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Speaker 1: first light dot com. F I R S T l
Speaker 1: I t E dot com. Join today by members of
Speaker 1: the Brooks clan, Wyatt Aaron and the novelist Malcolm Brooks.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to this in a bit, but what
Speaker 1: brought us here together is that Aaron's son, Wyatt's brought Malcolm.
Speaker 1: Your nephew, yep Tailing Brooks died in a mountain lion
Speaker 1: attack in California in March, and we're gonna discuss the
Speaker 1: circumstances around that, but first we're gonna talk a bit
Speaker 1: about your guys family, who's a big hunting and fishing family.
Speaker 1: And after that incident, after that accident or attack, our
Speaker 1: good friend Dave Smith from Dave Smith Decoys was telling
Speaker 1: me of his great affection for your guys family, and
Speaker 1: I had I didn't initially put it together when I
Speaker 1: saw the name Brooks, I didn't initially put it together
Speaker 1: that you guys were related to the writer Malcolm Brooks,
Speaker 1: who I've met and who's here today as well. Aaron,
Speaker 1: you you knew Dave through competitive turkey calling.
Speaker 2: Knew Dave through videoing hunts. I went up and video
Speaker 2: for DSD.
Speaker 1: Oh you did? I don't know that you're in the
Speaker 1: wood business. Are you still in the wood business?
Speaker 2: Firewood a little bit.
Speaker 1: Let's see you got a log and hat toos?
Speaker 3: Were you running a camera like a camera out for him?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: For Dave?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well for colping it was actually through Ron Latshaw
Speaker 2: from Final Approach.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I got Yes, I've known Brad and Dave for twenty
Speaker 2: five years. They come down turkey hunt with us regularly
Speaker 2: in California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it. I got it.
Speaker 2: Dave's been there a few years, Brad's been there a
Speaker 2: bunch of years, and.
Speaker 1: You be and you got into competitive turkey calling, you
Speaker 1: know when it.
Speaker 3: Was calls around some lessons.
Speaker 1: Do you do any natural voice calling? Nope, don't.
Speaker 2: I did a podcast with DSD and I did a
Speaker 2: bunch of calling on there. I could probably look that up.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 1: So you got I'm looking at your I'm looking at
Speaker 1: your stats. You got into competitive calling in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: the year I graduated from high.
Speaker 3: School year I was born?
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Chester cute? But good lord?
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, I'm not that. I'm not. I'm getting old now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now you are three time California state calling champion,
Speaker 1: two year Oregon state champion. So you kind of carpet
Speaker 1: bagged it down in Oregon and beat him down there,
Speaker 1: and then he came to Montana and carpet bag to
Speaker 1: Montana and beat everybody in Montana. What was harder.
Speaker 2: Probably the Oregon one.
Speaker 1: Those the best callers. Then he finished third at the
Speaker 1: Keystone Open in Pennsylvania. Then you're in the big leagues.
Speaker 2: That was the hard one. Those are all the big guys.
Speaker 1: Because then you got people that have been hunting turkeys
Speaker 1: for since the beginning of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those guys in Pennsylvania are the guys that
Speaker 2: go to and win Nationals every year. So I was
Speaker 2: called against some pretty good guys there. It's fun.
Speaker 1: You still do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: No, I just I probably like early two thousands, I
Speaker 2: just lost interest and stop doing it.
Speaker 1: Did you lose interest in turkey hunting?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, turkey hunt a.
Speaker 5: Lot in California primarily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but California stopped having calling contests too.
Speaker 1: For like did they all have one outlaw?
Speaker 2: They didn't. I that's probably next.
Speaker 5: That is like when you bring up hunting and California
Speaker 5: right like then it's like how could he ever be
Speaker 5: a hunter and live there? And it's like, oddly enough,
Speaker 5: every time I go to California there's a lot of
Speaker 5: hunting and fishing to be done. That's typically pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Did your dad get you intoup hunting, fish and white?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How old? You know?
Speaker 6: Eighteen?
Speaker 1: You know how I get started out.
Speaker 6: Just from going out with my dad since I was little.
Speaker 1: What's your specialty? Man?
Speaker 6: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Waterfowl?
Speaker 6: Probably deer hunting, because I don't know, I'm super patient
Speaker 6: and I'm always out there the longest.
Speaker 1: You don't mind is coming right out and saying that.
Speaker 3: And he kills giant bucks, black tails are yeah they'la Yeah.
Speaker 6: Pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So you weren't a big bow hunter, Aaron? No, how'd
Speaker 1: he get in? How'd you get him into it? Or
Speaker 1: how'd he get into it? On his own.
Speaker 6: Yeah, mostly just from watching YouTube stuff like that, seeing
Speaker 6: it on TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you decided to get yourself a bow.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well my dad's friend gave me his kids because
Speaker 6: his kid grew out of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, then what happened?
Speaker 6: I just started shooting it and then started hunting deer
Speaker 6: with it, and then I ended up getting my first
Speaker 6: one the bow.
Speaker 3: Do you guys do a lot of tree stand stuff
Speaker 3: for the black tails in California?
Speaker 6: Or is it mainly ground blind?
Speaker 3: Ground blind?
Speaker 1: Yeah you do.
Speaker 6: I've never hunted out of a tree stand.
Speaker 1: Do you guys hunt public or private? Brown?
Speaker 6: Private?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So you had a second hand bow? Learn how to
Speaker 1: shoot it, yep, learn how to hunt deer? Your brother
Speaker 1: like the hunt deer?
Speaker 6: Mm hmm it feels easy yeah, because he wasn't very patient,
Speaker 6: so he just liked going out and shooting one super fast.
Speaker 1: So tell me about tell me about patience, man, Like,
Speaker 1: what is that when you say it? What do you mean?
Speaker 1: I mean? I understand what patience means. But you mean
Speaker 1: you were willing to sit all day?
Speaker 6: Yeah, all day, every morning, every evening.
Speaker 1: You just put in the time. Yeah. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: got did you guys grow up reading your uncle's books
Speaker 1: and stuff. You ever look at his buttons?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've read part.
Speaker 1: Part of one.
Speaker 4: My own kids haven't read my books.
Speaker 6: You're not a very big reader.
Speaker 1: So explain all. Explain all your guys relationship. How are
Speaker 1: you guys tied in with each other?
Speaker 4: Well, Aaron's my younger brother and I, you know, we
Speaker 4: grew up in the same region where these guys still live,
Speaker 4: Eldorado County. It's you know, gold Rush country, foothills country,
Speaker 4: you know, it's you know, within an hour of Sacramento,
Speaker 4: but every rural the southern part of the county where
Speaker 4: we grew up. So I was deer hunting and bird
Speaker 4: hunting first before Aaron was legally old enough too. God,
Speaker 4: and then he he just he he had already been
Speaker 4: like kind of a maniacal bass fisherman, even as a
Speaker 4: real little shaver, so he just he just you know,
Speaker 4: segued right into hunting too as soon as he was
Speaker 4: legally able to do it. And he and I hunted
Speaker 4: together for years down there. Then I moved to Missoula
Speaker 4: in ninety five and I've been there ever since.
Speaker 1: Did you move there to be a writer?
Speaker 4: You will? Yeah, I mean I had lived in outside
Speaker 4: of Kalispell for about a year in ninety two, I guess,
Speaker 4: and then wound up in Willawa County, Oregon for a
Speaker 4: little while and then back home again in Cali. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I I was really just enamored by Montana history,
Speaker 4: Montana culture, you know, the outdoor culture. I mean it was,
Speaker 4: you know, really interested in fly fishing when I was
Speaker 4: in my teens, and knew that the writing culture was
Speaker 4: what it was in Montana that you know, it had
Speaker 4: these famous writers and I read all those books, you know,
Speaker 4: mcgwaine and Harrison and ab gu three, and yeah, I
Speaker 4: was just kind of steeped in it in general, and
Speaker 4: that's where I wanted to go and never did leave.
Speaker 1: My buddies in Missoula used to call Missoula the Paris
Speaker 1: of West central Montana. Oh yeah, yeah, crag, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were a maniacal bass fisher from telling you what that means.
Speaker 2: Oh, just when I was little, like from when I
Speaker 2: was like four till probably around fifteen, I just didn't
Speaker 2: really do it as much.
Speaker 3: But do you guys steal bass fish? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeahlmet Halmmett back up when you you quit when you
Speaker 1: were fifteen, But you started being a maniacal bass fisherman at.
Speaker 2: Four, Yeah, three or four, he was little.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. We had a pond behind our house and it
Speaker 4: had large mouths in it. That's just all we did
Speaker 4: was down there throw throw plugs.
Speaker 1: So do you tend to get into stuff and get
Speaker 1: out of it? No, Like you got into turkey call
Speaker 1: and then then drifted out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was just the competitive calling. I just lost
Speaker 2: interest in it. But turkey hunting was still just a
Speaker 2: bunch and.
Speaker 1: You guys got good turkey still, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, tell people what you tell people your books? Man?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean, I guess the thing I'm most
Speaker 4: known for as a writer at this point, you know,
Speaker 4: is the two novels. The first one is called Painted Horses,
Speaker 4: and they would probably both books would equally qualify probably
Speaker 4: as literary fiction and historical fiction. Painted Horses is set
Speaker 4: in the fifties in this sort of like prior Mountain,
Speaker 4: Big Horn River region, and it just explores the archaeology
Speaker 4: that they used to do in advance of like the
Speaker 4: hydro projects in the fifties and sixties. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: a very thumbnail. There's a lot in there about like
Speaker 4: you know, ice age cave art and yeah, there's it's
Speaker 4: it ranges pretty widely. Second book, cloud Maker, was inspired
Speaker 4: by these real life Montana teenagers and the Great Depression
Speaker 4: who were building and flying their own airplanes powered by
Speaker 4: Model A Forward engines. So yeah, and now, as of
Speaker 4: about two months ago, I guess I'm under contract with
Speaker 4: Simon and Schuster to do a narrative nonfiction you know,
Speaker 4: full length book on like history of early debute Montana.
