of 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.959 a problem, certainly in the lower forty eight, But yeah, 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.520 wolves definitely into a thin horn habitat and and big 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.200 time up in BC and in Alberta. You bet. It 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:57.920 just seems like they, I don't know, man, just feels 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.480 like like a little bit out of there, like that 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.160 kind of country, seems a little bit out of their 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.240 area of expertise. But they've him in the winter or 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.520 what the big horn like down here in lower forty 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.160 eight in the winter, Well they'll they'll hit them different 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.160 times of a year. But yeah, absolutely, Uh further south 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.440 desert big horns. She has great just referenced mountain lions 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.440 are a little bit tougher, tougher on sheep than wolves, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.880 but uh, yeah, it's uh, it's a tough place to 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:28.920 make a living. Have there been cases where Mexican gray 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.720 wolves have killed desert big horns. Don't know about that yet, 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.880 you know, I don't. I don't have any documentation of that. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:39.440 I have not heard that, but I'm sure they would. Yeah. Man, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.800 it seems like a formidable like when you when you 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.600 factor the topography and then just like the horns structure 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.600 and stuff, it seems like a formidable foe. They really are. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.040 If you if you look at the way the animals built, 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:56.920 you know, the way their eyes are positioned on their heads. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.520 If you look at these mounts in this room, just 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.960 just look it. You know how much they see. Uh, 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.400 you know, their greatest defense. They see a long ways, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.679 a lot further than than we do. If you look 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.639 at the country in which they live, it's the topography 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.799 is tough. There's always escaped terrain and places for those 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.639 animals to escape. So you know they've survived. Uh, they've 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.440 adapted and and learned to deal with predator issues through time. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.760 But yeah, it's it's tough. There's a if you're there's 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.080 a guy I can't remember his name, the professor at 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.920 University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and he wrote like a 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.440 natural history book about Alaska, and in and he talks 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.040 about an eyewitness account of a friend of his who 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:48.800 watched a single Linx chase a doll ram donna, gully, 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.200 jump on its back and kill it with a bike 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.240 to the basement's neck. Yep, a lynx who's like a 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.359 snowshoe hair specialist. Well, it's just not it's it's not 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.400 just the four legged predators either. You have eagles and 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:05.280 and other things. In fact, I've observed firsthand golden eagles. 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.520 I was hiking an area one time, uh, working with sheep, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.640 and in overhead I saw a lamb go by it. 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.640 No really, Oh yeah, so it's it's not just the 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.920 four legged prey. That's pretty nuts. I heard that they 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:23.960 kill them, But then though they carried him off, I 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.160 thought they just like ran them off. They somehow scared 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.000 him or spooked him or ran them off ledges and 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.840 then killed him. Yeah, observed it firsthand. They picked them up. 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.800 You know, they're small, tiny, a little lamb, Yeah, exactly. 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.800 We watched a golden eagle spend twenty minutes working over 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:47.560 a bull elk. Here's two gold two working over a 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.880 bull dive bomb in his head. And you could tell 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.080 us boy did not like he was agitated. Man, I've 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.480 flown surveys and almost had them land in the helicopter 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.960 with you, and they are a huge all right, so 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.000 we we should probably so, Like I said, we're at 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.560 the you guys called the World Headquarters, World Headquarters, Wildchief Foundation, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.560 World Headquarters, Wild Cheap Foundation, Bozeman, Montana. Still in Bozeman, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:16.360 Still in Boseman. It's almost almost Belgrade and almost four corners, 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.800 but it's it's a Bozeman address. So if I write 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.919 you a letter, I proposeman, Um, let's go around do uh, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.080 let's go around to introductions. We'll do it like I 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.520 like to do it, as though I'm dealing cards. And 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.760 so you're up. Uh. Garrett Longs on the marketing and 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:38.040 communications director here Uh Exhibits and sponsors manager, store manager, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.200 UM what else? Cre you clean? Toilet clean toilets um 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.640 on a frequent basis. And I came over here just recently, 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.480 about three months ago. I previously was the conservation leader 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.040 over at Sitka UM sick of gear just down the road, UM, 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.480 and came over here to just do real conservation work, 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.920 and it's been a blast. Man, it's been pretty cool. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.839 So you guys probably have a you probably had a 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.159 relationship with this organization when you were there, because I 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.000 know Sake of does a lot of stuff in support 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.119 of Yeah, so so my job there it was actually 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.240 kind of inverse. So what it is here. I I 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.919 took in all the contracts, conservation contracts, and decided what 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.440 we spent money on prioritized conservation organizations. So it was 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.160 great actually coming to the Wild Cheap Foundation because they 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.360 were one of one of the groups that I use 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.120 as an example, you know, going through like forms and 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.840 things like that with other organizations like hey, this is 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.960 what we're looking for. These are the type of projects 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.440 we want to fund, um all that kind of stuff. 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.440 So it was pretty cool getting a call from Gray 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.159 But yeah, I had worked with them a lot, and 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:38.680 then I still work with them over there a lot 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.960 too because they support us very heavily. That's great, Go ahead, 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.360 sir uh Clay Brewer. I'm the Big Horn program lead 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.240 UH conservation director for the Wild Chief Foundation. I worked 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.839 for almost thirty years Texas Departs and while off department 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.640 was the did a lot of things. Was the the 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.000 big Horn mule deer prong horn guy for years. UH 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.360 served in various leadership roles. UH actually served as the 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.599 interim Widlife director for a year and a half and 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.880 and UH So my experience I have UH primarily on 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.719 the ground experience. UM, I'm not necessarily enamored with these 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.760 sorts of things that we're doing here today. I've I've 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.320 spent my life out in the middle of nowhere, and 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.479 I enjoy that that aspect of it. So UH, I 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:29.440 spent the majority of my my career restoring cheap big 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.359 horn cheap in Texas. They were extrapated by about nineteen sixty, 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.200 and so through our efforts that as late as nineteen 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.000 sixty and then got extrapated. The last documented sighting of 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.520 a native Texas big horn occurred October of nineteen fifty eight. 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.520 In the series D you have Little Mountains, which is 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.400 a little bit south of U of the Guadaloupe Mountains. 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.600 Usually we're talking about something vanishing. It's twenty years earlier. 0:06:54.440 --> 0:07:00.719 Nineteen sixty was what what we guess. Anyway, So after that, UH, 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.120 lots of work, lots of transplants, lots of things, going on. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.080 But uh, bighorns sheep at late eighteen hundred population levels 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:13.840 right now, was anybody okay? In nineteen sixty in Texas 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.640 after the last one vanished? Was it? What a day 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.160 later they started recovery? I mean, were they were already 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.480 paying attention to it as they were on their way out. Well, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.600 there was a guy hired in the forties and uh, 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.040 this is a guy by the name of Birch Carson. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.960 He was hired to document the decline a bighorn cheap 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.520 in Texas. And so today, well I give I'll give 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.040 you my experience. I was a younger guy then and 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.280 and was hiking through the mountains and it was actually, uh, 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.080 we we did and still got all of our own 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.320 sheep hunts. So I was preparing the first first had 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.720 a sheep hunter coming here. You mean the state guys, 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:52.840 State of Texas. Yes, and you guys give out how 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.680 many tags every year? Well it varies down now fifteen 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.840 sixteen seventeen tags every year. So we've come along ways. 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.400 So if you draw a big horn tag in Texas, 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.080 you go out and hunt with a you go out 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.880 or guided by a state biologist. Or well, if you 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.520 buy a state tag. Uh, they're also private landowner tags. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.640 That's a little bit different. Um. Some some hunters prefer 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.040 to bring their own their own guide, which which is fine. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.360 We like that too. Um it makes us no difference. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.480 But uh so anywather you you asked me about the 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.480 did they see it coming? And and um, Texas was 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.800 no different than the rest of the states where you 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.920 you hear about the domestic sheep issues. And we lost 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.200 our sheep for the very same reasons. And so a 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:43.280 guy by the name of Birch Carson was hired in 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.000 the forties to document the disappearance of big horn sheep 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.400 in Texas. And so I was getting ready for sheep hunt, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.600 and I was hiking along that It was in January, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.600 and it was pretty cool, cool in the mountains, and um, 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.080 so I was. I was walking down the ridge, and 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.200 I decided to get off the ridge and I started 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.640 hiking down a deer trail. And so I walked the 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.240 deer trail for a ways and I came into an opening, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.360 a small bowl in the bottom of these three just 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.880 three knobs around and and he got steel. The wind 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:15.880 stop blowing and it got steel. And I thought, man, 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.520 this would be a great place to eat my lunch, 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.320 took my pack frame off, sat out on the ground. 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.000 I looked over on the ground. It said there was 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.240 a carving in the rocket. It said W. B. Carson, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.360 sheep inspector in ninety And so he became a hobby 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.680 of mine. Uh. I spent a lot of time by myself, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.320 and so I started looking for these things. And every 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.440 time I thought I was the only human being to 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.120 ever see this, I would look around on the ground 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:43.480 and I would find another carving and it would say 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.080 cheap inspector, Uh Burt W B. Carson. And so I 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.640 found caves the guy lived in. There's one. There's a 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.520 cave in the Texas Mountains where the guy's clothes are 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.640 still hanging in the cave today. And so so he 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.079 documented the decline. That's nuts man, That's like Boone and 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:06.280 Boone's day, right through names on. Oh, it's it's it's 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.679 interesting history. There there's a a guy named Bob Anderson. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:16.959 You guys are probably familiar with great rams one to three. Um. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.800 He became interested in in Birch Carson and so he uh, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.760 he actually wrote a book, He's got one. I wrote 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.440 the forward for his book and and Uh, he never 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.480 has published it. He hadn't done anything with it, so 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:32.680 he's trying to figure out who his audience was. But 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.199 it's called something like the Desert Wonder or something like that. 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.800 So the guy was a taxidermist and just interesting history. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.200 World War two veteran. Uh was injured in World War 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.400 Two and came back and hiked those mountains with a 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:52.080 limp and so, you know, pretty rough country. So uh 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.679 So a short time later, in the mid fifties, there 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.560 was a cooperative agreement developed between the the at that time, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.720 the Texas Game Fish and I wish your commission um 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.720 boone and Crockett Club, Arizona Game and Fish Department. Uh, 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.679 I'm trying to remember who else Wildlife Management Institute. Uh 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.800 we brought sheep in from Arizona and uh try and 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.040 in the early years there, uh you know, in the 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.959 early nineteen hundreds, like most jurisdictions, it was people focused 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.599 on protections. Uh there were like in Texas nineteen o 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.280 three there was a hunting prohibition enacted and so then 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.360 then in the mid fifties it was propagation. Um. You know, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.760 there's always a joke running around in those days. Most states, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.640 the Desert Bighorn Council was formed in the fifties because 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.679 every state was in the same boat. And uh, some 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.720 people would have you know, they only had two sheep left, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:49.640 and they knew him by name, you know, and Bob 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.680 didn't feel so well. It was it was kind of 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.480 the joke, the running joke, and so so anyway, so 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.600 propagation efforts were implemented in the mid nineteen fifties and 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:07.439 and since that time, UH two seven while sheeper translocated 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.280 to Texas. Uh coming out of Arizona, no different places. 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.079 I'm sorry, and I think I think I have those 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.560 numbers wrong. It's more like it's it's it's uh. I 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.880 think a total of a hundred and seven came from Nevada, 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.640 thirty one from Arizona, six from Mexico, and too from Utah. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:28.040 So that's the lineage of of today's desert bighorn populations 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.040 in Texas. And so, uh so we worked together. We 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:36.840 we traded. In the early years, we traded Arizona, UH 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.320 four pronghorn they they had, they were short on pronghorn 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.400 at that time. Texas had plenty of prong horns. So 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:47.160 we would swamp animals and and more recently, I can 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.360 tell you I was at a in in those days. 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.800 The it was a finale convention, and people were coming 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.200 by my booth from the state of Nevada, and so 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.720 we're pretty upset with Texas. And I couldn't figure out why, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.439 what the what the story was, and I thought, man, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.640 just having a bad day. And so later on, I, uh, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.720 I was reading newspaper and the headlines with letters about 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.040 three inches big said state of Nevada trades turkeys for 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:18.719 big orange sheep. And so the the the Nevadas were 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.839 not real happy about that trade, and and so but 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.040 if it if it were not for that, then none 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.880 of us would have any wildlife. Um, and so as 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.319 as time went on in our case, Uh, what's interesting 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.440 about that is the landowners. You know, we had problems 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:41.680 with with disease issues in the thirties and and lost 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.960 all of our sheep later on. It was a slow progression, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.240 we lost those sheep. And so we worked Texas a 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.280 private landowners state, uh ninety seven percent privately owned, but 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.760 uh domestic sheep. Landowners raised domestic sheep. And then later 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.719 on the land the very landowners that we worked with, 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.240 that where the problems occurred years ago. Are the very 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.600 same landowners that helped us restore sheep today their descendants 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.320 and so we did that together. And so, like I said, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.920 today we're probably eighteen hundred animals. Um, so we've surpassed 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.320 the late the late eighteen hundred population levels and and 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:26.200 numbers continue to spandu expand populations continue to grow, and 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.800 so so far, so good. Uh but it only took 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.920 you know, sixty years or so or seventy years for 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.520 that to happen. Start figuring out. Yeah, we'll dig into 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.160 that whole story called Bunch's interesting and then honest of course, 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.800 go ahead. Scott Peckham, I'm the big game ecologist for 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.400 the Confederated Tribes of the Matila Indian Reservation in northeast 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.920 Oregon in southeast Washington. So I work on anything pur 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.920 view of the big game headline and uh so wear 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:57.840 a lot of hats. I should tell you all about 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.320 the Elk tag I drew. That would be good. I 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:06.400 heard extreme in the southeast corner of the state. You 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.960 know it real well. Points I've seen some big animals 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.400 in that part of the country. But I know people 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.320 that really know, really well. I know the sheep country 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.800 better than the Elk country there, but I do see 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.400 big bulls in there when I'm doing sheep work. So 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.080 so you you focus on sheep in that area. Uh. 