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Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening hunt podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can't predict anything presented by first Light. Go farther,

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Speaker 1: stay longer, David Allen. Yeah, Deadwood, South Dakota. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: never meet anybody from Deadwood. Yeah, not many of us escape. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So nice little western town it was when I grew

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Speaker 1: up there. And now like nowadays, you are the president

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Speaker 1: and CEO Rocky Mountain Olt Foundation. Everybody's here a Rocky

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Speaker 1: Mountain elt Foundation. But just like, give me, um, give

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Speaker 1: me the one, you know, the one liner, r m

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Speaker 1: e F. What's it like? Rm F is a wildlife

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Speaker 1: conservation slash land trust, I think is the simplest one

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Speaker 1: liner that there is. We're we're the largest big game organization.

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Speaker 1: But that's not just our focus. Our focus is really

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Speaker 1: habitat um and that has been for a long time

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Speaker 1: as well as uh, you know, the animals, the critters,

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Speaker 1: and uh the hunting culture that sustains it. When you

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Speaker 1: say land organization, to breakdown what that means, now you

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Speaker 1: know what hold that thought. So that's what r MBF does.

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Speaker 1: But I want to back up Deadwood South Dakota and

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Speaker 1: then you work for a long time, like you came

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Speaker 1: out of both NASCAR and it's like uh and rodeo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I yeah, I had a real strange trail

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Speaker 1: to the to the Elk Foundation. Um. I ended up

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Speaker 1: working for Dale Earn Senior. Uh when I went to

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Speaker 1: Wrangler Jeans. I went to Wrangler Jeans in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: and uh the what marketing their rodeo program at the tops?

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Speaker 1: What I was hired to do? You probably grew up

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Speaker 1: wear jeans. I grew up wearing Lee, but the I

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Speaker 1: was in Wrangler pretty pretty quick. Um. But Wrangler signed Dale.

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Speaker 1: That was Dale's first major sponsor. And so that's how

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Speaker 1: he and I nah in nineteen eighty Uh yeah, late eighty.

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Speaker 1: What year did he die? Uh February eighteen, two thousand one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a long day. Uh. I started working for

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Speaker 1: him in nineteen eighty. While I was working with him

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Speaker 1: and for him, but you know you didn't you did

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Speaker 1: work for him. That's the way he was. I mean

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Speaker 1: he um, he just had that kind of bigger than

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Speaker 1: life personality and and uh he was awesome. Was he

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Speaker 1: successful then that early? No? No, No, he had bounced around.

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Speaker 1: He had dropped out of school. Um, he raced on

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Speaker 1: the weekends to try and make it, and you know

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Speaker 1: he made it and and lost it several times. Um.

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Speaker 1: Then in nineteen eighty he did have, uh, a land

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Speaker 1: developer out of California named Rod Austerlin Um came out

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Speaker 1: and bought and owned about four NASCAR teams And in

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Speaker 1: those days you could own four for about a million

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Speaker 1: dollars total. And uh, what what was it? Now? I

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Speaker 1: don't I don't know. I have to know that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it costs about twenty million a year to race now,

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Speaker 1: so I don't know what you could buy one for, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, a hundred million maybe, I don't know. Um.

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Speaker 1: But Dale ended up driving for Rod austin Land in

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Speaker 1: nine eighty as one of the four drivers that he had.

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Speaker 1: And Dale had great raw talent and he was Rookie

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Speaker 1: of the Year for NASCAR, and so things look like

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Speaker 1: they were finally going to start taking off for him

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Speaker 1: and you know, have a great career, and Wrangler picked

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Speaker 1: him up in one and man, he was miserable for

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Speaker 1: about three years. He wrecked everything he drove. But you know,

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Speaker 1: and he started getting the reputation of this guy can't drive,

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Speaker 1: He's just a maniac and blah blah blah. Well, his

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Speaker 1: full philosophy was they called this a race for a reason.

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Speaker 1: I'm here to race, and so if you can put

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Speaker 1: equipment under me that will go, I can go. I

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Speaker 1: can I can race it. And that was his whole

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Speaker 1: lifestyle and his whole mentality. So when he finally got

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Speaker 1: with Richard Childer's as his car owner, and Richard, being

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Speaker 1: a former driver, had a better understanding of what what

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Speaker 1: Dale needed, they clicked and I mean from there it

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Speaker 1: was like he was the Michael Jordan's of the deal

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Speaker 1: for well fifteen years or more. Yeah, he was. He

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Speaker 1: was the man, and so it really worked for him,

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Speaker 1: and I did. He He hunted Elk a lot he

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Speaker 1: and Richard. He hunted with George Straight a lot um.

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Speaker 1: They hunted White Mountain in the eighties when it was

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Speaker 1: just still undiscovered. And uh, people probably won't know what

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Speaker 1: that White Mountain. White. Yeah, White Mountain is the Apache

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Speaker 1: reservation in uh what it would be northeastern corner of Arizona. Uh,

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Speaker 1: probably the most famous for giant elk. And and I've

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Speaker 1: been there. I haven't been fortunate enough to hunt it

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Speaker 1: but I've taken some people hunting there. It is unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: It's a long time. The world record ELK came from there,

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Speaker 1: and you look in the record books, there's gonna be

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Speaker 1: several that are in the top. I mean it's just

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Speaker 1: and and the way they managed elk over the last

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Speaker 1: thirty five years, I mean nothing but six by six

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Speaker 1: has lived everything else. Boom out of here, I mean

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Speaker 1: literally get them out. And they just kept at it

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Speaker 1: and kept at it and and it's quite a story.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, oh yeah, it's twenty two. Thou a man,

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Speaker 1: whether you pull a trigger or not. And what do

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Speaker 1: you what do you think it was just for comparison,

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Speaker 1: say in the eighties when yeah, I don't, I bet

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Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was a high dollar It

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Speaker 1: always has been a high dollar thing. So yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and incredible elk. But yeah, Dale loved to hunt. He

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Speaker 1: hunted deer everywhere. Um, what's date with the out of

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Speaker 1: North Carolina. Yeah, he was from Charlotte area, u Knnapolis,

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Speaker 1: North Carolina is his hometown. So you worked for Wrangler

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Speaker 1: and that part of the relationship that time. I did.

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Speaker 1: And then when Wrangler got sold to Vanity Fair in Uh,

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Speaker 1: whatever year it was eighties eight or eighty nine. I

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Speaker 1: went with Dale and Richard and we started one of

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Speaker 1: the first in house marketing UH groups to market the

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Speaker 1: race teams, which you know that every team does it now,

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Speaker 1: but none of them did it then. So we we

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Speaker 1: managed all of our own sponsorships and everything that was

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Speaker 1: related to the sponsorship. His sponsorship drives that sport. That's

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Speaker 1: what it's all about. That's where the money comes from.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, So we started that marketing uh venture

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Speaker 1: and uh I did it until he died, and actually

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Speaker 1: I did it a few years after that and then

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Speaker 1: sold it and got out. Had you guys become personal friends?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very much. So. Yeah. I've known Dale Jr.

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Speaker 1: Since he was five years old, and Kelly his sister,

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Speaker 1: and Carry his brother, and yeah, yeah, it was it

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Speaker 1: was a personal thing, very much so yeah. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: then uh you got into went into rodeo. Well, I

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Speaker 1: was actually in the rodeo stuff with the pr c A,

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Speaker 1: the Pro Rodeo Cowboys before that. I went from prc

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Speaker 1: A to Wrangler. So that was the chain of events

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Speaker 1: of I quit college. My mother still hasn't forgiven me,

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Speaker 1: and uh went to work for the pr c A

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Speaker 1: and uh then we then went to Anger. From there,

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Speaker 1: you never went back and finished college, never went back. No,

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Speaker 1: I regret it now, I got why do you regret

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Speaker 1: it now? Well, just you didn't finish You just start something,

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Speaker 1: finish it, right. I got one in college and one

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Speaker 1: gonna be there next year. And I'm telling him, no,

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Speaker 1: you gotta get through that. You gotta do this. And

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, Dad, you didn't. It was like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I didn't. But yeah, there's a generational thing. I got

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Speaker 1: lucky too. I wouldn't want to try it again, you know,

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Speaker 1: I just don't. And we've preached to our kids from

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Speaker 1: day one. You start something, you finish it. You know,

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Speaker 1: you go out for basketball, you don't like it, well

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Speaker 1: you can quit at the end of the season, but

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Speaker 1: you're gonna play through this year. Otherwise, don't raise your

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Speaker 1: hand and don't go out. And you know, my old man,

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Speaker 1: he um he never finished high school just because he

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Speaker 1: enlisted fighting the war. And then just later I think

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Speaker 1: he went and got a g D. Later, but he

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Speaker 1: pounded like he was. He was, like it's he was.

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Speaker 1: He recognized by then by the time his kids rolder,

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Speaker 1: he recognized the college of something you need to get

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Speaker 1: on board with. Yeah, but it wouldn't have been fair

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Speaker 1: to be there. Well you didn't do it. It's a

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Speaker 1: very different world, man, Oh completely, yeah. I mean I

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Speaker 1: grew up. I graduated high school in nineteen nine, so

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Speaker 1: my junior high in high school years were the Vietnam stuff,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, it was a whole different world. It was.

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Speaker 1: It was pretty goofy. So uh back. So when Dale died,

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Speaker 1: I call him Daleeed you got you worked your way

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Speaker 1: back into rodeo. No, when Dale died, I mean it

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Speaker 1: it it really hit me, uh personally, and I think

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Speaker 1: what hit me the most after the initial shock was

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Speaker 1: here's a guy who had everything, and he had a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, he had a lot of fame, he

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Speaker 1: had everything, and it didn't buy him one extra hour.

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Speaker 1: And I had a two year old and a four

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Speaker 1: year old boy, and I told my wife, we need

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Speaker 1: to go back home and race these kids around their grandparents.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know what that means. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what it looks like, but yeah, like an awakening, Yeah

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Speaker 1: it was. And I really lost, um some passion for racing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it just took the kind of the air

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Speaker 1: out of my sale for sure. I know it did

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Speaker 1: Richard too, because there was a time when I thought

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Speaker 1: Richard was going to hang it up and he didn't.

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Speaker 1: He didn't but anyway, so I we moved back to Montana.

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Speaker 1: I still had my racing ties and whatnot, but I

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Speaker 1: was trying to evolve out of that. And the whole time,

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Speaker 1: I was really trying to find something in the outdoors

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Speaker 1: that I could do. And uh, I talked to Cabella's,

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Speaker 1: almost took a job at Cabella's. UM. I talked to

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Speaker 1: you know guys at real Re. I'm known Bill since

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Speaker 1: he started the company. And I talked to a lot

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Speaker 1: of different companies and I was like, I was looking

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Speaker 1: and uh. I was on the board of the Elk

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Speaker 1: Foundation when they had issues with their previous CEO, and

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Speaker 1: so some of the board approached me and said, have

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Speaker 1: you thought about applying for this position? And I hadn't.

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Speaker 1: I didn't even dawn on me. And uh then my

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Speaker 1: wife and I talked about it, and I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: why not. You know, it's something I like, something I

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Speaker 1: care about, and it's a long story short. I did,

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Speaker 1: and that's where I ended up. And that was ten

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Speaker 1: years ago when you were a kid, they haven't were there.

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Speaker 1: What was the elk situation where you grew up? There

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Speaker 1: weren't any, my dad and I'll never forget because we

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Speaker 1: hunted whitetail in the Black Hills, that's what you hunted

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Speaker 1: at the time, and a lot of them. We hunted

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Speaker 1: on an area that was up very close to the

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Speaker 1: Wyoming South Dakota border around Newcastle. And uh, one morning,

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Speaker 1: when real I'll never forget, this burned in my memory.