Speaker 1: Oh really, Yeah that's good. Yeah. Have you read I
Speaker 1: don't even want to say the name of the guy,
Speaker 1: but have you read Pennies from Hell?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: This is an article I don't even know if I've
Speaker 4: heard of it was.
Speaker 1: It was an article in Harper's a long time ago.
Speaker 4: Oh, was it was? It was? Yeah, it started a Yeah,
Speaker 4: the initials are ED.
Speaker 1: This was the first name, yeah, Ed. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I did. I'm a carpenter by trade, and
Speaker 4: I did a restoration for a friend on a row
Speaker 4: house on Mercury Street over there, summer before all the
Speaker 4: COVID stuff started, and I just like deep dove into
Speaker 4: the history and there I got really super interested in it.
Speaker 4: And my initial initial impulse for it was to try
Speaker 4: to make like a dramatic television show out of that,
Speaker 4: like more of the Copper King sort of era. Man,
Speaker 4: So I wrote, you know, when COVID hit and I
Speaker 4: had a lot of downtime. I actually did write a
Speaker 4: tentative pilot episode for that. But you're probably aware of this,
Speaker 4: but the publishing industry has just been so turbulent in
Speaker 4: the last say, six seven years.
Speaker 1: Oh they're gonna say the last six seven centuries.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, but you know, worse for sort of cultural
Speaker 4: and political reasons in the last So I realized that
Speaker 4: my odds of selling another full length novel in the
Speaker 4: same vein that I had written the other two were
Speaker 4: probably not great. But I was like, well, I've done
Speaker 4: all this research for this tentative TV show on mute,
Speaker 4: and what's really By doing the research, I realized that
Speaker 4: nothing had really recently been written on the early history
Speaker 4: of the place in like fifty sixty years, and I
Speaker 4: just like, wow, I mean, I should just turn this
Speaker 4: into a narrative nonfiction proposal and see if I can
Speaker 4: move that. And it took eighteen months to do it,
Speaker 4: but it did happen. Finally, No congratulations man, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, tell me about how old was Taylorm.
Speaker 6: When he died twenty one, twenty one.
Speaker 1: He was a musician. Tell me about your brother, man,
Speaker 1: or tell me about your son, whatever makes sense.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was super into music and well playing guitar,
Speaker 2: and he was really good at.
Speaker 6: It and bass fishing. It's like all he did. Yeah,
Speaker 6: let's go f.
Speaker 5: That's a pretty good combo.
Speaker 1: Really, So he was a bass fisherman.
Speaker 6: Yeah, big, super into it.
Speaker 1: Letting him god making them late for something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, anytime he could, that's what he's doing.
Speaker 1: And and what's up with the music?
Speaker 6: Mm hmmm, I don't know. He just always liked listening
Speaker 6: to music.
Speaker 3: Did he ever record anything?
Speaker 6: Just like on his phone? Got you like, I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 6: but he wasn't big into recording.
Speaker 1: What was he what was What kind of music did
Speaker 1: he play? What did you listen to?
Speaker 2: Mostly metal type of stuff?
Speaker 1: He was a head banger.
Speaker 2: Oh, all kinds of strange bands. I don't even know.
Speaker 1: But he would dip back into some metallica.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He was like one of those like intuitively just gifted
Speaker 4: guitar people where you know, it's like if you take
Speaker 4: like I was, you know, to take guitar lessons when
Speaker 4: you're a teenager and you think you're like coming along
Speaker 4: with it, and all of a sudden you meet some
Speaker 4: kid who's never had a lesson in his life, and
Speaker 4: you just completely blow the doors off of you know,
Speaker 4: even professional musicians to agree one of them to.
Speaker 1: Your right wing guitar virtuoso.
Speaker 3: All right, I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 1: Least that's how you introduced himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh? Did he did he want to be a musician? Like?
Speaker 1: What was his aspiration? His long term aspiration?
Speaker 2: He's only played music by himself in his room. I mean,
Speaker 2: he never played with a band or played with It's
Speaker 2: just all he just loved playing guitar.
Speaker 1: Was he kind of a loner?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Kind of Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: You get good at bass fishing, get good at guitar.
Speaker 5: That makes sense too, stay away from the ladies.
Speaker 1: What line of work was he going toward?
Speaker 6: He didn't. He hadn't really figured it out yet. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but well, I mean he always talked about wanting to
Speaker 6: do like bass tournaments and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But did you guys have like a did he go
Speaker 3: out in a like a bass. You guys have a
Speaker 3: bass boat like rigged with electronics kind of stuff and
Speaker 3: like bass master classic kind of fishing.
Speaker 6: No, we just have an old John boat.
Speaker 3: Got you.
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Cool?
Speaker 1: So he thought maybe he would get into that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did he go to college at all?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: No, are you fixing to go to college?
Speaker 6: No, I'm not going to go.
Speaker 1: Had you thought about it at a time?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well my plan was to go, Okay, but I
Speaker 6: just decided. No.
Speaker 1: When did you decide?
Speaker 6: No, like after my senior year, before the next year
Speaker 6: school was going to start, like during that summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what do you think about doing instead?
Speaker 6: Well, I was going to go to be a firefighter,
Speaker 6: and then I ended up going a different route that
Speaker 6: didn't require college, and so that's what I do. I
Speaker 6: did wildland firefighting good last year for a private company
Speaker 6: out of Georgetown, and then my plan is to just
Speaker 6: get my EMT so I could work full time instead
Speaker 6: of seasonal.
Speaker 1: But you still want to be a firefighter?
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay for the most part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to introduce someone. I'm going to volunteer
Speaker 1: him as a mentor because he's a Sacramento firefighter. Okay,
Speaker 1: they'll tell you what's what's what I can tell you
Speaker 1: one thing, I know, it was a lot better to
Speaker 1: get in a long time ago.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking about something like playing with fire, Like what
Speaker 5: about being a welder, make a bunch of cash, great stuff,
Speaker 5: always have a job.
Speaker 6: I'm not really wanting to be a firefighter.
Speaker 1: If you like to hunt and fish, firefighting is the
Speaker 1: way to go. Yeah, But a lot of firefighters because
Speaker 1: you go in and you work, you know how it goes.
Speaker 1: You go and you just live there for days and
Speaker 1: work around the clock and then you get a little
Speaker 1: bit of a chunk of time off. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's like a predictable schedule. So you like go through
Speaker 1: hell for four days or whatever it is, and you
Speaker 1: kick it for a couple of days.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Or you go through hell for like eight days
Speaker 5: and then you kick it for a lot more days.
Speaker 5: Then sometimes you're like, I want twelve days in a
Speaker 5: row and then I'll see you in three months.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good hunting fish and suit. But
Speaker 1: a lot of firefighters I know start a second business
Speaker 1: mm hmm because they're too ambitious. That's not how you
Speaker 1: want to do it. It's not how you want to
Speaker 1: do it. You want to have. You want a second
Speaker 1: business of hunting fishing? Did you and your bro spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the woods.
Speaker 6: Yeah, a decent amount.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like what would you guys go and do?
Speaker 6: Mm hmm. Mostly we would just turkey hunt together.
Speaker 1: Okay, So he liked that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was his favorite turkey hunting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys did obviously did some shed hunting.
Speaker 6: Together, which he wasn't very into that because of all
Speaker 6: the walking.
Speaker 5: I was gonna ask did he have patients for turkey hunting?
Speaker 5: Turkey hunting, you gotta have some patience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but that was it only turkey hunting.
Speaker 1: So he didn't like no walking, no waiting, not really. No.
Speaker 1: Did he get some deer?
Speaker 6: Yeah he got two?
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, and you guys went shed hunting for dear
Speaker 1: antlers or what?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you think of it like scouting or like you
Speaker 1: just wanted to find the antlers? Mmm?
Speaker 6: When I would shed hunt spots I was gonna hunt.
Speaker 6: I'd kind of scouted out while I was looking, but
Speaker 6: mostly just to find the antlers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, can I ask you a question about your area? There?
Speaker 1: Are you susceptible to poison oak? M?
Speaker 6: I don't get it very badly.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys can live in that area.
Speaker 6: You get it bad, dude.
Speaker 1: That's all over my hands right now, just because you
Speaker 1: walked in the room. He's got a poison oak on
Speaker 1: his hand.
Speaker 3: Do you get it worse than anyone I've ever seen?
Speaker 1: The man I had to quit hunting California. I've been
Speaker 1: in places in California where the primary vegetation is poison oak.
Speaker 1: It's like the primary people. It's not like watch out
Speaker 1: for poisonous, watch out for vegetation because the primary plant
Speaker 1: species it's like, you look, it's a poison oak mono culture.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's all over.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: I fell asleep in an orchard in California one time
Speaker 5: hunting black tail deer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I woke up.
Speaker 5: And I simultaneously had a tick going in my nostril
Speaker 5: and in my ear canal to the point of like
Speaker 5: just barely being able to grab him. And I used
Speaker 5: to think about that in like a PTSD style nightmare
Speaker 5: for years, because I I it was just on the
Speaker 5: edge of being able to clamb out of my face
Speaker 5: and it was happening in two vents at the same time. Wow,
Speaker 5: that's California.
Speaker 1: When you guys are knocking around in your area. So,
Speaker 1: so how far when you and your brother got attacked?
Speaker 1: How far were you from your house?
Speaker 6: It was like a thirty minute drive.
Speaker 1: And I would say, what was the what was the
Speaker 1: kind of describe the area to me? Is it rant
Speaker 1: like cattle country? No?
Speaker 6: It was more foresty type area.
Speaker 1: But it is it an area you'd spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time in.
Speaker 6: No, that was our first time going to that lot.
Speaker 1: What brought you to that spot?
Speaker 6: When my dad told me about it and then told
Speaker 6: you what that they used to find sheds up there? Okay,
Speaker 6: like turkey hunting and stuff, all right, So then we
Speaker 6: just decided to go check it out.
