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Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't

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Speaker 1: predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you

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Speaker 1: by first Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands,

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Speaker 1: or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to

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Speaker 1: support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at

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Speaker 1: first light dot com, f I R S T L

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Speaker 1: I T E dot com. Probably ladies and gentlemen. We're

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Speaker 1: joined by our our, our friend and colleague and uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, beloved, uh ark and Arkinson? What is?

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Speaker 1: How do you say that?

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Speaker 2: Ar Kanson?

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Speaker 1: Ar Kanson Clay Newcomb, who's recently back from a trip

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Speaker 1: where he accompanied a wolf trapper in Alaska and made

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Speaker 1: a uh made a video about hanging out with this

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Speaker 1: Alaska wolf trapper and video has gotten quite a lot

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Speaker 1: of views and generated a lot of conversation. And I

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Speaker 1: wanted to check in with Clay about it. And first

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Speaker 1: thing I want to know Clay is tell me what

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Speaker 1: you wanted to name it and what they ended up

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Speaker 1: naming it and why.

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Speaker 2: Well I wanted to I wanted to just come out

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Speaker 2: and say what the film was about in the title,

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Speaker 2: and I wanted to call it trapping wolves in Alaska

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Speaker 2: or Alaskan or Alaskan wolf trapping, and we were we

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Speaker 2: were advised not to do that because of the potential

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Speaker 2: for YouTube to flag something that had the word trapping

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Speaker 2: in the title, and so we ended up calling it

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Speaker 2: Alaskan wolf management with Clay Nukem, and that that kind

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Speaker 2: of opens up a can of worms from the very beginning.

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Speaker 1: Really sets you know, Yeah, I think it sets uh uh.

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Speaker 1: It just sets an expectation and delivers a certain dialogue.

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Speaker 1: Meaning if you made a squirrel hunting video, which you

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Speaker 1: like to do and which I like to do, and

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Speaker 1: then you had to call it squirrel management in Michigan,

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Speaker 1: it feel kind of weird, right, Raccoon managed.

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Speaker 2: It feels a whole lot more like it's this mission

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Speaker 2: driven experience, as if I felt like, by me going

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Speaker 2: up there and trapping a couple of wolves, four wolves,

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Speaker 2: actually that it was gonna, you know, change something, And

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Speaker 2: no doubt that it's a statement in today's world if

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Speaker 2: you go wolf trapping, But really I wanted to. I

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Speaker 2: wanted to experience it. I've known David Bennett's for about

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Speaker 2: ten years.

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Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to get into because well, I

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Speaker 1: don't understand. I was a little hurt because I don't

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Speaker 1: know why it didn't come. It's why the article wasn't

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Speaker 1: beaver trapping with Steve.

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Speaker 2: Beaver Management with Steve Vanilla.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so what what? What headed the whole thing off?

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Speaker 1: Or what started?

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Speaker 2: So I met David Bennett's about ten years ago through

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Speaker 2: Bear Hunting magazine. David's an outfitter. David's a professional crabber.

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Speaker 2: That's his main livelihood is crabbing for three months during

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Speaker 2: the summer.

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Speaker 1: For Dungeon Crab. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, his stories and and and and his learning

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Speaker 2: about that was incredible. But he's just like the classic

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Speaker 2: Alaskan man.

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Speaker 1: He's he's whenever those guys come through our area, crab

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Speaker 1: and gets bad on. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: David is also an outfitter, so he guides for you know,

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Speaker 2: Alaskan big game. I would say his primary thing is

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Speaker 2: is black bear and goats. But then lastly in the

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Speaker 2: wintertime he traps and he's traped since he was ten

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Speaker 2: years old.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: David's fifty seven or so. Just an incredible guy, you know,

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Speaker 2: and he at times he's made a lot of money

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Speaker 2: trapping back in the day and this, but to this

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Speaker 2: day he still traps just as hard as he's ever trapped,

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Speaker 2: just out of principle.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if he's sixty seven and he started trapping when

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Speaker 1: he was ten, he was cranking through the big fur boom.

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Speaker 1: I mean he was young, but he was selling fur

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Speaker 1: during like the the big fur boom with a capital FB.

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Speaker 1: I think it's hard for the l late seventies, early eighties.

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Speaker 1: You know, my friend Stu Miller said to me, every

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Speaker 1: generation has its own fur boom, and uh his game early.

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Speaker 2: Man, I think those old guys have a hard time

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Speaker 2: letting go of that. I mean, so much of what

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Speaker 2: we do, I think is is fueled by more than

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Speaker 2: just economics and the buzz that somebody would have gotten

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Speaker 2: back in the day to have made a legitimate amount

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Speaker 2: of money trapping furs. That association with sustenance for your family,

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Speaker 2: you know, going out and taking first off the landscape

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Speaker 2: would just almost be hard to erase. It feels to

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Speaker 2: me like, you know, you keep doing it even when

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Speaker 2: the prices are cheap. But man, the beaver, the beaver

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Speaker 2: markets back though, because of these dang felt hats.

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Speaker 1: Oh I know, Uh, it is cranky. I'm obsessed with

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Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about fur prices, but I

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Speaker 1: don't sell fur. I'm obsessed with the fur market. I

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Speaker 1: follow the fur market more closely than I follow like

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Speaker 1: the stock market.

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Speaker 2: Do you have one of those? Do you have like

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Speaker 2: a graph on your phone that you just can of

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Speaker 2: It doesn't work the clip on and see like that,

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Speaker 2: ups and down, it's like a stock exchange.

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Speaker 1: No, it doesn't work that way. So you reached out

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Speaker 1: to him, and I bet there's no way that he

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Speaker 1: wasn't at first thinking to himself, Man, I don't want

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Speaker 1: you and some camera dudes coming into this thing, which

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Speaker 1: is just going to cause me hassle. Guys are going

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Speaker 1: to know where I trap, Guys are going to know

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Speaker 1: how I trap. I'm gonna have animal rights people coming

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Speaker 1: after me. How did you ever get him to say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: come on out trapping with a camera.