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.400 Typically yeah, in in Southeast Washington, I'm usually up there 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.120 working on the sort of the Hell's Canyon initiative work 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.240 that's going on. Um, you you back up like like 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.880 you inform and back up the tribe's perspective on big 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.600 game management exactly, because that's interesting because you're actually looking 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.760 at two different states. Yes, yeah, almost three, but yeah, 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.000 to both Southeast Washington. So there's three tribes under under 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.240 one treaty UM, the Walla Walla, Cayuse and you Matila 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.400 Um and they are traditional territory expanded that the state 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.600 boundaries there. So most of the northern Blue Mountains were 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.120 towards um Past Look, Grand Oregon, down south towards John Day, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.840 so parts of various basins. So what's your like, what's 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.240 your professional mandate? Then? To basically protect, conserve and restore 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.880 big game populations and their habitat. That's our program mission 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.880 and that's that's a directive coming from those tribes. Yes, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.000 we have a first foods mission for our Department Natural 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.320 Resources which is fairly well staffy of about a hundred employees, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.320 and d and R itself. Our wildlife programs pretty small 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:33.040 about nine employees. Um. But yeah, under the big game mantra, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:37.200 we are that's our directive to protect, restore, and enhance 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.400 habitat and populations. And I'm guessing you most coordinate with 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.560 states and all the time. Yea, we work on because 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.360 basically a lot of the wildlife habitat where the treaty 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.320 hunting occurs, where the rights are allowed to exercise or 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.920 treaty hunting right is on federal public lands. So we 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.360 work with the land managers of BLM and Force Service, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:16:59.640 and then we work with the states obviously because they 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.880 tend to do more of the population level management, so 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.440 we coordinate with them pretty closely like the Feds. Got 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.840 the Feds are administering a lot of the landscape, but 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.680 the states are administering a lot of the wildlife a 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:14.320 lands exactly, so decisions about land use and land management planning. 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.800 We're very involved in that with the with the four 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:18.879 Service and BLM, and you can spend a lot to 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.000 have looking at sheep I do that is that unfortunate? 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.119 Is that a high priority Um, i'd say yes, just 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.679 conservation wise, Um, the tribe is is very interested in 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.120 expanding UM populations of sheep. We have a lot of 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.200 historically good sheep habitat and in those parts of the country. Um, 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.120 you've been I think you've been to Hell's Canyon. Yeah, 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.399 but I've gone out looking at big horns and that 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.600 those populations have struggled. Um. So there's a lot of 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.080 good work that could be done, and so I think 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.320 that's where our interest is. Um. Obviously there's you've probably 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:50.960 heard about the mule deer issues that are going on. 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.320 We have, we do have declines and mule deer populations, 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.000 and but elk are pretty stable, large populations of elk 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.680 in the Blue Mountains, which you'll get to see. Um. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.760 But yeah, sheep is a sort of our biggest conservation 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.800 concern on on the big game front. I don't want 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.720 to get ahead of ourselves. Was that because things are 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.840 getting worse, because they could be so much better? Um. 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.800 I think in our corner of the world there it's 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.359 we're sort of at a stagnant stagnant sort of population 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.560 has leveled off, So I think we could there's a 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.600 lot we can improve. I think we can make some 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.760 gains for sure, for sure, but we're not We haven't 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.920 had a disease, a large die off in several years, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.000 but we're only a little ways away from one. We're 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.879 always on the cusps. So I think there's a lot 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.840 of work we can do and this kind of forum 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.720 is a good place to discuss that. And go ahead. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.360 Steve gray Thornton, I'm the president of CEO UM. We're 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:46.480 here obviously at the at the World headquarters, but we 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:51.080 also maintain offices and Cody. We have UM an education 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:57.000 coordinator in Nevada. Clay is remote in Texas. We've got 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:02.280 a lobbyist in Washington, d c. And in our Montana 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.200 conservation director is also in Germany, so we we base 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.679 international operations out of Germany. We work in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:16.959 to Jakostan. Isn't it funny how everyone hates lobbyists, But 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:21.520 lobbyists can come from any like people just like are like, oh, 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.919 we lobbyists and you registered. That must be negative. But 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.639 to think that they are like conservation lobbyists, you know, 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.480 visional lobbyists, like some guy out to do something evil, 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:32.960 you know he does he does he does smoke cigars, 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.120 so he plays you know, he plays that lobbyist role. Well, 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.399 you know, we other lobbying on behalf of wild but 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.480 he's lobbying on behalf of you know, wild sheep and 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.600 wild Chief restoration. But you know, we called him our 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:51.080 advocate and and our legislative affairs director and finally just 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.400 just just call me a obvious. That's what everyone knows 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.840 that I am. So you know, we just cut to 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:57.679 the chase, and that's what he is. We were just 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.200 I was just back with him two weeks ago, spent 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:05.320 three days advocate advocating for big horn sheep programs and 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.800 tin horn cheap programs. So when you when you guys 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:14.280 are doing that, like when you're down in d c um, 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:16.640 what are are you meeting with it? Do you tend 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.960 to be meeting with individual politicians? Defind me meeting like 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.000 more on the agency level both. So we we meet 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:28.320 with the federal agencies. So all the Land Management U 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.960 s U S four service. Most bighorn sheep live on 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.280 uh US for SARS LAMB. But in claim what eighty 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.760 somewhat percent of bighorn chep live on on the force 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:43.639 um BLM. Interesting enough, as huge holdings in Alaska. Alaska's 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:48.239 got of all doll sheep and thin horn sheep in 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.280 North America, so pretty pretty huge population there, forty to 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.960 fifty dollar sheep. Um. So we we you know, we 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.040 meet with the BLM, we meet with a four service 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.000 at times, will meet with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.879 at times, will meet with the National Park Service, and 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:09.280 then on the hill will we'll meet with representatives and 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:14.520 senators and their staff. So um, pretty pretty broad bay. See. 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:21.360 The issues that we're dealing with are primarily land use issues, UM, 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:28.320 some grazing issues and um separation issues between domestic sheep 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.919 and bighorn sheep and now even sinhorn sheep. Yeah. That 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.040 that that's why I'd like to get you in spensive time, Max. 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.000 I think that's that's kind of seems like where so 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.320 much of the conversation is right now around sheep. I 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.080 want to do a little bit of backing up and 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.119 I'll let you guys. You guys just kind of decide 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.840 by making quick glances among each other to see who 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.000 should handle what. But I want to like really quickly 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:54.040 bring people up to speed on just like sheep taxonomy, 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.800 which I think can be a little bit confusing. We 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.280 don't need to go global. We'll just keep it North America. 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.120 But is a fair to is like when you say, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.359 like bighorn thin horn, is that a fair? Is that 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.760 a fair? If you're gonna take all of our country 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.280 sheep or US and Canada, it makes some sort of division. 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.439 It seems like people start with bighorn thin horn. You 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:15.840 bet so, so you have you know, let's let's take 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.600 North America's as Mexico, US and Canada perfect um so 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.680 In in Mexico you have the desert bighorn sheep. Um 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.280 in in the lower forty eight you have the rocky 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:29.120 mountain bighorn sheep and the desert big worn sheep. Then 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:32.440 we've got you know, there's kind of uh um splitters 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.600 and lumpers. There's there's some divisions that come off of 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.000 there's a California bighorn sheep that's really a rocky mountain 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.320 and it didn't come from California, came from British Columbia 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.359 of all places. Um, there's a Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.760 There's a Peninsula desert bighorn sheep. So there's there's a 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.560 bunch of kind of subspecies. But the bottom line is 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.240 there's desert, big worn sheep, rocky mountain bighorn sheep, and 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.280 then as we go north, you've got the stone sheep, 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.080 which is primarily a Northern Britge Columbia and that's a 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.320 thin horn sheep. That's a thin horn. And then the 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.360 white sheep is a doll. So the stone sheep range 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:12.760 in BC UM depends on the research you're looking at, 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.920 but there's some new DNA studies that are that are 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:18.760 pushing to the point that that's really the only place 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:21.679 they are uh, and that the stone sheep, and we 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:23.600 still call them that, but the stone sheep that are 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.560 in in the Yukon territory are actually fan in sheep 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:30.200 or just a a cross if you will, and dark 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.160 pelliage of a cross between a white sheep a doll 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:35.840 sheep and the stone sheep and the doll sheep are 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.480 in Alaska, Yukon and Northwestern or just the color phase 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:44.480 of the dolls. Yeah, which really irritates people because if 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.080 you you know, you think you got your four North 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.560 American wild cheep right, like that's a big thing. You 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.520 want to get your desert, your rocky mountain your stones 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:56.920 and your dolls. But you know they're starting to say 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.000 and explain this to me earlier. Now they're going, well, 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:03.560 maybe that dolls is just that, or that stones what 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:05.440 you think is the stones is actually just a color 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:07.679 phase of an actual doll. So would be like you 0:24:07.800 --> 0:24:10.600 going around and saying, man, yeah, I've I've shot a 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:12.880 black bear and a grizzly bear, and then finding out 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.520 actually your black bear was or your what you think 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.560 was your grizzly bear or just a brown phase black bear. Yeah, 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.040 I got you. But but like when you get up, 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:25.240 I want to confuse myself, don't. I want to stay 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:29.800 stay below the US Canada border for a minute. When 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:33.200 you hear of the California, the California is a rocky, 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:35.520 And then you hear in the old days that people 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:39.560 have said either the Audubon was a rocky in the 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.760 Missouri River bricks. We actually have an Audubon in our 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:47.920 conference room now extinct, although there's some debate on that 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:50.960 with with DNA, you know, the the DNA studies that 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:52.639 we can do now and the research, you know, the 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.919 samples we can use. Um, there's even some conflict of 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.359 what or not the Audubon was truly a set brit 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:02.800 substance that's I was reading about recently. But the bottom 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:06.119 line is we've we've repatriated big horn sheep into the 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:09.600 area that the Audubon was the Missouri River breaks, which 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:14.040 just kind of the classic beautiful, big, rocky mountain sheep 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:18.320 of of Montana. And then so now jump up into 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:20.760 Canada and going up into Alaska, like at the time 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:23.720 of European contact, would it just looked like one continuous 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:26.560 string of sheep that just happened to get whiter the 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:30.199 more farther north you went. Or were those populations like 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:35.000 broken up? No, they were broken up, And um, you 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.320 know there is there is certainly a difference between a 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.600 bighorn sheep and a thin horn sheep. Um, so that 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:42.679 the thin horn sheep and I don't know exactly what 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:46.920 latitude they're they're above, but um, you know those the 0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:51.320 stones and the dolls definitely look different than than a 0:25:51.400 --> 0:25:53.680 rocky mountain big horn, the rocky mountain bighorn or down 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:58.280 in southern b c um, you know, the the front 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:02.000 of the Rockies in Alberta, and then basically go down 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:07.399 through the Dakotas a little bit in Nebraska, um Clay 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:10.680 was just in Oklahoma. We now have a bighorn sheep 0:26:10.680 --> 0:26:14.439 in Oklahoma, um and then desert in Texas. And then 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:18.640 you kind of as you go west, um and and 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:20.680 and further south, you get into the deserts. But there's 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.560 some some states that have both. Nevada has the Nelson Bighorn, 0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:28.760 Rocky Mountain bighorn, and Colorado around I'm sorry California bighorn, 0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:32.240 but we really treat those. We treat the California and 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:34.680 the Rocky is the same. If if you look at 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:37.480 the work and how it was done. You know, everybody 0:26:37.600 --> 0:26:40.840 names something in the in the eighteen hundreds, they everybody 0:26:40.840 --> 0:26:43.399 threw a label on it. And and then there was 0:26:43.440 --> 0:26:47.800 a guy named Colwan about nineteen forty or so, uh 0:26:47.840 --> 0:26:52.440 that that actually maybe the sixties, Uh, I can't remember exactly, 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:54.560 but anyway, he did a lot of the original work, 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:58.240 and they were measuring skulls and horns and and look 0:26:58.240 --> 0:27:01.960 at it different ways. Well in the nineties, Uh, Rob 0:27:02.040 --> 0:27:05.080 Ramy and John wey Housing uh did some of that 0:27:05.200 --> 0:27:08.440 same work. And when it all came out, I mean, 0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:11.320 I guess the short and I tend to think simple 0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:15.600 and cheaper sheep. Uh, and and they described stones and 0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:18.560 dolls to the north. So it's really to two species 0:27:19.520 --> 0:27:21.800 rocky mountain or or big orange sheep to the south, 0:27:21.840 --> 0:27:24.240 and and uh, thin horns to the north. And then 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:28.520 the subspecies they described three rocky mountains. They said California's 0:27:28.520 --> 0:27:31.280 are the same. And there's lots of discussion, a lot 0:27:31.280 --> 0:27:32.760 of states don't agree, and a lot of a lot 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:35.119 of folks go round and round over that. But then 0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:38.360 they were Sierra Nevada and deserts and uh, but there 0:27:38.400 --> 0:27:43.560 were they were measuring orbitals and taking various gold measurements 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:46.600 and uh, this will be ironed out very soon that 0:27:46.720 --> 0:27:50.360 the genomics work that's occurring right now will answer every 0:27:50.359 --> 0:27:53.680 one of these questions. Just so just stand by. It's coming. Yeah. 0:27:53.680 --> 0:27:56.160 It's interesting to watch the way the genetics work has changed, 0:27:56.160 --> 0:27:58.240 because when I was working on I was working in 0:27:58.280 --> 0:28:01.200 my book American Buffalo, and you read, you know, back 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:03.720 a hundred years and people had there were seven different kinds, 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:07.560 you know, and it was mostly just different people not 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:11.920 orchestrating their activities. But we're seeing something somewhere and giving 0:28:11.920 --> 0:28:13.960 it a name, and seeing something somewhere giving it a name, 0:28:14.800 --> 0:28:18.760 and then always very eager to identify UH populations that 0:28:18.760 --> 0:28:20.879 weren't there anymore and have it be that it was 0:28:20.920 --> 0:28:26.080 something entirely different. In Texas, they had Texana, Uh, they 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:28.680 felt they had a different subspecies in Texas. It was 0:28:28.800 --> 0:28:33.240 most likely Mexicana that subspecies, so it wasn't unique. But 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:36.960 you'll still hear people talk about that, are there any 0:28:37.000 --> 0:28:42.320 places in uh? Are there any places in Canada where 0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:46.720 a big horn and a thin horn sheep would run 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:50.280 into each other? You know, I've thought about that. In fact, 0:28:50.360 --> 0:28:53.440 we were kicking around that that very thing earlier and 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:58.840 and it's uh, honestly no. But again, sheep or sheep, um? 0:28:58.880 --> 0:29:02.680 You know, they they uh for for what we know, 0:29:02.800 --> 0:29:05.960 the chances of them crossing paths probably slammed the none 0:29:06.280 --> 0:29:09.720 just the habitat that they use and those sorts of things. 