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Speaker 1: We're walking in one of those stone quiet mornings, you know,

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Speaker 1: were fresh snow and it was the sun was coming up,

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Speaker 1: was just beautiful and my dad stopped and the pointeds,

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Speaker 1: you know, on points at something ahead of us, and

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Speaker 1: I looked up there. I thought it was a donkey

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Speaker 1: or a horse, and it was a cow elk. I

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Speaker 1: had never seen an elk in my life. That was

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Speaker 1: the first elk I'd ever seen. You know, we couldn't

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Speaker 1: hunt them, they weren't, but there was one there and

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Speaker 1: and uh, but you know, I I didn't even hunt

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Speaker 1: elk until oh, I don't know, it was probably in

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Speaker 1: my late thirties because I just wasn't around them and

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Speaker 1: hadn't I'd hunted everything else, but uh, I didn't know

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Speaker 1: anything about him at the time, and and that was

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. So we're that one you saw? How did

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Speaker 1: where was it coming from? You know, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It had to have come out of somewhere out of

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Speaker 1: the Wyoming side of the Black Hills, uh, but had

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Speaker 1: wandered in there on its own. Yeah. Well that's the

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Speaker 1: only one we saw. There probably were more, but they

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Speaker 1: were sure, weren't very many. But that's the only one

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Speaker 1: I'd ever seen, And and I was I'll never forget it.

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Speaker 1: It was so cool to see it, you know. My

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Speaker 1: the way I get like my little glimpses kind of

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Speaker 1: like into your head. And and what you do is

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Speaker 1: always read your column. Okay, it comes out in bugle Yeah,

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Speaker 1: um what bug is it? Six times a year? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: every other month. Yeah. So the old foundation Rocking Another

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Speaker 1: Foundation publishes a magazine, bugle Um, which really does a

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Speaker 1: good job of breaking down in a in an epic scale,

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Speaker 1: like a national scale, sort of like what's up with

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Speaker 1: Elk and many other wildlife issues, predator management Um in

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Speaker 1: a pretty digestible format. And the the thing comes out every

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Speaker 1: couple of months. And you guys write a column, right, um,

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Speaker 1: I have help but well it's good column. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I have guys help me sometimes with words,

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Speaker 1: smithing or something maybe. But you know, I pick and

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Speaker 1: choose the subjects and and I try to input as

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Speaker 1: much of mine and then let them tweak on it

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Speaker 1: and then I'll look at it again. And it's a

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Speaker 1: it's an effort. I can I can imagine it's good.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's very well written well, and I have

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Speaker 1: to be honest. Dan Crockett, who's our editor, Yeah, Dan

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Speaker 1: is awesome at that. I mean that's his wheelhouse, and um,

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Speaker 1: he makes me look a lot better than I am

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Speaker 1: for sure in that column. But I mean we we

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Speaker 1: go back and forth, and it's, uh, I don't let

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Speaker 1: anything winner that I wouldn't stand up for or anything.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, you kind of offer in it. Well, I like,

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Speaker 1: is you kind of um you find you don't think

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Speaker 1: about this way, but there's there like like kind of prophecies.

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Speaker 1: I see it there now and then like try like

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Speaker 1: you you you you are always looking a little bit

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Speaker 1: ahead to where things are headed. Well you know, I yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I appreciate that you recognize that because I think

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Speaker 1: that's probably more of what drives my passion for this

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Speaker 1: job than anything. Again, through the eyes of my two

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Speaker 1: boys that um have grown up outside and and their

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Speaker 1: buddies and and all that. That's I think more my focus,

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Speaker 1: long term focus than anything is what are they gonna have?

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Speaker 1: And what's this gonna be h twenty five years, fifty

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Speaker 1: years from now. I mean I'll finish out, you know,

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Speaker 1: it won't be a whole lot of difference, But what

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Speaker 1: are they gonna have? And it shutters me to think

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Speaker 1: sometimes what they might not have? And I hate to

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Speaker 1: think about it. But yeah, but you guys, no, you do,

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Speaker 1: like I said, you make you have some prophecies in

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Speaker 1: there where you you anticipate and I know now from

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Speaker 1: personal experience that you anticipate problems that they're gonna hit

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Speaker 1: the culture of hunting before they do. Try to push

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Speaker 1: some buttons once a yeah, I don't even know if

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Speaker 1: there's a thing that happened. Let me see your pen

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna write down something, and you tell me

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Speaker 1: if I could talk about it or not. You one

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Speaker 1: day over a year ago mentioned this to me before.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I can talk about that. I don't care, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So I'm sending in daod Allen's office. I believe I

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Speaker 1: was in your office. Yeah, I remember that now I know.

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Speaker 1: And you're kind of ran on off some potential trouble

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Speaker 1: spots for hunting and you mentioned, uh and you said

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Speaker 1: and now you got people hunting with spears and yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it was funny because the mid that happened and

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Speaker 1: sort of the way that was framed and the way

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Speaker 1: it was not just perceived but portrayed. Um. I immediately

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Speaker 1: thought of you that you'd pull that out of thin

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Speaker 1: air as a thing that you're like, it's just not

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Speaker 1: gonna go well. Well and and yeah, it obviously didn't. Um,

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Speaker 1: But I think here's here's where it really didn't go

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Speaker 1: well is somebody took the time to record that, edit

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Speaker 1: it and put it out into public and that made

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Speaker 1: it that magnified it, what a hundred times? So uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know as I really have a personal issue

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Speaker 1: with hunting with spears or not, although that's probably not

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Speaker 1: what I would teach my kids. Yeah, well I know

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Speaker 1: that a lot of states legally, but yeah, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: it's legal, then you know, I'm not above the law

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Speaker 1: and all that, so okay, but you know, it's the

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Speaker 1: old saying I had a we had a football coach

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Speaker 1: that used to tell us when you act like a

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Speaker 1: jackass and stuff, it's like, act like you've been here,

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Speaker 1: you know. And so that's to me where that whole

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Speaker 1: issue really got in trouble was they took it out

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Speaker 1: and said, look, everybody, look at this, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Yeah? You want us to watch that? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: outside of like kind of like meaningful context, which I

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Speaker 1: don't want to point this out like you were in

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Speaker 1: any way saying oh, it should be like you're throwing

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Speaker 1: off out the top of your head a thing that

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Speaker 1: even it's funny about it. It's because even when you

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Speaker 1: said it, I remember thinking about that, why like why that?

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Speaker 1: And it was then later when it became todates like

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Speaker 1: when putting the public, when when put out to the public,

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Speaker 1: the way people had such a viscerble reaction to it,

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Speaker 1: it um it made me I remember thinking like, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna when David Allen talks, I'm gonna listen. What happened?

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Speaker 1: What was it that tipped you off, David to that

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Speaker 1: or just I think just common sense of I mean

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Speaker 1: you just read somewhere that it was just now this

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Speaker 1: thing or you do. As Steve said, it was starting

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Speaker 1: to become legalized in some states, and I'm like, really

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Speaker 1: there's a big demand for that. I mean, what is

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that it was illegal. It's in some place.

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Speaker 1: It depends how carefully a state spells out method to take,

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Speaker 1: I think. So yeah, so I feel like like Alaska,

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Speaker 1: um not. You know, it's like you're not looking for

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Speaker 1: what it says you can do when it comes to

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Speaker 1: meth of the take, usually looking at what it says

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Speaker 1: you cannot do. Of course that's not the case. Like

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Speaker 1: with waterfowl. Um, it's spelled out and like excruciating the

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Speaker 1: minimum diet board diameter, MA, maximum board diameters, that what

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Speaker 1: what your shots made of? Like all this stuff is

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Speaker 1: spelled out right, But in some things, um, if you look,

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Speaker 1: it's not saying like spears are great. But you're looking

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Speaker 1: and say like legal method of take and it's like

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Speaker 1: no artificial lights or whatever, and you kind of read

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Speaker 1: between the lines. Just here day, I was trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out for where I grew up in Michigan, you

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Speaker 1: cannot hunt bullfrogs with artificial light. So I was checking

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Speaker 1: in Washington, what the bullfrog rules were and there's no

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Speaker 1: mention of artificial light, So you're like, Okay, you can

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Speaker 1: use artificial light because it doesn't say not to. So

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Speaker 1: I think now what you're gonna find is you'll probably

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Speaker 1: wind up seeing that if that's become a thing that

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Speaker 1: has demand, you'll see state agencies spell out that you

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Speaker 1: cannot do it. And I think that the argument against

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Speaker 1: it is gonna wind up being from a manager's perspective.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna want be an efficacy because there a reasonable

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Speaker 1: amount of efficacy or is there as they're like a

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Speaker 1: higher than normal likelihood that you're gonna that you're gonna

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Speaker 1: injure and lose animals. I can't imagine, for example, me

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Speaker 1: out there calling in a bull and throwing a spear.

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Speaker 1: See what happens. He even said he can't believe it.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm so say why when you when when

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Speaker 1: I touched the trigger, I don't go like, I can't

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Speaker 1: believe I got it when I touched the trigger. That's

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Speaker 1: the expectation right right. I'm pulling the trigger because I

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Speaker 1: have a certainty that this thing will die upon that action.

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Speaker 1: So that's telling me that it's time now to touch it.

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Speaker 1: But if you're like throwing out a hail Mary, and

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Speaker 1: then you're like so shocked that it worked, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to that you just hit in the leg and gashed

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Speaker 1: and it ran off. Yeah, and again I don't know

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Speaker 1: that husband and wife, those those people at all, and

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Speaker 1: I don't have any animosity or issue with them. But

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Speaker 1: if I were talking to him, I'd say, well, what

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Speaker 1: did you think was gonna happen? When you filmed it?

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Speaker 1: You must have edited it and then you you put

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Speaker 1: it out, so you had plenty of time to think

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Speaker 1: of you know what, maybe maybe the next one will

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Speaker 1: show maybe not this one, or you know, maybe I'll

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Speaker 1: get better at it first, or something with you And

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Speaker 1: I don't even want to put you on to no no,

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Speaker 1: but I think it gets to the bigger question of

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Speaker 1: where's your respect level for the culture? Yeah? They should,

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Speaker 1: I mean there should be a beat and you think

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Speaker 1: is this our best foot forward? This good? Yeah? Right.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of things I won't include any of

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Speaker 1: you here, but there's a lot of things that I

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Speaker 1: do that are legal that I'm not filming and putting

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Speaker 1: up on the internet for everyone to judge, because I

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Speaker 1: don't think it would be my best foot forward. It was,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, in my let's see you needed your personal life. Yes,

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Speaker 1: well even in my hunting life. I've hunted fifty two

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Speaker 1: years now or fifty three. I can assure you're not.

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Speaker 1: Every one of my kills was perfect, the absolute perfect,

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Speaker 1: you know, fell over dead and and uh I didn't

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Speaker 1: feel good about a lot of them. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: have them on TV either, so you weren't holding it

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Speaker 1: out as this is. This is yeah a no, and

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Speaker 1: I learned from them rocky cool and everything. Right now,

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Speaker 1: it's quietly listening. Yeah, I like that. Interesting, it's appropriate.