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Speaker 2: You know, I was very conscious of that when I

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Speaker 2: reached out to him, And I honestly feel like David

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Speaker 2: believes that the the authenticity and legitimacy of what he's

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Speaker 2: doing is able to withstand any criticism that he's taken.

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Speaker 2: And he also just isn't concerned about giving away secrets.

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Speaker 2: I mean sometimes guys are like that. David is willing

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Speaker 2: to help anybody can that's wanting to do it, but

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Speaker 2: it's so difficult. I mean what the film didn't portray

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Speaker 2: and we tried to portray. And you know this because

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Speaker 2: you do so like this all the time, Steve is that.

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Speaker 1: It.

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Speaker 2: You gotta have something driving you that's almost clinically insane

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Speaker 2: to do what he does. I mean being out on

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Speaker 2: the water, the distance of these the distance he's traveling,

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Speaker 2: the amount of money that he spends on even just

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Speaker 2: his trap sets. It's a very very few people are

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Speaker 2: going to see that video and move to Alaska and

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Speaker 2: be a wolf trapper. Yeah, and he knows that.

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Speaker 1: And uh.

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Speaker 2: And I told him that we were gonna handle it

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Speaker 2: in a responsible way, and I think he just he

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Speaker 2: just took us for our at our word for that.

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Speaker 1: You know. So, how did you guys pick the season

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Speaker 1: you were going to go? Was he trying to line

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Speaker 1: it up with with peak conditions, with when he doesn't

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Speaker 1: have anything else going on with when he felt that

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Speaker 1: it was the biggest chance of getting like real prime

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Speaker 1: wolf else that weren't rubbed out right, what was he

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Speaker 1: shooting for when you guys went so.

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Speaker 2: His his year is very regimented down to the week.

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Speaker 2: You know, he can tell you what he's going to

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Speaker 2: be doing any given week of the year. And that

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Speaker 2: first week of December he was going to be trapping wolves,

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Speaker 2: whether I was with him or not. That's what he

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Speaker 2: told me. And yeah, it's it's peak for it's but

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Speaker 2: it's also you know, tough travel conditions that time of year.

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Speaker 1: No daylight, you can oh, that was.

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Speaker 2: The biggest challenge of the whole trip, Steve, And you

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Speaker 2: would know it as much as anybody is. It gets

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Speaker 2: daylight at about seven thirty AM, maybe even closer to eight,

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Speaker 2: and it's dark by four thirty. I mean it's like

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Speaker 2: dark dark And so what was wild so dirt myth

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Speaker 2: was my cameraman on this deal, you know, Garrett Smith

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Speaker 2: and he we would get back to the boat four

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Speaker 2: thirty and not be needing to be in the boat

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Speaker 2: till eight o'clock the next day. Setting in that little

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Speaker 2: cabin on the on the Sandpiper, which we became very

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Speaker 2: familiar with. We'd set around for six hours and I

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Speaker 2: don't know what we did read, eat.

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Speaker 1: Pack a big old pack a big dip.

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Speaker 2: Probably right, dirt was running through some dip, buddy, you

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Speaker 2: better believe it. I was like, man, what if we

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Speaker 2: run out? And he was like, Clay, I got so

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Speaker 2: much dip in my bag. He's like, I got enough

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Speaker 2: for all of us. And I'm like, I don't dip.

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Speaker 2: I'm out, but appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: So what are the days goal? Like? He runs a

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Speaker 1: big like he's running a big well. First, I think,

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Speaker 1: guess before we say what the day's goal like, you

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Speaker 1: should explain this is a marine based deal. He's not

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Speaker 1: running off snowmobiles, trucks. It's it's marine based.

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Speaker 2: It's boats completely two boats, water based, completely water based.

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Speaker 2: Trap line.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So if you saw the film, you saw that he

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Speaker 2: has a forty eight foot crabbing boat with a cab,

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Speaker 2: a kitchen, you know, fully equipped. We we put that

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Speaker 2: in a small narrow inlet to get it out of

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Speaker 2: big water in waves, and then we took a skiff

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Speaker 2: out to check the traps. And what is amazing to

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Speaker 2: me what I would have thought if you would have

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Speaker 2: just said, Clay, you're gonna have to go trap wolves

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Speaker 2: in a in Alaska, how are you going to do it?

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Speaker 2: Coastal Alaska. I would have thought you couldn't trap these

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Speaker 2: wolves on the beach just because they wouldn't have any

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Speaker 2: reason to be there. But he's literally catching wolves on

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Speaker 2: the beach in the sand a lot of times.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you only salmon. They like, it's a

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Speaker 1: peculiar kind of wolf that like salmon dead. I've watched

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Speaker 1: them eating rotten salmon off the beach. Yeah, well yeah there,

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Speaker 1: so there.

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Speaker 2: He feels like they're actually attracted to these points, these

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Speaker 2: sandy points. He feels like they just kind of loaf there,

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Speaker 2: you know, like a Mallard duck and the timber in

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Speaker 2: the midday, you know, just like loafing.

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Speaker 1: Huh okay.

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Speaker 2: But but what's what it was interesting to me is

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Speaker 2: he said he learned how to catch wolves by watching

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Speaker 2: his Labrador retriever. He would pull up on a pull

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Speaker 2: up on the bank and let his dog jump out

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Speaker 2: of the boat, and he would watch what his dog

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Speaker 2: would is a male dog, and he said that dog

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Speaker 2: would pick the most prominent visual thing that it could see,

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Speaker 2: whether it was a stump, whether it was a clump

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Speaker 2: of grass that set out from the rest of the grass,

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Speaker 2: whether it was a big rock, and he'd go over

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Speaker 2: and he'd mark it, you know, lift his leg and

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Speaker 2: pee on it. And he just started watching that dog

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Speaker 2: and he started setting traps where he saw his dog

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Speaker 2: mark and started catching wolves and he so he started

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Speaker 2: doing That's exactly that's what he called him. And we

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Speaker 2: didn't have time, you know, the video wasn't like how

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Speaker 2: to trap wolves, so we didn't really get into the

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Speaker 2: technical side.

