WEBVTT - Ep. 074: Gray Wolves 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.320 This is me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.680 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening. Don't either podcast. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.520 You can't predict anything presented by first light. Go farther, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:33.320 stay longer, moving out. We're gonna talk about a a 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.840 controversial subject and that is um, the Mexican gray wolf, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.800 and I'll explain why it's kind of it's it's controversial 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.120 from from the ground up. Uh, for a bunch of 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:47.839 different reasons which we'll get into. But first I want 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.519 to go around and have our guests and reduce themselves. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.760 We've got someone from the US Fishing Wildlife Service, Yeah, Steve. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.880 I'm John oakleyf with the Fishing Wildlife Service on the 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:01.320 field programs coordinator, so out in the field working with 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:06.160 various folks and been on the project since two thousand two, 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:12.479 no project being the Mexican Wolf Project and then Forest 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.679 Service USDA four Service be centers. I am the four 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.399 Service liaison to the Mexican Wolf Project. They have me 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.440 embedded with the biologists on the wolf program to try 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.120 to help with the communication process. It's a complex, controversial, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.679 a lot of moving parts going on with this project, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:33.920 so they have me in place to try to help 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.280 smooth those parts and keep them working smooth with communications 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.399 with our forest users and try to reduce some of 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.319 that conflict that's going on. And it matters to you, guys, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.039 because a lot of this is occurring on land administered 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.600 by the Forest Service. Yeah, almost exclusively on Force Service land. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.040 The Force Services a land management management agency. We manage 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.280 the habitat and fish and Wildlife Service does on the 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:04.800 groundwork on dealing with the wolves. And then again, uh, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:11.240 becoming a frequent guest, doctor Carl Malcolm. That's accurate. Yea 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.359 Carl Malcolm, Southwestern Regional Wildlife ecologist with the U. S 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:16.120 d A for Service. How long have you been, Dr 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.080 Carl Malcolm Fork. I finished my PhD. I defended my 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.120 thesis in uh late two thousand eleven, so I'll be 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.280 coming up on six years old timey doctor man, I 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.280 don't know about that. Um here's the first question. So 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.320 everybody knows gray wolves, right, gray wolves are gray wolves 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.960 are gray wolves. They had an enormous range at the 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.800 time of European contact. Is it like, is it legit 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:44.440 because you know what tax on and you've got lumpers 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.600 and splitters, right, Okay, as My brother said, you got 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.080 lumpers and splitters and they know who they are. Um, 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.560 how legit is it to say that that that that 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.880 it's a subspecies when there was no when there was 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.280 no break in the populations, they just like bled into 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.240 each other. Yeah, so what they what they think going 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.080 back in time is there was in terms of the 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:11.440 gray wolf, it came over from Old World Europe across 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.800 across the Baring Sea and there was several evasions. So 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.519 there was three invasions of gray wolves that came over. 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.640 The first wave basically was a Mexican wolf, so it 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:28.960 comes over establishes on North America everywhere, Yeah, basically every time. 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:35.160 The second wave then is Kenas Lupus nubilis, so that's 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.120 basically Great Plains wolves, the wolves that are up in Minnesota, Wisconsin, 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:44.839 those areas. And then the last wave is Kenas Lupus occidentalis, 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.520 which is up in um Alaska, Canada now kind of 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.560 coming down from that area right up to the United 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.360 States border. So it's pretty widely recognized that that those 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:00.120 three are subspecies of the gray wolf. And you say, like, 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.720 so so distinct. These are distinct waves of distinct species 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.160 coming down I mean, they were all subspecies in Europe 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.280 at the time. They just represent different genetics, and then 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.240 once they're isolated from each other, they start representing different 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.200 genetics and you can really determine between them. And so 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.480 you feel that a dude riding around on a horse 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:26.840 and in if he if he started in, if you 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.960 started at the Arizona Mexico border and rode due north, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.200 that he would have thought like man like as he 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.039 got up into the Northern Rockies, he would have said, man, 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.960 these wolves seem different than the ones that I was 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.000 running into when I started my ride. Well, yeah, I 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.760 mean Mexican wolves down here at eighty pounds for a 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.120 big male for instance, Uh, big female would be sixty 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:56.120 pounds somewhere in there. When you go north, uh, and 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.080 get up into the ones in Yellowstone and some of 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.120 those areas that are there are now hundred forty pounds 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.680 is a big male with about twenty pounds of meat 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.200 and it's got so you'd say hundred and twenty pounds even, 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.560 And then females are in the pound range, so even 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.560 something like that. Northern Rockies wolves all the other subspecies 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:25.119 are have black phases, white phases. Mexican wolves only gray, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.640 yeah only, So that's a distinguishing feature. So someone anybody 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.359 can see the difference, the big differences that occur. So 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.440 what what's up? Because it's one more, what's up with 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.920 the red wolf? So the red wolf is a separate species, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.680 is what they So it's kenis rufous, So it's not 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.880 even it's not a sub species, it's a whole separate species, right. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:49.800 And then there's an Eastern wolf that's out there that 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.400 some people are debating whether it's associated with the red 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.640 wolf or it's associated with gray wolves, and so there's 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.360 a fair better debate about that Eastern did the did 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.719 the red wolf come out of some kind of hybridization 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:08.200 with with wolves and coyotes? Or It's interesting. Science isn't perfect, right, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.880 so there's a lot of disagreements among scientists. And so 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.159 there's two different hypothesis right now going on. In ones 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.320 that it's a hybrid between gray wolves and coyotes, and 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:24.080 the second is is that it's a North American just 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:29.200 developed a bigger type of canaid and so this is 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.920 a bigger type of canaid represented by the Eastern wolves 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.680 and the red wolves. And then they subsequently read with 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.440 some coyotes through time and so, but in terms of 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.880 how they evolved, they evolved in North America as a 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.600 big canus. So if you again going back in time, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.960 if you what would have been the pre contact like 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.520 the pre European contact range of what of what we 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.280 now describe as the Mexican gray wolf. So it'd be 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:05.680 uh in Arizona and New Mexico south into into um 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.200 Mexico and at that So if at that same time 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.320 you were in the Texas Panhandle, what would you have 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.080 said that wolf was, you would probably call it it 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.640 would be a Mexican wolf as well. On over in 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.400 Texas As primarily Mexican wolves. But there's bleed over right, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.840 subspecies breed with each other still, and so there's gradations 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.320 that go on through it. It wasn't a sharp define line. 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.480 You'll see maps that have here's a line, but in 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.040 reality it was some big, fuzzy area transition zone. Yeah, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.240 it's similar to now when we look at um if 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:43.600 you look at mule deer in black tail deer in California, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.760 we've conveniently decided that I five right, Yeah, that a 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.440 deer can go from being a black tailed muled or 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.520 just by hopping the highway because you have that, like 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.720 I remember that an intercline of some there's some way 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.400 to put it, like a steady intercline of grades or 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.600 something like that. So so people like the clean line, right, 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.080 So I like a good clean line. Yeah. It's a 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.920 lot better than saying, hey, it's great Asians all over 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.400 the place and stuff like that. I mean, if you 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.120 go back in time, there are twenty four subspecies in 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.440 North America of gray wolf, and so saying that there's 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:24.239 three right now that you'd recognize consistently is right. That's 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.360 that's the lumpers kind of going in there. And so 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.600 review for me the three that are here, the three 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.920 that are in North America. Now, so it's the northern 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.800 Great Lakes. Yeah, so you have the Great Lakes, which 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:40.280 is Canas lupus um. I'm getting goofed up here, but 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.160 Kenas Lupus nucleus. So that's the Great Legs and it's 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.440 stretched all the way across the Central Plains and all 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.360 the way over into California and just big, big broad swath. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.280 And then Occidentalis was up north and it kind of 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.800 was the last invading wave. And so when you see 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.959 the common line depicted for Occidentalis, which is a big 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:04.640 Alaska kind of wolves. It comes down into Montana just 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.320 a little bit, and it's kind of this odd shape, right, 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.240 so it kind of cuts out of shape of where 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.400 a New Bliss was. So that's kind of evidence of 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.800 this evasion happening that they're the last. They would have 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.200 continued to take over range because they're bigger, tougher, stronger 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:25.000 kind of thing. And then down south is cance Lupus BAILEYI, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.120 which is the Mexican wolf. So that's all the way 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.280 down to Mexico City and kind of coming up into 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.400 the mogi on Rim here in Arizona and kind of 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.840 that's where the transition zone really was where wolves started 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.920 getting bigger and and stuff. So if you go from 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.600 the deserts all Phoenix and kind of that area where 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.920 it's kind of desert e, there certainly was less dispersal 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.640 as you got up into the mogi on Rim. Some 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.640 people called those Bailey I and some people call them 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.800 New Bliss. So somewhere in that range. So what was 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:01.680 the last year? Um, they came damn near to dine 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.120 out right, but not. But there was a point. There 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.079 was a point in time right when the only ones 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:14.360 that existed existed in captivity? What what year was at well? 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.960 We so the Fish and Wildlife Service, right, they listed 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.960 him Gray Walls overall and then um, we went to 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.480 a trapper by the name of Roy McBride, and so 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.560 that was seventy seventy nine eight time frame right in there. 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.319 And he went down to Mexico and caught some Mexican 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.600 wolves brought up to start the so there were none 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:36.720 in the US. There was none in the US. So 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.400 he goes down not even in captivity, not even in 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.560 captivity yet, so they were so there was a moment 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.360 when they're gone from the like what year? Okay, so 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:47.600 that kind of now that I know that, that kind 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.439 of change my question. What year were they gone in 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.560 what's now the US? And so well, so a few 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.320 kept on coming up in the seventies and stuff like that, 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.920 but then they they were coming up from Mexico. So 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.120 they're falling kind of trails and stuff across the border 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.719 and coming up. Are you familiar with McCarthy's Border trilogy. 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.440 I'm not you ever read that? How could you? I don't, Well, 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.360 I told you I was impressed by your radian need 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.240 to read, you need to read Cormett McCarthy's The Border, 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.839 the Border trilogy, The Crossing, All the Pretty Horses. Okay. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.640 The Crossing is a kid who grows up on the 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:29.720 New Mexico Mexico border. He there's some they're losing some 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.000 cattle to a wolf. His dad says, catch the wolf 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.880 and kill it. And he studies up and through trials 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.800 and tribulations, catches the wolf and can't kill it, and 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.480 he decides what he needs to do is bring it 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:53.480 down New Mexico and let it go where, um, they 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.600 won't be bothering anything anymore except for all the cattle 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.560 in Mexico. Wolf. The wolf dies anyways, but but it 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.800 goes it but uh, oh my god. Yeah, So anyhow 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:09.679 there are Mexican grave You need to read The Crossing. Yeah, 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.920 when you when you retire or something, well before that probably, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.840 So what was the year they were gone? So we're 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.400 kind of gone. Well, let's just say McBride goes down 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:21.320 there and he captures some wolves to start up the 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.040 captive captive brading. So where where was he going to 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.880 catch him? Oh, Duraning. He was going all over Mexico, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.440 but Durango kind of the Sierra Madre Occidental, which is 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.840 all that kind of stretches all the way down the 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.600 mountains ranges in the west, and they had good populations 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.160 down there or not not really. There's about fifty left 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.760 at the time when he was down yeah, and so 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.960 so what was Mexico's relations what was their thought on this, Well, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.280 we signed an agreement to go get him down there, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.480 and they thought even though we got fifty, well, well, well, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.000 we're willing to cut a few for you, because the 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.280 figuring was that they were going to be gone. Oh 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.839 they were gonna lose those two. Yeah. Yeah, so pretty 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.920 widely dispersed and probably gonna lose their populations as well. