Speaker 1: This is Me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening Hunt podcast.
Speaker 1: You can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators
Speaker 1: are the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download
Speaker 1: the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play Store,
Speaker 1: nor where you stand with on x. Okay, Yanni, tell
Speaker 1: me about this big, big fancy played at your kids
Speaker 1: on just got some pictures. Jennifer had to go to Helen.
Speaker 1: It was funny. These guys came down from Helen and
Speaker 1: Jennifer had to go to Helen and today, so we
Speaker 1: got a Mabel doesn't go to school on Monday, so
Speaker 1: we had to get get her play date. She guts
Speaker 1: to go to a very fancy play date some friends
Speaker 1: of ours on a boarding facilities. I think he was
Speaker 1: what you'd call it, so quite a big property, bunch
Speaker 1: of big barns, bunch of horses, hoses, some are there's
Speaker 1: and uh, but most of them I think are just clients.
Speaker 1: So we're like, you might not get to go ride horses,
Speaker 1: because that's the whole thing and whatever. You probably hopefully
Speaker 1: you just get to go and shovel some food that's
Speaker 1: what I'm always hoping that my buddy Nate makes some
Speaker 1: juice and they go over there and be like, no,
Speaker 1: before you get to ride, you gotta shovel some ship.
Speaker 1: But I started getting pictures and uh, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: check this out. They went horseback riding, they went it,
Speaker 1: took a spin on the a t V. Then we
Speaker 1: went and stalked to balk with my father in law
Speaker 1: and killed it. And your daughter's got amazing stalking skills.
Speaker 1: Must be in the jeans just like I'm like, great, man, Like,
Speaker 1: can I come over tomorrow and have a play dates?
Speaker 1: Going to want to go home? Yeah, that's all today.
Speaker 1: Now they're going to Costco, which they love to go
Speaker 1: and snack on all the Uh. Yeah, so I kind
Speaker 1: of grew up like that. Actually that was just everyday life.
Speaker 1: That's good man. It's a solid play date, right. Uh
Speaker 1: oh quick things you know. Uh, Martha introduced yourself a
Speaker 1: very special guest, Martha Williams. Martha Williams, tell me what
Speaker 1: you do, Martha Williams. And I'm the director of Montana Fish,
Speaker 1: Wildlife and Parks. Yeah, so every uh people listen to
Speaker 1: the show should by now I have figured this out um.
Speaker 1: Wildlife in in America is owned by the people and
Speaker 1: it's held in trust by your states. Some exceptions like
Speaker 1: stuff that has federal oversight because of endangered species and
Speaker 1: migratory things, but generally wildlife is run at the state level.
Speaker 1: All fifty states have when we just generally call a
Speaker 1: state fish and Game agency, even though yours is fish
Speaker 1: wildlife and fish wildlife and parks. Colorado's used to be
Speaker 1: fishing game, but they felt there was two hunt centric
Speaker 1: which is something we'll be talking about today, and they
Speaker 1: revamped it to fish and wildlife so that the hunting
Speaker 1: people wouldn't have so much sense of entitlement and ownership.
Speaker 1: I guess it's cpw it. Oh yeah, that's right, Andy Roll. No, no, no, sorry, California.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm mixing it up. Colorado became parks, Parks,
Speaker 1: got parks, got rolled in, which is already true in Montana, Fish,
Speaker 1: wildlife and parks, so you're in charge of three things,
Speaker 1: um only three? Uh? Yeah. Colorado got combined with the
Speaker 1: parks department and became what parks and wildlife. Parks actually
Speaker 1: separated in Colorado and then joined back up. It's like
Speaker 1: people to get married a bunch of times. Only people
Speaker 1: talk about it that way. Really they were together and
Speaker 1: flew it up and got back together and divorced, step children, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. And then it was California that
Speaker 1: had to stop being fishing game because I felt it
Speaker 1: was like there's a connotation of like there's a connotation
Speaker 1: of shooting and killing and whatnot. So they changed it
Speaker 1: to wildlife, which is fine because Montana has always been wildlife.
Speaker 1: But it's changed, it hasn't Some people still call us
Speaker 1: fishing game. Yeah, we've been this is the voice of
Speaker 1: Martha's minder. That's a tough job. Uh yeah. So were yeah,
Speaker 1: Greg Lemon, Uh we were. It was in the seventies
Speaker 1: when we switched to fishing wildlife, so we were early
Speaker 1: on on the switch. But we are still in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Montana went from fishing game to fishing wildlife. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but you would I would have been like back then,
Speaker 1: I've been like I was the world coming to well,
Speaker 1: you can walk, you can produce at Who's gonna call
Speaker 1: us fishing game? You know? By the folks in the
Speaker 1: in the who are standing in our lobby. I mean,
Speaker 1: they'll old timers still calls fishing games. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: will always be fishing games. Where I grew up, it
Speaker 1: was everyone knew that it was the d n r
Speaker 1: R Department and Natural Resource point being how to get
Speaker 1: on this? Oh yeah, uh I why was I talking
Speaker 1: about how states manage that the wildlife manage at the
Speaker 1: state level? Public? Yeah, well you yeah, we'll get into
Speaker 1: that hardcore. But Martha, you oversee run one of these
Speaker 1: right where in the fourth largest state not by population,
Speaker 1: but by land masks well and more importantly the best
Speaker 1: of wildlife resources. No, man, I don't think so. Your
Speaker 1: number your number three after Alaska? Your number three three?
Speaker 1: I feel yeah, I feel like Alaska. Wait did I
Speaker 1: just can see that? Tell me what the other two do?
Speaker 1: Not have a run in debate about this? But um like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like woman's got a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tot like a little bit of a
Speaker 1: a little bit of a Why do you say that?
Speaker 1: I don't know? Oh, I thank you mostly to say
Speaker 1: that because there's less people. Yeah, and I'm just one
Speaker 1: of those kinds of people that always feels like I
Speaker 1: should be somewhere else. Um quick thing, All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get back to that one, won't we Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got some No, I got some things I want to
Speaker 1: talk about. These are like little we do some little
Speaker 1: news items up top. But some of these news items
Speaker 1: are actually good because you'd be able to give your
Speaker 1: perspective on them. One of the news items is I
Speaker 1: wish Broody is here. Pennsylvania. It is now celebrating having
Speaker 1: overcome the decades long battle against their blue laws and
Speaker 1: blue laws or where you're not allowed to go hunting
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Um. People have all kinds of reasons why
Speaker 1: you can't go hunting on Sunday. It seems like the
Speaker 1: good money is that the idea that people felt that
Speaker 1: you were it was competing with with church. Um, so
Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to hunt on Sunday. And then over
Speaker 1: the years, uh, you know, people have become sort of
Speaker 1: you know, embattled, and they kind of lost track of
Speaker 1: what they're trying to solve in the first place. And
Speaker 1: then you had people who hated Sunday hunting bands. The
Speaker 1: National Shooting Sports Foundation, along with others, has been petitioning
Speaker 1: successfully against Sunday hunting bands or blue laws in a
Speaker 1: bunch of different states. And finally now like Pennsylvanians are
Speaker 1: gonna be allowed to hunt a handful of Sunday's six
Speaker 1: or something like that, which Broody is here to give
Speaker 1: the Oh boy, No, I don't even think it's I
Speaker 1: think it's half that. I think they added three. So
Speaker 1: like every year, I think there was one, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of Sundays where it's Okay, wondering Archie wondering rifle,
Speaker 1: and then they were they still had hadn't come up
Speaker 1: with the third day yet. I believe that's what I read,
Speaker 1: you know, And thinking about laws like this is always
Speaker 1: funny to Madge, like there's always laws that are around, right,
Speaker 1: and everybody success of their around. But I think a
Speaker 1: good test of a law would be, like, imagine that
Speaker 1: you tried to roll it out today instead of just
Speaker 1: having laws because we've always had them, right, constantly ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what would happen today if you came to a state.
Speaker 1: So someone comes to you, Martha here in Montana, UM
Speaker 1: and they said, I got an idea. I think that
Speaker 1: you should not be able to hunt on a Sunday. Right.
Speaker 1: It would be a very very hard law to enact,
Speaker 1: but states that just have it, they just got to
Speaker 1: suck it up and have it even though everyone's like,
Speaker 1: what but you can't get rid of it? Well, but
Speaker 1: I think also of all the laws that we have
Speaker 1: that I don't think you could get through now, like
Speaker 1: some of the good ones for instance, well, I think
Speaker 1: stream access in Montana, people think you were insane. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's a great point. Ways, if you said I
Speaker 1: got an idea, everyone can just once they're in the river,
Speaker 1: they just go what they want, drive boats up and down,
Speaker 1: paddling every which way. If people would be like, you're crazy,
Speaker 1: not through my property. The other great examples We've talked
Speaker 1: about it a bunch. As an example of this is
Speaker 1: the Pittman Robertson. He came up with that right now,
Speaker 1: Like we're like, some people are throwing around the idea
Speaker 1: of taxing the backpack tax, and it's not very welcome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was bringing this up there that I think Yoanni
Speaker 1: and I were driving around and we're talking about how
Speaker 1: uh everybody I feel it's like this new awareness around
Speaker 1: Pittman Robertson. It's been marketed well lately, right, and so
Speaker 1: more people aware of it. And I always here and
Speaker 1: I'll hear people um and I'll hear people throwing around
Speaker 1: like how proud they are of the contributions that the
Speaker 1: gun owners and shooters, hunters and shooters, How proud they
Speaker 1: are of the contributions they make to conservation. And oftentimes
Speaker 1: I'll be hearing this from someone and now I'll try
Speaker 1: to imagine that same individual what their response would be
Speaker 1: if it didn't exist, and you propose to them that
Speaker 1: we make a rule, They're like, I got an idea.
Speaker 1: How about the federal government comes in and they say
Speaker 1: that there's a tax on all guns and ammunition that
Speaker 1: goes to help animals. People would people would like, there
Speaker 1: would be revolts in the streets over this whole Organizations
Speaker 1: would be founded to find the organizations founded to fight
Speaker 1: It would be like, you know, it would lead to
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the upheaval. But now people are like,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, Brot Pitt Roberts. I wonder what it was
Speaker 1: like back, you know, when it passed, like what box
Speaker 1: of shells? Overwhelming item, overwhelming support? No, not this the support,
Speaker 1: But I wonder what it was like on the street,
Speaker 1: Like the guy that owned the sporting goods store, you
Speaker 1: know that sold like a fifty cent box of twin
Speaker 1: the two shells, and all of a sudden it was
Speaker 1: you know, cents. Yeah, I don't know, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Like on the public end, I know I
Speaker 1: had widespread support and came from hunters at the time.
Speaker 1: I think hunter has most been a lot different. Well yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that because they know what they're different. I had
Speaker 1: someone point out that it was from the depths of despair,
Speaker 1: meaning it was at a time when there was nothing.
Speaker 1: Wildlife was gone, and so that drastic, drastic situations lead
Speaker 1: to drastic measures. It was brilliant though, I mean it
Speaker 1: was brilliant. Also. I think of this all the time
Speaker 1: when we go to the legislator. Most people don't realize
Speaker 1: we have to get permission from the legislator to spend money,
Speaker 1: to spend any money. And so when we go and
Speaker 1: explain our programs, um, for any of the states to
Speaker 1: get the federal money, Pittman, Robertson, Dingle Johnson, Um, we
Speaker 1: have to have had our own statute ascent language. The
Speaker 1: states had to pass statutes to say we will only
Speaker 1: spend license money in a certain way. And Pittman, Robertson
Speaker 1: and Dingle Johnson in a certain way or we don't
Speaker 1: get that federal money. And so when we go ask
Speaker 1: for permission, will you know, the legislator will say, well,
Speaker 1: how about you do this? And we have to say
Speaker 1: we can't. We can't do that because it's not in
Speaker 1: the ascent language or the Pittman Robertson Dingle Johnson doesn't
Speaker 1: let us do that. That's really hard to explain. I
Speaker 1: want to do a couple I gotta do a couple
Speaker 1: more quick things I gotta take care of. But can
Speaker 1: we enter with that? We'll enter with that part of
Speaker 1: the conversation. Um, the money thing, but a couple of things.
Speaker 1: We we have a You don't have to have an opinion.
Speaker 1: Are you married, Martha? I'm sorry. I Oh, that's a
Speaker 1: hard one. I was married. My husband passed away, so
Speaker 1: I have a an awesome boyfriend, but I'm not married.
Speaker 1: We're talking about wedding rings from man. Oh do you
Speaker 1: have experience with these? Um? We've had a lot of
Speaker 1: you are you? I'm not wearing them today because I was.
Speaker 1: I was. I usually have to on, but I was
Speaker 1: hanging out of one of those uh tethered tree saddle
Speaker 1: deals borrow from you all weekend. I was surprised how
Speaker 1: comfortable and easy it was. It takes a little bit
Speaker 1: of trust because there's no you're not standing on a
Speaker 1: platform and see, yeah, you're just dangling around. Um and
Speaker 1: that's not quite true anyways, But we're not getting two
Speaker 1: into that. Because I was climbing trees and climbing, you know,
Speaker 1: going of those ladders. I decided to take the rings
Speaker 1: off because if it would be a really good opportunity
Speaker 1: to get sleeved, you know, as a as a sort
Speaker 1: of march, as a sort of public service. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about the perils of rings. I had a I
Speaker 1: got a fake one, rubber ones. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I was cold one morning, got an antelopen. It fell off.
Speaker 1: It's out on a field and wyoming somewhere. Um so
Speaker 1: now I'm running no ring. But a guy wrote in
Speaker 1: he was we were talking about accidents of having to people.
Speaker 1: This guy rode in his buddy as a commercial fisherman,
Speaker 1: and he had a bunch of crabs and like he
Speaker 1: gets to the docks and you keep you crabs. He's
Speaker 1: aerated tanks and he got to worrying about the crabs.
Speaker 1: He had an aerated tank that he's gonna sell and
Speaker 1: he wanted to go back in and check on him.
Speaker 1: And you have to take a real long walk around
Speaker 1: a restaurant and through the wharf, or you just jump
Speaker 1: this big fence. His body climbs up to jump this
Speaker 1: big fence as a chain link or cyclone fence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: after he jumped down and slipped and whatnot. Not only
Speaker 1: was his ring on the fence, the whole finger on
Speaker 1: the fence. Yeah, the whole thing hanging there from a
Speaker 1: ring on the fence. He says he, uh, he uses
Speaker 1: this mix, this missing ring finger as a reason to
Speaker 1: not remarry. So apparently he's married at one point in time,
Speaker 1: and now he tells people he can't because of that.
Speaker 1: Another guy wrote into that we're talking about when people
Speaker 1: steal your spot. This guy took his pastor hunting ducks,
Speaker 1: then later catches the pastor hunting the same spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: catches his pastor hunting the same spot with two other guys.
Speaker 1: And he switched churches. Yeah, switch churches. I'm surprised he
Speaker 1: didn't switched religions compromising. Yeah, he wants to know, did
Speaker 1: I overreact through this hardcore? Here? Here's a good one
Speaker 1: for uh, Yeah, it'd be hard to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the sermon at that point, right, yeah, yeah, what would
Speaker 1: you be thinking? Just bad negative thoughts? Yeah, when the
Speaker 1: pastors up there, honesty, accuracy, can I throw in on
Speaker 1: the ring? So sure? Then I got yeah, And then
Speaker 1: I got one last little news thing. But it's not
Speaker 1: even news. It doesn't count as news. But I've got so.
Speaker 1: I when I got married twelve years ago, I got
Speaker 1: a titanium ring, specifically, why would you do that? Well,
Speaker 1: at the time, I some I had some friends that
Speaker 1: had him. They said, and they're like, they're indestructible. Who's
Speaker 1: who's destroyed their ring? Anybody wear out a wedding ring? Well,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what I do with it. So
Speaker 1: I never carry around bottle openers. I never do. But
Speaker 1: you can open a bottle with the titanium ring and
Speaker 1: doesn't even it doesn't even mark it up, just put
Speaker 1: the cap in. Yeah, I do teeth. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: you can't you can't do that with a silicone. And then,
Speaker 1: and I've been thinking about it, you know, tossing it
Speaker 1: around like that. You know, they got to get those
Speaker 1: off when people come in, they break their finger, they
Speaker 1: get it off by crushing it with a vice gript
Speaker 1: I never I never cease to keep because it's my
Speaker 1: fear that I'm gonna get some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: water retention, you know, sickness, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden my hands gonna swell. I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to get and you because we had an emergency room
Speaker 1: doctor right in and say do not wear the titanium
Speaker 1: ones because we cannot grind through them. He said. When
Speaker 1: they got to get a titanium ring off someone who's
Speaker 1: got a hand injury, they need to crush it with
Speaker 1: a vice or a pair of locking pliers. You can
Speaker 1: you can only break it off. You can't cut it
Speaker 1: off with the equipment. The equipment they have. So the
Speaker 1: so the benefit of being able to open up beer
Speaker 1: bottle with your ring is not does an offset? Yes,
Speaker 1: see this the whole thing I have on my keychain.
Speaker 1: I'm showing Greg. Now some folks call that a bottle over.
Speaker 1: It's with me most times. One last news item. There's
Speaker 1: a guy I don't really get. It's kind of long email.
Speaker 1: He's in the PhD program in archaeology at the University
Speaker 1: of Colorado, Boulder, and he's petitioning his state right now
Speaker 1: to allow him. He doesn't think he's gonna get anywhere
Speaker 1: with this, but he's petitioning the state of Colorado to
Speaker 1: allow at Lattle hunting. What's your take on, at Martha.
Speaker 1: I think we've gotten one of those before too. How
Speaker 1: do you how do you handle it? It was like,
Speaker 1: how do you break that one down? Yeah? Well let
Speaker 1: me okay, uh, let's just do this. Let me I'll
Speaker 1: try to put in a fair way like, Um, what
Speaker 1: would be in your mind as a state director of
Speaker 1: a wildlife agency? What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: roll around in your head the minute someone says I
Speaker 1: ought to be able to right kill deer with a
Speaker 1: with an at Lattle? Oh, I mean the first thing
Speaker 1: that comes up is fair chase. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: what I think of what our traditional hunting methods, and
Speaker 1: I think now other than going we typically think forward
Speaker 1: and what technologies are pushing hunting where it goes beyond
Speaker 1: fair chase and and has society you know, caught up
Speaker 1: to that method or not. I don't often think of
Speaker 1: going back. Word, Um, why wouldn't we? I guess I
Speaker 1: guess my first question would be why wouldn't we? Rather
Speaker 1: than starting with not, I guess it would you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know because some some states have some states
Speaker 1: something they'd allow you to do it. Some stay it's
Speaker 1: when you look at the rules that doesn't prohibit it.