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Speaker 1: But what he.

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Speaker 2: Uses is wolf here in a big, big bottle of

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Speaker 2: wolf here, and he'll make an artificial scent post. So

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Speaker 2: he'll go to a beat to a point that he

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Speaker 2: wants to trap on, and he'll go gather up a

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Speaker 2: couple of logs.

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Speaker 1: He's doing this above above the high tide marker, right

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Speaker 1: in where it's getting submerged at high tide.

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Speaker 2: Now, most of it's above the high tide mark, even

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Speaker 2: though that is a strategy, you know, to set it

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Speaker 2: below the tide mark and it's it's like a drown set,

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Speaker 2: you know. But most of these he's just catching above the.

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Speaker 1: The grass or be grass. Yeah, Okay, so he drags

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Speaker 1: out whatever, drags out some object to make some visual appeal,

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Speaker 1: I assume.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then he and then he puts sin all

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Speaker 2: over it. You know, he puts his he he had

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Speaker 2: multiple commercial wolf lures, but also this this wolf you'reine

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Speaker 2: and uh, the biggest thing that I think is different

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Speaker 2: for those guys in Southeast Alaska that are trapping is

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Speaker 2: they don't have to worry about human scent. We were

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Speaker 2: not worried about human scent at all.

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Speaker 1: Because everything gets wet, just everything gets washed out.

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Speaker 2: It rains. When you're setting a wolf trap, you're, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're it's gonna rain and it's gonna wash away the scent.

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Speaker 2: And so when the guys in the lower forty eighth

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Speaker 2: that do some trapping, that's a big concern is how

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Speaker 2: do you pretty much keep the set scent free. So

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Speaker 2: you know, they're wearing gloves, they're really concerned about what

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Speaker 2: you're touching, and and up there he's not at all,

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Speaker 2: which is makes it makes it convenient.

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Speaker 1: But his traps, his footholdser dyed and waxed. Correct. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: so go through making this like scent post set. So

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Speaker 1: he drags out an object for some visual appeal and

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Speaker 1: places it out on a point that's.

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Speaker 2: Right, how big of another? And so we showed it.

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Speaker 2: We showed a set in the film. There was probably

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Speaker 2: a stump that was eighteen inches long, or just a

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Speaker 2: piece of log that was eighteen inches long, kind of

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Speaker 2: had a big oblong rootball on one side that set

253
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Speaker 2: up eighteen inches tall, and we set it out right

254
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Speaker 2: out out from the grass in the sand where everything

255
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Speaker 2: would see it, and maybe even put another little smaller

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Speaker 2: four or five inch log on it. And then you know,

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Speaker 2: you put that scent post in an area where you

258
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Speaker 2: can dig easily. That's not rocky, that's sandy. Yeah, And

259
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Speaker 2: then we dig down and set just a standard trap set.

260
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Speaker 2: I'm not an expert trapper. I've spent a little bit

261
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Speaker 2: of time trap and I know how to make dirt

262
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Speaker 2: hole sets and catch foxes and coyotes and all this,

263
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Speaker 2: and I mean, you know, setting these big traps is

264
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Speaker 2: just identical to that. You know, you're you're trying to well,

265
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Speaker 2: he uses a drag for his equipment. He's he's using a.

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Speaker 1: Drag instead of trying trying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you have to dig a deep, a

268
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Speaker 2: pretty deep hole to bury that big drag. And it

269
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Speaker 2: is a big drag. And then you know you're setting

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Speaker 2: that trap down into a bed where it doesn't wiggle

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Speaker 2: around and the top of the trap has to be

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Speaker 2: even almost even with the surface of the ground.

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Speaker 1: How many inches off the explain how it goes, like

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Speaker 1: how many inches off the post, because you gotta you're

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Speaker 1: trying to cut. One of the ways to describe it

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Speaker 1: is you got the whole world. You know, the animal

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Speaker 1: has the whole world, the whole am island whatever to

278
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Speaker 1: walk around on, and you're trying to get it to

279
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Speaker 1: put its foot on a well. In this case, you're

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Speaker 1: trying to get it put its foot on a two

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Speaker 1: inch circle. Right, So if something walks up, if you

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Speaker 1: picture that, Let's take something that people are more familiar with,

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Speaker 1: like a coyote. Okay, a kyote's walking down a dirt lane,

284
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Speaker 1: walking down a farm trail, whatever, and there's an object

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Speaker 1: that it wants to piss on. Its feet are gonna

286
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Speaker 1: fall in a specific spot. They're not gonna be two

287
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Speaker 1: inches off the thing. They're not gonna be thirty inches

288
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Speaker 1: off the thing. He's not gonna dance there, he's gonna

289
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Speaker 1: come through, raise his leg and leave. What are the

290
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Speaker 1: odds that you've put that trappan where it's gonna put

291
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Speaker 1: its foot. Yeah, so you're David, You're You're like, you're

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Speaker 1: you're thinking about foot placement and anatomy when you place it,

293
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Speaker 1: because if not you place it wrong, you could have

294
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Speaker 1: eight wolves run by. None's gonna put their foot there.

295
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was kind of surprised at how

296
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Speaker 2: non technical David's explanation to me of you know, where

297
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Speaker 2: to put the trap.

298
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Speaker 1: So he's thinking, he's thinking it, but he's not saying it.