0:29:09.800 --> 0:29:14.000 But they're like they're geographically separated by barriers that they're 0:29:14.000 --> 0:29:18.000 not likely to cross. You guys have some cool graphics 0:29:18.000 --> 0:29:22.680 in here that show what the where the popular the 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:28.760 population distribution now relative to when things were really dire 0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:33.400 and bad, relative to when things were like relatively unexploited 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:38.240 to what year do you have to go back um 0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:40.160 before you hit like what would have been kind of 0:29:40.200 --> 0:29:45.640 like pre contact baseline, meaning no extrapated like no extrapated regional, 0:29:45.880 --> 0:29:49.440 no regional extra pations. You know, that's that's a very 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:56.920 tough question. There was a seaton in the earnest seaton, yeah, 0:29:57.000 --> 0:29:59.800 you know, or were the numbers one point five to 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:05.719 to millions something something so exactly, there's no doubt about it. 0:30:05.760 --> 0:30:08.760 And and there are folks today that will they will 0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:10.880 argue with those numbers are a lot more effective in 0:30:11.000 --> 0:30:13.520 arguing those numbers than I am. At least the confidence 0:30:13.520 --> 0:30:16.880 intervals really wide on well exactly exactly, and so you 0:30:16.880 --> 0:30:19.440 know that that's a tough thing. But you know, if 0:30:19.480 --> 0:30:22.400 you if you try to read you know, some of 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:24.640 the accounts Lewis and Clarks, and you know how much 0:30:24.640 --> 0:30:27.160 did they you know, they talked about many many animals. 0:30:27.160 --> 0:30:30.360 I don't know what that means. Uh, but if you 0:30:30.360 --> 0:30:32.760 you know all the way, you you can trace some 0:30:32.800 --> 0:30:35.600 of that. It's particularly desert big horns, uh, you know, 0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:39.560 seventeen hundreds and things like that. When the kunky stators 0:30:39.600 --> 0:30:44.120 were traveling, you know, the missions, the priests described what 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:46.800 they observed and it's so it's pretty interesting. But the 0:30:46.880 --> 0:30:50.080 numbers are always tough. Um. You know, if you look 0:30:50.120 --> 0:30:53.720 at in the fifties, what we do know is that 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:57.160 numbers have probably declined to about fifteen thousand, seventeen thousand 0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:00.440 animals something like that, So they got pretty low. So 0:31:00.560 --> 0:31:04.080 unless Seaton was wildly off, there was still a big reduction. 0:31:04.600 --> 0:31:07.680 It was a far more than their work today. You know, 0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:10.680 in terms of counting numbers. You guys familiar with how 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:13.440 for a long time the fashionable number for bison was 0:31:13.480 --> 0:31:16.320 sixty million. And like you look into where that number 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:19.520 came from, Well, Seaton kind of like collated the whole thing, 0:31:19.560 --> 0:31:22.520 but it came from basically a big herd going by. 0:31:22.600 --> 0:31:26.000 It seemed to take days to go by. Later, Colonel 0:31:26.040 --> 0:31:30.240 Dodge of Dodge City infamy has a conversation with another 0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:33.120 guy who saw the same thing, and hell, he must 0:31:33.160 --> 0:31:38.000 have been three miles away. And through this right comes 0:31:38.040 --> 0:31:41.040 this like wild estimation of how many there must be. 0:31:41.880 --> 0:31:43.880 So it is frustrating reading this book right now. Grizzlies 0:31:43.920 --> 0:31:46.920 in the Southwest, and the first part of the book 0:31:47.400 --> 0:31:53.440 is trying to collate all the cases or someone identified one, 0:31:54.000 --> 0:31:58.680 but you get into just terminology yep, and being like, 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:01.600 is this what is this guy talking about like, what 0:32:01.800 --> 0:32:08.200 is you know, whoever's keeping records during the Coronado expedition. 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:11.800 What is he talking about when he says X, is 0:32:11.840 --> 0:32:14.000 that what he means? And I don't know. I'll say 0:32:14.000 --> 0:32:16.560 to your story of the only Grizzly barri kill in Texas, 0:32:17.560 --> 0:32:24.680 I just read about that, yeah, in the Smithsonian, you know, 0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:27.560 so I can see that like exceedingly difficult to get 0:32:27.560 --> 0:32:31.280 a sense of what was where, but you could picture that. 0:32:32.280 --> 0:32:34.480 I mean, like it's fair to say, like like you 0:32:34.520 --> 0:32:39.480 take like Nevada, you take Montana was like more of 0:32:39.520 --> 0:32:42.520 it was sheep country than not. Oh yeah, if you 0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:45.040 look at if you look at the mountains of Nevada 0:32:45.040 --> 0:32:47.840 and look how's laid out, and compare that to say Texas. 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:50.520 You know, you can see just only the far west 0:32:50.560 --> 0:32:52.840 part of Texas. And if you look at at where 0:32:52.880 --> 0:32:55.360 Scott works, Uh, you know, just just some of the 0:32:55.920 --> 0:32:59.440 heritage the Native Americans have passed down the stories and 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:02.440 picture as. We have a pretty good, good good idea 0:33:02.520 --> 0:33:06.800 where they occurred. Uh again that's interested just representational art. Uh, 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:09.320 Like these people are drawing them so familiar with them. 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:12.760 Same story of Texas. I can show you pictographs of 0:33:12.880 --> 0:33:16.240 big horn sheep in Texas that, uh, but but numbers 0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:19.800 we you know, it's it's it's an educated guest, that's 0:33:19.800 --> 0:33:22.320 for sure. I think it's a fair assumption to say 0:33:22.360 --> 0:33:24.160 that we had a lot of sheep and they were 0:33:24.280 --> 0:33:27.560 their distribution what's why they're they're the use of them 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:31.320 culturally and and for materials and food was widespread. People 0:33:31.320 --> 0:33:34.440 were the first explorers were encountering big encountering big horn 0:33:34.600 --> 0:33:37.600 bows out waiting to Nebraska and out into the plains, 0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:40.680 the plains Indians were using bows man a big horn 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:43.400 sheep horns, Now, wasn't it most common though, like right 0:33:44.280 --> 0:33:47.840 out of the park because they they were coming basically 0:33:47.840 --> 0:33:51.200 being traded for and you know, the the pictograph record 0:33:51.320 --> 0:33:53.920 is very widespread. So I think it's it's fair assumption 0:33:53.920 --> 0:33:55.160 to say we had a lot of sheep. They were 0:33:55.160 --> 0:33:57.400 widely distributed, Um a lot. There was a lot of 0:33:57.440 --> 0:34:01.480 cultures that were built around sheet um. And obviously I 0:34:01.480 --> 0:34:04.680 think you've probably read Journal of Trapper. I mean some 0:34:04.760 --> 0:34:07.440 of his descriptions. This is a guy that's seen Yellowstone 0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:10.600 Park area and it's sort of in prime form and 0:34:10.920 --> 0:34:14.279 using descriptions of immense numbers of mountain sheep in the 0:34:14.280 --> 0:34:16.120 winter time. So like I think someone that uses the 0:34:16.160 --> 0:34:19.279 word immense numbers, you know, this isn't a herd of 0:34:19.840 --> 0:34:21.680 or fifteen sheep on the side of a hill. It's 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:23.840 the winter range was new rout. There was a lot 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:26.920 of sheep there. Have you read Francis Parkman's Oregon Trail? 0:34:27.200 --> 0:34:30.799 I have not. So he he was a historian and 0:34:30.920 --> 0:34:34.319 he wrote like at the time, the definitive history of 0:34:34.320 --> 0:34:36.640 the French and Indian War. But he had health problems. 0:34:36.719 --> 0:34:39.879 It was told to come out and spend time out 0:34:39.920 --> 0:34:41.759 in the west, and he comes out and travels on 0:34:41.800 --> 0:34:45.279 the Oregon Trail. I think this is eighty six. He 0:34:45.360 --> 0:34:49.440 actually winds up traveling with the Oglala Sioux probably was 0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:52.200 in the same camp with Crazy Horse when Crazy Horse 0:34:52.280 --> 0:34:55.680 was thirteen. They go up into the Black Hills to 0:34:56.160 --> 0:35:00.320 get lodgepole pine for tent lodgepoles. The guys he's album 0:35:00.360 --> 0:35:02.920 with get onto a big herd of big horns and 0:35:03.040 --> 0:35:06.719 kill a bunch by throwing rocks down at them. So 0:35:06.760 --> 0:35:09.800 you get like, that's not too that's like a side. 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:13.040 There must be like sizeable groups if that's your hunting strategies. 0:35:13.080 --> 0:35:17.040 The hurl rocks down and successfully kill a bunch those 0:35:17.120 --> 0:35:19.560 those kind of accounts that I think we're piecing all 0:35:19.600 --> 0:35:23.600 that that information to gather cultural accounts, early explorer accounts, 0:35:23.640 --> 0:35:26.000 we know what their range is in modern day we 0:35:26.040 --> 0:35:28.120 know how many sheep of the habitat can support, so 0:35:28.200 --> 0:35:30.480 we can kind of piece it together, you know, like 0:35:30.600 --> 0:35:32.480 what the numbers look like. So if you if you 0:35:32.520 --> 0:35:34.520 had to express like how bad it got, what's the 0:35:34.520 --> 0:35:36.600 best way to express how bad it? God? Because you 0:35:36.600 --> 0:35:38.840 could is it because you don't know the beginning numbers, 0:35:38.840 --> 0:35:41.120 So it's hard to do it numerically, Like how do 0:35:41.120 --> 0:35:43.440 you guys think about it? When you think about restoration? 0:35:44.280 --> 0:35:49.120 Is it filling in the map or is it achieving numbers? Yeah, 0:35:49.160 --> 0:35:50.759 it's a little bit of both. If you know, you 0:35:50.800 --> 0:35:52.799 look in your you're referencing to this map that we've 0:35:52.800 --> 0:35:55.360 got in our in our conference room, and you know, 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:57.920 let's say, if we're using Seaton's numbers of you know, 0:35:57.960 --> 0:36:00.000 one to two million sheep, let's use a lower numb 0:36:00.040 --> 0:36:03.760 umber of one million um. You know, throughout North America 0:36:03.840 --> 0:36:06.360 we reduce those in the nineteen sixties down to twenty 0:36:06.360 --> 0:36:12.640 five thousand. So in what's now the US all the 0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:17.240 North North America, US, Canada, Mexico, bign Okay, so not 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:19.520 not not because not the thin horns, the thin horn 0:36:19.680 --> 0:36:22.960 range is actually still distributions still pretty much the same 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:26.120 because they haven't come up against like the obstacles. They haven't. 0:36:26.320 --> 0:36:28.440 Uh and that's and that's that's what you're trying to prevent. 0:36:28.560 --> 0:36:30.680 But but the big horns did. So you know, you're 0:36:30.680 --> 0:36:33.360 looking at you know, if it's five hundred or one million, 0:36:33.440 --> 0:36:35.920 or one point five or two million dollars, we are 0:36:35.960 --> 0:36:39.880 two million sheep. We reduced those numbers down to twenty 0:36:39.880 --> 0:36:42.920 five thousand by the late nineteen sixties. Today we're at 0:36:42.920 --> 0:36:45.880 about eighty five thousand big horn sheep in in Canada, 0:36:46.440 --> 0:36:56.799 US and Mexico, in all of North America. And at 0:36:56.800 --> 0:36:59.040 the I want to talk about why it got that way, 0:36:59.120 --> 0:37:01.480 But at the low a point with sheep, were you 0:37:01.680 --> 0:37:04.480 then finding that you had states I know we talked 0:37:04.480 --> 0:37:08.319 about Texas. Were there multiple states that had completely run out? 0:37:08.680 --> 0:37:11.160 You bet, you bet. You know if you look at 0:37:11.239 --> 0:37:13.040 you know, some of the data that will show you know, 0:37:13.080 --> 0:37:18.240 we'll we'll reference remnant population. Some were just gone. Texas gone. 0:37:19.239 --> 0:37:22.480 Um Nevada was down to a remnant population. They're they're 0:37:22.520 --> 0:37:25.560 an absolute incredible success store. You know they had they 0:37:25.560 --> 0:37:27.359 had a hundred or two hundred. You know, what does 0:37:27.400 --> 0:37:30.400 remnant mean? Two hundred sheep. They're up to eleven thousand 0:37:30.480 --> 0:37:32.600 desert big ones right now. They probably got about twelve 0:37:32.600 --> 0:37:35.080 thousand to thirteen thousand big one cheap in Nevada today, 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:37.160 and they were down to what's called a remnant remnant 0:37:37.480 --> 0:37:41.640 one in venties, which would be sub one. So it's 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:45.360 pretty amazing. Um, what states are like the big holdouts 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:51.120 wym means strong states. Troma did pretty well. Um, I 0:37:51.160 --> 0:37:55.680 think Montana did pretty well. Hanging all around them pretty well. 0:37:55.719 --> 0:38:00.760 But still who was who was housing? Uh? What states 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:07.080 provided the last refugia for the deserts desert big horns? Like? 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:09.480 What states? What had like wound up one of all 0:38:09.560 --> 0:38:14.239 the smoke clear clay Arizona, New Mexico didn't. No, New 0:38:14.280 --> 0:38:16.799 Mexico was down. So they were way down pretty much 0:38:16.880 --> 0:38:21.319 pretty much Mexico and in Arizona, California. You know they 0:38:22.200 --> 0:38:26.000 I don't remember, hello the numbers got in California. Uh, 0:38:26.200 --> 0:38:28.239 Nevada's got I mean most of them are remnant. It 0:38:28.600 --> 0:38:32.440 was rough and Mexico held onto some actually co did 0:38:32.719 --> 0:38:36.520 um in the Sierra Madre where you know most of 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:44.080 it was just well in the Bajaah so yeah, because 0:38:44.080 --> 0:38:48.600 Baja Man. Like as far as like representational art, yeah, 0:38:49.239 --> 0:38:52.200 tah North. I've been spent time down there. Man. There's 0:38:52.200 --> 0:38:55.560 tons of picto grass, big big horns in held here, 0:38:55.600 --> 0:38:58.200 you know, and they've and they've held their own even today. 0:38:58.320 --> 0:39:01.319 I mean they've they do pretty well. Um. I mean 0:39:01.320 --> 0:39:04.040 there are a lot of sheep uh in Sonora alone. 0:39:04.080 --> 0:39:07.680 I can't remember the numbers exactly, but there are probably 0:39:07.719 --> 0:39:13.360 in so Norma, Mexico alone, probably just in that state. 0:39:13.400 --> 0:39:16.640 And then we hunt down I never run into one. 0:39:16.840 --> 0:39:20.600 Must be the wrong part of the Um. What was 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.640 the dry like I kind of already know this answer 0:39:24.400 --> 0:39:27.240 because I know it was like disease and pot hunting, 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:33.920 like what made it so bad? Like how did it 0:39:33.960 --> 0:39:37.400 get so bad? Well, there were there were lots of things, 0:39:38.280 --> 0:39:43.560 the combination of things, um, civilization, railroads were moving in 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:47.439 the blanket term uh and all the wonders that it brings. Yeah, 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:49.719 and and Scott can speak to this stuff a little 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:52.600 bit further north. And but as far as the stuff 0:39:52.640 --> 0:39:55.800 in in the south, you know, if you read Texas history, 0:39:56.120 --> 0:39:59.440 the railroad came through, and you'd read a counch where 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:03.440 you know they were feeding railroad workers. Uh. And a 0:40:03.480 --> 0:40:05.719 guy would hunt meat for the railroads and he would 0:40:05.800 --> 0:40:09.560 hit the hit hit where our prime habitat is and 0:40:09.560 --> 0:40:11.960 he would say that had him in a box canyon 0:40:11.960 --> 0:40:14.440 and I got every one of them. And and so 0:40:14.600 --> 0:40:17.440 he would take the meat back feed railroad workers. But 0:40:18.200 --> 0:40:21.600 it was disease issues and a competition for forage and 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:25.799 limited water and forage with with domestic livestock that it 0:40:25.880 --> 0:40:28.239 that had come in later, and and people were trying 0:40:28.239 --> 0:40:31.239 to feed their families. It was tough places to to 0:40:31.320 --> 0:40:33.799 make a living. So if you if you break out, 0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:39.160 let's see you break out market hunting. Um. And who's 0:40:39.200 --> 0:40:42.720 that famous photographer that used to work out a mile city, 0:40:42.880 --> 0:40:46.800 Uh Hoffman l A. Hoffman. He was taking pictures in 0:40:46.840 --> 0:40:50.560 the early eighteen eighties of market hunter camps where they 0:40:50.560 --> 0:40:52.400 had this all kinds of big horns lined up to 0:40:52.400 --> 0:40:55.640 their killing along the Yellowstone. But if you're gonna take out, 0:40:55.800 --> 0:40:57.600 if you're gonna divide it, like, let's say you had 0:40:57.680 --> 0:41:01.000 habitat issues, Okay, so crazy comp this and water whatever, 0:41:02.040 --> 0:41:07.239 market hunting and disease are are they teared out or 0:41:07.320 --> 0:41:11.840 they all just equal players? Oh no, it's if typically, 0:41:11.920 --> 0:41:15.280 if you if you're trying to piece the story together 0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:20.040 that's got described, you typically look at land use history 0:41:20.040 --> 0:41:22.759 and you look at look at how things occurred or 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:27.279 what might have occurred. And today the greatest obstacle that 0:41:27.320 --> 0:41:31.000 we face is disease. And so chances are that was 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:34.840 the greatest threat, the thing that caused the most problems 0:41:35.440 --> 0:41:39.680 in the in the eighteen hundreds, uh, along with those 0:41:39.719 --> 0:41:42.359 other things. But but in in my view, it would 0:41:42.400 --> 0:41:47.360 be diseases uh and competition for forage UM and limited 0:41:47.400 --> 0:41:52.239 water in the desert environment. Anyway, Yeah, that's totally very UM. 0:41:52.920 --> 0:41:54.719 Just to give you a perspective, like if you think 0:41:54.760 --> 0:41:58.319 about it, and in terms of grazing and UM, just 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:01.800 use the northeast organ exam ample that that corner of 0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:06.040 Oregon Williwa County where Health Canyon is located, there was 0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:08.560 about the turn of century there was three hundred thousand 0:42:08.600 --> 0:42:14.160 sheep grazing in that county. Yes, yep, so there was 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:18.360 an immense number of sheep domestic sheep and sorry, the 0:42:18.520 --> 0:42:22.120 three hundred domestics grazing in Williwa County. So that was 0:42:22.160 --> 0:42:26.920 a county alone dostic sheep. So we're you know, obviously 0:42:27.040 --> 0:42:29.400 it was great grazing land for domestic sheep, and so 0:42:29.600 --> 0:42:33.080 people were grazing. There was no tailor grazing act. It 0:42:33.160 --> 0:42:34.960 was sort of a free for all in the public 0:42:35.040 --> 0:42:38.600 land system, which is you know, probably not fully established 0:42:38.640 --> 0:42:42.200 at that time. Um. And we had a lot of 0:42:42.320 --> 0:42:44.400 a lot of domestics right in the Big Horn habitat. 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:47.840 So we should probably talk about the diza like disease. 0:42:47.840 --> 0:42:50.799 When we say disease carried them off. Is it a 0:42:50.800 --> 0:42:53.360 host of diseases that hits Big Horns or is it 0:42:53.440 --> 0:42:56.279 a disease it hits big Horns. It is a disease complex. 