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Speaker 1: This is what it's all about. Comment. No. The thing,

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Speaker 1: you know, the thing that that they've said that did

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Speaker 1: resonate was, you know, on Dale's passing, is you know serving.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to have this entire generation of people that

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Speaker 1: have lost you know, buddies and friends, close friends, people

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Speaker 1: in your own military were and some of us all

394
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Speaker 1: a lot of friends, and how much it does retool

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Speaker 1: your life and make you think about what's important and

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Speaker 1: what what you want to be doing with your time

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Speaker 1: and how you're going to pursue that stuff. And it's

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Speaker 1: very very very eye opening. I'm I don't wish it

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Speaker 1: on people. But it's a powerful, powerful moment in your

400
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Speaker 1: life when you say, you know what, none of this

401
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Speaker 1: has promised. So I got to make the most Yeah,

402
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Speaker 1: I lost when I lost a close friend a couple

403
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Speaker 1: of years ago. Uh. The the clarity it gives you, Um,

404
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Speaker 1: but it's hard to hang onto that clarity. You go

405
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Speaker 1: right back to like being mad that your kids left

406
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Speaker 1: their clothes laying all over and didn't put them in

407
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Speaker 1: the clothing bin. I mean, and you're going, wait a minute,

408
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Speaker 1: I had such clarity a month ago about like what

409
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Speaker 1: the meaning of life is, and here I am like

410
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Speaker 1: yelling at a two year old er, you know, about

411
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Speaker 1: like why why is you? Like? Why are you like

412
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Speaker 1: purposely dumping your milk out? And then you just you

413
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Speaker 1: look like it's when you get those crystal moments. They

414
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Speaker 1: just they they fade. Man. You know, I'll tell you

415
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Speaker 1: the one thing that and I purposely have done it

416
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Speaker 1: since that day is I've never been afraid to tell

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Speaker 1: somebody I love them, because you do, you know, as

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Speaker 1: you had? Yeah, yeah, and um, and I do that.

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Speaker 1: I mean I obviously tell my wife and my kids that,

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Speaker 1: but I mean grown friends of mine, you know, double

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Speaker 1: tough cowboys or whatever. I am not one bit ashamed

422
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Speaker 1: or afraid to say it. I've done the same. I

423
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Speaker 1: think got freaked out. Somebody's seals do that with each

424
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: other all the time. They'll say it because it's like

425
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: there's a real good chances the last time. I'm living

426
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: on that line every day, and I'll say that to

427
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: send to a buddy that the other day I could

428
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: tell I took him sideways. Yeah, do you know something

429
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 1: I don't I've seen you can't scans, buddy. I love you,

430
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: so back to you, because there's the companies I want

431
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: to ask you about. When I was reading the most

432
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 1: recent bugle, you guys were celebrating some some milestones there,

433
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: one in terms of land conservation, and two you had

434
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: to wrap up of of what's going on with Eastern

435
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: Elk kind of you guys work with Eastern Elk. And

436
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: with the picture of Eastern Elkins, a couple of things

437
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:27,719
Speaker 1: struck me. Um, Is it true? Is this a fair statement?

438
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: Elk right now only occupy about was it fourteen or

439
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: tw like fourteen or twenty percent of their range at

440
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: the time of European contact. That's probably true. So they're

441
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: eighties some nineties percent absent from where they were when

442
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: Columbus landed in the West Indies. Yeah, I don't know

443
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: the exact percentage, but I I don't think that's sending

444
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: a duration I know, something like that. But they're showing

445
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 1: outside of a couple of state in the northeast. Yeah,

446
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: across the whole damn country, the lower forty eight uh,

447
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: including Florida. Um, there's records of elk in Florida from

448
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 1: time to time, except yeah, one or two states in

449
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: the New England area main Yeah, and you would think

450
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: they'd be up there, but elk, we're a plains animal,

451
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:25,640
Speaker 1: you know, all that time, they weren't in the mountains.

452
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, there's I've heard the number of

453
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 1: there was ten million elk roaming and I don't know

454
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: how they knew that for sure, but there was an

455
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: estimate that you know, there was large, large numbers of elk,

456
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, that's probably very accurate given the amount

457
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: of space that they occupy today. They're once native range

458
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: is some groups like to talk about like vastly like

459
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: because you you look at them and you think, like, oh,

460
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 1: I mean they are very like where they where we

461
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: have them tend to be very abundant. But like the East,

462
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: you should not If you live in the East, you

463
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: should not really think of like the West Elk counts.

464
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: You should think of like you live in Elk country.

465
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, very much so. And they're doing really well

466
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: in areas that they've been u either reintroduced or later

467
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: have dispersed into. Kentucky is the most uh shining example

468
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: that I can think of. The Elk were moved from

469
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: Utah to Kentucky I think is about fifteen or seventeen

470
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: years ago. They got well, they're fudging on their numbers.

471
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: They've got more that and that's what I heard about

472
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 1: It't want to say that, Yeah, I would have had

473
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: I would have had written that down. You. I tease

474
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: their director about it and he laughs too. But yeah,

475
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: they have somewhere probably between twelve and fifteen thousand head

476
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: of Elk. They're the number nine Elk state in the country. Now.

477
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Yeah, number nine in the country. Yea. And

478
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: what's even uh I think more rewarding about it is

479
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: that they were released and they still principally habitate on

480
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: reclaimed coal mine property. So here you have a win

481
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: win for conservation. You're bringing a species back, but you're

482
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: reclaiming that ground. And it's an even better ground today

483
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: than it was when you talk about like so that's

484
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: when they take that mountaintop coal mining and they went

485
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: in when they did the remediation they put in. I

486
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: mean it looks like like the grasslands they did, they

487
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: put in native grasses and whatnoty on, and it's it's

488
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: these elk are just thriving. There's some giant dale. Well,

489
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: I think you hunted Kentucky. Yeah, And if you read

490
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: like if you read about uh accounts from like Daniel

491
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: Boone's day Simon kent those guys hunted elk in Kentucky.

492
00:30:56,360 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: They hunted Tennessee like their dads that hunted elk earlier

493
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, Virginia. They were always killing and like they

494
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: and I know that they would uh criticize them too

495
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: because the hides were a little bit too heavy for workwear.

496
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 1: So when they were they'd like to kill white tails

497
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: because they'd sell that because that leather was good for

498
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: basic like car hearts back in the day were made

499
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: out of box killer, and they wanted to kill white

500
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: tails in the summer and the Elk's high it was

501
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: a little too heavy and wasn't as valuable. They used

502
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: it for harness material and ship but it wasn't as

503
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: valuable for apparel. So they like the white tails, but

504
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: they'd be wading through. There's an account of one of

505
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: those guys that rolls into what's now Nashville, Tennessee and

506
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: and makes the asthma that there was ten thousand bison

507
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: in the area. M yeah, yeah, I mean the bison.

508
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: And we're all over the uh lower forty eight as well,

509
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: So I mean this this place was a whole different

510
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: world before man got here. But it really like, yeah,

511
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: it really kind of like fudges your understanding of it

512
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: because like when I was growing up in Michigan, Um yeah,

513
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: when he thought it Elk, you didn't think, oh yeah

514
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: right here. You always pictured like an elsewhere and it

515
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: was taken that thing though you guys had. This is

516
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: something I hope you get some clarity on because you

517
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: guys were doing a state by state roundup of I

518
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: think there's now nine nine states east of the like

519
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: east of the miss axually eleven eleven states and half rattle.

520
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: You gotta if you got it right there, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri,

521
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Virginia. And the last one is, uh, West

522
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 1: Virginia just came on, just came out here. Now, Yeah,

523
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: they're just just starting to move elk now from Kentucky

524
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: into West Virginia. And in this in this wrap up

525
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: of these states, you guys had notes about when elk vanished.

526
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: How like how well is that known? You know, I

527
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: did that. I don't know, Uh, the accuracy of I

528
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: think they're going by a lot of anecdotal and you know,

529
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: um uh oh, what do you want to call it? Um,

530
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: journals that have been passed down and those kinds of things,

531
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: because I mean there were no game agencies, so you

532
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: know who knew for sure? Uh, So I don't know

533
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: how you would really verify it other than the anecdotal

534
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: and stories that have been passed down and passed down

535
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: and it's like the last some guy and then he

536
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: never heard of another one and yeah, so it kind

537
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: of goes as the guy that got the last one. Yeah, yeah,

538
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: And um, at the time of Teddy Roosevelt, they were, uh,

539
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: the estimates were the elk population in the whole continental

540
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: US was less than a hundred thousands, so there still

541
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: worth some, but I mean not a lot. And and

542
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: of course today we there's somewhere around about a million

543
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: and a half. Probably what's the primary what's the impediment

544
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: to heaven? Elk? Everywhere they used to be? Oh man?

545
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: I mean in short, like, is it is it? Is

546
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: it available habitat more? Or is it public? Will? No?

547
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: I would say it would be available habitat uh um.

548
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: I mean I get in you might find this hard

549
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:35,919
Speaker 1: to believe, but I get in debates with the pro

550
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: wolf people every once in a while, and you know

551
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, wolves are not in there, there only

552
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: in two of their once native range and whatnot, whatever

553
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: the percentages, And I'll agree with that that's probably true.

554
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: But same for Elk. And I always jokingly say to him,

555
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: there's no Elk in Iowa. So but take Iowa for example,

556
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of national forest or wilderness area

557
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: or just public ground. There's all it's either populated or

558
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: it's farm ground. So where where are you gonna put them?

559
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:21,439
Speaker 1: Where where are they going to live and not get

560
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: into and not get into trouble? And and Elk are

561
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: kind of a pain in the rear for landowners. Sam

562
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,879
Speaker 1: they are, and that that I just wanted to ask

563
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: on you know, West Virginia, I mean, or any of

564
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: the states on that list. Really. I mean, it's been

565
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: a long times and so was there some real pushback

566
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,280
Speaker 1: out of the gate because there's a lot of small farmers,

567
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: a lot of small, small ranches. That's that's the biggest hurdle.

568
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,320
Speaker 1: And when you say real pushback, I wouldn't say it's

569
00:35:55,360 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: it's certainly not uh like the pushback on grizzlies or

570
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: wolves or something like that, where it's a huge debate,

571
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: but um, there's there's it's not a uh support And

572
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: we don't do it unless the state agency and the

573
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: state itself have taken X number of steps. And the

574
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: first step is they have to develop a bona fide

575
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 1: biological elk management plan, and then that plan has to

576
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: be accepted by the agency and by their legislature. I mean,

577
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: it has to be approved and everybody signed off. We

578
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,720
Speaker 1: don't have the authority in first place, and we don't

579
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: have the desire or will to come shove it down

580
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: their throat. If there isn't that will to accept it

581
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: we're not going to do it. UM will help gladly

582
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: if there's a lot of support for weren't UM. But

583
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,760
Speaker 1: in the in those processes and in those public comment

584
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: periods and whatnot, Uh, it'll be the farm community that

585
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,919
Speaker 1: has And there's a lot of times it isn't like, oh,

586
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,280
Speaker 1: hell no, we don't want that, but they have issues

587
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, now, what's gonna happen if and

588
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: what about this? And you know, some of it can

589
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: be mitigated by where these elk are located, because they're

590
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: not great big herds. In a lot of cases, Missouri

591
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:38,720
Speaker 1: was just like that. The Missouri Farm Bureau really didn't

592
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: want them. And uh, once it was identified the area

593
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: where these elk were going to be released and it

594
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 1: was gonna be like fifty or sixty had I mean

595
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: it wasn't a large um, then that kind of diminished

596
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: some of the resistance and it ended up happening. And

597
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: it takes a long time for fifty head to explode.

598
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 1: And we have game management knowledge and wisdom, we can

599
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: manage those numbers and keep it at whatever kind of

600
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: population you want to some degree. That's one of the

601
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: things that was explained to me about why it works

602
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: so well in Kentucky, it's because you had that southeast

603
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: portion of Kentucky that was coming out of a long

604
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: history of coal mining, was kind of being like underutilized

605
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: by wildlife and you didn't have a big agricultural presence there, right,

606
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: that's right. And then in a very short number of

607
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: years it turned into a great contributor to their economy.