299
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Speaker 2: Probably well, I think he's just done it so many

300
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Speaker 2: times it's just instinctive. But I was expecting them to

301
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Speaker 2: have a tape measure and be like the average big

302
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Speaker 2: Southeast Alaskan wolf has a stride that's, you know, fourteen

303
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Speaker 2: inches long. So if he's sitting here and he's peeing

304
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Speaker 2: on that log, he's going to be sixteen inches out

305
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Speaker 2: and slightly back because you know he's peeing from the third,

306
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Speaker 2: you know, the back third. Yeah, what you know, this

307
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Speaker 2: technical nothing. I mean, he's just but probably he was

308
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Speaker 2: eighteen inches off of the trap, And I don't think

309
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Speaker 2: he was targeting a specific foot. I think he's catching

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Speaker 2: a lot of them in the front feet when they

311
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Speaker 2: come up to sniff the post before they market. You know,

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Speaker 2: just just an animal just walking up and putting his

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Speaker 2: nose on that on that little scent log that we

314
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Speaker 2: I don't think he's trying to catch it with a

315
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Speaker 2: back leg, you know. So he is not as technical

316
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Speaker 2: as I thought it would be. And what you guys,

317
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Speaker 2: before he came out, he went out and made a

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Speaker 2: bunch of sets. Yeah, correct, So he has some sets

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Speaker 2: out working and then you guys punched in some sets

320
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Speaker 2: and did some remakes and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: But how many during your time there? And explain the

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Speaker 1: number of days you spent there? And uh, tell folks

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Speaker 1: how many traps you checked? Okay? Over what? Over what distance?

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Speaker 2: We were there for six full days, and in that time,

325
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Speaker 2: David was concerned that we might not catch a wolf.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's how this trapping goes. You might be

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Speaker 2: there for six days and not catch a wolf. So

328
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Speaker 2: by him setting the traps, you know, the day before

329
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Speaker 2: we got there, you know, we kind of got an

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Speaker 2: extra day. And he has fifty five sets over a

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Speaker 2: two hundred We mapped it out on on x a

332
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Speaker 2: two hundred mile trap line boat by water. But each

333
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:24,280
Speaker 2: of those sets might have multiple traps. So he had

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Speaker 2: two kind of sets. He had p post sets and

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Speaker 2: what he called bait sets which were set in tide pools,

336
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Speaker 2: and basically he would have a chunk of beaver that

337
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 2: was elevated above the low tideline covered in rocks, and

338
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Speaker 2: then he would have four traps set under the water,

339
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Speaker 2: just set on the ground, not buried even at under

340
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,400
Speaker 2: that low tide, there underwater, at low tide, there underwater,

341
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Speaker 2: but at low tide or mid tide whatever, the meats

342
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Speaker 2: out of the water, but the traps just buried in

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Speaker 2: a tide pool or submerged. Correct, that's correct. And so

344
00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:08,320
Speaker 2: we had fifty five sets, but each of those sets,

345
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Speaker 2: most sets had uh, well, if there were baits that

346
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:15,320
Speaker 2: they had four traps. So it would be easy to

347
00:20:15,359 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 2: say he had one hundred traps out. Yep, I would

348
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:20,400
Speaker 2: say he had one hundred traps out.

349
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Speaker 1: How many had how many out ahead of your arrival?

350
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Speaker 2: He had all of them out. He had all of

351
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:34,600
Speaker 2: them out before we got there. And we actually caught

352
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 2: four wolves on the trip. And you know, it's just

353
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Speaker 2: showbiz stuff like we just couldn't we couldn't fit in

354
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:51,399
Speaker 2: the other two. But we caught We caught one jet

355
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Speaker 2: black wolf, which was cool, and and caught another kind

356
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Speaker 2: of juvenile gray wolf. So we caught four wolves in

357
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Speaker 2: a week, which I think that's about what he expected.

358
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Speaker 2: But you can go you can go a week and

359
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:07,200
Speaker 2: not even catch a single animal.

360
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. Now, A lot of states have checklaws

361
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,160
Speaker 1: twenty four hour check laws, forty eight hour checklaws. Some

362
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 1: states have checklaws. I should clarify when I'm talking about

363
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,399
Speaker 1: a check law meanings like a maximum amount of time

364
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:30,719
Speaker 1: that you can go without visually inspecting a set, And

365
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,359
Speaker 1: some states just have a flat out check law twenty

366
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: four hours, forty eight hours. Some states have no mention

367
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Speaker 1: of a check law, and some states have slightly more

368
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:46,120
Speaker 1: nuanced check laws where certain sets don't have a check law,

369
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 1: meaning you might be able to set under the ice

370
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 1: or underwater with kill sets and not have a check law.

371
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Speaker 1: But if you're making sets with footholds dry ground sets

372
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Speaker 1: with footholds, then there is a check law, meaning that one,

373
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Speaker 1: if something goes wrong at your set and you catch

374
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,480
Speaker 1: something that you're not supposed to catch, you're not leaving

375
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 1: it there too long and you're able to release it.

376
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Speaker 1: Two being that when you do make a target catch

377
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Speaker 1: that you're not leaving it in the trap so long

378
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 1: that it might be regarded by some as being inhumane

379
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: to leave something caught in a trap for an extended

380
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:32,679
Speaker 1: period of time. So to minimize stress, minimize suffering, you

381
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: enforce this check limit. They don't have a check law,

382
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,240
Speaker 1: and he's making somecessities leaving for quite some time. What

383
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 1: was his perspective on this, that he would leave a

384
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 1: foothold set for a week and could potentially have a

385
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: catch for a week, because there's two things. One there's

386
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: a consideration of the animals well being, and two there's

387
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: a consideration of you might not hold it forever. It's

388
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,360
Speaker 1: gonna get out, right, the longer it has more, it's

389
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: gonna get out. What was his thinking about this? Is

390
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 1: it just is it a matter of logistically it's just

391
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 1: impossible to do it any other way? How did he

392
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: think about that?