0:42:56.440 --> 0:42:59.960 So there's clay can fill in the gaps, But there's 0:43:00.400 --> 0:43:03.640 based on our last decade of research. I mean, it's 0:43:03.640 --> 0:43:07.000 been an evolving story over time where people are constantly 0:43:07.120 --> 0:43:09.400 learning new information all the time. Is our techniques and 0:43:09.480 --> 0:43:13.040 science get better and and our experimentation gets better and 0:43:13.080 --> 0:43:17.120 our insights get a bit get better. Um. But what 0:43:17.400 --> 0:43:20.360 all the research points to now is it's one particular 0:43:20.400 --> 0:43:25.000 bacteria that these are are. North American sheep did not 0:43:25.200 --> 0:43:29.120 evolve with so they're hosted by the domestic species. When 0:43:29.120 --> 0:43:31.480 they come in contact with each other, the big horn 0:43:31.600 --> 0:43:35.600 sheep contract that bacteria. They're no longer able to fight 0:43:35.680 --> 0:43:40.640 off other infections, so it compromises their sillia in their 0:43:40.680 --> 0:43:44.040 in their trachea, so they aren't able to move all 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:47.160 their bacteria out and they succumb to basically pneumonia but 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:49.400 from other whether it's a back you know, but my 0:43:49.560 --> 0:43:54.640 probably microbial disease, it's the term. So they're very naive 0:43:54.680 --> 0:43:58.880 to this disease. The the mo it's called microplazma ovi pneumonia, 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:03.640 so we call mo BE for short and m O 0:44:03.719 --> 0:44:09.000 V period ov um and and this this is a 0:44:09.120 --> 0:44:13.919 disease that seems to have originated in a real sheep 0:44:13.960 --> 0:44:18.480 in Europe. They perhaps were exposed to it for the 0:44:19.920 --> 0:44:24.000 correct so they carry it. They're they're not clinically affected 0:44:24.000 --> 0:44:26.200 by we don't see the same symptoms that we do 0:44:26.239 --> 0:44:28.720 in big horns or their coffee and or having nasal 0:44:29.000 --> 0:44:33.359 sinus discharge um. So it doesn't appear to have a 0:44:33.400 --> 0:44:36.840 strong population level effect or no population level effect and 0:44:36.880 --> 0:44:39.880 domestic sheep, so some lambs will succumb to it, you know, 0:44:39.920 --> 0:44:42.360 and you know, once they're kind of getting close to weaning, 0:44:42.880 --> 0:44:45.960 but our bighorn sheep lambs will be infected early on, 0:44:46.239 --> 0:44:49.279 and it's it's very fatal. And the strains there's there's 0:44:49.320 --> 0:44:52.560 many strains, they're all they have different severity and the 0:44:52.600 --> 0:44:56.480 reactions within big horn population. So it's it's a complicated 0:44:56.520 --> 0:44:58.799 disease issue. And that's why it's taken us so long 0:44:58.920 --> 0:45:02.600 to sort this all lout. So was was this disease 0:45:02.719 --> 0:45:08.640 hitting big horns before anybody knew that this disease? Yeah, 0:45:09.760 --> 0:45:11.279 it's just as like, I don't know what happened to 0:45:11.320 --> 0:45:14.960 them all. I mean, if you think about the habitat 0:45:15.000 --> 0:45:18.040 that these animals live in, how frequently do we how 0:45:18.080 --> 0:45:20.200 how well studied our hearts now with our with our 0:45:20.320 --> 0:45:22.799 level of technology and their dedication, But back in the 0:45:22.840 --> 0:45:25.239 eight hundreds, I know that I don't know how many 0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:30.400 people were looking at him you look, um, Yeah, you 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:33.719 know a great analogy would be looking at what we 0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:37.120 did to Native American tribes with smallpox. It's you know, 0:45:37.120 --> 0:45:40.839 it's so similar. Um. And when we talk about micro 0:45:40.920 --> 0:45:44.279 plasma oa pneumonia as a setup agent, um, you know, 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:47.719 kind of in in in lay terms, even though they're 0:45:47.719 --> 0:45:49.960 not the same. You know, it's it's kind of HIV 0:45:50.160 --> 0:45:54.120 and sheep uh. You know, HIV is an immune deficiency. 0:45:54.200 --> 0:45:56.399 This is not This is a bacterium. It's a path 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:00.480 a pathogen, but it's a setup agent. So um. You 0:46:00.520 --> 0:46:03.239 know you Joe was thirty two years old and you 0:46:03.320 --> 0:46:05.279 heard he died of pneumonia, and you go, my god, 0:46:05.320 --> 0:46:06.960 you know, Joe is thirty two years old. I was 0:46:07.000 --> 0:46:09.440 a thirty two year old guy died of pneumonia. Oh well, 0:46:09.480 --> 0:46:13.000 you know he had AIDS, HIV and compromises immune system 0:46:13.040 --> 0:46:15.840 and he got pneumonia died very similar to what's happening 0:46:15.840 --> 0:46:18.840 with sheep is. As Scott had pointed out that the 0:46:18.960 --> 0:46:24.000 microplasmo pneumonia iMovie lays down the cilia in the esophagus 0:46:24.520 --> 0:46:27.959 uh and allows other other bugs, other pathogens, other other 0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:31.000 other bacteria to get down into the lungs. They can't 0:46:31.080 --> 0:46:33.479 cough it out, the silly is not moving it out. 0:46:33.960 --> 0:46:35.640 They get sick and then we you know what we 0:46:35.719 --> 0:46:38.760 used to say, as well, they died of pneumonia. Well, 0:46:38.840 --> 0:46:42.880 actually they probably died of something else. But imovis. As 0:46:42.960 --> 0:46:45.200 we're able to study it more and more and more, 0:46:45.760 --> 0:46:48.120 m O VI was present there's there's a litany of 0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:52.840 other pathogens uh Mannheimia, hemolytica. There's there's new research that 0:46:53.719 --> 0:46:58.200 is looking at um nasal tumors. Is. So it's you know, 0:46:58.280 --> 0:47:02.040 these these sheep, which a mountain sheep. When you look 0:47:02.040 --> 0:47:05.239 at where they live, uh in some of the harshest 0:47:05.320 --> 0:47:08.760 climates in North America. Uh some of the most unique 0:47:08.760 --> 0:47:12.560 climates in North America. The sad thing is is from 0:47:12.560 --> 0:47:16.759 a from a respiratory standpoint, they're pretty darn weak. Um. 0:47:17.239 --> 0:47:20.200 Our Vice president of Conservation Kevin Hurley says that I 0:47:20.200 --> 0:47:22.919 think pretty pretty succinctly says, the damned things are born 0:47:23.000 --> 0:47:26.520 looking for a place to die. UM. So there, you know, 0:47:26.560 --> 0:47:30.279 it's it's a it's it's challenging. UM. It is a 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:33.400 disease complex. And and every time we we you know, 0:47:33.560 --> 0:47:37.279 Wild Chief Foundations spent millions and millions of dollars into 0:47:37.360 --> 0:47:41.120 disease research. We endow a share of wild cheap disease 0:47:41.160 --> 0:47:46.360 at Washington to Date University. UM. Every rock we overturned 0:47:46.440 --> 0:47:49.520 that we think we've got the solution, we this is 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:52.399 this is it, this is now. Now there's four other 0:47:52.480 --> 0:47:56.319 rocks underneath it that we un you know, unturned or 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:59.000 overturned those and there's four more other questions that we 0:47:59.040 --> 0:48:01.160 don't know the answer to. So I want to explore 0:48:01.160 --> 0:48:04.360 the timeline a little bit on on the numbers collapsing. 0:48:05.520 --> 0:48:07.640 But no one really knew where we started. No one 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:11.120 had done like this exhaustive analysis of where sheep exists 0:48:11.120 --> 0:48:13.760 and how many there were. But it's just like any 0:48:13.760 --> 0:48:16.440 anyone who's paying attention can't miss the fact that they're vanishing. 0:48:18.160 --> 0:48:22.719 At what point do people like this organization or other 0:48:22.719 --> 0:48:26.320 individuals or state agencies, at what point do people go like, wow, 0:48:26.440 --> 0:48:28.319 we need to get on top of this and start 0:48:28.360 --> 0:48:32.600 taking some step And at that time did they were 0:48:32.640 --> 0:48:35.520 they then aware of what was causing the problem? Were 0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:40.000 people doing restoration? And then all the sheep die again 0:48:40.600 --> 0:48:43.640 without even knowing that the real issue was disease, thinking 0:48:43.719 --> 0:48:45.680 it might have been something else. Is that like that 0:48:45.760 --> 0:48:50.240 question makes sense? It absolute good question. Clay and Scott 0:48:50.320 --> 0:48:53.040 can remember, you know, we were we were probably putting 0:48:53.160 --> 0:48:57.680 six sheep into clean sheep, so we were we were 0:48:57.719 --> 0:49:00.400 making some errors back because we just we just didn't 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:03.760 know we were you know, we didn't know that that 0:49:03.760 --> 0:49:07.879 that sourcerd had mica plasma o pneumonia. Uh, and so 0:49:07.920 --> 0:49:11.560 we plopped in no doubt in transplants, we prop plopped 0:49:11.560 --> 0:49:14.040 in six sheep on top of clean sheet. So that 0:49:14.120 --> 0:49:18.280 became the that became the primary restoration tools. Transplanting sheep 0:49:18.680 --> 0:49:24.040 absolutely absolutely the early years was protection. Every state nineteen 0:49:24.040 --> 0:49:29.799 o five, nineteen ten, nineteen o three, every state implemented something. Uh. 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:35.720 The first translocation occurred in nineteen twenty two. Uh. Since 0:49:35.800 --> 0:49:40.800 then there have been probably close to fifteen hundred separate 0:49:40.880 --> 0:49:46.120 operations removing somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty two thousand 0:49:46.200 --> 0:49:51.480 animals that have been moved from one place to another. 0:49:51.840 --> 0:49:55.560 In nineteen o three in Texas, they're like, it's bad enough, 0:49:55.680 --> 0:49:59.440 you can't kill one. And it wasn't just cheap. Keep 0:49:59.480 --> 0:50:02.560 that in mind. It was muled here and pronghorn and 0:50:02.560 --> 0:50:04.920 in all wild life in those days. I mean everything 0:50:04.960 --> 0:50:08.799 was suffering. But uh, but it was, there's no doubt 0:50:08.840 --> 0:50:15.040 about it. The tool translocations was that was the tool. Uh. 0:50:15.120 --> 0:50:17.960 You know, we would go we worked with Nevada Department 0:50:17.960 --> 0:50:21.120 of Wildlife and we would we would trap sheep on 0:50:21.160 --> 0:50:23.320 the landscape. I would be on the side of a mountain. 0:50:23.520 --> 0:50:27.120 We would trap sheep. Uh. We had a trailer, double 0:50:27.160 --> 0:50:31.200 decker trailer. Feel that trailer full as many as many 0:50:31.280 --> 0:50:34.360 cheap as they would give us, and then as fast 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:36.719 as we could get back into the turkey, give them 0:50:36.719 --> 0:50:41.960 a handful of turkeys and and uh no, no, uh, 0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:44.680 give them what whatever it was they wanted, because we 0:50:44.680 --> 0:50:48.120 were beggars, that was the bottom line were at that time. 0:50:48.160 --> 0:50:50.879 So so anyway, go back to Texas in twenty four 0:50:50.880 --> 0:50:54.480 hours later, dumping them on the landscape. Well, we were 0:50:54.560 --> 0:50:58.120 drawing blood samples, but we would never wait for the 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:01.920 results of those samples. Uh So if something would have happened, 0:51:01.920 --> 0:51:03.600 the cat would have been out out of the back 0:51:03.719 --> 0:51:07.400 by then. So now now we we sample source and 0:51:07.480 --> 0:51:11.200 recipient populations in advance, and we look at those kind 0:51:11.200 --> 0:51:12.640 of things. So we're a lot smarter in the way 0:51:12.680 --> 0:51:15.799 we do business. That's a horrible thought to think of, 0:51:16.520 --> 0:51:20.920 just out of out of a very excusable form of 0:51:20.960 --> 0:51:24.839 ignorance to spend that time and energy. Oh, there's no 0:51:24.880 --> 0:51:28.600 doubt in fact a clean herd. Yeah, there there's no 0:51:28.640 --> 0:51:31.759 doubt about it. Because if you look at in the 0:51:32.680 --> 0:51:36.160 disease itself, it you know that it can only come 0:51:36.160 --> 0:51:39.160 from a live animal and there's there's no doubt about it. 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:42.360 Now that can be domestic cheap, domestic goats, but it 0:51:42.360 --> 0:51:45.120 can also be bigger horn cheap, and it can also 0:51:45.239 --> 0:51:49.880 be uh, wild goats. So that that bacteria doesn't do 0:51:49.960 --> 0:51:52.640 well laying on the dirt. No, it does not, it does. 0:51:53.000 --> 0:51:54.880 It has to come it comes from a life source. 0:51:55.719 --> 0:52:00.799 So but we've again how how close, Like let's talk 0:52:00.840 --> 0:52:02.960 about Trent, let's talk about the transmission for a minute. 0:52:03.360 --> 0:52:05.800 I don't know what I'm gonna let out of a 0:52:05.880 --> 0:52:08.960 rabbit hole, but yeah, because because it's not what you understood, 0:52:09.000 --> 0:52:11.960 I'm just talking like, Okay, you gotta sick. But let's 0:52:11.960 --> 0:52:14.000 not even bring in domestic you don't have to touch noses. 0:52:14.080 --> 0:52:18.360 Let's just it's but the pens are too close together. 0:52:18.520 --> 0:52:21.080 They you know, w s U has a captive herd 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:23.279 and they got them. I think one of the early 0:52:23.320 --> 0:52:26.439 trials they got a little too close to their clean 0:52:26.480 --> 0:52:28.839 sheet from the six sheets. We're talking inches or feet 0:52:28.920 --> 0:52:33.400 or yard feet yards, you're talking about in some cases 0:52:34.200 --> 0:52:40.200 maybe kilometers. Uh. If that's the case, then what do 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:42.080 you mean then, like, what do you mean that has 0:52:42.120 --> 0:52:44.600 to go from sheet to sheep? Because it's just a yeah, 0:52:44.719 --> 0:52:48.560 well that's that's let's go back to the IF. If 0:52:48.600 --> 0:52:51.760 you look at the IF, the issues associated with this disease, 0:52:51.800 --> 0:52:53.960 I mean when when when it comes down to it, 0:52:55.120 --> 0:52:59.480 oh oh, wildlife they adapt to the various pathogens that 0:52:59.480 --> 0:53:02.600 they're induced to in some form or fashion. And so 0:53:03.239 --> 0:53:07.120 how to affects bighorn sheep is you need to have 0:53:07.200 --> 0:53:11.160 a complete die off. I mean they just do terrible uh. 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:14.239 Or you see it where you know, a mother will 0:53:14.239 --> 0:53:20.319 pass down out of bodies two two lambs, and and 0:53:20.400 --> 0:53:22.960 at first, you know, when you when you see them 0:53:23.040 --> 0:53:25.440 the first few weeks of life, they seem to do 0:53:25.480 --> 0:53:29.279 pretty well. But about eight weeks, eight to twelve weeks, uh, 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:32.200 something like that, then then you start seeing issues and 0:53:32.200 --> 0:53:34.480 then you have complete lamb die off. So so in 0:53:34.480 --> 0:53:37.400 other words, you have complete die offs, then you have 0:53:37.440 --> 0:53:41.480 no recruitment for decades. And then the other part of 0:53:41.520 --> 0:53:46.520 that is that you have some sheep that for whatever reason, 0:53:46.920 --> 0:53:51.239 they don't die and they go from her to her, 0:53:51.440 --> 0:53:55.640 from this one to the typhoid mary that so they 0:53:55.719 --> 0:53:58.520 become a carrier, that is a carrier that sheds that 0:53:58.600 --> 0:54:03.240 disease to other population. And so bighorn sheep move, they move, 0:54:03.400 --> 0:54:05.319 and the other thing is there. They are long lived 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:08.440 species generally in absence of disease. You know, you just 0:54:08.520 --> 0:54:11.239 can live close to twenty years and rams are you know, 0:54:11.320 --> 0:54:13.160 kind of the ten to twelve is a long long 0:54:13.200 --> 0:54:16.520 live ram. So some of these particular carriers can be 0:54:16.600 --> 0:54:19.120 alive for a long time, moving around and keeping that 0:54:19.200 --> 0:54:21.960 disease in the herd, and it's not able to fade out. 0:54:22.160 --> 0:54:25.040 How much do you guys see? Uh, how much have 0:54:25.080 --> 0:54:30.279 you seen big horns move? Like, don't give me the no. 0:54:30.480 --> 0:54:33.880 I'm always interested in the crazy number, but the number 0:54:34.120 --> 0:54:36.160 the normal and then and then it hit me with 0:54:36.160 --> 0:54:39.120 a crazy number. Okay. So the the number that we're 0:54:39.200 --> 0:54:42.680 using based on sort of this estimation from telemetry data 0:54:42.840 --> 0:54:45.279 that was sort of a published a model that we 0:54:45.440 --> 0:54:48.040 use for sort of risk of contact modeling. So how 0:54:48.080 --> 0:54:50.600 likely our big horn sheep gonna go out and landscape 0:54:50.600 --> 0:54:54.799 and contact a particular distance from their home range? Right, 0:54:54.840 --> 0:54:57.319 So all animals set up a home range. Generally, big 0:54:57.320 --> 0:55:00.160 horn sheep do exploratory movements where they leave their home 0:55:00.239 --> 0:55:03.439 range and then may return. So whether it's to see 0:55:03.480 --> 0:55:05.799 what's going on on the next ridge or to look 0:55:05.840 --> 0:55:09.040 for receptive use, but generally the number there is thirty 0:55:09.040 --> 0:55:13.840 five kilometers. So basically of RAM movements over a fourteen 0:55:13.880 --> 0:55:18.160 year data set showed that almost those movements were within 0:55:18.239 --> 0:55:21.640 thirty five kilometers from their home range. How big this 0:55:21.719 --> 0:55:24.600 core zone? If that varies. It could be, it could 0:55:24.600 --> 0:55:28.000 be larger, could be it could be tight habitat and 0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:31.400 particular individual So some individuals may have small home ranges, 0:55:31.480 --> 0:55:35.440 some might have larger. So the crazy number is a 0:55:35.480 --> 0:55:37.959 little ram that came out of the lost in Herd 0:55:38.280 --> 0:55:42.920 just this past couple of years and near Joseph, Oregon 0:55:43.120 --> 0:55:47.359 or Enterprise and Joseph up in the Allowa Range. So 0:55:47.440 --> 0:55:50.280 he took a little walk and he went on a loop, 0:55:50.640 --> 0:55:52.759 so they were they collared him. He showed up, i 0:55:52.760 --> 0:55:56.040 think on somebody's deck and it was just take and 0:55:56.120 --> 0:55:58.880 he took a good photo and they recognized send him 0:55:58.880 --> 0:56:01.239 the Hell's Canyon Initiative folks, and they recognize him as 0:56:01.719 --> 0:56:04.960 twelve l O seven. Hey, that's so we ear tagged 0:56:05.000 --> 0:56:06.400 him as a lamp. So they knew that they had 0:56:06.400 --> 0:56:08.719 a definitive age on him. And he went across the 0:56:08.760 --> 0:56:11.719 Snake River, the Salmon River and then over into the 0:56:11.719 --> 0:56:14.719 Clearwater drainage in Idaho and then put a collar on 0:56:14.800 --> 0:56:16.520 him at some point and actually put three collars on 0:56:16.560 --> 0:56:19.160 them because they kept failing. So he got caught two 0:56:19.200 --> 0:56:20.680 or three times with the helicopter, and I think he 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:23.719 got darted once. So and he made a three and 0:56:23.760 --> 0:56:27.759 seventy eight mile loop through seven different home ranges of 0:56:27.800 --> 0:56:30.240 big Horns, and he was out in some weak fields 0:56:30.280 --> 0:56:33.160 and crossed a bunch of highways. And so he went 0:56:33.200 --> 0:56:35.680 a hundred twenty five miles from his home range and 0:56:35.840 --> 0:56:37.759 covered in that year and a half time or so 0:56:37.960 --> 0:56:40.400 with the collar, he covered three seventy eight miles and 0:56:40.440 --> 0:56:44.680 then died on a remote point in Hell's Canyon, natural 0:56:44.719 --> 0:56:47.759 causes for presumably that it it was during thing was during 0:56:47.800 --> 0:56:49.680 the winter, so they couldn't get in there with any 0:56:49.680 --> 0:56:51.960 other website the jet boat. So I don't remember how 0:56:52.000 --> 0:56:54.040 long it was when the collar went on mortality until 0:56:54.040 --> 0:56:56.680 they wentn't recovered it, so he just went on a crew. Yeah, 0:56:57.280 --> 0:56:59.520 So I mean it kind of just demonstrates the behavior 0:56:59.560 --> 0:57:01.880 potential of these animals that some of them are going 0:57:01.920 --> 0:57:04.759 to move and they show up in town. You know, 0:57:04.800 --> 0:57:06.920 when when you're when you have a civilization at the 0:57:06.920 --> 0:57:09.080 bottom of a nice canyon that joins up to another 0:57:09.160 --> 0:57:12.720 big canyon they're going to come through, And it happens 0:57:12.719 --> 0:57:16.800 pretty regularly, especially in that in that landscape of health. 0:57:16.840 --> 0:57:20.360 Ganyon lower heuse Ganyon. Yeah, so this brings up like 0:57:21.680 --> 0:57:26.800 that brings up a big question. So how we have 0:57:26.840 --> 0:57:29.439 really set up like what needs to happen here? If 0:57:29.480 --> 0:57:31.600 we know what needs to happen. But if they're gonna 0:57:31.640 --> 0:57:37.560 go do that, how do you ever protect them from 0:57:37.560 --> 0:57:41.560 picking up transmittable diseases and spread them to everybody else? 0:57:43.000 --> 0:57:48.240 That's a million dollar question. Well, when Steve, the protocol 0:57:48.360 --> 0:57:52.840 of many Western states is when a bighorn sheep comes 0:57:52.880 --> 0:57:56.720 in contact with domestic sheep, that bighorn sheep is shot. 0:57:58.120 --> 0:58:01.760 So that's that's a standing acting protocol because the fear 0:58:01.920 --> 0:58:05.320 is that that big horn could then be the you know, 0:58:05.400 --> 0:58:10.360 the vector and as as you know this this damn 0:58:10.440 --> 0:58:13.160 ram did I mean goes on a walk about and 0:58:13.160 --> 0:58:14.960 and could have gone through a whole bunch of hers, 0:58:15.000 --> 0:58:17.439 So you know, kind of the standard protocol, it would 0:58:17.440 --> 0:58:21.120 be the administrative. Yeah, you would kill like a state 0:58:21.160 --> 0:58:23.880 age she would kill. That would and they're trying, they're 0:58:23.880 --> 0:58:26.320 trying to get away from that where possible, so that 0:58:26.600 --> 0:58:29.720 just the setup I was talking about where some animals 0:58:29.760 --> 0:58:31.960 will show up and say that, you know a town 0:58:32.000 --> 0:58:34.800 along the Snake River where there's big horn habitat on 0:58:34.800 --> 0:58:38.520 all sides, and they show up in town, and you know, 0:58:38.840 --> 0:58:42.640 generally the the old method was let's just let's remove 0:58:42.720 --> 0:58:44.800 this animal so it can't go back, and and they're 0:58:44.840 --> 0:58:48.640 removing it for the express purpose to protect that this 0:58:48.760 --> 0:58:51.240 could have It could have picked up pneumonia, it could 0:58:51.280 --> 0:58:54.560 have contact, especially if it was seen obvious ones that 0:58:54.560 --> 0:58:58.640 are document in a pasture with domestic sheep, domestic goats 0:58:59.120 --> 0:59:01.360 you know most of the time, or but what they're 0:59:01.400 --> 0:59:03.720 trying to do now is based on the proximity to 0:59:04.000 --> 0:59:06.520 w s US that we try to put you know, 0:59:06.680 --> 0:59:10.760 dark the animal live, capture it, then holding test or else, 0:59:10.920 --> 0:59:13.760 take it to the w s A w s U 0:59:14.160 --> 0:59:17.320 facility and then becomes to research animal. Basically, I'd like 0:59:17.440 --> 0:59:20.200 to this. This was like my big AHA moment when 0:59:20.280 --> 0:59:22.760 I came here, right I was sitting with our biologists 0:59:22.800 --> 0:59:25.520 across the hall and and he just kind of said 0:59:25.560 --> 0:59:28.200 it like it was just something that that just happens. 0:59:28.840 --> 0:59:31.320 And I'm like, so you're telling me I could go 0:59:31.400 --> 0:59:34.840 get a grazing permit for my domestic sheep going to 0:59:34.960 --> 0:59:38.680 public land and then that wild cheap comes down and 0:59:39.280 --> 0:59:43.880 boom they shoot it and it does you know. So 0:59:43.920 --> 0:59:47.160 we see in the breaks um a couple of years 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:50.120 ago there was two young rams. They went within three 0:59:50.200 --> 0:59:53.960 quarters of a mile of a domestic sheepherden. Boom they 0:59:53.960 --> 0:59:58.200 were shot. But yep, yep because of them being a vector. 0:59:59.120 --> 1:00:03.160 So what's like, what's your do you guys have a 1:00:03.680 --> 1:00:07.840 official stance on the practice? Because there an alternative to that, 1:00:07.960 --> 1:00:10.000 I mean, just to that part of it right there. Now. 1:00:10.040 --> 1:00:15.160 We we we you know, our are our objective is 1:00:15.200 --> 1:00:19.479 to keep the two species separate. So um, if there's 1:00:19.520 --> 1:00:21.920 non contact, you know, if you can send them off 1:00:21.960 --> 1:00:24.280 to w s U or send them off to sabille 1:00:24.280 --> 1:00:28.120 In in Wyoming, great um. But you know you think 1:00:28.160 --> 1:00:31.040 about that, that's also a death sense. You know, they're 1:00:31.080 --> 1:00:34.800 going to now be a guinea pig for disease testing. Um. 1:00:35.080 --> 1:00:38.000 So that you know that there's really not much we 1:00:38.040 --> 1:00:40.840 can do other than keep the two separated. So you know, 1:00:40.960 --> 1:00:43.880 we circle back to Washington, d C. You know, that's 1:00:43.880 --> 1:00:46.840 what we're advocating for back in Washington, d c IS 1:00:46.840 --> 1:00:51.440 is federal land managers and agencies to to work for 1:00:51.640 --> 1:00:56.959 spatial and temporal separation of of wild sheep and domestic sheep. 