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.319 And and and uh so by about I mean Roy 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.240 McBride was a guy who removed a bunch of wolves, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.360 killed a bunch of wolves before this, and then he 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.080 was hired to go down and capture these wolves because 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:15.480 he knew how to do it. He knew how to 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.599 do it, and so he literally started up the recovery 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.679 programmed by going down and doing this. Is what was 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:25.079 his relationship to it to what do you feel that 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:26.800 he just was interested in the money or do you 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.920 feel that he was there was he like, uh, you know, 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:31.960 was there something bigger going on or was it just 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:33.720 like he liked to catch wolves? And if that's what 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.840 catching wolves was like, now that's what he would do. 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.640 He's more of a lion hunter. He's still alive. He's 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.120 an interesting guy to talk to. Builds, traps and stuff 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.240 like that. And so talk to him on the phone 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.240 every so often, and he's a neat guy. Is he 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.960 rooting for the wolves or not rooting for wolves? He 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.439 but he's probably just he just recognizes him as a 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.800 animal out there on the landscape. Doesn't hold him in 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.720 this giant special regard. Right, He's been through both sides 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.240 of it, and I want I want to step back, 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.480 just to just to make sure all the context, Like 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.120 um so, I keep trying to find ways of phrases. 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.520 What year was it when when it would have been 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:18.080 fair to say that they were like what was the 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:24.560 last point at which they were still plentiful in Arizona, 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.920 New Mexico their historic range in the lower forty eighth 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:33.320 man the fifties, maybe the fifties sixties, there was some 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.520 that were brought out fair number, but again most of 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.480 those were still kind of coming up from Mexico. But 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.640 that would be the time frame when there's still some 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.320 and then by the seventies it was dismal, there's nothing. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.240 And then by the oh when we wrote up in 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.680 n there was some surveys down in Mexico and there 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.920 was no more Mexican wolves in Mexico. They did lose 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:57.920 them down there. Yeah, so they were gone as well. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.680 And so what we got left with was, um, this 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:07.040 captive population and uh, through genetics and stuff, we found 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.440 a couple other animals that were pure Mexican wolves in 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:15.160 captivity that have been long standing captive populations at different places. 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.320 Just some hobbyist head. Yeah, so it was ghost French 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.080 was one lineage that we refer to it now there 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.640 and um and they proved to be that they were 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:30.160 still genetically intact. Ye bread with dogs or whatever. Yeah. 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.840 So so how many were there at this point in captivity, Well, 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.800 so there was that that's the start of the captivity 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.120 was seven animals. So that's what started our captive population. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:49.280 By the whole population bottlenecked down to seven. And they 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.000 can they can withstand that kind of thing. Well, wolves 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.000 are because they disperse a long ways. They do pretty 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.240 good with genetics so if you can raise them up 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.160 and so you can deal with the bottleneck like grizzly 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.480 bears and Yellowstone bottle neck pretty severely when they shut 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.920 down like the dumps. But then the population goes back 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.960 up broadens back out pretty quickly, and then you get 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.320 that they can deal with that. You don't lose as 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:18.320 much genetic diversity. So once you start producing them in 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.720 captivity and you do a fair better that, then it 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.360 works out. Okay, it's less than ideal though, yeah, but 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.320 it's better than none. Right, Blackfoot of Ferret's down to 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:33.160 sixteen at the time, so that's when they came out 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.040 of that. Yeah, they brought him in captivity and they're 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:41.160 putting them mount in various areas, so Wyoming, Arizona, um 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.440 all over the place. So when they were down to 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:51.400 seven UM in the late seventies, um, what number did 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.640 they hit in captivity? Well before we did, I mean 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.360 eight two. I remember we did a recovery plan and 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.400 it was they were saying it was around twenty or something. 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:07.520 In captivity, they just go to Zoo Zoological Institute. So 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.240 they kind of starts scattering them around all over the 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.679 place just so like one bolt lightning couldn't kill them 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.119 all one day. Yeah, that's a good idea, right, spread 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.120 them out and then uh, when we started doing releases, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.040 there was about hundred and fifty. So we started doing 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:29.040 releases up here and there was somewhere two hundred fifty. 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.359 Now there's two fifty to three in captivity, all right, 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.800 but that's okay, that's a huge jump. Yeah, when you 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.199 say that when we started doing releases, so how like, 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.120 how did that all come? Like, lay that story out, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:47.800 how we started doing releases? No, like where who wanted 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.520 to do it, who didn't want to do it? Where 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.840 was it gonna happen? Oh yeah, I mean I wasn't 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.359 here at the time. I'm not that old anyways. I 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.400 think in general, when you look at releases and going 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.320 to do reintroductions, a lot of people who are local 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.640 in the area, who are raising livestock, who are hunters 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:17.120 out there, are generally opposed to wolf reintroductions because it's 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:21.600 another predator that's competing on the environment. And so when 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.840 you when you lay it out like that, those were 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.359 the folks who didn't want to do it at the time. 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.359 New Mexico Game and Fish didn't want to uh do it. 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:36.760 And so it's similar with the gray wolf reintroduction in 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.320 the North where the States states, I mean, in a 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:46.520 very general sense, the states were uneasy. Yeah, because it 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:51.160 is or beyond uneasy, you bet, you bet. So it affects, right. 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.680 Game populations are part of that equation. So if you're 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.720 impacting game populations and stuff like that as a state agency, 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.800 and where you can stituents are, which are broadly hunters 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:09.800 and fishermen. Um, they when you're talking about retroducing a predator, right, 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.800 that's not the most popular position for those guys to be. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.959 It wasn't gone that long from the landscape, right, So 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.720 it was like for many adults, it was probably still 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.480 in their memory that these wolves have been around. And 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.000 I'm guessing that if you guys were breeding them, the 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.119 plan was always to reintroduce them. It wasn't like you 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:30.320 bread them up and then all of a sudden said, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:35.920 oh what about this thing? Yeah, so in two they said, well, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.639 we only got twenty animals in captivity. So all we 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:44.160 can imagine is finding an area that's uh ten thousand 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.639 square miles that we can get a hundred wolves to 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.840 exist in the wild. And that's not recovery. But that's 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.040 all that we can imagine. And so these guys that 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.800 were writing it up, that was the extent of their 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.400 imagination for the Mexican wolf. But that's what they envisioned. Rap. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.240 But that's what we'll get into this. But that's still 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.600 kind of the plan. Now. Well, no, we've we've we've 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:09.840 envisioned a little bit more, envisioned more. We've grown a 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:16.400 little bit since. But but you're operating. So the agency 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:22.720 that you work for is operating under, is operating under 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.359 a sort of mandate for the legal framework of the 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.520 Endangered Species Act, which signing the law by Nixon and 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:37.360 seventy two. Right, So, I mean it's not real, it's 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.800 not real gray about what that means for I mean, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.840 when a species gets listed, it means that we have 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:52.320 a national priority two like work toward delisting to recover 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.200 the species. Absolutely, and that so it's like in a 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.880 in a way, it's it's not it's not so much 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.960 like a guy decides to go out and do a reintroduction. 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.800 Like it's a little more complicated than that. Sure, it's 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.080 like a federal mandate. Well, right, and so you write 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.159 and an environmental impact statement is what it's called, and 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.240 so it's hundreds of pages. You put it out to 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.320 the public, they have comments on it, and then you 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:20.000 write a rule that says, here's a non essential experimental 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.480 rule that kind of loosens up the restrictions over all 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.080 the place from the Endangered Species Act. Well, because you 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.280 did it as they did as an experimental herd here 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.320 or experimental population, right, and they didn't do that. They 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.040 didn't do that in the North. Well they did. They 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:39.120 did it in um Yellowstone and Idaho with experimental status 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:44.840 experimental status, no essential, experimental. But in uh, Montana they 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.320 were endangered because they were naturally coming down from Canada 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.520 into Montana. So there was already a population in Montana 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.760 before those reintroductions ever occurred. So they kind of segmented 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.080 out zones and most of it was experimental too. Yeah, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:01.960 it's tobacco. I just want to and correct me where 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:03.119 I go around, and so I just want to explain 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:08.119 it to people that uh trying to think of a 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.840 good a good case scenario. So, um, I take the 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:18.720 Bitterroot Mountain range. What when when grizzly bears were listed 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.879 in the seventies listening under Dangered Species Act, protection of 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.080 the seventies. Uh, they were focused on recovering some Mary's 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.560 that had remnant populations of bears, and there was mountain 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:34.680 ranges nearby the historically had them but didn't anymore. And 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.440 the animals are treated differently if they naturally went into 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:41.720 a mountain range than if they were put into a 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.160 mountain range. So if they if they walked over there, 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:49.600 they carried with them full e ESA protections. And if 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.320 they let them go in there, there's so much like 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.680 political pushback to letting them go that they would make 0:22:55.720 --> 0:23:00.880 compromises and declare them um an experimental status, which gives 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.440 you a lot more leeway on lethal control of problem 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.040 animals and other stuff. So I remember this debate raging 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.280 among grizzly advocates being like, do we go with the 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:15.440 sure thing and put grizzlies into the bitter roots right 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:19.280 where they're gonna have only marginal protection, or do we 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.600 play the long game and wait from the walk in. 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.720 And I think that was part of the government even 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:27.879 proposed that for grizzly barrass in terms of the Central 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:31.840 Idaho Wilderness, doing a reintroduction from they're under non essential 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:35.000 experimental because it gives you a lot of leeways. It 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.920 gives you a lot of leeways for that leeway, it 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:42.320 gives you a lot of leeway for controlling conflict. Sure 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.880 for right so for right now, UM, people out there 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.520 at they see wall's attacking cattle on their private land, 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:53.120 they can shoot the wolf. And that's completely legal. It's 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.000 within our rule that we put in place, UH, that 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:59.520 they see on private land, UM wolves and the active 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.240 attacking a dog right now, they can shoot the wolf. 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.439 So they have certain measures that they can take in place, 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:09.760 and then UH to mitigate cattle conflict. We can control 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:13.080 wolves as well, either by removing them with traps or 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.480 shooting them. And so all this is flexibility that isn't 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:20.840 allowed understandard and endangered species stuff. The other thing is 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.600 you have a Section seven consultations on any land management 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:27.399 action and so that's where the like the four service 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:30.879 comes into play. We don't have to do Section seven 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:34.240 consultation with the wolf in the non essential experimental. So 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:38.080 we're not restricting any land use activities out there because 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:41.720 of the presence of wolves. So someone that wants to do, 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:44.919 like if someone wants to do some mineral development on 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:47.960 their land, they're not faced with that it's that it's 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:52.160 gray wolf recovery area and that their permit process gets 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:57.960 hung up. Right, Yeah, so now back up again. Early 0:24:58.040 --> 0:25:00.000 on it was like, okay, we need how many acres? 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.919 It was ten thousand square miles ten thousand square miles 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:10.280 and who how did how was that selected? Well, so 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:14.720 it's the I S process. Um. They spent uh some 0:25:14.840 --> 0:25:18.680 time selecting between different areas. Arizona Game of Fish did 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:22.000 a study in terms of different areas. One area was 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.720 the White Sands missile range that fell out all that 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:28.720 another area was a blue range area get rejected. Well, 0:25:28.760 --> 0:25:31.240 it was included in the final rules, so White Sands 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:34.119 was there. We never did reintroductions. There was a backup spot, 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:38.560 but really there's not a lot of prey in that area. 