393
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 2: That's a good question, and that was one of the

394
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:23,200
Speaker 2: first things we talked about. And he when he's trapping,

395
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:28,119
Speaker 2: that's all he does. Like when he starts trapping, he

396
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 2: is a twenty four hour a day, seven day a

397
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 2: week trapper, and in his mind, he had he believes

398
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 2: he has an ethical responsibility to check those traps. Is

399
00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 2: absolutely as much as he can. But if you were

400
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 2: there and saw what we were up against with weather,

401
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 2: like there are days when you can't get on the water.

402
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,920
Speaker 2: So that's primarily the reason in Alaska that they don't

403
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 2: have the check laws is because you're setting you're setting

404
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 2: traps in places that some times you just can't physically

405
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 2: get to. And so and and he also, I think

406
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 2: just believes his job is to to catch wolves and

407
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 2: uh and and he's tracked. He's he's checking him as

408
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 2: absolutely as much as he can, you know, avoid and

409
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,119
Speaker 2: we I mean, if he thinks he's not going to

410
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 2: be able to get to traps, he won't reset him.

411
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,919
Speaker 2: I Mean, it's kind of one of these deals where

412
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 2: you know your own conscience is your god, you know,

413
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 2: and it works good for it works good for him.

414
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 2: I don't think he sees any kind of pushback from that,

415
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: you know. And that's just the way it is in Alaska.

416
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 2: That I heard something. I don't know any trappers who

417
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 2: love the checklaws.

418
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: I can tell you that.

419
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well man, it's uh, that's definitely something that

420
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 2: some people didn't understand that that watched the film. And

421
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 2: if you're up there and you're in that boat and

422
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 2: you met David, you you'd get it.

423
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: You know, what was your feeling when when when all

424
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like there's a wolf. You know, when

425
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: I asked us, I'm asking from the perspective of there's

426
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: certain creatures that occupy a lot of mind space, you know,

427
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: like you think about them a lot, but you don't

428
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: get to look at them as much as you think

429
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: about them. And I remember, after always catching glimpses of

430
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 1: mountain lions, you know, out out in the wild, I

431
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: remember the first time I came up on a treed

432
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: mountain lion. Where there it is you could actually like

433
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: really look at it as long as you wanted, you know,

434
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: those stunning to be just to have it be like

435
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: right there, dogs blow it. It's in the tree. And

436
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: this thing that you just you only get glimpses of

437
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: also is just there in its larger than life kind

438
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: of way. When you come around the bend or whatever

439
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,760
Speaker 1: and there's one standing there, what are your you know,

440
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: what were your thoughts about it? Were you like, man,

441
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: I hope he gets away, or that guy we got one,

442
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: or you know, what are the different things you're feeling?

443
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't I haven't interacted with wolves a

444
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: whole lot being from Arkansas. You know, when you and

445
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 2: I were in Alaska two years ago, we saw a

446
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,679
Speaker 2: pack of I think fourteen wolves that we watched a

447
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 2: couple of evenings. Once in Idaho, I saw one across

448
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 2: the road. I haven't I haven't spent a ton or

449
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 2: time around wolves. This was definitely the closest I've ever

450
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 2: been to one, and it was I. If I didn't

451
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 2: say it was slightly conflicted, I'd probably be lying.

452
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 1: I think.

453
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 2: It was just a magnificent beast. I mean, yeah, to

454
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 2: be able to walk up to it look at it.

455
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 2: But what I said in the film I'm is that

456
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 2: my confliction was completely fabricated by the confusing messaging of

457
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,199
Speaker 2: planet Earth and humans about wolves. I mean I was

458
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 2: aware of that, like if I was, you know, I

459
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 2: said that, you know, to sacrelize something really is a

460
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: man made feature. It's not in the natural realm. I

461
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: mean that that wolf. I've killed a lot of deer,

462
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 2: a lot of white tailed deer, and on the ethical

463
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 2: spectrum of human existence, me shooting a white tailed deer

464
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 2: is no less different than us dispatching that wolf on

465
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 2: the end of a trap. I believe that. But at

466
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 2: the same time, this is a very unique animal in

467
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 2: a unique place, a unique predator. You know, they're less

468
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: predators than there are prey animals. I mean, so, I

469
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: mean I was just fascinated by it. I'm always fascinated

470
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 2: by predators, probably in just a generic sense like anybody

471
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 2: else would have been just kind of like a little kid.

472
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 2: I mean when after we dispatched it, shot it with

473
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: a twenty two mag I mean, I just walked up

474
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 2: to it. The dang thing smelled like a dirty, wet

475
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 2: German shepherd, and I looked at his claws and just

476
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: inspected every part of him. Man, And you know you can't.

477
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 2: You got to have respect for him, I mean, just

478
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 2: absolute respect for them and their job what they do

479
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:30,439
Speaker 2: making a living out on that landscape. But at the

480
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:35,360
Speaker 2: same time, and I said this in the film, honestly,

481
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 2: there was little ecological consequence to us taking those two

482
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 2: wolves out of that bay. I mean. The one thing

483
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 2: that David says he and he has, you know, thirty

484
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: five years a wolf traffing experience to say to know

485
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: it is that you can trap. You can trap half

486
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: the pack, you can trap three quarters of a pack

487
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 2: out of a bay, and within two years that pack

488
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 2: will be back up to the same numbers, Like you

489
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: just can't stomp them down that hard, especially on this

490
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 2: coastal trapping. And what he said to me made a

491
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 2: lot of sense. And the reason I'm saying all this

492
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 2: is it didn't really help the deer that much and

493
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 2: it didn't really hurt the wolves that much. It was

494
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 2: just a unique experience where we could extract resource from

495
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 2: the land and kind of nobody loses and everybody wins.