608
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: I mean not just the hunting, but people coming from

609
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, neighboring states would come up there during the

610
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 1: elk Rut and they want to observe and hear them

611
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,440
Speaker 1: and see them, and you know, it was economy, it

612
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: was tourism and and uh now I don't know how

613
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,959
Speaker 1: many thousands of people put in for those I think

614
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: maybe what do they have five tags or it's a

615
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: limited number of tags, whatever it is, and they have

616
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: like a lottery system and whatnot. But it's gender lottery

617
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: system is like winning the lottery. Oh yeah, and it

618
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: generates a lot of money for the state's economically depressed. Yes, yes,

619
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 1: but they make it available to everybody. You know, some

620
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: of the Western states where you have to buy a

621
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: hundred fifty license and then you can you know, apply

622
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: for you know, to win a tag there. I think

623
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: it's just straight fifteen dollars. The last time I apply

624
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: it was Yeah, I think And it's like you said, anybody,

625
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,839
Speaker 1: you and I, any of us can just go. Uh

626
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you can buy. I think

627
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,319
Speaker 1: it is like a just a real lottery. Can you

628
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 1: buy more than one entry? I don't think so, No,

629
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: just one. Yeah, I haven't done it, but because if

630
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: I want, it would look rigged. So there's no way.

631
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,919
Speaker 1: You're probably really limited in your hunt because you got

632
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: looking at you all the time. Yeah. I get offers

633
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: to hunt all kinds of stuff, and I'm just like, man,

634
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: I'd love to, but I wouldn't even pull the trigger,

635
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,240
Speaker 1: and the rumor mill would be so I just can't

636
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, Well, Steve has a helicopter that we

637
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 1: just fly. I fly on I was. I had a

638
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: guy point out to me how I fly in a

639
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: helicopter for all my hunts, which I thought was I've

640
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: never been in a pretty good shooter to do that exactly. Yeah,

641
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: I could pull that kind of thing off. I recently

642
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: started describing you, and folks asked as I'm like, you know,

643
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: Steve has likes to do things the hard way, And

644
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: now I feel like he's just getting worse and worse

645
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: in preparation for any sort of criticism future argument be like,

646
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 1: oh yeah, let me tell you how we do things.

647
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: Ye go on low success hunts. Um did I make

648
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: this up? Do auto insurers do auto insurance companies resist

649
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: elk creator? Yes? Yeah they do. Um. That was another

650
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: issue I remember specifically in Missouri is you know they

651
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: would talk about, well, how many of them are going

652
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,399
Speaker 1: to be hit on the highway, and you know, they

653
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: just come out with whatever, they throw it at the

654
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 1: wall and see And yeah, I wouldn't want to hit

655
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: a milk with a car, right, no question. But when

656
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: you're only putting out less than a hundred head, the

657
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: the chances are so small. And um yeah, But it

658
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: was just there's an inherent risk with being alive, right.

659
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: I just feel that when it comes to wildlife issues,

660
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: if we weren't willing to make some sacrifices, we would

661
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 1: be where we were. We don't have any well, and

662
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: most of these people were coming out of the metro

663
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 1: area of some city, and they probably have more risk

664
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 1: in their daily lives of something happening to them than

665
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: you know out in the country driving along and people

666
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:24,919
Speaker 1: get hysterical when it comes to animals. Oh boy, tell me, yeah,

667
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: it's but it's like I just feel like, yes, some

668
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: things are inconvenient. It happens elk, Well kids, I can

669
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: tell you that are real inconvenient. But people, you know,

670
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, I heard that about the auto But I mean,

671
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: but you're never gonna how many deer does Kentucky have,

672
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: Lord who knows. We look at look at Connecticut and

673
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: the white tail issues they have. I mean, their auto

674
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: insurance rates are through the roof because of deer. Then

675
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: Greenwich in areas like that that are north of the city.

676
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy. I think they're gonna fix that

677
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: because they're gonna tranquilize them all and then sterilize them

678
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: that right, Yeah, that'll work, yeah yeah until the next generation.

679
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: Yeah right. What are some of the other common fears

680
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: I guess from like a farm Bureau of why they

681
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: would not want to happen. Well, there's crop damage. I mean,

682
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: I've seen what elk can do to a haystack. It's there,

683
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: they tear it apart in the winter. You know, if

684
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: a big enough group of elk come in and camp

685
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: on your haystack, and they can rip fences out no problem. Oh,

686
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: they tear down fences that you know, if they get

687
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: run through a fence, that will get knocked down for sure. Um.

688
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: I've seen what elk will do in corn fields, and

689
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: they love to live in a cornfield. I I know

690
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: a ranch on the eastern Montana right on the Yellowstone River.

691
00:43:51,560 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 1: And when this guy's corn, he's got about eight hundred,

692
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: maybe a thousand acres of corn, and when his corn

693
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 1: gets about shoulder high, those help move in and they

694
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: stay there until he cuts it. And I mean they

695
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: literally get move over to the next row as he's

696
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: cutting it, and they wait till the very last row.

697
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:17,479
Speaker 1: And I mean giant bulls. There's some three eight kind

698
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: of they're just bedding in there. They can never see anything, No,

699
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: they can't. You. I've walked in there a couple of times,

700
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: and then you'll walk in on their trails, which are

701
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: completely trampled down. Probably two rows of corn just all

702
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 1: mash you down, and you'll find an area in the

703
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: middle of it where it'll be a circle that might

704
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: be fifty yards in diameter, and that's where they've been

705
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 1: living and laying and then you know, and they pooped

706
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: in there everywhere, and they they oh yeah, they live

707
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: in there from end of June until the middle of September.

708
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: And you'd drive by never know. Oh you never know

709
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: they're in there. I mean you could, yeah, never know that.

710
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: And they are giant because they're eating corn, oh summer

711
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: long and yeah, literally industrial fire literally and they go

712
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: over to the yellow Stone which is about a hundred

713
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,439
Speaker 1: yards away and water and go right back in there.

714
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: And and I would say this group of elk is

715
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: probably fifty or sixty. When this relationship tunes, you like

716
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 1: or not like him, Well, it's frustrating for him, but

717
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: he has uh leased his whole ranch out to an

718
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 1: outfitter for hunting. So he's making it he's covered. Yeah yeah,

719
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: and so in that case, I get it. And and

720
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: uh and I think he ends up killing a good

721
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: elk every year himself, probably right off the corn harvester.

722
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm not accusing him of that.

723
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't been there. Uh So, if

724
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 1: to get these eastern the Eastern States, if if the

725
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: state jumps through the hurdles that you want them to,

726
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 1: where are you guys where the ELK Foundation is saying,

727
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 1: you gotta be serious about this. This needs to be

728
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: like very transparent, right. Yeah, well, in the process, the

729
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: management plan has got to be in place. Yeah, so

730
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,279
Speaker 1: what do you get, like, what do you guys have

731
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: to do with it? Well, then the funding is the

732
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 1: biggest issue. That's usually the big hurdle is funding. Course,

733
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: if you had to rate the hurdles uh being like

734
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:42,720
Speaker 1: public meaning business pushback, business of egg, business of auto

735
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: insurance like that hurdle or just the money, funding is

736
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 1: not that hard. It really isn't because uh are volunteers

737
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: who were in those areas you know, Uh, well, Kentucky

738
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,879
Speaker 1: are volunteers there when nuts there's like, wow, we're gonna

739
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: bring ELK out here and all this is gonna I mean,

740
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,799
Speaker 1: you want to talk about some motivated volunteers and they're

741
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,720
Speaker 1: getting out beating on doors, going hey we need some money,

742
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: we need you to donate when this is for our backyards.

743
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: And these are guys because I met a lot of these,

744
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 1: the big volunteers on there. These are guys who will

745
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: never hunt one of those ELK may not may very

746
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:27,439
Speaker 1: well not yeah very much against him, right, but it's

747
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: something it's like not really altruistic because as always the

748
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: thing you here like, oh you guys, conservation groups, you

749
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: just want more ducks so you can kill more duck.

750
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: And I tell that to a Kentucky elk vounteer, you know,

751
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,760
Speaker 1: the odds of him getting him or her getting drawn.

752
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: But so the money is usually not that big a

753
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:51,080
Speaker 1: challenge for us. And we're fortunate enough now where we

754
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:53,760
Speaker 1: have an endowment that we can help match those funds.

755
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: And so we have a lot of waste to skin

756
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: that cat. What's it costs they'll like to put it?

757
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: To put a elk on the ground. Oh, well you

758
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: have to be uh, there has to be a holding

759
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: facility at both ends. Um, because they have to be quarantine.

760
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,280
Speaker 1: You got c w D and all this other stuff.

761
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: So and so the elk wherever they're coming from have

762
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: to be in a facility for you know, probably a

763
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty days are better and they're tested, you know,

764
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: drawn blood and everything else and neither wild capture. Yeah. Yeah,

765
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 1: what what they do is they have this facility that's

766
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 1: a great big type of enclosure where you might open

767
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 1: up gates and um, you'll put out feed or whatever,

768
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: an alk will start coming in there to feed and whatnot,

769
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: and at some point in time you'll shut the game. Yeah,

770
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: and then you've got them in the big area and

771
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 1: now you've got to get them into the smaller areas.

772
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: So they that's a gradual process to keep getting stressed.

773
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: And then what is the optimal minimal number to start

774
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: start their um. Usually they will move at one time

775
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 1: thirty of them or so at a time, like the

776
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: the Kentucky thing. They came from Utah, that was two

777
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 1: or three shipments of elk. And it's a whole interesting

778
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 1: process because when those and they load them on like

779
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 1: cattle carriers type things, but when and a lot of

780
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: times they're padded and whatnot, so they don't really And

781
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,720
Speaker 1: you do it in the spring, so they're no bulls

782
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: have horns, but the cows are pregnant. So there's a

783
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 1: real fine line of when you want to do it.

784
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,320
Speaker 1: You don't want to do it too late to stress

785
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: the cows, but you can't do it too early because

786
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: the bulls still got their horns on. You gotta have

787
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: x amount of each um. But then the real interesting

788
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: part is when they're loaded and leave, they gotta go

789
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: all the way to where they're going. I mean, you

790
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: can't stop like you're taking horses to a rodeo. You

791
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: don't stop in Oklahoma City and let him out at

792
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: the stock yard and water them and wait overnight. It's

793
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: like you can't let them out, you know. So you

794
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: got these guys that are doing it, are switching off

795
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 1: and on, and they're driving straight through long trips. You

796
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: get them there and then there's generally a facility almost

797
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: identical to the one they left where they're let out,

798
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: and you let them out right away in this holding

799
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,880
Speaker 1: facility and get the hell away from them, leave them

800
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: alone because they are stressed, they're traumatized a little bit,

801
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:49,839
Speaker 1: and you know, you just gotta let them acclimate. And

802
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,399
Speaker 1: do you guys lose a lot out? No, you don't.