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:42.280 It's not high by at the time hit. Most of 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:45.960 the mule deer pretty low in terms of population sizes, 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:49.760 and and so we did never choose to put wolves 0:25:49.800 --> 0:25:53.040 out in the area um in the HeLa and for 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:56.119 fear that they would starve or for fear that they 0:25:56.119 --> 0:26:01.560 would just split. Yes, both they split or starve. The 0:26:01.560 --> 0:26:04.880 ones that survive would split and the ones that stayed 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:08.320 would stark. So they couldn't live off Ibex on the 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:12.480 that's a tough living man. Those orics out there or yeah, 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:15.159 those are I wouldn't want to take down an orex 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:19.680 with my mouth. So that area was within the area, 0:26:19.720 --> 0:26:23.600 but wasn't like everything you need. I've haunted that I've haunted. 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.480 I ran lions with a body mine and the Blue Range. Yeah, 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:30.320 every trailheads got signs about wolves, you know, right, and 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:32.520 then well there's lots of elk there, man, there's a 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:35.960 pile of elk. So right now you're talking to Heila 0:26:36.760 --> 0:26:41.080 twenty two thousand elk in the Greater HeLa National Forest 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:43.840 and over on the Arizona side. These are the two 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:46.600 forests where we did it to start with. On the 0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:50.200 Arizona side eight to ten thousand on the two little 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:52.280 chunks that we did it on. So you might you 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:53.800 probably know this that you know that at the time, 0:26:53.800 --> 0:26:55.679 I'm sure you know this. At the time, New Mexico 0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:59.720 had no elk, right, yeah, talk about a bottleneck, right, 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:04.840 and you know zero to seventy elk. Hunters and fishermen 0:27:05.040 --> 0:27:09.000 set the stage for wolf recovery by reintroducing elk, by 0:27:09.080 --> 0:27:12.320 caring about the land, caring about these ungulates that are 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.080 out there and and re establishing big herds of ungulates. Yeah, 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:18.720 but now we're like that anyway, we did it, well, 0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:20.560 that's not why they did it, right, They did it 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:25.320 for a hunting right, Uh? No, did it for Yeah, 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:28.960 hunting has a very large umbrella turn. Yeah, you know, 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:32.280 because you know, if you go and look like in Kentucky, 0:27:32.359 --> 0:27:36.080 which is engaged in a reintroduction of elk, the guy 0:27:36.119 --> 0:27:38.879 like the odds of drawing LTAG Kentucky are like u 0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:43.280 per cent. Like the guys that work on that reintroduction 0:27:43.320 --> 0:27:45.960 are never gonna draw elk tag, right, you know what 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:49.080 I mean, they're just doing it for doing it. That's 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:51.080 the land between the lakes out there. Is that where 0:27:51.080 --> 0:27:53.560 they're doing it at No, No, they're doing it Southeast Kentucky. 0:27:53.600 --> 0:27:56.640 All that recovered coal mine, you know, the mountaintop removable 0:27:56.640 --> 0:28:01.199 coal mine when they when they did uh you know 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:03.439 the mitigation propor Now the what what's that remedi is 0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:06.919 the remediate mediation the remediation plan for a lot of 0:28:06.960 --> 0:28:11.480 that mountaintop coal mining basically has created a little prairie 0:28:11.520 --> 0:28:14.840 patches on top of those mountains and create all these grasslands. 0:28:15.400 --> 0:28:17.879 So I said in New Mexico had zero elk. At 0:28:17.920 --> 0:28:21.400 one point there were zero elk east of the Mississippi, 0:28:21.920 --> 0:28:25.720 and now there's elk herds in eleven states. Kentucky's got ballpark. 0:28:26.400 --> 0:28:29.720 The recovery plan was ten thousand. Now it's kind of 0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:33.480 like the semi official numbers fourteen thousand elk. Some people 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:36.480 think it might be twenty thousand elk. It's the biggest 0:28:36.520 --> 0:28:39.560 herd east of the Mississippi, and it lives on those things. 0:28:39.560 --> 0:28:43.560 But the point being that, um, yeah, you might be like, oh, 0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:45.000 you're just doing it because you want to shoot one, 0:28:45.040 --> 0:28:47.200 and people they're like, dude, I can tell you one 0:28:47.240 --> 0:28:49.720 thing that ain't gonna happen is me drawing out tag 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:52.880 in Kentucky. But I still got involved in the process 0:28:53.280 --> 0:28:54.640 the same way. There's a lot of people involved in 0:28:54.680 --> 0:28:57.480 wolf recovery. They have no intention of shooting one. In fact, 0:28:57.520 --> 0:28:59.960 I'd ventured to say everyone involved in wolf recovery has 0:29:00.000 --> 0:29:02.240 no intention to shooting one. No, but I'd like to 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:04.120 see you get there, right. You want to see it 0:29:04.120 --> 0:29:07.720 where it's a huntable species, where it's has populations robusting 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:09.920 because of what that would mean. Yeah, because I mean 0:29:09.920 --> 0:29:13.680 you had a sustainable population. Yeah, so that's great then 0:29:13.720 --> 0:29:17.360 at that stage, and so it's a wonderful thing. I 0:29:17.400 --> 0:29:19.600 think if you go back to the thirties, so when 0:29:19.640 --> 0:29:22.840 they were doing the Elkare introduction or the forties, I 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:27.760 wonder if there wasn't more focused on honey hunting and stuff. 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:30.360 No making, Yeah, I think making a resource man, I 0:29:30.600 --> 0:29:33.239 know absolutely, And then he still had a cult. There 0:29:33.280 --> 0:29:35.719 was still a cultural memory of having hunted him too, 0:29:36.720 --> 0:29:39.080 you know. But yeah, No, it's it's when I say 0:29:39.080 --> 0:29:42.680 it's like a hunting as an umbrella idea, that that 0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:45.360 that pushes that kind of stuff. Cause I think it's 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:47.760 not that someone goes down the path of doing that 0:29:48.720 --> 0:29:51.560 thinking like, oh, next year I'll be hunting them. You're 0:29:51.600 --> 0:29:54.360 playing a long game and it's not just like totally pragmatic. Now. 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:56.800 A guy that goes and buys a truckload of bluegills 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:00.080 to dump in his private pond is focused on a 0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:02.920 very near term future. You know. He's like a different 0:30:02.960 --> 0:30:05.480 fella than a guy who's like, let's go through all 0:30:05.560 --> 0:30:08.840 this hassle and catch a wolf down in Mexico and 0:30:09.080 --> 0:30:11.200 breed it up and then maybe in twenty years we'll 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:16.440 have something. So when it came to be that that 0:30:16.560 --> 0:30:20.720 you were identifying land. When I say you, I'm using 0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:24.000 it loosely. It wasn't that you were going to find 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:27.440 a ranch big enough to do this, oh now. And 0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:31.719 even so we set up on Forest service land and 0:30:31.760 --> 0:30:34.480 even that, uh, we had a rule where we would 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:38.320 remove them if they if they straight outside of the 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:43.880 HeLa and Apache National Forest. Yeah, so when they went 0:30:43.880 --> 0:30:47.920 outside of that, we removed him. But we just just 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.400 brought him back into the middle, just brought him back 0:30:50.440 --> 0:30:53.479 in the middle. Or unless they're killing cows and stuff 0:30:53.520 --> 0:30:57.000 like that, and that's a death sense killing cows, well 0:30:57.160 --> 0:31:01.000 not I mean if you kill quite a few of them, yeah, 0:31:01.080 --> 0:31:06.360 that's a death sentence at that stage. But um so, anyways, 0:31:06.400 --> 0:31:09.080 even that size of an area, which is really big, 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:12.960 was too small because wolves, you guys, really, I mean 0:31:13.080 --> 0:31:16.080 you realize that after the fact it was too small. Yeah, yeah, 0:31:16.200 --> 0:31:18.720 they were outside the boundary. We spent a lot of 0:31:18.760 --> 0:31:22.840 time chasing wolves outside the boundary and that's kind of 0:31:22.880 --> 0:31:26.240 inconsistent with recovery. So right now we have a broader 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:29.360 area that we put out. So right now wolves can 0:31:29.440 --> 0:31:33.280 range anywhere south by forty in New Mexico and Arizona. 0:31:33.480 --> 0:31:40.680 And being okay, yeah, what was what was the is 0:31:40.720 --> 0:31:42.880 the e s A is the Endangered species eggs so 0:31:43.040 --> 0:31:49.880 powerful that the Four Service had to say, okay, well sure, 0:31:49.920 --> 0:31:51.960 I mean that's part of our mandate. Also is a 0:31:52.040 --> 0:31:55.240 recovery or dangerous species. So we're partnered up with the 0:31:55.320 --> 0:31:59.360 US Fish and Wildlife Service to implement the Endangered Species Act. 0:32:00.320 --> 0:32:04.120 But the fun kind of comes into um, the work 0:32:05.000 --> 0:32:07.360 is when you have multiple use objectives on the Four 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:11.400 Service land. You know, you've got livestock grazing, you've got 0:32:11.400 --> 0:32:15.080 timber harvesting, you've got recreation, you've got all these activities 0:32:15.080 --> 0:32:17.480 going on in public land. Plus now you're trying to 0:32:17.760 --> 0:32:23.760 re establish and recover predator. That's where the heavy lifting 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:27.880 and work comes in. Yeah, I mean balancing out those 0:32:27.920 --> 0:32:33.120 interests I imagine the most. So the two big not compromises, 0:32:33.160 --> 0:32:38.520 the two big conflict areas that be hunters in a 0:32:38.600 --> 0:32:45.400 general sense and then livestock producers absolutely who hold um, 0:32:45.480 --> 0:32:49.040 who hold private property on the borders of this and 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:53.440 who hold grazing leases on the inside of it. Yeah, 0:32:53.440 --> 0:32:56.280 probably a lot of the heavy lifting comes with our 0:32:56.640 --> 0:33:01.120 livestock grazers and permitees trying to prevent the conflicts and 0:33:01.160 --> 0:33:05.760 reduce the conflicts, and providing the communications with those folks 0:33:05.760 --> 0:33:07.880 to let them better understand what's going on and what 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:13.960 to expect. That's that's where all the real challenges lie. Yeah, 0:33:14.400 --> 0:33:18.080 how might those challenges manifest? I mean, like on on 0:33:18.160 --> 0:33:23.440 a ground person level, what's the what's a common sort 0:33:23.480 --> 0:33:27.480 of conflict that happens? Well, you know, the big conflicts 0:33:27.520 --> 0:33:32.400 obviously is the direct depredation of livestock by the wolves 0:33:33.880 --> 0:33:35.600 and trying to first of all, trying to find ways 0:33:35.600 --> 0:33:38.440 to prevent that, and then when it does happen, UM, 0:33:38.440 --> 0:33:41.400 working with the compensation programs to hi to try to 0:33:41.440 --> 0:33:44.560 compensate these permitees that have losses and and there's some 0:33:44.600 --> 0:33:49.920 good uh compensation programs in place to help help recover 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:52.959 some of those losses that do occur. Uh. Those compensations 0:33:52.960 --> 0:33:57.480 programs are far from perfect, but they do provide a 0:33:57.520 --> 0:34:04.240 way to compensate the permitees for losses that they could take. Um. 0:34:04.360 --> 0:34:06.400 You know, and going into you guys like you had 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:09.239 to have known right the minute, like how many did 0:34:09.239 --> 0:34:10.680 you let go the first time you let him go? 0:34:11.120 --> 0:34:15.719 I was three packs and in the in march, and 0:34:15.760 --> 0:34:18.560 how many were in a pack, you know, around five 0:34:19.640 --> 0:34:23.200 uh some uh, well there was year LANs in some 0:34:23.680 --> 0:34:26.880 an adult pair, so standard at that time, they were 0:34:26.880 --> 0:34:29.440 getting ready to breed bread up, so they're gonna have 0:34:29.480 --> 0:34:32.880 pups in April May. And they had no institutional memory 0:34:32.920 --> 0:34:37.200 of hunting within that pack. They've been five they've been captive. Yeah, yeah, 0:34:37.239 --> 0:34:40.120 they hadn't hunted at all. It's interesting because some of 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:43.600 the walls that came right out of captivity less than months, 0:34:43.640 --> 0:34:46.480 some of their answers are saying, yeah, they kills an 0:34:46.480 --> 0:34:49.319 elk right out of here, right out of the right 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:51.279 out of the gate. So it's kind of just they 0:34:51.280 --> 0:34:53.480 just knew what they were up to. It's just programmed 0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:56.080 into him. Right, So when they hit the ground, how 0:34:56.080 --> 0:34:58.680 long how much time went by for someone's like, hey, 0:34:58.719 --> 0:35:02.520 all sons of bitches killed my a cow. I think 0:35:02.520 --> 0:35:07.840 we got through without an actual depredation. Yeah, so ninety 0:35:07.880 --> 0:35:11.160 eight was a good year, but certainly every year since then, 0:35:11.520 --> 0:35:17.440 how many been depredations? Well, so you kind of say 0:35:17.480 --> 0:35:21.560 it on a per hundred wolf basis, right, because you 0:35:21.560 --> 0:35:23.640 want to compare to other places, and you want to 0:35:23.680 --> 0:35:26.640 compare year to year. So as a population grows, you 0:35:26.680 --> 0:35:30.480 get more and more, so somewhere between twenty two fifty 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:33.719 cows on per one wolves. So it's a fairly significant 0:35:34.000 --> 0:35:39.919 depending on prices, they're killing two dollars worth of yeah, 0:35:40.120 --> 0:35:43.400 twenty thousand dollars with the property. So how many, Like, 0:35:43.600 --> 0:35:46.720 what's the elk per hundred wolves? Elk per hundred wolves, 0:35:46.719 --> 0:35:51.520 So it's it's four wolves per thousand elk in our 0:35:51.560 --> 0:35:55.279 area right now that we're that we're roughly shooting for. 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:57.799 So when we did the world change? I mean, how many? 0:35:57.840 --> 0:36:00.479 How many? Okay, I got I got to think about 0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:05.040 that one. But how many? And I remember this reading 0:36:05.120 --> 0:36:10.160 is recently in the Northern Rockies a wolf how many 0:36:10.239 --> 0:36:14.279 elk a wolf kills per year? So it's it's basically 0:36:14.640 --> 0:36:19.680 around twelve to sixteen A wolf kills twelve to sixteen 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:23.080 elk year, and that's that's commonly referred to as cow 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:25.799 elk equivalents. So a lot of those that's not the 0:36:25.920 --> 0:36:29.400 right number because a lot of them are calves that 0:36:29.440 --> 0:36:32.399 are smaller that they kill and so you're just trying 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:34.960 to base them are bulls that are bigger, So you're 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:38.200 figuring a four pound animal right right, So you're trying 0:36:38.200 --> 0:36:42.160 to get at standardized across something so uh, twelve to 0:36:42.239 --> 0:36:50.720 sixteen out per year, so around like sixteen hundred, around 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:55.959 six hundred elk annually, Yeah, killed by wolves right now 0:36:56.000 --> 0:36:58.279 with the population of dred bols, how many how many 0:36:58.360 --> 0:37:01.520 elk year hunters killing out of that same area? I 0:37:01.560 --> 0:37:03.520 don't know. You would be a question for New Mexico 0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:06.319 game of fish, but a lot more. Oh yeah, I 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:12.400 mean way way order magnitude more probably or seven Mexico's 0:37:12.440 --> 0:37:18.720 got seventy. Well find it out. We find that out. Um. 0:37:18.840 --> 0:37:21.319 So sort of an ironic point on that front talking 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:25.880 about elk too and the relationship between livestock production and 0:37:25.920 --> 0:37:28.240 these different wildlife species that I think is worth dropping 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:30.680 in here is that we have we have places in 0:37:30.719 --> 0:37:34.280 the state, including some of the producers around this border country, 0:37:34.280 --> 0:37:37.960 who have direct conflict or at least perceived direct conflict 0:37:38.040 --> 0:37:45.040 between cattle production and competition with wild free ranging elk. 0:37:45.840 --> 0:37:49.840 So um. On the one hand, you have some folks 0:37:50.040 --> 0:37:53.359 voicing up that, you know, the hunters who don't want 0:37:53.360 --> 0:37:56.680 to compete with wolves for the elk they're trying to kill, 0:37:57.320 --> 0:38:00.520 and you have ranchers who don't want wolves killing their cattle. 0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:03.239 You also have ranchers who don't want elk competing with 0:38:03.280 --> 0:38:10.760 their cattle. There's multiple angles. That's interesting. Have you guys 0:38:10.800 --> 0:38:15.719 had of of permit holders, of people that hold grazing 0:38:15.760 --> 0:38:21.760 permits on federally managed lands. Have you ever had someone say, 0:38:21.920 --> 0:38:27.040 I lose more I'm losing more pounds of beef to 0:38:27.320 --> 0:38:31.080 grass competition from elk. Then I'm losing pounds of beef 0:38:31.440 --> 0:38:35.839 to direct consumption by wolves. Has anyone ever made that calculation? No, 0:38:35.960 --> 0:38:39.120 I don't think I've ever heard that argument. I've I've 0:38:39.120 --> 0:38:41.880 heard some ranchers say, you know, I don't tell anybody, 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:45.120 but I'm just happy if they kill elk. That's great. 0:38:45.239 --> 0:38:47.760 I'm happy that the wolves are here killing elk, getting 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:49.840 rid of them. But in New Mexico, right, they have 0:38:49.880 --> 0:38:54.600 a landowner tag things, so they get distributed elk tags 0:38:55.200 --> 0:38:57.440 based on how much land they own as well, and 0:38:57.480 --> 0:39:00.200 so that's kind of the the interchange. So lot of 0:39:00.800 --> 0:39:06.240 the livestock owners are also outfitters and guides or heavily 0:39:06.320 --> 0:39:09.239 dependent on the elk as well, And so I get 0:39:09.239 --> 0:39:11.600 into conversations with some of those guys in there, like 0:39:11.640 --> 0:39:15.239 I don't want the wolves eating anything. Wolves got to 0:39:15.280 --> 0:39:18.640 eat the same as worms. Right, all right, I gotta, 0:39:18.760 --> 0:39:20.839 I gotta. I'm getting to be questions in my head here? 0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:24.600 So does want to keep on ask? And that is behold, 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:26.320 don't don't answer yet, because I want to do no 0:39:26.400 --> 0:39:29.040 one far. I forget. What all have they eaten that 0:39:29.120 --> 0:39:32.640 you know about to date? Okay? Like what are they eating? 0:39:33.280 --> 0:39:39.560 And while you sit on that one, what um? When 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:46.000 the when the reintroduction occurred, how universal was disapproval among 0:39:46.160 --> 0:39:52.680 livestock producers who are running cattle on the recovery area 0:39:53.320 --> 0:39:56.360 or private lands surrounding the recovery area. You know, that 0:39:56.440 --> 0:39:58.160 was before my time. I've been in the program for 0:39:58.160 --> 0:40:01.800 about three years now, but I would imagine it's pretty 0:40:01.800 --> 0:40:05.680 consistent with what it is now. A general lack of 0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:08.759 support for the recovery of the general lack of support. Yeah, 0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:12.520 it's a it's a competition for them. It's perceived that 0:40:13.640 --> 0:40:17.200 this large predator was taken off the landscape because it 0:40:17.239 --> 0:40:20.239 was problematic for them, and then now the government wants 0:40:20.239 --> 0:40:22.840 to put it back in. So it's it's hard for 0:40:22.880 --> 0:40:26.399 them to come fully on board on supporting that. And 0:40:26.440 --> 0:40:29.040 what would you say the same thing on the hunting community, 0:40:29.160 --> 0:40:31.359 general lack of support or is it more mixed. It's 0:40:31.360 --> 0:40:33.280 got to be more mixed. I would say it's definitely 0:40:33.320 --> 0:40:36.759 more mixed. I said, on both sides. I'm not from here, 0:40:36.800 --> 0:40:38.839 but I was in a state that had it. I said, 0:40:38.880 --> 0:40:41.080 on both sides of it. One, I think it's immoral. 