496
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 2: That's the way I look at it. Yeah, and it

497
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 2: undoubtedly did it save a couple of deer moose calves

498
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 2: in that cove this year, yep. Because those two wolves,

499
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: they were probably ninety pound males. They're going to eat something,

500
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 2: and they would have been eating five to seven pounds

501
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 2: of meat since that day that we took them out.

502
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 2: And because you know, going back to our original conversation

503
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 2: about what we titled this wolf management, as if I'm

504
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 2: trying to make some ecological statement, man, my biggest statement

505
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: is just let us manage them as a as a

506
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 2: natural renewable resource. And you know, like David said, man,

507
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 2: you can't overtrap these wolves on the coast because a lot.

508
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: Of that because you're touching the edge.

509
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: Oh man, you're not laying a finger on on the

510
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: on the wolf population now, but it but it makes

511
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 2: some sense. There's some pragmatism in it for these guys

512
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 2: that are sick of black tail deer hunting and moose

513
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 2: hunting because they're only hunting the coasts, Like when they

514
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: go in there to deer hunt, they're just hunting the edges.

515
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 2: And so if they can thin wolf populations out along

516
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 2: the edges, it helps on a very micro scale. They

517
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 2: truly believe that.

518
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, the conversation around wolf hunting, wolf trapping, any kind

519
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: of predator stuff, it gets it gets really confused because

520
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: a lot of people start throwing away their own realities

521
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: and then putting in these things they half know or

522
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: suspect to be true, or things they've picked up from

523
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: social media or media in general. For a while, everybody

524
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: fell in love with this idea that one up not

525
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: being true. But this the trophic cascade, right, this this

526
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: ted talk level idea that by you know, wolves being

527
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: on the landscape, they caused the Riparian areas to bloom

528
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: and paradise returned to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and the

529
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: landscape of fear, which drove the elk, you know, which

530
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: were inflated numbers of elk, and it pushed them into

531
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: the mountains. And so the willows came back and Eden returned,

532
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: and that idea was proven to not be true in

533
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. But the refuting that idea didn't

534
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: get nearly the press as advancing that idea did. Another

535
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: thing that you know that everyone on the planet feels

536
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: like or like, you know, everyone in Montana seems to

537
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: be a born grizzly expert. You know, half of Alaska

538
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: seems to be born a wolf expert. And they all

539
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: know this idea of disrupting herd dynamic or disrupting pack dynamics.

540
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: They don't know it from living, they just know it

541
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: from having heard about it, and so it becomes this

542
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: idea they put forth. On the other side of it,

543
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: people that like to hunt lions or people that trap

544
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,479
Speaker 1: wolves or hunt wolves will lay in a lot of

545
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: things like, oh, if I don't do this, they'll be

546
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: coming to get your pets. Or if I don't do this,

547
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: there will be no big game left, which begs the

548
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: obvious question, if there's no big game, left, How would

549
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: there be predators anyways, because they rely on big game

550
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: being so I don't believe that they would be able

551
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: to completely eliminate their food source because that would lead

552
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,959
Speaker 1: to their own destruction. Then you'll have people in the

553
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: Rockies who are just so upset about wolves being on

554
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: the landscape because of course that means there's no game.

555
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: But then they like to go hunt in Alaska, where

556
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: wolves occupy about one hundred percent of their historic range.

557
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: And so if you hate wolves so much and wolves

558
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: mean there's no game, why would you go to Alaska?

559
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: They must not have any game because they have wolves.

560
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: So everyone winds up being on all sides of it.

561
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: You hear so many people being just intellectually dishonest because

562
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: they're like I someone's saying, I hate to see a

563
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: predator get killed because I view them as being special.

564
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: But I don't want to say that, so I'm gonna

565
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: try to throw you some bogus ecological stuff that I

566
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: don't really understand. Conversely, someone would say I believe that

567
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: if there's a renewable resource, a renewable sustainable resource on

568
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: the landscape, and that we can extract some harvestable surplus

569
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: off that renewable resource without damaging the resource. I believe

570
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: that we should have the right to do that. But

571
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 1: instead I'm gonna frame it around ideas of the safety

572
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: of my neighbor's pets, or I'm gonna frame it around

573
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: ideas of saving big game from extirpation. It invites all

574
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: this intellectual dishonesty. Yeah, I'm ardently, ardently, unapologetically pro trapping

575
00:34:55,000 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 1: and pro hunting of sustainable resources because they're on the landscape.

576
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 1: If we protect the habitat, we'll have surpluses of animals,

577
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: and we can harvest animals responsibly and not have a

578
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: long term negative impact. Yeah, that's a long way of

579
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: setting up The question is why do you feel people

580
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: always need to dress this up, to dress this dialogue

581
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 1: up and things where they wind up us, they wind

582
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: up role playing, Yeah, with what their actual motivations are. Yeah, man,

583
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: you say that so well.

584
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,479
Speaker 2: You probably say that better than anybody I've ever heard

585
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 2: say it, you know, with kind of an intellectual dishonesty.

586
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 2: And I tried to. I hope this film portrayed that.

587
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 2: I don't know if I was fully effective at that

588
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 2: or not, because I didn't go interview a biologist. Like

589
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 2: some people criticized the film and said, well, it was

590
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 2: just this backyard biology by David Bennett's, you know, just

591
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 2: saying well, there's more deer when we trap out wolves.

592
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: And so you know, I did not go interview biologist.

593
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 2: We didn't get into the deep technical, technical research of

594
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 2: wolves in that area. And I did that on purpose.

595
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: I wanted to present it like what like what what

596
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 2: you said? That we ought to just be able to

597
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 2: go and extract a resource and not be hurt by it.