803
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 1: Surprisingly not man. In the old days, I was working

804
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: on my book about Buffalo, and I was talking about

805
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 1: some of the processes of trying to re stock stabs

806
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 1: from here and there and shipping them by rail card

807
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,920
Speaker 1: of summer. I had a lot of false I didn't

808
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: know what they were doing. I mean, it was like

809
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: it was a novel concept at the time. That's how

810
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,959
Speaker 1: the elk ended up in Texas. I found out as

811
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: they were shipped a very rich man, wealthy rancher in

812
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 1: Texas wanted ELK and he got them from the Black

813
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: Hills and had them shipped to Texas on the train

814
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: and that's how they ended up there. But the facility

815
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: on the other end is very much like what they

816
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: had and they're held in a very small facility for

817
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: a while to keep an eye on them. And again

818
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,839
Speaker 1: you got to test them and and uh, just get

819
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: him to come and then they're let out into a

820
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: bigger area and they'll stay there for X amount of

821
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 1: time and then they'll have a a release which is

822
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 1: kind of a ceremony for the people that have donated

823
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: and the volunteers and all that, and they'll open the

824
00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: gates and the way they'll go a lot of times,

825
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: which is weird. They'll leave the gates of these open

826
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: and they'll come back and go and come back and go,

827
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: and you know, they don't know what's going, but that

828
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: keeps them going crazy. Yes, yes, yeah, because there's two

829
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: things that kind I just mentioned, uh, when I was

830
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,360
Speaker 1: doing research on on buffalo or bison. One of the

831
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: there's two stories that what you're telling me reminds me

832
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: of was one when they moved the animals that wanted

833
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: the buffalo that wanted being in Alaska around the Copper

834
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: River Delta junction. They caught him in Montana, put him

835
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: on a train out to Seattle, then put them on

836
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: a boat up to Whittier, put them on a train,

837
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 1: and Whittier up to somewhere in the Fairbanks, saying, loading

838
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 1: them on a truck and eventually dumped some out of

839
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:56,320
Speaker 1: road leading to slant of mine. And they didn't, I know,

840
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,880
Speaker 1: it's crazy. They want to have them. They want cutting

841
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: thirteen loose out of truck. This is out that they

842
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: had been well established in Delta, and it took something

843
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,319
Speaker 1: to a road leading to a mine and just pulled

844
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: the truck up and open the gate. And for a

845
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: decade they thought they all died because no one ever

846
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 1: saw him again. But it was a hot release, and

847
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 1: they eventually turned up about a hundred thirty miles away,

848
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: having greatly expanded their numbers on the middle of nowhere.

849
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: And then that's when people started putting together. You do

850
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 1: like a cold release. You let him get a little

851
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: used to the areas that's kicking them out the bank

852
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 1: of truck and having them sorted out well. And now

853
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: with the issues of c w D and other stuff, Um,

854
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: it's highly regulated and you know, the Feds aren't going

855
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 1: to let you move across state lines without all of

856
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,760
Speaker 1: this and where I want you rolling in with brucellosis. Yeah,

857
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: and we're getting concerned because of c w D that

858
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 1: this whole thing could get shut down and for a

859
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 1: while anyway, and uh, just from my federal regulation. But

860
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,839
Speaker 1: is the quarantine process not well it works? I mean

861
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: we know like for instance, uh, the elk that just

862
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:18,359
Speaker 1: went to Virginia and West Virginia and North Carolina came

863
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 1: from Kentucky. Oh yeah, yeah, that's kind of rubbing them

864
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: raw too, because everybody's going back to him because that's

865
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: the most tested herd of elk in the in certainly

866
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: in the lower forty year. Yeah, and so we know

867
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: people want to clean out. Yeah yeah. And originally when

868
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:43,800
Speaker 1: elk we're being moved, you know, uh, twenty five years

869
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 1: ago or so, they were coming out of Elk Island

870
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 1: in uh Canada, and that herd has been tested in

871
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:55,759
Speaker 1: a very pure blooded strain. But now with c w

872
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,399
Speaker 1: D in that uh APIs and whatnot, they won't let

873
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:06,720
Speaker 1: you cross the international border. So, um, Kentucky's getting picked

874
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: on a lot more. They provided the elk to Missouri, too,

875
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:12,880
Speaker 1: did they really? Yeah, so they're moving them back westward.

876
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,279
Speaker 1: Here's a good one. Uh the elk that went from

877
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 1: Utah to Kentucky. Uh, one of them that was a

878
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: calf that went to Kentucky is now a cow who's

879
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: had calves in Missouri. That's kind of cool because they're tag,

880
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: they know where they came from and whatnot. Yeah, that

881
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: thing's perception of reality a different than most. Yeah, what

882
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 1: are we seeing c w D wise? I don't know.

883
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: That's a great question. We get lots of emails and

884
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: lots of what are we gonna do? And nobody has

885
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: an answer. I mean literally, that's the honest. But do

886
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 1: we have doc community cases a c w D in

887
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 1: elk herds in certain states? Or yeah? Man, do we

888
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: um dear in dear? Yeah, not not in elk yet

889
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 1: and uh, we haven't even really had in like in Montana.

890
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: It hasn't hit yet, but it's just across the border,

891
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:21,359
Speaker 1: so it's a matter. But they have had But so

892
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,520
Speaker 1: do you know how many states have had mule deer

893
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: and white tailed deer get CWD. I don't know how many,

894
00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 1: but it's it's several. Yeah, ELK CAVIM in Colorado, el

895
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:37,400
Speaker 1: cas CTWD in Colorado. And I believe that's correct. Yeah,

896
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:42,319
Speaker 1: but the whole, the bigger picture issue is what are

897
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,799
Speaker 1: we gonna do? And we don't know? And it's so

898
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things that we don't know

899
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: what causes it, and we sure don't know how to

900
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: treat it or what to do about it. And it's

901
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: very frustrating. If I can, I like UH doing bone

902
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: in necros because I love the neck meat and I

903
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,160
Speaker 1: take a saws all and and and cut it and

904
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 1: it makes this gorgeous butterfly, you know, enjoying that dish.

905
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 1: Last Man and uh I had a talk at the

906
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 1: b h A Rendezvous last weekend, and that's what every

907
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 1: everybody who wasn't really from Montana was, Well, what about

908
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: cw D Like, we can't touch the spine, we can't

909
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,320
Speaker 1: do this. Yeah. I really had a big I don't

910
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: know what to tell you, but this is the way

911
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 1: I like to do. Some states you can't bring it in.

912
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 1: You can only move boned out meat. Now, no correct,

913
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: no heads at all, or the head has to be

914
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 1: clean clean. The head has to be clean, right, Like

915
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: if I, uh shoot a bull in New Mexico to

916
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: take it back to Montana, well I gotta go through

917
00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 1: two other states. But um, I got a have it

918
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: boned out and whatnot. Yeah, zero bounds. Yeah, to not

919
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 1: be moving it around. Um, it's I know, it's a

920
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 1: d percent fatal. It takes a long time, but it's

921
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 1: a percent fatal. When animal gets it, goo will die

922
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 1: for a while. If you look at the states that

923
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 1: have really dealt with it aggressively and and ultimately unsuccessfully

924
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: so far, like Wisconsin, they kicked around this idea of

925
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: doing this like eradication. Um yeah, but they find that's

926
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 1: hard to do. It's really hard to do. I've had

927
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 1: a number of of all the older biologists that have

928
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:46,080
Speaker 1: been around a while and whatnot, and there kind of like, well,

929
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: one way or another, we gotta get to where we

930
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: have a strain uh that's um immune to it, and

931
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: to get there, we got to start eradicating and culling

932
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: and everything else. But man, I mean that's a I

933
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: know they did. It's a huge undertaking. Yeah, it's it's

934
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:15,960
Speaker 1: expensive and hard. They tried one in right on the Alberta,

935
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan border, um and you shot a lot of deer

936
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:28,120
Speaker 1: and the basically the test results from the cold deer,

937
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,800
Speaker 1: we're completely inconclusive. And then they were sitting on a

938
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: pile of dead deer too, And then hunters go ballistic

939
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 1: from the head of Wisconsin, where people are like, because

940
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: right now there's no known case. You know, there's no

941
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 1: known animal to human transmission c w D. So a

942
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:53,800
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, you know, you tell me

943
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: you're gonna be like, wipe this county. You're theoretically gonna

944
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: eliminate every deer in this county and hopes that, like

945
01:00:02,400 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 1: some of you know, that the disease goes away. We

946
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 1: don't understand how long it stays in the soil anyways,

947
01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: and then we don't even know that there's a real problem.

948
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, for the next ten years, I won't hunt

949
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:19,760
Speaker 1: deer to see what might happen, like, you know, pretty hard. Yeah,

950
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: you're not chasing like, oh no, it worked here, We're

951
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 1: just gonna try it here. It's just all experimental. So

952
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 1: I think that that's one of the one of the hangups.

953
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, if I was eating this last thing,

954
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: and I said, it's a bunch of times. Now, if

955
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:33,760
Speaker 1: I was eating a deer that I knew was positive,

956
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:35,520
Speaker 1: it would be hard for me to enjoy the deer,

957
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: very hard, especially feed it to my kids. That's the thing.

958
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 1: But my wife would kill me. That is it's completely

959
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 1: within that spinal column, right, No, no brain, um, yeah,

960
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: nervous system, yeah, I think the brain is a big area. Well,

961
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 1: they always want to cut out that tissue and test

962
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: it brain, nervous system and then but I you know,

963
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: I think there's so many unknowns and you see people

964
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:04,480
Speaker 1: calling it a conspiracy theory too. Have you seen that,

965
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: like field and stream blog and stuff. I can tell

966
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:09,760
Speaker 1: you always been there and it's it's not it's not

967
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 1: I mean, it is there. It's uh, it's genesis seems

968
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:15,680
Speaker 1: to be not well understood. But yeah, there's a conspiracy

969
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: theory about it. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. We get

970
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about it and a lot of

971
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:25,880
Speaker 1: emails and everything else, and you know, it leads to

972
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 1: the debate over feed grounds and other stuff. And it's

973
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: like close proximity animals, animals, rubbing nos about our animals

974
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:37,000
Speaker 1: and well and here in Washington, we got the hoof

975
01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: rot issue going and there's no cure for that that

976
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 1: we know of, and it's just their toes grow off.

977
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 1: Disgusting to watch, you know. I mean when you look

978
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 1: at them, they can't hardly walk. They look like a

979
01:01:52,120 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 1: horse or mule. You haven't worked on their feet in years.

980
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 1: It looks like an old feed lot sheep. Yeah. Yeah,

981
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 1: it's it's really hard to watch. And so I truly

982
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:06,600
Speaker 1: haven't looked into that at all either. But is that

983
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 1: a fungus? I think so, but I don't. I don't know.

984
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard theories that it's coming from being

985
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: too close to dairy cattle operations. UM, I don't know

986
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:22,480
Speaker 1: if that's accurate, and you know, and then there's other

987
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: theories of where it comes from and whatnot, and again

988
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:31,440
Speaker 1: we just we don't know what to do about it. UM. Now,

989
01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 1: brucellosis is one that there is a fix that could

990
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: probably uh work, but we can't get the brucella agent

991
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 1: whatever that technical term is off of the terrorist watch list.

992
01:02:54,800 --> 01:03:01,520
Speaker 1: UM to develop a vaccine. UM, we have of agencies

993
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:07,080
Speaker 1: that are have a very high rate of UH. They

994
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:10,920
Speaker 1: think they can make the vaccine and they feel very

995
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:14,080
Speaker 1: confident that it could be developed and we could literally

996
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 1: if if that's true, we could literally be vaccinating the

997
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: cattle that are in that oh I got area. Uh yeah,

998
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be vaccinating elk, you'd be vaccinating cattle, but

999
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: they'd be the ones that are in that area of

1000
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 1: the of the park, which is where brucellosis is a

1001
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: real issue. And uh, that could probably be dealt with

1002
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:42,400
Speaker 1: or minimized, but so far we haven't had luck and

1003
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:46,640
Speaker 1: getting that removed from the terror agent list or well.

1004
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:49,000
Speaker 1: What one of the things that I saw some is

1005
01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: I went to a livestock investigators conference one time. It

1006
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: was like for stock detectives, but they had people speaking

1007
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 1: on all these different issues surrounding livestock and and there

1008
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:01,520
Speaker 1: was a guy from Department of Homelands Security there and

1009
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 1: he shared with the audience, Uh, stuff that was seized

1010
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:10,240
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan in the in the early invasion of Afghanistan,

1011
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:12,720
Speaker 1: we went in to rout out al Qaeda, and there

1012
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 1: was a lot of communications about UM disease agents in

1013
01:04:17,040 --> 01:04:20,600
Speaker 1: lives and even like and they ran models. They ran

1014
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: models where if some guy went out and nose swabbed,

1015
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 1: like if some guy went to a certain holding facility.