Speaker 1: Is this the area you got? Do you guys see
Speaker 1: do you guys see a lot of lions in your area?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Is it common to run in the lions?
Speaker 6: On the trail camera?
Speaker 2: We see him a lot, see him driving, see him
Speaker 2: across the road.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Aaron hit one in broad daylight with his pick
Speaker 4: up one time.
Speaker 2: Whoa, it's like ten years ago. Just jumped out right
Speaker 2: in front of the truck, just ran it over. I
Speaker 2: thought it was dead, but it managed to get up
Speaker 2: and limp off the road. And I don't know what
Speaker 2: happened to it, never found it, But yeah, people are
Speaker 2: everyone's seeing lions everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's does that feel like it's increased a lot in
Speaker 1: your lifetime?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's it's increased in the last like four or
Speaker 4: five years, just like snowball increase. Yeah, like like escalation
Speaker 4: to like a degree that is like pretty clearly indicates
Speaker 4: that they've just become completely habituated to the human you know,
Speaker 4: population residential zones down there at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what's on a different subject, it's about
Speaker 1: wildlife biology in California. The last time they had a
Speaker 1: the last time California had a black bear management plan,
Speaker 1: they did it in nineteen eighty nine and they had
Speaker 1: estimated population of twenty thousand black bears. They just put
Speaker 1: a new pop They just put a new management plan
Speaker 1: out for comment. The comment period is closed, and like
Speaker 1: if you go down the middle of the range, the
Speaker 1: middle of the estimated range is sixty five thousand.
Speaker 6: Yep, jeez.
Speaker 1: They did. They looked at something with they were looking
Speaker 1: at the relationship between black bears and mountain lions and
Speaker 1: some research there of the collared mountain lion. So when
Speaker 1: a mountain lion. And this this was this work was
Speaker 1: done in Mendocino National Forest. If a mountain lion kills
Speaker 1: a deer in Mendocino National Forest, there's a seventy five
Speaker 1: percent chance that they will lose that deer to there's
Speaker 1: a seventy five percent Sorry, the mountain lion kills a
Speaker 1: deer in Mendocino National Forest, there's a seventy five percent
Speaker 1: chance that a bear will come to that carcass site.
Speaker 1: There's a seventy six percent chance that the bear will
Speaker 1: take the deer from the line, which greatly ups right,
Speaker 1: which greatly ups the amount of work the lions are
Speaker 1: doing to be on the landscape as the bear, as
Speaker 1: the bear numbers come up, like it's it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of had this this cascading effect that pow
Speaker 1: lions behave and how lions utilize the landscape.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you're kind of pointing to like one
Speaker 4: of the bigger contextual issues that involves this whole thing,
Speaker 4: and that's that California really doesn't have good but weird
Speaker 4: regard just like North American model based comprehensive wildlife management,
Speaker 4: it's just a it's a much less traditional. You can
Speaker 4: hardly even call it a model at this point. Like
Speaker 4: the lions themselves were, you know, by ballot biology essentially
Speaker 4: thirty five years ago they were declared especially protected species
Speaker 4: in the state of California.
Speaker 1: Was that under Reagan.
Speaker 4: No, what Reagan did was it was done for more
Speaker 4: traditional management reasons. They were just trying to get there.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of hound guys back in that era
Speaker 4: in the late sixties and seventies were concerned that maybe
Speaker 4: they had taken too many lions back to whoring the
Speaker 4: bounty era, and then it was a free for all.
Speaker 4: The bounty system ended in like sixty two or sixty three,
Speaker 4: and it was a literal free for all at that point.
Speaker 4: There was no management objective or plan in place for
Speaker 4: nobody knew how many lions there were. Nobody had really
Speaker 4: studied them very you know, effectively, you.
Speaker 1: Can make cash killing them year round.
Speaker 4: You could yeah, well yeah, I mean, and you could
Speaker 4: merely pursue and kill them year round. So I think
Speaker 4: what happen, and it was a lot of guys who
Speaker 4: liked to run them were realizing that maybe they were
Speaker 4: tipping too far in the take direction. So Reagan signed
Speaker 4: a kill moratorium into effect in nineteen seventy two, but
Speaker 4: that didn't that did not prevent guys from being able
Speaker 4: to run them. They could still run them trium tree
Speaker 4: and free. And the kill moratorium was in effect until
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty five or eighty six. It was fourteen years long.
Speaker 4: So at that point they had collected enough data and
Speaker 4: realized that the population was was definitely stable and.
Speaker 1: The Housett they hadn't killed them in fourteen years.
Speaker 4: Hadn't killed them in fourteen years. So at that point
Speaker 4: they relisted them as a game you know, as a
Speaker 4: game species, and they were going to manage them comprehensively
Speaker 4: with everything else well HSUS and an outlying foundation and
Speaker 4: you know, basically like you know, animal welfare, animal protectionist
Speaker 4: NGO's got completely up in arms about it, and they
Speaker 4: managed to, by popular ballot measure, have the species declared
Speaker 4: especially protected again for zero science. There's no scientific basis
Speaker 4: to this at all. It was strictly, you know, the
Speaker 4: ability to appeal emotionally to a population.
Speaker 1: They they they they didn't come in and argue population dynamics.
Speaker 1: It was more like, we're not here to argue population levels.
Speaker 1: We're not here to argue sustainability. Right, we don't want
Speaker 1: people to legally be able to kill mountains, right. It
Speaker 1: was not a conversation about how many.
Speaker 4: Exactly strictly an ideological or philosophical you know, impetus for that, yep.
Speaker 1: But divorced from any conversations totally, totally exactly. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that really led to a lot of increase.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so there, I mean, there's I'm actually I mean,
Speaker 4: this is another thing that's going on, and I just
Speaker 4: signed a contract with the New York Times magazine to
Speaker 4: write about this entire issue and like really explore like
Speaker 4: through the lens of what happened to the boys into
Speaker 4: you know, our larger family as a result of it,
Speaker 4: and then really the entire region. I mean, this really
Speaker 4: impacted that Foothills region hard because so many people had
Speaker 4: been had been increasingly nervous about the you know, the
Speaker 4: the behavioral changes in the lions that are just palpable
Speaker 4: to everybody. You can. I mean, you just people see
Speaker 4: them everywhere. They're jumping into people's backyards and taking dogs,
Speaker 4: they're breaking into chicken coops. They're totally blase about, you know,
Speaker 4: just being seen in broad daylight. And it was certainly
Speaker 4: not that way when we were growing up around there.
Speaker 5: Right, It's no longer this thing that if you spend
Speaker 5: enough time outside mm hmm or driving in like the
Speaker 5: twilight in certain areas, you get really lucky you might
Speaker 5: see one exactly.
Speaker 4: But when we were kids, I mean, we knew when
Speaker 4: they were there. We knew guys who had hound kennels
Speaker 4: and who ran them, and we would hear lion scream
Speaker 4: from time to time down in the canyon behind our house.
Speaker 4: Everybody knew that they were around, but if somebody saw
Speaker 4: one in broad daylight, it would make the local newspaper
Speaker 4: because it was just such anomalous event.
Speaker 1: Do you remember a few years ago? Can you find
Speaker 1: do you mind looking up what yurtis was? There was
Speaker 1: one summer a few years ago when Washington had its
Speaker 1: first documented mountain lion fatality. Yeah, and then Oregon had
Speaker 1: its first and ninety years and that happened the same summer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was talking to a friend of mine who
Speaker 1: does a lot of work. He'd done a lot of
Speaker 1: depredation work for the state of Oregon yep. Twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: He done a lot of depredation work for the state
Speaker 1: of Oregon. And was to him, I'm like, how much
Speaker 1: does that just freak? Like how much is that it's
Speaker 1: freak coincidence? And how much of that is something different?
Speaker 1: And to paraphrase him, I mean we had a long
Speaker 1: conversation about it. His take was, there's a huge freak element, right,
Speaker 1: there's a huge freak element you can't discount, like in
Speaker 1: the same summer.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: But he said also, like in my career, I have
Speaker 1: seen a major change in the management attitude around lions.
Speaker 1: Where it used to be one lion kind of came
Speaker 1: up against that human threshold. There was serious pushback, like
Speaker 1: you know, if the lion was too aggressive around livestock,
Speaker 1: was too blase around people, we would kill the lion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just too apt to be seen.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, And he said and since then it's been
Speaker 1: pushed and pushed him, push to not take action, to
Speaker 1: not take action. So he felt, as much as it's
Speaker 1: crazy than the same summer, we'd see that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: aligns with what I'm seeing, which is a great reluctance
Speaker 1: on the part of the state agencies. Yeah, for fear
Speaker 1: of public pushback, right, often coming from people who aren't
Speaker 1: dealing with them, For fear of published pushback of being
Speaker 1: too aggressive around depredation issues, too aggressive around hazing lions,
Speaker 1: too aggressive around taking any kind of control measure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he like wasn't shocked, right, did it happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Well, when you break down even like the state
Speaker 4: in California is a ground zero for you know exactly
Speaker 4: what you're talking about, because the degree of like public
Speaker 4: sentiment that can be steered, you know, both by just
Speaker 4: a sort of hyperbolic sensationalistic you know, media reportings. I mean,
Speaker 4: they'll report that there are an estimated four thy five
Speaker 4: hundred lions and the state of California, and people hear
Speaker 4: that raw number and they automatically are like, holy mackerel,
Speaker 4: they must be on the verge of extinction, which is
Speaker 4: not the case. I mean, the state of Montana has
Speaker 4: between five and seven thousand, right, and the State of
Speaker 4: Montana estimates that that is within twenty five percent of
Speaker 4: the pre European contact number. So I mean, if you've
Speaker 4: got this apex predator, the just are not that that
Speaker 4: are territorial and there are not that many of them
Speaker 4: saturating as a rule a really large land space. But
Speaker 4: I mean in California, because you have you know again
Speaker 4: animal welfare and animal protectionist NGOs who are ideologically committed
Speaker 4: to a certain outcome, right, and they've got very deep pockets.