598
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 2: And honestly, golly, if anybody knows wolves up there, it's

599
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: David and he can tell you they're not hurting the

600
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 2: wolf population. What was your original question, Steve, I gotta

601
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 2: I got the I got sidetracked on my thought there.

602
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: Oh, wasn't so much a question as an observation about

603
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: people's need to on both sides of this issue, people's

604
00:36:55,600 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: need to be a little bit or be a little

605
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: bit like assume rhetoric that they don't maybe feel. And

606
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:09,399
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm pointing to both sides. It's like I've

607
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 1: I've laid I've laid back, like I've really laid out

608
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:16,439
Speaker 1: my personal perspective on it, which I said is unwavering, right.

609
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: But when I hear someone, if someone gets a mountain

610
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: lion and an ay and then they get called out

611
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: on it, and they want to put position that they

612
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: were doing it out of the best interest of unknown

613
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: strangers pets. I don't know. I don't think that they

614
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: were out there because of their neighbor's pets. Yeah. Yeah. Likewise,

615
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 1: the thing I've observed in the past, people like to

616
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: hunt prairie dogs or ground squirrels, and they'll be like, well,

617
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: I do it for the rancher. And I'll be like,

618
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: if you wanted to help that rancher, if you went

619
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 1: to that rancher's house and you said, man, I'm here

620
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: to help. What is the number one most effective thing

621
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: I can do to help you as a rancher. I

622
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna be prairie dogs. I think it's

623
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: gonna be fixing fence.

624
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

625
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: Look at what he does when he wakes up in

626
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: the morning.

627
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 2: He didn't go grab his two twenty three.

628
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 1: He's like, by god, I gotta get up early tomorrow

629
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: for prairie dogs. No, it's like I gotta get up,

630
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: I gotta feed Coyle's check Kyle's fixed fence, do chores,

631
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: and that's like the thing most top of mind. So yeah,

632
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: I just I get a little I just end up

633
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: getting a little tired of I end up getting a

634
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,919
Speaker 1: little tired of the bs. But but on management though,

635
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: it's the eight seven pounds of me to day. Right,

636
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: something's dying if they're living, sure, And it's been proven

637
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: time again that that predator management, if done in a

638
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:03,399
Speaker 1: way that's precise spatially and precise temporarily, it's effective. As

639
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: you're pointing out, you were involved in a kind of

640
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: non event, right, No doubt during the following weeks, some

641
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: fewer number of deer and moose died because they're going

642
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 1: to make a kill it, you know, a killer two

643
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: a week, whatever it is up there, No doubt some

644
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: fewer prey animals died. No doubt those wolves will be

645
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: replaced by the wolves who fill in the vacancy and

646
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: the habitat. And you participated in you participated in an

647
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: ecological non event, right, yeah, you know, I think, go ahead,

648
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, no, that's all.

649
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 2: I said something that probably confused some people at the end,

650
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:54,720
Speaker 2: because I think, really, what on one side of the story,

651
00:39:54,760 --> 00:40:00,919
Speaker 2: we're talking about making something sacred. And our society since

652
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:06,240
Speaker 2: the reintroduction into Yellowstone, and you know, we have sacralized

653
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 2: wolves as this animal that is above other animals. And

654
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 2: in some ways that's a positive thing. That's a celebration

655
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 2: of this great beast, which humans love to do. That

656
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 2: every culture that's ever lived has sacralized some animal. And

657
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 2: I said in my closing statements on this film, I said,

658
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: I said, I think as a society we can sacralize

659
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 2: the wolf, but we also need to responsibly be able

660
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 2: to trap them and hunt them. I think we can

661
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 2: have our cake and eat it too, And I think

662
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 2: that's what hunters can do that. It's hard for someone

663
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 2: to understand. It's like, well, shoot, if you think a

664
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 2: wolf's sacred, you don't need to be abut trapping them.

665
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 2: And man, I think we can do it all. I mean,

666
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 2: I like to see a wolf and have a sense

667
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 2: of awe and have a sense of wow, this is

668
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 2: a special moment, this is a special beast. Like I

669
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 2: think that, Like I don't walk up to it and

670
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 2: think this is a non just a another day of

671
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 2: my life, just gonna dispatch this wolf.

672
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: I don't know.

673
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 2: I think we can kind of have our cake and

674
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 2: eat it too. I really do.

675
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: Oh, well, that's at this point, that's proven. It's empirically true. Idaho, Wyoming, Montana,

676
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: Alaska have wolves on the ground, and they have hunting

677
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: and trapping seasons for wolves, and they're going to continue

678
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: to have wolves on the ground. I do some I

679
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,839
Speaker 1: do some kyote hunting. I do some kyote trapping. In fact,

680
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: I'm sitting by a little stringer of kyote pelts hanging

681
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: on the wall of our studio. I get excited and

682
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 1: happy when I see a kyot track. I like running

683
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: into them. I set out trail cameras specific defeckly to

684
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: catch images of coyotes. I also like to get some

685
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: Those two things are not incompatible. Yeah, and having recovered

686
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: populations of wolves on the ground and having some extraction

687
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 1: of the resource, these are not incompatible ideas. We do

688
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: it all of the time.

689
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Let me can I ask you a question, how

690
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 2: do you do you think us talking about and showing

691
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: this is beneficial for our cause?

692
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:50,879
Speaker 1: Man, I would say I would say yes, and I'll

693
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: position it. I'll explain the two perspectives on this stuff.