1016
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:28,800
Speaker 1: I can't remember what state it was. It was like

1017
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 1: South Dakota, you know, with big cattle state, And went

1018
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 1: to a holding facility and swabbed three or four cows

1019
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 1: and the nose with the mouth some livestock, and they

1020
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 1: modeled it out how quickly it would spread around the

1021
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 1: country and just paralyzed livestock. Oh yeah, think about what

1022
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 1: it would do to our food supply. So they had

1023
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 1: serious Yeah, so that was a little incredulous. But then

1024
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:52,680
Speaker 1: this guy gave a whole extra on it, and they

1025
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: had seriously looked into Yeah, yeah, it's I'm not I'm

1026
01:04:57,440 --> 01:04:59,360
Speaker 1: not saying that I hope that it you know, I'm

1027
01:04:59,400 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 1: not trying to worth the research, but yeah, it was

1028
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:04,440
Speaker 1: the thing they look They definitely put time into livestock

1029
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:06,439
Speaker 1: to well, I don't know if they put time into

1030
01:05:06,520 --> 01:05:08,920
Speaker 1: probably a thousand ideas and maybe they never went anywhere

1031
01:05:08,960 --> 01:05:12,840
Speaker 1: with it. Well, and obviously human safety is gonna overrule

1032
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: animal safety every day, so as it should. But uh yeah,

1033
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:21,400
Speaker 1: so how much money have you guys, you guys being

1034
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:26,320
Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain Owl Foundation, how much money have you guys? Uh,

1035
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: you might not even know this. How much money do

1036
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 1: you guys spent on Eastern note Oh boy, um millions,

1037
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, easily millions. I'm just trying to think how

1038
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:45,959
Speaker 1: many millions that might be. But I don't know. Ten

1039
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 1: millions probably not a It's probably low. But I don't know.

1040
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 1: I really don't know. I mean, from time to time

1041
01:05:55,680 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: when you consider all of the things that are involved

1042
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: and what it takes. Um, wow, yeah, hard to tell.

1043
01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:10,480
Speaker 1: And there's even been some false starts, like they tried, like, uh,

1044
01:06:10,520 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 1: someone did a half assed effort in Wisconsin once and

1045
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:16,600
Speaker 1: then yeah, came back and got it right second times.

1046
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 1: Right and well, and something interesting in Wisconsin right now

1047
01:06:21,760 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 1: is because of a combination of a wolf population and

1048
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: black bears, some of the elk that that they had

1049
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:37,120
Speaker 1: in one area, they've actually are now taking in relocating

1050
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:42,439
Speaker 1: them three or four hundred miles south of that, Yeah,

1051
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 1: to get them away from that predator base because they can't.

1052
01:06:46,600 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 1: It does not build. They're not well, no, they're losing ground.

1053
01:06:49,160 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 1: They're not they're not growing. They're heard is shrinking. And yeah,

1054
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 1: most people don't count uh Texas at the east as

1055
01:06:58,800 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 1: the east, particularly Texas, but lets they kind of count

1056
01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: that as one state only, I think, Yeah, this loan thing.

1057
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 1: So Texas historically had elk yep. Yeah, and then there

1058
01:07:15,680 --> 01:07:19,680
Speaker 1: was a period of absence in Texas has elk. Now

1059
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:24,800
Speaker 1: that didn't come through a formal did not come through

1060
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:29,480
Speaker 1: a formal reintroduction process. Correct, correct, it's more like bucket

1061
01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 1: biology on the land. Yeah. And uh, somewhere in the

1062
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: mid nineties it changed from being a game animal to

1063
01:07:40,120 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 1: an exotic. That's what I want to ask about. I

1064
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:45,200
Speaker 1: don't really understand that. Well, I don't know. I don't

1065
01:07:45,200 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 1: know exactly what happened, but I can guess because in Texas. Yeah. Well,

1066
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:55,240
Speaker 1: and it's a different culture down there, hunting as you

1067
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 1: know completely Uh, so that it's pretty much the land

1068
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:04,640
Speaker 1: owners run the day in in uh in Texas as

1069
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:09,760
Speaker 1: far as wildlife is concerned. And uh landowners wanted that change,

1070
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:15,320
Speaker 1: and so they were. They were redesignated as an exotic

1071
01:08:15,400 --> 01:08:18,080
Speaker 1: where they can be hunted in high fence and they

1072
01:08:18,080 --> 01:08:23,800
Speaker 1: can be hunted at will um for whatever price you

1073
01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: want to charge and everything else, so without without any

1074
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:30,800
Speaker 1: regulations required that I know of. So that was like

1075
01:08:30,920 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 1: that I know, you don't know officially, but that would

1076
01:08:34,880 --> 01:08:39,320
Speaker 1: be a motivator when when I heard that that that

1077
01:08:39,439 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 1: they had sort of they're they're kind of like trying

1078
01:08:42,040 --> 01:08:44,600
Speaker 1: to his like this this is harsh. I know you

1079
01:08:44,640 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: wouldn't put it this way, but they're kind of trying

1080
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 1: to like to deny the legitimacy of Elkin Texas that

1081
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: this is me talking, it's not David Allen talk. Certainly

1082
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:57,800
Speaker 1: don't have the same view of them that we do,

1083
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: I would assume, Yeah, but I've when I heard that,

1084
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 1: I figured it was trying to keep that it was

1085
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:08,880
Speaker 1: land managers, agriculture whatever that could have been not wanting

1086
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:12,160
Speaker 1: to deal with regulations. But I never thought of the

1087
01:09:12,200 --> 01:09:14,920
Speaker 1: other added thing that this way, if you do have ELK,

1088
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with state management. Yeah, and

1089
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:21,800
Speaker 1: that's the way to treat them like vermin or what

1090
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:23,360
Speaker 1: ever you wone to treat them. Yeah. Well, I think

1091
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:26,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that goes on in Texas just because,

1092
01:09:26,200 --> 01:09:31,160
Speaker 1: like I said, the landowners pretty much, uh control the

1093
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:33,880
Speaker 1: process down there. I'm not saying that's good or bad.

1094
01:09:33,960 --> 01:09:36,360
Speaker 1: That's their culture and that's just the way it is.

1095
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:41,160
Speaker 1: And uh they have they have you know, like like

1096
01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:46,080
Speaker 1: wildlife management in North America was in some very literal

1097
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:51,040
Speaker 1: ways meant to be in a repudiation of the European system,

1098
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 1: where the wealthy landowners own the land, they own the

1099
01:09:56,120 --> 01:10:00,240
Speaker 1: animals on it, and common little dirty people, uh, work

1100
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:02,519
Speaker 1: and stiffs did not have access to that kind of stuff.

1101
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:06,640
Speaker 1: And our system is in large manasic like a reaction

1102
01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:10,240
Speaker 1: to that, where we have probably on wildlife, but Texas

1103
01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:16,320
Speaker 1: follows a year a year more European. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1104
01:10:16,439 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 1: I say it a lot in when I speak at

1105
01:10:19,200 --> 01:10:23,920
Speaker 1: different events. Is we have the most successful wildlife system

1106
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:28,639
Speaker 1: in the world. And I believe that. And uh, in fact,

1107
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:32,120
Speaker 1: I think we might have the most successful wildlife system

1108
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:35,000
Speaker 1: in the history of the world, which is kind of

1109
01:10:35,040 --> 01:10:39,479
Speaker 1: a bizarre statement. But there isn't another one like ours.

1110
01:10:39,479 --> 01:10:42,760
Speaker 1: Ours is state based. It's the North American model, and

1111
01:10:42,800 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 1: it's it's very regulated and very well managed. And um,

1112
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:53,760
Speaker 1: like you said, Europe doesn't have that. Um, Australia, well,

1113
01:10:53,840 --> 01:10:55,760
Speaker 1: none of the other countries. No one's that, No, no

1114
01:10:55,800 --> 01:10:58,040
Speaker 1: one's come close to it. No. You could have places

1115
01:10:58,120 --> 01:11:01,479
Speaker 1: that don't have a big human pie population and haven't

1116
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 1: been really impacted by the industrialization of the world yet

1117
01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:12,200
Speaker 1: and they have maintained through isolation, have maintained strong wildlife populations.

1118
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:15,640
Speaker 1: But to have a place that had like you know,

1119
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:19,920
Speaker 1: this eden, right, and then to have pretty much wiped

1120
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:25,480
Speaker 1: it clean and then rebuilt it back up without losing

1121
01:11:26,000 --> 01:11:30,479
Speaker 1: a single large mammal, and to keep it going today

1122
01:11:30,520 --> 01:11:36,519
Speaker 1: amongst three fifty million people walking around with one of yeah,

1123
01:11:36,640 --> 01:11:39,680
Speaker 1: with one of the biggest like g dps and g

1124
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:45,599
Speaker 1: MPs in the world. No one's And that's part of

1125
01:11:45,600 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: the case that I like to make for you know,

1126
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:52,000
Speaker 1: we we have a slogan that we use. Hunting is conservation,

1127
01:11:52,120 --> 01:11:56,080
Speaker 1: and it is a very significant part of that. And

1128
01:11:56,360 --> 01:12:00,559
Speaker 1: of course for some people that's a hard dots to connect.

1129
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:04,000
Speaker 1: But it isn't the act of going out and shooting

1130
01:12:04,080 --> 01:12:09,880
Speaker 1: something and saying that's conservation. It's the process. And our

1131
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:14,479
Speaker 1: process doesn't work without dollars and cents, without boots on

1132
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:18,960
Speaker 1: the ground, and without passion for the wildlife and in

1133
01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:21,640
Speaker 1: a lot in a lot of political will, yeah, and

1134
01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:28,080
Speaker 1: hunters bring that and represent that. And um, I talked

1135
01:12:28,120 --> 01:12:31,080
Speaker 1: to an animal I talked to an animal rights UH

1136
01:12:31,600 --> 01:12:36,680
Speaker 1: activists and professor, and um we're having that conversation, and

1137
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:38,599
Speaker 1: I was pointing out that I was actually citing him.

1138
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:40,920
Speaker 1: It's on the work the Rocky Mountain. Our foundation does

1139
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 1: with how much we'll touch on us. But one of

1140
01:12:44,200 --> 01:12:46,800
Speaker 1: the things I d F does is very simply take

1141
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:51,120
Speaker 1: money there's raised from donors and buy big as chunks

1142
01:12:51,160 --> 01:12:54,519
Speaker 1: of critical wildlife habitat and turn it over to public management. Correct,

1143
01:12:55,200 --> 01:12:59,400
Speaker 1: You're like creating your your saving habitat that otherwise would

1144
01:12:59,439 --> 01:13:02,160
Speaker 1: not be saved. So he was telling me all about

1145
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:05,960
Speaker 1: all the terrible things, how terrible hunters are, and I

1146
01:13:06,040 --> 01:13:09,120
Speaker 1: was saying to him, well, let's look at this aspect,

1147
01:13:09,160 --> 01:13:12,920
Speaker 1: because if you ask any expert, any wildlife expert in

1148
01:13:12,920 --> 01:13:14,680
Speaker 1: this country, they're gonna tell you that it comes down

1149
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:18,000
Speaker 1: to habitat for us, because we're not right now faced

1150
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:21,760
Speaker 1: within an extinction crisis, right, We're facing just like providing

1151
01:13:21,760 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 1: habitat for existing populations of animals to carry on a

1152
01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 1: live And I was like, who's doing that, Like, no

1153
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 1: one is doing this except hunters and his And I'm like,

1154
01:13:34,320 --> 01:13:37,320
Speaker 1: if it winds up being that the motivating factors that

1155
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:39,400
Speaker 1: someone goes on a hunt. So someone goes on to

1156
01:13:39,479 --> 01:13:44,040
Speaker 1: hunt and kills elk, and then sure they're removing an

1157
01:13:44,080 --> 01:13:47,040
Speaker 1: animal from the population, but they then turned around and

1158
01:13:47,120 --> 01:13:51,880
Speaker 1: devote their life and thousands of their dollars to perpetuating

1159
01:13:52,000 --> 01:13:54,799
Speaker 1: that thing. It winds up being like a net benefit.