1:00:57.160 --> 1:00:58.840 What does that need to look like? I can I 1:00:58.920 --> 1:01:05.000 can imagine where it becomes contentious. Could you mind like 1:01:05.200 --> 1:01:07.280 sketching out the obvious and how does that become a 1:01:07.280 --> 1:01:10.360 contentious conversation? Well? You you know, you got I was. 1:01:10.440 --> 1:01:12.560 I was just back there with a with a producer 1:01:12.600 --> 1:01:15.440 who's who's this is domestic sheep producer. He's the largest 1:01:16.040 --> 1:01:20.160 public land domestic sheep producer in uh in Montana. He's 1:01:20.160 --> 1:01:23.919 a good guy, uh and he gets it and he 1:01:24.120 --> 1:01:27.360 uh he does his best to keep his domestic sheep 1:01:27.400 --> 1:01:31.600 away from wild sheep um and he wants more wild 1:01:31.680 --> 1:01:35.280 sheep on on Montana's mountains. But you know, the the 1:01:35.360 --> 1:01:40.680 issue there's um litigation. Uh. Whild she Foundations really not 1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:44.600 a litigant type organization. We we we feel we'd rather sit 1:01:44.600 --> 1:01:48.240 around the table and and and workout solutions. So you know, 1:01:48.280 --> 1:01:51.240 our our objective there, Steve, would be to sit down 1:01:51.240 --> 1:01:54.160 with that producer and go all right, Uh. You know 1:01:54.200 --> 1:01:58.200 the Western way of doing things is having a whiskey 1:01:58.560 --> 1:02:02.120 chatting ig olloging that there's an issue first and foremost 1:02:02.480 --> 1:02:06.080 and then looking for solutions. Is it is at times 1:02:06.080 --> 1:02:09.120 of year when when a producer's trailing through an area, 1:02:09.560 --> 1:02:11.880 UH is it is it how he uses or she 1:02:12.080 --> 1:02:15.240 uses the the upper allotments or you know these high 1:02:15.240 --> 1:02:20.000 mountain allotments. So UM, we've we've done various programs in 1:02:20.080 --> 1:02:22.600 various states. There's a few states that have very good 1:02:22.600 --> 1:02:25.600 collaboratives where you have a wild sheep and domestic sheep 1:02:26.200 --> 1:02:29.520 UH interaction working group. UH. We don't always agree, but 1:02:29.560 --> 1:02:31.919 we sit around a table once or twice a year 1:02:31.960 --> 1:02:33.920 and say, let's, you know, let's come up with solutions 1:02:33.960 --> 1:02:36.840 that we can UH, we can, we can work this out. 1:02:36.920 --> 1:02:41.080 Doesn't work everywhere. UM. You know wild sheep foundations of 1:02:41.080 --> 1:02:47.560 official position as we want healthy and UH expanding wild 1:02:47.600 --> 1:02:51.720 sheep herds UM, but we also support a vibrant domestic 1:02:51.760 --> 1:02:55.680 sheep industry. The key is there's often places that just 1:02:55.840 --> 1:03:02.080 absolutely incompatible in the same landscape. UM. We have worked 1:03:02.200 --> 1:03:08.080 with um permitees to convert if it's a high conflict area, 1:03:08.160 --> 1:03:12.160 you've got a large population of big horn sheep, large 1:03:12.200 --> 1:03:15.840 population of domestic sheep, and we know there's going to 1:03:15.920 --> 1:03:19.080 be contact. We've worked with some producers to convert them 1:03:19.120 --> 1:03:22.760 to cattle were appropriate. Uh. There have been situations where 1:03:22.760 --> 1:03:27.320 we've worked with producers to pay them almost like a 1:03:27.400 --> 1:03:31.840 CRP program in the Midwest, but pay them to retire 1:03:31.920 --> 1:03:35.160 their allotment or vacate their lot, just to look at like, 1:03:35.200 --> 1:03:40.000 what would you make in profits running sheep? Can we 1:03:40.040 --> 1:03:43.400 take conservation dollars and we'll pay you to not do it? 1:03:44.120 --> 1:03:46.840 We take private conservation dollars to pay it and not 1:03:46.960 --> 1:03:49.720 do it. We just have you have a willing seller, 1:03:49.760 --> 1:03:52.920 willing absolutely and we you know, we we paid a 1:03:54.080 --> 1:03:57.040 just because we're these These deals are typically confidential, so 1:03:57.080 --> 1:03:59.520 I won't even mention the state, but we we pay 1:03:59.600 --> 1:04:04.600 to produce or four seven thousand dollars to vacate uh 1:04:04.640 --> 1:04:09.320 their allotment. Um. They were also in getting into trouble 1:04:09.360 --> 1:04:13.320 with grizzly bears and wolves. Uh constant constant problem. So 1:04:13.800 --> 1:04:16.840 uh the expansion of grizzly bears and expansion of of 1:04:16.840 --> 1:04:20.520 of wolves has in some ways benefited big horn sheep 1:04:20.520 --> 1:04:24.280 in some states because the primitives want to get get 1:04:24.320 --> 1:04:26.240 the hell out of there, and they come to NGOs 1:04:26.280 --> 1:04:28.280 like Wild Chief Foundation and say can you give us 1:04:28.280 --> 1:04:30.720 a hand, and we do, and we do, and we've 1:04:30.760 --> 1:04:34.080 spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars doing that, 1:04:34.440 --> 1:04:38.200 and you nailed it on a willing seller, willing buyer deal. 1:04:38.920 --> 1:04:42.120 But what does it look like? You're talking about big 1:04:42.280 --> 1:04:49.560 organized producers okay, who presumably have kind of like a 1:04:49.680 --> 1:04:54.480 business sensibility, they have a sense of profit loss. But 1:04:54.760 --> 1:04:58.560 what about all the people that just have two or 1:04:58.600 --> 1:05:01.280 three sheep? Excellent? How do you even know who they are? 1:05:01.680 --> 1:05:04.240 Excellent question, because I mean I could go like my brother, 1:05:04.560 --> 1:05:08.080 he has lived and he doesn't formally big Orange country. 1:05:08.360 --> 1:05:11.000 He's got some sheep, He's got ten acres that irrigated pasture, 1:05:11.840 --> 1:05:14.640 he's got sheep out there. There's nothing to prevent him 1:05:14.680 --> 1:05:17.760 from having a buddy come over and say, hey man, 1:05:17.760 --> 1:05:20.320 I'd love to have a lamp for my place. Nothing. 1:05:20.480 --> 1:05:25.560 There's no paperwork. So the key, the key key there 1:05:25.600 --> 1:05:28.360 is education, you know. So I mean on this on 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:31.120 this podcast, I mean we're we're gonna be educating people 1:05:31.160 --> 1:05:36.439 that there's an issue. Um you know, Uh, I came 1:05:36.480 --> 1:05:39.000 from Texas and I go down to to Houston and 1:05:39.040 --> 1:05:41.760 I gave a presentation, I talked, I talked about the 1:05:41.800 --> 1:05:44.960 disease issue into a hunting community that you would presume 1:05:45.120 --> 1:05:47.240 would would know something about it, and it's kind of 1:05:47.240 --> 1:05:50.680 blank stairs. I've never heard of it, um, truth be told. 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:52.840 I came to the Wild Chief Foundation for Dallas of 1:05:52.880 --> 1:05:54.720 Fark Club, I wasn't aware of it. I've been in 1:05:54.760 --> 1:05:58.280 the Huntington conservation industry for eighteen years. I hadn't heard 1:05:58.280 --> 1:06:01.880 about it. So it's it's it's education. Um. While she 1:06:02.000 --> 1:06:06.880 foundation obviously respects private landowners, um you know, respects private 1:06:07.000 --> 1:06:10.240 land rights, uh and your ability to do what you 1:06:10.600 --> 1:06:14.280 you want on your land. But um, you know, our 1:06:14.320 --> 1:06:18.160 our our effort there would be to educate those private 1:06:18.240 --> 1:06:22.120 landowners or those recreational producers or hobby flocks or whatever 1:06:22.160 --> 1:06:26.160 you want. Four h um f a a lot of 1:06:26.160 --> 1:06:28.440 four h animals out there that could get in trouble. 1:06:29.080 --> 1:06:32.160 Educate them. UM. I just I just spent two years, 1:06:32.320 --> 1:06:35.960 two days on the Missouri River with a UM private 1:06:36.160 --> 1:06:40.840 producer in southern BC who gets it, um. And interesting enough, 1:06:40.960 --> 1:06:44.440 he's got a small flock of domestic cheap they're actually 1:06:44.520 --> 1:06:48.760 mouflan sheep, and he's in proximity to Big Horn habitat 1:06:49.280 --> 1:06:52.520 and he's a part of an Internet interaction working group 1:06:52.560 --> 1:06:54.960 in Southern BC, and he was the guy that asked 1:06:54.960 --> 1:06:57.400 the question of them. He goes, well, why don't I, 1:06:57.760 --> 1:07:02.880 as a producer, test my sheep for amovie? He did, 1:07:03.680 --> 1:07:06.720 and he's got a nemovie free flock and he's now 1:07:06.840 --> 1:07:10.360 one of our biggest advocates as a domestic sheep producer 1:07:11.160 --> 1:07:15.160 for amovie free flock. So that would be potentially one 1:07:15.200 --> 1:07:18.400 of the solutions. And that's pretty interesting to think about 1:07:18.480 --> 1:07:21.520 because I mean, you know, a lot of states have 1:07:21.720 --> 1:07:27.240 managed to get brucellosis out of livestock hurts. Is that 1:07:27.320 --> 1:07:29.600 an area of interest to think that you could expand 1:07:29.680 --> 1:07:33.920 absolutely well, they would, you know, they would be amovie 1:07:33.960 --> 1:07:37.600 free sheep. There's a doctor Tom Besser who's our Rocky 1:07:37.680 --> 1:07:41.000 Crate Endowed Charities at Washington State University, probably one of 1:07:41.000 --> 1:07:44.800 the world's foremost experts on this issue, and he's advised 1:07:44.920 --> 1:07:49.160 us that if you have an iMovie free domestic flock, 1:07:49.280 --> 1:07:53.400 that's about a nineties seven percent solution to this issue. 1:07:54.560 --> 1:07:59.080 So that that is exciting. UM, But there's a fly 1:07:59.200 --> 1:08:05.640 in the ointment Scott. Scott just talked about that ram 1:08:05.640 --> 1:08:08.560 that did a three hundred some odd mile walk about. 1:08:10.120 --> 1:08:16.080 So we've got you know, we we know that um 1:08:16.200 --> 1:08:21.599 iMovie is not endemic to bighorn sheep, but in iMovie 1:08:21.720 --> 1:08:24.920 is now resident in bighorn sheep. So we have herds 1:08:24.920 --> 1:08:27.240 and you know we're in Montana, so we have herds 1:08:27.240 --> 1:08:31.559 in Montana that they test positive for iMovie UM. As 1:08:31.560 --> 1:08:34.519 Scott pointed out, there's a variety of strains. It's kind 1:08:34.520 --> 1:08:37.360 of like the you know, not necessarily but again Layman's terms, 1:08:37.400 --> 1:08:39.160 kind of like the flu or the cold. You know, 1:08:39.240 --> 1:08:41.599 sometimes you get one hell of a common cold. Sometimes 1:08:41.640 --> 1:08:43.760 you get a little light one. Sometimes you get a flue. 1:08:43.800 --> 1:08:45.840 You know, there's a flu virus that you know that 1:08:45.960 --> 1:08:49.080 just wipes you out. Other times it's not so bad. 1:08:49.520 --> 1:08:53.160 The same thing with you know, strains of iMovie. Uh, 1:08:53.200 --> 1:08:57.400 this this big horn may be able to live with it. Well, 1:08:57.640 --> 1:08:59.479 now here's the fly in the ointment. What if we 1:08:59.640 --> 1:09:03.200 have a private land domestic sheep producer doing the right 1:09:03.320 --> 1:09:08.559 thing to tons of money testing his or her sheep. 1:09:08.680 --> 1:09:11.880 They're a movie free they make sure they only bring 1:09:11.960 --> 1:09:15.200 in stock from amovie free. And we got a wandering 1:09:15.280 --> 1:09:19.599 bighorn that's a movie positive. Now we've now we've switched 1:09:20.400 --> 1:09:24.960 the dynamic there, and you know that the fact is 1:09:25.000 --> 1:09:28.559 we've got to be intellectually honest and go We're still 1:09:28.600 --> 1:09:32.000 back into a separation scenario now, we're trying to separate 1:09:32.439 --> 1:09:35.280 you know, these iMovie free clean domestic sheep from a 1:09:35.320 --> 1:09:40.840 potentially UM infected wild sheep. The truth of the matter, 1:09:41.240 --> 1:09:45.000 if we were gonna have to think different, we we 1:09:45.120 --> 1:09:48.559 can't continue to do the way we've done in the past. 1:09:48.640 --> 1:09:51.840 And I think there are opportunities that we missed UM 1:09:52.280 --> 1:09:54.360 and I want to emphasize the work that was done. 1:09:55.240 --> 1:09:59.320 Great Gray mentioned private landowners earlier. We restored bighorn sheep 1:09:59.400 --> 1:10:03.000 in Texas with private landowners because you didn't have a 1:10:03.080 --> 1:10:06.439 choice there. Absolutely absolutely so we figured out a way 1:10:06.479 --> 1:10:09.280 to do this together. And these are these are people 1:10:09.439 --> 1:10:12.439 who care and and our goal is certainly not to 1:10:13.080 --> 1:10:16.599 put people out of business. Uh. To me, the way 1:10:16.640 --> 1:10:19.439 we do this is we figure out new solutions, better 1:10:19.479 --> 1:10:22.080 way of doing business. We sit out at the same table. 1:10:22.200 --> 1:10:26.120 We don't play the politics. We we we stopped denying 1:10:26.240 --> 1:10:29.640 that the disease exists. It's it's real. You asked me 1:10:29.680 --> 1:10:32.719 a question, or ask us all a question earlier. Didn't 1:10:32.720 --> 1:10:36.439 you have any ideas you what's those numbers decline? Everybody 1:10:36.479 --> 1:10:38.519 had a thought, they had a pretty good idea why 1:10:38.600 --> 1:10:43.200 it just never was demonstrated or proven. And and later 1:10:43.240 --> 1:10:47.920 on that information came in a controlled experiment and where 1:10:47.960 --> 1:10:50.360 we where we knew that it that it did occur. 1:10:50.960 --> 1:10:54.080 And then the question it became, well, that didn't really 1:10:54.080 --> 1:10:57.120 occur in the wild. Uh, you guys did that in 1:10:57.200 --> 1:10:59.759 a controlled setting? It really doesn't occur in the wild. 1:11:00.040 --> 1:11:02.720 It does. So the first the first thing we have 1:11:02.800 --> 1:11:05.880 to do is acknowledge that we've got a problem, and 1:11:05.880 --> 1:11:08.840 then we start working together. And Grace says it best. 1:11:08.920 --> 1:11:11.800 He talks about, you know, it's okay to have both 1:11:11.880 --> 1:11:14.240 on the landscape, they just can't be there at the 1:11:14.280 --> 1:11:16.479 same time, at the same place. And so we have 1:11:16.520 --> 1:11:19.959 to figure out what that what that does look like. Uh, 1:11:20.040 --> 1:11:22.360 but we are going to have to think outside the box. 1:11:22.400 --> 1:11:26.000 How you know, how do how do we do things? 1:11:26.439 --> 1:11:30.200 Is it? I know? And and and probably will suck 1:11:30.240 --> 1:11:32.200 the air out of this room. But we allow private 1:11:32.240 --> 1:11:36.000 landowners in Texas to benefit from sheep tags. There's an 1:11:36.000 --> 1:11:39.240 incentive there for landowners to work with us, and it's 1:11:39.280 --> 1:11:44.000 work extremely well. Um landowners are willing to do whatever 1:11:44.080 --> 1:11:48.080 it takes, we conduct we uh. Landowners allow public hunters 1:11:48.080 --> 1:11:52.440 on their property to hunt. UH, we hunt each other's property. 1:11:52.520 --> 1:11:56.120 We we do research, We capture sheep on private land. 1:11:56.520 --> 1:11:59.120 So there are lots of other examples. That's just like 1:11:59.200 --> 1:12:03.120 in that mob, you're going for a thing where you're 1:12:03.120 --> 1:12:06.479 trying to change the landowner perception of what it means 1:12:06.479 --> 1:12:09.519 to have sheep. It's not just like you're screwed now, 1:12:09.520 --> 1:12:12.200 a buddy, there's a sheep on your property, exactly, and 1:12:12.640 --> 1:12:17.439 you'll never as a private landowner or a producer. Why 1:12:17.439 --> 1:12:19.479 would I care if there were sheep bigger and cheap 1:12:19.520 --> 1:12:22.720 around here? If I saw no benefit from that? And 1:12:22.760 --> 1:12:25.200 so I think there are opportunities that we haven't explored 1:12:25.720 --> 1:12:27.400 that we need to. We need to sit down on 1:12:27.439 --> 1:12:30.320 the at the same table work through some of these issues. 1:12:30.320 --> 1:12:33.560 But but we can't do that if we don't acknowledge 1:12:33.600 --> 1:12:36.800 that the disease exists, and if if every time something 1:12:36.880 --> 1:12:40.679 major happens or an obstacle comes up a stumbling block, 1:12:40.800 --> 1:12:43.760 we run straight to d C. Are there are there 1:12:43.880 --> 1:12:48.400 pneumonia deniers? Oh? Absolutely, It seems to be a common 1:12:48.439 --> 1:12:54.559 theme across the handful of CD deniers. Absolutely, well, there's 1:12:54.600 --> 1:12:57.280 deniers and then there's users of you know, we've seen 1:12:57.800 --> 1:13:01.439 it uses a leveraging tool when they know that we'll 1:13:01.479 --> 1:13:04.960 pay to play. Hey, you know, hey, we're gonna bring 1:13:05.000 --> 1:13:08.479 in some domestics in here. What do you think of that? 1:13:09.880 --> 1:13:13.639 Or you know there's a guy in in gardener somewhere. Um, 1:13:13.800 --> 1:13:16.360 he got pissed he lost his grazing allotments and said 1:13:16.479 --> 1:13:19.439 all right and brought in domestic sheep when we lost 1:13:19.479 --> 1:13:23.519 forty three sheep that winter, because he was like, well, 1:13:24.080 --> 1:13:25.720 we had a we had a guy down in Wyoming 1:13:25.800 --> 1:13:28.840 that he was basically a cattle producer, but he had 1:13:28.920 --> 1:13:32.040 he had cattle a lotments up to eleven thousand feet 1:13:32.040 --> 1:13:37.280 in the mountains and the in prime prime Big Horn habitat, 1:13:37.880 --> 1:13:39.800 and he had he was, you know, not not the 1:13:39.880 --> 1:13:41.920 not the best grazer in the world. And he'd gotten 1:13:41.920 --> 1:13:44.479 in trouble with the BLM constantly and he lost his 1:13:44.520 --> 1:13:48.280 BLM cattle allotments. He goes, fine, I'm gonna put domestic 1:13:48.320 --> 1:13:51.200 sheep on my deeded land up at eleven thousand feet 1:13:51.280 --> 1:13:53.880 right in Big Horn habitat. Now, what are you gonna do? 1:13:54.880 --> 1:14:01.200 So so then he just doing just retribution. That's wildlife terrorism. Yeah, 1:14:01.200 --> 1:14:04.519 that's wildlife terrorism because you know he knows you know. 1:14:04.560 --> 1:14:06.920 So as as Garrett said, you know you've got you've 1:14:06.960 --> 1:14:09.280 got people, you've got deniers, and then you've got those 1:14:09.320 --> 1:14:11.880 that will use me as a weapon. Well, and that 1:14:11.920 --> 1:14:16.439 that also occurs on just the different public lands issues. Uh. 1:14:16.520 --> 1:14:20.160 There there are some who would use use the grazing 1:14:20.240 --> 1:14:24.320 part of it is as or the anti grazing part 1:14:24.360 --> 1:14:27.599 of it. Uh, bring big horns into that, just just 1:14:27.640 --> 1:14:30.439 to lay that on the table. In other words, Uh, 1:14:30.479 --> 1:14:33.280 it's all about where it might be about public land grazing. 1:14:33.320 --> 1:14:35.960 That's not what we're about either, has nothing to do 1:14:36.000 --> 1:14:38.760 with that. I don't follow what you're saying. Well, one 1:14:38.760 --> 1:14:40.800 of the one of the public land guys can say it. 1:14:40.960 --> 1:14:44.080 Say it better there we have U. There are some 1:14:44.479 --> 1:14:48.719 groups who would use big horns cheap to say that 1:14:49.280 --> 1:14:51.599 we don't want any grazing on public land, so let's 1:14:51.680 --> 1:14:54.519 use big horn cheap to accomplish this. So someone who 1:14:54.560 --> 1:14:57.240 had an agenda where they felt like they weren't so 1:14:57.360 --> 1:15:02.240 much pro big horn as they were antirasing on public lands, 1:15:02.400 --> 1:15:03.720 and they'd be like this would be a great place 1:15:03.760 --> 1:15:06.240 for some big horns, and I know that I can, 1:15:06.720 --> 1:15:08.640 I'll be able to manipulate that in the achieving my 1:15:08.680 --> 1:15:11.479 other goal. And that's not that's not our mission. Our 1:15:11.560 --> 1:15:14.240 mission is is simple. We put and keep sheep on 1:15:14.280 --> 1:15:16.920 the mountain. And and if we're gonna do this, we're 1:15:16.920 --> 1:15:19.560 gonna have to do it together with livestock producers. And 1:15:19.640 --> 1:15:21.679 I think there are some really good examples out there 1:15:22.040 --> 1:15:25.920 for people working together. Uh well, I think that the key, 1:15:26.160 --> 1:15:28.760 Like you know, I've met with and have spoken with 1:15:28.800 --> 1:15:33.840 a lot of very effective players in the conservation space, 1:15:33.880 --> 1:15:36.320 people like the people in this room, in this organization, 1:15:36.320 --> 1:15:38.960 who have a long track record. And the thing that 1:15:39.000 --> 1:15:42.000 I find that these groups are in is you're in 1:15:42.040 --> 1:15:47.240 the middle, and you got some crazies off to each side, 1:15:47.840 --> 1:15:50.880 and you're trying to guide right, You're trying to keep 1:15:50.920 --> 1:15:55.000 this thing moving along with some pretty radical fringe elements 1:15:55.000 --> 1:15:57.920 probably barking at you from both sides. Absolutely, you know, 1:15:58.000 --> 1:16:00.479 and then I think, you know, going back too, he 1:16:00.600 --> 1:16:03.400 just keeps preaching education and it's huge, huge, you know, 1:16:03.439 --> 1:16:07.080 I've worked with, spoke to your buddy Ryan Callahan a lot, 1:16:07.200 --> 1:16:09.640 like you talk to these companies who one of their 1:16:09.640 --> 1:16:12.320 biggest things is wool, you know, and they're always preaching 1:16:12.680 --> 1:16:14.640 that they're selling great wool products, but where do you 1:16:14.640 --> 1:16:17.479 get it? You know, you have some people that are 1:16:18.840 --> 1:16:21.360 they do and so they're safe, right, same with Sika, 1:16:21.400 --> 1:16:23.720 they're saying, you know, so talking with Sia in first life, 1:16:23.720 --> 1:16:25.040 I mean like, hey guys, you guys want to talk 1:16:25.040 --> 1:16:26.720 about where you get your wool from? Where? Maybe where 1:16:26.720 --> 1:16:30.439 you shouldn't. You have some groups that say we're environmentally friendly, 1:16:31.040 --> 1:16:33.680 you know, because we source our wool here locally and 1:16:33.720 --> 1:16:35.760 there's not these shipping things and all that, and then 1:16:35.760 --> 1:16:37.440 you go where do you get in? They go Colorado. 1:16:38.040 --> 1:16:40.280 You go, oh, so you're just killing you know. I 1:16:40.360 --> 1:16:44.519 sat next to Van Snard up on stage talking about how, yeah, 1:16:44.560 --> 1:16:47.280 if you're sourcing your wool west of the Mississippi, you're 1:16:47.320 --> 1:16:50.439 probably contributing to the die off of big horn cheap. 1:16:51.439 --> 1:16:55.880 And that got an interesting, I mean bold statement. Man. Yeah, well, 1:16:55.920 --> 1:16:58.960 I mean, you know, and but a statement that people 1:16:59.000 --> 1:17:01.600 could read into pretty heavily. Yeah it will, and you know, 1:17:01.640 --> 1:17:03.760 I I should probably should have followed it up more. 1:17:03.840 --> 1:17:07.120 But people just don't understand. And a lot of times 1:17:07.160 --> 1:17:10.200 these people building the garments and understand talking, you know, 1:17:10.280 --> 1:17:12.760 Ryan Callahan is a very educated dude when it comes 1:17:12.800 --> 1:17:15.360 to conservation and a lot of these things he did 1:17:15.240 --> 1:17:18.599 had no idea about. So so if we talk about 1:17:18.760 --> 1:17:21.559 if we look at this like the separation thing, the 1:17:21.600 --> 1:17:28.080 separation idea, Um, well, well first I'm gonna dress something 1:17:28.120 --> 1:17:30.920 you just brought up. Is there do you guys have 1:17:31.200 --> 1:17:34.599 a is there like, is there a the equivalent of 1:17:34.640 --> 1:17:39.320 like labeling something organic or labeling uh an organization to 1:17:39.439 --> 1:17:43.600 be of a certain pedigree of four oh one k nonprofit? Like? 1:17:43.720 --> 1:17:45.200 Is there do you guys have a way where you 1:17:45.240 --> 1:17:48.880 like are certifying or giving a stamp of approval to 1:17:48.960 --> 1:17:55.880 certain producers for practicing. No, we we looked into it. Yeah, 1:17:56.240 --> 1:17:59.920 we had a we had a um, you know, kind 1:18:00.040 --> 1:18:06.920 of a Wild Sheep Safe campaign and it it's the 1:18:07.000 --> 1:18:10.240 challenge with that, Steve is it did get into a 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:18.280 certification process and we didn't have the staff um and 1:18:18.280 --> 1:18:20.400 and you know then we we talked to our attorneys 1:18:20.400 --> 1:18:23.600 and they went, oh, man, you certify one and not 1:18:23.920 --> 1:18:27.120 you know, so yeah, we kind of backed away from 1:18:27.120 --> 1:18:29.720 that on the Wild Sheep Safe and and it's and 1:18:29.720 --> 1:18:31.760 it's it's almost like Scott had said on you know, 1:18:31.800 --> 1:18:37.360 what is effective separation. What is the distance. It's a 1:18:37.400 --> 1:18:39.759 real it's a real challenge there. It's like an impuge. 1:18:39.760 --> 1:18:42.040 It sound there's a thing. There's like a type of building. 1:18:43.080 --> 1:18:45.639 It's like what they call it salmon safe or salmon 1:18:45.720 --> 1:18:48.200 country or something in a building can in a building 1:18:48.240 --> 1:18:50.400 can comply in a certain way and has to do 1:18:50.479 --> 1:18:53.920 with the quality the runoff. That has to do with it. 1:18:54.040 --> 1:18:58.280 You've achieved some threshold, some measurable threshold of of acknowledgement 1:18:58.360 --> 1:19:00.720 that this water is going to be king that and 1:19:00.760 --> 1:19:02.920 this is this is what Garrett touched on. And so 1:19:02.960 --> 1:19:05.599 we're we're kind of, you know, we're kind of looking 1:19:05.680 --> 1:19:11.040 at a concept of conflict free lamb and wool um 1:19:11.120 --> 1:19:13.800 and we're still flushing that out. I mean, there's responsible 1:19:13.840 --> 1:19:18.519 wool standards that the wool industry uses. Interesting enough, I've 1:19:18.520 --> 1:19:22.160 read through most of the organizations that have responsible woolf standards. 1:19:22.160 --> 1:19:27.800 It's more animal husbandry. It's um. You know, it's transportation, 1:19:27.960 --> 1:19:31.400 it's predator control, whether or not there's some predator control 1:19:31.479 --> 1:19:34.160 going on in your area. They may think that's non 1:19:34.320 --> 1:19:39.679 friendly about wildlife. Nothing in there talks about big horn sheets. 1:19:39.720 --> 1:19:43.760 So it's more animal rights. Bet so we're you know, 1:19:43.800 --> 1:19:46.360 we're reaching out to some of those more environmental groups 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:48.000 to say, hey, if you're if you're gonna, if you're 1:19:48.000 --> 1:19:50.439 gonna run down this path, you better put big horns 1:19:50.439 --> 1:19:54.360 in the picture. But as we as we mature, you know, 1:19:54.400 --> 1:19:58.479 this conflicts free space, um, it too is more of 1:19:58.479 --> 1:20:02.000 an education program. I mean, world, we will probably never 1:20:02.160 --> 1:20:07.920 be able to have completely conflict free scenarios in the 1:20:07.960 --> 1:20:12.680 Western United States unless you put the wool industry and 1:20:12.760 --> 1:20:15.680 this lamb industry out of business. And that's not our objective. 1:20:15.840 --> 1:20:18.920 I mean, that's just not our objective. So the key 1:20:19.280 --> 1:20:23.240 about that question me ask this, does does the woolen 1:20:23.360 --> 1:20:30.120 lamb industry in the West absolutely rely on public land grazing? Okay, 1:20:32.840 --> 1:20:37.719 families and the big horns probably rely on private land. 1:20:39.439 --> 1:20:42.920 Uh no, more big horns are on public land even 1:20:42.960 --> 1:20:49.960 in the wintertime. Um yeah still yeah, still um so yeah, 1:20:49.960 --> 1:20:52.519 it's it's a it's sevent of the time they're spending 1:20:52.560 --> 1:20:54.960 on public lands. So so there is a you know, 1:20:55.000 --> 1:20:57.720 there is a public land grazing scenario, and and it 1:20:57.840 --> 1:21:00.680 just it just varies on states on ten it's not 1:21:01.120 --> 1:21:03.679 it's not really the issue public land grazings out the issue. 