0:40:41.920 --> 0:40:44.160 And I don't throw that word around very often, but 0:40:44.200 --> 0:40:51.120 I think it's immoral to drive species to extinction. I 0:40:51.160 --> 0:40:55.320 think it's like playing God with God's stuff, right, I 0:40:55.360 --> 0:41:01.279 guess like a grievous sin to know wingly eliminate a 0:41:01.360 --> 0:41:05.719 species from Earth. Okay. On the other hand, I used 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:09.640 to hunt it. We hunted the area through its We 0:41:09.800 --> 0:41:14.000 hunted an area that we started hunting in the Northern 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:20.000 Rockies the year of the reintroduction, and we within a 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:22.600 handful of years we were hunting one third as many 0:41:22.640 --> 0:41:26.680 elk as we were when we started hunting it. Now 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:29.520 we got better all the time. So my brother he's 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:33.319 still he still hunts it. He still kills elk every year, 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:35.239 even though he's hunting the third as many as he 0:41:35.360 --> 0:41:37.719 was before. But he's just like his knowledge of the 0:41:37.800 --> 0:41:41.200 area has kept pace with the diminishment of the herds. 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:43.560 And of course you wait and hope that the elk, 0:41:43.600 --> 0:41:46.560 get used to it and figure out how to deal 0:41:46.600 --> 0:41:49.040 with him. Well, I think I think you can point 0:41:49.040 --> 0:41:52.800 to different management units, different areas, and the whole gamut 0:41:53.320 --> 0:41:57.080 of prey responses occurred with wolves being present there. So 0:41:57.120 --> 0:42:00.200 it's not universally all of a sudden will show up 0:42:00.200 --> 0:42:03.440 and you're driving out. That's different. That's the funny thing 0:42:03.640 --> 0:42:06.160 always bring out with people, man, is like the funny 0:42:06.239 --> 0:42:08.440 always bring out the people's like why does everybody Okay, 0:42:08.719 --> 0:42:12.359 dudes like me are always uh dudes, I merror eyes, like, ah, 0:42:12.400 --> 0:42:14.680 the wolves are killing everything, but every wants to go 0:42:14.760 --> 0:42:18.600 hunt in Alaska? Right, Alaska all the time? Alaska. Wolves 0:42:18.600 --> 0:42:21.279 in Alaska occupied the ninety five or ninety six percent 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:23.840 of the historic range. So I'm like, if that's true, 0:42:23.880 --> 0:42:26.080 why does everybody want to go hunt Alaska? You guys 0:42:26.080 --> 0:42:28.600 should steer clear because it's full of damn wolves. Right. 0:42:28.680 --> 0:42:31.200 So so there is like it's a little more complicated 0:42:31.239 --> 0:42:33.319 than what people would have because everyone's waiting in line 0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:35.120 to go up there, right, and they hope they see 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:37.680 a wolf, right, And so the area I mean, I'm 0:42:37.719 --> 0:42:39.600 not sure the area of the year, but I worked 0:42:39.680 --> 0:42:43.120 up there on on wolves shortly after the reintroduction in 0:42:43.200 --> 0:42:46.680 Montana and then wyoming in those areas and kicked around 0:42:48.160 --> 0:42:51.640 and um, you know, there was an incredibly hard winter. 0:42:52.040 --> 0:42:56.160 There's wolves reintroduced, and they're harvesting the crap out of 0:42:56.200 --> 0:42:59.239 cows in certain areas because they want to reduce the 0:42:59.320 --> 0:43:02.719 number about so outside of Yellowstone. All three of those 0:43:02.719 --> 0:43:06.439 things happened simultaneously. So people look at it through these 0:43:06.480 --> 0:43:09.759 wolf colored glasses, right, So they're just, well, the only 0:43:09.760 --> 0:43:12.319 thing that's changed is there's wolves. Well, there's a lot 0:43:12.360 --> 0:43:15.360 of things that changed in that particular their thing. In 0:43:15.400 --> 0:43:18.960 some areas wolves are there, elk are still high, same 0:43:19.040 --> 0:43:22.439 hunting stuff, and in other areas that's not the case. 0:43:22.560 --> 0:43:27.200 So the more predators, so grizzly bears, wolves, lions, coyotes. 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:29.480 When you have the in humans, when you have the 0:43:29.520 --> 0:43:33.319 complete suite of predators, right, you have more chance of 0:43:33.440 --> 0:43:38.040 driving down populations of ungulets than you do. Uh, stay 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:41.799 down here where you don't have grizzly bears as one thing, 0:43:42.160 --> 0:43:44.960 and you don't have heavy winter mortality is another thing. 0:43:45.480 --> 0:43:47.839 You have lions, you do have lions. We looked at 0:43:47.880 --> 0:43:50.120 some stuff they did out of Idaho where they figured 0:43:50.160 --> 0:43:55.040 they were losing pre wolves, they were losing thirty calves 0:43:55.120 --> 0:44:01.200 per hundred two lions, and when wolves came in, it 0:44:01.360 --> 0:44:05.360 was they were losing a total of probably forty calves perred. 0:44:05.920 --> 0:44:08.279 So they're losing ten calves per hundred for well, I mean, 0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:13.040 it's like ballpark figures. But the way this is explained 0:44:13.040 --> 0:44:15.840 to me is people were very accustomed to thirty calves 0:44:16.520 --> 0:44:20.279 per It has always been that way, and they knew 0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:22.040 what that looked like and what it felt like and 0:44:22.080 --> 0:44:25.920 what it meant for harvest rates. But then when that 0:44:26.080 --> 0:44:29.560 little extra chunk got carved out of there, it was 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:37.200 felt very acutely, and people then sort of blamed all 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:41.000 forty calves per hundred on this new thing rather than 0:44:41.040 --> 0:44:44.919 looking at it as a little addition, right, And it's 0:44:44.920 --> 0:44:47.359 harder to recover, So it's you're a hunting If you're 0:44:47.400 --> 0:44:51.080 a manager out there, right, you're used to saying, Okay, 0:44:51.160 --> 0:44:53.640 I'm harvesting cows because I want to drive down the 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:57.240 olt population. I'm gonna drive it down. I'm gonna harvest cows. 0:44:57.800 --> 0:45:00.640 And then okay, I'm gonna stop my heart cow harvest 0:45:00.719 --> 0:45:04.960 because I wanted to go back up wolves predation. Predation 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:08.880 in general can slow that increase, right, So it's harder 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:12.680 to have this rapid rebound, rapid control kind of stuff 0:45:12.719 --> 0:45:15.080 that you're used to having. We're just working at valve 0:45:15.160 --> 0:45:18.480 and like right, right, So it's it's a different thing 0:45:18.520 --> 0:45:20.560 that people have to get used to as well, because 0:45:20.560 --> 0:45:23.600 the one thing you can control is is human harvest 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:26.000 out there and so open the Northern Rockies are still 0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:30.640 shooting shiploads a cow out. Yeah, I like, I love hunting. 0:45:30.680 --> 0:45:32.920 I have conversations all the time with people and I'm like, 0:45:33.320 --> 0:45:36.520 if I if I thought reintroducing wolves was going to 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:39.719 permit me from hunting, I would have been against it 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:43.000 a long time ago. I love to hunt elk. I 0:45:43.080 --> 0:45:45.239 love to hunt dare. I love being out there and 0:45:45.280 --> 0:45:47.839 doing that stuff. So that's that's important part of who 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:50.160 I am. But a thing that frustrates hunters, I think 0:45:50.480 --> 0:45:54.560 is that you have some people you gotta get your 0:45:54.719 --> 0:45:58.279 way that the extremes. Right. You got the guy who 0:45:58.640 --> 0:46:00.840 is like they they're gonna will every last elk and 0:46:00.920 --> 0:46:03.160 will be an elk left right, and then they're hand. 0:46:03.120 --> 0:46:04.600 You've got people who, I swear it, they're trying to 0:46:04.600 --> 0:46:08.080 tell us that wolves eat nuts and berries, right, you know, 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:10.440 and I feel like I hear in each of my ears, 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:16.360 I'm hearing from like these two people. Wolves eat elk cows. 0:46:17.000 --> 0:46:20.280 So I mean that's what wolves a little bit of deer, 0:46:20.320 --> 0:46:22.480 but the deer is a little bit a lot less 0:46:22.520 --> 0:46:25.320 taken at least down here and in the Northern Rockies 0:46:25.360 --> 0:46:27.200 where there's an elk deer. Why do they like elks 0:46:27.200 --> 0:46:30.080 so much? They're just a perfect package. Man, It's just 0:46:30.680 --> 0:46:33.200 they're in a good herd. You get to chase them, 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:37.480 and there's something falls behind, something's weak in that group. 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:41.319 So they they get them and they know where they are. 0:46:41.440 --> 0:46:44.360 They like being in flat areas where wolves like to 0:46:44.400 --> 0:46:47.760 be and hunt. They like hunting that flat train. Wolves 0:46:47.760 --> 0:46:50.799 like hunting flat train, sure, because it's you gotta run, 0:46:51.239 --> 0:46:55.200 you're chasing them down, you know, So, um, flat trains better. 0:46:56.080 --> 0:46:59.800 Lions like the steep stuff, right, because it's more of 0:46:59.840 --> 0:47:03.399 a of an ambush hunt. Yeah, you know. I think 0:47:03.400 --> 0:47:06.439 the one trend I have seen has the at the 0:47:06.480 --> 0:47:11.840 wolf population increases, the hunter community is becoming more involved 0:47:11.840 --> 0:47:15.520 in the issue and more concerned. Um, but more concerned 0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:17.680 about the increase of wolves. Are more concerned about help 0:47:17.680 --> 0:47:19.759 of wolves out well, No, more concerned about how the 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:24.359 wolf population is impacting their choice of of of prey, 0:47:24.480 --> 0:47:28.399 the elk. So the one thing the program is doing 0:47:28.719 --> 0:47:32.920 is um studies to help really understand what what it's 0:47:32.920 --> 0:47:35.359 doing to the population and the impacts. And I don't 0:47:35.360 --> 0:47:36.919 know what what is it? What do you guys feel 0:47:36.960 --> 0:47:39.280 that it is doing? Well, look, John, kind of speak 0:47:39.280 --> 0:47:41.239 to that little bit more. Well right now, I mean 0:47:41.360 --> 0:47:45.839 so far we haven't. There's no detectable impact. So that's 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:47.920 what the state agencies say all the time, there's no 0:47:47.960 --> 0:47:52.319 detectable impact. Well, that's that's a pretty significant change, right 0:47:52.360 --> 0:47:55.920 to detect when you're talking two acre ten alc. If 0:47:55.920 --> 0:47:59.719 you're talking Arizona or New Mexico. So you have you 0:47:59.719 --> 0:48:04.400 found it yet? No? Not unless I start going like 0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:06.560 by unit by unit, it's gonna be tough. I just 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:08.640 haven't found it. You can't tell you tell me. You 0:48:08.640 --> 0:48:11.919 can't type in how many elk are killed in New 0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:14.920 Mexico and come up with a number. Well, and it's 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:17.480 not all in New Mexico. It's just the greater HeLa right, 0:48:19.719 --> 0:48:22.080 a unit by units. So, Carl, you don't just know 0:48:22.200 --> 0:48:25.560 this in the like in your mind. I don't know 0:48:25.640 --> 0:48:27.439 that in my mind, and I think it's pretty hard 0:48:27.480 --> 0:48:29.319 to come up with an answer because and this this 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:32.240 gets back to what you're saying about the mountaintop removal 0:48:32.680 --> 0:48:35.480 and remediation work happening and kind of painting a picture 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:37.799 of what the landscape looks like. And for folks who 0:48:37.800 --> 0:48:42.719 aren't familiar with this chunk of ground that our experts 0:48:42.760 --> 0:48:46.239 here are referring to in southwest New Mexico and eastern Arizona, 0:48:46.719 --> 0:48:50.440 you're talking about some of the most remote, rugged country 0:48:50.600 --> 0:48:53.960 in the lower forty eight. And it begins from the east. 0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:56.680 You've got all the Leopold Wilderness, which is about a 0:48:56.719 --> 0:49:00.360 quarter million acres, into the HeLa proper, which is somewhere 0:49:00.360 --> 0:49:04.160 five seventies some thousand acres, and you've got the Blue 0:49:04.239 --> 0:49:07.360 Range Wilderness west of that, and that butts up against 0:49:07.360 --> 0:49:10.160 the state line. But then the wild land continues because 0:49:10.160 --> 0:49:12.399 you have the Blue Range primitive area that I know, Steve, 0:49:12.480 --> 0:49:16.240 you're familiar with west of the New Mexico Arizona state line, 0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:20.040 which is kind of de facto wilderness um. And then 0:49:20.040 --> 0:49:23.799 that's surrounded by some of the still most remote and 0:49:23.840 --> 0:49:27.520 undeveloped National Forest System land. So you're talking about two 0:49:27.520 --> 0:49:30.319 different states. You're talking about a large number of game 0:49:30.360 --> 0:49:34.040 management units for each of those states, UM, And right 0:49:34.040 --> 0:49:35.760 off the top of my head, I don't have a number, 0:49:35.760 --> 0:49:38.240 but I think for folks to kind of get this vision, 0:49:38.320 --> 0:49:41.799 this image of how remote and wild the landscape is, 0:49:42.360 --> 0:49:45.920 and a little anecdote to that. To that end, UM, 0:49:45.960 --> 0:49:49.239 there's a place there at the western side of the 0:49:49.440 --> 0:49:51.680 HeLa wilderness. You guys maybe can help me fill in 0:49:51.719 --> 0:49:55.040 the details, But it's known for having the best night 0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:57.640 sky anywhere in the lower forty eight because you are 0:49:57.920 --> 0:50:01.840 as far as you can be from an anthropogenic light source, 0:50:02.120 --> 0:50:06.319 and the sky viewing is is deemed to be the 0:50:06.400 --> 0:50:10.480 best anywhere in the lower forty eight because you're so remote. 0:50:10.840 --> 0:50:13.720 So this is a chunk of country that UM is massive, 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:17.479 you know, ten thousand square miles. It includes these different 0:50:17.520 --> 0:50:21.120 wilderness areas, UM. And it's a place where wolves have 0:50:21.160 --> 0:50:25.120 been hot and elk for a lot longer than uh, 0:50:25.880 --> 0:50:28.160 white dudes have been on the landscape. Yeah, they only missed, 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:30.520 they missed, like what they missed thirty years of the action. 0:50:30.840 --> 0:50:33.440 And even then you still had these stragglers coming up, 0:50:33.920 --> 0:50:37.399 you know, like you were referring to, and that great 0:50:37.440 --> 0:50:41.839 Cormick McCarthy book. So, I guess the a good way 0:50:41.880 --> 0:50:44.200 to settle on it is so you're saying that the 0:50:44.239 --> 0:50:50.439 new Mexico fishing game, who and to generalize that as 0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:55.160 a as A as A as a state agency with 0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:58.719 the state that was generally uneasy with the introduction. They 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:03.280 have said that they haven't they haven't noticed. Uh, certainly 0:51:03.280 --> 0:51:06.000 the Arizona game of fish has been they do, They've 0:51:06.040 --> 0:51:08.600 had a little bit more look at this, and they 0:51:08.600 --> 0:51:11.440 say they haven't noticed an impact from molds. But the 0:51:11.480 --> 0:51:15.200 wolves are a low number right now, so a hundred 0:51:15.239 --> 0:51:17.920 and ten. So they fluctuate around and it dips, it 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:21.239 dips up and down with it. Johnny hovers around a hundred. Yeah, yeah, 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:26.040 and so well for the last three three years, three 0:51:26.120 --> 0:51:28.480 or four years, it's been around a hundred and you 0:51:28.480 --> 0:51:31.680 guys don't feel you do do not feel that that's sustainable. 0:51:32.200 --> 0:51:34.520 That's that's there can be more than that, And no 0:51:34.680 --> 0:51:38.320 know what I'm saying, like like minimum sustainability. Like for instance, 0:51:38.320 --> 0:51:41.840 we we we spoke with a guy um with the 0:51:41.960 --> 0:51:46.759 USGS who was working on grizzly bear recovery in a 0:51:46.840 --> 0:51:51.279 tri state area in the northern Rockies, and you know, 0:51:51.400 --> 0:51:53.960 there's a lot of debate about how many of there are. 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:57.799 You know, I think the official number is six forty two. 0:51:57.840 --> 0:52:01.080 Everyone agrees that there's more because they their counting system 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:04.600 is flawed and they all know it. So they're like, 0:52:04.640 --> 0:52:07.120 sixty two probably more, or whatever the hell the number is. 0:52:07.800 --> 0:52:11.319 And he says, in his opinion, he's like, you could 0:52:11.440 --> 0:52:19.799 have that number living in that patch of ground for 0:52:20.640 --> 0:52:24.920 a hundred years. He's like, that area and that number 0:52:25.000 --> 0:52:29.600 is a sustainable number in a sustainable area. Right, do 0:52:29.680 --> 0:52:33.600 you feel that? Do you guys feel that one where 0:52:33.640 --> 0:52:35.960 they are now that they're too vulnerable or do you 0:52:35.960 --> 0:52:38.359 feel that you could have that for a hundred years? Well, 0:52:38.680 --> 0:52:40.920 so are our rule that we just put out. We 0:52:40.960 --> 0:52:43.439 said that our goal was three five in that big 0:52:43.480 --> 0:52:49.560 area south of but they sold it in on. Our 0:52:49.600 --> 0:52:54.279 goal is to get to right now. Initially our goal 0:52:54.320 --> 0:52:56.720 was to get to a hundred, which was the initial 0:52:56.800 --> 0:53:03.160 thing that folks said wasn't recovery, and we were nice recovery. Well, 0:53:05.120 --> 0:53:07.359 I'm mixing up two different We can just throw out 0:53:07.400 --> 0:53:13.400 whatever random number three three is recovery. Uh, we haven't 0:53:13.400 --> 0:53:18.080 defined recovery yet. We're just we're redoing the role and 0:53:18.160 --> 0:53:22.320 literally the draft should come out in a couple of weeks, 0:53:22.440 --> 0:53:25.520 three or four weeks, and so you know, I can't 0:53:25.520 --> 0:53:28.400 talk about that right now, but you are some of 0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:31.759 the definitions we're talking about, because I guess what I'm 0:53:31.760 --> 0:53:34.640 referring to is well, in the case in the case 0:53:34.680 --> 0:53:40.520 of grizzly bears, um, when when looking at that number 0:53:40.600 --> 0:53:44.080 is you're you're sort of saying, like, have you achieved 0:53:44.120 --> 0:53:49.720 a sustainable population on a piece of habitat that seems 0:53:49.760 --> 0:53:54.440 stable where it's reasonable to assume that if we engage 0:53:54.480 --> 0:53:59.760 in business as usual, we would into the foreseeable future 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:01.520 not running new problem. No, I think if you have, 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:04.480 like with the Florida Panther, for a long time, we 0:54:04.520 --> 0:54:07.960 were in a position where someone said, can this continue? 0:54:08.000 --> 0:54:10.680 Can you have a population of twenty five lions in 0:54:10.840 --> 0:54:14.000 South Florida? And the people said, no, right, this will 0:54:14.040 --> 0:54:16.399 not like there's no reason to think that in one 0:54:16.880 --> 0:54:20.160 years will have twenty five lions in South Florida, or 0:54:20.200 --> 0:54:23.480 however bad it got in South Florida before they supplemented 0:54:23.520 --> 0:54:28.040 the population. So there's I mean, for recovery purposes, there's 0:54:28.040 --> 0:54:30.160 what we referred to as a three arts, which is 0:54:30.200 --> 0:54:34.120 a resilient population, which means there's enough of them out 0:54:34.160 --> 0:54:38.759 there too, you know, have Jeanette and to represent a 0:54:38.800 --> 0:54:41.000 population that's good and stable and all those kind of 0:54:41.040 --> 0:54:46.400 statings is gonna survive. And then there's um redundancy, which 0:54:46.480 --> 0:54:49.920 is there's multiple populations, so not all your eggs in 0:54:49.920 --> 0:54:52.800 one basket. So there's right now we have there's a 0:54:52.840 --> 0:54:56.440 reintroduction going on in Mexico the south of the border 0:54:56.520 --> 0:55:01.440 that just started, and so that's h that's the redundancy 0:55:01.520 --> 0:55:05.239 that you would see. One it's less controversial there right, no, 0:55:05.400 --> 0:55:09.920 so equally, I mean they still kill and stuff like that. Um. 0:55:09.960 --> 0:55:13.680 And then there's the representation is the third are which 0:55:13.680 --> 0:55:18.600 is genetically robust and um. You know it's across spread 0:55:18.640 --> 0:55:21.440 across the landscape to represent a fair amount of that 0:55:21.560 --> 0:55:24.839 historic landscape it's out there. So those are the things. 0:55:24.840 --> 0:55:29.800 So when you look at is that recovery, um, you 0:55:29.840 --> 0:55:34.160 would say that that population probably is pretty resilient. It's 0:55:34.320 --> 0:55:36.719 enough of them to live on that landscape, and so 0:55:36.800 --> 0:55:39.560 it maybe one population in the future that that works 0:55:39.600 --> 0:55:42.919 towards recovery. But there's more things that go into it. Right, 0:55:43.440 --> 0:55:45.680 So let me throw in a couple of additional details here, 0:55:45.680 --> 0:55:47.880 because you hear John using some of the qualifiers like 0:55:47.960 --> 0:55:51.640 probably and we think, and what we're talking about here, 0:55:51.680 --> 0:55:53.680 you know, the term for this is we run what's 0:55:53.719 --> 0:55:58.000 called the population viability assessment. And essentially you never can 0:55:58.080 --> 0:56:01.520 say with certainty that at any point in time in 0:56:01.560 --> 0:56:05.200 the future you will still have that species in that place. 