1160
01:13:54,840 --> 01:13:57,200
Speaker 1: And his response was, well, it's just too bad that

1161
01:13:57,240 --> 01:14:00,240
Speaker 1: it takes that to motivate people. And I'm like, hey,

1162
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:02,799
Speaker 1: I'm just glad there's something that motivate people, because otherwise

1163
01:14:02,880 --> 01:14:05,120
Speaker 1: it wouldn't happen. Well. Yeah, I asked him, how many

1164
01:14:05,160 --> 01:14:08,800
Speaker 1: acres have you conserved and how many dollars have you

1165
01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:11,720
Speaker 1: donated to these groups? Yeah, they put a couple of

1166
01:14:11,760 --> 01:14:14,840
Speaker 1: horses out of business in Central Park. Yeah. I think

1167
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:17,680
Speaker 1: over the last ten years as their biggest accomplishment in

1168
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:19,840
Speaker 1: the area that has like a lot of excess horses

1169
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:21,439
Speaker 1: and a lot of horses and handiment and a lot

1170
01:14:21,439 --> 01:14:23,879
Speaker 1: of horse feeding, is they found a couple more horses

1171
01:14:23,920 --> 01:14:27,639
Speaker 1: that to give them no purpose. Well, and that's again

1172
01:14:27,840 --> 01:14:30,639
Speaker 1: part of the argument I like to make with people

1173
01:14:30,840 --> 01:14:38,600
Speaker 1: of without hunting, our wildlife system completely goes away. Yeah,

1174
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:42,280
Speaker 1: it's financial, and it's the passion and the political will

1175
01:14:42,320 --> 01:14:45,840
Speaker 1: and everything. I mean, it completely goes away. And they

1176
01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:49,640
Speaker 1: just can't imagine what you mean. Less killing of the

1177
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:52,599
Speaker 1: wildlife is going to destroy the wildlife, And it's like

1178
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 1: you're looking at it all wrong. You know, the killing

1179
01:14:56,479 --> 01:15:00,360
Speaker 1: of the wildlife is farming as part of what it is.

1180
01:15:00,400 --> 01:15:05,519
Speaker 1: I mean, not all that wildlife can sustain with all

1181
01:15:05,560 --> 01:15:09,559
Speaker 1: these bodies running around here anymore. We put we put

1182
01:15:09,600 --> 01:15:12,960
Speaker 1: it out of balance. Man, does we have an obligation

1183
01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:18,599
Speaker 1: to bring some balance. That's our role and you know

1184
01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:23,679
Speaker 1: it's I'm sorry, but nature does not balance itself anymore

1185
01:15:23,800 --> 01:15:28,080
Speaker 1: because we have tipped the scale system. Yeah, well do it.

1186
01:15:28,320 --> 01:15:30,439
Speaker 1: I mean like we do a very good job of

1187
01:15:30,479 --> 01:15:33,680
Speaker 1: like creating a managing a system. Yeah. But another thing

1188
01:15:33,720 --> 01:15:37,400
Speaker 1: that that hunters do and that you guys did is

1189
01:15:37,640 --> 01:15:39,679
Speaker 1: and I know that you didn't do like you guys

1190
01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:43,360
Speaker 1: didn't It's not fair to that rocking out an foundation

1191
01:15:43,400 --> 01:15:47,120
Speaker 1: like did Kentucky You were a key player. You guys

1192
01:15:47,160 --> 01:15:49,320
Speaker 1: point that out all the time. It's like there was

1193
01:15:49,360 --> 01:15:52,200
Speaker 1: an effort that had many people, including Kentucky Fishing Game

1194
01:15:53,080 --> 01:15:58,000
Speaker 1: heavily involved in it, other outdoor organizations. But they're like,

1195
01:15:58,080 --> 01:15:59,840
Speaker 1: it's easy for people to sit back and you know,

1196
01:15:59,880 --> 01:16:03,240
Speaker 1: you have like a yellow a New Jersey cat lady, right,

1197
01:16:03,479 --> 01:16:05,760
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, what's a good landscape that I

1198
01:16:05,760 --> 01:16:11,080
Speaker 1: want to invest my energy? And people pick like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Right,

1199
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:14,120
Speaker 1: and they pick these like gems that are recognizable from

1200
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:19,599
Speaker 1: a great distance. But to imagine someone looking at a

1201
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:24,800
Speaker 1: degraded coal mine site right in Kentucky and being like,

1202
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:28,719
Speaker 1: we're gonna correct a mistake that was made one years

1203
01:16:28,720 --> 01:16:31,880
Speaker 1: ago with the extra pation of the elk, hundred plus

1204
01:16:31,960 --> 01:16:34,439
Speaker 1: years ago with the extra pation of the elk, and

1205
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:37,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna take this which the rest of the country

1206
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:40,760
Speaker 1: is not looking at and thinking about and caring about.

1207
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:43,839
Speaker 1: They're just like disregarding it. It's just it's just shitty

1208
01:16:43,920 --> 01:16:47,519
Speaker 1: little spot in Kentucky right old coal mine ground? Who

1209
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:51,120
Speaker 1: cares and like make that bloom and put like a

1210
01:16:51,200 --> 01:16:55,160
Speaker 1: key stone like missing species back on the ground there

1211
01:16:55,240 --> 01:16:57,519
Speaker 1: and make that work. Other people aren't doing that. If

1212
01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:00,360
Speaker 1: that's not conservation, I don't know what it is. No

1213
01:17:00,400 --> 01:17:03,520
Speaker 1: one else has the motivation to do it right right exactly.

1214
01:17:04,000 --> 01:17:08,880
Speaker 1: And and you know that goes on day after day

1215
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:12,360
Speaker 1: after day in this country, not just with us. There's

1216
01:17:12,400 --> 01:17:15,000
Speaker 1: a lot of groups that are doing great jobs and

1217
01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:18,960
Speaker 1: and just good sportsmen groups and and guys that like

1218
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:22,920
Speaker 1: to do it. And but a rancher or farmer would

1219
01:17:22,960 --> 01:17:26,360
Speaker 1: do the same thing on his rancher farm every year

1220
01:17:26,479 --> 01:17:30,040
Speaker 1: he's calling his herd and he's doing this, and then

1221
01:17:30,200 --> 01:17:33,240
Speaker 1: there's reasons that he does that. It's for the health

1222
01:17:33,280 --> 01:17:36,240
Speaker 1: of his herd, and it's you know, that's how it works.

1223
01:17:36,640 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 1: It doesn't sustain itself otherwise. No, but those guys never

1224
01:17:40,080 --> 01:17:42,120
Speaker 1: have to do. A rancher never has to have some

1225
01:17:42,240 --> 01:17:44,799
Speaker 1: and come and say, don't tell me you like these cows,

1226
01:17:45,120 --> 01:17:49,120
Speaker 1: because you know, I let me say, I damn sure,

1227
01:17:49,160 --> 01:17:52,760
Speaker 1: do you like these cows? Yeah? Like to the bank

1228
01:17:53,080 --> 01:17:56,960
Speaker 1: that sends on the slaughter right. Uh. Another state I

1229
01:17:57,000 --> 01:18:00,880
Speaker 1: want to ask you about. And I read about this

1230
01:18:00,920 --> 01:18:02,720
Speaker 1: stuff all time. I don't understand it. Like what is

1231
01:18:02,800 --> 01:18:06,599
Speaker 1: the elk situation in California? You got like a native

1232
01:18:07,760 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 1: to Lee elk, right, okay, and that was the elk

1233
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 1: that was there, But then you got other pockets of

1234
01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:17,920
Speaker 1: like not to Lee. There's three species of elk in

1235
01:18:18,160 --> 01:18:21,720
Speaker 1: California right now. Um, you got the Rocky Mountain of

1236
01:18:21,800 --> 01:18:25,840
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and the Tooley And that's three of there were

1237
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:29,320
Speaker 1: four species at one time as as I know it.

1238
01:18:29,920 --> 01:18:33,920
Speaker 1: The other one was the Miriam, which I think came

1239
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:36,640
Speaker 1: from the same guy that named the turkey. In the

1240
01:18:36,640 --> 01:18:40,800
Speaker 1: old days, you could just name stuff after yourself. And

1241
01:18:40,880 --> 01:18:44,320
Speaker 1: like the guy that did Stellar Stellar's j Stellar Sea line,

1242
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:47,040
Speaker 1: he named like ten things after himself. It's bad for

1243
01:18:47,120 --> 01:18:49,960
Speaker 1: him to do that. Now I understand, you know, no

1244
01:18:50,000 --> 01:18:51,439
Speaker 1: one doesn't matter. We have a miriam He's like, I

1245
01:18:51,479 --> 01:18:56,760
Speaker 1: don't wanna call that, but just California has those three species?

1246
01:18:56,880 --> 01:18:59,639
Speaker 1: Where where was the miriam The Miriams has gone from

1247
01:19:00,120 --> 01:19:03,640
Speaker 1: From what I know, the Miriams were in the Southwest,

1248
01:19:05,000 --> 01:19:09,439
Speaker 1: I think most of the Arizona Yah, Arizona and New Mexico.

1249
01:19:09,520 --> 01:19:11,720
Speaker 1: And they feel that when those animals were shot out,

1250
01:19:11,760 --> 01:19:13,599
Speaker 1: that was the end of that. That's what I'm toking,

1251
01:19:13,680 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 1: end of that strain or whatever. The uh. One of

1252
01:19:16,760 --> 01:19:20,800
Speaker 1: the best bok biologists in the country I think is

1253
01:19:20,880 --> 01:19:24,960
Speaker 1: John cade He ran White Mountain for thirty two years

1254
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:29,160
Speaker 1: and uh he was on our board UM and so

1255
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:32,080
Speaker 1: he was telling me the story of the Miriams from

1256
01:19:32,120 --> 01:19:36,080
Speaker 1: back in the day around uh the Grand Canyon area

1257
01:19:36,120 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 1: and that um which I wasn't aware of. I didn't

1258
01:19:39,080 --> 01:19:42,000
Speaker 1: know there was a fourth species. But yeah, it's like

1259
01:19:42,080 --> 01:19:45,400
Speaker 1: with big horns. Now they now they call it into question,

1260
01:19:45,960 --> 01:19:49,320
Speaker 1: but taxonomically they used to think there was the audubon

1261
01:19:49,439 --> 01:19:56,880
Speaker 1: big horn eastern Montana, Dakota's and now now it seems

1262
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,679
Speaker 1: that the trend in taxonomy is to is to get

1263
01:19:59,760 --> 01:20:02,360
Speaker 1: rid of those divisions that we used to think we're significant,

1264
01:20:02,840 --> 01:20:06,040
Speaker 1: not like you know, it was a big big I've

1265
01:20:06,080 --> 01:20:09,160
Speaker 1: seen some big ones turkey hunting over there in You

1266
01:20:09,280 --> 01:20:11,760
Speaker 1: can't hunt them there either, but I've seen them. So

1267
01:20:12,800 --> 01:20:15,559
Speaker 1: the Miriams was in the Southwest, and that in that

1268
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:20,400
Speaker 1: strain or subspecies whatever is gone long gone, And the