Speaker 1: But I would imagine the big argument against it would
Speaker 1: be one of efficacy and like the risk of uh
Speaker 1: maim and stuff. Can you remember some years ago there
Speaker 1: was a huge brewha where a guy uh made a
Speaker 1: big production how to kill the bear to spear? Oh,
Speaker 1: it was like a whole It was in Canada, right,
Speaker 1: kill the bear to spear in Canada. The blow up
Speaker 1: was so bad, the social upheat, like what it was?
Speaker 1: What I'm looking for? Ever being pissed. That's so pissed
Speaker 1: that the province then made it illegal to spear bear
Speaker 1: to hunt with a spear. They went from having that
Speaker 1: it wasn't clarified a guy did it. People were so
Speaker 1: it was so offensive to people that you kill it.
Speaker 1: I think people look at it like it's a stunt,
Speaker 1: like you're stunting right, and man, they were pissed and
Speaker 1: then made it that clarified that one cannot hunt with
Speaker 1: a spear. Well, didn't we talk about this in the
Speaker 1: car and the way here in a way, Greg, we
Speaker 1: weren't talking about sparing a bear, but we were talking
Speaker 1: about in Montana, you know, UM hunting bow hunting versus
Speaker 1: rifle and UM, is it the experience that we're allowing
Speaker 1: people to get out and have or is it just
Speaker 1: really um? Is it the efficacy? Is it that you
Speaker 1: obviously you want to kill an animal with one shot
Speaker 1: and you should be good and proficient. But um, if
Speaker 1: we were worried just about the efficacy, would would we
Speaker 1: then limit the opportunity we have and the and the
Speaker 1: method of take it. I mean there's a balance there.
Speaker 1: It is. It's like, yeah, it's it's hard to it's
Speaker 1: when you you can go through life having it all
Speaker 1: makes sense, like what you can can't do? And then
Speaker 1: someone throws out a question like the atletically, what is
Speaker 1: ant throwing board for a spear? Okay, it's the thing
Speaker 1: you swing bo Okay yeah, and at ladle is it's
Speaker 1: a spear, but just a mechanism by which people can
Speaker 1: throw spears. So they archaeologists feel that fifteen thousand years
Speaker 1: ago when this when the Western hemisphere was colonized, it
Speaker 1: was colonized by people who hunted with at laddles. So
Speaker 1: it's like it's a spear. But then there's a board
Speaker 1: that you hold on to, and it's like, you know
Speaker 1: those things, you know a good way to think about it.
Speaker 1: You know those things when you go to a dog park.
Speaker 1: Things use to throw tennis balls, that rippy little tennis
Speaker 1: ball hooker and at laddles, one of those that throws
Speaker 1: a spear. What's not even that game that those things
Speaker 1: came from. No lawn darts, No, no, no, It's like
Speaker 1: in a room and you have all the players have
Speaker 1: those crescent curved Come on, Phil, I think dog throwing
Speaker 1: dog ball hookers. No, you throw it against the wall.
Speaker 1: It's racket ball. Oh, the track ball, the big they had,
Speaker 1: the big Oh that was a good game. Man. That
Speaker 1: little looks like a little sickle hawks the ball, whiffleball.
Speaker 1: I think that was coming. Did you see that? Did
Speaker 1: you see the jackass? Where they were moving, where they
Speaker 1: were throwing oranges at each other with those things? Good, good,
Speaker 1: while very very entertaining. So uh, that little thing, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'd be curiously what happens with it, but
Speaker 1: it does like everything makes sense, like oh, you can
Speaker 1: hold the gun, you hold the bow, and then you
Speaker 1: don't think about it too much, and then someone proposes like, well,
Speaker 1: why can't I do X? And it puts you in
Speaker 1: this position where you're trying to like articulate something that
Speaker 1: you hadn't thought to articulate, like, I don't know, why
Speaker 1: can't you? So I don't think you should be able
Speaker 1: to do? But why don't I think you should be
Speaker 1: able to I think we do that all the time too.
Speaker 1: Things come up that you've got to break it down.
Speaker 1: How would we answer that on this question? Uh? The
Speaker 1: statute governs some of what we can take used for
Speaker 1: take in Montana and uh, there was a bill a
Speaker 1: few sessions ago. No, well there was an addle addle
Speaker 1: bill post in Montana that died in the legislature. So
Speaker 1: someone advanced that it got its due it's got its due. Course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it got considered in a serious way and didn't make it.
Speaker 1: Didn't make it. Uh does the state record the rationale
Speaker 1: of things that? Do? They not record the rationale? Like
Speaker 1: what it didn't make it? Does someone record sort of? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is it recorded? Like the arguments against it and for
Speaker 1: it are recorded? Not recorded? They're recorded? Uh? In like
Speaker 1: the public records of the hearing. So there was a
Speaker 1: public hearing on it, and those who came forward in
Speaker 1: favor and those who came forward against. It's all and
Speaker 1: the gist what they had to say would be available.
Speaker 1: It's a legislative history. You'd love to go see what
Speaker 1: the guy or gal who had to say. Why not?
Speaker 1: And I don't why we should remember it wasn't that
Speaker 1: long ago, No, but it was. It was when I
Speaker 1: was still in general is him and and it wasn't. Um,
Speaker 1: but we could track it down so you could look
Speaker 1: at the bill number and you could you in the
Speaker 1: sponsor because the sponsor. But what I do remember is
Speaker 1: the sponsor. Sometimes sponsors are not real invested in the bill.
Speaker 1: They just happen to, you know, have a constituent that
Speaker 1: wants something carries, you got to be in his bonnet.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the sponsor on this one really was, I
Speaker 1: would think, was really interested in it. I got shot down. Yeah, yeah, thanks,
Speaker 1: Now we'll see another proposal next session. Um, that's it
Speaker 1: for Newsy stuff. Oh yeah, you know, a method of take.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I find it when I'm talking to
Speaker 1: people who aren't familiar with the hunting and rules of hunting,
Speaker 1: they're often interested to hear about all the method of
Speaker 1: take restrictions such as like in this state you can
Speaker 1: shoot a variety of like you can shoot mountain grouse,
Speaker 1: so with call here would be like Franklin's blues dusky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well now yeah, they're you're right, you're way ahead of me.
Speaker 1: Dusky grouse, rouffed grouse, spruce grouse can be killed with
Speaker 1: a rifle. But you can shoot me with twenty two.
Speaker 1: You cannot shoot with the twenty two sharp tail grouse,
Speaker 1: pheasants right, um, turkeys, you cannot shoot him with a
Speaker 1: rifle in the spring. You can shoot him in the
Speaker 1: rifle in the fall. There's a ton of method to
Speaker 1: take stuff out there, people to get complicated, people like
Speaker 1: rassling over it. Uh, all right, I'm gonna get back
Speaker 1: to this the money thing. Um, I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of the enterness in the way that the most instructive
Speaker 1: way possible. You're probably good at doing this lay out
Speaker 1: for me, Like what layout for folks? Layout for folks?
Speaker 1: Like what is like what it is a state Fish
Speaker 1: and Game agency does, like one of the things you're
Speaker 1: responsible for looking at? And then how does that get
Speaker 1: paid for? Easy question? Thanks? Um, Well, I think we're
Speaker 1: responsible for more than people realize, and we're responsible for
Speaker 1: more than UM what we always get direct funding for.
Speaker 1: I mean, so I think fish and game, fish, wildlife
Speaker 1: and Parks d n r's are charged with more than
Speaker 1: people realize. In Montana, Fish Wildlife and Parks Mission is
Speaker 1: disteward the fish, Wildlife, recreational and parks resources of Montana UM.
Speaker 1: And we do that with the Citizen Commission, and we
Speaker 1: do it with a board. UM. You know, so we
Speaker 1: don't do it alone. Can you explain the Citizen Commission Somewhere?
Speaker 1: Some states it's different. So, UM, the director I am
Speaker 1: appointed by the governor. In some states the director is
Speaker 1: appointed by the commission. But in Montana, the governor appoints
Speaker 1: the director of all of the agencies. And the governor
Speaker 1: also appoints the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Parks
Speaker 1: and Recreation Board. So they're the Citizen Commission. It's the
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Parks and Recreation Board,
Speaker 1: and they really are the ones that set policy and
Speaker 1: UM help with UM allocation issues. And then you have
Speaker 1: the legislature in Montana passes statutes that get into specific
Speaker 1: numbers and percentage of resident versus nonresident licenses issues like that.
Speaker 1: So the department brings proposals forward to the commission and
Speaker 1: this is what people often call a game commission yep yea.
Speaker 1: And those game commissions were UM. The early getting to
Speaker 1: the origin of the Pittman Robertson Act and the restoration
Speaker 1: of wildlife and why we funded the way we did
Speaker 1: was early on when wildlife populations were depleted at best,
Speaker 1: you know, bison were decimated, birds, migratory birds were populations
Speaker 1: were decimated, for feathers, deer, a lot, a number of
Speaker 1: wildlife populations UM and fisheries, commercial fisheries were plummeting, and
Speaker 1: so states created UM, the Fish and Game Commissions to
Speaker 1: try to restore those species. So in the United States,
Speaker 1: the states have always UH been the entity that stepped
Speaker 1: up to manage what we think of is that the
Speaker 1: public trust the wildlife resources in the country. And it
Speaker 1: started with those Fish and Game Commissions and then UM
Speaker 1: they realized, you know that that you needed that scientific underpinning,
Speaker 1: you needed to understand what species needed or what habitat
Speaker 1: you needed. And then the departments developed around UM giving
Speaker 1: that expertise in the in the scientific research to know
Speaker 1: how to manage I didn't realize that the idea of
Speaker 1: game commissions predated the idea of a state agency. It
Speaker 1: would just be like someone would a point a bunch
Speaker 1: of people that had a vested interest or expertise, and
Speaker 1: they'd be like, hey, you all get together, you figure
Speaker 1: out if there should be a deer season or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because well they stepped up because they felt like they
Speaker 1: needed to be recovering these species. They weren't dealing with
Speaker 1: the plethora riches that we're dealing with today, luckily me
Speaker 1: and it was a totally different, different scenario. So there's
Speaker 1: still this interplay between a state Fish and Game agency
Speaker 1: and the state's commission. Yes, definitely. Is it tense? Um? Well, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean it can be tense. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: bad at all. I mean I are current commission. I
Speaker 1: feel like we recognize that we have different roles, and
Speaker 1: so instead of arguing or being tense, I think we
Speaker 1: just realize we have different roles to play. The department
Speaker 1: puts forward proposals, and the commission, you know, sometimes they're
Speaker 1: put in the hardest position where they've got to vote
Speaker 1: on these proposals. How do you get a job on
Speaker 1: that commission? Man, I want to be on that commission
Speaker 1: so bad you do. You should apply. How many people
Speaker 1: are on it? There five and they're paid position. No,
Speaker 1: they are not paid positions. I would want no one else.
Speaker 1: I want to be the only commissioner you could. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's shoot for it. Are there any states where it's
Speaker 1: an elected position that you hold? Omissioners are always pointed,
Speaker 1: it's always I never heard of non. I don't know
Speaker 1: of any that are elected, but I certainly I haven't
Speaker 1: looked at the state they had to run for game
Speaker 1: commission be suite. So you're in Montana, They're they're appointed
Speaker 1: on different staggering terms. So there so when a governor
Speaker 1: is a new governor's elected, there's some overlap in terms.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, so there's continuity between one administration
Speaker 1: to the next. And then they also represent regional area,
Speaker 1: so there's not like five commissioners from the most populated
Speaker 1: areas of the state. They're spread out. So um, we
Speaker 1: have got like a commissioner from Glasgow, for instance, that
Speaker 1: represents region that region of the state. We got your way, Sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I was just saying we got your way.
Speaker 1: Off off off your answer, Pittman Robertson, Yeah what um, yeah,
Speaker 1: like what what your mandate is, like how what you
Speaker 1: do and how it all gets paid for. So, at
Speaker 1: least in Montana, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, I believe
Speaker 1: the well Montana Constitution. I could go off forever on that.
Speaker 1: It's just a really cool document. It goes back to
Speaker 1: the conversation of could we get a constitution through now
Speaker 1: that looks like the one we have? I think it
Speaker 1: would be hard. So the constitution and the statutes, UM
Speaker 1: set up what the department does, and that is that
Speaker 1: we um steward fish, wildlife, parks, recreational resources. And then
Speaker 1: you add a layer to that are funding primarily comes
Speaker 1: from selling licenses and then um that's um, let's see,
Speaker 1: it's about fifty three million dollars. It's almost half, almost
Speaker 1: half of the of our budget comes from license sales,
Speaker 1: which is pretty high. Not all states are that high. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the then the rest of it we don't get, well,
Speaker 1: we used to not get any general fund. Um. We
Speaker 1: we fund ourselves really through license sales. And then the Pittman, Robertson, Dingle, Johnson,
Speaker 1: Land and Water Conservation Fund, all the different federal sources
Speaker 1: of of match that we get. That's that's how we operate.
Speaker 1: But you you a lot of agencies do not have
Speaker 1: hard funding. Explain that and you do get hard funding. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1: So when the Pittman robertson Dingle Johnson, I think it
Speaker 1: started as Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act. So the
Speaker 1: concept started where put excise taxes on on certain equipment,
Speaker 1: you know, hunting, fishing equipment. When when both Dingle Johnson
Speaker 1: and PR were passed and the states could get that
Speaker 1: money a certain apportionment to the state, if the state
Speaker 1: had its own statute that said the state can use
Speaker 1: license money only for restoration of fish and wildlife and
Speaker 1: for these you know, to help game species to the
Speaker 1: state can't rob it's the state can't rob it's. It's
Speaker 1: it can't be like, oh, you your department has a
Speaker 1: bunch of money, I'm gonna take all that and spend
Speaker 1: it on something. We have to, you know, that's right,
Speaker 1: We have to. It's what it's called control. The Fish
Speaker 1: and Game agency has to retain control over the money,
Speaker 1: license money and any of that federal matching money that
Speaker 1: comes in, so we have to retain control of it.
Speaker 1: That's one buzzword. And then also we can't divert it
Speaker 1: to another someone else, can't spend it, and it can't
Speaker 1: be diverted to what's called an ineligible use. So if
Speaker 1: you were to do that, then you become ineligible for
Speaker 1: the federal money. And no state wants this. Most state would.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't want to screw themselves like that, so they
Speaker 1: don't steal your money and do an airport renovation with
Speaker 1: it or something exactly. That's part of the brilliance of
Speaker 1: the UM. It's the Wildlife Sport Fish Restoration Program woos
Speaker 1: for that combines all these different UM federal pots of money.
Speaker 1: And what's the what's the hard funding you mean, like
Speaker 1: just like general like when someone pays just the regular taxes,
Speaker 1: like a person lives in the state Montana elsewhere, that
Speaker 1: doesn't come to fish wildlife. No, none of that money
Speaker 1: comes a little bit now for our a caughtic convasive
Speaker 1: species program. I think that's it, and not very much
Speaker 1: of it, and that's dedicated, so you don't just get
Speaker 1: like a general chunk like the same way the Department Transportation,
Speaker 1: it's like just general state money or one of the
Speaker 1: few agencies to test that. Yeah, I think that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in preparing to have this conversation was one
Speaker 1: of the things we talked about. One of these that
Speaker 1: really like initiated the conversation was was talking about this,
Speaker 1: this sort of this this whole package of things that
Speaker 1: we're discussing, meaning like who owns wildlife, who manages it,
Speaker 1: how does it get paid for? All this is sort
Speaker 1: of captured in this kind of hard to understand concept
Speaker 1: of the North American model of wildlife conservation? Phil, what's
Speaker 1: the North American model? Let's ask Phil, he don't hunt.
Speaker 1: What's the North American model wildlife conservation? Phil? Real quick?
Speaker 1: I could not give you a good definition. See there
Speaker 1: you go, every man. This is just the every man
Speaker 1: off the street. He doesn't know. Um, he doesn't. He
Speaker 1: doesn't need to know. I'm not even mad at him
Speaker 1: about not knowing. Um uh. But yeah, So North American
Speaker 1: model of wildlife conservation, meaning here's a healthy way to
Speaker 1: look at it. Look at places that don't have it, right,
Speaker 1: It's helpful to explain like what it is by like,
Speaker 1: look a place he doesn't have it. For instance, you
Speaker 1: go to place like Scotland. Um, we talked it was
Speaker 1: for in Scotland have right to Rome. You can go
Speaker 1: wherever you want, like people can't kick you off their property.
Speaker 1: Can you can roam around wherever you want to go.
Speaker 1: But can you fish everywhere? Nope? Everywhere Nope. And in
Speaker 1: Scotland here like here in the US. And let's let's
Speaker 1: take again, because we're here talking to the state director
Speaker 1: in Montana. UM, you might own property and there might
Speaker 1: be elk on that property, but you do not own
Speaker 1: those elk. They belong to the state. They blown to
Speaker 1: the people. So like you have the you hold the
Speaker 1: ground they sit on, but you have no more right
Speaker 1: to them than anybody else has to them. You control
Speaker 1: access to them, but you don't control the things themselves.
Speaker 1: You can't box them up, you can't give him away,
Speaker 1: you can't just shoot him when you feel like you
Speaker 1: gotta go through all the rules everybody else has to
Speaker 1: go through. UM. And then that's like a big part
Speaker 1: of the North American model of wild They have conservation
Speaker 1: and the other part of it is is that that
Speaker 1: there's public input on management and public input on how
Speaker 1: we pay for it all. So yeah, well I think
Speaker 1: of that too. I don't want to get too on key,
Speaker 1: but I actually think of what you've just explained that
Speaker 1: UM that wildlife the the public holds wildlife in trust.