0:56:05.640 --> 0:56:08.960 But you can be increasingly confident in the persistence of 0:56:09.000 --> 0:56:14.080 a species when you have more individuals and when you're 0:56:14.080 --> 0:56:17.879 talking about a shorter time frame. So it would be, 0:56:18.200 --> 0:56:21.919 for example, easier to say we are highly confident that 0:56:22.000 --> 0:56:24.960 we have a hundred wolves now, and if we keep 0:56:25.000 --> 0:56:27.239 a hundred wolves in three years, we'll still have a 0:56:27.320 --> 0:56:29.320 hundred wolves, as opposed to saying if we kept a 0:56:29.400 --> 0:56:32.200 hundred wolves on a landscape a hundred years from now, 0:56:32.640 --> 0:56:35.120 we're less confident. So the two things that really play 0:56:35.160 --> 0:56:39.040 into this risk number to throw out one hundred years 0:56:39.080 --> 0:56:41.680 because yeah, and a lot can change. I mean, a meteor, 0:56:41.760 --> 0:56:44.920 you know, you could hit something catastrophic could happen that 0:56:44.920 --> 0:56:47.680 would eliminate the animal. So there's never this certainty. So 0:56:47.840 --> 0:56:51.279 it's really a risk assessment and the degree of risk 0:56:51.320 --> 0:56:56.560 associated with extinction of a population. Um, you have more 0:56:56.640 --> 0:57:00.000 confidence in your assessment of security in the near future 0:57:00.080 --> 0:57:02.120 er than in the long future. And when you have 0:57:02.200 --> 0:57:04.279 more animals than less animals. Those are kind of some 0:57:04.760 --> 0:57:09.080 common basics. And then another point in this whole discussion 0:57:09.080 --> 0:57:13.160 of population ecology, Um, you're familiar with the Allee effect. 0:57:14.320 --> 0:57:16.240 All you ever hear about them? Heard the word but no, 0:57:16.280 --> 0:57:19.040 I'm not okay. So just for the benefit of listeners 0:57:19.040 --> 0:57:21.480 who take an interest in wildlife ecology and science, it's 0:57:21.520 --> 0:57:23.840 a good place to throw this in. There's a gentleman 0:57:23.840 --> 0:57:26.760 by the name of Warder Clyde Ali who came up 0:57:26.880 --> 0:57:30.400 with this notion that kind of flies in the face 0:57:30.600 --> 0:57:33.600 of one of the factors that we often take for 0:57:33.640 --> 0:57:36.920 granted and wildlife ecology, and that is the notion that 0:57:37.000 --> 0:57:41.160 as competition decreases, as the number of animals on the 0:57:41.240 --> 0:57:45.280 landscape of your species decreases, you do better. So we 0:57:45.320 --> 0:57:50.000 talk about density dependence, right. The higher the higher density gets, 0:57:50.040 --> 0:57:54.040 the tougher competition is, so the less well in individual 0:57:54.080 --> 0:57:57.120 animal will do. So the Allie effect, essentially is the 0:57:57.160 --> 0:57:59.520 inverse of that, the notion that if you drive a 0:57:59.560 --> 0:58:03.520 population Asian down far enough, and it's a social species 0:58:03.600 --> 0:58:07.880 or a species that benefits from the existence of con specifics, 0:58:08.800 --> 0:58:12.280 you can push that species towards extinction, like like what 0:58:12.320 --> 0:58:14.960 you see with past exactly you're gonna have a billion 0:58:15.080 --> 0:58:18.040 or none. It's a classic example. So with passenger pigeons, 0:58:18.400 --> 0:58:20.040 they think one of the key drivers was the fact 0:58:20.080 --> 0:58:22.520 that you needed these huge flocks in order to elicit 0:58:22.600 --> 0:58:27.480 normal reproductive behavior. And you had that last lonely passenger pigeon, Martha, 0:58:27.800 --> 0:58:33.120 dying in the Cincinnati Zoo I think it was September nine, um, 0:58:33.160 --> 0:58:34.720 and they tried, you know, they tried like hell to 0:58:34.760 --> 0:58:36.440 get that bird to breed when there were still other 0:58:36.520 --> 0:58:41.200 males around, but they lacked those massive flocks that elicited 0:58:41.240 --> 0:58:44.160 the breeding behavior. So that's a classic example of Alie effect. 0:58:44.400 --> 0:58:46.240 And this guy Ward or Clyde Alie, he did a 0:58:46.280 --> 0:58:49.120 lot of research looking at uh species that are a 0:58:49.120 --> 0:58:51.800 little less sexy than wolves or passenger pigeons. He did 0:58:51.800 --> 0:58:54.520 a lot of work with like goldfish, for example, where 0:58:54.520 --> 0:58:58.360 the regurgitation of food from one goldfish in the tank 0:58:58.440 --> 0:59:00.920 can be beneficial to the other gold fish and goldfish 0:59:01.040 --> 0:59:04.200 rooting up around the bottom like like carp are churning 0:59:04.240 --> 0:59:06.760 up food that's available. So if you think about wolves 0:59:06.800 --> 0:59:10.160 in their predatory behavior, there are another species where if 0:59:10.160 --> 0:59:11.960 you push them to the point where they're no longer 0:59:12.120 --> 0:59:18.680 able to locate pack members and function as that superorganism 0:59:18.720 --> 0:59:23.640 and find and kill prey through that social structure, you 0:59:23.720 --> 0:59:26.120 may have the potential to pushing beyond that point. In 0:59:26.240 --> 0:59:29.919 contrast to grizzly bears as we've been talking about, where 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:32.400 you know, you need obviously two to tango in terms 0:59:32.400 --> 0:59:35.920 of reproduction. But the predatory behavior has nothing to do 0:59:35.960 --> 0:59:39.720 with depending on pack mads. In fact, they seem to 0:59:39.800 --> 0:59:43.680 kind of like a little loneliness the breeding age females. Yeah, 0:59:44.160 --> 0:59:46.520 they're interesting. Part for wolves is they're good at finding 0:59:46.560 --> 0:59:49.760 each other, long long distance dispersals and that kind of stuff. 0:59:49.800 --> 0:59:52.200 And most of the packs just start out as two 0:59:52.240 --> 0:59:55.680 animals and then you have pops. It's just a family 0:59:55.680 --> 0:59:59.520 group in their offspring and so that's how the packs establish. 0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:04.360 That's what are Do you have any sense um? I 1:00:04.360 --> 1:00:06.080 guess we should finish this part of it up before 1:00:06.080 --> 1:00:08.080 we get I want to talk about what they eat 1:00:08.120 --> 1:00:10.080 and why they eat it, how they find it. Can 1:00:10.120 --> 1:00:12.760 I slip in a question that that's relevant here is 1:00:12.800 --> 1:00:16.440 that we and I figured we would hit on it, 1:00:16.520 --> 1:00:19.680 But that number jumping around or not jumping around, but 1:00:19.760 --> 1:00:22.920 being moved or reevaluated from a hundred and three, that's 1:00:23.000 --> 1:00:25.360 got I think that's probably one of the most contentious 1:00:26.200 --> 1:00:29.440 topics of of all with wools, isn't it. Well, at 1:00:29.520 --> 1:00:31.240 least I hear it a lot where they're like, well, 1:00:31.640 --> 1:00:35.280 at first it was gonna be fifty, yeah, moving to goal. 1:00:35.360 --> 1:00:37.880 But that's serious stuff, man, the gold poles moving is 1:00:37.920 --> 1:00:40.200 a real thing, right right, right, right, So I'd just 1:00:40.200 --> 1:00:42.960 like to hear like one especially, you've probably been sent 1:00:43.160 --> 1:00:45.880 how you guys handle that, Well, that's actually more of 1:00:45.920 --> 1:00:51.120 a Fish and Wildlife Service number that but yeah, okay, 1:00:51.200 --> 1:00:54.640 so let me ask this like, like to what to 1:00:54.720 --> 1:00:58.520 what you're under staying when the first time when one hundred, Yeah, 1:00:58.640 --> 1:01:01.760 that wasn't like that they would d list at one, right, 1:01:01.840 --> 1:01:04.240 that was just a number, like an objective. That was 1:01:04.280 --> 1:01:07.479 just an interim goal. It was the wildest imagination. They said, 1:01:07.520 --> 1:01:10.360 that's not recovery, and so that's what we're trying to 1:01:10.440 --> 1:01:13.000 define right now. So that's the difference. You're trying to 1:01:13.040 --> 1:01:16.440 set the goal post for the first time, right for 1:01:16.600 --> 1:01:22.200 what d when d listing will occur. People misconstrued then well, yeah, 1:01:22.240 --> 1:01:26.440 because they that's one of the areas in which not 1:01:26.440 --> 1:01:28.920 not the agency, but it's one of the areas in 1:01:28.960 --> 1:01:35.400 which the public becomes obstructionist. Is when recovering populations reach 1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:38.920 what we all agree recovery was supposed to look like. 1:01:39.760 --> 1:01:42.240 Where all the you know that I was here this 1:01:42.360 --> 1:01:46.200 term so much, we're all the stakeholders have said, okay, 1:01:46.560 --> 1:01:49.840 we agree that that one hundred or you know, one 1:01:49.920 --> 1:01:54.080 thousand of X species. At that point, everyone here now 1:01:54.120 --> 1:02:00.200 agrees that they will be delisted and could go act 1:02:00.200 --> 1:02:02.440 the state management and they could be open to hunting 1:02:03.080 --> 1:02:05.840 whatever the states decided to do. And then it starts 1:02:05.880 --> 1:02:08.520 getting up to where there's a thousand of said animals, 1:02:09.040 --> 1:02:14.800 and people start filing shiploads of lawsuits and then prevent 1:02:15.000 --> 1:02:18.560 any dream of ever conducting the delisting. It's not the 1:02:18.640 --> 1:02:23.040 agency's fault because the agency could be petitioning for the delisting. Well, 1:02:23.080 --> 1:02:25.440 the agency very much wanted to de list wolves in 1:02:25.440 --> 1:02:28.400 the Northern Rockies, for instance, the fishing wildlife, So they 1:02:28.400 --> 1:02:31.080 wind up taking the blame for actions of people who 1:02:31.080 --> 1:02:33.120 are going to use who wind up using the e 1:02:33.360 --> 1:02:36.880 s A not for its intended purpose, but use it 1:02:36.920 --> 1:02:39.360 as the way to protect animals that they like to 1:02:39.400 --> 1:02:43.520 look at pictures of our natural geographic from any possible 1:02:43.680 --> 1:02:46.760 chance of human exploitation. But it's our job Fish and 1:02:46.800 --> 1:02:49.520 Wildlife Services to do a better job in the process 1:02:49.600 --> 1:02:53.240 so we don't lose on the biology. It's the process 1:02:53.240 --> 1:02:55.920 where we lose in court. So we didn't check some 1:02:56.040 --> 1:03:01.000 boxes there or something nick They nip pick horribly, and 1:03:01.040 --> 1:03:03.640 so that's where the agency can do better. But they're not. 1:03:03.720 --> 1:03:07.480 And oftentimes the lawsuits aren't even challenging. The lawsuits aren't 1:03:07.560 --> 1:03:12.160 challenging the the under the like the key principles. They're 1:03:12.200 --> 1:03:15.560 not saying like, oh, in fact, one thousand of these 1:03:15.800 --> 1:03:20.680 isn't enough. They'll go after like procedural things exactly exactly. 1:03:20.720 --> 1:03:23.520 That's where like oh, no, you need to file the 1:03:24.120 --> 1:03:29.240 you filed A, uh everyone, or you filed B first 1:03:29.480 --> 1:03:31.160 and you didn't file A and you're supposed to file 1:03:31.160 --> 1:03:32.960 A four B. So therefore we're gonna block this whole 1:03:32.960 --> 1:03:34.600 thing for a decade. Yeah. The big thing in the 1:03:34.680 --> 1:03:38.800 Northern Rockies was significant portion of range. So when they 1:03:39.000 --> 1:03:41.120 we first tried to do it, we tried to delist 1:03:41.240 --> 1:03:45.520 Washington and Oregon together with Idaho and Wyoming in Montana, 1:03:46.080 --> 1:03:49.760 and they said, well, you didn't analyze the wolves cover 1:03:49.840 --> 1:03:53.200 a significant portion of their range in that area and 1:03:53.280 --> 1:03:56.080 so their habitat range and so it went down on 1:03:56.120 --> 1:04:01.000 that among other things. And I don't know, no, but 1:04:01.000 --> 1:04:03.200 but I feel for you because that's one of the 1:04:03.200 --> 1:04:07.280 ways in which I feel that public um public blame. 1:04:08.960 --> 1:04:11.720 Right when when when again, like dudes like me, like 1:04:11.800 --> 1:04:14.320 hunting guys or whatever, when they look and they get 1:04:14.360 --> 1:04:16.479 pissed about how something's not going the way they want, 1:04:17.320 --> 1:04:22.680 they're not, they don't usually blame like obstructionist groups who 1:04:22.720 --> 1:04:25.000 are what I know this is you know, I'm not. 1:04:25.080 --> 1:04:27.120 This is not these guys in the room talking. This 1:04:27.200 --> 1:04:31.360 is me talking one obstructionist groups who are manipulating the law. Like, 1:04:31.440 --> 1:04:35.480 that's not who gets the blame. The blame often falls. 1:04:35.560 --> 1:04:37.880 I feel like in the wrong place. The government is 1:04:37.920 --> 1:04:43.240 good to blame. No, no usually questions, but but the 1:04:43.520 --> 1:04:46.240 uh SO is all right. Just to get back on track, 1:04:46.440 --> 1:04:50.160 is if the or whatever the hell number they're gonna 1:04:50.160 --> 1:04:52.080 come up with the number, is that gonna be the 1:04:52.200 --> 1:04:57.960 number that is regarded as an acceptable recovery objective? At 1:04:58.000 --> 1:05:01.440 which point it would be reasonable for people to expect 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:05.760 the delisting process to occur very much. So, so that's 1:05:05.760 --> 1:05:07.680 the number that we're going through going through a p 1:05:07.760 --> 1:05:11.040 v A like what Garl talked about earlier, and it's 1:05:11.120 --> 1:05:13.560 it's reasonable to think it would fall somewhere in the 1:05:13.720 --> 1:05:18.240 range of around yeah, somewhere in that. I mean for 1:05:18.320 --> 1:05:22.280 one population, and there's consideration on where other populations are, 1:05:22.280 --> 1:05:24.520 and there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into that. 1:05:24.600 --> 1:05:29.000 How well the populations are connected, how well dispersal happens 1:05:29.040 --> 1:05:32.240 between those populations is a genetic component that you've got 1:05:32.240 --> 1:05:34.480 to think about. And so there's a whole bunch of 1:05:34.520 --> 1:05:37.240 things that go into that. And so me sitting here 1:05:37.280 --> 1:05:42.760 talking it would be a poor representation of the overall 1:05:43.600 --> 1:05:47.120 the overall plan. Yeah, that will come out and so 1:05:47.120 --> 1:05:49.800 it'd be much better to read it and really digest it. 1:05:50.600 --> 1:05:54.280 So down here, I know in other areas, um with 1:05:54.560 --> 1:05:56.880 other species that are going through e S A recovery. 1:05:57.400 --> 1:06:01.720 And we should point out that, uh, when something makes 1:06:02.800 --> 1:06:06.080 the list, when someone gets S, something gets e S 1:06:06.080 --> 1:06:09.960 A listing, that does not generally mean that they're like 1:06:10.600 --> 1:06:15.960 they got it. Made two of this two percent of 1:06:15.960 --> 1:06:18.360 species that get listed under the s A listing, only 1:06:18.400 --> 1:06:22.600 two percent get delisted because they recovered right now, I 1:06:22.640 --> 1:06:24.840 mean it's a long process. It's a long process to 1:06:24.840 --> 1:06:26.600 get them to that stage, for sure. I'm just I'm 1:06:26.640 --> 1:06:28.840 just saying, it's like there's been a handful. Like no, 1:06:29.000 --> 1:06:31.280 there's been some notable cases, and it's not even the 1:06:31.320 --> 1:06:35.000 fault of the people commissioned, but sometimes they've been uh, 1:06:35.200 --> 1:06:37.440 things have been listed and then it turned out that 1:06:37.480 --> 1:06:40.960 they were gone. Right, You've had things listed and then 1:06:40.960 --> 1:06:44.120 they find other populations or definition change and they get 1:06:44.760 --> 1:06:47.120 de listed that way. But it's only like a handful 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:49.600 of things, only some normable examples, being like bald eagle, 1:06:50.680 --> 1:06:55.160 gray wolf, paragan falcon, American alligator. But if you look, 1:06:55.360 --> 1:07:01.280 there are I think over two thousand species they've gotten 1:07:01.520 --> 1:07:05.520 es A listing and a handful. What I'm getting at 1:07:05.640 --> 1:07:10.000 is my feeling is that when the e s A 1:07:10.160 --> 1:07:14.440 works real well and we get recovery, I would think 1:07:14.480 --> 1:07:17.080 people would be dancing in the streets I went to, 1:07:17.520 --> 1:07:20.280 but they generally, they generally don't. They generally want to 1:07:20.320 --> 1:07:22.880 say like, no, it's not you know, I went to 1:07:23.040 --> 1:07:29.000 a paragan falcon recovery party. So for the the listing 1:07:29.040 --> 1:07:31.560 of the Parragan Falcon, which my father was involved in 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:35.040 that recovery, and yeah, yeah, that was we were excited. 1:07:36.200 --> 1:07:40.240 Oh yeah, it was a great thing. So as biologists, 1:07:40.280 --> 1:07:43.360 as you celebrate that, you want nothing more in your career. 1:07:44.520 --> 1:07:46.760 I didn't get to go to a Northern Rockies recovery 1:07:46.800 --> 1:07:54.880 party because it took so many legal everyone was that 1:07:55.000 --> 1:07:58.960 was It was so sad the way that just everyone. 1:08:01.200 --> 1:08:07.760 It seems like everyone got burned. Yeah, it was. It 1:08:07.800 --> 1:08:09.960 was a tough deal going back and forth like that. 1:08:10.040 --> 1:08:13.880 And then I mean, but the good part was that 1:08:14.720 --> 1:08:18.559 Montana and Idaho were ready to manage wolves and their 1:08:18.560 --> 1:08:22.519 plans were acceptable. And so even though it went through 1:08:22.560 --> 1:08:26.000 Congress and it's not the standard way of delisting a group, 1:08:26.040 --> 1:08:29.599 as we were allowed to celebrate that and turn it 1:08:29.640 --> 1:08:33.560 over to the states earlier than uh some of the 1:08:33.640 --> 1:08:37.120 stuff that was holding back, so some the Wyoming Planet 1:08:37.120 --> 1:08:41.320 in particular, was just got to prave through courts this year. 1:08:42.040 --> 1:08:44.599 Yeah that's great. So now they're delisted up there, and 1:08:44.640 --> 1:08:48.840 that's your problem, no, buddy. Yeah, all the folks, all 1:08:48.840 --> 1:08:51.000 the folks that worked on it, though they're all retired 1:08:51.640 --> 1:08:55.240 moved away and stuff like that. So no, no party. 1:08:55.840 --> 1:09:02.120 So what like what let's say, um, let's say someone draw. 1:09:02.600 --> 1:09:06.439 Someone comes up this idea that oh god, there's no 1:09:06.520 --> 1:09:09.840 question do you guys use distinct population segments down here? 1:09:09.840 --> 1:09:12.920 So are you treating the current recovery area as a 1:09:13.040 --> 1:09:15.760 distinct population segment or isn't it far enough along because 1:09:15.800 --> 1:09:18.799 we don't have two segments. Wow, So we just listed 1:09:18.840 --> 1:09:23.280 the subspecies. So you can list a species, a subspecies, 1:09:23.400 --> 1:09:26.240 or a distinct population segment. So what we did is 1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:29.080 we listed the Mexican gray wolf as a subspecies. But 1:09:29.160 --> 1:09:31.800 you might later need to carve off a distinct population 1:09:31.880 --> 1:09:35.120 segment if this population hits recovery and then you have 1:09:35.160 --> 1:09:40.040 another population in infancy somewhere. You need to draw the 1:09:40.120 --> 1:09:43.280 distinction between the two. Well you could, you could, but 1:09:43.360 --> 1:09:48.240 the idea is to um recognize that in different ways. 1:09:48.280 --> 1:09:50.479 So part of the problem in the Northern Rockies says 1:09:50.920 --> 1:09:55.240 when they went to delist things, then they're drawing the DPS, 1:09:55.240 --> 1:10:00.439 so they're designating a species to be delisted. Right. The 1:10:00.479 --> 1:10:03.639 idea is that you designate a species, you go through 1:10:03.680 --> 1:10:09.000 recovery planning, and then you delist that species after it's recovered, 1:10:09.040 --> 1:10:11.479 so you want to designate it early on. You don't 1:10:11.479 --> 1:10:14.160 want to designate a DPS two D list. Well, I 1:10:14.200 --> 1:10:17.080 know that's a big that's a problem that's happening with 1:10:17.120 --> 1:10:21.200 the grizzly bear situation is they listed the species and 1:10:21.240 --> 1:10:23.479 then that's kind of where it will get hung up 1:10:23.479 --> 1:10:26.000 in court. Probably do list of the species and then 1:10:26.080 --> 1:10:30.920 later they said, man, we've achieved way above recovery in 1:10:30.960 --> 1:10:35.320 this chunk of ground the size of Indiana. Let's delist 1:10:35.400 --> 1:10:39.760 this chunk right And it's like that, you know, I 1:10:39.800 --> 1:10:44.040 got you on a technicality because you can't. So yeah, 1:10:44.080 --> 1:10:46.160 that's a problem with it. Right. So you want to 1:10:46.160 --> 1:10:50.280 have the foresight to create population to units are alternatives 1:10:50.320 --> 1:10:54.320 on how you can reduce it to threaten, So make 1:10:54.360 --> 1:10:57.520 it a threatened species and reduce some of the restrictions 1:10:57.560 --> 1:11:01.920 over range wide over a bigger area. And um, so 1:11:02.040 --> 1:11:04.400 that's you know, you want to plan and have that 1:11:04.479 --> 1:11:08.240 foresight into your plan on how you think you should 1:11:08.280 --> 1:11:11.639 d less area too and you avoid problems going forward. 1:11:12.000 --> 1:11:19.519 So how much suitable habitat? Um? How much suitable habitat 1:11:19.640 --> 1:11:22.960 is there? Like, because it's it's I think it's helpful 1:11:23.000 --> 1:11:25.240 on these kind of things to think about, where could 1:11:25.280 --> 1:11:28.880 they be? And so again, just to keep returning to 1:11:30.120 --> 1:11:32.040 the grizzly bear situation because I know it well and 1:11:32.240 --> 1:11:34.559 it sort of provides a parameter to think about. This 1:11:35.200 --> 1:11:38.920 is um. There are there are some people, well meaning, 1:11:39.000 --> 1:11:43.400 knowledgeable people who look at the grizzly bear situation and 1:11:43.439 --> 1:11:47.639 they and they feel pretty confident that as far as 1:11:47.680 --> 1:11:54.240 suitable habitat goes, we've filled it up in the great 1:11:54.240 --> 1:11:57.000 in the in in Idaho, well like areas of the 1:11:57.040 --> 1:11:59.320 g y E. They and some people argue like, well, no, 1:11:59.400 --> 1:12:01.719 because there's any more mountain ranges. But there's some people 1:12:01.720 --> 1:12:05.320 who say, like, um, anywhere else, conflict is going to 1:12:05.400 --> 1:12:09.759 be so high that this really is the suitable patch 1:12:09.760 --> 1:12:12.880 of ground. And we've filled the suitable patch of ground 1:12:13.000 --> 1:12:17.400 as full as it can fill. Right. If you look 1:12:17.439 --> 1:12:20.920 at the Mexican gray wolf, how much and I'm sure 1:12:20.920 --> 1:12:24.479 there's varying definitions of it, how much suitable ground could 1:12:24.520 --> 1:12:29.280 there be? Oh a lot? So there's enough to where 1:12:29.320 --> 1:12:32.720 it's not gonna limit recovery in terms of numbers to 1:12:32.760 --> 1:12:36.800 get to a viable population. So that between Mexico and 1:12:36.800 --> 1:12:40.120 and and the US keep forgetting Mexico. So between those 1:12:40.160 --> 1:12:42.080 two there's gonna be enough. And the other thing is 1:12:42.120 --> 1:12:46.200 wolves are pretty habitat generalists, so they're not as specific 1:12:46.240 --> 1:12:50.679 as grizzly bears are and they don't kill people. So yeah, 1:12:51.000 --> 1:12:53.679 that's that's a flaw. That's a flaw on the grizzly 1:12:53.680 --> 1:12:58.400 bear of pheno type. So uh so, I mean they 1:12:58.400 --> 1:13:01.360 can they can be closer to put there and kind 1:13:01.360 --> 1:13:03.360 of wiggle in and out of some of these areas 1:13:03.400 --> 1:13:08.519 and still be okay. So outskirts of Realm Italy, for instance, 1:13:08.520 --> 1:13:13.200 there's wolves. Um So, so the suitable habitat doesn't become 1:13:13.200 --> 1:13:15.240 as big of an issue. It's not because when you 1:13:15.320 --> 1:13:17.599 draw a suitable habitat for kyle's pretty much to draw 1:13:17.640 --> 1:13:20.240 a big circle around the whole country. Call like just 1:13:20.320 --> 1:13:22.519 follow the coastlines with your pencil and you kind of 1:13:22.520 --> 1:13:24.519 have drawn it. Wow, we don't want to go that far. 1:13:24.600 --> 1:13:28.600 But it's not it's not as much. Yeah, they're not. 1:13:28.680 --> 1:13:32.920 They're not as like prone to immediate trouble. Yeah when 1:13:32.920 --> 1:13:35.479 they fall outside of it. Yeah, because suitable habitat for 1:13:35.520 --> 1:13:38.479 the bears isn't a matter of where they'll find enough food, 1:13:39.080 --> 1:13:41.439 just where they'll have a reasonable chance to go through 1:13:41.439 --> 1:13:45.479 their lives without winding up in a in in in 1:13:45.560 --> 1:13:49.880 a direct, possibly catastrophic interaction with the human being. I 1:13:49.880 --> 1:13:53.320 worked on grizzly bears up in Wyoming outside of Jackson, 1:13:53.360 --> 1:13:57.360 and uh, you know, bears of the true denizens of wilderness. 