Speaker 4: They're very well funded, and they're very able to manipulate
Speaker 4: the sort of you know, the media sensationalistic dimension of
Speaker 4: things to achieve ends through non scientific means and non
Speaker 4: official means. I mean, you put something on a ballot,
Speaker 4: you can get enough. You know, people who are just
Speaker 4: probably perfectly well intentioned with the way that they vote,
Speaker 4: they're just they're just naive or you know, under educated,
Speaker 4: underinformed on what the you know, the actual boots on
Speaker 4: the ground situation is for others who live in more
Speaker 4: royal areas and actually have to deal with the fallout
Speaker 4: of restricting traditional management policies.
Speaker 1: I hear that, you know, like people say, like uneducated
Speaker 1: or informed, but also just different. Yeah, just different, sure,
Speaker 1: a different set of like a.
Speaker 4: Different different different values. It's different worldview, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now to get you know, come a little bit full
Speaker 4: circle here talking about you know what your buddy was observing.
Speaker 4: It was doing depredation work and Oregon I'm in contact
Speaker 4: with it. You know a bunch of people federal trappers
Speaker 4: and whatnot in California who are fighting a totally uphill
Speaker 4: battle on that front. But if you look at in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, the Department of Ficient Wildlife in California decide
Speaker 4: again and partially in reaction to public outcry over one
Speaker 4: of the celebrity lions, you know, the well known lions
Speaker 4: around you know, Santa Monica Mountains or whatever that was
Speaker 4: collared and you know, wound up being taken on a
Speaker 4: depredation basis. Because of the hue and cry from that,
Speaker 4: the state Department Officient Wildlife decided to implement this universal
Speaker 4: three strikes depredation policy where the actual depredation language in
Speaker 4: one ballot won Measure one seventeen, which is what put
Speaker 4: this opened this Pandora's box in the first place, you know,
Speaker 4: thirty five years ago. It does have reasonable depredation provisions
Speaker 4: in it where it basically says that if a livestock producer,
Speaker 4: pet owner, whatever can you know, can demonstrate that there
Speaker 4: was a single instance of depredation by a lion, the
Speaker 4: state is supposed to shoe a lethal shell issue language
Speaker 4: depredation permit to be able to you know, get a
Speaker 4: you know contract with the trapper or whatever to go
Speaker 4: ahead and lethally pursue that animal. Well, they change that
Speaker 4: again because of I think just cosmetic reasons, like wanting
Speaker 4: to appear to a certain set of the California voting population.
Speaker 4: They changed that in two thy twenty to a universal
Speaker 4: three strikes policy, in which now a single landowner has
Speaker 4: to demonstrate that multiple incidents of depredation have occurred from
Speaker 4: the same lion before they will issue a lethal depredation permit.
Speaker 1: So it's like the thing with the felons, like three strikes,
Speaker 1: like three felons, you know. Now, I don't know when
Speaker 1: that was fashionable. I remember that being coming a thing
Speaker 1: in Michigan. Yea, when I was growing up. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had the okay, like your third felony, you're out.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, like it's a baseball up until then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just try to calm down.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, so you've committed, that's enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Let me just like close this point with this, because
Speaker 4: this is really critical. Between nineteen ninety five and twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: there were a dozen lion attacks on humans in the
Speaker 4: state of California with no with one fatality. In two
Speaker 4: thousand and four, I believe a mountain biker in southern California,
Speaker 4: Orange County or right, I think so. Yeah, between twenty
Speaker 4: twenty and now after they changed that depredation permit policy,
Speaker 4: there have been nine attacks on humans, with Tailing representing
Speaker 4: the single fatality out of that group. But I mean,
Speaker 4: if you think about that, you have a twenty five
Speaker 4: year period in which they're doing, you know, the more
Speaker 4: traditional prescription for depredation permits, and you get a dozen
Speaker 4: attacks literally the same year that that depredation policy change.
Speaker 4: Is that put into motion of four year nine attack
Speaker 4: tally on humans? Yeah? So I mean is it anecdotal, Yeah,
Speaker 4: to a degree, But is it like difficult to sort
Speaker 4: of argue with them, you know math? I mean I
Speaker 4: don't think it is, especially when again, I mean the
Speaker 4: just the number of daylight sightings and livestock and pet
Speaker 4: depredations has just skyrocketed during the same period.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's in California, mounta lions kill mountain lions, vehicles
Speaker 5: kill mountain lions, and secondary rodenticide poisoning kills mountain lions.
Speaker 4: And that's about it except for the playing that.
Speaker 5: Well, a lot of landscaping golf courses in California, and
Speaker 5: so they use a lot of rodenticide, and then the
Speaker 5: foxes coyotes eat the squirrels that have died from rodenticide,
Speaker 5: and then the mountain lions knock those guys out.
Speaker 1: Is that a thing that has the happen from long
Speaker 1: term exposure or is that a one Can that be
Speaker 1: a one and done deal?
Speaker 5: It can be a one and done deal, but it's
Speaker 5: not going to be like the single factor from all
Speaker 5: the all the stuff I've read. I'm not an expert here, right,
Speaker 5: but it is it's a compounding condition because a rodenticide
Speaker 5: is an anti coagulant and so like also it's like
Speaker 5: how much is that cat getting from eating something that's
Speaker 5: eating something?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right, So there's another thing at play I think
Speaker 1: when it comes to California and public perception of predators,
Speaker 1: and it's it's for for expecting the public to have
Speaker 1: the kind of mental elasticity to understand that different places
Speaker 1: have different situations and to and to back out on
Speaker 1: that and use another example to illustrate what I'm saying
Speaker 1: on a broader scale, it would be that that elk Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: elk have only been recovered or let's say elk only
Speaker 1: exist on fourteen percent of their native range in the
Speaker 1: lower forty eight Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee. Like that was
Speaker 1: elk country. Oh yeah, everywhere was elk country.
Speaker 4: There's buffalo country from.
Speaker 1: The hunter, yeah, from the Yeah, there were western Minnesota. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you had the like you had eastern forests with elk,
Speaker 1: like and Daniel boone day the hunted elk. Yep, they're
Speaker 1: not there now. But you're able to have conversations about
Speaker 1: there being too many elk in Colorado coming from an
Speaker 1: agricultural perspective, and no one says, well, how could that
Speaker 1: be true. They haven't been recovered in Tennessee, right, But
Speaker 1: you're able to say, well, because it's a different place
Speaker 1: and there's a different thing going on, and what's happening
Speaker 1: in one place isn't happening in another place. So I
Speaker 1: think that when they had the the when they all that,
Speaker 1: that that excitement for years with the guy that got
Speaker 1: the picture of the lion by the Hollywood sign, and
Speaker 1: it was just this lion that was you know, isolated
Speaker 1: and boxed in by highways, and there was this big,
Speaker 1: like outpouring of empathy for this cat living in this
Speaker 1: unexpected landscape. Socially isolated, soul, full of risk. Right. You
Speaker 1: hear that, and hear that, hear that, and it creates
Speaker 1: in your head a image of something that is desperately imperiled,
Speaker 1: and then that's in your head, and then it becomes
Speaker 1: hard to understand that you can go a few hundred
Speaker 1: miles away into a different range of hills, a different
Speaker 1: mountain range, and have a completely different situation on the ground.
Speaker 4: Sure, and along with that, I mean the you know,
Speaker 4: the more urban and suburb urban population down there, they're
Speaker 4: assuming that the entire state. It probably unconsciously, but there's
Speaker 4: there's a presumption that the entire state looks like they're
Speaker 4: swimming pool and you know, yard fans six houses to
Speaker 4: an acre southern California track development. But it doesn't. I mean,
Speaker 4: the the rural foothills where we're from are still I mean,
Speaker 4: there's so much of that is literally undevelopable just because
Speaker 4: of the geographic nature of the terrain.
Speaker 5: And then the brush situation in California, just like we
Speaker 5: talked about the poison oak, you can hide a lot
Speaker 5: of animals.
Speaker 1: In that stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, just are not going to get seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I recently did the drive from uh,
Speaker 1: Sacramento to over by Fort Bragg.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Russian River area, dude, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I mean just the country in there and the ship
Speaker 1: that you would not want to I mean not not
Speaker 1: want to, but it would be like hard stuff to
Speaker 1: go through.
Speaker 4: Oh, totally. I mean even if you go down your country,
Speaker 4: go down like Highway one by like big sur or
Speaker 4: go the whole state is Yes, there were huge dense
Speaker 4: population zones, but it is a massive state with a
Speaker 4: lot of a very wild land in it. Still, Yeah,
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 1: Why how how comfortable are you talking about the day
Speaker 1: you and your brother were attacked?
Speaker 6: Uh? I think I'd be fine talking about it.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what, uh kind of how the
Speaker 1: morning went whatever, Like what you guys, what your plan was,
Speaker 1: what you guys did? Yes, So how it came to
Speaker 1: be that you decided to go out with your brother?
Speaker 6: Like, well, we were just sitting at home board and
Speaker 6: so I asked them if you wanted to go, and
Speaker 6: so we both decided just to go try a new spot.
Speaker 6: So we drove up there and there was a gated
Speaker 6: for a service road, so I just pulled off the
Speaker 6: side and we just decided to walk that road.
Speaker 1: Had you seen other folks around?
Speaker 6: There was one one other car pretty close to us
Speaker 6: because there was like a walking trail that they were
Speaker 6: stopped at, and then but we pulled up past them.
Speaker 5: Were you doing the classic Hunters mental gymnastics of like,
Speaker 5: is that somebody looking for sheds that's parked at the
Speaker 5: hiking trail or is that some old lady walking her poodle?