Speaker 1: We well, the state holds wildlife and trust we manage
Speaker 1: that asset. And the legislature is in a way the trustee,
Speaker 1: they set the laws, we manage it. And the beneficiary
Speaker 1: the people who benefit from that. And we need to
Speaker 1: manage the wildlife for everybody. And that's I think more
Speaker 1: UM derives from the public trust. And I think of
Speaker 1: the North American model, or as the statutes and the
Speaker 1: funding mechanisms that this country put into place that helps
Speaker 1: fund that model, that allows us to have the public trust.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of it's twofold, but I'm following you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well the reason, yeah, the reason is getting that and
Speaker 1: you can call it as any way you want to
Speaker 1: call it, but I think that one of the ways
Speaker 1: it it gets important. It gets down to some of
Speaker 1: the things we wanted to discuss today, is the wildlife
Speaker 1: is for everyone. Right. Let's just say so here here
Speaker 1: in a state like this, wildlife for everyone. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to manage wildlife for everyone. Everyone has different ideas. This
Speaker 1: is gonna be too big of a question where you're
Speaker 1: going everyone has different ideas. Everyone's an expert about. Well,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, if you're managing it for me, here's
Speaker 1: what I would like to see happen, right. I would
Speaker 1: like every bear that comes near my house to die.
Speaker 1: And your job is to manage wildlife for me, because
Speaker 1: I own it and that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: And then someone else, the next person down the road,
Speaker 1: is like, since you're managing wildlife for me, um, I
Speaker 1: want no bears to ever die. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I want because it's my wildlife and you're just here
Speaker 1: to manage it for me. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reconciling that needs to happen. And what it throws a
Speaker 1: little bit of a wrench into this whole thing is
Speaker 1: that you just pointed out that people to buy hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing licenses are paying over half of the budget
Speaker 1: for your agency. And then another huge chunk of your
Speaker 1: budget is coming from people who buy firearms and ammunition
Speaker 1: and fishing equipment, another in some designated sporting goods like
Speaker 1: bows and arrows and whatnot, so they're all footing the bill.
Speaker 1: Talk about share with us your thoughts about how one
Speaker 1: sort of does triage on this like whose opinion matters
Speaker 1: the most, the one that's paying? Why you do this?
Speaker 1: You just got right to the heart of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a lot there. But like, right,
Speaker 1: you don't even give your own personal opinion. You don't
Speaker 1: need to even talk about what happens here, but like
Speaker 1: what happens when you start wrestling all of this out? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so awesome question. And I don't even know what the
Speaker 1: question was. Whose opinion matters the people that pay? Are
Speaker 1: the people that don't pay? Or is it all the same?
Speaker 1: Do you get a bonus because you paid? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you'd like to. Um, you got a vote, although
Speaker 1: not a specific vote. You get to engage, you get
Speaker 1: input for sure. So I mean it goes to the
Speaker 1: other piece of what you started with in that, UM,
Speaker 1: we have to do our work through public engagement. So
Speaker 1: my opinion actually really doesn't matter. UM. My opinion on
Speaker 1: on the decision making process and guiding it to make
Speaker 1: sure it's is fair and transparent as possible matters. But
Speaker 1: it's the public input, UM that should guide kind of
Speaker 1: where we go. But it's not a vote, UM, And obviously, UM,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna it's a balancing act. I mean we
Speaker 1: were talking about that on the on the way down.
Speaker 1: There's very little we do that doesn't require balance. I mean,
Speaker 1: most decisions that come to a fish and wildlife, fish, wildlife,
Speaker 1: and parks agency parks sometimes is less controversial at fish
Speaker 1: and wildlife. I can hardly think of many decisions that
Speaker 1: don't require some balance. You mean to tell me that, Um,
Speaker 1: everybody in this whole state doesn't all just agree on everything.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they agree always flooding, excellent job. Hey, yeah
Speaker 1: you're hired. No, Um, no, of course they don't. Of
Speaker 1: course they don't. And I mean think about it. You
Speaker 1: know you've got walleye fisherman, or a walleye fishery and
Speaker 1: a top fishery, or you know, bears. Do we protect
Speaker 1: bears and never kill a bear? Or do we make
Speaker 1: sure bears don't get around shelter belts, you know on
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountain front. So I don't know that there's
Speaker 1: ever going to be the perfect answer. We're always so
Speaker 1: maybe another way to put it is, it's our job.
Speaker 1: We're always going to make somebody mad. I mean that's
Speaker 1: just the way it goes. So how do you do that?
Speaker 1: First of all, I think, um, sure, we can get
Speaker 1: hammered on so many issues. We get all these competing interests.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just the nature of what we do period.
Speaker 1: I think there's tremendous beauty in that because people are passionate.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they might be crazy passionate sometimes, but they
Speaker 1: care and can We've talked internally, what would it feel
Speaker 1: like if people didn't care what we did? I think
Speaker 1: that would be worse or what I you know, what
Speaker 1: if people didn't care about our outdoor experiences? What if
Speaker 1: people didn't care about elk? What if people didn't care
Speaker 1: about grizzly bears. I get what you're saying. I get
Speaker 1: what you're saying, like in theory, Yeah, but it has
Speaker 1: to be we have to embrace that would kill us.
Speaker 1: There's two things that there are two things you said
Speaker 1: that I that I appreciate. One that you you said
Speaker 1: that you don't spend like what you think doesn't matter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Do do you feel like you're pretty successful
Speaker 1: at pushing down like your personal take on it? Uh?
Speaker 1: You should ask where you're like where you're like personally,
Speaker 1: I would never hunt with at you know, at Lettle. Therefore,
Speaker 1: no one should like that wouldn't be something that's going
Speaker 1: to roll through your head. No, it wouldn't roll through
Speaker 1: my head. But but then that gets to another topic. Maybe.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just my style of leadership. It's it's
Speaker 1: a team effort. There's no way I could be director
Speaker 1: without really great people around me, and so for them
Speaker 1: to be good, I feel like it's better to turn
Speaker 1: to to push it down. But Greg, do I really
Speaker 1: do that or do I just hope I do? No,
Speaker 1: You're good at it. And I think I think the
Speaker 1: other thing that this piece, the opinion piece, the other
Speaker 1: thing that comes into this is is our science work
Speaker 1: absolutely back to sort of our core role as he's
Speaker 1: trust man will hold that thought for mixing that we'll
Speaker 1: get into that good. Um, because that's just that that
Speaker 1: is also a hard word. Yeah, um, which one science
Speaker 1: or man who's got science on their side. Everybody's got
Speaker 1: science on the side. Yeah, Well, and both sides of whatever.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about passion, people coming to us with
Speaker 1: a passionate you know, opinion, they both sides have. They
Speaker 1: come with science too because they know that that that
Speaker 1: we are in the realm of science. And so that
Speaker 1: with the conversation is not just about I like this
Speaker 1: or I like that, it's I want this to happen
Speaker 1: based on this science. Yeah, but I think what's what
Speaker 1: we're getting this a little bit in a minute. But
Speaker 1: what scientific is incredibly unscientific and its social science is science?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there you go. It's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of social science tied up into science. But
Speaker 1: when you said that, you liked that everyone's engaged. Really
Speaker 1: so when when there's a hot button issue, I mean
Speaker 1: I have to there's a hot button issue, you have
Speaker 1: a hearing right or like a public comment period, and
Speaker 1: you come in and there's right everyone's in there ready
Speaker 1: to kill them kill each other over this thing. You
Speaker 1: have people that like take wolves like that that incites
Speaker 1: a lot of passion. You have people who are like,
Speaker 1: you know, kill them all that God sort them out.
Speaker 1: People who are like, you know, wolves are you know,
Speaker 1: are higher than unicorns on the list of what sacred
Speaker 1: and um, and you're like, oh great, everybody showed up.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy they have opinions. I am. Well, I mean, think, okay,
Speaker 1: just think about that. UM would if we showed up
Speaker 1: to talk about wolves and there were three people in
Speaker 1: the room. I would turn to Greg and say, we
Speaker 1: did something wrong. We missed the boat here, we missed
Speaker 1: reaching out to people. If only three people show up
Speaker 1: talking about wolves, Yeah, wouldn't that be scarier? I mean seriously,
Speaker 1: it would meet. Would that mean that people just uh,
Speaker 1: we don't really care? Do you get overall good participation?
Speaker 1: Like if if it's not something like a wolf or
Speaker 1: a you know, buffalo or something big and charismatic, you know,
Speaker 1: like when there's a meeting on I don't know, give
Speaker 1: me an example. Will be an example of something that
Speaker 1: doesn't get a lot of public excitement. Well, it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen every two years. So we set our regulations every
Speaker 1: two years are hunting regulations, and so that we go
Speaker 1: through all like the quotas and everything else we go through.
Speaker 1: It's a all the regulation booklets. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: that information has done every two years in our season
Speaker 1: setting process. And there's portions of that that are always controversial.
Speaker 1: But there are some pieces of that drop that will
Speaker 1: will hold the meeting where we'll outnumber the public participants
Speaker 1: at the meeting. There'll be five f WP people and
Speaker 1: two U yes. So no, that is a bad sign.
Speaker 1: Regulation gosh, you think we'd all show up for regulations meeting.
Speaker 1: I haven't shown up neither. But to be fair too,
Speaker 1: I mean we are like other agencies who are trying
Speaker 1: to think of are there other ways to engage the public?
Speaker 1: If if people stop showing up at public hearings, should
Speaker 1: we be reaching out to them in different ways? All right?
Speaker 1: I want to I wanna move back a little bit.
Speaker 1: So there's something I want to hit on more like precisely,
Speaker 1: um the funding question? Ye? Like? Like seriously, how like
Speaker 1: what does an eight How does an agency view the fact?
Speaker 1: How does an agency view the idea that all people's
Speaker 1: opinions matter? Right? Everyone should have an opinion at the table,
Speaker 1: but then only some of the people are funding the structure?
Speaker 1: M h, what's your like? How do you view that?
Speaker 1: Is that viewed as a problem? Is if you just
Speaker 1: like a fact of life? Do you feel that people
Speaker 1: within a state, fish modelife agency do they sort of
Speaker 1: overserve the payers? Are there is there an idea that
Speaker 1: like those are the ones we should keep happy because
Speaker 1: they're paying for it all? How do you wrestle that?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, you know, I know what I like?
Speaker 1: Where are you going with that I don't know, I'm asking.
Speaker 1: It's got to be something that comes up totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a fair question. So yes, it's a
Speaker 1: fact of life because it is what it is, it's
Speaker 1: what we've had in place. Um. Yes, I think we
Speaker 1: pay you know, in all fairness, we pay close attention
Speaker 1: to what's our traditional base. So the people who pay, yes,
Speaker 1: we have to pay attention to them, and I believe
Speaker 1: we always will. With that said, Um, they can't be
Speaker 1: the only voice if if other people comment. Um. I
Speaker 1: sometimes get people asking me like, how could you meet
Speaker 1: with such and such? And my answer is, because I'm
Speaker 1: a public servant, I meet with who asks me to
Speaker 1: meet with them. You know, I can't cut a voice
Speaker 1: out because it's not popular. So I believe we have
Speaker 1: to listen to all voices. But I mean, yeah, we
Speaker 1: there is a certain skew toward our traditional base because
Speaker 1: that's who we're used to working with. And I would say, um,
Speaker 1: we don't want to lose them. I mean, we are
Speaker 1: in the business of perpetuating of um, encouraging getting outside
Speaker 1: that experience outside. We want people to hunt, we want
Speaker 1: people to fish. That's not the only thing we want
Speaker 1: them to do. But um, we do want that heritage
Speaker 1: in that tradition to continue. So is it tricky sometimes yes,
Speaker 1: I mean you know it's we're we're perpetuating a tradition.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we use science and we try
Speaker 1: to listen to all perspectives to come up with the
Speaker 1: best solution we can best proposal. Is it a lot harder,
Speaker 1: Let's like take that from it. Like, in a state
Speaker 1: like this, um, hunting is a big economic driver, right,
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of economic activity that occurs around hunting.
Speaker 1: So you could look like one can go and make
Speaker 1: this argument. They can look at dear chronic wasting disease, right,
Speaker 1: Like chronic wasting disease could come and have a big
Speaker 1: impact on public perception of hunting and participation and could
Speaker 1: cost communities. Like there's a community and they have high
Speaker 1: sea w D prevalence, people are gonna go hunt somewhere
Speaker 1: else and that is bad for business for people to
Speaker 1: have hotels and right, so all this stuff goes on
Speaker 1: around it and you look and you'd be like, man,
Speaker 1: we need to protect this thing. Um, I think I
Speaker 1: look at the thing envy about Alaska for instances, how
Speaker 1: jealously they guard their salmon sources because commercial huge commercial business,
Speaker 1: huge recreational business, Like don't go to Alaska and mess
Speaker 1: with salmon, Like it's not gonna go well for you.
Speaker 1: But what about like when you want to Yeah, so
Speaker 1: then you take like, oh, there's a big problem with hummingbirds.
Speaker 1: Um is that tough? Is it? Like hard to get
Speaker 1: like the the agency momentum and the money and the
Speaker 1: support to go do something where no one can come
Speaker 1: and argue to you about the economic impact of hummingbirds.
Speaker 1: Do hummingbirds tend to get like forgotten? Um? Not them specifically,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying, Like if people are like, hey,
Speaker 1: hunters pay for this, elk is economic driver all this stuff,
Speaker 1: Like what do you do, Like, how do you begin
Speaker 1: to think about and address issues of people like that.
Speaker 1: We're not I'm not calling you up the buggy about it.
Speaker 1: I guess that people aren't. I'm guessing that people don't
Speaker 1: every day call you to make sure hummingbirds are okay. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I think about a bunch of ways. One, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of recovering America's Wildlife Act and
Speaker 1: all the precursors to precursors to that, you know, teaming
Speaker 1: with wildlife Cara, Blue Ribbon Panel, whatever, or the states
Speaker 1: that have a mechanism to help pay for to add
Speaker 1: the funding of a wildlife agency so they can get
Speaker 1: to um hummingbirds and our species. You hadn't even heard
Speaker 1: of um so, so that would be helpful and I
Speaker 1: think it's needed. Absolutely the challenge I have like an
Speaker 1: outside additional well, I think so so that we can
Speaker 1: get to those other species that we haven't. I mean,
Speaker 1: what in Montana we have? How many species do we have?
Speaker 1: Greg a lot of wildlife and you got nine big,
Speaker 1: we have five hundred, we have five four. I just
Speaker 1: happen to have this at my fingertip, uh fish and
Speaker 1: wildlife species in the state, and how many of those are?
Speaker 1: Then you realized we have a uhi four total fish
Speaker 1: and wildlife species and eighty game species. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What about ones that are like uh not as curious?
Speaker 1: Take like the short tailed weasel. Now he's non game,
Speaker 1: but take is permissible. So is he in that? Is
Speaker 1: he in the eighty or the five? UM I might
Speaker 1: so I would assume that he would be in the
Speaker 1: eighty if we have a permissible take. But we have seven.
Speaker 1: We have seventeen species that are federally protected or warranted.
Speaker 1: Federally protected or warranted, So we have responsibility over all
Speaker 1: five hundred species, and if we had better funding have
Speaker 1: not as many. You maybe wouldn't have seventeen, although that's
Speaker 1: not that high, um, that are federally protected. I mean
Speaker 1: the point is, I think if we had more capacity
Speaker 1: and resources to get to the other species of you know,
Speaker 1: to the five hundred, then um, I would hope if
Speaker 1: fewer need that federal protection. Well. And so one another
Speaker 1: twist in this is of our budget goes to the
Speaker 1: wildlife species. Management of the wildlife species of the budget
Speaker 1: goes And that's why I'm guessing or fishing game that
Speaker 1: people pursue the game species plus the the ones that
Speaker 1: either require statement they require state management, like there's species
Speaker 1: of special concern or they're federally protected. And so that
Speaker 1: answers your question of UM, people who buy licenses and
Speaker 1: or ammunition or fishing gear are I think they got
Speaker 1: a pretty good return. Yeah that's interesting, man, But I'm
Speaker 1: thankful for them too. Oh yeah, they're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: There's buying their license. Yeah, there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: you know, in in our world, we hear all these
Speaker 1: different ideas people throw out about other ways to get,
Speaker 1: other ways to other people should pay to, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I like that at or not,
Speaker 1: because I don't know if we've played that all the
Speaker 1: way out, should we? Oh? Okay, So I'll give it
Speaker 1: like I'll give a commonly held perception about it to
Speaker 1: be that right now, all this money comes in and
Speaker 1: goes to either like the listed stuff or it goes
Speaker 1: the game right, research on game um enforcement, all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So some people it often comes up,
Speaker 1: this idea, and Janice brought it up earlier that there
Speaker 1: should be some there's this kind of like this nascent
Speaker 1: concept of a backpack tax, meaning that there should that
Speaker 1: other people should be paying money. Um. You, when you
Speaker 1: buy a backpack, it should be taxed the same way
Speaker 1: if you buy a rifle, it's tax, and that that
Speaker 1: tax from your backpack should go to help pay for
Speaker 1: or binoculars. They're not rolled in, No, they're not. Are
Speaker 1: they rifle scopes? I think are, but I don't think
Speaker 1: but not it doesn't catch binoculars. So but but when
Speaker 1: I say backpacktacks, I don't mean like, let's just say
Speaker 1: I don't mean like specifically backpacks, well like taxes on
Speaker 1: other stuff to help flood money. But I think people
Speaker 1: bring up as people who have a strong voice that
Speaker 1: already have a seat at the table. And if you
Speaker 1: like hunting fish, you put you Typically some states I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say this is true, but generally if you hunting fish,
Speaker 1: you have a big seat at the table. Um You're
Speaker 1: your needs are being heard. That by bringing in all
Speaker 1: the payers, that people think that these other payers are
Speaker 1: going to come with expectations. So do you think so
Speaker 1: those people think of it as a ply and there
Speaker 1: are only so many slices, and so they're not going
Speaker 1: to want more people there because when their slice gets
Speaker 1: a little thinner, I don't thinky being how much attention
Speaker 1: can be paid to your knees. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: think of it as supply. I mean you can look
Speaker 1: at it that way, and I get it, and I
Speaker 1: think we have to pay attention to that. So um fish,
Speaker 1: state fish and wildlife agencies. I think we need to
Speaker 1: do everything we can to provide the best service we
Speaker 1: can to the people who pay absolutely and if we
Speaker 1: could grow capacity, then we could pay better attention to
Speaker 1: some of the other species, and that funding could help there.
Speaker 1: So I don't you know. I can I appreciate the
Speaker 1: worry of losing some power or influence on the decisions,
Speaker 1: but I think that looks at it as a pie
Speaker 1: instead of realizing actually that it's more than that. It's
Speaker 1: not a finite resource. It's something that if we had
Speaker 1: more money, we could build capacity and address other things
Speaker 1: as well, and not let go of our traditional constituency.