1:13:57.920 --> 1:14:00.280 So a lot of times it's tied to wolves. I 1:14:00.280 --> 1:14:03.920 would argue it's more bears because they need to be uh, 1:14:03.960 --> 1:14:07.479 you know, pretty limited in terms of people for that 1:14:07.560 --> 1:14:10.839 interaction with grizzly bears specifically, not black bears, but grizzly 1:14:10.880 --> 1:14:15.240 bears specifically. And so I always have a saucepart my 1:14:15.760 --> 1:14:18.160 spot for grizzly bears. I'll go up to Yellowstone and 1:14:18.200 --> 1:14:20.920 I'll see some wolves and it'll be like, well, yeah, 1:14:21.040 --> 1:14:24.960 but I like watching that grizzly bears on top of 1:14:25.040 --> 1:14:29.519 stuff watching them. Yeah. Um, so you can't really it's 1:14:29.520 --> 1:14:32.320 impossible to say step will habitet. But when you draw 1:14:32.479 --> 1:14:35.840 the line, there's gonna be like a no go zone 1:14:36.760 --> 1:14:41.720 that'll probably always exist. Yeah, that's I mean, when you 1:14:41.880 --> 1:14:46.599 do a non essential experimental population, right you set up 1:14:46.640 --> 1:14:49.680 your rules in that area and it's actually area specific. 1:14:50.360 --> 1:14:53.120 So right now, are areas everywhere south of iforty. You 1:14:53.160 --> 1:14:55.400 have these things that you can do that you can 1:14:55.960 --> 1:14:59.160 you're out there. So north of I forty right now 1:14:59.200 --> 1:15:01.559 we say we'll go at those wolves because we don't 1:15:01.640 --> 1:15:04.320 want the wolves from the reintroduction being in this area 1:15:04.439 --> 1:15:07.640 or causing more not having those relaxed restrictions. But it 1:15:07.680 --> 1:15:10.559 wouldn't be okay for anyone just to run into one 1:15:10.600 --> 1:15:12.800 and shoot it. North to I forty. Now it's a 1:15:12.840 --> 1:15:15.920 fully protected and it's a fully endangered species north to 1:15:16.000 --> 1:15:19.640 I forty if it shows up there, it's based on 1:15:19.680 --> 1:15:24.400 where they carries full ees A protections. But you also 1:15:24.479 --> 1:15:26.200 have the ability to go round it up and bring 1:15:26.200 --> 1:15:29.920 it backward blocks. Yeah, through fish and Wildlife Service permits, 1:15:29.960 --> 1:15:34.680 but only really only we have that ability at that stage. 1:15:35.040 --> 1:15:37.200 Uh do you ever hang out with the trappers? I 1:15:37.280 --> 1:15:40.360 am a trapper? Where do you guys use padded padded 1:15:40.600 --> 1:15:44.000 like double long springs or yeah, we use uh number 1:15:44.040 --> 1:15:47.760 four's is a primary thing? Or fourteens? And what's your 1:15:47.760 --> 1:15:51.479 typical set that you make? Uh? Dirt hole flat? Any 1:15:51.520 --> 1:15:55.240 of them scotton yarn? Hey, it doesn't. It's more about 1:15:55.280 --> 1:15:59.760 where than than what. They're smart about it. The other hand, 1:15:59.800 --> 1:16:02.920 they on onto it yet. No, there's wolves are tougher 1:16:02.960 --> 1:16:05.280 than you catch a lot of coyotes and kyotes are 1:16:05.280 --> 1:16:08.400 generally considered the tougher ones to catch by trappers out there, 1:16:08.479 --> 1:16:12.080 and uh, wolves are tougher just because they're fewer of them, 1:16:12.160 --> 1:16:15.839 less dance. Right, So two square miles for a pack, 1:16:15.880 --> 1:16:19.000 and so you're trapping over a big broad area and 1:16:19.040 --> 1:16:21.400 trying to get them to step in one square inch. 1:16:21.600 --> 1:16:24.200 So what's your general like, what's your general approach on 1:16:24.280 --> 1:16:26.280 getting on one? Like you start out where you get 1:16:26.280 --> 1:16:29.280 a sighting. Yeah, so you just I mean, I mean 1:16:29.439 --> 1:16:32.920 howling looking on the ground, looking for tracks, looking for scat, 1:16:33.320 --> 1:16:36.360 just looking trails roads, just like you would with a 1:16:36.439 --> 1:16:39.479 coyote kind of thing, and and looking for those travel 1:16:39.560 --> 1:16:42.920 pass and eventually you do some sets you see where 1:16:42.920 --> 1:16:46.280 they're coming and going, both directional travel, and then that's 1:16:46.960 --> 1:16:49.599 that's where I'm gonna set a trap sets If you're 1:16:49.600 --> 1:16:51.360 trying to catch one, how many sets are you putting out? 1:16:52.000 --> 1:16:56.559 Just doesn't So it's not longlining because you care about 1:16:56.560 --> 1:16:59.040 each one. You want it to be. You're you're worried 1:16:59.040 --> 1:17:00.920 about your things. So we do a lot of things 1:17:01.000 --> 1:17:03.920 to make sure that that animals Okay, you're checking every morning. 1:17:04.439 --> 1:17:09.560 You're you're kinda you have drags on them, so and 1:17:09.640 --> 1:17:12.720 you have springs in line in the chain and so 1:17:12.840 --> 1:17:17.240 all those things. If it's too cold overnight, will monitor 1:17:17.320 --> 1:17:21.519 every hour with trap monitors. Yeah, so they don't freeze 1:17:21.520 --> 1:17:23.839 a foot or anything like that. So we're very careful 1:17:23.880 --> 1:17:27.280 with that because each one there's an endangered species. So 1:17:27.360 --> 1:17:29.160 what's your preferred bait when you go to do the 1:17:29.160 --> 1:17:33.360 dirt hole set? The dirt hole set like skunk kind 1:17:33.400 --> 1:17:37.680 of stuff, but there's also a bobcat kind of glandler 1:17:38.439 --> 1:17:42.880 round up ground up. Bobcat works really good. So yeah, 1:17:43.600 --> 1:17:45.960 there's a reason why wolfers and all the stories, right, 1:17:46.000 --> 1:17:48.920 they come back and they stunk, Right, It's because I 1:17:48.960 --> 1:17:52.840 got bait all over yourself back, dude. We used to 1:17:52.920 --> 1:17:56.160 make some crazy concoctions for bait, you know. We call 1:17:56.200 --> 1:18:00.760 it tainted bait. Where you take jar cubaut meat and 1:18:00.760 --> 1:18:01.960 put in a jar and leave it out in the 1:18:02.000 --> 1:18:05.200 sun and just at the right minute, like it's starting 1:18:05.240 --> 1:18:06.800 to smell a certain way and get like a coat 1:18:06.840 --> 1:18:09.080 of oil, and then you bury it in the ground, 1:18:09.240 --> 1:18:12.479 put glycerin in it to slow the decomposition, and bury 1:18:12.560 --> 1:18:15.160 it in the ground. Dig it back up. I hope 1:18:15.200 --> 1:18:18.639 there weren't any maggots in it. Yeah, crazy bait stuff 1:18:18.680 --> 1:18:20.840 man kind of an art form, but kind of a 1:18:20.840 --> 1:18:25.320 an early art form. So a quick anecdote here on 1:18:25.439 --> 1:18:28.400 the wolves north of I forty deal and this relates 1:18:28.439 --> 1:18:33.360 back to this blurry distinction among subspecies. Um, we had 1:18:33.360 --> 1:18:37.640 a we had a wolf killed in southern Utah that 1:18:38.080 --> 1:18:41.559 du yeah, by a hunter who mistook it for a coyote. 1:18:41.600 --> 1:18:45.840 And this was in early well about a year prior 1:18:45.880 --> 1:18:50.160 to that, that same wolf had been collared in Wyoming 1:18:51.400 --> 1:18:54.160 and it had been seen on several occasions in northern 1:18:54.200 --> 1:18:58.920 Arizona close to the Grand Canyon. And it's notable this 1:18:59.000 --> 1:19:01.559 is a female wolf in mind, covering hundreds of miles 1:19:01.560 --> 1:19:04.880 between Wyoming and the Rim. Yeah, I was trapping for 1:19:04.920 --> 1:19:08.240 that animal, trying to catch it, So trying for aware 1:19:08.880 --> 1:19:11.240 north rim of the Grand Canyon. So that was the 1:19:11.280 --> 1:19:14.840 first wolf known to be in northern Arizona and something 1:19:14.880 --> 1:19:18.640 like seventy years And maybe you could share some more 1:19:18.640 --> 1:19:20.760 of the details on that account. But I remember when 1:19:20.760 --> 1:19:23.040 that was kind of circulating and we were having meetings 1:19:23.040 --> 1:19:25.360 like at Arizona and people are like no, no, that 1:19:25.360 --> 1:19:28.960 that's probably just like a domestic wolf that got out somebody. 1:19:28.960 --> 1:19:31.080 Probably there's a wolf breeder up here who has him 1:19:31.080 --> 1:19:34.800 in captivity on lo and behold it was. That's the 1:19:34.840 --> 1:19:37.840 thing is. It's like we went up there and there's 1:19:37.880 --> 1:19:40.840 a single wolf. So a single wolf, you're trapping for 1:19:40.920 --> 1:19:44.080 one in a big wide area and you're like, oh, gosh, 1:19:44.520 --> 1:19:47.160 I got no shot. You got to get a step 1:19:47.160 --> 1:19:50.760 in tin square inches in somewhere between Wyoming and the 1:19:50.800 --> 1:19:56.160 North m So there was a pile of buffalo that 1:19:56.200 --> 1:19:58.920 we're run over by a UPS driver right on the 1:19:59.080 --> 1:20:02.400 entrance to the North Rim. They have an honorable buffalo 1:20:02.479 --> 1:20:04.680 population up there on the North Rim of also a 1:20:04.720 --> 1:20:07.280 little bit controversial, yeah, because they have cows in them 1:20:07.320 --> 1:20:11.880 and they have some cow DNA and and there it's 1:20:11.920 --> 1:20:15.960 the there is the park that doesn't like them, right, 1:20:16.000 --> 1:20:17.639 the park wants to get rid of They don't want 1:20:17.680 --> 1:20:19.519 them in the in the park because they aren't part 1:20:19.520 --> 1:20:23.360 of the natural system there, or maybe they are and 1:20:23.400 --> 1:20:28.960 all that. So anyways, say the UPS driver tried to 1:20:29.000 --> 1:20:32.519 do the park's work, it ran over about it, and 1:20:32.560 --> 1:20:34.680 this wolf landed in this area and so it'd come 1:20:34.760 --> 1:20:37.400 down and they walked by people, and he walked down 1:20:37.479 --> 1:20:41.880 the road, eat on this pile, giant pile of buffalo carcasses, 1:20:42.280 --> 1:20:44.360 and then walk back up to its betting area. And 1:20:44.400 --> 1:20:46.720 so people got photos of it. People were calling in 1:20:46.760 --> 1:20:50.000 and you're like, this just doesn't sound like a wild 1:20:50.000 --> 1:20:53.559 wolf that came all the way down from Wyoming through 1:20:53.720 --> 1:20:57.040 Utah and now landed in Arizona. Why didn't get shot 1:20:57.160 --> 1:21:00.439 somewhere along the way where it's this observed ruble. But 1:21:00.479 --> 1:21:02.920 we went up there because some of the photos were 1:21:02.960 --> 1:21:05.840 really convincing. In one of the photos actually showed a 1:21:05.960 --> 1:21:09.439 radio collar. We were pretty pretty clearly a radio collar 1:21:09.560 --> 1:21:13.439 from our stuff, and so, um, we went up there 1:21:13.439 --> 1:21:15.320 and we we saw the wolf. So you go up 1:21:15.320 --> 1:21:17.280 there and set up a camp. Yeah, well we went 1:21:17.280 --> 1:21:22.360 and stayed with the park Service, and and uh we were. 1:21:22.560 --> 1:21:24.400 We went up there and the first thing, we went out, 1:21:24.439 --> 1:21:27.360 like the first morning, really early in the morning, just 1:21:27.439 --> 1:21:30.439 to follow the pattern of people seeing it. And sure enough, 1:21:30.920 --> 1:21:33.160 there it was. And so we had two things. We 1:21:33.200 --> 1:21:36.519 wanted to get DNA from the wolf one way or another, 1:21:36.560 --> 1:21:39.479 either capture it or whatever. And so that first day 1:21:40.560 --> 1:21:44.120 it pooped and we went out there and scooped up 1:21:44.120 --> 1:21:46.519 a little bit of the from the outside of the 1:21:47.600 --> 1:21:52.280 intestinal cell walls. Sintestinal cells slough off on the Yeah, 1:21:52.360 --> 1:21:54.360 so we had the DNA right off the get go, 1:21:54.640 --> 1:21:57.240 and then we set traps right along the path that 1:21:57.280 --> 1:21:59.960 it kind of walked around, and we scattered out some traps. 1:22:00.040 --> 1:22:01.880 So we had a dark gun that if you get 1:22:01.880 --> 1:22:03.760 close to a wolf, you can shoot a dart at it, 1:22:03.800 --> 1:22:07.360 but wasn't the case that day. And so, I mean, 1:22:07.400 --> 1:22:10.080 it came close to our traps a couple of different times, 1:22:10.080 --> 1:22:15.120 but it's just a single wolf wandering. Yeah, so we 1:22:15.120 --> 1:22:17.880 we came really close. I remember one time I saw 1:22:17.880 --> 1:22:19.600 it in early in the morning. I saw it in 1:22:19.760 --> 1:22:22.080 exactly the same spot. So this is just after we 1:22:22.080 --> 1:22:24.599 had scattered out the track. So I was like, well, 1:22:25.120 --> 1:22:27.400 I'm just gonna do exactly what I did the other day, 1:22:27.880 --> 1:22:31.640 and that wolf will wander right into our sets. So 1:22:31.720 --> 1:22:33.960 I turned around on the road and I'm just kind 1:22:33.960 --> 1:22:37.720 of watching it ways behind it and instead of just 1:22:37.760 --> 1:22:40.080 wandering that because that's what I did the day before. 1:22:40.760 --> 1:22:44.120 It turned around the offosite directions from all the sets, 1:22:44.120 --> 1:22:48.040 and I'm like, so, anyways, we never ended up catching it. 1:22:48.160 --> 1:22:51.439 So went up to Utah got shot and uh, but 1:22:51.560 --> 1:22:54.040 we did. It was the same wolf and stuff like that. 1:22:54.960 --> 1:22:56.760 What it helped us to catch it? Did you get 1:22:56.760 --> 1:23:00.439 the car because after the guys shot, Uh, our law 1:23:00.520 --> 1:23:03.840 enforcement does You didn't need it for anything? Nah, we 1:23:03.840 --> 1:23:06.160 didn't get it. So we we figured out what wolf 1:23:06.240 --> 1:23:08.600 it was and everything else from the DNA. Why do 1:23:08.640 --> 1:23:10.880 you think, like, why does the wolf start doing that? 1:23:12.880 --> 1:23:16.080 You know, it's just it's individuals, right. Some some people 1:23:16.160 --> 1:23:18.680 like to wander and see new ground. I think some 1:23:18.720 --> 1:23:20.599 wolves just kind of set out in the direction and 1:23:20.680 --> 1:23:23.160 keep going. This wolf got down all the way down 1:23:23.160 --> 1:23:26.160 to the Grand Canyon, went I'm not going across the 1:23:26.200 --> 1:23:29.519 Grand Canyon. So that is turned around, went the other 1:23:29.560 --> 1:23:32.559 direction right and went back up. And so you got 1:23:32.600 --> 1:23:35.400 a little window to catch the wolf. And while it's 1:23:35.439 --> 1:23:37.519 hanging out in a spot, and we just weren't able 1:23:37.560 --> 1:23:40.400 to some wels. Most of the time, wolves just you 1:23:40.439 --> 1:23:42.920 get to be two years old and you leave your pack. 1:23:43.200 --> 1:23:46.400 So you're leaving a big way. Well you don't have to. 1:23:46.479 --> 1:23:48.640 They just leave until they find an area where they 1:23:48.640 --> 1:23:51.960 can make a living or made mating opportunity and all 1:23:52.000 --> 1:23:54.920 that kind of stuff. So most of dispersal is close, 1:23:55.880 --> 1:23:58.360 so it's pretty close range dispersal. And then a few 1:23:58.400 --> 1:24:01.559 of them are these abnormal, a really long range movement. 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:04.639 Sit here out there ice and know a girl who 1:24:04.840 --> 1:24:06.680 I wanted to go out with real bad never did, 1:24:06.720 --> 1:24:12.160 but she was working on a project. Um, someone's looking 1:24:12.200 --> 1:24:16.240 at like the how the Grand Canyon did affect movement 1:24:16.960 --> 1:24:21.120 of animals, And they were setting hair traps for mountain 1:24:21.160 --> 1:24:27.559 lions on each side, and whoever was running this thing 1:24:27.680 --> 1:24:30.880 was was testing the idea whether there was no genetic exchange. 1:24:32.280 --> 1:24:35.920 But they don't care. Yeah, and lions, you know that 1:24:35.960 --> 1:24:38.560 they'd catch the same, they'd catch the same, like offspring 1:24:38.600 --> 1:24:42.400 of the same. Like the things that you perceive as 1:24:42.439 --> 1:24:46.559 being boundaries sometimes aren't. I was recently looking at some 1:24:46.560 --> 1:24:54.040 stuff with links in Alaska that, um, big swollen rivers 1:24:54.240 --> 1:24:57.920 every day, not that they used to be that they like, 1:24:58.040 --> 1:25:00.160 they wouldn't do it. And then they realized, well, not 1:25:00.160 --> 1:25:01.679 not only will they do if they'll do it without 1:25:01.680 --> 1:25:04.320 even thinking twice about it. Right, So the thought was 1:25:04.360 --> 1:25:06.840 a Snake river, some of the big rivers there in 1:25:06.840 --> 1:25:10.760 Idaho that wolves wouldn't cross very frequently to get to 1:25:10.800 --> 1:25:17.040 Washington across the Snake River canyon and that stuff. But 1:25:17.439 --> 1:25:20.439 every time you say something you're wrong, the wolves won't 1:25:20.640 --> 1:25:25.160 show up in northern California. Wolves are now in northern California. 1:25:25.520 --> 1:25:31.040 So wolf biologists pretty well even wolf biologists underestimate wolves 1:25:31.080 --> 1:25:34.600 pretty consistently. Is there a feeling in your in your community. 1:25:34.640 --> 1:25:38.400 Is there a feeling that instead of doing all this, 1:25:39.400 --> 1:25:43.160 it just would be that if you just wait, the 1:25:43.240 --> 1:25:46.479 map is going to fill in anyways? Well, I think 1:25:47.320 --> 1:25:50.280 I think that's the case in some places. Yeah, And 1:25:50.320 --> 1:25:53.160 then but not with Mexican wolves, because you're done the 1:25:53.360 --> 1:25:58.080 captive thing. There was none laugh, so you have to 1:25:58.960 --> 1:26:01.680 and then you have petic constraints because they started from 1:26:01.720 --> 1:26:05.559 seven animals. That's all you have. So captive represents that 1:26:05.600 --> 1:26:09.320 genetic diversity that's out there, and so there's some maintenance 1:26:09.320 --> 1:26:11.599 of that genetic diversity that you want to do out 1:26:11.600 --> 1:26:14.880 in the wild and do releases continuing through time. Have 1:26:14.960 --> 1:26:17.599 you guys ever looked at is it necessary to bring 1:26:17.640 --> 1:26:21.320 in even though you'd be like sacrificing the you'd be 1:26:21.360 --> 1:26:25.360 sacrificing the genetic integrity. Do you ever look at bringing 1:26:25.439 --> 1:26:30.479 in a northern gray wolf just to just to be 1:26:30.520 --> 1:26:34.000 like it will get deluded, but it will bring some diversity. 1:26:34.439 --> 1:26:37.439 So the that's one of those debates that goes on 1:26:37.520 --> 1:26:40.880 out there fair bed so like the Florida panther with 1:26:41.000 --> 1:26:44.080 the lions from Texas that came in and help rescue 1:26:44.120 --> 1:26:47.879 the Florida panther. Right now, we don't see the evidence 1:26:47.920 --> 1:26:52.040 where the genetic diversity is restricted, where it's limiting the 1:26:52.080 --> 1:26:54.840 wolves population growth and that kind of stuff. So as 1:26:54.880 --> 1:26:59.559 long as the population dynamics are, okay, you wouldn't you don't, 1:26:59.800 --> 1:27:02.839 you probably wouldn't do that. But they don't. They're they don't. 1:27:02.880 --> 1:27:06.160 They're genes like they're not going through like genetic mutation 1:27:06.400 --> 1:27:09.680 on such a short span of time that they're increasing 1:27:09.720 --> 1:27:14.000 their genetic differentiation like they're they're like, genetic diversity isn't increasing. 1:27:14.520 --> 1:27:16.479 I mean, that's something that happens over tens of thousands 1:27:16.520 --> 1:27:19.320 of years, right right, But the Northern wolf, for instances, 1:27:19.720 --> 1:27:23.240 big hundred and twenty pounds, has black coat and has 1:27:23.280 --> 1:27:25.880 stuff in it that the Mexican wolves don't know. Yeah, 1:27:25.880 --> 1:27:29.240 but I'm saying, but that's the result of enormous amounts 1:27:29.280 --> 1:27:32.680 of time passing saying you don't get like once you 1:27:32.680 --> 1:27:36.080 get down to a population that had seven animals. Even 1:27:36.120 --> 1:27:39.599 if you grow that into three D, you still have 1:27:39.760 --> 1:27:44.040 like you're still feeling that very limited bottleneck of genetic 1:27:44.080 --> 1:27:47.559 diversity that you had when you had seven. Right, right, 1:27:47.640 --> 1:27:51.839 so we have we have frozen zoos, we keep frozen 1:27:51.920 --> 1:27:57.200 sperm and places and so artificial insemination, um, all those 1:27:57.280 --> 1:28:00.759 kind of things are still an impact. And wolves because 1:28:00.800 --> 1:28:04.400 they dispersed so far and travel so widely, genetic diversity 1:28:04.520 --> 1:28:09.080 is high among wolves and wild populations and everything else. 1:28:09.840 --> 1:28:12.920 So they're an animal that so even when you're down 1:28:13.000 --> 1:28:17.080 to seven, it still represents a fair bet of diversity. 1:28:17.200 --> 1:28:20.519 But uh, every year goes every generation that goes by, 1:28:20.600 --> 1:28:24.640 you lose some genetic diversity. So that's just a consistence 1:28:24.720 --> 1:28:27.800 of population size and how much is out there. It's 1:28:27.840 --> 1:28:29.920 just kind of a standard thing. So right now, the 1:28:30.960 --> 1:28:37.200 captive population that we have represents of the genetic diversity 1:28:37.240 --> 1:28:41.599 that was in those seven founding animals. So and then 1:28:41.640 --> 1:28:46.000 our wild population represents a percentage of our captive population. 1:28:46.040 --> 1:28:47.599 So you want to get that as high as possible 1:28:47.640 --> 1:28:50.400 to at least have all the genes that represented out 1:28:50.400 --> 1:28:55.479 there that we can. Is there any chance left? Is 1:28:55.520 --> 1:28:58.479 there any mystery left? Like might at all of a sudden, 1:28:58.479 --> 1:29:03.280 be that someone in Mexico. Oh, it's gonna be like, hey, 1:29:03.520 --> 1:29:07.759 we found a couple we didn't know about. Yeah, there's 1:29:08.760 --> 1:29:11.760 we've had um. There was one that was in a zoo. 1:29:12.240 --> 1:29:15.679 It ended up being having a large part of dogs 1:29:15.720 --> 1:29:18.280 in it, so they would add us it looked enough 1:29:18.400 --> 1:29:21.560 from the Mexico colleagues, and we had it tested genetically. 