1:21:03.720 --> 1:21:08.920 It's more education of private recreational herds or you know, 1:21:08.920 --> 1:21:13.760 our producers. UM. Colorado is probably the ground zero for 1:21:13.840 --> 1:21:17.960 the public land grazing issue with a lot of conflict zones. 1:21:18.280 --> 1:21:22.760 The BLM and the Fourth Service have risk of contact maps. UM. 1:21:22.880 --> 1:21:25.839 You can look at a map and it'll show active 1:21:25.880 --> 1:21:32.240 domestic sheep grazing allotments UM, occupied big horn range UM, 1:21:32.439 --> 1:21:37.200 and active BLM allotments and then red conflict zones, so 1:21:37.680 --> 1:21:39.880 they're mapped out. I mean, we you know, there's there's 1:21:39.960 --> 1:21:43.320 risk of contact analysis. That's that's going on. The bottom 1:21:43.320 --> 1:21:45.960 line is we pretty much know where the touch points 1:21:45.960 --> 1:21:48.680 and the hot points are. UM. You know, one of 1:21:48.720 --> 1:21:52.040 the solutions that we're looking at is what if we 1:21:52.840 --> 1:21:55.800 what if we took the top ten hot points and 1:21:55.880 --> 1:21:58.840 to take pick a state, Colorado, what if we took 1:21:58.840 --> 1:22:03.080 the top ten hot points that man, we've got you know, 1:22:03.320 --> 1:22:06.759 real critical core bighorn herds in there in that area, 1:22:07.080 --> 1:22:10.840 and we've got some pretty significant conflict zones. What if 1:22:10.880 --> 1:22:13.120 we address those first? You know, it's it's eating the 1:22:13.160 --> 1:22:16.080 elephant one bite at a time. It's it's a huge issue. 1:22:16.120 --> 1:22:19.519 It's a huge problem. UM. You know, the disease issue 1:22:19.600 --> 1:22:22.439 is complex. We you know, we don't have all the answers, 1:22:22.840 --> 1:22:26.479 but what if we could you know, incrementally, um, you know, 1:22:26.600 --> 1:22:29.680 ten percent at a time start addressing those issues with 1:22:29.800 --> 1:22:31.680 a variety of tools. Some of them are going to 1:22:31.760 --> 1:22:34.160 be bottom line moving a producer out of that area. 1:22:34.960 --> 1:22:38.080 And but the key there is can we find that 1:22:38.160 --> 1:22:41.559 producer or other grass de grace? Um? You know, are 1:22:41.600 --> 1:22:43.880 there private land areas? Are there? Are there? You know, 1:22:43.920 --> 1:22:46.040 are there tools that we haven't used yet? You know, 1:22:46.080 --> 1:22:51.960 can can the the wild sheep advocacy community? Um, you know, 1:22:51.960 --> 1:22:53.840 if we're not going to buy you out, can we 1:22:53.920 --> 1:22:58.120 incentivize you to go onto some lower elevation pivot point, 1:22:58.880 --> 1:23:01.360 you know, some alpha the field or some other grass 1:23:01.400 --> 1:23:05.040 field that you can utilize instead of high mountains summertime 1:23:05.080 --> 1:23:08.600 allotments where big horn sheep are grazing. So, you know, 1:23:08.640 --> 1:23:10.800 we just gotta we gotta get clever and and Clay 1:23:10.840 --> 1:23:13.839 said it, and we we've got we've got a program 1:23:13.840 --> 1:23:15.720 that we call our new narrative. But you know, the 1:23:16.120 --> 1:23:18.880 premises we've been doing the same thing over and over 1:23:18.920 --> 1:23:21.519 and over and expecting a different results. Time to change that. 1:23:21.600 --> 1:23:23.479 You know, we all know that's called insanity if you 1:23:23.520 --> 1:23:26.920 expect a different results. So we're we're, you know, we're 1:23:26.960 --> 1:23:29.960 we want to sit down with with willing producers who 1:23:29.960 --> 1:23:32.880 are progressive and get it and don't deny that there's 1:23:32.880 --> 1:23:36.120 an issue, and said, I'm saying, hey, you know, you 1:23:36.160 --> 1:23:39.680 wanna you wanna keep your family in business, and it's 1:23:39.720 --> 1:23:42.840 a part of the western landscape. We respect that, you know, 1:23:42.920 --> 1:23:46.120 as a multiple use advocacy organization, which is what wild 1:23:46.120 --> 1:23:49.760 She Foundation is, we respect that. But let's let's not 1:23:49.840 --> 1:23:51.640 do the same thing over and over and expect a 1:23:51.680 --> 1:23:55.520 different result. Let's let's do different things and get different results. 1:23:55.360 --> 1:23:57.960 And something Grace says a lot to you. You know, 1:23:58.000 --> 1:24:01.200 there's those that sue and those that do um. And 1:24:01.240 --> 1:24:04.320 we're kind of like that first group that knocks on 1:24:04.320 --> 1:24:07.880 the door, and when we get denied, then we go alright, well, 1:24:07.920 --> 1:24:10.120 when they knock on the door, it's probably not gonna 1:24:10.160 --> 1:24:12.439 be as pretty, you know. So we're kind of like 1:24:12.520 --> 1:24:15.559 that just right at the beginning, saying hey, let's let's 1:24:15.600 --> 1:24:17.680 work things out. And then when we leave if we 1:24:17.720 --> 1:24:21.240 get denied, you know, and there's there's unfortunate reality that 1:24:21.280 --> 1:24:26.200 other groups just come in and let me assume them. Yeah, 1:24:26.520 --> 1:24:28.960 you have a comment. It kind of got a little 1:24:28.960 --> 1:24:31.800 bit lost in there, but it's I'll just chime in 1:24:31.840 --> 1:24:33.760 with the tribe's perspective on some of this. And it's 1:24:33.800 --> 1:24:38.280 really tied to public land grazing. And so the tribes 1:24:38.320 --> 1:24:41.080 I work for have a treaty reserve right to harvest 1:24:41.080 --> 1:24:46.120 big horn sheep, and that's a deal. It's the trust responsibility. 1:24:46.160 --> 1:24:49.480 But the federal government and they are at this time permitting, 1:24:49.800 --> 1:24:53.479 through a federal action, um the grazing of domestic sheep 1:24:53.560 --> 1:24:58.400 that adds knowingly adds risk to our populations of sheep 1:24:58.640 --> 1:25:02.400 big horns. So they we just basically can't accept that 1:25:03.560 --> 1:25:06.080 because we really can't quantify the risk, so we can 1:25:06.120 --> 1:25:07.680 want to find a minimum risk. But I want you 1:25:07.680 --> 1:25:11.639 to say that a a little more clearly. You're you're saying 1:25:12.160 --> 1:25:14.080 the tribe has a deal with the federal government that 1:25:14.120 --> 1:25:17.439 they can hunt big horns, but it's reserved in their 1:25:17.520 --> 1:25:21.320 treaty of eighteen and they're and they're able to argue 1:25:21.920 --> 1:25:26.800 that the federal government, by giving the grazing allotments to 1:25:26.880 --> 1:25:31.760 domestic sheep, is hindering their treaty right. If we are, 1:25:32.240 --> 1:25:36.240 if we are knowingly adding risk to the population viability. 1:25:37.479 --> 1:25:39.320 And I think we can demonstrate that with the science. 1:25:39.439 --> 1:25:42.479 It's like coming through a back door to grazing. Grazing 1:25:42.520 --> 1:25:45.880 domestic sheep on you know, suitable and prime big horn 1:25:45.920 --> 1:25:50.000 habitat is very problematic for us in that in that 1:25:50.000 --> 1:25:54.200 that that's just the nature of it. And I mean, yes, 1:25:54.280 --> 1:25:57.040 we we are, you know, not against public land grazing, 1:25:57.080 --> 1:25:59.320 but we just need to take a make a hard 1:25:59.560 --> 1:26:01.920 take a hard look at where it we're suitable to 1:26:01.960 --> 1:26:05.640 grades domestic sheep and where's not. And we need to 1:26:05.640 --> 1:26:08.000 protect the sheep we have, but we have to look 1:26:08.040 --> 1:26:10.760 at how are we going to expand our sheep populations 1:26:11.080 --> 1:26:14.880 If we have allotments that are stocked with domestic sheep 1:26:15.280 --> 1:26:19.160 in historic and prime big horn habitat, that could would 1:26:19.200 --> 1:26:22.080 be suitable. Otherwise we've got to think about that. So 1:26:22.120 --> 1:26:24.800 do you does does you're or when you're working for 1:26:24.920 --> 1:26:28.280 the tribe as a biologist, do you wind up interfacing 1:26:28.320 --> 1:26:33.360 with these guys a wild cheap foundation? Are you in communication? Yeah? 1:26:33.520 --> 1:26:41.439 What are the conversations that you guys have private? No, 1:26:41.600 --> 1:26:44.080 it's it's always a good it's always a great discussion 1:26:44.080 --> 1:26:46.000 because this is a it's a tough it's a tough, 1:26:46.040 --> 1:26:48.280 tough question. You know, you guys are coming at it 1:26:48.280 --> 1:26:49.800 from the same side of the thing, or you want 1:26:49.840 --> 1:26:52.280 what's best for big horns. We do. That's and that's 1:26:52.360 --> 1:26:55.000 the we just have it. The tribe has a very 1:26:55.040 --> 1:26:58.040 different worldview of that. You know, I understand that was 1:26:58.080 --> 1:27:02.320 something that was taken away and it's still a cultural memory. 1:27:02.360 --> 1:27:05.360 It's there. They want to be fully fully be able 1:27:05.360 --> 1:27:08.960 to fully exercise that and a couple of tags is 1:27:08.960 --> 1:27:12.320 is not sufficient. We do coordinate with the States for 1:27:12.320 --> 1:27:16.240 for on issuing big horn sheep tags, and so that's 1:27:16.240 --> 1:27:18.160 a little bit of a sore point. So we really 1:27:18.160 --> 1:27:20.080 need to figure out how we can move the needle 1:27:20.120 --> 1:27:23.519 and and and get sheep back where they belong. Yes, 1:27:23.600 --> 1:27:26.679 so how does that work when they're on Indian reservation land? 1:27:26.800 --> 1:27:31.599 Then they're technically owned by well, we don't have big 1:27:31.640 --> 1:27:34.679 horn sheep on the reservation who have a relatively small 1:27:34.720 --> 1:27:37.920 reservation um, but you have hunting rights offside the reservation 1:27:38.640 --> 1:27:44.880 and about four different herds of sheep. And so we 1:27:45.000 --> 1:27:47.880 work with the states and and figure out a tag allocation, 1:27:48.080 --> 1:27:51.360 a lotment, and we issue we hold a drawing just 1:27:51.520 --> 1:27:54.800 kind of similar to the state drawing and they'd like 1:27:54.840 --> 1:27:57.720 to see more big horn tags, which means they need 1:27:57.760 --> 1:28:03.919 more to see more big horns. Yeah, are you guys? Uh? 1:28:04.080 --> 1:28:05.840 I know you can't really answer this, but it's gonna 1:28:05.840 --> 1:28:09.719 throw it out there anyway. Optimistic or pessimistic about big horns. 1:28:10.280 --> 1:28:12.040 I mean a lot of like good work has been done, 1:28:12.120 --> 1:28:15.519 right man, I mean we were down to we're up 1:28:15.560 --> 1:28:21.880 to what what's a livable number for you? You know? 1:28:21.960 --> 1:28:24.479 That's that is. The tough one is is where do 1:28:24.560 --> 1:28:27.080 we want to go? Um? And I guess the best 1:28:27.120 --> 1:28:29.120 way for us to express that is we would like 1:28:29.200 --> 1:28:33.240 to see bighorn sheep everywhere they are now suitable. The 1:28:33.320 --> 1:28:37.599 problem is, Steve Um, you know, suitable what does that mean? 1:28:37.640 --> 1:28:41.800 Where they're safe? Um, It's tough to find places to 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:45.160 translocate bighorn sheep that they're not going to get into trouble, 1:28:45.800 --> 1:28:48.800 trouble being just this trouble, the trouble trouble running into 1:28:48.840 --> 1:28:54.240 a domestic domestic That is that really that is number 1:28:54.520 --> 1:28:57.800 one in hitting factor on restoration of big horn sheep 1:28:57.920 --> 1:29:01.320 is is contact with the stick cheap and goats. So 1:29:02.280 --> 1:29:04.960 fair to say, like if it wasn't for the disease, 1:29:06.000 --> 1:29:08.960 not blame, blame whoever. But if if the disease for 1:29:09.040 --> 1:29:13.200 whatever reason didn't exist, is it fair to say that 1:29:13.280 --> 1:29:17.240 we might have a million big horns or five thousand 1:29:17.240 --> 1:29:19.599 big horns in the country. Well, we certainly have more 1:29:19.600 --> 1:29:22.799 than eighty five thousand, and you'd probably easily say, probably 1:29:22.840 --> 1:29:25.240 double that and maybe triple that. I mean, we've we've 1:29:25.320 --> 1:29:28.800 quite you know, we've we've had a threefold increase since 1:29:28.840 --> 1:29:31.720 the late sixties seventies, and I think we could have 1:29:31.720 --> 1:29:36.799 another threefold increase. But right now, there's it's tough to find. 1:29:37.720 --> 1:29:40.920 Um is is Scott's saying, you know, thirty five kilometers. 1:29:40.960 --> 1:29:43.720 I mean, we're sitting in my office and there's a 1:29:43.760 --> 1:29:47.240 Montana unlimited big horn ram that I saw in winter Range, 1:29:47.280 --> 1:29:51.240 and I took him thirty miles away. So that's thought 1:29:51.240 --> 1:29:54.599 thirty kilometers. That's thirty miles away. You got unlimited cheap, 1:29:54.760 --> 1:29:58.599 I did. That's an unlimited cheap It's a big unlimited 1:29:58.640 --> 1:30:00.439 cheap and it's a thirteen and a half year old 1:30:00.479 --> 1:30:04.080 unlimited sheep. Like to kill me. Oh man, you found 1:30:04.160 --> 1:30:07.240 you you found that same ram. Thirty we found that 1:30:07.320 --> 1:30:11.200 same ram. You know, a blind hog can find an 1:30:11.200 --> 1:30:17.000 acorn every once in a while. That's a big, unbelievable Yeah. 1:30:17.000 --> 1:30:19.519 That that's the exact on my on the front of 1:30:19.520 --> 1:30:22.040 my door. I have the live picture of that ram 1:30:22.080 --> 1:30:24.800 I had. I had a photograph in in winter range 1:30:24.800 --> 1:30:28.240 of that ram on my desktop on my MacBook for 1:30:28.400 --> 1:30:32.719 nine months. And we found three rams in a different 1:30:32.800 --> 1:30:35.080 unit and one of them was that guy. One of 1:30:35.120 --> 1:30:38.280 them was bigger. That's nice thing about sheep as you 1:30:38.280 --> 1:30:40.400 can really eat because they don't lose, right, they got 1:30:40.439 --> 1:30:42.280 a horn and they don't lose it. You got you 1:30:43.200 --> 1:30:46.080 three chunks of character. Now, you know I need to 1:30:46.160 --> 1:30:48.439 I need to preface in in case you know your 1:30:48.479 --> 1:30:51.400 audience thinks I'm a great cheap hunter. I had a 1:30:51.400 --> 1:30:53.719 great sheep hunter with me. I actually had Kevin Hurley 1:30:53.880 --> 1:30:57.640 are our conservation director now our vice president conservation. He 1:30:57.720 --> 1:30:59.840 was our He was kind of our camp Jack and 1:30:59.840 --> 1:31:03.519 I had the as and ahole. Jack Essington Jr. Who 1:31:03.600 --> 1:31:06.280 I think has sheep blood running through his veins, was 1:31:06.360 --> 1:31:08.960 with me. So he and I, he and I backpacked 1:31:09.040 --> 1:31:12.880 up in and we found the ram in Montana. You've 1:31:12.880 --> 1:31:14.839 got to get out of there in forty eight hours. 1:31:15.000 --> 1:31:18.519 You've got to present a a full head and cape 1:31:19.479 --> 1:31:21.760 within forty eight hours to game and fish or fish 1:31:21.760 --> 1:31:24.240 won parks and we got we got to the biologists 1:31:24.240 --> 1:31:28.439 and forty eight after a bivouack and a lot of hoping, 1:31:29.040 --> 1:31:32.760 just just all the things you love. Huh, that's pretty cool. 1:31:32.920 --> 1:31:35.479 But the point I realized, the point you were making 1:31:35.680 --> 1:31:39.240 is just the distance is covered. Yeah, that ram, that 1:31:39.360 --> 1:31:42.200 ram covered thirty miles and that was just standard for 1:31:42.280 --> 1:31:44.400 that ram, and he didn't do it by going into 1:31:44.439 --> 1:31:48.559 straight line. Now, the good news is in in that 1:31:48.680 --> 1:31:53.040 unlimited area, there's there's no more domestic sheet. Yeah. So 1:31:53.240 --> 1:31:55.760 I mean you know that that and and the that 1:31:55.840 --> 1:31:58.639 was in the Still Waters Unit five hundred and those 1:31:58.680 --> 1:32:04.400 sheep are relative lee clean um and and relatively hardy, 1:32:04.439 --> 1:32:08.439 but they still have some resident pathogens in them, but 1:32:08.479 --> 1:32:12.800 they're they're they're living with it. The problem is you 1:32:12.840 --> 1:32:15.439 then bring domestic sheep back in there, and they bring 1:32:15.439 --> 1:32:18.439 in another strain of of OVI and that's that's the 1:32:19.520 --> 1:32:22.760 that's the ticker, that's the straw that broke the camel's back, 1:32:22.800 --> 1:32:24.559 and then you then you get a die off again. 1:32:25.040 --> 1:32:26.760 So let me hear with this question. Now that we've 1:32:26.840 --> 1:32:29.320 kind of like prodded around what the future might look 1:32:29.360 --> 1:32:34.240 like and what's acceptable? Um do we now? Do we 1:32:34.439 --> 1:32:37.160 right now know that at least it won't get worse? 1:32:39.479 --> 1:32:41.720 I don't you know? There there are some and I 1:32:41.760 --> 1:32:46.680 didn't answer your first question. I am going to yea, 1:32:48.000 --> 1:32:51.720 because there's there's you know, there's there's those within our 1:32:51.720 --> 1:32:57.160 community to think that status quo is success. Um. While 1:32:57.280 --> 1:32:59.919 she Foundation, at least from my perspective, is not gonna 1:33:00.040 --> 1:33:04.639 up status quo as success. Um. We want to come 1:33:04.720 --> 1:33:09.360 up with some more unique solutions to this problem. And 1:33:09.400 --> 1:33:13.240 they're they're out there. Um that while I was in Washington, 1:33:13.280 --> 1:33:15.879 d C. I had had a beer with that domestic 1:33:15.920 --> 1:33:20.479 sheep producer and in Nevada they took a little different tact. 1:33:21.080 --> 1:33:24.400 There were a bit basically willing to accept more risk. 1:33:25.280 --> 1:33:30.400 Some states would be willing to do that, others would not. Scott, 1:33:30.439 --> 1:33:33.760 I don't think that. So. So here here's a scenario. 1:33:33.800 --> 1:33:38.080 Are are we willing um? If there if we can, 1:33:38.240 --> 1:33:42.600 if we can work more on the movie free, Um, 1:33:42.640 --> 1:33:47.559 if we can work with producers on better practices, is 1:33:47.680 --> 1:33:53.479 our community willing to let's say, in Montana, UM, put 1:33:54.160 --> 1:33:57.800 wild you know, translocate wild sheep into areas that typically 1:33:57.840 --> 1:34:02.200 we would not because we're fearful of that that the 1:34:02.280 --> 1:34:06.400 disease transmission. And that's a big question we're facing right now. 1:34:06.479 --> 1:34:08.920 So there's to spend the money on it. Are we 1:34:09.000 --> 1:34:12.080 willing to spend the money? Are we willing to to 1:34:12.640 --> 1:34:17.599 not litigate with a producer because that producer didn't object 1:34:17.640 --> 1:34:24.840 to us moving wild sheep within arguments operation? You're making it, 1:34:25.120 --> 1:34:27.400 you're making a sort of treat We're just we're yeah, 1:34:27.520 --> 1:34:29.559 We're we're you know, this is it's it's a it's 1:34:29.600 --> 1:34:33.599 a it's an organization wide question, it's a community wide question. 1:34:33.640 --> 1:34:35.639 And there's those that agree with it, those that disagree 1:34:35.680 --> 1:34:39.200 with it. But would we then set up protocols that 1:34:39.280 --> 1:34:42.439 you know, we know that if that big horn goes 1:34:42.479 --> 1:34:45.080 on a walk about, that big horn is not going 1:34:45.160 --> 1:34:48.000 to make it. Or do we use do we use 1:34:48.080 --> 1:34:52.720 unlimited areas as a way to separate big horns from 1:34:52.720 --> 1:34:55.080 domestic sheep? Are there are there areas and you know, 1:34:55.120 --> 1:34:58.640 this is again a kind of a Montana unique scenario. 1:34:58.880 --> 1:35:05.400 Can we use almost no go zones for for bighorn sheep? 1:35:05.479 --> 1:35:08.880 If a bighorn sheep is in that zone, it's unlimited 1:35:08.960 --> 1:35:11.559 you can take it. You know, we're we're just trying 1:35:11.600 --> 1:35:13.600 to think out of the box. Try to try to 1:35:13.640 --> 1:35:15.800 think out of the box again. Let's get let's get 1:35:16.080 --> 1:35:18.400 get past this doing the same thing and just fighting 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:21.439 over this. The good news And I guess why I'm 1:35:21.479 --> 1:35:29.040 I'm um optimistic and um realistic, but optimistic is um 1:35:29.160 --> 1:35:32.439 we are learning more and more and more on the 1:35:32.520 --> 1:35:36.440 disease issue. If we can get the domestic sheep industry 1:35:36.479 --> 1:35:39.439 to spend as much money as we do on disease research, 1:35:39.560 --> 1:35:42.800 that will help their industry. Because there's some there's some 1:35:43.000 --> 1:35:45.640 the data that show that you know, a movie is 1:35:45.680 --> 1:35:49.599 not good for domestic sheep either. Uh, it's it's endemic 1:35:49.640 --> 1:35:52.160 to him and it's resident to him. But it's not 1:35:52.240 --> 1:35:54.639 it's it's you know, the best or did one study 1:35:54.680 --> 1:35:56.360 I think that he was he was looking at the 1:35:56.920 --> 1:35:59.599 live weight and it was like a seven percent increase 1:35:59.640 --> 1:36:01.920 and then it change so you know, probably shouldn't use 1:36:01.920 --> 1:36:04.520 those numbers, but there was a kind of a significant 1:36:04.600 --> 1:36:09.080 weight gain, uh change between in a movie free domestic 1:36:09.120 --> 1:36:13.120 sheep and a movie positive domestic sheep. The movie free 1:36:13.360 --> 1:36:16.439 gained weight quicker. Well, then there's a market incentive, so 1:36:16.560 --> 1:36:18.960 maybe maybe there's some you know, something that we can 1:36:19.080 --> 1:36:22.520 learn there. We're not there yet. It's it's it's unproven, 1:36:22.560 --> 1:36:26.479 it's not published, it's not peer reviewed. Um, but maybe 1:36:26.520 --> 1:36:29.240 there's something there. But you know, wouldn't that be cool 1:36:29.280 --> 1:36:32.960 if we can use market incentives, uh to encourage domestic 1:36:33.000 --> 1:36:37.479 sheep producers to uh you know, if they can um 1:36:37.760 --> 1:36:41.960 have a movie free sheep, you know, like like pretty 1:36:42.000 --> 1:36:45.920 much eliminating small smallpox. Maybe there is some sort of 1:36:46.000 --> 1:36:49.599 silver bullet where we can vaccinate domestic sheep and they're 1:36:49.640 --> 1:36:52.840 all a movie free. You know. We've got two bright 1:36:52.920 --> 1:36:55.000 guys in the rooms, Scott and Clay. You know, I'm 1:36:55.040 --> 1:36:57.719 just I'm just a management guy and a marketing guy. 1:36:57.760 --> 1:37:00.760 But um, you know, there's some very people out there 1:37:00.760 --> 1:37:03.280 that are working on this issue. We've got the wildlife 1:37:03.320 --> 1:37:08.240 that community working on it. Um. There's not consensus on 1:37:08.240 --> 1:37:10.800 on what the solution is. But you know what, we 1:37:10.840 --> 1:37:13.600 haven't cured the common cold yet either, but at some 1:37:13.680 --> 1:37:16.080 point we might. But you have an interesting point there 1:37:16.080 --> 1:37:21.160 about producers being incentivized to get ahead of the problem. 1:37:21.280 --> 1:37:24.479 And ye, honestly, I had an interesting conversation one time 1:37:24.520 --> 1:37:28.960 with Wyoming's current governor Matt Mead. We're just talking about 1:37:29.240 --> 1:37:32.240 we're talking about sage grouse in the extraction industry, and 1:37:32.240 --> 1:37:35.840 he's saying, the many players in the extraction industry have 1:37:35.960 --> 1:37:40.439 a very long view and they're very sophisticated, and they 1:37:40.520 --> 1:37:42.679 know that like for them to be on the ground 1:37:43.200 --> 1:37:46.840 doing good business, they need to head off problems. And 1:37:46.880 --> 1:37:49.040 a problem that they have a vested interest in heading 1:37:49.040 --> 1:37:52.559 off is not letting wildlife get into dire situations where 1:37:52.560 --> 1:37:56.439 you're gonna then invite high level scrutiny into practices, and 1:37:56.479 --> 1:37:58.759 that what's good for them to operate in their area 1:37:58.920 --> 1:38:01.720 would be good sage grouse numbers, and that they can 1:38:01.760 --> 1:38:04.519 at times be very effective players when they have that 1:38:04.640 --> 1:38:08.680 long view and not heading into conflict, heading into disaster, 1:38:09.200 --> 1:38:13.360 courting litigation. But you just have But again, you have 1:38:13.439 --> 1:38:15.559 to be in it for the You have to be 1:38:15.640 --> 1:38:21.080 looking to the future to ten years profit, not tomorrow's profit. Right. 