Speaker 1: We still need to pay attention to them. That's not
Speaker 1: the point. Isn't to move away from what we've has done,
Speaker 1: it's to build more. I think where that question becomes
Speaker 1: interesting is um probably the last word, like one of
Speaker 1: the last words. Hear wolves, right, wolves? So let's just say,
Speaker 1: let's say that, do you have a how do you
Speaker 1: add noises? Anything? Can do a vehicle and really far
Speaker 1: away though, have you ever heard this? He'll do it?
Speaker 1: Can I hear it way off in the wind? That's good.
Speaker 1: It sounds like he's like five miles away. It's sort
Speaker 1: of amazing to hear it in real life. It's just
Speaker 1: remarkable since chills your neck. Uh, But I don't think
Speaker 1: he can do it. He do a wolf way off. Ye, No, Phil,
Speaker 1: good job pill Um. Okay, take wolves. No, let's just
Speaker 1: say thanks for picking an easy man. Um, take wolves.
Speaker 1: Let's say that there's a thing you have to buy like,
Speaker 1: but let's just there's some enforceable way to do this,
Speaker 1: some hypothetical, weird way in which you have a you
Speaker 1: need a license to see a wolf. Okay. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you do this, but it just minds up
Speaker 1: being the same way you need a license to fish,
Speaker 1: you need a license to see a wolf. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I like where you're going. Hear me, so,
Speaker 1: and you say this license is twenty bucks, right, And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're selling hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: these wolf seeing licenses, okay, and it becomes a big thing,
Speaker 1: and a big part of your budget comes to people
Speaker 1: buying wolf seeing licenses. At that point, at some point,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be this like I use the word reckoning earlier.
Speaker 1: At some point there's gonna be like this reckoning between
Speaker 1: big game like big game hunters who want to see
Speaker 1: wolf I'm just speaking very generally. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: many folds within this, but I would think it's it's
Speaker 1: safe to say that in general, big game hunters harbor
Speaker 1: some apprehensions about having to what they would qualify as
Speaker 1: too many wolves on the landscape because it's can be
Speaker 1: detrimental to deer and elk hunting, because it can lead
Speaker 1: to declines and deer knock. They would that's an argument
Speaker 1: they would make. Other people would argue that, um, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter, let nature play its course, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't have any harvest wolves and there should
Speaker 1: just be a many wolves out there as possible now
Speaker 1: the minute that if you have a wolf viewing license,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're gonna have you'd have like
Speaker 1: this paying constituency of people, and you would probably feel
Speaker 1: a pressure to maximize wolf sightings because you could the
Speaker 1: same way people feel pressure now to have a lot
Speaker 1: of deer in alcout to satisfy guys like me, Like,
Speaker 1: can you imagine a situation like this where having more
Speaker 1: payers come in with more opinions that you would where
Speaker 1: you where it winds up being that, uh, where it
Speaker 1: winds up being that there is a battle. It's not
Speaker 1: like that the pie gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Well,
Speaker 1: we already get those opinions now all those opinions anyway, UM,
Speaker 1: and most species are managed now, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of species are conservation dependent or well just that we
Speaker 1: as humans have intervened on behalf of a number of species,
Speaker 1: whether to help recover them, like think of grizzly bears
Speaker 1: and wolves. We wouldn't have the numbers we have now
Speaker 1: in the landscape if we hadn't spent so much time
Speaker 1: and money trying to recover them. Yeah, that's a really
Speaker 1: good point. It's an interesting point because I think that
Speaker 1: some people fail to see that. They feel that those
Speaker 1: are there in the absence of action. Right, No, I'm
Speaker 1: conservation I like that conservation dependent is there because someone
Speaker 1: is paying to have them there. Well, yeah, we've we've
Speaker 1: managed we have you know, we've touched them in some way.
Speaker 1: UM and wolves, right, you know, I mean we reintroduce them,
Speaker 1: not we not fish, wildlife and parks. Because I've had
Speaker 1: somebody point their finger in my chest furious about me
Speaker 1: and reintroducing wolves, and I think, yeah, yeah, to take
Speaker 1: I can't take credit for that. I'm not quite that old.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it was real quick. That was UM an
Speaker 1: idea that was initiated at the federal level into varying
Speaker 1: degrees that the impacted states were responded, Yeah, we're brought
Speaker 1: in and it all happen. It was it was something
Speaker 1: that came from the federal level, right, did not come
Speaker 1: from a state that states either had to like figure
Speaker 1: out how to work with it or there was no
Speaker 1: option to not figure out how to work with it. Right,
Speaker 1: it was happening. So you have species that we've helped recover, um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, obviously the species that we have
Speaker 1: seasons on are allowed take there some management there. Um.
Speaker 1: So we just have had a hand in so many
Speaker 1: species across the landscape. Think of fit shouldn't think of
Speaker 1: water and returning you know in stream flows or the
Speaker 1: habitat you know, the whole point of habitat conservation. Um,
Speaker 1: we've just had a hand in a lot of that.
Speaker 1: So where am I going with that? Just there's it's
Speaker 1: complicated first of all, and the science has complicated and
Speaker 1: the social pieces are complicated. I don't see, um the
Speaker 1: ability you know, were you to have a wildlife viewing license,
Speaker 1: which I question that because it's a public resource, but
Speaker 1: there are some Yeah, there's a license you got together
Speaker 1: like the McNeil Bear Viewing area up in Catmire somewhere
Speaker 1: you gotta like buy you gotta like apply for a
Speaker 1: tag to look at that go in and see them
Speaker 1: to go into the area. Ye okay, so um, but
Speaker 1: that's more of a it's an access to it. It's
Speaker 1: not like you're buying a license to look at your
Speaker 1: access you're getting You're getting a permit to go let's say,
Speaker 1: just like to get a permit to full the Grand Canyon, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's not a rock viewing license, it's a permitive
Speaker 1: right when I mean, you know, if we were to
Speaker 1: play this out too, when we get so much pressure
Speaker 1: in certain places, that might happen. You know, how many
Speaker 1: people do you want to when you love a resource
Speaker 1: to death? Can that happen? But so say you even
Speaker 1: have that kind of input, you're still I can't imagine
Speaker 1: a day when state fish and wildlife agencies don't need
Speaker 1: hunters to help manage a species. I don't want. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to make our our staff, our employees go
Speaker 1: out and be the I mean, I remember the days
Speaker 1: of the firing squad of bison coming out of Yellowstone
Speaker 1: versus having hunters do it. So I don't see I
Speaker 1: just playing it out. I don't see hunting going away
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons, but one is that management
Speaker 1: an aspect, and I think it'd be ugly to have
Speaker 1: firing squads instead of having that opportunity to be outside.
Speaker 1: And also this sustainability point, what's in your freezer? You know?
Speaker 1: I have elk in my freezer and I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't typically buy meat, and I think many people who
Speaker 1: hunt and live in Montana they hunt in part for that.
Speaker 1: They hunt for the experience, but they also want the food.
Speaker 1: Do you guys didn always strongly advocate like pro hunting
Speaker 1: or I guess not so much that you'd be advocating
Speaker 1: pro hunting, But when it seems like lately every time, um,
Speaker 1: we have an opportunity, there's like an anti trapping bill
Speaker 1: that seems to come up. Right, So they're probably not
Speaker 1: a huge part of that fifty million dollars that comes in,
Speaker 1: but there's some and some people look at it like
Speaker 1: that's just the edge and if that goes, then the
Speaker 1: next thing is bow hunting or whatever. So does does
Speaker 1: FWP always stand at that front line and try to
Speaker 1: protect that? Yeah, that depends who you ask I would
Speaker 1: say many trappers would argue we don't enough. The anti
Speaker 1: trapping people would say we do too much. Um, I
Speaker 1: think we it's a balance that's that's not easy. We
Speaker 1: support trapping as a harvest heritage. We support trapping, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we wanted we don't want it to
Speaker 1: go away as a part of our heritage. At the
Speaker 1: same time, it's I don't think we should be too
Speaker 1: far out on that on the front line there because
Speaker 1: we're we're not set up to be an advocacy organization.
Speaker 1: An example is when there's like a trapping initiative, it's
Speaker 1: against the law for our agency to take a stance
Speaker 1: on an initiative. We don't step into that political fray.
Speaker 1: Remember when the when they were a few years ago,
Speaker 1: there was that there was a public vote out referendum
Speaker 1: and it was a band trapping on public land. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it was someone within Phishing Game who
Speaker 1: was talking about, we don't have the money to deal
Speaker 1: with all of the beaver complaints that would happen if
Speaker 1: people couldn't trap beavers. So that was before I was director,
Speaker 1: But I think we um we got challenged actually on
Speaker 1: on um a piece of of well, I think it
Speaker 1: was like a trailer or something. We got challenged on
Speaker 1: going too far an advocacy toward UM trapping, right, So
Speaker 1: someone pointed out, like, you're not that's not your job,
Speaker 1: stay out of it. Not you specifically, but someone within
Speaker 1: the agency. So we have a we have a fur
Speaker 1: bear trailer that we we we loaned to trapping groups
Speaker 1: to do helped do education on trapping. And the circumstance
Speaker 1: was this trailer was being used by a trapping group
Speaker 1: that was also at the time where they were using
Speaker 1: the trailer, they were also they were also advocating in
Speaker 1: opposition to this UH ballot initiative. So the we were
Speaker 1: we were challenged because we were they looked at us
Speaker 1: as having playing politics right, And so as soon as
Speaker 1: what the specifics of that, as soon as we found
Speaker 1: out that that we were in that sort of area conflict,
Speaker 1: we just took the trailer back. But that wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to ward off lawsuit. But in that situation you can't
Speaker 1: So let's say there's a trapping band situation, you can't
Speaker 1: come out and say, um, you can't come out the
Speaker 1: voters and be like, I can tell you one thing.
Speaker 1: Fish Walllife parks don't like it. That's really an initiative
Speaker 1: and that's a that's a that's a statue you. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's different in other states, but
Speaker 1: that's it. But at the time, at the moment, we
Speaker 1: do say, um, we think trapping is an important part
Speaker 1: of our harvest heritage, and the harvest heritage comes from
Speaker 1: the Constitution. That's why we say it that way. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like a very buzzy word like it would
Speaker 1: be like cool to say these days, but you're saying
Speaker 1: that it's been, that's been. Yeah. So but what you raise, though,
Speaker 1: is a really good question on what's the department's role when, um,
Speaker 1: we see societal changes and when you know, perceived ethics
Speaker 1: of trapping or a certain method of take or when
Speaker 1: there's a shift, what is our role and how do
Speaker 1: we play into that? And I I don't have a
Speaker 1: good answer to that, but I think you've you've hit
Speaker 1: something that we totally have to pay attention to. We
Speaker 1: know our educational programs are really important, trapping education, hunter education, UM,
Speaker 1: aquatic aid, all the parks. We do a lot of
Speaker 1: education in our parks. So so I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a role for education and and continuing this sort
Speaker 1: of heritage peace education doesn't count as direct advocacy, well,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter. It's it's the length the legislator,
Speaker 1: the statutes specific to like ballot initiatives or something like.
Speaker 1: I mean, so we we do we provide this so
Speaker 1: this trailer, this trapping trailer for bearer trailer, we talked
Speaker 1: about that. We we loan that out all the time
Speaker 1: and we provide grand money to um I guess Montrana
Speaker 1: Trappers Association is a group to help with some of
Speaker 1: their educational programming. So we do on that in that standpoint,
Speaker 1: we're supportive of that on all sorts of different fronts.
Speaker 1: It's the when there's a ballot initiative specific and that's
Speaker 1: it's just come up in the last few years with
Speaker 1: the trapping initiatives. That's where we don't take a stance.
Speaker 1: We're prohibited by a lot of take a stance. And
Speaker 1: I think that's to your point. I think that's what
Speaker 1: raises some people's frustrations. They say, well, you're the agency
Speaker 1: that licenses licenses this activity, you should be advocating for it, right,
Speaker 1: But then you're iss. You can get a certain point
Speaker 1: where it hits whatever in its process of enactment where
Speaker 1: you're like, right, you're at that point you gotta be like,
Speaker 1: my opinion is now stepping away, and you know what,
Speaker 1: I feel like that happens all the time too, when
Speaker 1: someone doesn't like something we've done, or they don't like
Speaker 1: what we haven't done. Where we're quiet, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to explain to people what our sideboards are to say
Speaker 1: we can't do that, and I nice, I'm thinking like
Speaker 1: with bear management now, I'm thinking of when we UM
Speaker 1: say when a legislator, legislator says, i'd like you to
Speaker 1: spend Pittman Robertson on UM enforcement, and we say, but
Speaker 1: we can't do that because it's not an ELI, it's
Speaker 1: not eligible under Pittman Robertson. It's really hard to describe
Speaker 1: those things. That's where you know, the engaged public, they're passionate,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, but sometimes they don't believe us when we say, well,
Speaker 1: we can't do that under the Endangered Species Actor, we
Speaker 1: can't do that under Pittman Robertson. And but we end
Speaker 1: we can do this. So that's just you know the
Speaker 1: nature of our our work. You know, seldom to someone
Speaker 1: come up to me and say something like, you know,
Speaker 1: who does the hell of a job wildlife? And by
Speaker 1: some I mean and I put gas in my car
Speaker 1: at the gas station and I got lots of comments
Speaker 1: like tearing it up. I find myself in a situation
Speaker 1: where I do try to like, um, do try to
Speaker 1: talk not just you guys specifically, but everyone. I try
Speaker 1: to say, like all in all, like when I stepped
Speaker 1: back and sort of look at the country. Um, oh no,
Speaker 1: I feel like fishing gaming agencies like that system works.
Speaker 1: I mean there's some wrinkles here and there, but I
Speaker 1: mean generally everybody can go hunt and fishing, you know,
Speaker 1: like in very like broad general points, like something's functioning
Speaker 1: well and there's mechanisms where you come and follow your complaints.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like no one does anything right?
Speaker 1: Do you guys feel like you should be able to
Speaker 1: take a victory lap about wolves now, because like, by
Speaker 1: and large, they're pretty well they're not all gone. They
Speaker 1: didn't go back extinct, right. Uh. People aren't super frustrated
Speaker 1: because when they got to like stand helplessly buy and
Speaker 1: watch them slaughter all their cows out in the in
Speaker 1: the by the haystack, it's like, did you get to
Speaker 1: go like I told you? No, No, we never get
Speaker 1: to do that. No. I mean I think we should
Speaker 1: celebrate recovery when they're Yeah, you can celebrate it, But
Speaker 1: um no, I don't think it's ever. That's a mistake
Speaker 1: people make. I believe with the Endangered Species Act, where
Speaker 1: certain species they view it as a switch, like they're
Speaker 1: not enough and then all of a sudden, we're okay
Speaker 1: and you can walk away. I don't think wildlife listens
Speaker 1: to us power switch. You know that it's okay one
Speaker 1: day and not okay the other day. Okay again, it's
Speaker 1: part of a continuum. So is it a success that's
Speaker 1: we're celebrating. Yes, but as our work ever done? No,
Speaker 1: because there are plenty of people who would like to
Speaker 1: have fewer wolves in northwest Montana, and yet there are
Speaker 1: people around Yellowstone who use wolf. Wolf watching is an
Speaker 1: important economic driver. I would like to see more. So
Speaker 1: we're not naive enough to think that our work is done.
Speaker 1: You never like, got it permanent? Yeah, got it? We
Speaker 1: can learn from good things. I'll promise not to bring
Speaker 1: up wolves anymore. I'm only bring I mean I want
Speaker 1: to say that because not that you have a problem
Speaker 1: with me, bring them up. But imagine it's just like
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that probably if you imagine
Speaker 1: how many like like you, Matt, you were talked early
Speaker 1: about how a big like a piece of pie is.
Speaker 1: If I imagine your brain as a chunk of pie,
Speaker 1: the wolf slice, it's probably big. Well, the elve slice
Speaker 1: is big. Well what's bigger the wolf slice of the
Speaker 1: elk slice? Well, it depends on the year, depends on
Speaker 1: the year. But I feel like when I go talk
Speaker 1: to landowners, like I can go talk to landowners about
Speaker 1: wolves or bears and they'll pull me aside and they'll say, listen,
Speaker 1: what I really want to talk to you about is hell.
Speaker 1: So if you imagine, like where are your sort of thoughts,
Speaker 1: Like if you made and there's this pie and it's
Speaker 1: your head and there's the wedges representing different animals, and
Speaker 1: I'm saying, this is what you wish you could think about.
Speaker 1: But just like when it all said and done, and
Speaker 1: all the things you got to look at and consider, Um, grizzlies, wolves,
Speaker 1: elk are big, huge pieces of pie. They are, and
Speaker 1: they're like the whole pie budget personnel. Fish, No, it's
Speaker 1: only animal pie, climate change, aquatic invasive species disease, chronic
Speaker 1: wasting disease. So you're not willing to just have it
Speaker 1: be an animal pie. Listen, I wish it was only
Speaker 1: an animal pie. The harder things sometimes are are the
Speaker 1: human the human pieces of the pie. There was a
Speaker 1: Commission meeting just uh six weeks ago where a chunk
Speaker 1: of the meeting was on a good chunk was on trout,
Speaker 1: kind of a trout versus walleye debate. Oh, and it
Speaker 1: was as animated our meetings, can people getting okay, give
Speaker 1: me the just give me give me real quick. What
Speaker 1: are the what? What are the what? We're talking cutthroats
Speaker 1: and we're talking other inters. So trying to introduce rainbows
Speaker 1: versus introduced walleyes. What were we talking about? Well, so
Speaker 1: the it was the Upper Missouri River Reservoir plan where
Speaker 1: we have a multi species system that includes very healthy
Speaker 1: walleye fisheries and a very healthy rainbow trout. So it's
Speaker 1: rainbow rainbow v. Walleye. Well, when how would you balance
Speaker 1: them or not? Yeah, the rainbows aren't from here anyways.
Speaker 1: This is one introduced the think that yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: way that one didn't come up that river high enough?