694
00:42:55,800 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: One perspective is that hunters and trappers ought to try

695
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: to hide in plain sight, the idea being that if

696
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 1: you carry on your activities and you just hide and

697
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 1: keep it secret, the broader world will not realize you're

698
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 1: there and they will never mess with you. Also, this

699
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: kind of notion that if you don't, if you're off

700
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: of So if hunters and trappers stay off social media,

701
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 1: the broader world won't know you're there and they won't

702
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: come mess with you. But I invite that perspective, but

703
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 1: I would invite them to look at a timeline and

704
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: look at the timeline of the loss of hunting and

705
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 1: trapping rights and pace that over a timeline of the

706
00:43:54,560 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: introduction of social media. There's no correlation Colorado lost trap Like,

707
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: look at places losing spring, bear hunts, places losing lion hunting,

708
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: places losing trapping. That's pre social media. It's pre Internet

709
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 1: for the most part. Colorado lost trapping back in the

710
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: late eighties, early nineties. Yeah, pre Internet. There's no like.

711
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 1: You can't look and say that the ability to discuss

712
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: hunting and trapping has somehow is somehow correlated to a

713
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: loss of rights. But that's this idea that you should

714
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: go hide and if you go hide, no one will

715
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: ever notice you're there. But you know what, you'll get noticed.

716
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: You'll get noticed because you have animal rights people that

717
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:55,319
Speaker 1: are going to find out about it. You know how

718
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: I know that because they find out about it, and

719
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: they found out about it way before the Internet, and

720
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 1: they're gonna come after you.

721
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: Hey, before you say your second thing to me, we

722
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 2: have to be the people that tell our story. Yes,

723
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 2: that's my body. That's the bottom line. If somebody's gonna

724
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: talk and talk about trapping wolves in Alaska, I want

725
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,759
Speaker 2: it to be one of us that's doing it. You know,

726
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 2: not necessarily me, but I want it to be. I

727
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 2: want the narrative to be not a spun narrative, but

728
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 2: the narrative the way we see it. When I first

729
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,479
Speaker 2: got into the national bear scene about ten years ago,

730
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 2: I was confronted by some of the baarhound guys that

731
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:44,279
Speaker 2: were like, hey, we should You're making a mistake by

732
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 2: talking about this, and basically I was like, I think

733
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: you're wrong. I think we have to be the ones

734
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 2: that tell the story. And I think in a world

735
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 2: of social media, it's all the more impetus for us

736
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:01,720
Speaker 2: to be the storytellers because if we just went silent, radio, silent,

737
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 2: media silent, like some people are saying we should do

738
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:05,240
Speaker 2: these days.

739
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: Then not.

740
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 2: We don't have this governing body that can tell all

741
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 2: hunters to never post something on the internet, you know,

742
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 2: or or somebody's going to do it, and so the

743
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 2: worst of us are going to be the storytellers of

744
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 2: why something's going to happen. So in a world that

745
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 2: now communicates through social media, I mean, I feel like

746
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 2: it's all the more important for us to stand up

747
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 2: and tell our story in a reasonable way.

748
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's kind of an absurd request. I mean,

749
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: I'm a writer and a creator, and I'm going to

750
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 1: talk about the things I care about. The oldest representational

751
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: art in the world is people drawing pictures of their hunts.

752
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 1: That's not good. I've never heard that said before.

753
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 2: That's good.

754
00:46:55,880 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 1: The the idea that that somehow these act that somehow

755
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: hunting and trapping should be removed from any sort of

756
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:16,360
Speaker 1: artistic expression or any sort of expository expression to to

757
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: to to tell people how you view things, what you

758
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: think about them, because it somehow sits outside of what's

759
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: polite to discuss. It's absurd. Yeah, Like I'm going to

760
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: talk about the things that I love. I'm gonna advance

761
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: my perspective on things. I'm gonna defend the things that

762
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,760
Speaker 1: matter to me. How and like, how do I imagine

763
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: defending the things that matter to me? Do I do

764
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:52,399
Speaker 1: it by obfuscating them or do I do it by

765
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: elucidating them by bringing them to lie. I'm like, there's

766
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: nothing I'm gonna take that I'm gonna love and I'm

767
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: gonna like, ob fuse, skate it out of my love

768
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: for it, right, I'm going to illuminate it out of

769
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 1: my love for it.

770
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 2: And you know, by us not talking about this stuff,

771
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: it might work for a generation, but the very nature

772
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: of it, I mean, today the world communicates with social media, bicyclist, guitarist,

773
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: sports athletes, like this is the medium of the world

774
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 2: to communicate with our generation. And so if we were

775
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,799
Speaker 2: exempt from that, it would work for one generation, but

776
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 2: the second generation it would it would fail. Like it's

777
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 2: not a long term strategy, Like we have to be relevant.

778
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 2: The way for hunters to be less relevant to planet

779
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 2: Earth would be for us to be less relevant in

780
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 2: the communication of the times.

781
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, like I said, you've already seen

782
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: it happen. I mean, there was a dramatic erosion of

783
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: the rights of outdoorsmen in the eighties and nineties. This

784
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:14,439
Speaker 1: is not a it's not an Internet phenomena. Yeah. Yeah, well, Clay,

785
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: I'm glad you joined us for a talk about wolf

786
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 1: trapping in Alaska Wolf.

787
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 2: Management, Wolf management, Alaska wolf Management.

788
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: What's next? Beaver's no doubt, it's beaver trapping with Steve

789
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: Beaver trap man. Okay, here's what we do, and we

790
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:35,280
Speaker 1: do Mark Beaver Martin longlining in the mountains.

791
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 2: Man, Well, we could do that on mules or we

792
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 2: beaver trap and follow followed the fur all the way

793
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 2: to making a sweet cowboy hat for both of us,

794
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 2: a Paris sweet cowboy hats.

795
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: No, I'm not going I'm going to floppy brim Daniel

796
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: Boone hat man. Yeah, well he.

797
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 2: Wore beaver felt. Sure, that's what I'm saying. I mean,

798
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 2: I just mean like a beaver felt.

799
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well thanks for coming me go.

800
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 2: Ahead, Yeah, man, thanks to appreciate it.

801
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on. Quai. Thanks a lot, man,