Speaker 6: Mm?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't care. I know what Cal's
Speaker 1: saying because I have the problem. I could be out
Speaker 1: doing the most esoteric thing on the planet, like I
Speaker 1: could be. Let's say I wanted to find a railroad
Speaker 1: spike for some reason, and I see a car park
Speaker 1: I'm like some of the bitches looking for ver, Like
Speaker 1: every car is doing what I'm trying to do in
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 5: Beat me too, Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Sons of bitches are looking for more else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, anxiety walking their dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So you guys get parked and you start walking it
Speaker 5: up the for a service road.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Then we get like one hundred and fifty yards away
Speaker 6: from my car and I'm looking up to the left
Speaker 6: because the right side of the road is just steep,
Speaker 6: so I wasn't looking down there so as I'm looking
Speaker 6: to my left, I see something like out of the
Speaker 6: corner of my eye come up from the steep side
Speaker 6: up onto the road. At first, I just thought it
Speaker 6: was a dog. That was the first thing that came
Speaker 6: to mind. And then that's when I turned and looked
Speaker 6: and realizing, and so I told my brother to look,
Speaker 6: and but it only it came up like ten yards
Speaker 6: away from us.
Speaker 5: And you feel like you're one hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 5: from the car from where you parked further from the gate.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were walking for like five minutes, like yeah,
Speaker 6: what time of day? Mmm, like one one thirty, just midday, but.
Speaker 5: The heat of the day, I would say it like that.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so I look telling my brother to look.
Speaker 6: He looks, and then so we both just start putting
Speaker 6: our arms up and yelling at it. But it doesn't
Speaker 6: care at all. It just looks calm, and it's just
Speaker 6: walking towards us slowly. And so we're backpedaling down the road,
Speaker 6: which the line was above us because it was the
Speaker 6: road was heading down, and so it's just walking towards us,
Speaker 6: and the only thing I could think of is to
Speaker 6: throw my backpack at it, because I had a backpack on,
Speaker 6: so I sling that off, throw it at it, and
Speaker 6: it hits the left side of its face, but it
Speaker 6: kind of like it didn't even really flinch, like it
Speaker 6: just closed that left eye. And then the backpack hit
Speaker 6: it in the left side of the face and then
Speaker 6: just skimmed across its body. But it didn't care. It
Speaker 6: just kept walking at us.
Speaker 3: And then were you guys still yelling or able to
Speaker 3: stay calm or hmm?
Speaker 6: At that point it was I guess like the adrenaline
Speaker 6: was kicking in.
Speaker 5: This is so bizarre, so bizarre, middle of the day,
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty yards from the truck. I've called
Speaker 5: in two kats in the last two turkey out and
Speaker 5: sees in like places where I really had to walk in. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and both of those cats were more than happy to
Speaker 5: get the hell out of there.
Speaker 1: When I stood up and looked at.
Speaker 5: Them, once they made looked made eye contact, those cats
Speaker 5: were gone. Yeah, So hitting it in the face with
Speaker 5: anything is just insane.
Speaker 6: And it didn't care. And then so yeah, my brother's
Speaker 6: like I'm on the left side of the road, he's
Speaker 6: on the right, but he's a little bit behind me,
Speaker 6: and it's like me and the line are just locked
Speaker 6: eyes with each other, and so it's just walking towards me.
Speaker 6: But I didn't want to run, so we're just we
Speaker 6: start to speed up, back pedaling, and there's a there
Speaker 6: was a stick in the road laying sideways, and so
Speaker 6: I'm back pedaling and I start to speed up and
Speaker 6: then I step on that and my foot slips out
Speaker 6: from under me, so I fall down. But at that point,
Speaker 6: the lion's already like, I don't know, six or seven
Speaker 6: yards in front of me. So I fall and then
Speaker 6: I just remember the line comes around my left side,
Speaker 6: and then that's when it bites me. So I kind
Speaker 6: of put my arms up. And then after it bites,
Speaker 6: I grab it and I flip it over and I
Speaker 6: get on top of it, and I like have my
Speaker 6: arms on its neck pushing it down. I imagine it
Speaker 6: doesn't like that, no, so then it starts clawing at me.
Speaker 1: It is it big, the lion? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Uh, it seemed big to me, but it was what
Speaker 6: like ninety pounds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think it was. It was like
Speaker 4: a juvenile mail basically probably approximate little a little over
Speaker 4: like a half the size that they can't actually get
Speaker 4: to yeah, so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I flip it over, I get on top
Speaker 6: of it, and then that's when it starts clawing me,
Speaker 6: so I kind of release my grip a little bit
Speaker 6: so it manages to spin out from under me. And
Speaker 6: then but it all happened so fast to where my
Speaker 6: brother couldn't really even do anything to help me. So
Speaker 6: he was still standing behind me to my right. So
Speaker 6: when the lion got up and spun around, like, my
Speaker 6: brother was right there. So then the lion ran at him,
Speaker 6: jumped up on his back legs, took him down, but
Speaker 6: it just went straight for his neck, so there wasn't
Speaker 6: much he could do. And then so I get up
Speaker 6: and like, as that's happening, I remember, like I just
Speaker 6: stand there in the road and I touched my face
Speaker 6: and look because it felt like a dream, like didn't
Speaker 6: It was weird, So I kind of had to I
Speaker 6: like told myself, like, this is actually happening, and so
Speaker 6: I have to, like I like snap back into it.
Speaker 6: And then that's when I went for my brother. So
Speaker 6: I just grabbed the lion and kind of tug a
Speaker 6: few times, but that's all I really did. But I
Speaker 6: couldn't get it to let go and at that point,
Speaker 6: I was feeling kind of weak because I had been
Speaker 6: losing a lot of blood.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 6: So after I tried tugging, can't get it to get
Speaker 6: off of him, trying to think of what to do,
Speaker 6: and all I can think of is my car, because
Speaker 6: I know that they're scared of vehicles. So at that point, well,
Speaker 6: the reason I did that is because the whole time
Speaker 6: my brother had his arms like I could see. I
Speaker 6: could never see his face because the line was in
Speaker 6: between me and my brother's face, but I could see
Speaker 6: his arms doing something up here. But as time went
Speaker 6: on and they ended up like almost off the side
Speaker 6: of the hill, but I could see that by that
Speaker 6: point his arms were just like limp now, not holding yeah,
Speaker 6: not holding it anymore, and he wasn't moving, So I
Speaker 6: pretty much I just knew there was like nothing else
Speaker 6: I could really do. So that's when I thought of
Speaker 6: the car. So I reached for my phone to call
Speaker 6: nine one one, and my phone's down in my pocket.
Speaker 6: So I'm looking around from my phone and I find
Speaker 6: it in the middle of the road, so I grab
Speaker 6: it and then I head back to my car. I'm
Speaker 6: jogging to my car, and I pulled my shirt off
Speaker 6: to hold on my face stop the blood, and then
Speaker 6: A said, I'm trying to dial nine one one, Like
Speaker 6: the blood kept dripping on my phone so it wasn't typing.
Speaker 6: So eventually I got that off and got it to work.
Speaker 6: So I as I'm running to my car, I'm on
Speaker 6: the phone with nine one one, and then make it
Speaker 6: to my car and then I have to drive around
Speaker 6: the locked gate. So I'm driving through like small trees
Speaker 6: and rocks, and then I get onto the road make
Speaker 6: my way down there. But by the time I drove
Speaker 6: down there, they were both gone. So I flip around
Speaker 6: and I'm looking out the left side out the window.
Speaker 6: I'm looking down the hill.
Speaker 5: But sorry, so your brother and the cat are no
Speaker 5: longer on the road. Yeah, and but you have a
Speaker 5: good idea where it all happened. Your backpacks laying there
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 6: Backpack was in the middle of the road. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: I knew right where it had happened. But so yeah,
Speaker 6: So I so I'm looking out the window down the hill,
Speaker 6: but I still don't see anything. So then I just
Speaker 6: asked what I should do to the dispatcher, and so
Speaker 6: I just went I drove to the backside of the gate,
Speaker 6: and I just parked there and waited for someone to
Speaker 6: show up.
Speaker 1: Did they have any sense of what you were talking
Speaker 1: about when you called? I mean, did they have any
Speaker 1: like did it seem like an inform Probably not like
Speaker 1: an informed opinion about this?
Speaker 6: Well, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I probably had never dealt like the dispatch. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: no idea? What yeah, no idea how to deal with someone?
Speaker 6: Yeah, no idea.
Speaker 5: So it was probably just okay, stay calm, somebody's going
Speaker 5: to be there type of stuff. M m.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like it wasn't really helping much by telling me what
Speaker 6: to do.
Speaker 1: But did you have to direct then when they came?
Speaker 1: Did you take someone to the area?
Speaker 6: No, I didn't take them, but it was like a
Speaker 6: star volunteer car was the first car that showed up,
Speaker 6: and they had a dog and a pistol, and so
Speaker 6: they just came up to me and I told them
Speaker 6: right where to go. I said, like you'd see the
Speaker 6: backpack in the road, and then so they went down
Speaker 6: there and then I was just waiting still.
Speaker 1: Then they shot the lion. No, No, that was later.
Speaker 6: That was later on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't even know if that person saw it, because
Speaker 6: it had it had drag tailing quite a ways down
Speaker 6: that hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Star volunteers are like a community watch type, you know,
Speaker 4: volunteer outfit. They're They're really not like L A O
Speaker 4: or right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's horrifying.
Speaker 6: Man, Wow, it sucked.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know, like you know how much this is
Speaker 4: like within the protocol of this. But last night why
Speaker 4: It talked to the first responding paramedic for the first
Speaker 4: time or two nights ago, I guess, but he said,
Speaker 4: wyat pictures from the field of what whyatts of his
Speaker 4: injuries out there and which I mean I looked at
Speaker 4: him last night. I mean, do you feel comfortable showing
Speaker 4: those to these guys just so, because I mean it
Speaker 4: really is highly illustrative of exactly how like crazy this
Speaker 4: whole thing was, of your of your injuries of me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, do you remember because you have some some scars
Speaker 5: on your face. I assume that's from the cat. Was
Speaker 5: that when he first whacked you, like right when you
Speaker 5: fell or was that from clawing when you got on
Speaker 5: top of the cat or do you remember it all?
Speaker 6: I remember, No, it was just the first It only
Speaker 6: bit me once, and that's what the scars are from.