Speaker 1: Are you? So are you on the you are on
Speaker 1: the on the side of the debate that Wally I
Speaker 1: or a Montana native. Let's just say, okay, do I
Speaker 1: think the historically, Wally, we're coming up the Missouri far
Speaker 1: enough to hit Montana. I mean, of course, come on, fishty,
Speaker 1: wild stuff, right, fish turn up. I mean you have
Speaker 1: a wolf from the up of Missually the winds up
Speaker 1: down in Missouri, so it's like a wolf wind up
Speaker 1: there here to the wall, I wind up there. How
Speaker 1: about the Upper Missouri waters head though I don't know
Speaker 1: how high up well that one got lost and well
Speaker 1: so historically from from from what our research has are
Speaker 1: not ours, But I mean the research we've collected and
Speaker 1: looked at the Great Falls was a barrier. So above
Speaker 1: Great Falls was cutthroat west slope cutthroat fishery, which is
Speaker 1: kind of cool. But you know, with with dams and
Speaker 1: everything else. I mean, there's no doubt that we have
Speaker 1: some we have some spectacular walleye fishing in the Upper
Speaker 1: Missouri reservoirs, but so so the multi more about what
Speaker 1: I want to clarify, what I think all to happen
Speaker 1: if it's wal ivy cutthroat. Cutthroat win because they're native fish,
Speaker 1: super native fish and imperiled and to some extent wal
Speaker 1: ivy rainbow. I'm justest gonna go with walls. I like
Speaker 1: them better. Yeah. Well so the so the to the
Speaker 1: balance that we do is we manage for both of them.
Speaker 1: So we we in this one. We try trying to
Speaker 1: keep everybody happy. We're trying not to pick winners and losers,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's throwing the mix, uh the perch fishery
Speaker 1: which is really important to the to the both the
Speaker 1: walleye and the rainbow fishery. And so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of going there's a lot of moving parts in that
Speaker 1: Upper Missouri Reservoir plan. But right downstream of the last
Speaker 1: damn is the fabled Missouri blue ribbon trout fishery, the
Speaker 1: tail water fishery where up until this is just meeting,
Speaker 1: we were it was an unlimited take on walleye because
Speaker 1: there was just no we didn't want any walleye in that.
Speaker 1: And that's where the heat got into the room. Was
Speaker 1: trying to you know, the passion on both sides of
Speaker 1: the fishery debate. Man. That's that's an interesting point because
Speaker 1: there's a there's a thing where you know, you can
Speaker 1: use set lines in the Lorielstone. It's like a great
Speaker 1: way to catch catfish. I've heard that there now and
Speaker 1: you talk about like all the different people getting mad
Speaker 1: at each other. I heard now there's catfish guys who
Speaker 1: are gunning for set lines because the set liners catch
Speaker 1: all the catfish. So it's not even walleye guys v.
Speaker 1: Rainbow guys. It's like catfish guys be catfish guys. Everybody's
Speaker 1: everybody's douking it out, the write letters and mail. Um
Speaker 1: so so does there's a little piece of that that
Speaker 1: I find, um funny odd that we're fighting. It's it's
Speaker 1: another way to put it would be that's not I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't say that the first world problem, but that
Speaker 1: we're fighting over a plethora of riches. I mean, instead
Speaker 1: of early on going back to the theme of the
Speaker 1: origin of the North American model, the Pittman Robertson Act,
Speaker 1: where there um depleted resources. Now we have a lot
Speaker 1: of resources and we're fighting over them. And I just
Speaker 1: I just sometimes think we we missed the big picture
Speaker 1: of we should all we have more in common than
Speaker 1: we're willing to let on fighting at the litt things.
Speaker 1: My kids fight the worst one about ten am Christmas morning, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the richest. Then they got something to fight over who
Speaker 1: got what? And I'm not discounting it was drowned in
Speaker 1: toys and they turn on each other. Uh, loving it
Speaker 1: to death? Okay, talk about what what do you mean when?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to you? Loving it to death?
Speaker 1: What would mean to me would be what happens in
Speaker 1: Uh what do you mean right now? Would be like
Speaker 1: what happens during archery elk season in Colorado. Pretty much
Speaker 1: every season in Colorado's loved to death. People want to go,
Speaker 1: and they want to go and have the experience in
Speaker 1: the state. It's like hell, come on out. And it
Speaker 1: makes it that it just creates like over it creates
Speaker 1: what I would feel like an overwhelmingly negative thing. And
Speaker 1: by trying to participate in something that's supposed to be great,
Speaker 1: all of those people participating and it diminishes and cheapens
Speaker 1: it and makes it not special. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: that Colorado Elk are but they'll be in love to
Speaker 1: death by other user groups as well. Yeah, maybe even
Speaker 1: more than too many archery hunters. I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of archery hunters certainly worse since your experience out there.
Speaker 1: But we've talked when we talked with bel Andre from
Speaker 1: the Colorado Parks and Wildlife, you know, he's talking about,
Speaker 1: um just hikers and backpackers and mountain bikers that are
Speaker 1: in the mountains seven sixty five days a year. There
Speaker 1: is no off season, there's no shoulder season there anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: I lived there ten years ago and just now is
Speaker 1: back this year, and just you know, trailheads that would
Speaker 1: have a car or two or maybe none at certain
Speaker 1: days of the week. Now every single day of the week,
Speaker 1: all the time that there's overflow parking for every single trailhead,
Speaker 1: and those animals just do not get a break anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's a form of love and to death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say so. And then the love and death of
Speaker 1: I think just like the like the amazing number of
Speaker 1: nonresident the hunters of the state lets in. I'm staying
Speaker 1: that from a non resident, So that would be love
Speaker 1: or here let me give you another love and to death,
Speaker 1: because here's what I want to talk about. Like a river,
Speaker 1: for instance, when I go down there's a river near here,
Speaker 1: the Madison it Um in the old days when I
Speaker 1: was a young man, um some people around the river.
Speaker 1: But now you go down there on a Saturday in
Speaker 1: the summertime and it's like it's like a parade, and
Speaker 1: you're talking even like inflatable swans. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: a parade. Have you taken your kids down and done that? No?
Speaker 1: Hell no, I wouldn't take them to do that. There.
Speaker 1: You can rent those inflatable swans. Wouldn't inflatable mattresses. I
Speaker 1: remember one time seeing you know, those metal um watering troughs.
Speaker 1: I've seen a metal watering trough on the Missouri on
Speaker 1: the fourth of July weekend. Not to be crude, but
Speaker 1: at a certain point is the amount of urine in
Speaker 1: the water it's produced by all those floats that start
Speaker 1: to hurt the fish. It depends on if there's an
Speaker 1: offset with beer. Can beer offset the impact you're in?
Speaker 1: So we got this situation where you have this river
Speaker 1: and everyone wants to go there and they want to
Speaker 1: flow down the river. And someone might look and say, um,
Speaker 1: what was special about this? Right that it was like
Speaker 1: a way to this this this naturally scenic, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: You can drift down this river and kind of visualize
Speaker 1: it yourself, getting lost in time. It's this landscape that
Speaker 1: just from a cursory look um carved. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be like I don't know, I'm here five years ago,
Speaker 1: Like if I was here five hundred years ago, probably
Speaker 1: kind of be like this, you know, and it's special
Speaker 1: and people go there. But then one day so many
Speaker 1: people go there that now it doesn't do what it
Speaker 1: did Now it's just a circus. So like like, whose
Speaker 1: responsibility is to police this? Is it? Anyone's who's supposed
Speaker 1: to say, like, hey, now some of you can't go
Speaker 1: because we're just gonna let a couple of people go
Speaker 1: and it will be special to them and everyone else
Speaker 1: stay home. Well let me ask that back. Who do
Speaker 1: you think i'd have a say and who should police it?
Speaker 1: And what that would look like? I mean, I would
Speaker 1: just look to That's a good question. The constituents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are our constituents? What you're even talking about different
Speaker 1: land like different landownership stuff. Yeah, well let me let
Speaker 1: me back up. So when I talked about fish, wildlife
Speaker 1: and parks, you know what is our job? Our mission
Speaker 1: is to steward uh fish, wildlife, parks, recreational resources for
Speaker 1: for today and for future generations. And then as we've
Speaker 1: gone around the state and talked to a number of
Speaker 1: people and went through a whole process internally to figure
Speaker 1: out what, like what does that really mean? And that
Speaker 1: our charge is to protect the integrity of the Montana
Speaker 1: experience outside. So so we're we're not Colorado right now,
Speaker 1: We're not Utah, were not other states. What is what
Speaker 1: is the Montana experience and how would we protect the
Speaker 1: integrity of that experience? So that's what our charge is.
Speaker 1: So in I would argue it is our job to
Speaker 1: look at that, whether it's the experience of hunting, it's
Speaker 1: the experience of trails on lands we manage um, and
Speaker 1: it is um the experience on the Madison. So I
Speaker 1: believe we do have a role in it. And there's
Speaker 1: a statute that directs us to address social conflicts on
Speaker 1: rivers now like a specific thing to like fight out
Speaker 1: social conflicts. And I remember on rivers, I remembering they
Speaker 1: they didn't they didn't forget anything. Today you could go
Speaker 1: back to the legislative history on that. I was sitting
Speaker 1: in the legislative hearing the day that language got added
Speaker 1: into that statute, and I remember I was like this
Speaker 1: fresh lawyer. I didn't, you know, I was somewhat new
Speaker 1: to the process and I reader can't have a law background. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was. I was. I thought that day, I thought, WHOA,
Speaker 1: what is that going to mean? Is that's a good
Speaker 1: thing or it's hard? So so we do have that responsibility. Now,
Speaker 1: how we apply it is super tricky. Um and I
Speaker 1: would argue the best way to apply it is to
Speaker 1: go through some sort of robust public process where we
Speaker 1: do hear from everyone. You hear from you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about them, Addison. You hear from the people who
Speaker 1: live in Annas, you business owners, the people who live
Speaker 1: there and don't own a business, Virginia City, Nevada City,
Speaker 1: people who live in Bozeman, non residents. I mean, think
Speaker 1: of all the different people who use them. Addison and
Speaker 1: I don't believe that we can turn back the clock
Speaker 1: on what's happening there. I think that's tough. But we
Speaker 1: can certainly think about what's happening now and look to
Speaker 1: the future. It's not easy, but I mean, I look
Speaker 1: at the Smith River, I look at other rivers that
Speaker 1: are permitted. Do we want to do that? Greg and
Speaker 1: I were talking about it do we want the same
Speaker 1: experience on all of the rivers, Like should the Boulder
Speaker 1: River or the Yellowstone be the same as the Madison. Um.
Speaker 1: I think we have to listen to the public and
Speaker 1: go through and we have here, but go through a
Speaker 1: really public process and and sort through that collectively without
Speaker 1: us stepping in and dictating it. My opinion here doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It's what collectively we do. But at some point, because
Speaker 1: right now we're just talking about all the user experiences,
Speaker 1: at some point when you have to step in and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we have to be the voice for the habitat
Speaker 1: and and all the things that live in it and
Speaker 1: on it. Yes, and to date, um, and I mean
Speaker 1: this is all part of what's going on. I think
Speaker 1: the people you don't want to see fish wild life
Speaker 1: from Parks or the Commission to step into this the
Speaker 1: issue on the Madison because to date there has not
Speaker 1: been a biological impact. There hasn't been an impact on
Speaker 1: the fisheries. I think we're seeing that. Um, we're starting
Speaker 1: to see that, and and and the next year or so,
Speaker 1: I'll be really curious. I do think it's our job
Speaker 1: to get that data and understand that better. So I
Speaker 1: want to just clarify this for for folks, No, you're
Speaker 1: doing a bang up job and I'm probably gonna I'll
Speaker 1: be accused of like someone say like, oh, are you
Speaker 1: telling the obvious? So, uh, we're looking at we're talking
Speaker 1: about two different things. Where you have our river okay,
Speaker 1: and the river has too much boating traffic. You could
Speaker 1: be invited into police the experience. And that's one thing,
Speaker 1: so you talk about you have the ability to monitor
Speaker 1: like social stuff, meaning like in the absence of it
Speaker 1: being fish habitat or whatever, just like that you can
Speaker 1: monitor like what kind of experience is it crowded or
Speaker 1: not crowded. But then there's another avenue of approach into
Speaker 1: this question where you could be in a situation where
Speaker 1: no one has any problem with the crowding. Everyone loves
Speaker 1: the crowding. They wish there was more crowding, but it
Speaker 1: turns out the fish don't dig it. And at that
Speaker 1: point you can also you also have legal authority on
Speaker 1: behalf of the fish regardless of what anybody thinks. Not
Speaker 1: regardless of what anyone thinks. I mean, we still could
Speaker 1: step in, but you still will get public input. So
Speaker 1: there's that's that mix of the biological science and social science.
Speaker 1: I would argue, you know, biological science is critical, it
Speaker 1: should be the underpinning. We also have learned we need
Speaker 1: to pay attention to social science too. There are very
Speaker 1: few things I think we deal with it doesn't have
Speaker 1: some social impact or so. Um, but it's good. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we're so linked to the natural world. So that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. You mentioned the Smith River. So there's
Speaker 1: a river. There's a very isolated, very wild river called
Speaker 1: the Smith River, and it's quintessential Montana. People do multi
Speaker 1: day floats on it, and you gotta like draw a
Speaker 1: permit to go float the river. It's not like you
Speaker 1: don't you don't go down there for an hour. It's
Speaker 1: like you get a permit. You do at Yeah, you do,
Speaker 1: you do a river trip. Um, could you imagine is
Speaker 1: there a way to have a version of a permit
Speaker 1: system that you need to get a permit to go
Speaker 1: float in a two for an hour? I mean I'm
Speaker 1: all for it, but I mean, like, is that is
Speaker 1: there a way to do that? I don't know, first come,
Speaker 1: first served, like like you know, I mean, like what
Speaker 1: could it look like? Um, I guess I don't know yet.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is somewhat new territory for us, and
Speaker 1: we've not had a sound bureaucratic here. But it's the truth.
Speaker 1: We haven't had the capacity and the money to put
Speaker 1: the work into getting um studying this better and setting
Speaker 1: up a good system to address Yet well it's come up,
Speaker 1: but it's not popular and we haven't had the support
Speaker 1: to really plan it out. But if you think about
Speaker 1: the Smith River, the precursor to and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that we want to permit all rivers, I'm not at
Speaker 1: all going there for right, right, and we wouldn't want that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, because then people aren't getting outside
Speaker 1: and experiencing it and then loving something else too because
Speaker 1: they got to grow up going on the river whatever.
Speaker 1: But the Smith River. UM first, there was a study
Speaker 1: of the resources. There was a study of use and
Speaker 1: resources on the Smith River that led to permit getting there.
Speaker 1: And so what I'm saying, I think is we're getting
Speaker 1: pushed river by river to address conflict, whether it's on
Speaker 1: the West Fork of the bitter Root or on the Madison.
Speaker 1: You know, people are coming to the agency to say
Speaker 1: we want you to address this. UM I am saying it.
Speaker 1: I would love down the road to be able to
Speaker 1: uh look at it across the state holistically, so that
Speaker 1: we're realize that if we do something on the Madison,
Speaker 1: how might that impact the Yellowstone? Or when we had
Speaker 1: regulations on the Beaverhead and Big Hole, how did that
Speaker 1: impact the Madison? And making sure we have all sorts
Speaker 1: of different kinds of opportunity, So we're not saying every
Speaker 1: every opportunity, every river has to be the same. I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not arguing that well. And I think on the
Speaker 1: Madison is a really unique spot sort of because that
Speaker 1: lower river is is so the experience during the summer
Speaker 1: months is so much geared towards that that sort of
Speaker 1: non consumptive crowd. Not that not that they don't consume,
Speaker 1: because they do, but they we we don't permit people
Speaker 1: like the bird watchers and the carrying, the partiers, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're consumptive in a different way, but they but
Speaker 1: we so they use up years of my life in swants,
Speaker 1: the ones in the inflatable swants. But but but on
Speaker 1: a given uh summer weekend, summer Saturday, there may be
Speaker 1: thousands of people on that that lower stretch river and
Speaker 1: there and there's a there's a there's a businesses and
Speaker 1: in Bozeman that that serve that crowd, that that that
Speaker 1: value that use. Isn't the primary debate that that comes
Speaker 1: to us. The primary debate that comes to us is
Speaker 1: on the Upper River, and it's on the commercial outfitting
Speaker 1: versus the wait angler versus the non commercial outfitted user
Speaker 1: or the non guided user and the and so that's
Speaker 1: where right now that the debate is the hottest. Well,
Speaker 1: you're saying that that on the river. On this river
Speaker 1: there's more of a debate around people arguing between who's
Speaker 1: got a guide and who's waiting from the beach and
Speaker 1: who's in a boat but not with a guide, Like
Speaker 1: they're duking it out more than who's here to party
Speaker 1: and who's here to fish. Well, think of if you
Speaker 1: think about it for us, for like kind of how
Speaker 1: it gets to us, Like there there isn't the constituent
Speaker 1: that that buys a six pack of PBR and and
Speaker 1: a black inner tube and hops in and floats down
Speaker 1: the river and it's cut offs. He doesn't show up
Speaker 1: at the public meeting. Yeah, they don't have like a
Speaker 1: he's not like in the Montana Tubers associated right, that's truthfully,
Speaker 1: this comes to the Commission in the form of in
Speaker 1: a formal petition, so that already, you know, weeds people out.
Speaker 1: He's going to bring a petition for that. But but
Speaker 1: if you like to drink beer and float, and I'm
Speaker 1: starting to group right now, you're you haven't shown up yet,
Speaker 1: but if you're but if you want that sort of
Speaker 1: solitude experienced wade fishing, like up a three dollar bridge,
Speaker 1: you know that the sama fly hatches on. You've hiked
Speaker 1: down the river two miles, You've got this couple of
Speaker 1: holes you're gonna fish. You want that solitude, You've earned it,
Speaker 1: You've you've put in the time, you've you've done all
Speaker 1: everything right, and then you have a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people floating by your you might your dissatisfaction with your experience.
Speaker 1: That that is where that opinion is what's coming to
Speaker 1: us now. Also, the you know, and it's Chamber of Commerce,
Speaker 1: the you know, the Outfitters and Guides Association. We're hearing
Speaker 1: from those groups saying, you know, hey, you can't if
Speaker 1: you're gonna you gotta be really thoughtful if you're gonna
Speaker 1: limit how many outfitters we like selling stuff. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what, you know what? You know what group you're
Speaker 1: gonna regret? You ever heard of when we we get uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start the Rocky Mountain Squirrel Foundation, and you're
Speaker 1: out top about having to be in your bonnet. Man,
Speaker 1: they don't you guys more squirrels. You guys don't make
Speaker 1: They don't manage squirrels. Well, the isn't. I mean, I
Speaker 1: believe I'm stepping out, but aren't those uh foxtail squirrels
Speaker 1: are invasive foxtail fox squirrels fox squirrels. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think they came up. You think they
Speaker 1: came they came up, They rolled the backs of the wall.