1:29:22.640 --> 1:29:24.800 I was referring more in the wild. Yeah, they brought 1:29:24.800 --> 1:29:26.479 it in from the wild, though, they captured it in 1:29:26.520 --> 1:29:29.479 the wild and brought it and held it, held some 1:29:29.600 --> 1:29:32.519 dogs and tangled up with some dogs. Yeah. And so 1:29:32.680 --> 1:29:34.720 most of the ones that are left, because it's such 1:29:34.760 --> 1:29:38.120 a remnant population, I would guess you'd get into them 1:29:38.120 --> 1:29:40.800 and they'd have some dogs in them. Even if you 1:29:40.920 --> 1:29:45.320 found a pocket isolated somewhere that was but there's always 1:29:45.320 --> 1:29:49.840 that possibility, and in Mexico that there might be something 1:29:49.920 --> 1:29:53.559 down south and Durango or you know, some different places. 1:29:53.640 --> 1:29:56.920 But the best thing it find another wolves is wolves. 1:29:57.600 --> 1:30:00.759 So when you're doing a release, there's people who believe 1:30:00.760 --> 1:30:03.200 there'll be wolves. There are still wolves left out here. 1:30:03.240 --> 1:30:05.280 They would pop out of the woodwork. Yeah, but you 1:30:05.320 --> 1:30:07.160 release the wolves out there and you don't find any 1:30:07.200 --> 1:30:10.160 other wolves, and so there's nothing that doesn't track back 1:30:10.200 --> 1:30:13.960 to our wolves. So you know, there wasn't wild wolves 1:30:13.960 --> 1:30:17.160 that were out there in this junk of country here 1:30:17.160 --> 1:30:20.479 in the New Mexico and Arizona. And so they're doing 1:30:20.479 --> 1:30:24.160 a release now in Mexico, uh, since two thousand eleven. 1:30:24.280 --> 1:30:27.480 So as these wolves dispersed out and go to different places, 1:30:29.040 --> 1:30:31.439 if they find other wolves, and you say, yeah, well 1:30:32.080 --> 1:30:37.400 there's probably other wolves, but they'll find them. How many uh, 1:30:37.640 --> 1:30:43.360 how many are guys poaching every year? Oh, that's a 1:30:43.400 --> 1:30:48.360 hard question, but I mean ten that we document, but 1:30:48.400 --> 1:30:51.680 there's other ones that are undocumented. They get shot and 1:30:51.760 --> 1:30:53.840 so some of them are So people are shooting ten 1:30:53.880 --> 1:30:57.640 percent of the population every year. Yeah, I would say 1:30:57.800 --> 1:31:00.680 in that in that range tend to t percent in 1:31:00.720 --> 1:31:03.559 a given year. What And I know we're getting into 1:31:03.560 --> 1:31:06.040 things that are hard to quantify. What percent or case 1:31:06.120 --> 1:31:08.400 is a mistake and identity and what percenter? Like dudes 1:31:08.439 --> 1:31:12.040 that are pissed, Uh boy, I think a lot of 1:31:12.080 --> 1:31:15.679 them are mistaken identity. Personally, I think you're down here 1:31:15.800 --> 1:31:18.960 and they're shooting kyote. Yeah. I mean we've solved some 1:31:19.040 --> 1:31:21.120 cases where people say that and they think it's a 1:31:21.200 --> 1:31:24.040 coyote that they shot and turned themselves in. And I 1:31:24.080 --> 1:31:26.280 always tell people, as long as you're honest with me, 1:31:26.880 --> 1:31:30.599 you'll get it. It's like if you shoot, you're out there, 1:31:30.600 --> 1:31:32.599 you're hunting, and you shoot a cow because you thought 1:31:32.600 --> 1:31:34.680 it you have a bull tag and you thought I 1:31:34.760 --> 1:31:37.479 had antlers that were massive there and it turned out 1:31:37.479 --> 1:31:40.360 it was a tree or whatever. You know, you won't 1:31:40.400 --> 1:31:42.479 get a ticket for that. But as long as you're 1:31:42.520 --> 1:31:44.719 honest about it and turn yourself in, then you get 1:31:45.160 --> 1:31:48.360 less of a fine than you would if you tried 1:31:48.400 --> 1:31:50.680 to hide it. By Yeah, I've never heard anything to 1:31:50.720 --> 1:31:53.320 contradict that from any game word I've ever spoken where 1:31:53.320 --> 1:31:56.200 they put a high premium on the guy that comes 1:31:56.200 --> 1:31:59.719 and says, hey man that I mess up and taken 1:32:00.000 --> 1:32:03.439 where you were having. Yeah. So if it's an honest mistake, 1:32:03.520 --> 1:32:07.240 I expect people to be honest about it, and so 1:32:07.360 --> 1:32:11.000 if it's nefarious, then I expect them to be secretive 1:32:11.040 --> 1:32:15.320 about it. So so some number of are are do 1:32:15.320 --> 1:32:18.640 you ever get people that are poaching them because they 1:32:18.720 --> 1:32:22.560 want them the hides or they usually poach them just 1:32:22.560 --> 1:32:25.960 because they want them dead. Everybody always does. Nobody wants 1:32:25.960 --> 1:32:29.400 the hides. So they're they're poaching them because because they're 1:32:29.960 --> 1:32:32.920 well the ones that are that are killing them nefariously. Yeah, 1:32:33.000 --> 1:32:36.680 they're just they're killing them. And then how do you guys? Uh? 1:32:36.840 --> 1:32:39.479 When I say you guys, has anyone ever who prosecutes it? 1:32:40.120 --> 1:32:43.280 So it's a fish and wildlife fed Yeah, and then 1:32:43.280 --> 1:32:46.920 it goes uh they make the case our special agents too, 1:32:47.160 --> 1:32:49.519 so they do all the investigation and stuff like that 1:32:50.240 --> 1:32:53.799 with assistance from states sometimes in the whole wide network 1:32:53.880 --> 1:32:57.600 for service law enforcement. Everybody's involved in that. They have 1:32:57.680 --> 1:33:01.599 a network. But then it goes to district attorneys and 1:33:01.920 --> 1:33:06.759 federal kind of cases on have you even been prosecuted, Yeah, 1:33:06.840 --> 1:33:10.960 there's been a couple here or there, they've been prosecuted. 1:33:11.000 --> 1:33:12.960 I mean there they come down on them hard or 1:33:12.960 --> 1:33:16.719 know well they can, but I don't think it depends 1:33:16.720 --> 1:33:19.160 on the circumstances. So in the one case that I'm 1:33:19.200 --> 1:33:21.400 aware of, I think they came down pretty arc as 1:33:21.439 --> 1:33:24.920 a person uh picked up the carcass and moved it 1:33:24.960 --> 1:33:28.320 from Arizona to New Mexico and so at that stage 1:33:28.320 --> 1:33:31.719 that's a Lacey Act violation because you crossed state lines 1:33:31.800 --> 1:33:35.320 as well, which is a felony, and so why do 1:33:35.360 --> 1:33:38.320 you move it just trying to hide evidence? You know 1:33:38.360 --> 1:33:40.639 it doesn't want it where it laid down and moved 1:33:40.680 --> 1:33:42.920 it away. And so I think that person that came 1:33:42.960 --> 1:33:45.240 down it was early on and I think he got 1:33:45.280 --> 1:33:49.360 a little bit of jail time associated with that. Other 1:33:49.439 --> 1:33:54.160 people that are really honest about it and call and say, hey, look, 1:33:55.200 --> 1:33:59.040 I thought it was a coyote. I shot it. Here's evidence. 1:33:59.160 --> 1:34:04.439 Here's the thing they you know, small civil Fine, so 1:34:04.920 --> 1:34:10.760 it's a range is all that level. Um, but we'll 1:34:10.760 --> 1:34:13.519 see how it goes on that stuff. Law enforcement is 1:34:13.560 --> 1:34:17.400 pretty you know how they say, uh, you have a case, 1:34:18.040 --> 1:34:20.160 any case. They don't like to talk about it too 1:34:20.240 --> 1:34:23.720 much until it's long past. Yeah, I got you. Ye. 1:34:24.880 --> 1:34:30.080 So do you think, um, like you know, if you 1:34:30.120 --> 1:34:35.759 guys look at this as like sociologists, do you think that, uh, 1:34:35.960 --> 1:34:38.360 there's a way in in the future that it might 1:34:38.400 --> 1:34:41.240 be a conversation where someone saying, hey, do you remember 1:34:41.280 --> 1:34:45.599 when everyone was all piste off about these wolves? Now? Ah, 1:34:45.600 --> 1:34:48.519 that was stupid because look they're here and everybody's so happy. Now, 1:34:49.320 --> 1:34:57.080 how's that working out? In Montana? For that hasn't happened there, 1:34:58.360 --> 1:35:03.240 But the blood still drying in Montana. Man, I don't. 1:35:03.360 --> 1:35:07.280 I think people will normalize it eventually, but it's a 1:35:07.320 --> 1:35:09.759 long ways down the road, and it's different from areas 1:35:09.800 --> 1:35:13.080 where they came down naturally. In areas where you do 1:35:13.160 --> 1:35:16.559 a reintroduction, because it's the government, it's kind of the 1:35:16.600 --> 1:35:20.200 government going against your values. So back when we were 1:35:20.200 --> 1:35:23.320 shooting all the wolves, I think there's probably people who 1:35:23.360 --> 1:35:27.160 are going, I don't agree with that this is wrong 1:35:27.280 --> 1:35:31.320 or whatever. They're absolutely yeah, all theough Leopold and various 1:35:31.320 --> 1:35:34.960 other things. And so the government is doing a program 1:35:35.000 --> 1:35:38.760 that's not favoring your personal beliefs, and so it's no 1:35:38.880 --> 1:35:42.559 different with reinroduction. In this case. There's people who are 1:35:42.560 --> 1:35:46.599 out there ranchers, hunters, There's people who this doesn't match 1:35:46.680 --> 1:35:49.920 with what their core beliefs are in terms of things, 1:35:49.920 --> 1:35:52.439 and it impacts them. So yeah, but I think that 1:35:52.800 --> 1:36:00.960 like nationally, um, nationally, the reintroductions have pretty enormous support, 1:36:01.800 --> 1:36:04.920 particularly among people who aren't affected by this. Well, you know, 1:36:04.960 --> 1:36:07.679 I think I've I've observed like in the areas where 1:36:07.760 --> 1:36:09.920 we've had the recovery effort going on for quite a while, 1:36:09.920 --> 1:36:13.519 there's more of acceptance there. People are understanding that, Okay, 1:36:13.520 --> 1:36:15.679 this is something we're gonna have to live with, so 1:36:16.400 --> 1:36:19.680 let's just start working together a little bit better. The 1:36:19.760 --> 1:36:22.639 challenges also comes where we start looking at new areas 1:36:22.680 --> 1:36:26.280 to expand, because then we start that whole process over 1:36:26.400 --> 1:36:29.559 of people getting used to wolves in new areas, and 1:36:29.600 --> 1:36:33.639 then that's gets tough again. So you have to build 1:36:33.680 --> 1:36:36.120 those relationships again in the whole new area and start 1:36:36.160 --> 1:36:42.520 building trust. But it turns it takes time. Do you personally, um, 1:36:42.640 --> 1:36:45.000 do you have to do you personally going and deal 1:36:45.040 --> 1:36:47.960 with people who are having a problem with wolves? Well, yeah, 1:36:48.040 --> 1:36:51.479 that's one of the things the program does is as 1:36:51.520 --> 1:36:54.960 the forest Service representative, I do a lot of communication 1:36:55.000 --> 1:36:57.439 with the permitees to try to help resolve the issues. 1:36:57.479 --> 1:37:00.320 But people have grazing permits, Yeah, grazing perm it's but 1:37:01.280 --> 1:37:03.719 the biologist on the ground from the Fish and Wildlife 1:37:03.720 --> 1:37:06.439 Service in the Arizona Gameing Fish do also quite a 1:37:06.439 --> 1:37:09.880 bit of contact with the permites and actually do the 1:37:09.960 --> 1:37:14.479 work with the wolves to minimize those impacts, and they 1:37:14.520 --> 1:37:17.320 do a pretty good job at trying to resolve those issues. 1:37:17.920 --> 1:37:20.000 What what's the process like when when a guy gets 1:37:20.000 --> 1:37:24.640 it he's got a cow gets killed. Um, what's his process, like, Like, 1:37:24.680 --> 1:37:27.880 what's he gotta do? So he calls us, calls us up, 1:37:28.479 --> 1:37:33.240 either US or Wildlife Services which is another agency under 1:37:33.280 --> 1:37:37.400 the Department of Agriculture as well, Um, and they get 1:37:37.439 --> 1:37:40.280 an investigation on it. So you skin it out and 1:37:40.320 --> 1:37:43.320 so what you're looking for underneath the hide is bruising. 1:37:43.880 --> 1:37:47.120 So when a wolf bites, it bruises underneath the hide, 1:37:47.160 --> 1:37:50.639 so it's like subcutaneous hemorrhagee. So it's the same as 1:37:50.680 --> 1:37:54.360 you or I. And then you're looking for attacks in 1:37:55.320 --> 1:37:57.880 the hind quarters and the armpad areas. That's kind of 1:37:57.960 --> 1:38:02.240 prototypical of wolves will tracks in the area. And then 1:38:02.240 --> 1:38:07.120 it gets confirmed and they send that in and get compensation. 1:38:07.479 --> 1:38:11.000 So they send in the confirmation from Wildlife Services and 1:38:11.040 --> 1:38:14.320 then they send that in. But and then and then 1:38:14.439 --> 1:38:17.240 then their conversation is some kind of fair market value 1:38:17.240 --> 1:38:20.240 for the animal. Yeah, it's set by right now. We 1:38:20.360 --> 1:38:25.720 have a Mexican Wolf Livestock Council that's working on on 1:38:25.880 --> 1:38:30.160 that and it's composed of ranchers and if you conservationists 1:38:30.560 --> 1:38:33.840 and so yeah, they do. They based it on the 1:38:33.840 --> 1:38:36.240 market value at the time, an average for the area. 1:38:36.640 --> 1:38:39.719 They also do a pay for a presence thing, which 1:38:39.800 --> 1:38:43.639 is um, when you're out in these big allotments, ranchers 1:38:43.680 --> 1:38:46.719 can't possibly find all the dead cows that happened from anything. 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:49.000 Oh yeah, that's what I was going to bring up, 1:38:49.120 --> 1:38:51.479 is that's the thing you here is they don't know 1:38:51.600 --> 1:38:53.840 they round them up and they got less than they had, 1:38:54.560 --> 1:38:56.960 and they can't go and find skeletal remains and make 1:38:57.000 --> 1:38:59.880 a claim on it, right right. So that's that's a 1:39:00.120 --> 1:39:03.759 hard things. So there is actually financial impacts two ranchers, 1:39:03.840 --> 1:39:09.280 real financial impacts and so um. So there's this pay 1:39:09.360 --> 1:39:12.160 for presence a thing which is based on a formula 1:39:12.200 --> 1:39:14.519 based on wolves being there and how many cows you have, 1:39:15.120 --> 1:39:17.719 and so that that's also part of the Mexican wolf 1:39:17.760 --> 1:39:25.480 live stock payouts. And then there that you're compensating someone 1:39:26.000 --> 1:39:29.200 without them needing to go and prove specific cases they 1:39:29.280 --> 1:39:33.839 lost animals, right right, so they Yeah, it's just based 1:39:33.840 --> 1:39:36.680 on wolves and pups, how many pups are raised with 1:39:36.720 --> 1:39:39.200 the wolves, so things that are good for recovery, and 1:39:39.240 --> 1:39:41.760 then how many livestock they have in an area, and 1:39:41.760 --> 1:39:45.600 then whether or not they implemented proactive things. So that 1:39:45.720 --> 1:39:49.400 stuff like proactive is like range writers being out there, 1:39:49.439 --> 1:39:53.400 extra range writers looking for dads, are moving cows away 1:39:53.439 --> 1:39:56.639 from wolves or different things that you can implement out 1:39:56.640 --> 1:39:59.120 there on the ground to try to avoid predation as well. 1:39:59.680 --> 1:40:03.519 And those things aren't of they aren't the golden they 1:40:03.560 --> 1:40:08.439 aren't the silver bullet, right, So there's still depredations that 1:40:08.520 --> 1:40:11.840 can occur despite those things happening out there, and some 1:40:11.920 --> 1:40:15.040 of them aren't found. How many individual animal payments get 1:40:15.040 --> 1:40:18.679 paid out in a typical year, Uh, it's pretty consistent 1:40:18.760 --> 1:40:21.599 that you know the number that are depredated to get 1:40:21.640 --> 1:40:24.759 paid out most years, So I I not most people 1:40:24.800 --> 1:40:28.000 put in for the twenty to fifty animals that are 1:40:28.120 --> 1:40:31.920 killed in terms of the livestock loss. And then there's 1:40:31.960 --> 1:40:35.400 some components that are missing and you never find. And 1:40:35.439 --> 1:40:39.000 now there are cases where um, I'm sure, I mean 1:40:39.040 --> 1:40:43.519 like isolated. Was it a common problem where you're not 1:40:43.560 --> 1:40:47.560 able to come to consensus that the livestock owner and 1:40:47.640 --> 1:40:51.880 the investigator aren't able to get down the same page 1:40:51.920 --> 1:40:55.759 about the cause of death. Yeah, some of that happens 1:40:55.760 --> 1:40:59.680 with the investigator, but the investigators trained been through a 1:40:59.680 --> 1:41:03.720 lot of different ones and and so that's why they're professionals. 1:41:03.760 --> 1:41:06.200 And what they do, and so that's where we go 1:41:06.320 --> 1:41:09.559 with is what the investigator does and it makes a 1:41:09.640 --> 1:41:15.200 call in the end. So um, so that's kind of 1:41:15.240 --> 1:41:17.920 the way it goes out there. There was one permittee 1:41:17.920 --> 1:41:21.080 a long time ago who decided that he didn't want 1:41:21.120 --> 1:41:24.200 to have Wildlife Services out there, who works on him 1:41:24.200 --> 1:41:27.360 with you know, coyote control all this kind of stuff, 1:41:27.360 --> 1:41:30.640 works with the ranchers, and decided instead to have the 1:41:30.640 --> 1:41:34.040 Fish and Wildlife Service out there doing its investigations. And 1:41:34.040 --> 1:41:36.920 what I would tell them all the time is like, look, 1:41:37.080 --> 1:41:41.599 this is this would be the same exact call. Wildlife 1:41:41.640 --> 1:41:43.920 Services would make the same call that I'm making here. 1:41:44.360 --> 1:41:47.680 Wildlife Services would make the same call. There's no differences. 1:41:47.800 --> 1:41:50.320 So over and over and eventually he went back to 1:41:50.439 --> 1:41:55.120 Wildlife Services doing it. And so I that the evidence 1:41:55.200 --> 1:41:57.720 is evidence. Do you do do you make? Do you 1:41:57.720 --> 1:42:00.479 go on a lot of those calls? I do on some, 1:42:01.200 --> 1:42:05.440 but and I've been out there trapping for with for removals, 1:42:05.479 --> 1:42:08.840 with depredations and stuff like that with wolves that are 1:42:08.880 --> 1:42:12.920 out there, and so yeah, when there's big problems, then 1:42:12.960 --> 1:42:18.400 I get hauled out of my office. Occasionally I get 1:42:18.479 --> 1:42:20.040 I get to go out in the field when it's 1:42:20.160 --> 1:42:26.160 not fun like one, there is conflict. Yeah, So I 1:42:26.200 --> 1:42:28.120 don't get the sense that you haven't, that you're like 1:42:28.160 --> 1:42:30.400 losing a ton of sleep at night about this whole thing. 1:42:31.520 --> 1:42:34.000 It's it's funny. I've had people come up to me 1:42:34.040 --> 1:42:37.479 and say, you're such a nice young man, John, Why 1:42:37.520 --> 1:42:40.400 did you choose to do this? Why did you doing 1:42:40.439 --> 1:42:44.040 something productive with your life? And so you know, and 1:42:44.040 --> 1:42:48.080 and how can you sleep at night? And I think 1:42:48.200 --> 1:42:51.360 what I try to do out there is relate with people. 1:42:51.960 --> 1:42:55.240 So I relate with the livestock producers out there fairly well. 1:42:55.600 --> 1:42:59.440 I have a lot of common out common values, uh 1:42:59.680 --> 1:43:03.200 land being out open land that they provide out there, 1:43:03.320 --> 1:43:06.360 the waters that are out there and maintained by them, 1:43:06.400 --> 1:43:09.240 that's good for hunting and and fishing. So all those 1:43:09.240 --> 1:43:13.400 common values are there. Now I'm choosing a lifestyle where 1:43:13.439 --> 1:43:16.000 you don't make a lot of money, but you enjoy 1:43:16.080 --> 1:43:19.400 being outside. So there's a lot of commonalities that are 1:43:19.439 --> 1:43:23.120 all over the place, and so you try to establish 1:43:23.120 --> 1:43:25.680 those commonalities with those guys. Aren't like, I know how 1:43:25.720 --> 1:43:29.040 I'll get rich on a candle in the day, right, 1:43:29.080 --> 1:43:31.800 There's no, that's not They do it because it's their 1:43:31.840 --> 1:43:34.519 family thing, and they love it and they love the 1:43:34.600 --> 1:43:37.519 land that they're on. So that's that's why they're they're 1:43:37.520 --> 1:43:40.479 in the business, most of them, yea. And you find 1:43:40.520 --> 1:43:43.640 common grown on that sure. And so the point is 1:43:44.120 --> 1:43:47.360 it's like if someone else is here who doesn't have 1:43:47.400 --> 1:43:51.160 those same values, are those same kind of working together goals, 1:43:51.880 --> 1:43:54.639 then it doesn't work out as well. So I think 1:43:54.640 --> 1:43:57.880 both can be there. Livestock can be on the landscape 1:43:57.880 --> 1:44:02.080 and a multiple use hunters. I'll still hunt. Wolves aren't 1:44:02.080 --> 1:44:05.920 gonna drive me out of hunting, and so U and 1:44:06.040 --> 1:44:09.360 wolves as well. There's there's enough room for all of 1:44:09.400 --> 1:44:12.720 it to be there out on the landscape. Would I 1:44:12.760 --> 1:44:15.280 guess probably not. But let's say let's say all of 1:44:15.320 --> 1:44:22.200 a sudden whatever have delisting occurred. Um, you'd probably never 1:44:22.200 --> 1:44:23.719 be like, hey, I'm gonna go on a wolf hunt. 1:44:25.040 --> 1:44:28.360 I probably wouldn't. I haven't hunted bears. I've been tangled 1:44:28.439 --> 1:44:30.400 up with wolves. Yeah, you've already caught a whole bunch 1:44:30.400 --> 1:44:33.760 of them. I haven't hunted bears or lions either, And 1:44:33.800 --> 1:44:35.880 that's just the person. I have nothing wrong with it. 1:44:36.160 --> 1:44:39.519 I have zero and zero problems with any hunting. But 1:44:39.520 --> 1:44:41.760 when you map out your year, you're like thinking about 1:44:41.800 --> 1:44:46.599 elk elk dear. Yeah, just I was kind of. It's 1:44:46.640 --> 1:44:49.880 just what I like to hunt turkeys. I really like 1:44:50.000 --> 1:44:53.439 calling things too. I like that interaction getting in close 1:44:53.520 --> 1:44:58.639 with things. So wolves too, hauling up bulls. Like if 1:44:58.680 --> 1:45:00.839 you go out and you're looking for a pack of wolves, 1:45:01.360 --> 1:45:03.400 Like early on, I remember looking for a pack of 1:45:03.439 --> 1:45:06.920 wolves in Montana and I got the tip from this 1:45:07.080 --> 1:45:10.080 ferrier guy shooting another guy's horses. He says, if you 1:45:10.120 --> 1:45:12.840 want to find wolves, you should go over here. So 1:45:12.920 --> 1:45:14.880 I go over there and I'm driving along and doing 1:45:15.040 --> 1:45:18.680 just howling at night, and then they all want to 1:45:18.680 --> 1:45:21.120 do how just straight out? Yeah? Can you let one 1:45:21.200 --> 1:45:25.120 rip right now? You don't want to as long as 1:45:25.120 --> 1:45:31.960 you do it right after me. No, I bet you 1:45:32.040 --> 1:45:41.479 got a good one. So but you need the moon 1:45:41.600 --> 1:45:43.280 up in the sky and you need to tip your 1:45:43.280 --> 1:45:47.400 head back right. That'll do it right there. Uh yeah, 1:45:47.479 --> 1:45:50.720 something like what's that? What's that call? Saying I don't 1:45:50.720 --> 1:45:53.559 know they had into that. They haven't told me anything. 