Speaker 1: Oh, so that that's teeth. Yeah, wow, that's wild.
Speaker 6: Yeah, went like through my nose well.
Speaker 5: Before we go on. Man, it's horrifying. It is brutal,
Speaker 5: and I'm so sorry you and the family had to.
Speaker 1: Go through this.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's all I can think about. Man, that's very,
Speaker 5: very hard.
Speaker 6: But if you guys want to see the pictures.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess that's the other thing that it kind
Speaker 4: of demonstrates has hold brilliant. The plastic surgeon who worked
Speaker 4: on him was.
Speaker 6: And there's one more picture you can scroll.
Speaker 5: So did you how long roughly how long before any
Speaker 5: any sort of emergency services chill up?
Speaker 6: There was some deputies who showed up within like fifteen minutes,
Speaker 6: i'd say, and then the medic came shortly after, like
Speaker 6: twenty minutes. It took them to get there.
Speaker 5: But but I imagine even with the deputies there, it
Speaker 5: was probably just up to you to keep holding your
Speaker 5: shirt to your face.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they didn't really help.
Speaker 5: I'm sure they didn't want much to do with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But as soon as the medic got there, though,
Speaker 6: then they started helping.
Speaker 1: Was your brother? Was your brother pronounced dead on the scene.
Speaker 6: No, we didn't find out till that night in the hospital.
Speaker 6: It was pretty late when we found out, right.
Speaker 1: But earlier.
Speaker 2: The share the deputies and the sheriff had figured it
Speaker 2: out right before we knew.
Speaker 1: Oh so yeah, well there was nothing they could do
Speaker 1: to try to help them. I mean he was no,
Speaker 1: he was dead when they found him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you had to guess from the time you
Speaker 3: saw that mountain lion till the time you know, you
Speaker 3: had to go back to the truck, Like, was that
Speaker 3: like within a few minutes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like just like a couple of minutes. Yeah, it
Speaker 6: was really fast, gotcha. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, this is gonna be like a dumb question because
Speaker 1: I mean this will you already know this? This is good,
Speaker 1: This is will be the defining experience of your life.
Speaker 1: But you're already aware of this, right Yeah, it never
Speaker 1: goes away, You'll it'll impact you in all manner of
Speaker 1: ways for as long as you're on earth.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, just like looking at a small detail that
Speaker 1: do you do you've like, do you feel this will
Speaker 1: transform your kind of like your relationship with with nature?
Speaker 1: Do you still feel drawn to go out to go hunting?
Speaker 1: Do you still feel drawn to be around animals or
Speaker 1: did it sort of kill that in you.
Speaker 6: No, I actually went turkey hunting like just a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks after it had happened in Gotlin. So I
Speaker 6: still feel the same about hunting and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I didn't really have an effect on going out.
Speaker 1: What are what are the things like from a daily perspective?
Speaker 1: What are the things you kind of remember most or
Speaker 1: will miss most about your brother? Mmmm?
Speaker 6: Just hanging out because we always shared a room together,
Speaker 6: so now it's just kind of empty. I guess you
Speaker 6: guys shared a room at the time. Yeah, yeah, we've
Speaker 6: shared a room like our whole life.
Speaker 1: Do you feel a different when you're out turkey hunting?
Speaker 1: Do you feel a different fear in the woods?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's I'm definitely a lot more scared being out there,
Speaker 6: but when I'm with people, I'm fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Aaron, how is this Has this changed your
Speaker 1: desire to be out your relationship with being out a
Speaker 1: little bit?
Speaker 2: I didn't turkey hunt at all last spring season, which
Speaker 2: is super weird. Yeah, usually we hunt every single day
Speaker 2: of the entire season, but I didn't hunt at all.
Speaker 2: I went with Wyatt just a handful of times, just
Speaker 2: to go with him to try to get him one,
Speaker 2: but just feels totally different. Constantly looking over my shoulder
Speaker 2: and it's kind of scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, do you feel that you'll find your
Speaker 1: way back in it in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's just this happened right before Turkey season open,
Speaker 2: so's like.
Speaker 4: It was pretty raw.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have any motivation to go hunting of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So man, I'm sorry that happened you guys man. Thanks, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I came picture, uh having that happened to a brother.
Speaker 1: Do you have all the siblings.
Speaker 6: I have a half sister, but I was calling my sister.
Speaker 6: She cool, Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 4: You passed the task.
Speaker 1: Good job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one of it's one of those things that
Speaker 3: you know, it's like, oh that that'll never that that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff would never happen to us, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, we're we're out in the field all the time,
Speaker 3: and you know, I have had experiences that are definitely scary.
Speaker 3: But like, for instance, my buddy, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: mention his name, but a couple of years ago had
Speaker 3: a mountain lion while he was el hunting, called it
Speaker 3: in and it was about ten yards from him, staring
Speaker 3: at him for a few minutes, he threw sticks at it,
Speaker 3: yelled at it, shot an arrow over its back, and
Speaker 3: it just continued to stay there. So eventually he did
Speaker 3: have to shoot it. But you know, he was like
Speaker 3: lucky in that situation. You know, you just never know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, I mean he's like he's out there
Speaker 5: with the intent to kill something much bigger than he
Speaker 5: is already.
Speaker 3: And he had a traditional bow that I built him,
Speaker 3: you know, so that cat decided he wanted to.
Speaker 5: So you knew the bow was capable, is what you
Speaker 5: were saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's but I mean, it's just it's just crazy.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Well, this situation broad daylight, there's two of you, there's
Speaker 5: one cat. Like it just it does not make any
Speaker 5: conventional sense from all my time in the woods.
Speaker 4: It's just historically just kind of unprecedented.
Speaker 5: Hitting it with something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1: How when when you run it through in your head,
Speaker 1: when you like, how much does it feel to you
Speaker 1: like what happened to you was just such a freak occurrence,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it was it was
Speaker 1: just something that could never happen again, should have never happened?
Speaker 1: How and how much of you, does it feel like
Speaker 1: it was a like a like an inevitability or the
Speaker 1: result of broader things going on in your area?
Speaker 6: Uh? Well, yeah, I just never even thought that would
Speaker 6: ever happen.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, So you don't you weren't You didn't walk
Speaker 1: around prior to this with a sort of an awareness
Speaker 1: of fear of worry about mountain lions in your area.
Speaker 6: No, I mean yeah, I always had the fear of
Speaker 6: them because I knew they were there. But I also
Speaker 6: always had a gun on me, But in that situation,
Speaker 6: I didn't.
Speaker 1: So was that that road that was one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty miles or sorry, one hundred and fifty yards away?
Speaker 1: Was that a busy traffick road or no?
Speaker 6: No, it was just the old forest Service road sor
Speaker 6: service road and it was behind a lockgate.
Speaker 5: Oh no, no, sorry, the mainstam Steve's referring to. I think, like,
Speaker 5: how much traffic's on the road that connected to the
Speaker 5: forest service road that you guys hiked. It's still not real.
Speaker 6: Still not very much, no, but very little?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well kind of Oh sorry.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, yeah, I think where the attack
Speaker 4: happened is within like less than a mile from some
Speaker 4: residential housing. Yeah, and so it's not super like off
Speaker 4: the beaten Path or in the boondogspoon Ducks.
Speaker 2: There's a little.
Speaker 4: Development.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's houses back there, right on the edge of
Speaker 2: private where it meets for service. So, but it's the
Speaker 2: same lion that you said, the lady with the girls
Speaker 2: on the bikes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I went down to California within four
Speaker 4: or five days after this happened, just to help these
Speaker 4: guys out. And while it was down there, it was
Speaker 4: you know, Plasterville, California is our hometown. They used to
Speaker 4: call it Hangtown. It was like, you know, ground zero
Speaker 4: for the gold Rush. Sitting in this little cafe and
Speaker 4: talking to the waitress and it's somehow, I mean, it
Speaker 4: became a parent to her that, you know, we were
Speaker 4: the family that this happened to. And she told us,
Speaker 4: you know, my parents lived less than a mile from
Speaker 4: where that happened to the boys. And she said, I
Speaker 4: can't even tell you the number of times I've sent
Speaker 4: my eight and ten year old girls down that road
Speaker 4: on their bicycles by themselves, just to go for a
Speaker 4: bike ride. Yeah, she said, now I can't do that anymore. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean the County trapper, in conjunction with the County
Speaker 4: Sheriff's apartment, will wound up killing two more full grown
Speaker 4: toms within the city limits within two to three weeks
Speaker 4: after the attack on the boys, and both of them
Speaker 4: were within one hundred yards of an elementary school in
Speaker 4: broad daylight on a paved hiking trail. We're just off
Speaker 4: of a paved hiking trail, and you know, the level
Speaker 4: of awareness was so high in the entire area at
Speaker 4: that point. I mean, they went back and forth with
Speaker 4: the state, you know, what do we do? What do
Speaker 4: we do? And the Lions had both treed and sort
Speaker 4: of different circumstances on taking each one, but ultimately they
Speaker 4: euthanized them. You know, the county sheriff just ultimately made
Speaker 4: the call and said, I have to regard these things
Speaker 4: as as a safety, you know, public safety issue.
Speaker 3: Has there been any like, was that cat territorial? Was
Speaker 3: it famished? You know, was it hungary? Any sort of
Speaker 3: theories done on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean people have kind of like thrown it.
Speaker 4: But again, because of the just extraordinary anomaly of this,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's really no standard of comparison for this
Speaker 4: particular incident. The cat was healthy. It did not have rabies.
Speaker 4: They established that why it initially had to go through
Speaker 4: like preliminary rabies you know, medications, but they determined ultimately
Speaker 4: that it did not have rabies. They I believe they
Speaker 4: said its stomach was empty. But other people have you know,
Speaker 4: who understand lying behavior, wildlife biologists and whatnot, have also said, well,
Speaker 4: it wasn't really acting predatory per se, more like territorial,
Speaker 4: you know, or maybe because it was a juvenile cat,
Speaker 4: it really didn't know what it was doing. It was
Speaker 4: just a young, aggressive male and.