Speaker 1: I read they came up, they rolled on wall. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, though, Man, to be honest with you, I
Speaker 1: don't want there to be It's counterintuitive. I don't want
Speaker 1: there to be a formal season in a formal bag
Speaker 1: limit because I feel that if there was, people would
Speaker 1: be tuned into it, like the minute you make it
Speaker 1: a thing. Like remember how like people used to just
Speaker 1: go and like you might go fishing and maybe shoot
Speaker 1: something too right and just that's just what you did,
Speaker 1: and that could happen then all a sudden something came
Speaker 1: up with the term like, oh, let's do a cast
Speaker 1: and blast, and all of a sudden, you like put
Speaker 1: a name to something and you turn it into something.
Speaker 1: So I think, like, if people open up the REGs
Speaker 1: and they see rules about squirrels, are gonna get all interested.
Speaker 1: I'd rather I like it one of the I like
Speaker 1: it that there's just no mention of it, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't become like a thing. But what I'd like
Speaker 1: to see is more of them dropped off here and there,
Speaker 1: like a lot more money into do it bucket biology
Speaker 1: on squirrels. Man hate no bucket biology. That's just a
Speaker 1: stance we gotta make. Yeah, uh, okay, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: loving it to death and what like. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: to know that you're actually like there's a mandate, an
Speaker 1: agency could have a man date to regulate people's social fighting.
Speaker 1: What do you feel? So this is a whole new topic.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about um. Earlier we talked
Speaker 1: about like who owns wildlife? Right, we talked about it
Speaker 1: really matter of factly, like everybody knows. Everybody knows wildlife
Speaker 1: owned by the people. What are what do you imagine
Speaker 1: being threats to that. And I know that for you
Speaker 1: to use the word threat, it's gonna put you in
Speaker 1: trouble because you're sort of there's a value judgment with
Speaker 1: calling it a threat, like what are the chant Like,
Speaker 1: what do you see as emerging challenges to this thing
Speaker 1: that we're just accepting at face value as being Like
Speaker 1: everyone agrees that wildlife is a public the wildlife is
Speaker 1: publicly owned. Um, but as you point out, not everyone
Speaker 1: agrees with that or they understand that it's always been
Speaker 1: that way, but they would like to see that change. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a group I'm trying to remember what's the what's
Speaker 1: the the Utah group Sportsman. They come up with them
Speaker 1: as a group of sports for Wildlife. It's one of
Speaker 1: those this is me talking, not like I want to
Speaker 1: save you guys, any kind of I'm talking right now,
Speaker 1: Steve that that I haven't consulted that our guests are
Speaker 1: sitting silently. Um, but yeah, I don't want to say
Speaker 1: that group there are sometimes you'll see, uh yeah, never
Speaker 1: mind sports states handle it differently. Yeah, so sports there's
Speaker 1: and I could't even be wrong, but I feel like
Speaker 1: Sportsman for Wildlife. I believe, um that that organization would
Speaker 1: like to see. UM, I would like to see individual
Speaker 1: landowners enjoy sort of a greater ownership. Speaking very generally,
Speaker 1: they would like to see the landowners enjoy a greater
Speaker 1: ownership of the animals that are on their property. Meaning UM,
Speaker 1: they're not comfortable entirely with the idea that that's public
Speaker 1: and it'd be like if you got if you own
Speaker 1: the land, you should be able to have more say
Speaker 1: and what goes on on it. UM. I'll point out
Speaker 1: we told a story before, but this whole thing comes
Speaker 1: from UM. A long time ago there was a there's
Speaker 1: a Supreme you know, there's a Supreme Court decision of
Speaker 1: other things where there was a guy and he was
Speaker 1: he owned some land on the beach and people would
Speaker 1: pick oysters, would collect oysters off the beach. And the
Speaker 1: guy was like, hey, man, um, you can't pick those
Speaker 1: oysters up. Those are I own the oysters because I
Speaker 1: own the land on the oysters and UM, and he
Speaker 1: traced back his ownership at these oysters or something like
Speaker 1: land grant from the King of England. So he's like thereby,
Speaker 1: my wild my land, my wildlife. And eventually goes to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court and it's determined that Um, with the
Speaker 1: declaration of independence, those things that belonged to the sovereign,
Speaker 1: like those things that belonged to the king, became the
Speaker 1: property of the people. I'm doing this like very shorthand version.
Speaker 1: Therefore you don't know on the oysters. Sorry, like king
Speaker 1: game to you, but not anymore. We're done with that
Speaker 1: stuff now. Now we're America and we have this new idea,
Speaker 1: which is public wildlife. It's not like in Europe where
Speaker 1: you you know the king's deer. Um. How do you
Speaker 1: I know you earlier saying you have you're not able
Speaker 1: to advocate or you need to be more like a
Speaker 1: passive bystander, as an agency, an initiative. Okay, what about
Speaker 1: something like this? Can you, like, are you able to
Speaker 1: flex some muscle and stand up for public wildlife or
Speaker 1: you just have to be like whatever way the wind blows. Um.
Speaker 1: If that's the question, well, I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: the law. I think it's the public trust. And wildlife
Speaker 1: is embedded in our um, in the fabric of our country.
Speaker 1: It's embedded in you know, think of people love block lands,
Speaker 1: public wildlife. It's part of why we have some of
Speaker 1: the species diversity and abundance that we have. UM So
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not advocating for a certain point of view,
Speaker 1: because it is. It's a fact of life. It is
Speaker 1: what it is right now. Certainly in Montana. Now Utah
Speaker 1: wildlife is monetized more than in Montana, where you know,
Speaker 1: a landowner can get landowner tags or whatever, and there's
Speaker 1: certainly people who are interested in that happening in more
Speaker 1: places in the country. UM. I have learned in being director.
Speaker 1: I mean there are lots of things that I've had
Speaker 1: to learn along the way. And I think there's so
Speaker 1: many sort of unspoken rules, and I've tried to learn them,
Speaker 1: and I think we should make them spoken about what
Speaker 1: we think is different in Montana than say in Utah
Speaker 1: or Colorado and some of our neighboring states. And I
Speaker 1: say that to learn that because if our job at
Speaker 1: Montana Fish Wildlife from Parks is to protect the integrity
Speaker 1: of the Montana outdoor experience, to protect that, we need
Speaker 1: to know what might be different here than elsewhere. And
Speaker 1: I think we as people as citizens, whether citizen of
Speaker 1: Montana or citizens somewhere else, as hunters, anglers, certainly as managers,
Speaker 1: I think we need to understand how we got to
Speaker 1: where we are, That it wasn't by happenstance. The fact
Speaker 1: that we UM have this equitable opportunity in Montana, the
Speaker 1: fact that wildlife is truly public, that we haven't monetized it,
Speaker 1: the fact that we have the experiences to rivers and
Speaker 1: UM across the state that we do. It's it's on purpose,
Speaker 1: it was all, you know, It's part of our that
Speaker 1: North American UM model. It's part of our system. And
Speaker 1: if we don't understand that, and we don't understand what
Speaker 1: makes it different and special compared to somewhere else, how
Speaker 1: do we make sure that continues. So I feel like
Speaker 1: it's my job to be not necessarily advocating, although I
Speaker 1: think I'm comfortable here because there's not an initiative or something.
Speaker 1: This is what developed as a state, and I think
Speaker 1: that makes a state special UM to pay. It's my
Speaker 1: job to pay attention to what that is and be
Speaker 1: UM explicit. If we're going to deviate from that and
Speaker 1: change it, we need to understand what that difference would mean.
Speaker 1: So if we were to privatize wildlife and I and
Speaker 1: and if we were to allow give change, what we
Speaker 1: have of now where landowners are treated like anybody else.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity state, UM, where landowners don't have any
Speaker 1: rights to wildlife much different than the general public or
Speaker 1: a license holder. UM. If we were to change that,
Speaker 1: what would that mean? And we certainly could as a state,
Speaker 1: But I think we need to understand what we have
Speaker 1: in place now, what makes it special before just saying Okay,
Speaker 1: it's all right to change that, Because I think when you,
Speaker 1: as you've said, it's hard to put a genie back
Speaker 1: in the bottle. You know, when you change something or
Speaker 1: you allow you give somebody a right, it's a whole
Speaker 1: lot harder to take that right away than to just
Speaker 1: not give it to them to begin with, or to
Speaker 1: do it incrementally. So I think in this instance, what
Speaker 1: makes the experience in Montana pretty special we better be
Speaker 1: careful at it's saying oh, it's fine to change that
Speaker 1: without really understanding what we're doing it does, without inviting
Speaker 1: people to understand the foundation. Yeah, someone's like, why don't
Speaker 1: we have more landowner tags? You could say we could have,
Speaker 1: could we could, But let's look at how we came
Speaker 1: to sort of the underlying like foundational principles that led
Speaker 1: us to be that we like democratic allocation right. And
Speaker 1: I also think it's really fair to realize, like this
Speaker 1: is inside baseball, this is something we all think about.
Speaker 1: You clearly think about it, and it's great to talk about.
Speaker 1: But not everybody knows this. We shouldn't assume that people
Speaker 1: realize how important it is that we do have this
Speaker 1: public trust in wild life, that all everybody has a
Speaker 1: piece of this. It's it's complicated enough where I have
Speaker 1: purchased and hunted off of landowner tags. When we talk
Speaker 1: about land ard tag, what that's why to tell people
Speaker 1: at land artaga is land ard tag would be that
Speaker 1: UM in whatever particular game management unit or wherever you have,
Speaker 1: they might be the people who own x number of
Speaker 1: acres um deserve to get some like payback for them
Speaker 1: owning land that has animals on it. So if you
Speaker 1: own four acres, they're gonna give you two deer tags.
Speaker 1: Everybody else needs to try to apply for a tag
Speaker 1: and win in a drawing. And then in some cases
Speaker 1: you can take your two deer tags and sell them.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't in Montana. No, no, no not. You
Speaker 1: can sell them to the highest bidder. Um they're just
Speaker 1: years to have and then you get them that way,
Speaker 1: just by the simple fact of owning land, you get tags,
Speaker 1: and then other people get them the good old fashioned ways.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is I've bought and have been given
Speaker 1: landowner tags and other states, and even with that, uh,
Speaker 1: even having done that, I still them a little bit like, um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I feel about them. I remember
Speaker 1: we had a podcast guest time one time that has
Speaker 1: a place on the coast, has a place on the
Speaker 1: California coast, and he doesn't He didn't say this when
Speaker 1: we interviewed him, but he had said it elsewhere. He
Speaker 1: lives in a house on the beach, and he says,
Speaker 1: I don't even think you should be able to have
Speaker 1: a house on the beach. But I'm gonna stay in
Speaker 1: mine until it's illegal. Then I will happily move out
Speaker 1: once I know that someone else isn't gonna move into it.
Speaker 1: So like I'm just pointed out, because like I was magnanimous,
Speaker 1: not everyone would sit. So it's like I get him,
Speaker 1: and I still get him, and I still a little
Speaker 1: bit like, I don't know, man, is this like the
Speaker 1: right thing, the right way to uh that you are? Um,
Speaker 1: that you're hunting the King's deer. Right, That's what he
Speaker 1: taught me about it, that it's some that it's tags,
Speaker 1: And I guess I've I've had in my life through
Speaker 1: various ways for landowner tags um or the equivalent of
Speaker 1: land ard tags four times. And then it would be that, uh,
Speaker 1: I got those opportunities because of my connection to or
Speaker 1: my personal being like someone of means, and there was
Speaker 1: four opportunities that would have been distributed more equitably and
Speaker 1: more democratically to others. So I went into the woods
Speaker 1: because of being a man of means or having relations
Speaker 1: that way, and other people stayed home because they're not right.
Speaker 1: That eats at me. But then you can also be like, oh,
Speaker 1: life a fair whatever, like there's all kinds of ways
Speaker 1: to write it all. Yeah, well yeah, you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm a good friend, right so uh yeah, man, it
Speaker 1: bounces around and uh to if I put in for
Speaker 1: a draw and like draw the tag, dude, I'm elated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: guilt free hunting guilt. Yeah. So when I'm pointing, I'm
Speaker 1: not on even know what I'm getting at. I'm just
Speaker 1: getting at the idea that it's like that there's these
Speaker 1: sort of ideas out there that that um I haven't
Speaker 1: even totally unpacked. How I feel you get us on
Speaker 1: the subject of governor's tags talking about its ambivalence, all right,
Speaker 1: I see both sides. Well, you know, the interesting thing
Speaker 1: in Montana and not to get it down on governor
Speaker 1: down the road on Governor's takes, but where we're at
Speaker 1: is and you know, wildlife management is a is a
Speaker 1: complex situation that you know, complex field for us obviously,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: values at the table, and there's a lot of interest
Speaker 1: at the table, including landowners. We don't get to we
Speaker 1: get to just manage wildlife without sort of considering all
Speaker 1: those sorts of relationships and those partnerships. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot in in that department recently. Is
Speaker 1: it's critical our landowner relationships are critical. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a ton of habitat in Montana that is critical that's
Speaker 1: on private land. Oh, if you look at I mean
Speaker 1: private land, private land conservation, if you just look at
Speaker 1: it and whatever is in square units of space, private
Speaker 1: land conservation is more important in public wayAnd conservation because
Speaker 1: more of the country's private land, Like if they all
Speaker 1: decided just to piss it all away. Everyone's done. We're done,
Speaker 1: Like we can't have wildlife if private landowners decided that
Speaker 1: they didn't care about wild life anymore and they're just
Speaker 1: going to destroy it all of course, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: And no one is suggesting that you should be forced
Speaker 1: to allow access on your property. Like if you own
Speaker 1: land and there's animals on it, you have right and
Speaker 1: no one can go, No one can go. No one's
Speaker 1: questioning that. But we're talking about is like do you,
Speaker 1: by by fact of you owning the land, do you
Speaker 1: then get the animals too, which is us, which would
Speaker 1: be giving something that didn't previously belong to you to you. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're not writing momentum, it's a new idea,
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing, you know. Well, I feel like
Speaker 1: we often get accused of like being down on on
Speaker 1: private land all the time. Man, I have, like I
Speaker 1: have a lot of friends that you know, it's bad
Speaker 1: when people say that, A lot of friends that manage
Speaker 1: land specifically for wildlife and phenomenal stewards and it's absolutely
Speaker 1: important and we're really thankful to them. But right, but like,
Speaker 1: do you get to own the stuff that's walking across it.
Speaker 1: So and I think that sounds too much like a
Speaker 1: UM one or the other. And and uh, while landowners
Speaker 1: definitely have the right to determine access on their land
Speaker 1: UM and they can determine if there's hunting at all.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. The piece that is often missing.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to my next director's message or the
Speaker 1: one after that talk about this more. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do think as an agency we can do a better
Speaker 1: job of appreciating the conservation and access the opportunities that
Speaker 1: happen on private land. Like you said, we could not
Speaker 1: manage wildlife and provide these opportunities without partnering with landowners.
Speaker 1: There are critical peace and we're really thankful for that.
Speaker 1: And so I think you're right. Sometimes when we talk
Speaker 1: about the public trust and wildlife, it gets too wrapped
Speaker 1: up in access and and landowners and letting people on
Speaker 1: or not. And I think we need to do a
Speaker 1: better job of just saying private land is critical. They
Speaker 1: play a really important role not only in the habitat
Speaker 1: for wildlife and specific wildlife species, they also I think
Speaker 1: that we've talked about this, they're facing these um global
Speaker 1: economic forces where I really worry about losing long term
Speaker 1: landowners on the landscape and and losing their peace of
Speaker 1: these rural communities that are also really important for habitat
Speaker 1: and wildlife species and are important to this Montana way
Speaker 1: of life. There there intertwined with what we do it
Speaker 1: should be. We had the writer Tom mcgwain on the
Speaker 1: show and he mentioned how when a ranch, when a
Speaker 1: ranch gets sold, biodiversity goes down. I worry. I'm totally
Speaker 1: worried about that. I think we should be doing all
Speaker 1: that we can to support these families that have been
Speaker 1: on the land for a long time. And we're seeing
Speaker 1: right a trend at least in the Midwest of family
Speaker 1: farms going under, and that's gonna spell trouble I believe
Speaker 1: for wildlife, yeah, I feel, and water and real community,
Speaker 1: I mean, all sorts of things. We had a conversation
Speaker 1: the other day about when a landowner and rolls and
Speaker 1: the Black Management Program, which is a public access program
Speaker 1: where landowners get, you know, a small compensation for the
Speaker 1: impacts for for letting people you know, A small yeah,
Speaker 1: a small I don't even know if you'd call a
Speaker 1: payment a small compensation for allowing public hunting access on
Speaker 1: their property. I was saying that, Um, I feel that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to make them uncomfortable, but one should
Speaker 1: really go up and give them a big hug. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's like people be like, oh, they're getting paid.
Speaker 1: It's like, listen, this is not they are not getting paid,
Speaker 1: getting paid nominally for the impacts the public hunters like
Speaker 1: you should go up and clean their boots when you
Speaker 1: see them, and to have any sort of attitude that
Speaker 1: you have that they're like that you're doing them a
Speaker 1: favor or whatever by using the access program. And how
Speaker 1: many of the wrong we're looking at you guys don't
Speaker 1: do this, but a lot of hunters get the landowners
Speaker 1: help them go retrieve their game. I mean, they're out there,
Speaker 1: but the baco or they're really they're pretty darn helpful
Speaker 1: and encouraging to give them a hug and clean their
Speaker 1: boots and send them presents if they are willing to
Speaker 1: allow public access through through a state program like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: all right, what do we What have I not asked you?
Speaker 1: Both of you trying to talk about No, I don't
Speaker 1: like to talk about myself. So let's seat hops. Have
Speaker 1: we not covered you skipped grizzly bears, but that's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we caught wolves a couple of times we rolled into that.
Speaker 1: Do you want are you dying to talk about grizzlies? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: although I think that would you like to see would
Speaker 1: you like to see your agency take would you know
Speaker 1: I just asked for this one. Would you like to
Speaker 1: see your agency takeover management from the Feds and the
Speaker 1: grizzlies to go to state management? Of course? Do you
Speaker 1: feel that you guys would just run him in the ground.