1:38:21.560 --> 1:38:24.320 It's a really good point. I'm optimistic. We've made a 1:38:24.320 --> 1:38:28.040 lot of progress and in wildlife disease and you know, 1:38:28.160 --> 1:38:30.240 disease in our domestic life stock. If you think some 1:38:30.280 --> 1:38:32.639 of the things we've gotten out of our domestic animals 1:38:32.640 --> 1:38:35.000 over the you know, centuries that we've been doing it. 1:38:35.080 --> 1:38:38.080 I'm I'm optimistically we can. If we put the shoulder 1:38:38.200 --> 1:38:41.040 this one, I think I think we can overcome it. 1:38:41.120 --> 1:38:43.640 I hope, I'm really hopeful. I think the fact that 1:38:43.720 --> 1:38:48.400 you're you know, honestly, Steve, you're here, like that's the 1:38:48.439 --> 1:38:50.559 reason to be optimistic, because this was something that wasn't 1:38:50.600 --> 1:38:52.800 really talked about a whole lot. You know, when you 1:38:52.840 --> 1:38:57.000 get these these guys that haven't incredible influence on the community, 1:38:57.360 --> 1:39:00.000 you know, and and understanding really what we're up again, 1:39:00.000 --> 1:39:03.800 inst you know, imagine this issue flipped onto the elk population, 1:39:05.840 --> 1:39:08.800 a totally different story and why because you know, North 1:39:08.840 --> 1:39:12.560 American model is a huge success largely because of opportunity 1:39:12.600 --> 1:39:17.200 to hunt, you know, relatively low opportunity to hunt wild cheap, 1:39:17.960 --> 1:39:20.960 relatively low funding for conservation. That's where we come in. 1:39:21.280 --> 1:39:23.840 If it was elk on the same landscape, man, this 1:39:23.840 --> 1:39:27.000 wouldn't even be a discussion. Could you imagine if twenty 1:39:27.000 --> 1:39:30.360 bull elk came down into a domestic sheepherd and they 1:39:30.720 --> 1:39:33.000 mowed down those twenty bull elk just because they came 1:39:33.000 --> 1:39:37.400 in contact with him, No way, no way, And so 1:39:37.520 --> 1:39:40.720 the almost what makes them so aspirational, like you know, 1:39:40.760 --> 1:39:42.519 you know, it's so difficult to get a tag, it's 1:39:42.560 --> 1:39:45.519 so difficult to get to their habitat. The things that 1:39:45.560 --> 1:39:48.880 make them so aspirational can also impede them on making 1:39:48.920 --> 1:39:51.760 them relatable to our everyday lives and understanding what's going on. 1:39:52.040 --> 1:39:54.360 If we see a die off of fourteen thousand feet, 1:39:54.880 --> 1:39:57.519 we don't really take heed to it and it's not 1:39:57.600 --> 1:39:59.880 something that impacts our freezer. We don't think it does. 1:40:00.360 --> 1:40:03.920 But we talked about wild Cheap being one point five million, 1:40:04.000 --> 1:40:07.040 you know, almost double what elk are. Did they imagine 1:40:07.080 --> 1:40:09.439 if they were imagine if it was something that you just, 1:40:09.920 --> 1:40:11.720 you know, you went down to Bob Wards and bought 1:40:11.760 --> 1:40:15.000 yourself a tag, and when when sheep hunting, like they 1:40:15.320 --> 1:40:18.160 a lot more advocates. That's an interesting point that Callahan 1:40:18.200 --> 1:40:21.400 brought up after being at the sheep Show because he 1:40:21.479 --> 1:40:23.479 was like, he's kind of marveling at the amount of 1:40:23.520 --> 1:40:27.320 people that are spending so much time, so much money, 1:40:27.479 --> 1:40:30.400 so much energy getting behind sheep conservation, and he's like 1:40:30.439 --> 1:40:32.960 the thing of it is, most of those guys are 1:40:33.080 --> 1:40:38.360 never gonna draw a sheep tag. They're just doing it 1:40:37.479 --> 1:40:41.760 because for the idea you know something. They do a 1:40:41.760 --> 1:40:44.360 lot of these, a lot of the chapters that they do. 1:40:44.439 --> 1:40:46.920 It's pretty fun. You know, you sit down at the 1:40:46.960 --> 1:40:48.920 banquet and they say, all right, stand up if you've 1:40:48.920 --> 1:40:51.880 taken a sheet, and it's like maybe a fifth of 1:40:51.920 --> 1:40:55.639 the room. But people are gonna spend thousands of dollars 1:40:55.720 --> 1:40:58.880 every night because they just believe in it. It's just 1:40:59.000 --> 1:41:02.080 out of their grasp. They believe in it enough. You know. 1:41:02.080 --> 1:41:04.920 It's just this aspirational thing that we almost can't can't 1:41:04.920 --> 1:41:07.400 imagine going after. I would say that we have the 1:41:07.439 --> 1:41:12.000 most altruistic UM membership in our community. I mean, we've 1:41:12.000 --> 1:41:15.519 got seventy two hundred members. Steve last year we put 1:41:15.560 --> 1:41:19.280 four point six million dollars into Wild Sheep concerts four 1:41:19.320 --> 1:41:22.400 point six million, eighteen point one million in the last 1:41:22.439 --> 1:41:28.679 four years with a little small sixty eight to seventy 1:41:28.680 --> 1:41:34.280 two hundred member organization. UM Clay worked on a project 1:41:34.600 --> 1:41:36.400 UM a couple of years ago and we were we 1:41:36.400 --> 1:41:38.479 were looking at it and it's kind of switching gears 1:41:38.479 --> 1:41:40.519 a little bit, but it looks at the auction tags 1:41:41.280 --> 1:41:45.200 UM and those are a little controversial. We spent tons 1:41:45.240 --> 1:41:47.240 of time giving both sides of that those are a 1:41:47.240 --> 1:41:52.360 little both sides of that argument with Crystal clar Look, 1:41:52.560 --> 1:41:54.120 let me, let me, let me give you, let me 1:41:54.160 --> 1:41:57.439 give you some facts when it comes to wild Sheep concert, 1:41:57.520 --> 1:42:00.920 please please seventy four per Can I first explain what 1:42:00.920 --> 1:42:04.040 you're talking about? All right, We've talked about a thousand times. 1:42:04.040 --> 1:42:07.519 People always ask us about this, But um, when you 1:42:07.600 --> 1:42:12.160 have I'm speaking for the listeners right now, when you 1:42:12.240 --> 1:42:15.000 have a resource that isn't large enough to meet the 1:42:15.040 --> 1:42:17.040 demand on the resource, you have to find a way. 1:42:17.040 --> 1:42:18.640 And I'm talking about a wild game resource. You have 1:42:18.720 --> 1:42:20.840 to find a way to allocate opportunity, right. And so 1:42:20.960 --> 1:42:24.080 if you live in the great state of Michigan and 1:42:24.160 --> 1:42:27.200 Wisconsin and you want to go deer hunting, there's enough 1:42:27.240 --> 1:42:29.479 deer to go around. Everybody goes down, you buy a 1:42:29.479 --> 1:42:32.000 deer tag, everybody gets to go with a lot of 1:42:32.000 --> 1:42:35.080 wildlife species. There's just the numbers aren't there, And so 1:42:35.160 --> 1:42:37.320 everyone throws their name in the hat and it's meant 1:42:37.439 --> 1:42:39.680 you know that, shouldn't they meant to be? But traditionally 1:42:39.720 --> 1:42:45.880 those opportunities are allocated democratically. An exception to that case 1:42:46.160 --> 1:42:50.320 would be what you're gonna now explain, Um, which would 1:42:50.360 --> 1:42:55.800 be when they take tags, usually for very coveted species 1:42:55.880 --> 1:42:59.080 or coveted hunting areas, and they take tags and sell 1:42:59.080 --> 1:43:02.960 them to the highest bit or. And here's the rub. 1:43:03.560 --> 1:43:05.720 Here's the thing you got paid attention to. And it's 1:43:05.880 --> 1:43:08.599 usually structured and subtle such a way that like nine 1:43:09.439 --> 1:43:15.080 of the money goes into the ground for restoration work, 1:43:15.920 --> 1:43:18.559 so it's not lying in someone's pocket. And this is 1:43:18.640 --> 1:43:22.719 tightly this is carefully watched. This is a carefully watched 1:43:22.760 --> 1:43:28.200 flow of money. So at that's that's a that's a 1:43:28.240 --> 1:43:31.800 great it's a great setup. And and if if I 1:43:31.800 --> 1:43:35.160 could expand on it, you know, I um Shae Mahoney 1:43:35.240 --> 1:43:37.439 is a great friend, and he and I give talks 1:43:37.479 --> 1:43:40.479 around you know the world, and he was listening to 1:43:41.000 --> 1:43:43.360 some of my talks on this this tag thing that 1:43:43.360 --> 1:43:45.479 we're going to talk about. The special permits attacks you 1:43:45.520 --> 1:43:48.519 know where exactly what you said, where you know, one 1:43:48.960 --> 1:43:54.519 or two or five um special licenses are taken from 1:43:54.520 --> 1:43:58.479 the pool of available tags and sold to the high bidder. 1:43:58.479 --> 1:44:00.720 And I used to call that a bad stardization of 1:44:00.800 --> 1:44:03.640 the North American conservation models used to I support it. 1:44:03.680 --> 1:44:06.440 I never went that far, but I called it a bastardization. 1:44:06.479 --> 1:44:09.760 And I've I had Shane Shane Mahoney down in my 1:44:09.800 --> 1:44:12.320 drift boat. We're floating down the Yellowstone River and and 1:44:12.360 --> 1:44:15.599 we're you know, probably enjoying a beer in Shane's case 1:44:15.640 --> 1:44:19.719 againness and he was just having a good time. He goes, great, 1:44:19.760 --> 1:44:21.479 I want to I want to can you say it 1:44:21.680 --> 1:44:24.920 the way you can use his accent I'm trying to 1:44:24.920 --> 1:44:29.760 get I'm trying to get the voice of God, Mr 1:44:29.920 --> 1:44:35.599 Shane Mahoney, Great, absolute fabulous conservation. But you know, he says, 1:44:35.640 --> 1:44:38.479 you know, Grey, you know, I've I've listened to say 1:44:38.479 --> 1:44:40.280 this a number of times in a number of places 1:44:40.360 --> 1:44:43.479 that you know this this this special permit and tag. 1:44:43.600 --> 1:44:45.200 And it could also be a raffle tag and we'll 1:44:45.200 --> 1:44:47.479 get into that. But the special permit and tag is 1:44:47.520 --> 1:44:50.160 a bastardization of the North American model. He's saying to you, 1:44:50.240 --> 1:44:53.000 I've heard you've heard me say this, and I talk 1:44:53.120 --> 1:44:55.800 I you, you know, and I even use capitalism socialism 1:44:55.840 --> 1:44:59.680 kind of our our our standard system is an egalitarian 1:44:59.720 --> 1:45:02.200 pro grahmmed is and you know, Steve, as you put it, 1:45:02.200 --> 1:45:05.040 I mean, anyone can go down and get attack um 1:45:05.200 --> 1:45:07.240 when it comes to some of the coveted ones where 1:45:07.240 --> 1:45:09.040 it's a whether it's a big horn sheep or a 1:45:09.040 --> 1:45:12.439 stone sheep, or a desert sheep, or or a rocky 1:45:12.479 --> 1:45:16.160 mountain help in a particular unit in Utah, um you 1:45:16.200 --> 1:45:18.880 can auction off those tags. Two. So now that's that's 1:45:18.920 --> 1:45:23.200 not egalitariance of color. And I apply for a bighorn 1:45:23.280 --> 1:45:26.240 sheep tag every year in six or seven states, good 1:45:26.240 --> 1:45:29.280 for you, and in this state in particular, for thirteen 1:45:29.439 --> 1:45:31.600 or fifteen or sixteen years in a row, and I 1:45:31.640 --> 1:45:33.479 haven't gotten one. Just to give a sense of like 1:45:33.520 --> 1:45:35.719 what we're talking about, we're talking about the slim pickings. 1:45:35.800 --> 1:45:38.519 You got slim pickings on tag. You've got guys in 1:45:38.600 --> 1:45:41.880 Montana that have applied for thirty five years and have 1:45:42.040 --> 1:45:46.080 not drawn attacks. So you know, you're either lucky um 1:45:46.200 --> 1:45:48.559 or you go into a jurisdiction like Montana that has 1:45:48.560 --> 1:45:50.360 the unlimited units. But you know, we had a three 1:45:50.640 --> 1:45:53.639 three to four per cent suc sex. But so so 1:45:53.680 --> 1:45:56.000 we're on the river and Shane goes, you know, Grey, 1:45:56.000 --> 1:45:58.120 and he is you know, he and Valor's guys, so 1:45:58.240 --> 1:46:01.599 the probably the foremost authority on the North American model. 1:46:01.640 --> 1:46:04.800 He says, you're actually wrong. It's not a bastardization of 1:46:04.880 --> 1:46:08.120 the North American model. The North North American model also 1:46:08.240 --> 1:46:11.160 is one of its seven pillars gives the state the 1:46:11.200 --> 1:46:16.400 opportunity to decide how it funds wildlife conservation in that state. 1:46:17.479 --> 1:46:21.240 And so a state that decides, like Montana, that we 1:46:21.320 --> 1:46:24.400 will take out of the pool of big worn sheep, 1:46:24.400 --> 1:46:28.479 permits one auction tag and one raffle tag. And the 1:46:28.560 --> 1:46:31.840 key there is one goes to the you know, the 1:46:32.640 --> 1:46:36.080 high bidder and the very affluent one out of a 1:46:36.080 --> 1:46:38.080 couple of hundreds. But yeah, yeah, I think we have 1:46:38.080 --> 1:46:40.760 a hundred fifty tags or so, so you know, one 1:46:40.840 --> 1:46:43.320 goes as a as an auction tag, and one also 1:46:43.439 --> 1:46:45.839 is a raffle tag that you know, so us regular 1:46:45.880 --> 1:46:48.400 folks can you know, buy a raffle ticket and potentially 1:46:48.439 --> 1:46:51.840 have a little better odds than you know than the 1:46:52.160 --> 1:46:54.000 you know, you've been in for thirteen fourteen and some 1:46:54.080 --> 1:46:57.080 people thirty five years. So here's the interesting thing when 1:46:57.120 --> 1:47:00.599 it comes to wild sheep and and Clay a lead 1:47:00.640 --> 1:47:04.280 this study with a with an intern seventy four percent 1:47:04.680 --> 1:47:09.320 and I'll say that again, seventy four percent of WAFFWA 1:47:09.439 --> 1:47:13.440 Western Association of Fish and Wildlife agencies the Western agencies 1:47:13.600 --> 1:47:17.640 in United States and Canada UH seventy four percent of 1:47:17.720 --> 1:47:22.479 their wild sheep conservation agency dollars comes from either an 1:47:22.479 --> 1:47:27.840 auction or a raffle tag seventy percent. Now, so we 1:47:27.880 --> 1:47:32.080 will your peeling like let's say two tags out of 1:47:32.080 --> 1:47:37.839 a hundred plus tags and those two provide seventy four percent. 1:47:37.960 --> 1:47:42.920 In a state like Arizona, it's about nine. And the 1:47:42.960 --> 1:47:46.479 other thing that was interesting in this in this research, 1:47:46.560 --> 1:47:50.400 and we we used waff with data UM forty percent 1:47:51.560 --> 1:47:58.040 of all WAFFWA wild sheep conservation agency dollars comes from 1:47:58.080 --> 1:48:02.240 one organization and that's the wild Foundation. Really yeah, so 1:48:02.840 --> 1:48:05.680 you know, we have a we have a very relatively 1:48:05.800 --> 1:48:11.320 small footprint when it comes to membership at we cast 1:48:11.360 --> 1:48:15.280 a very very long shadow when it comes to conservation 1:48:15.320 --> 1:48:18.840 and putting money on the ground. Um. But you know, 1:48:18.920 --> 1:48:22.200 there's their sensibilities. Wyoming gives five tags away on on 1:48:22.360 --> 1:48:26.400 auction um if if while she Foundation went to Montana Fish, 1:48:26.439 --> 1:48:29.080 Wildlife and Parks in the commission and advocated for another 1:48:29.200 --> 1:48:33.280 auction tag, our building would be burned down. So you know, 1:48:33.360 --> 1:48:36.559 it is controversial, it's but you know, check this out. Man. 1:48:36.600 --> 1:48:39.000 I put it to my brother. Another guy put it 1:48:39.000 --> 1:48:42.320 to my brother in a conversation, and my brother like, 1:48:42.320 --> 1:48:44.240 there's nothing he likes more than just like wrestling with 1:48:44.280 --> 1:48:47.160 ethical questions. So they put the governor thing to him, 1:48:47.200 --> 1:48:52.680 and he was saying that he feels on auction tags. 1:48:53.200 --> 1:48:56.080 He feels it in balancing the morality of it or 1:48:56.120 --> 1:48:58.240 in balancing the ethics of it. You need to look 1:48:58.400 --> 1:49:01.960 at what are the impacts of the auction tag. Because 1:49:02.720 --> 1:49:05.640 the auction tag is going to remove an animal from 1:49:05.680 --> 1:49:11.080 the landscape, but the money, if well spent, is probably 1:49:11.120 --> 1:49:14.880 going to add a higher number of tags to the 1:49:15.000 --> 1:49:20.000 general pool by the habitat work and relocation work and 1:49:20.000 --> 1:49:22.759 putting more sheep on the ground, so that that money 1:49:22.840 --> 1:49:25.240 might be pulling us sheep out of the pool and 1:49:25.320 --> 1:49:29.439 returning four or returning five or returning ten. So there 1:49:29.439 --> 1:49:34.160 are actually possibly more tags made available thanks to the 1:49:34.200 --> 1:49:38.240 auction tag than in spite of the auction tag. He 1:49:38.800 --> 1:49:41.479 nailed it. You know, we were talking about that unlimited ram. 1:49:41.560 --> 1:49:44.599 I can assure you, uh and and and we were 1:49:44.600 --> 1:49:47.639 looking at some data back in we've changed, we've changed 1:49:47.680 --> 1:49:50.120 the dynamic in Montana now and now there's an application 1:49:50.200 --> 1:49:53.519 fee of fifty bucks. But um, the amount of sheep 1:49:53.600 --> 1:49:56.800 revenue coming into Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks on on 1:49:56.920 --> 1:50:01.439 the unlimited tags and the limited tag eggs was less 1:50:01.439 --> 1:50:05.200 than two hundred thousand dollars. It was actually a lot 1:50:05.240 --> 1:50:08.360 closer to a hundred thousand dollars. Around a hundred forty 1:50:08.400 --> 1:50:11.080 thousand dollars. You can't pay a biologist in a truck 1:50:11.400 --> 1:50:14.280 and you know, uniforms and like on a hundred hundred 1:50:14.320 --> 1:50:16.800 and forty thousand dollars. You know that same year we 1:50:16.880 --> 1:50:20.439 sold the Montana tag for three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. 1:50:20.479 --> 1:50:23.360 We've sold that tag as high as four hundred and 1:50:23.360 --> 1:50:27.479 eighty thousand dollars. And you pointed out earlier nine of 1:50:27.600 --> 1:50:31.480 that money goes right back into fish, wildlife and parks 1:50:31.520 --> 1:50:35.880 in a dedicated sheep account. So we retained ten percent. Well, 1:50:35.920 --> 1:50:37.519 we spend a hell of a lot more than ten 1:50:37.600 --> 1:50:41.120 percent back in Montana. So one one percent of those 1:50:41.160 --> 1:50:43.800 dollars go right back onto the ground into Wild Chief 1:50:43.840 --> 1:50:49.240 Conservation in Arizona. It's one Wild Chief Foundation sells that tag. 1:50:49.960 --> 1:50:52.360 We spend a million dollars to put on a show 1:50:52.400 --> 1:50:55.000 to get somebody crazy enough to spend three hundred thousand 1:50:55.000 --> 1:50:57.840 dollars in a desert big horn sheep tag, and one 1:50:58.160 --> 1:51:01.200 hundred percent of that dollars is back to Arizona Game 1:51:01.200 --> 1:51:05.320 and Fish into a dedicated account to restore bighorn sheep 1:51:05.320 --> 1:51:07.840 and conserve bighorn sheep, and that that probably includes some 1:51:07.960 --> 1:51:12.559 disease spending. Absolutely, I'm like tipping more and more every year, 1:51:13.200 --> 1:51:15.400 So I tipped more and more in the direction of Like, 1:51:15.800 --> 1:51:18.160 it's just like one of those It's one of those 1:51:18.160 --> 1:51:19.600 things that you want to be like, yeah, man, I 1:51:19.600 --> 1:51:23.360 see where you're coming from. I'm not digging and you might. 1:51:23.360 --> 1:51:29.960 I'm not even asking you to esthetically like the auction tags, Like, 1:51:30.000 --> 1:51:32.120 I'm not asking you to like at the aesthetics of it, 1:51:32.200 --> 1:51:35.360 but it's almost like you cannot argue with the efficacy, 1:51:35.560 --> 1:51:38.640 you know. And I getting back to that unlimited I 1:51:38.760 --> 1:51:42.320 know that I had as a regular guy, you know, 1:51:42.360 --> 1:51:46.600 a nonprofit employee. As a regular guy, I had the 1:51:46.640 --> 1:51:50.760 opportunity to buy in effect a bighorn sheep. I was 1:51:50.800 --> 1:51:53.680 living in or in in Woman at the time. I 1:51:53.720 --> 1:51:56.920 was able to buy a bighorn sheep tag in Montana 1:51:57.040 --> 1:52:02.120 for seven and fifty bucks. Back then, as a Wyoming 1:52:02.160 --> 1:52:06.400 resident and hunt um big horn sheep in Montana. And 1:52:06.479 --> 1:52:10.000 I was able to do that only because some other 1:52:10.280 --> 1:52:14.360 crazy guy gal whatever had the wherewithal to spend three 1:52:14.800 --> 1:52:18.800 fifty dollars on one tag, and that money went to 1:52:18.920 --> 1:52:22.680 ensure that I had an opportunity to hunt in Montana. 1:52:22.760 --> 1:52:25.120 So I I look at it. You know, it's it. 1:52:25.120 --> 1:52:27.320 It can be unseeming. I look at a little different. 1:52:27.600 --> 1:52:30.400 I look at it as I am grateful that there 1:52:30.439 --> 1:52:34.320 are people out there that could give money to their 1:52:34.360 --> 1:52:38.679 alma mater. Uh, they could give money to cancer research, 1:52:38.800 --> 1:52:42.439 and they do. But there are those that have the 1:52:42.479 --> 1:52:45.920 wherewithal and they give it to wild sheep restoration and conservation. 1:52:46.040 --> 1:52:51.439 So um, instead of vilifying those folks, But we can't 1:52:51.479 --> 1:52:54.439 measure their motivation. Oh you you know, I mean you 1:52:54.479 --> 1:52:59.880 can't eat horns. I don't, you know. I think the 1:53:00.080 --> 1:53:02.760 way that I've I've said, you know a lot of 1:53:02.840 --> 1:53:05.360 us like to say hunting is conservation is a term 1:53:05.360 --> 1:53:07.920 We use a lot, you know, And I don't think 1:53:07.920 --> 1:53:12.160 that there's any better depiction of that, honestly than those 1:53:12.160 --> 1:53:14.240 auctions tag. When you take one tag out of the 1:53:14.240 --> 1:53:19.640 whole pool that funds seventy whatever percent of that conservation 1:53:19.760 --> 1:53:25.800 of that species, you know hunting, right, there is conservation. Yeah, 1:53:26.000 --> 1:53:31.040 the numbers are, Yeah, the numbers are. You're struggling with this, No, 1:53:31.040 --> 1:53:32.640 I'm not because yeah, because here's the thing. Here's what 1:53:32.640 --> 1:53:35.160 I like to do. I like take too, I like 1:53:35.320 --> 1:53:37.439 in wrestling with an idea, I like to take it 1:53:37.479 --> 1:53:40.840 to the extreme because one might come in and say, well, wow, man, 1:53:41.080 --> 1:53:43.360 that's a lot of money. Let's take all the tags 1:53:43.360 --> 1:53:45.599 and auction them all off, because that would be a 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:49.040 hell of a lot of money. At which point, now 1:53:49.120 --> 1:53:51.920 I feel as though you have right. So we all 1:53:51.960 --> 1:53:55.799 agree that there's like that's that's not a tenable solution. 1:53:56.320 --> 1:54:00.760 So we all agree that somewhere in here there's a line, right, 1:54:01.000 --> 1:54:04.120 and we're like trying to like identify the line. Now 1:54:04.160 --> 1:54:06.720 to have a state do one that's pretty damn conservative. 1:54:07.960 --> 1:54:10.040 Do you guys have numbers on how much the raffle 1:54:10.439 --> 1:54:13.720 tag brings in? Um, I don't know if Garrett you 1:54:13.760 --> 1:54:17.760 have that, you know, Montana, It's it's typically a little 1:54:17.760 --> 1:54:21.439 shot of two dollars. Oh yeah, but it's significant. I 1:54:21.439 --> 1:54:25.560 mean it's significant. And that's you know that the you know, 1:54:25.600 --> 1:54:28.559 the auction tag is the is the main player. But 1:54:28.640 --> 1:54:31.760 you know, I probably you know hip pocket would be 1:54:31.880 --> 1:54:35.680 uh yeah, I wouldn't want to say a two thirds 1:54:35.760 --> 1:54:39.600 one third, but you know, maybe sixty of the money 1:54:39.640 --> 1:54:42.400 comes from the auction tag from a raffle. Have you 1:54:42.440 --> 1:54:46.040 guys ever calculated this out? Um, that's pretty good. I 1:54:46.040 --> 1:54:49.280 think my brother ran the numbers out. I can't remember 1:54:49.880 --> 1:54:53.480 if he was confident in it is. If the raffle 1:54:53.560 --> 1:54:56.280 tickets are five bucks, how much do you need to 1:54:56.280 --> 1:54:59.840 spend on raffles before you're doing better than just apply 1:55:00.120 --> 1:55:03.040 for the tag? Yeah, I just kind of think it's 1:55:03.040 --> 1:55:06.520 a surprisingly lower number, where like your odds of getting 1:55:06.560 --> 1:55:12.320 the tag increased bucks or something like that. No, the raffles, 1:55:12.320 --> 1:55:16.320 you know anyway, you know, bunch are our our community 1:55:16.320 --> 1:55:19.360 of chapters and affiliates. I mean that's you know, a 1:55:19.480 --> 1:55:21.840 raffle is so much better odds than any of any 1:55:21.840 --> 1:55:23.680 of the state or provincial if if there's an L 1:55:23.760 --> 1:55:25.600 A H up in the province, but you know, any 1:55:25.600 --> 1:55:27.760 of the L A H drawings, A raffles much better 1:55:27.800 --> 1:55:30.960 odds they're just throwing into the state. You're you're better 1:55:30.960 --> 1:55:33.320 off getting it, you know, if if you're an aspirational 1:55:33.360 --> 1:55:36.839 sheep hunter and we all are and you know, get 1:55:36.920 --> 1:55:39.600 into these raffles or you know, we've got you know, 1:55:39.640 --> 1:55:42.960 the gratuitous plug. But we've got less than one club, 1:55:43.640 --> 1:55:46.600 which is an organization or club if you will, within 1:55:46.680 --> 1:55:49.880 Wild she Foundation where for five bucks if you have 1:55:49.960 --> 1:55:54.120 not taken a Wild Sheep Ram, we're twenty five bucks. 1:55:54.120 --> 1:55:57.160 You're entered into a drawing for three doll sheep hunts 1:55:57.160 --> 1:55:59.720 that we give away at our convention. And we've got 1:56:00.720 --> 1:56:04.280 nine hundred or so, twelve hundred or so in that 1:56:04.440 --> 1:56:08.720 in that club within Wild Sheep Foundation. Um, you've got 1:56:08.800 --> 1:56:12.840 three chances. Uh, we we spice it a little bit, Steve, 1:56:12.920 --> 1:56:15.360 because the first drawn you don't have to be present, 1:56:16.240 --> 1:56:18.600 the second drawn you've got to be president, and the 1:56:18.640 --> 1:56:21.600 third you got to be present to win. UM at 1:56:21.640 --> 1:56:25.760 this last lesson one club reception and the receptions maybe 1:56:25.800 --> 1:56:29.320 a um one of our colleagues drew one of those. Yes, 1:56:29.720 --> 1:56:32.680 yeah he did, and and but that receptions maybe not 1:56:32.720 --> 1:56:35.360 the it's it's basically a beer fest. We went through 1:56:35.400 --> 1:56:37.920 twenty five kegs of beer in an hour and a 1:56:38.000 --> 1:56:42.960 half for three sheep takes. You bet, So you know, 1:56:43.040 --> 1:56:47.000 we maybe maybe our community is kind of a drinking 1:56:47.000 --> 1:56:49.640 club with a sheep hunting problem. But it's really cool. 1:56:49.640 --> 1:56:52.520 I mean, the energy in that room is absolutely electric. 1:56:53.040 --> 1:56:56.480 And you know when someone that has aspired to be 1:56:56.680 --> 1:56:58.800 kicked out of the club, and that's what we say, Hey, 1:56:58.800 --> 1:57:01.560 you join the lesson one club hoping to be kicked out, 1:57:01.800 --> 1:57:04.200 and you're kicked out when you take a ram um. 1:57:04.240 --> 1:57:07.880 You know, we're giving away opportunities for for relatively low 1:57:07.960 --> 1:57:13.200 dollars um and trying to augment the state and provincial 1:57:13.320 --> 1:57:16.600 drawings that that are pretty low. Ots. My buddies, I've 1:57:16.640 --> 1:57:19.240 been saying how after many years, I'm saying how I'm 1:57:19.280 --> 1:57:23.720 like taking a break from shot show and I say 1:57:23.800 --> 1:57:26.080 to my buddies and I'm gonna start I'm gonna spend 1:57:26.120 --> 1:57:27.800 a couple of years at a couple of other shows. 