Speaker 5: He knows he's not wanted in all these other places,
Speaker 5: right because of adult males. Yeah, well, they had had
Speaker 5: predation on sheep and goats and right in that same
Speaker 5: you know, general area, within the prior couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: So there's also speculation of this was the same cat
Speaker 5: doing that. Although they are seeing so many lions, and
Speaker 5: they're seeing lions that are you know, even like as
Speaker 5: many as four at one time, which is also really
Speaker 5: bizarre and anomalous. Usually, I mean, if you see two,
Speaker 5: it's usually a mom and a kitten, or if you
Speaker 5: see three, it's a mom and twins. But to see
Speaker 5: four together is also sort of unprecedented a little bit.
Speaker 5: And a lot of this stuff is documented on like
Speaker 5: phones and ring cameras and you know, trail cameras. And
Speaker 5: I couldn't remember the name of the college, so I
Speaker 5: had to look it up. But Pepperdine. They're in the
Speaker 5: Santa Monica Mountains. Yeah, was that last year or two
Speaker 5: years ago that they were shutting down the campus because
Speaker 5: of mountain lion activity? Yeah, on camp And this is
Speaker 5: a fancy pants school.
Speaker 4: Oh big time. Yeah, that's like West Coast Ivy League level.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean I guess that's
Speaker 4: the other thing I should kind of note here. I mean,
Speaker 4: this happened in the foothills, and you know that that
Speaker 4: you know, gold Rush Foothills region is a real hotspot,
Speaker 4: but honestly, it's all over the state that the stuff
Speaker 4: is happening, like just increased lion presence in you know,
Speaker 4: drastically increased depredation, problems with livestock or pets, and then
Speaker 4: you know, since twenty twenty, a real increase in attacks
Speaker 4: on humans. Almost all of them have been kids under
Speaker 4: the age of like eight. And the reason none of
Speaker 4: them were fatal is because you know, it was typically
Speaker 4: like on the periphery of a like a park setting
Speaker 4: or something where there were a bunch of adults around,
Speaker 4: who could you know, present enough of a you know,
Speaker 4: enough of the presence. Yeah, just a presence, you know.
Speaker 4: And and the cats ultimately didn't kill any of these kids.
Speaker 4: So that's another reason why this one is so strange.
Speaker 4: You know, it's most of the attacks are on juveniles,
Speaker 4: not on a pair of adult sized males.
Speaker 1: Would it take a it would take an act of
Speaker 1: God for California to reinstate lion hunting right.
Speaker 4: Well, they can't because because it was passed on a
Speaker 4: popular ballot measure, the only way to undo that is
Speaker 4: through a secondary popular ballot measure. So what the state
Speaker 4: can do, and whether it'll be willing to or not,
Speaker 4: is I mean, the first thing that they could do immediately,
Speaker 4: just by internal policy is returned to the original provision
Speaker 4: for issuing lethal depredation permits. They can do that. There
Speaker 4: might also especially after that study that Bart George did
Speaker 4: in Washington, the Holland hazing study to determine the effectiveness.
Speaker 1: No, he's publishing on that soon, I know, and I've.
Speaker 4: Been in communication with him also been in communication with
Speaker 4: the guy who used to be the lead predator biologist
Speaker 4: for California for seven years. He now works for Wyoming.
Speaker 4: His name's Justin Dellinger, and he's like legit wildlife biologists
Speaker 4: PhD North America, totally like very much and adherent to
Speaker 4: the North American model in terms of his own, you know,
Speaker 4: personal philosophy for how you go about doing this stuff.
Speaker 4: But he also grew up in western North Carolina in
Speaker 4: a hound hunting family, and so he was hired by
Speaker 4: the state in twenty twelve or so, I believe, and
Speaker 4: for what he did for seven years was go all
Speaker 4: around the state, almost every county in California, tree lions
Speaker 4: in Colera. I'm trying to put a data set together.
Speaker 4: So he told me on the phone that he has
Speaker 4: since been sort of pressure. He was pressured to leave
Speaker 4: his position because his, you know, his management philosophy was
Speaker 4: so at odds with what the President administration's you know,
Speaker 4: department is really you know, wanting to the direction that
Speaker 4: they would like to go or are going. So at
Speaker 4: any rate, I talked to Dellinger and he told me
Speaker 4: that he tried to design a very similar study to
Speaker 4: what Bart George did in Washington, you know, just to mathematically, quantitatively,
Speaker 4: you know, scientifically, demonstrate the effectiveness of kind of preliminary
Speaker 4: hound hazing on behavioral conditioning for lines to keep them
Speaker 4: away from you just make them more evasive, the evasive
Speaker 4: as they used to be when you know there was
Speaker 4: consistent hound pressure put on them. So, I mean, these
Speaker 4: guys who run hounds and understand you know, the psychology
Speaker 4: if you will of that, you know, apex predatory, they
Speaker 4: already know that, Like this is what works. It's not
Speaker 4: necessarily you know, listing them as a game animal and
Speaker 4: killing a sustainable number every year. What really works is
Speaker 4: when we get to like pursuit train our dogs on
Speaker 4: these things and tree and freeum. So at any rate,
Speaker 4: justin Dellinger put together he told me a very similar
Speaker 4: study and was about to get it green lighted and
Speaker 4: funded in the Mountain Lion Foundation, which is you know,
Speaker 4: primary NGO down there that's responsible for a lot of
Speaker 4: the ballot measure and whatnot. In first place, they caught
Speaker 4: wind of it and they were able to put enough
Speaker 4: pressure on the State Department of Fishing Wildlife to have
Speaker 4: them pull the plug on his study. So long, I
Speaker 4: mean a big roundabout way of saying. They are like
Speaker 4: myriad complexities to this in terms of like how do
Speaker 4: we get some meaningful management protocols back in place in
Speaker 4: that region.
Speaker 1: I want to explain to folks real quick. When we're
Speaker 1: talking about work Bark George was doing with.
Speaker 4: Cattspell tribe, yes, north of Spokane.
Speaker 1: So he was working on this project where they have
Speaker 1: lions that are on the sort of suburban rural interfaith
Speaker 1: and they have collars on them so they can tell
Speaker 1: where the lion is at any given time, and they'll
Speaker 1: go and play audio of human voices.
Speaker 4: Much of it was your voice, I believe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They used yeah for a long time. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he still does. They use the Mediator podcast. They
Speaker 1: play the podcast out loud, and then they run the
Speaker 1: lion with dogs and give it a bad experience to
Speaker 1: get intrigued, right, and trying to see if you to
Speaker 1: what degree, what degree to being chased and I don't
Speaker 1: know if they paintballed them or something like that or
Speaker 1: whatever they would do to them. If you could get
Speaker 1: if you could monitor an individual lion's behavior and see
Speaker 1: if it getting bad experiences when exposed to human voices,
Speaker 1: would make it less wanting to be around human voices
Speaker 1: and then watch how it would behave in the presence
Speaker 1: of human voices.
Speaker 4: Yeah, once they have, they're.
Speaker 1: Public they're publishing their research about is it possible. Basically
Speaker 1: they're trying they were trying to set out to validate
Speaker 1: or refute the assumption that negative experiences will condition lions
Speaker 1: to stay away from yards.
Speaker 4: And people, right, so like, And they repeated the same
Speaker 4: process multiple times with this established set of lions that
Speaker 4: they had collared, and what they basically were able to
Speaker 4: do was track at what point, at what range the
Speaker 4: lion would decide it just wanted to get out of
Speaker 4: dodge and not encounter people. And like initially, like in
Speaker 4: the like say, the first encounter, these guys were able
Speaker 4: to get within I mean feet literally maybe.
Speaker 1: Him saying, get fifteen feet totally.
Speaker 4: Totally, and they're just you know, and they're bo you
Speaker 4: can tell they're both just like, I'm not going any farther,
Speaker 4: but that thing's right in there. So then they tree
Speaker 4: that lion. They then call in the houndsman, he trees
Speaker 4: the lion. Well, they go out again. A couple of
Speaker 4: weeks later, pinpoint the same lion through the you know,
Speaker 4: telemetry and do the exact same exercise again. They approach
Speaker 4: the lion while and this time the lion is much
Speaker 4: less inclined to let it get twenty feet from it.
Speaker 4: So they do this exercise a few different times, and
Speaker 4: by the end of it, the lions are like one
Speaker 4: hundred yards away. They hear a human voice and they're
Speaker 4: just like, we're out the back door. So yeah, it's
Speaker 4: really I mean, that particular episode that you honest did
Speaker 4: is really fascinating and I've sent it to a lot
Speaker 4: of people just to try to, you know, get people
Speaker 4: to understand what the missing link and the management chain
Speaker 4: is here.
Speaker 1: Bill. What uh what kind of service did you have
Speaker 1: for your brother? Have you guys had a service room?
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, celebration of a life mm hmm.
Speaker 4: It was big.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people from the town a ton yeah.
Speaker 3: Play some Metallica.
Speaker 6: Was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a lot of music that Taylor liked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yep. Man, I appreciate you coming out and
Speaker 1: talking to us.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you want to add?
Speaker 6: What? Mm hmmm, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: No, anything you want to add.
Speaker 6: I can't think of anything.
Speaker 1: Nothing. We didn't get to that feels important, Malcolm, what
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 4: Think, Well, I mean, I guess there are two sort
Speaker 4: of two prongs to this really. I mean, there's the
Speaker 4: personal family part of it. But then it's also because
Speaker 4: we've been involved in outdoor stuff, you know, our entire
Speaker 4: lives and have had to sort of observe the management
Speaker 4: deficiencies that have led to you know, an array of
Speaker 4: things in California. It's not just strictly limited to lions.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of problems with bears down there.