Speaker 1: They'd go extend we're bad or not? You can't. We can't,
Speaker 1: That's right, we can't. I think people forget that it's
Speaker 1: our responsibility to make sure they stay recovered because they
Speaker 1: could go right back. No, we couldn't do that. We
Speaker 1: should saying that right if the States screwed it up,
Speaker 1: could go back to the Feds, they would be right
Speaker 1: shooting themselves in the foot. But whatever your motivations are,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make any sense to have it go bad. No. Now,
Speaker 1: I think it's just our responsibility, and I do think
Speaker 1: Montana's been really good at taking I mean, wolves are
Speaker 1: an example where we've been measured in our approach. Sometimes
Speaker 1: wish we were less measured. But I it goes back
Speaker 1: to that switch. I don't think that you know one
Speaker 1: day they're listed in the next or not, and you
Speaker 1: can go out and hunt them all. It's an incremental process.
Speaker 1: Do you do you like to do crystal ball kind
Speaker 1: of stuff? Never have you get what you pay for? Well,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, like you looking into a
Speaker 1: crystal ball. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You get to
Speaker 1: pay for their meaning. I'm not paying anything, yes, Just
Speaker 1: to be um, where are we at like our well, well,
Speaker 1: grizzly bears fall to state. Well, grizzly bears get pulled
Speaker 1: off the Endangered Species Act listing and become no longer
Speaker 1: threatened and get handed over to state management in five years,
Speaker 1: ten years. Someday you think so, someday I do think so.
Speaker 1: I've asked, um, I've asked that to the head of
Speaker 1: um Fishing Wildlife. Well, I've asked the head of I've
Speaker 1: asked that to the head of the Idaho fishing Game.
Speaker 1: I asked it to the head of Wyoming's fishing game,
Speaker 1: and I asked it to the head of Montana's fishing game. Now,
Speaker 1: and we also asked the felt that we had. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he's the head of the Inner Agency
Speaker 1: Grizzly Bear Committee. Yeah, I haven't that. You're the only
Speaker 1: one I've asked publicly. You're the only one I've asked publicly.
Speaker 1: The other two I asked. I'm not gonna tell you
Speaker 1: who gave what. But I got one no, one yes.
Speaker 1: In ten years, our grizzly Bear is going to be
Speaker 1: under state management. Yes, really, yes, So I've got two
Speaker 1: yes is in one no? Yeah, I feel like we're
Speaker 1: doing the best weekend. So what I would you want
Speaker 1: to talk about? There's I firmly believe that the governor
Speaker 1: created this Grizzly Bear Advisory Council and it pulled We
Speaker 1: got over a hundred and seventy applications for eighteen spots,
Speaker 1: and it pulled people from all over the state different perspectives,
Speaker 1: And to me, that's how we solve issues in Montana.
Speaker 1: That is something that where we do our best work,
Speaker 1: where it doesn't come to the department. It's not my
Speaker 1: opinion that matters are Greggs for that. It's this council
Speaker 1: where people get together and hash out some of the
Speaker 1: hard stuff with Grizzly Bear management and it is hard
Speaker 1: and give a recommendation. That's an example of why I
Speaker 1: think we will get there and that we're on it
Speaker 1: with the science. We are committed and we're getting Montana's
Speaker 1: really engaged to help us figure out the best best
Speaker 1: path forward. And I really do think that's the way
Speaker 1: you do it. You don't have just the FEDS coming
Speaker 1: in and saying you do this or you don't do that.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a collection where we try to figure
Speaker 1: out what makes the most sense in Montana. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna ask you to comment on this, but
Speaker 1: it's a funny observation that all the work that goes
Speaker 1: into that went into wolf delisting and it's going into
Speaker 1: grizzly delisting now, Like does all this work that happens?
Speaker 1: And then people always litigate it in such a way
Speaker 1: that it winds up in the court in Missoula because
Speaker 1: they know that the judge of missoul will throw it out.
Speaker 1: It's like all this work at all, this where you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they still got the same person still sits in
Speaker 1: the federal court and so until whatever, they don't know
Speaker 1: what happens if they retire. Oh careful with me. I
Speaker 1: think that will we can get it through him. And
Speaker 1: I say that because when I taught at the law school,
Speaker 1: I UM the Wolverine litigation. I took my students, UM,
Speaker 1: we read the briefs, we went to the oral argument,
Speaker 1: he issued his decision. He came to our class and
Speaker 1: explained his decision, and like the good lawyer and the
Speaker 1: bad loring or whatever, and we got to listen and
Speaker 1: learn through the whole process. So I think to believe
Speaker 1: in the judicial system, you think, you think that you
Speaker 1: think that that individual is actually doing their job and
Speaker 1: they don't just be like I don't care how I
Speaker 1: do it, but I'm gonna damn sure make that no
Speaker 1: one hunts a grizzy bear. I don't think that was
Speaker 1: in the decision. I think it's easy. I think it
Speaker 1: was lurking around, lurking around. Um. But I don't want
Speaker 1: you to comment on that. I'm way off into like,
Speaker 1: you know, just hunches, and I know you probably don't
Speaker 1: get the deal, and hunches a whole bunch probably shouldn't,
Speaker 1: but also doesn't it Do you feel that it largely
Speaker 1: depends to just kind of like how you know we're
Speaker 1: gonna have either continuation of the same administration in Washington
Speaker 1: or potentially a new administration of Washington, and these kind
Speaker 1: of like big things wind up being so much bigger
Speaker 1: than the state, right like right, it kind of depend
Speaker 1: on whatever whatever, like high like high level leadership or
Speaker 1: do you think do you think that a decision like
Speaker 1: this could wind up happening regardless of input from Washington
Speaker 1: d C. Yeah, I don't think that the change in
Speaker 1: administrations should have that much of an impact on the
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Services decision on whether the list or
Speaker 1: d list is that? Right, They don't just make a call,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, they can't. You don't always
Speaker 1: laughed about I'm gonna go back to you can see
Speaker 1: you got anything to add, But I always laughed about
Speaker 1: in New York, Build A Blasio all the problems, like
Speaker 1: you know, he becomes the mayor of New like everything
Speaker 1: that goes out of New York. You can imagine all
Speaker 1: the issues, right you yeah, like every like the subway
Speaker 1: is counter terrorism and you know, you know, Russian oligarchs
Speaker 1: buying up really like whatever, all these issues and I remember,
Speaker 1: Build A Blasio wins and he gets the thing, and
Speaker 1: one of his first actions as mayor is that what
Speaker 1: this city really needs is to not have carriage horse
Speaker 1: carriage rides in Central Park because it's mean to the horses.
Speaker 1: And remember being like, there's no way that that's something
Speaker 1: he natively thought of. It was someone had said, here, man,
Speaker 1: here's a bunch of like, uh, campaign money. He didn't
Speaker 1: have a bad carriage ride. But he's like, he's like
Speaker 1: and then he wins. He's like, dah, man, I forgot.
Speaker 1: Now I gotta do something about stupid carriage rides. I
Speaker 1: promised someone I would do that, like, and so I
Speaker 1: I view that I can't help but view that when
Speaker 1: the next that that when the next presidential election happens,
Speaker 1: that there's not someone planting in someone's ear the idea
Speaker 1: that I will tell you one thing that cannot happen.
Speaker 1: We do not want to see those bears delisted, and
Speaker 1: that someone would like that they would apply some level
Speaker 1: of force in some weird hidden way. I don't have
Speaker 1: any doubt that someone might plant those seeds. But having worked, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just a dumba. I'm just a dumbas talking. I mean,
Speaker 1: I worked in the Solicitor's office for the Department of
Speaker 1: the Interior on the Endangered Species Act to subject matter experts.
Speaker 1: So we worked our tails off to not have there
Speaker 1: there was no political influence in our decision packages on
Speaker 1: listing or delisting. I know people don't believe that. No
Speaker 1: one's gonna believe that, but you're looking and so and
Speaker 1: I think you see that there hasn't. There may have
Speaker 1: been a big shift and policy and interior from administration
Speaker 1: to administration, but if you look at the decision packages
Speaker 1: coming out on listing or delisting species, I don't think
Speaker 1: you're seeing a giant shift. Now, strike me down. People
Speaker 1: hard left, hard right wouldn't agree with me there. But
Speaker 1: I think there's so many um the laws in play,
Speaker 1: there's so many systems in place that it's hard to
Speaker 1: politically influence those types of scientific decisions. And I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm just being Pollyanna. I think that's really the
Speaker 1: way it's set up. Other things too bad. There's there's
Speaker 1: policy influence, But on listing and delisting grizzly Bears, I
Speaker 1: believe they're going to be delisted because as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho,
Speaker 1: we are starting to work together, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are coming together to make sure we've
Speaker 1: demonstrated for if it goes to Judge Christensen that everything's
Speaker 1: in place and we've adhered to what's required to delist them.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right, it's just how long? How long out?
Speaker 1: I believe it will be done in ten years? Done
Speaker 1: in ten years? Yeah? Man? Why do you so much
Speaker 1: to go home and hug my kids? Why do you
Speaker 1: home so much hope that she's right? Why do I
Speaker 1: hope that? Are you asking? Why do I hope the
Speaker 1: grizzy bears get delisted? Because I feel like it's an instance,
Speaker 1: it's twofold one. I feel like it's an instance where
Speaker 1: people are weaponizing the Endangered Species Act, meaning it's beyond
Speaker 1: any conversation about what the Endangered Species Act is supposed
Speaker 1: to be used for and what its function is, and
Speaker 1: it's just being weaponized as a tool to get what
Speaker 1: you would like to see happen. And people are like,
Speaker 1: they don't want there's people who do not want to
Speaker 1: see a grizzy bear and did not want to see
Speaker 1: a wolf get killed by a hunter. And they weren't
Speaker 1: debating anymore about whether or not the Act had worked,
Speaker 1: whether or not we had achieved recovery objectives, whether or
Speaker 1: not the whole system did what it was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: It's stopped being the debate. The debate became like if
Speaker 1: they d list, there could be hunting, So I will
Speaker 1: fight the de listing without articulating that that's why I'm
Speaker 1: doing it, And they became all these proxies, and so
Speaker 1: if we de list, do you think it'll be less
Speaker 1: easy to weaponize and to continue. That's why it's multifaceted
Speaker 1: because you have to take everything I just said with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt because I am personally biased for
Speaker 1: state management of wildlife, and I am uneasy with this
Speaker 1: is me talking personally personally biased towards state management, and
Speaker 1: I'm generally uneasy with federal management of wildlife unless it's
Speaker 1: a case where we really need federal management to keep
Speaker 1: the species from becoming imperiled and going extinct. But in
Speaker 1: cases of just federal management, because it means that the
Speaker 1: states wouldn't be able to have a hunting season, I
Speaker 1: just think that that's a bastardization of what the whole
Speaker 1: thing is supposed to, how it's supposed to function. So
Speaker 1: my bias, I'm biased as a hunter. So I'm just
Speaker 1: pointing that out. Less someone say everything you're saying about
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act, you're just saying because you like
Speaker 1: the hunt. I'm like, yes, I like the hunt, and
Speaker 1: I don't like the ESA being weaponized. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: the things that are not recovered that we I would
Speaker 1: argue we should be spending tons of money and energy
Speaker 1: on saving. That's not one of them anyway, in which
Speaker 1: we spelled out what recovery would look like back we've
Speaker 1: been there for thirteen or fourteen years now, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm go home and hugged my kids based off of
Speaker 1: what I just heard. I really children, it will be
Speaker 1: a beautiful world within a decade. Is that? Is that
Speaker 1: all fair? What I said, Martha, I don't want to
Speaker 1: pull you an awkward position. No, No, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: I've I've already been on the record saying that I
Speaker 1: believe in the Natured Species Act. I mean I do.
Speaker 1: I also think I personally think that grizzly bears are
Speaker 1: recovered because they've met the recovery goals. I think that
Speaker 1: the States we actually with grizzly bears um where we
Speaker 1: are sharing in management with the Fish and Wildlife Service
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Services. Now, I mean, no, one entity is
Speaker 1: doing it alone, so we're already kind of there. We
Speaker 1: do not have a hunting season, um and I think
Speaker 1: a hunting seasons are red herring. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the issue. The issue is recovery of long recovery of bears.
Speaker 1: It is the is the issue. It is the issue.
Speaker 1: Did anyone sue against delisting bald eagles? Probably? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but probably. I mean I said that in that most
Speaker 1: listing and dealisting decisions get challenged by people who like
Speaker 1: them and don't like them, of both. Any decision by
Speaker 1: the US or shamildly service to do list or deal
Speaker 1: list a species is likely to get challenged from both
Speaker 1: sides everyone. I want to point. I want to go
Speaker 1: on recent. I love, like, love, love grizzly bears, love
Speaker 1: love love them. Yeah, how come? This is what I'm
Speaker 1: curious about, because you know, I'm in places that don't
Speaker 1: have them, and I'm wandering around. It feels like something's missing.
Speaker 1: I like them everything about them, like looking at him,
Speaker 1: I like being afraid of them. I like everything. Do
Speaker 1: you like that they're no longer top dog when reute?
Speaker 1: I love them. I'd like to seemn more places. I
Speaker 1: want to go on record saying that I'm wanna go
Speaker 1: on record saying I'm a stall a supporter of the
Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act in like in general as a thing,
Speaker 1: Like is it always used perfectly? No, It's like I'm
Speaker 1: in favor of having my kids live in my house.
Speaker 1: Are there like parts of things I wish they would
Speaker 1: do differently? It was like, I want them there, I
Speaker 1: just wish they didn't weren't there all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I pick up when they're done. I don't know. So
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, like I love it, It's fantastic, would
Speaker 1: be a worst country without it. But in this case,
Speaker 1: it's gotten a little silly, and it's just in my
Speaker 1: personal opinion, I don't I'm not trying to put words
Speaker 1: in your mouth. Well yeah, and I mean I agree
Speaker 1: with you and that I think the Endangered Species Act
Speaker 1: is there for the species who really need it, and
Speaker 1: I'd like to be putting more time and effort into
Speaker 1: those species that really need it. And I think grizzly
Speaker 1: bears are so far in the continuum of being recovered
Speaker 1: that I would like to spend the time and money
Speaker 1: on another species, knowing just like wolves, it's not that
Speaker 1: switch We're never done with managing grizzly bears and ensuring
Speaker 1: their long term recovery and managing them for the people
Speaker 1: who live with them. Um, so I think they're biologically recovered,
Speaker 1: and yes, we're in the business of of managing them
Speaker 1: for a long time to come. Okay, what else is
Speaker 1: there any that you're like? Man, which this guy would
Speaker 1: ask me about. No, you said I didn't ask you
Speaker 1: about you. You don't want to be asked about your
Speaker 1: personal life. Well, it's boring. Where were you born? I
Speaker 1: was born on a farm in Maryland. And um, you
Speaker 1: went to law school obviously in Missoula. Have you always
Speaker 1: been law? Public? Land? Law's where I went there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you always worked in the public sector, ye,
Speaker 1: you never like an ambulance chaser, I probably should have been.
Speaker 1: My kids would like it maybe better. But no, oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, like a word, you have always worked around
Speaker 1: land and wildlife issues. We got the land and being
Speaker 1: outside is just in my blood and it just was
Speaker 1: my way of giving back kind of farmed your grandpa,
Speaker 1: um subsistence my you know, we had steers, pigs, milk, cow, chickens, um, wheat, corn, hay,
Speaker 1: big big garden, my parents are in their late eighties
Speaker 1: and are still running the farm. And they taught me
Speaker 1: like we always knew when the swallows came in and left,
Speaker 1: and would see the different times. You know how that's
Speaker 1: changed every time. My mom taught me all of the
Speaker 1: plants in the woods. We would sleep out in the
Speaker 1: rows of straw in the summer nights, just out in
Speaker 1: the middle of the I remember getting lost in a
Speaker 1: corn field once because I was teeny and the corn was,
Speaker 1: you know, way above my head, and my parents didn't
Speaker 1: know where we were. We were just running around in
Speaker 1: the corn field. Yeah, children of the corn man. When
Speaker 1: you're a little kids scary out of cornfield. They should
Speaker 1: have been worried. So what year did you move to
Speaker 1: where Montana? I went to move to Missoula to go
Speaker 1: to law school in ninety one, I think. And I
Speaker 1: spent my high school in college summers in Wyoming working
Speaker 1: on a ranch. It made me I always loved the land,
Speaker 1: but it was psyched to get away from the East
Speaker 1: Coast and just fell in love with public lands. And
Speaker 1: you got some you got some kids mostly raised up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're probably at this point whatever they're going to
Speaker 1: be there, there's nothing gonna do about it now, Isn't
Speaker 1: that scared? But they're turning into really nice people, congratulations,
Speaker 1: I think. And they loved the outdoors. That's a good way.
Speaker 1: Like when you're all done parenting, you're never done. You've
Speaker 1: never done. I mean, like a good thing would be
Speaker 1: like in the end, be like, how'd it go right
Speaker 1: to be? Like, you know, they're pretty nice people, yeah,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of things that should be
Speaker 1: the measure right right, So they're pretty nice. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you this one thing. I we they grew up
Speaker 1: on adventure points. Have you ever heard of adventure points? So, um,
Speaker 1: we had a board where if they added up their
Speaker 1: adventure points, we could get a certain trip. So like
Speaker 1: once when we were in a Yellowstone a really cold night,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it was like minus thirty degrees
Speaker 1: and us like if you it was in years, we
Speaker 1: went out cross country skiing to Ring in New Year's
Speaker 1: and they're like, mom, it's freaking cold out. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you get twenty adventure points if we go out skiing
Speaker 1: to Ring in the New Year. I'm adopting the best
Speaker 1: And the only way they could trade them in was
Speaker 1: for the next adventure, So that's all right, not for
Speaker 1: chocolate bars, because that's what my girls for, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever you want. Think about being like daddy of like
Speaker 1: being a nice person. By My beloved sister in law
Speaker 1: was recently in a she's in a vehicle accident. She's
Speaker 1: everybody's fine, she's fine, but someone else's at fault. You know,
Speaker 1: they like crashed into her car and it turns out
Speaker 1: they don't have insurance. So I'm on the phone there
Speaker 1: and UM, I'm like, why, you know, I guess you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go after this guy. What are you
Speaker 1: gonna do to go after him? And she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he seems to have a lot of um problems right now,
Speaker 1: so that's not something I'm gonna do. And she goes,
Speaker 1: in fact, I'm I gotta go because I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: give him a call and see how he's doing. Kind
Speaker 1: of melted my heart, right, you know, like, pretty nice person.
Speaker 1: It's okay to be a nice person, isn't it not?
Speaker 1: Just wake up every day and be like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make someone pay out? Maybe are we all like that?