1:57:28.320 --> 1:57:30.440 And I've brought it up with multiple of my friends 1:57:30.440 --> 1:57:34.080 in the in the hunting industry, and they universally are like, dude, 1:57:34.160 --> 1:57:37.200 cheap show. It's fun, it's a family, you know, it's 1:57:37.240 --> 1:57:40.400 a it's a um. You know. We talked about the altruism, 1:57:40.480 --> 1:57:43.760 but what what's cool? And I think there's a little 1:57:43.800 --> 1:57:46.360 bit of a misnomer about who who we are because 1:57:46.720 --> 1:57:48.600 you know, the the talk comes about and I threw 1:57:48.640 --> 1:57:50.560 the numbers out, you know, four point six million dollars 1:57:50.680 --> 1:57:54.280 last year with a relatively small club. So the the 1:57:54.280 --> 1:57:57.920 the erroneous assumption is that, you know, it's just a 1:57:57.920 --> 1:58:01.560 bunch of rich folks. It really isn't it. The demographic 1:58:01.600 --> 1:58:05.080 our our our show are is you know, the age 1:58:05.120 --> 1:58:08.320 is going down and down and down because it's you know, 1:58:08.360 --> 1:58:11.760 there's something bad ass about hunting sheep. There's something something 1:58:11.800 --> 1:58:15.040 bad ass about wanting to hunt sheep. Uh, there's something 1:58:15.040 --> 1:58:18.839 bad ass about training to hunt sheep. So we're seeing 1:58:19.040 --> 1:58:23.160 our our attendants age go down and down and down. 1:58:23.200 --> 1:58:28.160 We have backpack races, indoor, backpack races outdoor. Um, you know, 1:58:28.200 --> 1:58:30.840 it's just it's just a fun time. But what what 1:58:30.920 --> 1:58:32.800 was interesting? And I had a guy come up to 1:58:32.840 --> 1:58:34.480 me and it was actually at the Lesson one Club 1:58:34.640 --> 1:58:39.000 this year, and he said, you know, um, I'm sitting here. 1:58:39.040 --> 1:58:42.560 There's people in there. Because now we let anyone go 1:58:42.600 --> 1:58:44.080 into the Lesson one Club. You don't have to be 1:58:44.120 --> 1:58:46.480 in the reception, you don't have to be a member. 1:58:46.480 --> 1:58:50.200 And people, I mean guys that have taken twenty seven 1:58:50.280 --> 1:58:52.760 sheep come into the lesson one club, just to see 1:58:52.800 --> 1:58:56.880 how cool it is for some new aspirational woman or 1:58:57.000 --> 1:59:03.640 man when their first sheep hunt. The first drawn is 1:59:03.880 --> 1:59:08.600 a female mountain climber that's dating a sheep and moose 1:59:08.600 --> 1:59:11.920 guide in Alaska outfit or in Alaska, and I mean, 1:59:11.960 --> 1:59:14.200 it was just fabulous. When she wants she you know, 1:59:14.240 --> 1:59:18.480 she wont a incredible Northwest Territories doll sheep bunch. She 1:59:18.520 --> 1:59:21.080 looks down at her boyfriend, and you know, she told 1:59:21.080 --> 1:59:22.880 me later she goes, you know, I couldn't sleep that nice. 1:59:22.880 --> 1:59:25.040 So I'm sitting there poking him, you know, in bed, 1:59:25.080 --> 1:59:26.520 going do you see what I want? Did you see 1:59:26.520 --> 1:59:28.720 what I want? You know? I mean, it's just it's 1:59:28.840 --> 1:59:30.960 it's it's cool. It's the family. But this guy came 1:59:31.000 --> 1:59:32.920 up to me and he says, hey, look, he goes, 1:59:32.960 --> 1:59:34.640 I I go to all the shows, and I do too. 1:59:34.640 --> 1:59:36.560 I mean, I'm a member of every all of the 1:59:36.600 --> 1:59:39.240 organizations are all great, and we support him. But he goes, 1:59:39.280 --> 1:59:41.920 you know, I walk around this room and I have 1:59:42.080 --> 1:59:45.520 the feeling that there are some real big players in here. 1:59:45.840 --> 1:59:48.480 He goes, I feel I can talk to anyone in 1:59:48.480 --> 1:59:52.920 this room, and anyone in this room we'll talk to me. So, yes, 1:59:53.160 --> 1:59:55.360 it's a it's a great family. And there's something about 1:59:55.400 --> 1:59:58.960 wild sheep. You know, we talk about sheep fever. You know, 1:59:59.000 --> 2:00:01.440 we talked about as being a sickness. But there's something 2:00:01.480 --> 2:00:04.720 about the places they live. Uh, there's something about how 2:00:04.800 --> 2:00:08.160 challenging it is to get up to where they live. Uh. 2:00:08.200 --> 2:00:10.560 It's something about the training that you have to do, 2:00:10.640 --> 2:00:13.920 the mental preparation, you know, and and it's probably in 2:00:14.160 --> 2:00:18.080 you know, Steve, you hunting places, that's just fabulous. Uh, 2:00:18.080 --> 2:00:19.720 and do it and do it the right way, do 2:00:19.760 --> 2:00:21.320 it the hard way, and do it the way that 2:00:21.360 --> 2:00:24.440 we all aspire to hunt. Um. But that's kind of 2:00:24.480 --> 2:00:26.480 the essence of sheep hunty. You know, you you gotta 2:00:26.520 --> 2:00:28.680 earn it. You know, it doesn't come easy. There's no 2:00:28.720 --> 2:00:33.240 easy ram. Yeah, it's for the hard players, it is, Steve. 2:00:33.320 --> 2:00:37.400 I'm I spent my life on Big Orange Cheap and 2:00:37.440 --> 2:00:46.880 I am a less than one member really I'm not. Yeah, Yeah, 2:00:47.000 --> 2:00:49.680 already made a decision. We're going to the uh well 2:00:49.880 --> 2:00:53.080 Sheep Show. Yeah, I want to go this year and 2:00:53.120 --> 2:00:55.680 it's not on shot show. It's February seven through to ninth, 2:00:55.800 --> 2:01:00.920 So we're we're off shot feasibly spread my wings. Man, 2:01:00.960 --> 2:01:03.400 I gotta check some new stuff out. I gotta checks 2:01:03.400 --> 2:01:08.040 some new stuff out. Um any uh, final thoughts around 2:01:08.120 --> 2:01:12.520 the table. We're doing the whole man. If you want, 2:01:13.120 --> 2:01:14.760 if you feel that it's all been said, you can 2:01:14.760 --> 2:01:16.880 just say it's all been said. I don't have any 2:01:16.880 --> 2:01:21.120 concluding bod man. I'm you know, as the preacher said, 2:01:21.160 --> 2:01:23.680 once I get started, generally I'm too lazy to stop. 2:01:23.800 --> 2:01:26.640 So I don't know if you want me to do that, 2:01:26.680 --> 2:01:29.200 but I you know, I do think it's worth just mentioning, 2:01:29.520 --> 2:01:32.760 you know, Steve and Jannest. It means a lot having 2:01:32.840 --> 2:01:36.240 you guys here, you know, and helping us talk about 2:01:36.320 --> 2:01:38.959 you know, what we do as an organization. We reality 2:01:39.080 --> 2:01:42.560 is we conserve a species that lives at fourteen thousand 2:01:42.560 --> 2:01:45.800 feet and that lives below sea level UM. And that 2:01:45.880 --> 2:01:48.360 includes a lot of animals along the way. So that's 2:01:48.360 --> 2:01:50.600 a good way of putting it. Man, I never thought that. Yeah. 2:01:50.680 --> 2:01:54.640 I mean when we do Guzzler projects, a frequent animal 2:01:54.640 --> 2:01:57.520 that visits as a desert tortoise. Right, you know, we 2:01:58.240 --> 2:02:03.560 just at a rehabilitation UM deal with encroaching conifers and uh, 2:02:03.600 --> 2:02:05.280 you know, the guy. When we kind of got done, 2:02:05.280 --> 2:02:07.240 it goes well, actually this is more meal their habitat 2:02:07.280 --> 2:02:10.280 than anything else. But um, you know, so we can 2:02:10.320 --> 2:02:12.880 serve that species, and we have to watch that chain 2:02:12.880 --> 2:02:15.920 of events happen all the way through those different different 2:02:15.920 --> 2:02:19.480 elevations as they migrate. We have to watch you know, 2:02:19.560 --> 2:02:26.800 just food, um, predator management obviously, domestic sheep conflict and 2:02:26.840 --> 2:02:29.080 a lot of people don't know that that happen. Has 2:02:29.120 --> 2:02:31.480 to happen, that chain has to happen the whole way 2:02:31.600 --> 2:02:33.960 for this to work. And the fact that you know, 2:02:34.000 --> 2:02:36.480 you guys are here and helping us tell that story, 2:02:37.120 --> 2:02:39.800 that just does good things for us, like helping sheep. 2:02:39.880 --> 2:02:42.160 You're touching a lot a while. But yeah, I mean 2:02:42.600 --> 2:02:45.080 you're you're you're taking an animal that lives in the 2:02:45.120 --> 2:02:48.720 wildest places on both ends of the spectrum and probably 2:02:48.720 --> 2:02:51.320 one of the more wild animals and nature and behavior, 2:02:51.560 --> 2:02:55.200 and therefore you encapsulate a lot of critters right in 2:02:55.240 --> 2:02:59.400 the middle. And and so what we do. You know 2:02:59.400 --> 2:03:02.760 what it has like and wild cheap conservation comes from us, 2:03:03.560 --> 2:03:06.160 and we conserve a lot of critters along the way. 2:03:07.200 --> 2:03:11.240 We'll put for me. You asked us if if we 2:03:11.240 --> 2:03:15.200 were optimistic and and I am. UM. I think a 2:03:15.240 --> 2:03:17.880 lot of times we focus on just the disease, just 2:03:17.960 --> 2:03:21.280 the just the negative side of of the story. And 2:03:21.320 --> 2:03:27.080 if you look at the numbers today, you have uh 2:03:27.320 --> 2:03:32.280 a better opportunity to see sheep, to hunt sheep. Uh 2:03:32.400 --> 2:03:35.360 My kids have, my grandkids have a better opportunity to 2:03:35.440 --> 2:03:38.320 draw a tag then than I did when I started 2:03:38.360 --> 2:03:43.720 my career. Uh, that's important to me, UM, I I 2:03:43.880 --> 2:03:47.880 and I do. I am confident that that uh. And 2:03:48.160 --> 2:03:52.240 I don't know. I've been accused of being Pollyanna. I've 2:03:52.360 --> 2:03:55.200 heard this one said that to me once. Uh, But 2:03:55.440 --> 2:03:57.920 but I'm confident that that we can come to the 2:03:57.960 --> 2:04:02.120 table and try to think outside of the box, think 2:04:02.160 --> 2:04:05.080 a little bit different. Scott tested on it earlier. The 2:04:05.120 --> 2:04:08.040 science is improving, We're learning more and more all the time. 2:04:08.760 --> 2:04:12.080 But I'm I'm confident that that we will come together 2:04:12.240 --> 2:04:15.400 to find solutions. And I'm talking about both while she 2:04:15.760 --> 2:04:20.320 advocates and the livestock industry to work together to achieve 2:04:20.440 --> 2:04:24.080 things that all of us benefit from. UM, I'm confident 2:04:24.120 --> 2:04:27.640 that that can occur. I I uh, I just think 2:04:28.040 --> 2:04:32.400 you know, the younger, younger generation, I I think they're smarter, 2:04:32.600 --> 2:04:37.280 I think they, Um, I don't know about that. Well, 2:04:37.320 --> 2:04:39.760 I just I just think I think that that the 2:04:39.800 --> 2:04:45.040 future is promising. And uh i uh, I don't want 2:04:45.040 --> 2:04:47.280 to go back. I don't want to go back to 2:04:47.320 --> 2:04:50.720 where we came from. We've we've invested too much blood, 2:04:50.720 --> 2:04:54.680 sweat and tears, uh to to be where we are today. 2:04:54.760 --> 2:04:57.720 And and I'm I'm proud of the whil You Foundation 2:04:57.760 --> 2:04:59.280 and proud of what we do every day. And I'm 2:04:59.320 --> 2:05:02.080 proud to work for the organization. UM, I wouldn't be 2:05:02.120 --> 2:05:04.360 here if I didn't believe in the mission. And and 2:05:04.560 --> 2:05:08.000 so I'm I'm I'm optimistic about where we're headed. And 2:05:08.160 --> 2:05:12.760 never got a sheep. Not on purpose, I'll say it 2:05:12.800 --> 2:05:17.800 that way through. I'm just saying, never got a sheep? 2:05:17.960 --> 2:05:21.600 Do you draw? Do you put in for sheep? Huh? 2:05:21.800 --> 2:05:25.440 A lot like Steve thirteen Western State? No, probably not 2:05:25.560 --> 2:05:28.800 that much. I don't know with that many, but handful? 2:05:30.320 --> 2:05:32.480 Can you guys answer this quickly? Because I heard a 2:05:32.480 --> 2:05:35.880 little I heard a rumor our Lama's bad. Oh, that's 2:05:35.880 --> 2:05:37.520 a That's the main thing I wanted to ask is 2:05:37.560 --> 2:05:39.320 my brother is my brother need to kill all is 2:05:39.400 --> 2:05:44.880 lamas camel it's yeah, you know, we're we're not as worried. No, 2:05:45.000 --> 2:05:46.960 just give it to me straight. Yeah, we're not as 2:05:47.000 --> 2:05:49.880 worried about him. There's there's some new papers coming out, Clay. 2:05:49.960 --> 2:05:52.640 Maybe you talk about Scott, you can talk about I know, uh, 2:05:52.680 --> 2:05:55.200 Helen Schwansea up in British Columbia is a little bit 2:05:55.240 --> 2:05:58.080 more concerned about him, um than we are. You know. 2:05:58.160 --> 2:06:01.560 It's kind of like pack goats. We're pretty concerned about 2:06:01.560 --> 2:06:03.520 pack goats. And and you know, as we as we 2:06:03.640 --> 2:06:06.920 learn more and more, pack goats seem to be more 2:06:07.080 --> 2:06:10.080 likely amovie free than than uh, you know, just a 2:06:10.120 --> 2:06:14.000 boar goat running around the so um. But but llamas 2:06:14.080 --> 2:06:18.200 can carry it. No, they can't carry micap Well, they 2:06:18.240 --> 2:06:20.760 shouldn't be able to carry micro plasma of a pneumonia, 2:06:20.800 --> 2:06:22.880 you know, the old of them. You know, the people 2:06:22.960 --> 2:06:25.160 keep a lot of people keeping texting me to bust 2:06:25.160 --> 2:06:32.400 my brothers. There's some potential diseases. Yeah, and we and 2:06:32.440 --> 2:06:34.720 it's it's kind of like it's another rock that we 2:06:34.880 --> 2:06:38.200 gotta in turn and gosh that we gotta get involved 2:06:38.200 --> 2:06:42.960 with the even even the pac industry thing. Pack goats 2:06:42.960 --> 2:06:45.680 are a big thing we're working with the pack goat 2:06:45.680 --> 2:06:50.680 industry right now to develop some best management practices that 2:06:50.880 --> 2:06:53.240 we believe would work. They would involve from testing and 2:06:53.280 --> 2:06:56.600 other things. Kevin Hurley's actually meeting with those folks here. 2:06:56.600 --> 2:07:02.560 You're distributing goat recipes. No no, uh, if you got 2:07:02.720 --> 2:07:06.240 a good go to do that. Yeah. So so anyway, 2:07:06.320 --> 2:07:11.560 it uh for the short version is for us at 2:07:11.600 --> 2:07:14.320 this stage of the game, it's not worth gamble with. 2:07:14.760 --> 2:07:18.560 We don't believe that it's worth of gall Have your 2:07:18.560 --> 2:07:23.200 brother tested, I will, Yeah, he can have his testing absolutely, 2:07:23.320 --> 2:07:26.520 Just he probably know he's not like, he's not a 2:07:26.520 --> 2:07:29.320 negligent dude. I just haven't talked about it with him lately. 2:07:29.360 --> 2:07:31.480 I'm sure that he's doing whatever he should be doing. 2:07:31.560 --> 2:07:34.000 And he's the kind of guy too. I think if 2:07:34.000 --> 2:07:36.680 someone like laid out for him, like a really compelling case, 2:07:36.720 --> 2:07:38.160 I feel like he'd just be like, Okay, I gonna 2:07:38.240 --> 2:07:42.920 buy a horse, which is smarter anyway. Well, he just 2:07:42.960 --> 2:07:46.160 doesn't have that that background. Man. People to grow up 2:07:46.160 --> 2:07:50.440 around horses. You can't catch him his wife a horse. 2:07:51.520 --> 2:07:55.480 I don't know. I don't want to say whisper. That's 2:07:55.760 --> 2:07:58.320 almost every day. Her dad grew up around horses. Are 2:07:58.360 --> 2:08:01.880 great grandfather recommends that he'd does not get involved with horses. 2:08:03.080 --> 2:08:05.160 Is this the brother that lives in Miles City. Yeah, 2:08:05.400 --> 2:08:09.080 and his wife comes from a long long line of horsemen, 2:08:09.600 --> 2:08:14.880 um breeders and you know, and ranchers, and she she's 2:08:14.960 --> 2:08:23.160 recommended that he temperamentally needs to steer clear of horses. Yeah, 2:08:23.320 --> 2:08:25.600 you got something? Was that? Was that your concluder? Yeah? 2:08:26.280 --> 2:08:28.280 Thank you. That's a good one, because I forgot about that. 2:08:28.320 --> 2:08:32.400 That was top of mind. Did we properly dodge it, No, 2:08:32.560 --> 2:08:35.080 but it was enough. I said, I got some code language. Yeah, 2:08:35.120 --> 2:08:36.480 we don't want to poke that one in the eye 2:08:36.560 --> 2:08:39.880 right now, we gotta get bigger fish. Right. I'll just 2:08:40.200 --> 2:08:43.200 rewind just a little bit. If there's you there might 2:08:43.200 --> 2:08:45.640 be some listeners that or maybe a little confused about 2:08:45.640 --> 2:08:48.320 the setup. Just something about the sheep ecology that in 2:08:48.440 --> 2:08:51.520 the in the situation that we're in. So historically sheep 2:08:51.560 --> 2:08:55.560 evolved in you know, in large metal populations of well 2:08:55.640 --> 2:09:01.040 connected subpopulation, so individual to to a hundred size groups. Right, 2:09:01.360 --> 2:09:05.160 So all these you're on domestic horn sheep, so they 2:09:05.200 --> 2:09:08.040 were you know, moving through the landscape. You know, maybe 2:09:08.120 --> 2:09:11.360 ram groups going to breed, different groups of use, and 2:09:11.680 --> 2:09:13.960 so we had this sort of network of connection depending 2:09:13.960 --> 2:09:16.120 on the habitat. Like think about the basin and range 2:09:16.160 --> 2:09:19.480 in Nevada, those mountain ranges that jump up out of desert. 2:09:19.720 --> 2:09:22.160 Sheep will go across those, right. So that's where in 2:09:22.240 --> 2:09:26.000 modern times we've got humans in the bottom sheep you know, 2:09:26.320 --> 2:09:29.280 fullyar on cheap here on sheep have down on top across. 2:09:29.800 --> 2:09:32.360 That's where we're running our problems. The river systems. They're 2:09:32.360 --> 2:09:35.280 traveling up and down, so their ecology and their their 2:09:35.280 --> 2:09:39.560 evolution is to move in between groups. And so functionally 2:09:39.560 --> 2:09:43.920 we want to manage four large groups of sheep rather 2:09:44.000 --> 2:09:48.080 than small isolated groups because there's all kinds of negative 2:09:48.120 --> 2:09:50.760 impacts of that. So we're kind of stuck in that 2:09:50.760 --> 2:09:52.520 that problem where we're like, Okay, here's a good piece 2:09:52.520 --> 2:09:55.760 of habitat, but we've got surrounded by domestics and we 2:09:55.800 --> 2:09:57.960 can't have sheep shooting out of it and going to 2:09:58.040 --> 2:10:00.400 talk to their their friends up river. We've kind of 2:10:00.400 --> 2:10:02.760 gotten ourselves into a little bit of a pickle, and 2:10:02.800 --> 2:10:05.040 so that's that's a little bit of a pickle. By 2:10:05.160 --> 2:10:08.240 thinking in pocket mentality, we can have a few here, 2:10:08.240 --> 2:10:10.240 we can have a few there, yes, but they can't. 2:10:10.280 --> 2:10:12.040 But if they come out, we can't. We can't let 2:10:12.080 --> 2:10:14.320 them come out in the valley or we're gonna remove them. 2:10:14.560 --> 2:10:16.360 So we've kind of got ourselves into a bind in 2:10:16.480 --> 2:10:18.760 that way. But but look at all this great sheep 2:10:18.760 --> 2:10:20.840 halitat we have, and we want to have sheep there. 2:10:21.040 --> 2:10:22.800 But at the same time, it's hard to let them 2:10:22.800 --> 2:10:26.640 be sheep because their natural tendency is to move around 2:10:26.640 --> 2:10:31.040 between groups and you know, eventually spread out. Polling excellent 2:10:31.080 --> 2:10:34.480 point in in in Texas. You know, we've built those 2:10:34.520 --> 2:10:38.880 populations metal populations. There's constantly interchange between populations and we've 2:10:38.960 --> 2:10:42.600 encouraged that because we haven't had the domestic sheep issues 2:10:42.640 --> 2:10:45.160 to deal with. So that's an excellent point. Trying to 2:10:45.440 --> 2:10:48.000 and trying to restore that connectivity of hers really like 2:10:48.080 --> 2:10:49.920 it's it's it's the pie in the sky and it's 2:10:50.040 --> 2:10:52.880 it's right and waff was um. You know, main goal 2:10:52.920 --> 2:10:56.680 as far as connectivity and metal population management, that that's 2:10:56.720 --> 2:10:58.520 the that's the goal we're shooting for, not just to 2:10:58.520 --> 2:11:02.240 have one big population or one robust one here. We 2:11:02.280 --> 2:11:03.960 need a bunch of them. They are all functioning together, 2:11:04.080 --> 2:11:06.680 exchanging to the neck material, and they're talking to each other, 2:11:06.920 --> 2:11:09.960 they're they're more resilient to disease outbreaks when you have 2:11:10.000 --> 2:11:12.520 a whole bunch of different scattered groups of sheep and 2:11:12.560 --> 2:11:15.000 they're they're moving their genes in between, and it's just 2:11:15.120 --> 2:11:16.640 it's it's the setup. We need to go for it. 2:11:16.720 --> 2:11:18.680 And it seems to give you a situation to have 2:11:19.600 --> 2:11:25.520 localized disasters horrible winners and and and then hopefully get 2:11:25.560 --> 2:11:28.400 them back without needing to then have it be by 2:11:28.520 --> 2:11:32.200 a helicopter exactly. So that was just one thing I 2:11:32.200 --> 2:11:34.760 think people might missed out on if they're not familiar 2:11:34.800 --> 2:11:37.520 with sheep and how they've evolved. It's a good point. 2:11:37.520 --> 2:11:41.560 It's it's yeah, it spans habitat types too generally. Um, 2:11:41.680 --> 2:11:44.520 and then I guess my my little concluder is I mean, 2:11:44.600 --> 2:11:47.760 we've we've had a great discussion today and thank you 2:11:47.800 --> 2:11:50.600 for having me. Um, And a lot of the sheep 2:11:50.640 --> 2:11:53.520 have tats on public land, So folks listening, if you 2:11:53.680 --> 2:11:56.000 if this hit strikes a chord, get involved. I mean, 2:11:56.040 --> 2:11:58.640 it's a public lands, public wildlife. You know, you need 2:11:58.680 --> 2:12:00.240 to be if you want to be heard, got to 2:12:00.280 --> 2:12:02.560 be there, you know. And a lot of these decisions 2:12:02.560 --> 2:12:06.000 are being made, you know, policy level stuff that's disconnected 2:12:06.040 --> 2:12:08.200 from the science, and if you don't like it, you 2:12:08.240 --> 2:12:11.120 need to be there. And so that's my main point 2:12:11.200 --> 2:12:16.440 is get involved. These are these are everybody's sheep and 2:12:16.640 --> 2:12:19.720 we need to be be there to make good decisions. 2:12:20.440 --> 2:12:24.000 And uh yeah, so and I hope that everybody listening 2:12:24.040 --> 2:12:28.000 will be able to someday draw sheep tag. You know 2:12:28.080 --> 2:12:30.120 you've hunted all over the West. How many big horn 2:12:30.160 --> 2:12:33.240 mountains have you passed? Sheep mountain, sheep ridge, big sheep ridge. 2:12:33.800 --> 2:12:36.720 Most of them don't have sheep. I think we need 2:12:36.760 --> 2:12:38.840 to get We need to get there where big horns 2:12:38.880 --> 2:12:43.040 and sheep mountains are are restored with sheep, bighorn sheep. Yeah, 2:12:43.040 --> 2:12:45.040 if every sheep mountain had a sheep on it would 2:12:45.040 --> 2:12:50.360 be in good shape. One last concluder, one last concluder. UM, 2:12:50.400 --> 2:12:53.800 Steveana's first, first and foremost. UM. I want to thank 2:12:53.840 --> 2:12:57.880 you for the opportunity I talked about while Chef Foundation 2:12:57.960 --> 2:13:04.160 casting a broad concert Baian shadow. Um, you cast a 2:13:04.320 --> 2:13:08.080 huge communications shadow and a lot about what we were 2:13:08.080 --> 2:13:11.680 talking about today was education, and you've provided us an 2:13:11.720 --> 2:13:14.560 opportunity to educate a hell of a lot of people 2:13:14.560 --> 2:13:17.720 and we're grateful. Um. The final thought that I'd like 2:13:17.800 --> 2:13:20.840 to to to say is that you know, we we 2:13:21.560 --> 2:13:23.920 you touched on it on this the extremes. You know, 2:13:23.960 --> 2:13:27.640 there's extreme on the right, that's extreme on the left. UM. 2:13:27.680 --> 2:13:30.400 And I've said this a few times a few different groups, 2:13:30.400 --> 2:13:33.120 and I think it resonates. If if we could concentrate, 2:13:33.640 --> 2:13:36.920 whether it's the non consumptive community, the hunting community, the 2:13:37.200 --> 2:13:41.400 conservation community, the environmental community, the domestic sheep industry, the 2:13:41.440 --> 2:13:44.160 cattle industry, the you know whatever, and the wild sheep 2:13:44.200 --> 2:13:50.600 Avasacie community, if we could aspire, work and focus on 2:13:50.760 --> 2:13:56.000 the eighty to ninetent that we agree on and not 2:13:56.200 --> 2:13:59.600 spend all our time on the ten to that we 2:13:59.720 --> 2:14:03.800 dis agree on, we can move mountains. So that's kind 2:14:03.800 --> 2:14:06.320 of our new narrative. Let's let's start looking at the 2:14:06.400 --> 2:14:10.080 areas where we agree and work on those and not 2:14:10.640 --> 2:14:13.480 bitch and moan and focus on the areas we disagree. 2:14:13.600 --> 2:14:17.040 It's an interesting idea that you imagine a big room 2:14:17.080 --> 2:14:19.800 and everyone's in it, and you make an announcement if 2:14:19.840 --> 2:14:25.640 you think wild sheep are cool, come over in this room, 2:14:25.680 --> 2:14:28.520 and most people are gonna wander in the room and 2:14:28.520 --> 2:14:33.280 then start there. Ye, put our differences aside. Look for 2:14:33.360 --> 2:14:36.520 areas that we can work together, not areas that we 2:14:36.840 --> 2:14:40.520 spend all our time fighting. Yeah, you'll get a lot 2:14:40.520 --> 2:14:43.040 of work done in that space. We'll put and keep 2:14:43.120 --> 2:14:48.280 cheap on the mountain wild sheep. Now, what's an admirable goal? Man? 2:14:48.320 --> 2:14:51.520 I think that anyone who you know is up in 2:14:51.560 --> 2:14:55.240 some high crazy mountain peak where you're just kind of 2:14:55.280 --> 2:14:57.640 like happy with yourself or just haven't gotten up there, 2:14:58.280 --> 2:15:00.520 and to see one of those things crashed out and 2:15:00.640 --> 2:15:03.760 turn his head and there's those curls. It's just magical. 2:15:03.960 --> 2:15:06.200 Makes it makes the hair stand up on the back 2:15:06.240 --> 2:15:10.120 of your neck. It's like you are you're seeing, touching, 2:15:10.360 --> 2:15:15.280 feeling wilderness. All right, Well, thank you very much for 2:15:15.480 --> 2:15:16.960 coming on everyone. I appreciate the time.