Speaker 4: They have problems with beer, with beavers. They you know,
Speaker 4: they completely outlawed trapping again. You know, I don't know
Speaker 4: if that was a popular ballot measure, if that was
Speaker 4: an actual like legislative you know, endeavor or what. But
Speaker 4: just having observed what happens when you stray from you know,
Speaker 4: these established management protocols that were invented by geniuses one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five years ago and responsible for restoring
Speaker 4: the pronghorn antelope and bringing back you know, Canada geese
Speaker 4: maybe a little too much, you know, preserving the last
Speaker 4: of the American bison. I mean, and when you see
Speaker 4: that whole that whole successful model just jettisoned and the
Speaker 4: immediate like after effects of it culminating in something like
Speaker 4: what happened to the boys. We all just got really
Speaker 4: committed to the idea of attempting to you know, stop
Speaker 4: the domino effect from going you know further. Like now
Speaker 4: we're you know, Colorado is now staring down you know,
Speaker 4: a very similar ballot initiative, and this happened to happen
Speaker 4: in advance of that, and we're just hoping that you know,
Speaker 4: like appearances like this or the writing the I'm about
Speaker 4: to do about it, will you know, reach multiple audiences
Speaker 4: and lay out a logical case for why it simply
Speaker 4: does not make sense to see wildlife management to public sentiment,
Speaker 4: and you know, hope that we don't have to that California, Oregon,
Speaker 4: and Washington remain the only ones that we have to
Speaker 4: actually backtrack on and undo, so that nobody else going
Speaker 4: forward has to get even deeper into the muck of
Speaker 4: you know, worst case scenario land.
Speaker 1: I find that on some of these bills and some
Speaker 1: of these bailed initiatives and other you know, congressional activities,
Speaker 1: there's a real lack of crystal ball. Oh yeah, if
Speaker 1: you go back to the Wild Horse and Burrow Protection Act, Right, yep,
Speaker 1: no one at that time could have ever imagined.
Speaker 4: No, it's true.
Speaker 1: Right, it was like there's sort of this fading population
Speaker 1: of wildhorses and burrows either way, and they're like, we
Speaker 1: should do something to permanently, right protect them, having no
Speaker 1: idea that in decades to come you'd be creating a
Speaker 1: conservation and humane animal treatment disaster.
Speaker 4: Totally exactly. Yeah, it's the law of unintended consequence.
Speaker 1: So doing these doing these really radical, impossible to reverse
Speaker 1: policy changes which sort of like codifies a certain management
Speaker 1: strategy and perpetuity strips agencies and citizens of any ability
Speaker 1: to have like adaptive management. When something's in the hands
Speaker 1: of game commissions and state agencies, they're able to take
Speaker 1: this really nuance not only year to year, but oftentimes
Speaker 1: throughout the year, constantly evolving changing needs. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like lion populations get kind of alarmingly low, Well,
Speaker 1: there's steps we can take to bring them up. We're
Speaker 1: getting a lot of conflict, there's steps we can take
Speaker 1: to mitigate conflict. And they're able to go in and
Speaker 1: surgically administer something like meaning a lack of animals in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles does not mean a lack of animals north
Speaker 1: of Sacramento. So let's do what's necessary there, and we'll
Speaker 1: do what's necessary here, and we'll be fluid. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you make it that it's a one
Speaker 1: size fits all, sledgehammer approach to management, and me saying
Speaker 1: this isn't going to change the perspective of anyone who
Speaker 1: would like to see these these these these like writ
Speaker 1: large edicts about wildlife management. They know what they're playing, right,
Speaker 1: they know what they're playing. They like, they're not interested
Speaker 1: in management. They're not interested in the concerns of rural peoples.
Speaker 1: They're not interested in the concerns of agricultural people, right right,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't cost them anything to have no management.
Speaker 4: Man, God, I mean, in a way, they're not even
Speaker 4: interested in the concerns of other animal protectionists, you know organizations,
Speaker 4: if they're more of a conservationists bent rather than like
Speaker 4: an outright you know, animal rights bent. And the easy
Speaker 4: way to demonstrate that in California is the Sierra Nevada
Speaker 4: bighorned cheap population is crashing down in its southern range,
Speaker 4: and the biologists who work with that population down there
Speaker 4: are like legit biologists and they're like lieon depredation on
Speaker 4: these wild sheep is the number one contributor to the
Speaker 4: crash that's had and that's an endangered species listed animal.
Speaker 5: So well, when the when I was down in the
Speaker 5: Santa Monica Mountains probably five years ago, I got to
Speaker 5: run around with a state mountain lion biologist and attempt
Speaker 5: live trap mounta lions down there. Super fun, super cool.
Speaker 5: This guy's very invested in mount lions and really that
Speaker 5: specific population. Some of the stuff that we mentioned, but
Speaker 5: the statewide ban on foothold traps in California, right, we
Speaker 5: were packing around giant cage traps, live animal cage traps
Speaker 5: for something the size of a mountain lion. So this
Speaker 5: guy could do research to benefit mount lions.
Speaker 1: They didn't put a research component into that band. They didn't.
Speaker 1: They didn't.
Speaker 5: We talked a lot about that really.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there is a research component in one point
Speaker 4: seventeen relative to hound pursuit, which is one thing that
Speaker 4: I really hope and.
Speaker 5: That's what this guy was like, he's never hunted mount lions, Yeah,
Speaker 5: but because he gets to work with houndsman to trap
Speaker 5: mounta lions, particularly like the nuisance ones, so they'll go
Speaker 5: in dartham, collar him, relocate him sometimes stuff like that.
Speaker 5: He was like, yeah, I don't care if he kills
Speaker 5: some mountain lions. You know, these guys seem great, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: And then that is something that we should should ask,
Speaker 5: like why, what are your thoughts on on mountain lions?
Speaker 5: Do you feel like you'd add him to the hunt
Speaker 5: list if you had had the chance. Do you think
Speaker 5: they should all go away?
Speaker 1: Where'd youammed up?
Speaker 6: I don't think they should all go away, but I
Speaker 6: think you should be able to hunt him or at
Speaker 6: least do something to bring the population down, I guess,
Speaker 6: But I don't think they should fully go away.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: That's how I think about it.
Speaker 1: That's a mature that seems pretty level headed for in
Speaker 1: your situation. That's a mature perspective, I'd say, yeah.
Speaker 5: But if you bring up Colorado like we talked about, right, Like,
Speaker 5: guy gets swatted while he's sitting in his hot guy
Speaker 5: gets attacked on his front porch, kid gets attacked in
Speaker 5: the backyard, lots and lots of dogs, all within the
Speaker 5: last four years, right and still right now, there's a
Speaker 5: citizens initiative to ban lion hunting completely.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: Right, So it's like this type of stuff, this like
Speaker 5: horrible tragedy that you and your family have had to
Speaker 5: go through, Like it doesn't move the needle apparently.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, I think it could, but it's going to
Speaker 4: do that with the sort of like middle of the
Speaker 4: road fence sitters who maybe are not don't have particularly
Speaker 4: strong feelings about it one way or another, but could
Speaker 4: be pretty easily swayed by an emotional appeal to them
Speaker 4: and the animal you know, animal rights and goos are
Speaker 4: really adept at producing what I would refer to as
Speaker 4: straight up propaganda to appeal to you know, and otherwise
Speaker 4: generally just not particularly well informed voting, you know, public.
Speaker 4: And that's where I think we have an opportunity here
Speaker 4: and what I'm attempting to do by again writing about
Speaker 4: it for something like The New York Times magazine, because
Speaker 4: that's going to reach a readership that otherwise really wouldn't
Speaker 4: get a well laid out, you know, clarification on what
Speaker 4: the actual stakes are if you go down this.
Speaker 5: World may not be layered in the mailbox with Bugle
Speaker 5: and bu exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, let's not calves. I mean to
Speaker 4: a degree. I mean this is, you know, sort of
Speaker 4: preaching to the converted right, and I'm glad we have
Speaker 4: the opportunity to do that because you probably knew as
Speaker 4: many people in the Zoula back in the day that
Speaker 4: I did. Who you know, they go there and they
Speaker 4: you know, enroll in the environmental studies program or whatever,
Speaker 4: and before you know it, they're interested in ungulate hunting.
Speaker 4: But they still just can't wrap their heads around you know,
Speaker 4: predator hunting while you know, lion hunting, bear hunting. And
Speaker 4: I remember having this argument with people in the late nineties,
Speaker 4: you know, after having watched what happened around northern California
Speaker 4: even in that era with the increased lion presence once
Speaker 4: they prohibited hound pursuit from houndsman. So this has been
Speaker 4: a long time coming. It's been a very long road.
Speaker 4: It just happened to strangely land in this family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how long is the article you're working on gonna be?
Speaker 4: I pitched it as five to seven thousand words and
Speaker 4: they came back at four thousand words. But I have
Speaker 4: a feeling that that might wind up being kind of
Speaker 4: elastic once I get into it, because there are so
Speaker 4: many different layers of complexity to this.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a lot of complexity. Yeah, that's good chunk.
Speaker 1: That's good chunk of writing.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: And people, uh, people will find it the New York
Speaker 1: Times magazine.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, it's the magazine that's put it. It's somewhat independent,
Speaker 4: as I understand it, from the actual print newspaper, but
Speaker 4: you know it's a yeah, it's on a par with
Speaker 4: you know, Harper's or The Atlantic or The New York
Speaker 4: or whatever. It's kind of that type of you know,
Speaker 4: high toned think piece sort of.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So well, the Brooks family, thank you, man. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on to talk about this.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: A tragedy and I think an important issue for people
Speaker 1: who are interested in and wildlife and natural resources in
Speaker 1: America and how those questions and policies we make have
Speaker 1: ways of coming around and impact and people's lives and
Speaker 1: and and thinking through decisions we make in a way
Speaker 1: that gives us the ability to stay fluid and adaptive.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you coming on, man. Yeah, thanks, thank you.
Speaker 1: What Yeah, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Buddy, Thank you, Steve. Really yeah, I really appreciate what
Speaker 4: you're doing, appreciate the opportunity, and I knew that this
Speaker 4: would be a terrific way for Wyatt to tell his
Speaker 4: story to a community that cares about him.
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely, thank you man. Yep h