Speaker 1: Because we um like to be outside so much. I
Speaker 1: like to think that people would like to be outside,
Speaker 1: But man, I don't know Claude Dallas was outside all
Speaker 1: the time. We talked about him the other day. Anomaly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I have a lot vested. I have a
Speaker 1: lot um in child raising. Um, I've thrown down pretty hard.
Speaker 1: Like my whole thesis is sort of based around the
Speaker 1: idea that outdoor experiences UM and all that goes with them,
Speaker 1: the people, everything that that that's a path toward parenting success.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not wrong. So if I'm wrong, I
Speaker 1: will be real wrong. I've really like pounded it into
Speaker 1: him that that's important. So if I if that's screwed up,
Speaker 1: then I'm just gonna have to rely on luck after that. Right,
Speaker 1: let's visit in twenty years. I hope we're all on
Speaker 1: some sort of similar path, right, Greg, Yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: my kids are all nice? Yeah, nice and happy? What
Speaker 1: else you up? Yeah? I'm just thinking. I gotta wife's
Speaker 1: out of town to night, so I gotta cook dinner
Speaker 1: for him by myself and wrangle them into bed. They're
Speaker 1: nice to me tonight, Oh you got uh? So I
Speaker 1: owe you like a night of babysitting. You haven't redeemed?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we'll get to that UM real quick. I
Speaker 1: know that in the last couple of three years, I
Speaker 1: think we've been as Montana has been selling out a
Speaker 1: nonresident taka mule here. That number is pretty much capped
Speaker 1: right for how many and until the Commission decides to
Speaker 1: change its statue. It was a ballot initiative that kept
Speaker 1: it UM and I can't remember what year that was,
Speaker 1: So that'll stay at whatever what it's like, eleven thousand
Speaker 1: or something like that. There's a couple of numbers and uh,
Speaker 1: it's seventeen thousand for deer outcome UM, so that the
Speaker 1: non residentari combos are kept at seventeen thou and we
Speaker 1: we had a time where we weren't selling out because
Speaker 1: when they capped it, then that initiative raised there was
Speaker 1: a year of sticker shot, a couple of years of
Speaker 1: sticker shot, and so now but we've been selling out
Speaker 1: the last three years. Yeah, and now we're selling them
Speaker 1: out sooner and sooner year. But until another ballot initiative
Speaker 1: calms that number will stay or legislative, I mean it
Speaker 1: can the legislature could change that without a ballot initiative,
Speaker 1: with or without I hope they can make it that
Speaker 1: it can't be changed, it can only be lowered constitutional.
Speaker 1: But my question is what are resident tag numbers doing?
Speaker 1: So the resident tags have been pretty steady. We we're
Speaker 1: so unlike some states where the resident tags are going
Speaker 1: down or the fewer people participating in Montana, we've had
Speaker 1: steady participation. And we're also seeing, or we think, is
Speaker 1: that more of our license buyers are buying more types
Speaker 1: of licenses. So, um, that's a good I think that's
Speaker 1: a good song. So all you ever hear about is
Speaker 1: declining hunting participation not here yet, but we can't rest
Speaker 1: on our laurel, so I don't think. But we hear
Speaker 1: a lot about that. But I feel like we also
Speaker 1: hear about like the balls is like, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: they say, this are three stuff. But when was the
Speaker 1: last time you went into the woods and felt like
Speaker 1: we needed more hunters? People? The people that hunt are
Speaker 1: more die hard and are more likely to travel on
Speaker 1: multiple states. Man, that's our theory. I gets backed up
Speaker 1: by some data. Well I don't know what our how
Speaker 1: our data would speak to that, but I think you know,
Speaker 1: we we've got Whenever we talk about our three you
Speaker 1: have people that say just that, Like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I went out to my block management area and there's
Speaker 1: you know, twelve trucks. The Yeah, I used to be
Speaker 1: pro R three but I'm reconsidering. But I was just
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin over the weekend and it's and it was
Speaker 1: the same when I was there two years ago for
Speaker 1: opening week a rifle Compared to when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and even you know, maybe into my early twenties, it
Speaker 1: was it's a marked difference on Saturday morning, the amount
Speaker 1: of shooting that you hear a lot more, no, a
Speaker 1: lot less where in Wisconsin and we go and visit
Speaker 1: with all the neighbors usually at some point either before
Speaker 1: a season or you know, over the weekend, and there's
Speaker 1: just it's the same thing. It's like the elders aren't
Speaker 1: like they're getting old and so there's not really making
Speaker 1: it into the woods. And then you go to that
Speaker 1: camp and there aren't the um younger cousins or nephews
Speaker 1: or grandkids. And even in the camp that I was
Speaker 1: in this weekend, I mean I was the youngest there
Speaker 1: by thirty years. Okay, maybe I'm a lot close to it,
Speaker 1: close to thirty. Yeah, Well, I think the one of
Speaker 1: the things I say about our three is that it's
Speaker 1: not it's not just the numbers, like the percentage. Even
Speaker 1: in Montana, the percentage of population that's participating is the last.
Speaker 1: So our numbers are stable from a license sales standpoint,
Speaker 1: or you know, they sort of way like this, but
Speaker 1: speaks to a demographic shift. Yeah, Like I and I
Speaker 1: used this analogy that you're more apt to to marry
Speaker 1: a non hunter in two thousand nineteen than you were
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen. And that's not maybe a
Speaker 1: big deal because maybe you marry somebody that's supportive of
Speaker 1: hunting but isn't a hunter, but that's still that adds
Speaker 1: that that little bit of hurdle some money that that
Speaker 1: wasn't I didn't grow up around guns, maybe you know,
Speaker 1: and that just doesn't really understand him. Then the kids
Speaker 1: grow up and you have this sort of this sort
Speaker 1: of plan that you have to put into place on
Speaker 1: how you're gonna get the kids out hunting and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. When when we were kids, there wasn't
Speaker 1: I didn't have any that wasn't even part of the plan.
Speaker 1: I just I just gotta bb gun and said get
Speaker 1: out of the house, you know, And people aren't gonna like,
Speaker 1: my brother kind of talked me out of being here.
Speaker 1: He's in the process of talking me out of being um,
Speaker 1: talking to me out of being pro R three, which
Speaker 1: was it Retention, recruitment and reactivation pro more hunters. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's he's he is in the process of talking to me.
Speaker 1: Ought to be in that way, and um, we're never
Speaker 1: gonna like hunters aren't gonna wreak the rewards of fewer
Speaker 1: hunters because people just gonna like now like, well no,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, yeah, that's what I argue. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, you're never gonna be like that because you're
Speaker 1: never gonna be like, oh, it's a lot. The woods
Speaker 1: are better now because people just lease it all up.
Speaker 1: Like people used to not lease stuff and now people
Speaker 1: just lease properties. So the day that like, from his perspective,
Speaker 1: he'd be like the day someone comes to me and says,
Speaker 1: I have a big, beautiful ranch and by god, I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to get someone to come out and hunted
Speaker 1: full of deer and out, but I can't find anyone
Speaker 1: to hunt. He's like, on that day, I'll become like
Speaker 1: a pro recruitment dude. But that day hasn't happened, and
Speaker 1: it's there are you know, just like fewer places to go,
Speaker 1: and when you go, there's more people in them. And
Speaker 1: so it's really hard to get people on board with
Speaker 1: the idea that you that that that we need a
Speaker 1: bunch more people. You know, you got like there's people
Speaker 1: I know that LEASA properties they leased up the hunting
Speaker 1: rights on property. They don't even hunt them. They just
Speaker 1: want to know that no one's hunting them, just like
Speaker 1: like actual you know, they want to know that if
Speaker 1: they wanted to go, there to be no one there.
Speaker 1: And last year I don't even go. It's just it's
Speaker 1: hard to get Uh, it's hard to get excited about.
Speaker 1: It's hard for people to get a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get excited about a bunch of more
Speaker 1: hunters on the woods. Well, and I don't think we're talking,
Speaker 1: uh we're not. The goal isn't to have a bunch
Speaker 1: more hunters. I think it's the R three is just
Speaker 1: part of it. And access. Access is another key part
Speaker 1: as a key part ARE three, but it's also a
Speaker 1: part of just what we do, you know, and trying
Speaker 1: to get people people and landowners, you know, the shifting
Speaker 1: shifting landowners, like you're talking about, you know where where
Speaker 1: the communities, people in small communities, they used to know
Speaker 1: who would call to go get on Johnson's Place or
Speaker 1: the k bar L ranch or whatever, and today they
Speaker 1: might not. I mean, there just might be a landowner
Speaker 1: that is just not not as much a part of
Speaker 1: the community as they used to be. But so so
Speaker 1: it's all it's all sort of um, part of the
Speaker 1: fabric of of sort of what we have to face
Speaker 1: with the department, and I think primarily what where in
Speaker 1: Martha's talked about this a lot internally too, but is
Speaker 1: looking to sort of figure out how to have those
Speaker 1: meaningful experiences outdoors because it's not it's not just that
Speaker 1: you can only do that by hunting, or you can
Speaker 1: only do that by fishing. Trap you can or by trapping, right,
Speaker 1: but we but we talk about it. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can think about like these meaningful episodes that we've had
Speaker 1: outdoors that have shaped who we are. And there's like
Speaker 1: there's one after another after another after another, UM and
Speaker 1: some people don't and even in Montana, some people don't
Speaker 1: get that. I mean, we you know, on the at
Speaker 1: the from our education program and we've got um like
Speaker 1: our aquatic gad uh. We're in fifth grades around the
Speaker 1: state doing you know, education about fisheries and things like that.
Speaker 1: You'd be amazed at the number of kids that look
Speaker 1: at a fish and they don't they don't know that's
Speaker 1: a perch. I mean that usually, Yeah, I mean in Montana,
Speaker 1: they just it's it's even here we're becoming more urbanized
Speaker 1: where you know, in the state where you think like,
Speaker 1: my gosh, this is Montana. Couldn couldn't possibly be true here,
Speaker 1: but it is true. And so I think beyond they
Speaker 1: are three discussion of how do we sell more licenses?
Speaker 1: That's it's really not our focus when we have that conversation,
Speaker 1: are is how do we get how do we sort
Speaker 1: of build up the next generation at conservationists. They're concerned about,
Speaker 1: you know, all the things that go into loving the outdoors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the That's the when I talk about this debate
Speaker 1: I have with my brother, that's the one I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do that side of it. I don't know, you
Speaker 1: know what me and Yanni are. We're running for president.
Speaker 1: I heard that because I had suggested that Yanni running
Speaker 1: for mayorbles but he said he's got another gig because
Speaker 1: we're all tied up with being president. Um. But all
Speaker 1: the money when people buy our Runella tell Us Better
Speaker 1: Hunting and Fishing for America shirts, all of our money,
Speaker 1: we're putting it into our access piggy bank. We're gonna
Speaker 1: use it for an access project. Stickers yard signs. We
Speaker 1: don't know what cal our Boddy. Cal's uneasy with the
Speaker 1: lack of specificity we've had so far, but trust me, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm serious. It's like a thing. We're like banking the money.
Speaker 1: We're having access piggy bank, and we're right now currently
Speaker 1: looking at different kinds of access projects or group we
Speaker 1: would help with an access a land acquisition that would
Speaker 1: open up land locked public lands. We'll figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have one in mind. No, but it's funny. We
Speaker 1: should talk sometime. No, we don't. I want to do
Speaker 1: a combo that we're gonna take our piggy bank and
Speaker 1: then I want to run a go fund me project
Speaker 1: and look at some specific acquisitions and to see if
Speaker 1: people would think it would be fun to throw in
Speaker 1: five bucks and buy a chunk land and have it
Speaker 1: be for public access. Then we'll go recruit a hunter
Speaker 1: or two to go on there and on. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's that our our nome packing out a unicorn
Speaker 1: T shirt. There's now joining with a gnome who's reeling
Speaker 1: in a mermaid doing battle the mermaid is the title
Speaker 1: actually nome tussling tussling with a mermaid. People who want
Speaker 1: to know what happened, But I don't know. It could
Speaker 1: be incidental bycatch, it could be a courtship ritual. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's just a gnome and he happens to
Speaker 1: have a mermaid on. I'm not saying what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they got going on. She might
Speaker 1: be messing with him. My brother thinks that she's pulling
Speaker 1: him in to kill him. Um, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're assuming the mermaid says she and the gnomes that
Speaker 1: he it's very female mermaid and a very male No,
Speaker 1: it's a bearded gnome Like yeah, I wouldn't go it's
Speaker 1: not like an erotic mermaid. But it's a female form.
Speaker 1: It's a female mermaid. Could use a term voluptuous. It's
Speaker 1: a female form. And then uh, we have our nome. Uh,
Speaker 1: we have our T shirt out coming out with our nome.
Speaker 1: That's in Uh, you know those old pictures of our
Speaker 1: mountain man's got his knife and he's in a fight
Speaker 1: with a grizzly. It's our Nomes in a in a
Speaker 1: knife fight with a bigfoot. The big foot's got him good,
Speaker 1: but he's also got his bowie knife out. And I
Speaker 1: gotta said, We've getting a lot of ideas for Gnome shirts.
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna start working on. Next is a
Speaker 1: Gnome in a blind and it's a big flock of
Speaker 1: dragons coming in all cupped out, all cupped out, coming
Speaker 1: into the deco is gonna be sweet, man. So you
Speaker 1: can find all. You can also find our Nome packing out.
Speaker 1: A unicorn shirt is back in full color. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm packing out a unicorn full color. Find it all
Speaker 1: the whole g Nome line up and then no one.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to turn into like a
Speaker 1: big expansion of game themed products. Man. Uh you guys good,
Speaker 1: We're good. Thanks for sitting to our little plug there.
Speaker 1: It was a natural plug because it started out talking
Speaker 1: about our access fund. Ronella Propels. Don't tell everybody. I
Speaker 1: know you're gonna write us in when you vote, But
Speaker 1: don't tell people because I know you don't want to
Speaker 1: get partisan. Yeah, that's right. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: even vote. No, I'm just um, Martha, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for coming on. Thank you. If there's ever something
Speaker 1: that comes up and you really need to come and
Speaker 1: talk to someone about, you should come talk to us
Speaker 1: about it. All right, all right. I love how you
Speaker 1: dive into the issues. We need to do this more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I enjoy it, and I say too. I'll say that
Speaker 1: too if you guys come up to come up with stuff,
Speaker 1: because I I we listen and I hear these, you know, conversations,
Speaker 1: and I think one of them was, yeah, I canna
Speaker 1: say something we did that was wrong? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was the debate like Kenya, can you use the
Speaker 1: stream access lot for big game hunting? You know that
Speaker 1: those sorts of things where you know we're I was listening.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know. I mean, I got
Speaker 1: a bird dogged it all down, but it was hard.
Speaker 1: It's interest. Can I hit you with one? It came
Speaker 1: up the other day. If it's licensing, I'm not gonna know. No. No,
Speaker 1: check this out. Me and my kid on Saturday, we're
Speaker 1: out in our in our jet boat, messing around trying
Speaker 1: to get it dialed in. And we pull up on
Speaker 1: this island and I find find a nice bot. The
Speaker 1: backside of him been eating out by Kyles. He's just
Speaker 1: floating in the river, not like a not like a skull,
Speaker 1: like full on fresh dead, but cloudy eye has clearly
Speaker 1: been landing the river long time. He was piste that
Speaker 1: I didn't ask the head off it and let him
Speaker 1: bring it home. But I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this counts as like a skull, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is like a dead head. And it's
Speaker 1: hunting season, and I feel like we'd have a lot
Speaker 1: of explaining to do to have a furred, severed head
Speaker 1: of Ben dead for a few days but not terribly
Speaker 1: long buck in our boat. So I made him leave it,
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, just look it up. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's some things that are easy to look up, and
Speaker 1: there's some things that are tricky too. Do you have
Speaker 1: any feedback on that? What I would I would suggest
Speaker 1: is if you wanted the antlers or wanted the head,
Speaker 1: is to call the game ward and tell him what
Speaker 1: you found. That's what I was telling Ti Tipmott. Tell
Speaker 1: him what you found. And then when the game war
Speaker 1: in college, you say, you know, hey, this is what
Speaker 1: I found. This where it is, and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're done looking into it cannot is it okay? If
Speaker 1: I get the antlers, I think, you know, they sort
Speaker 1: all that out. You know what I did do? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Maybe it's illegal. I drug it out of
Speaker 1: the water and pulled it up on a little island
Speaker 1: gravel bar so it didn't float away. Well, we were
Speaker 1: just having to debate, and it was better to have
Speaker 1: the debate with it laying there than have it floating by. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you could you could still do you can still
Speaker 1: do it. We you could. You could let the game war, No,
Speaker 1: and he go. Next time you're on the gravel bar,
Speaker 1: you can you know, ask him if it be okay,
Speaker 1: just to grab him because at some point I don't
Speaker 1: know that what. I don't think there's anything specific in No,
Speaker 1: just be like a matter of like what kind of
Speaker 1: conversations do you want to invite? Like why is there
Speaker 1: a dead buck's head in your truck? Like wow, what
Speaker 1: happened was right? I just didn't feel like right, I
Speaker 1: feel like needing to have that chat. I found I
Speaker 1: found a buck on a gravel bar one time with
Speaker 1: its horns dead horns cut off call the game war
Speaker 1: and told him where it was. But I call him
Speaker 1: right from where I where I was standing. And then
Speaker 1: I kept hunting, and I hunted up to another gravel bar,
Speaker 1: and on that gravel bar, I found a saw all
Speaker 1: chewed up, you know, and it was open still had
Speaker 1: like you know, bone stuff and flesh on it. And
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about it's picked up and put
Speaker 1: in my pocket and kept going because but the handles
Speaker 1: all chewed up on it. And I realized when I
Speaker 1: got home that had to have been the saw that
Speaker 1: was used in the crime. Probably some like fox or
Speaker 1: coyote had grabbed the so on, chewed on it a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then left it on the next grab
Speaker 1: a bar up. That's great, crazy, I still use this
Speaker 1: to got it Phil, You got any questions? Uh? No.
Speaker 1: I do want to say though, that I was part
Speaker 1: of the Party coalition on the Madison this summer, and
Speaker 1: I will come to the next public uh public comment session.
Speaker 1: I'll be a lone rep. He's gonna be shirtless, he's
Speaker 1: gonna have some cut off blue jeans. He's gonna be
Speaker 1: pretty drunk. He's gonna be sunburned, and he's gonna give you,
Speaker 1: guys a year full about telling him where he can't
Speaker 1: can't ride, I can't wait? Can you bring mango? Oh?
Speaker 1: She would love it? Yes, all right, thanks guys,