1:45:53.960 --> 1:45:55.840 I got a buddy that he thinks like I got 1:45:55.840 --> 1:46:00.160 a buddy that when he's doing wolf calling, he's it's 1:46:00.200 --> 1:46:03.040 like he's like, oh, yeah, I'm saying this, and he's 1:46:03.080 --> 1:46:06.320 saying that he's I'm answering him back this question. Do 1:46:06.360 --> 1:46:10.320 you think he's right? I don't know. I don't know either. 1:46:11.360 --> 1:46:13.559 So you don't have like you're not like I'm gonna 1:46:13.560 --> 1:46:16.040 throw the old roundup call at him. Well, no, I 1:46:16.080 --> 1:46:19.479 don't have non challenge caller. I just try to like 1:46:19.560 --> 1:46:21.800 hell to get him to respond, and I'm thankful when 1:46:21.840 --> 1:46:25.160 they do. So you haven't found like you're not. You 1:46:25.160 --> 1:46:28.120 haven't found that there's different. Well, I'm doing a break. 1:46:28.160 --> 1:46:31.240 How so when you hear my voice break from hill, 1:46:31.479 --> 1:46:34.240 that's a kind of a break how that? So would 1:46:34.280 --> 1:46:40.160 that be called like a locator call? Calls that? Right? Yeah, 1:46:40.240 --> 1:46:42.320 I mean wolves are always looking for other wolves, so 1:46:42.360 --> 1:46:46.840 they're always it's just a just a hell you can 1:46:46.840 --> 1:46:51.200 do a flat how and you just you don't really 1:46:51.200 --> 1:46:53.680 do that break kind of in your if you can 1:46:53.720 --> 1:46:55.559 avoid it. I can't. But you don't feel that that 1:46:55.600 --> 1:47:00.479 sends a different message. I don't know. They just they 1:47:00.520 --> 1:47:02.840 just they respond. Well, So if you get them at 1:47:02.840 --> 1:47:05.320 the right time of year, pups love to talk. So 1:47:05.360 --> 1:47:08.040 if you get them in about August September time frame, 1:47:08.560 --> 1:47:11.120 the pups will all start yakking, and the adults will 1:47:11.479 --> 1:47:15.639 break in and you get although wolves howling out there, 1:47:16.000 --> 1:47:18.439 but anyways, just howling along in a new area and 1:47:18.439 --> 1:47:21.320 you get that response and you say, oh god, I 1:47:21.400 --> 1:47:26.240 just found a pack of wolves that's oncollared unmarked. Um, 1:47:26.400 --> 1:47:30.200 that's pretty cool. Yeah, you like the uncollared ones better. 1:47:30.280 --> 1:47:32.880 You like the wild ones. Oh yeah, that's that's near 1:47:32.920 --> 1:47:35.840 because that's a collar group. You go, bee bee beep 1:47:35.960 --> 1:47:38.960 on there it is, and now I'm gonna howl and 1:47:39.439 --> 1:47:42.960 sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't, and I'm piste 1:47:42.960 --> 1:47:45.880 off when they don't, and I'm kind of like, well 1:47:45.920 --> 1:47:50.000 I did what I should have got done if they do. Yeah, 1:47:50.120 --> 1:47:55.200 So yeah, I mean I like the real wild ones Alaska. Yeah, 1:47:55.200 --> 1:47:56.760 I just I mean not that I'm down on the 1:47:56.760 --> 1:48:01.719 other ones, but want something, um, and it's important work. 1:48:01.960 --> 1:48:06.320 But once something gets caught, something and it changes. Man. 1:48:07.600 --> 1:48:09.720 You know. But I was pointing out one day and 1:48:09.760 --> 1:48:11.439 I was like, but then like, it's sweet when you 1:48:11.479 --> 1:48:13.280 catch when you shoot a bird, it's got a band 1:48:13.360 --> 1:48:21.600 on it, right, So it's it's like very inconsistent. Uh uh. 1:48:21.640 --> 1:48:24.080 They're all interesting. I mean catching them is interesting. You 1:48:24.120 --> 1:48:26.519 walk up to them, handle them, with nothing but a 1:48:26.640 --> 1:48:29.280 y stick, you know, so you're just kind of why 1:48:29.360 --> 1:48:31.519 stick them down and then you hand inject the drugs. 1:48:33.280 --> 1:48:36.439 I wouldn't do that with the lion Darta lion darta 1:48:36.520 --> 1:48:40.920 bear grizzly bears back in the day when I was 1:48:41.000 --> 1:48:44.840 handling them. You can why stick one of those things? Right? 1:48:44.880 --> 1:48:47.719 You have to make sure you're out of the path 1:48:47.800 --> 1:48:51.639 of the snare where it's destroyed around the tree. And so, 1:48:52.320 --> 1:48:54.480 I mean wolves are, but some of them are aggressive. 1:48:54.600 --> 1:48:57.120 Some of them will bark and howl and growl at 1:48:57.160 --> 1:49:01.840 you until you get them pinned down. Mainly the alpha's so, 1:49:02.400 --> 1:49:05.800 but it's it's tricking a getting them draft is hard. 1:49:06.120 --> 1:49:08.680 So every time I trap them, I handle them with 1:49:08.720 --> 1:49:12.120 a lot of respect and then uh, because it's I 1:49:12.360 --> 1:49:15.439 it's my responsibility at that stage, and I'm happy with 1:49:15.479 --> 1:49:18.479 myself because it's hard. Yeah, you can't be out killing 1:49:18.520 --> 1:49:24.240 them on accident nine. So wildlife work in general, you 1:49:24.360 --> 1:49:29.320 have some mortality that occurs with handling animals. That's a reality, 1:49:29.760 --> 1:49:31.840 so you don't you want to minimize that to an 1:49:31.840 --> 1:49:38.439 absolute smallest amount possible. So we take training every year 1:49:38.520 --> 1:49:43.440 with vets. Let go through stuff and try to minimize 1:49:43.439 --> 1:49:47.280 that to the greatest degree possible. So I can only 1:49:47.320 --> 1:49:51.519 think of a few instances where we've killed bowlves out there. Yeah, 1:49:51.840 --> 1:49:54.880 I'm sure to some degree inevitable that once you handle 1:49:54.880 --> 1:49:57.400 a certain number of them, Yeah, you get enough, you 1:49:57.920 --> 1:50:02.000 have it and so um big horn, cheap captures. Some 1:50:02.120 --> 1:50:05.960 will die from that and so all the captures. That's 1:50:06.000 --> 1:50:09.080 a part of it. So you have to evaluate whether 1:50:09.680 --> 1:50:12.760 your goals of your project and whether your goals of 1:50:12.840 --> 1:50:17.360 handling that animal is worth taking that risk. And so 1:50:17.439 --> 1:50:20.240 that's that's always what you do out there with with 1:50:20.280 --> 1:50:23.840 these kind of projects. It's not just cool you just 1:50:23.880 --> 1:50:27.240 go catch one to see, just have some fun catching them, 1:50:27.439 --> 1:50:32.320 right right, there's a purpose behind everything. So al right, 1:50:32.479 --> 1:50:35.559 be honest, that was great. That was fantastic. Oh, I 1:50:35.600 --> 1:50:38.719 did find the number of New Mexico hunters killed last 1:50:38.760 --> 1:50:43.200 year fourteen and a half thousand, and wolves are and 1:50:43.200 --> 1:50:45.000 and know it's different because they're in New Mexico and 1:50:45.040 --> 1:50:47.320 Arizona and all that, but wolves kill how many in 1:50:47.360 --> 1:50:50.080 the in the chunk land they got right now? I 1:50:50.120 --> 1:50:53.200 think we put the estimate around sixteen twelve to six 1:50:53.479 --> 1:50:57.200 hunter So basically in order what percent of New Mexico 1:50:57.320 --> 1:51:00.960 is the wolf recovery area. Percent of the carry I 1:51:01.000 --> 1:51:04.000 don't know. There's a lot of elk up north um 1:51:04.040 --> 1:51:12.960 in New Mexico, so maybe the elk population probably is 1:51:13.000 --> 1:51:18.120 in wolf country. So you fellas that hun elk you Yeah, 1:51:18.439 --> 1:51:22.800 you are right, what's that there's some elk to get one. 1:51:23.120 --> 1:51:27.200 It's true. It is a tradeoff you're dealing with. Yeah, 1:51:27.240 --> 1:51:30.400 you're dealing with some elk that would wind up in 1:51:30.439 --> 1:51:37.320 your freezer, will wind up in the belly of a wolf. Right, 1:51:37.320 --> 1:51:43.639 it's competition. Right. But on the other hand, uh, do 1:51:43.920 --> 1:51:49.160 we have the right to dust off species off the 1:51:49.240 --> 1:51:55.000 face of the earth forever? That's a theological It's like 1:51:55.840 --> 1:52:00.760 it's a spiritual almost theological question. You get to say, 1:52:00.840 --> 1:52:04.639 now that one doesn't get to live anymore, it will 1:52:04.680 --> 1:52:11.760 be gone for eternity because it inconveniences me. Um and 1:52:11.760 --> 1:52:13.479 and I don't know, when you're out there hunting, you're 1:52:13.479 --> 1:52:16.479 in grizzly bear country, or you hear wolves, holland or 1:52:16.520 --> 1:52:19.160 any of that stuff. To me, it's just it makes 1:52:19.160 --> 1:52:22.840 it a little more interesting. Yeah, everybody. That's the thing. 1:52:22.920 --> 1:52:25.479 That's one of the weird things about it is people 1:52:26.640 --> 1:52:30.439 um when talking about wolves. People in the naturally are 1:52:30.479 --> 1:52:33.400 like it gets their hackles up because of they don't 1:52:33.400 --> 1:52:37.760 want to see their deer and elk resources diminished, and 1:52:37.760 --> 1:52:44.080 they're hard on moose in the north too, seriously hard. So, um, 1:52:44.240 --> 1:52:47.000 you don't want to see it diminished. But then there's 1:52:47.080 --> 1:52:50.280 you're almost not a human if there's some party that 1:52:50.320 --> 1:52:53.600 doesn't get a little tickled when you hear one of 1:52:53.600 --> 1:52:57.240 those things rip out of how sure? And some people, 1:52:57.280 --> 1:53:00.360 I mean ranchers, like they're out there there are a 1:53:00.360 --> 1:53:05.000 lot how means I could possibly having an impact on 1:53:05.080 --> 1:53:09.280 my wallet? Yeah, right tonight? And some of their answers 1:53:09.320 --> 1:53:12.840 get you know, at first I hated that sound, but 1:53:12.920 --> 1:53:15.800 then I was like, man, that's amazing. That's a neat 1:53:15.880 --> 1:53:19.360 sound to hear. So I gotta give him. I gotta 1:53:19.360 --> 1:53:22.680 give him that much, you know. And so I think, yeah, 1:53:22.760 --> 1:53:24.760 I think the real key and this is easy to say, 1:53:24.760 --> 1:53:27.080 it very hard to do, but I think, like kind 1:53:27.080 --> 1:53:31.280 of the key from from my conversations and my exposure 1:53:31.320 --> 1:53:33.960 to a wide variety of people across the wide variety 1:53:33.960 --> 1:53:40.519 of landscapes, is that, um, a lot of people who 1:53:40.560 --> 1:53:45.599 are upset about projects like this, they're kind of what 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:49.120 they're afraid of is being told half the story or 1:53:49.400 --> 1:53:54.000 to have the story change later. And I think that 1:53:54.040 --> 1:53:57.360 if there was um not that there's a lack of transparity, 1:53:57.360 --> 1:54:00.800 but there's it's difficult to project how these projects are 1:54:00.800 --> 1:54:03.880 gonna go and then what the legal processes are gonna 1:54:03.920 --> 1:54:06.960 be like down the road, and it leaves people feeling 1:54:07.120 --> 1:54:10.559 burned when someone told him recovery will look like this, 1:54:11.400 --> 1:54:14.599 but then it doesn't. And then it doesn't and you're 1:54:14.640 --> 1:54:17.760 like waiting for some kind of relief from maybe some 1:54:17.840 --> 1:54:21.240 of the sacrifices you're making, and the relief doesn't come, 1:54:21.280 --> 1:54:24.559 and it leads people with the real bad tasting their mouth. 1:54:24.600 --> 1:54:27.360 And what I hate to see is anyone who's old 1:54:27.400 --> 1:54:31.840 enough to remember like the spotted owl situation the Pacific Northwest, 1:54:31.840 --> 1:54:36.520 where an animal loses its like essence and just becomes 1:54:36.560 --> 1:54:44.160 a symbol for conflict. You know, It's like someday people 1:54:44.160 --> 1:54:46.080 will be able to hear spot of the owl again 1:54:46.160 --> 1:54:50.600 and visualize a burden. But for many people, when you 1:54:50.680 --> 1:54:53.000 hear spot it all, you don't visualize a bird. You 1:54:53.200 --> 1:55:00.960 visualize distrust and conflict and right and it's and I 1:55:01.040 --> 1:55:04.120 hate it when uh and I hate to see like 1:55:04.280 --> 1:55:06.840 other animals that I love a lot. I hate to 1:55:06.840 --> 1:55:14.160 see them become symbols for um uh, symbols for something 1:55:14.240 --> 1:55:16.920 besides just their their essence as a wild animal. But 1:55:17.040 --> 1:55:19.560 wolves have been symbol for something beside their essence of 1:55:19.640 --> 1:55:23.160 a lot more for a long time. You know what, 1:55:23.400 --> 1:55:26.720 it's very hard to find the animal. It's very hard 1:55:26.840 --> 1:55:30.480 for people to find the animal within the animal. Yeah, 1:55:31.600 --> 1:55:36.560 they are just giant walking metaphors. I mean, it's been forever, right, 1:55:36.720 --> 1:55:40.200 Europeans coming over here, the whole thing. Yeah, No, you're right, 1:55:40.280 --> 1:55:43.560 they are. The owl did enjoy owlness about the wolf. 1:55:43.600 --> 1:55:45.760 It's been a long time since the wolf was able 1:55:45.800 --> 1:55:50.200 to enjoy his wolfness. I don't know what the caveman 1:55:50.280 --> 1:55:52.880 we're thinking about. It may go back that far. They 1:55:52.920 --> 1:55:55.560 felt something, they heard that when they heard that howl 1:55:55.680 --> 1:55:58.560 ripping h sitting by the fire, they weren't I bet 1:55:58.560 --> 1:56:02.440 they weren't passive about it. Why fire was invented? You 1:56:02.520 --> 1:56:07.040 need some comfort? Well, I appreciate you guys talking about 1:56:07.080 --> 1:56:11.000 this man. It's like, um, you know, I feel vested 1:56:11.000 --> 1:56:15.520 in it. And also it's just fascinating, right, and it's like, 1:56:16.320 --> 1:56:20.240 what a luxury that we're that that Uh, what a 1:56:20.320 --> 1:56:22.640 luxury that as a nation we're in a position where 1:56:22.640 --> 1:56:26.000 we could be talking about whether or not how many 1:56:26.000 --> 1:56:28.960 wolves we want. Right, there's a lot of nations trying 1:56:28.960 --> 1:56:30.919 to figure out if they're going to be a nation tomorrow, 1:56:31.560 --> 1:56:34.920 you know, and like it's like a real uh, it's 1:56:34.920 --> 1:56:38.440 a luxurious problem man, to be like how much wildlife 1:56:38.440 --> 1:56:42.520 do we want? First world problem? First world problem. And 1:56:42.840 --> 1:56:45.640 when you look at it in Mexico, they're reinducing them 1:56:45.720 --> 1:56:48.880 and so they have problems with they can't access particular 1:56:48.880 --> 1:56:52.520 areas because the drugs, right, they have people that are hungry. 1:56:52.920 --> 1:56:57.600 The wolves are competing with subsistent food right for people. 1:56:57.720 --> 1:57:01.560 So this is it's a bigger issue. The fact that 1:57:01.600 --> 1:57:05.400 they're trying to recover wolves down there too is is 1:57:05.440 --> 1:57:09.880 a fascinating thing. More social issues that are far more important. 1:57:10.160 --> 1:57:12.080 I'm gonna brush up by my Spanish and go talk 1:57:12.120 --> 1:57:16.720 to those boys. And it's all private land down there, right, 1:57:16.800 --> 1:57:21.560 So it's entirely private. You have some national designations on 1:57:21.640 --> 1:57:25.880 top of private lande. So ranchers where they're doing the reroduction, 1:57:25.920 --> 1:57:29.640 they have to get ranches to agree to reinduce wolves 1:57:29.760 --> 1:57:33.280 on their ranch. Those ranches, we me and Yanni have 1:57:33.400 --> 1:57:35.960 been fortunate to spend some time chasing around down there, 1:57:36.000 --> 1:57:41.400 and uh, those ranches are like wilderness area equivalents. Sure, 1:57:41.720 --> 1:57:43.280 there's you be talking to ranch. He's like, well, I 1:57:43.320 --> 1:57:46.880 haven't been over there in three years. I mean, just 1:57:47.600 --> 1:57:50.520 like you spend days up hunting maybe now and then 1:57:50.560 --> 1:57:53.600 you glass up some dude riding the mule, you know, 1:57:53.760 --> 1:57:56.440 off in the distance. But it's some wild country, man, 1:57:57.240 --> 1:58:03.560 it's some real wild country. Carl. You got anything, I've 1:58:03.560 --> 1:58:06.680 got a theme, and it's the theme of one way streets, 1:58:07.160 --> 1:58:11.760 all right. Things that are hard to take back. So 1:58:13.240 --> 1:58:21.920 the notion that, for example, preventing an extinction versus trying 1:58:22.080 --> 1:58:25.240 in the aftermath to respond to an extinction, we've talked 1:58:25.280 --> 1:58:29.879 about a bit um, the notion that this particular species 1:58:29.880 --> 1:58:32.000 and others have been so close to the brink. And 1:58:32.040 --> 1:58:35.680 your point about the the small percentage of species that 1:58:35.720 --> 1:58:38.640 have been listed and then delisted is de listed because 1:58:38.640 --> 1:58:42.400 of recovery, right, Well, your point is well taken. But 1:58:42.600 --> 1:58:46.080 this species, the grizzlies another example, are in far better 1:58:46.200 --> 1:58:49.640 straits now than they were when they popped onto that list. 1:58:49.640 --> 1:58:51.760 And I think it's important to remember this, this piece 1:58:51.760 --> 1:58:57.280 of legislation's only about forty four years old, um, And 1:58:57.400 --> 1:58:59.640 if you contemplate the amount of time it takes for 1:58:59.800 --> 1:59:03.120 a species to evolve and the amount of successful work 1:59:03.360 --> 1:59:06.880 from a conservation perspective that's been achieved during that short 1:59:06.920 --> 1:59:10.640 period of time, there's a lot to feel really good about. 1:59:11.040 --> 1:59:14.240 But some other one way streets that are relevant here. 1:59:14.800 --> 1:59:19.320 One is the loss of a way of life and 1:59:19.360 --> 1:59:23.960 the changing approach in rural communities to interacting with the land, 1:59:25.000 --> 1:59:27.360 and the challenges that some of these communities face just 1:59:27.400 --> 1:59:30.360 in terms of keeping these traditional uses on the landscape. 1:59:31.000 --> 1:59:34.040 And I love the way John talks about the the 1:59:34.040 --> 1:59:36.440 approach he takes interacting with those folks. And I know 1:59:36.560 --> 1:59:38.840 the Center has got a phenomenal skill set as well 1:59:38.880 --> 1:59:41.320 in terms of relating to these people. And it's not 1:59:41.360 --> 1:59:43.840 a phony thing. I mean, these guys understand the value 1:59:43.840 --> 1:59:46.720 of relating to people who are losing cattle, relating to 1:59:46.760 --> 1:59:51.680 people who are who are on you know, lifestyle occupation. Yes, 1:59:51.760 --> 1:59:55.000 And I know both of these gentlemen, and I very 1:59:55.040 --> 1:59:58.600 much value the fact that there are people out there 1:59:58.600 --> 2:00:03.160 contributing to the retention and of undeveloped land. And that's 2:00:03.200 --> 2:00:06.560 the last one way street that I'll leave you with 2:00:06.840 --> 2:00:12.960 is this notion that, uh, once you lose open be 2:00:13.040 --> 2:00:17.000 at public or private land to development. That's another one 2:00:17.000 --> 2:00:20.880 way street that is rarely undone. So I see, No, 2:00:21.000 --> 2:00:22.800 that's a very good point to bring up. I see 2:00:22.840 --> 2:00:25.960 these these concepts being in the same vein the notion 2:00:26.000 --> 2:00:30.120 that once something is committed, be at development, be at 2:00:30.120 --> 2:00:33.080 the loss of a species, be at the urbanization of 2:00:33.120 --> 2:00:37.040 a culture. It's a heck of a lot harder to 2:00:37.080 --> 2:00:42.920 bring that back than it is to preserve it. Yeah, 2:00:43.280 --> 2:00:47.360 point taken. It's good. It's better to yell at your 2:00:47.440 --> 2:00:50.280 kids when they're little than bail them out of jail 2:00:50.320 --> 2:00:56.840 when they get older. All right, YEA, Honestly, you didn't 2:00:56.880 --> 2:01:00.920 have anything. Oh, I gotta do you do you have 2:01:00.960 --> 2:01:03.360 you any final thoughts? I don't just thank you for 2:01:03.680 --> 2:01:06.320 bringing up this topic and allowing it to be discussed. 2:01:06.600 --> 2:01:09.960 Appreciate it. I got a final thought. Um a correction. 2:01:10.840 --> 2:01:15.920 We're talking sometime ago about um Custer Custer's last stand, 2:01:16.400 --> 2:01:18.280 and a lot of military guys wrote in that we 2:01:18.320 --> 2:01:27.000 were using brigadier general the wrong way. Custer, Uh, a 2:01:27.040 --> 2:01:28.800 breeder general has nothing to do with what we're talking about. 2:01:28.800 --> 2:01:30.800 I was talking about when during the Civil War, when 2:01:30.800 --> 2:01:34.120 they had a lot of attrition of officers, they were 2:01:34.360 --> 2:01:38.680 promoting other officers into into general ships or into the 2:01:38.720 --> 2:01:42.600 general position on a temporary basis to make up for 2:01:42.640 --> 2:01:46.040 how quickly they were losing officers. That term, it's not 2:01:46.200 --> 2:01:52.080 brigadier is a breveted general like Custer when he was 2:01:52.280 --> 2:01:55.240 when he was a general, Custer was a breveted general, 2:01:55.360 --> 2:01:58.960 not a brigadier general. And when he died, he was. 2:01:59.280 --> 2:02:04.120 He died as I believe, lieutenant colonel. So a lot 2:02:04.160 --> 2:02:08.920 of dudes from the military wrote in um, not in 2:02:08.920 --> 2:02:10.560 a mean way, just wrote it into be like, dude, 2:02:10.560 --> 2:02:12.600 you're way off on what a brigadier general is a 2:02:12.680 --> 2:02:16.800 breveted general. Did they define the brigadier Yeah, I can't 2:02:16.800 --> 2:02:21.760 remember now what it has to do with like man, omn, 2:02:23.360 --> 2:02:25.320 just bear with me a minute. I'm just gonna give 2:02:25.320 --> 2:02:27.640 it right from the We're just gonna get right into 2:02:27.680 --> 2:02:35.280 it here. Oh you know this, give give this guy 2:02:35.360 --> 2:02:39.920 your headset Johnnie. No, No, we're gonna let's do We're 2:02:39.920 --> 2:02:48.320 gonna do it. Ah, you can say stuff from the background. Okay, 2:02:48.880 --> 2:02:52.520 all right, So if you're not collortable, here we go. Uh. 2:02:52.560 --> 2:02:56.440 This this feller Alan is saying, uh f y, I 2:02:56.720 --> 2:02:59.240 just a point of clarification on the subject of bridgie 2:02:59.280 --> 2:03:03.760 brigadier gener gerals. Brigadier generals are not he's quoting me 2:03:03.880 --> 2:03:10.680 fake or quote temporary generals. Yeah, the term I called 2:03:10.720 --> 2:03:14.320 Custer fake general. Um, there are in fact full generals, 2:03:15.080 --> 2:03:17.840 but the brigadier is a reference to the type of 2:03:18.000 --> 2:03:22.520 unit they have traditionally commanded, brigades. I think the correct 2:03:22.600 --> 2:03:27.080 term you're looking for is brevet. Breveted generals were officers 2:03:27.080 --> 2:03:31.520 of a lower rank who are temporarily or honorarily given 2:03:31.600 --> 2:03:35.600 the rank of general Brevit's usually occurred during times of war. 2:03:36.600 --> 2:03:41.760 In this case, Brigadier General Brevett Custer was a regular 2:03:41.880 --> 2:03:46.080 Army lieutenant colonel who has temporarily promoted to brigadier general 2:03:46.160 --> 2:03:49.919 during the Civil War and later again to major general. 2:03:50.480 --> 2:03:54.680 He was actually a lieutenant colonel at the time of 2:03:54.760 --> 2:04:00.680 his death. So my apologies to uh all you find 2:04:00.800 --> 2:04:04.880 folks of service who uh who took offense to be 2:04:04.920 --> 2:04:11.040 talking about fake generals. Oh, that's it, right, that's it. Hey, 2:04:11.120 --> 2:04:13.560 thank you, Steve, appreciate the time. Yeah, thank you, thanks 2:04:13.600 --> 2:04:15.000 for listening to everyone.