1269
01:20:20,560 --> 01:20:27,080
Speaker 1: Roosevelt is coastal California, uh, and Oregon, and they're in Oregon,

1270
01:20:27,560 --> 01:20:30,280
Speaker 1: probably more of them in Oregon than any other thing. Yeah,

1271
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:33,240
Speaker 1: they're in Washington too. I think at one time they

1272
01:20:33,280 --> 01:20:36,519
Speaker 1: went up into BC. And I don't know if there's

1273
01:20:37,640 --> 01:20:40,400
Speaker 1: much up there or not. They're they're just they're much

1274
01:20:40,479 --> 01:20:46,400
Speaker 1: bigger bodied, smaller horned. They live in the dark, timber

1275
01:20:46,600 --> 01:20:51,639
Speaker 1: stuff and uh, but the tuley Um is a whole

1276
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:57,240
Speaker 1: other interesting species. They're smaller all the way around. And uh,

1277
01:20:57,360 --> 01:21:02,800
Speaker 1: I think the only place they're at is californ arn't you. Yeah,

1278
01:21:02,960 --> 01:21:08,000
Speaker 1: So the Twuly, how do you have any idea like

1279
01:21:08,040 --> 01:21:10,919
Speaker 1: how is that? Like you are you guys as an organization,

1280
01:21:10,960 --> 01:21:13,719
Speaker 1: are you involved? Because that stuff's all private land. Well,

1281
01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:19,439
Speaker 1: we're involved because it's elk, but because it's private land,

1282
01:21:19,520 --> 01:21:23,400
Speaker 1: that limits what we can do. And if we're asked

1283
01:21:23,439 --> 01:21:28,320
Speaker 1: to do things, um, and we wouldn't even do anything

1284
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:34,000
Speaker 1: on private land if it didn't somehow have some kind

1285
01:21:34,080 --> 01:21:38,479
Speaker 1: of very obvious benefit to the species. But we would

1286
01:21:38,479 --> 01:21:41,240
Speaker 1: also prefer it had some kind of benefit to the

1287
01:21:41,280 --> 01:21:44,200
Speaker 1: public at large and certainly the hunting post. So that's

1288
01:21:44,200 --> 01:21:46,760
Speaker 1: something you guys consider. Well, we sure, you know, put

1289
01:21:46,760 --> 01:21:48,920
Speaker 1: in a bunch of water tanks on a private land,

1290
01:21:49,040 --> 01:21:53,320
Speaker 1: not unless we're asked to, and probably wouldn't do that

1291
01:21:53,600 --> 01:21:58,280
Speaker 1: unless it was really benefiting the elk population in the

1292
01:21:58,400 --> 01:22:01,320
Speaker 1: greater area and it was like, hey, this is the

1293
01:22:01,360 --> 01:22:04,200
Speaker 1: best place for these guzzlers, So this is what we're

1294
01:22:04,200 --> 01:22:07,320
Speaker 1: gonna do. I mean, we get questions a lot of

1295
01:22:07,320 --> 01:22:10,479
Speaker 1: times about well, why do you do those easements on

1296
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:14,200
Speaker 1: those private ranches. They don't even let us hunt. It's like, no,

1297
01:22:14,439 --> 01:22:17,599
Speaker 1: but those elk are living there over of the year,

1298
01:22:18,200 --> 01:22:22,640
Speaker 1: they spend their entire winter there. That habitat is critical.

1299
01:22:22,840 --> 01:22:27,880
Speaker 1: Winter habitat is really critical. And so if we have

1300
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:31,639
Speaker 1: a willing landowner that will work with us and work

1301
01:22:31,720 --> 01:22:38,080
Speaker 1: with us to keep that habitat ideal and will agree

1302
01:22:38,160 --> 01:22:42,280
Speaker 1: that that habitat is going to be protected in perpetuity.

1303
01:22:43,360 --> 01:22:46,320
Speaker 1: We're trying to keep those corridors open for elk because

1304
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:51,800
Speaker 1: the elk move a lot. They move everywhere, and so yeah,

1305
01:22:51,920 --> 01:22:54,200
Speaker 1: we have to look at the bigger picture when it

1306
01:22:54,240 --> 01:22:56,639
Speaker 1: comes to them, and we're not trying to just take

1307
01:22:56,960 --> 01:22:59,519
Speaker 1: you know, I get letters of oh yeah, I suppose

1308
01:22:59,520 --> 01:23:02,519
Speaker 1: you're hunting over there and that guy gave you a

1309
01:23:02,560 --> 01:23:05,879
Speaker 1: lot of money, and you know he didn't give us anything,

1310
01:23:05,960 --> 01:23:09,599
Speaker 1: and I'm not hunting there, So it's it's for the helm,

1311
01:23:10,080 --> 01:23:13,400
Speaker 1: well not. You guys do a lot of matching also,

1312
01:23:13,479 --> 01:23:17,040
Speaker 1: really matching funds for different programs, and then I think

1313
01:23:17,040 --> 01:23:20,040
Speaker 1: that's something a lot of folks don't understand. It's um

1314
01:23:20,080 --> 01:23:23,840
Speaker 1: because I do hear that often as well. And one thing,

1315
01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:26,600
Speaker 1: and I don't know if people really confuse it or

1316
01:23:26,640 --> 01:23:29,639
Speaker 1: they're just looking for something to confuse it with, but

1317
01:23:30,520 --> 01:23:34,320
Speaker 1: they think we own this land. I mean, I've still

1318
01:23:34,360 --> 01:23:38,800
Speaker 1: read on the internet over and over about how many

1319
01:23:38,920 --> 01:23:43,200
Speaker 1: ranches we own and oh yeah, all their v I

1320
01:23:43,240 --> 01:23:45,120
Speaker 1: P s are hunting them and stuff. We don't own

1321
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:48,080
Speaker 1: any ranches we don't own. We own less than ten

1322
01:23:48,120 --> 01:23:51,320
Speaker 1: thousand acres of ground right now. And that's only because

1323
01:23:51,360 --> 01:23:54,200
Speaker 1: we haven't gotten rid of the ten thousand. But so

1324
01:23:54,240 --> 01:23:56,360
Speaker 1: how do you get like if you let's let's say

1325
01:23:56,400 --> 01:24:01,040
Speaker 1: you you you identify a piece of Okay, here's what

1326
01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:02,960
Speaker 1: you guys work on. Like you guys work on a

1327
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:06,400
Speaker 1: willing sell, a willing sell a willer buyer. So there's

1328
01:24:06,400 --> 01:24:09,640
Speaker 1: a ranch you identified it as key L cabitat, it

1329
01:24:09,760 --> 01:24:15,280
Speaker 1: goes up for sale. UM, those that we do, less

1330
01:24:15,280 --> 01:24:18,800
Speaker 1: of those, we have done. Some of those. I'll give

1331
01:24:18,840 --> 01:24:24,280
Speaker 1: you a different example that's probably more common. Uh. In

1332
01:24:24,280 --> 01:24:28,640
Speaker 1: in Montana about too three years ago, we completed a

1333
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:32,559
Speaker 1: project that was called the Tenderfoot Project and it was

1334
01:24:32,800 --> 01:24:37,040
Speaker 1: up in the Smith River Drainage. UM. And what it

1335
01:24:37,160 --> 01:24:42,320
Speaker 1: was was a combination of checkerboarded public and private, public

1336
01:24:42,360 --> 01:24:46,479
Speaker 1: and private all this land and it was the private,

1337
01:24:47,040 --> 01:24:51,839
Speaker 1: uh was owned by a foundation of when a family

1338
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:54,960
Speaker 1: died and they left this money to a foundation, and

1339
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:59,559
Speaker 1: it was checkerboarded with four service ground. And they came

1340
01:24:59,600 --> 01:25:03,120
Speaker 1: to us, it's called the Bear Foundation out of Billings,

1341
01:25:03,320 --> 01:25:07,679
Speaker 1: and they came to us and said, uh, the airs

1342
01:25:07,760 --> 01:25:13,320
Speaker 1: of this family would like to sell this property. But

1343
01:25:13,680 --> 01:25:17,519
Speaker 1: we don't really want to sell it and just see

1344
01:25:17,560 --> 01:25:22,439
Speaker 1: it developed and ruined and blah blah blah. What can

1345
01:25:22,520 --> 01:25:25,800
Speaker 1: we do? Can you guys work with us? And this

1346
01:25:25,880 --> 01:25:29,760
Speaker 1: is very common for us to be drug into a

1347
01:25:29,880 --> 01:25:33,200
Speaker 1: project with the BLM or the four Service because we

1348
01:25:33,320 --> 01:25:38,040
Speaker 1: can go out and and pull these deals together so

1349
01:25:38,160 --> 01:25:42,080
Speaker 1: much easier and faster than the government can and get

1350
01:25:42,080 --> 01:25:46,559
Speaker 1: it all permitted and everything ready to go, and then

1351
01:25:46,600 --> 01:25:52,480
Speaker 1: you do a simultaneous closing or it'll close from private

1352
01:25:52,520 --> 01:25:57,559
Speaker 1: to US and from US to public that day. And

1353
01:25:58,400 --> 01:26:02,240
Speaker 1: this involved eight me in dollars worth of LWCF money

1354
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:05,840
Speaker 1: as well. The dirty old oil company that's Landing Water

1355
01:26:05,920 --> 01:26:10,479
Speaker 1: Conservation can break that down. So land of Water Conservation Fund.

1356
01:26:10,920 --> 01:26:12,719
Speaker 1: You're probably be hearing a lot about that later because

1357
01:26:13,040 --> 01:26:16,920
Speaker 1: now and then Landing Water Conservation Fund will expire and

1358
01:26:16,960 --> 01:26:19,160
Speaker 1: then it will get caught up in like a custody

1359
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:21,519
Speaker 1: sort of battle, and people will use it as a

1360
01:26:21,600 --> 01:26:24,400
Speaker 1: pond and it'll get delayed and then refunded. But what

1361
01:26:24,479 --> 01:26:27,160
Speaker 1: it is, it takes money that the that the federal

1362
01:26:27,200 --> 01:26:32,400
Speaker 1: government raises with offshore oil leasing, and they take that money.

1363
01:26:32,439 --> 01:26:37,080
Speaker 1: So the you know you're talking about out in the

1364
01:26:37,120 --> 01:26:40,160
Speaker 1: ocean land and is not owned by an individual, but

1365
01:26:40,200 --> 01:26:44,439
Speaker 1: it's like considered US property. And they pull oil about

1366
01:26:44,439 --> 01:26:48,160
Speaker 1: of the ground under the ocean, and there's a there's

1367
01:26:48,320 --> 01:26:52,759
Speaker 1: a fee that the the extractor pays to the government,

1368
01:26:52,840 --> 01:26:54,960
Speaker 1: and some of that money goes to fund the Land

1369
01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:57,280
Speaker 1: of Water Conservation Fund. And the Land of Water Conservation

1370
01:26:57,320 --> 01:27:01,200
Speaker 1: Fund is used on public access while life issues, habitat

1371
01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:06,920
Speaker 1: enhancemation boat launches. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something goes direct to

1372
01:27:07,640 --> 01:27:11,679
Speaker 1: UM directed all Americans and sportsmen. And right now we're

1373
01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:15,800
Speaker 1: in what seems like been dragging out forever some you know,

1374
01:27:15,840 --> 01:27:18,320
Speaker 1: people a little bit worried about the future of the

1375
01:27:18,360 --> 01:27:20,840
Speaker 1: land of Water conservation and like you said, it's used

1376
01:27:20,880 --> 01:27:26,920
Speaker 1: as a political football, and it's it's so intellectually dishonest,

1377
01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:31,200
Speaker 1: I believe by politicians to do that because these are

1378
01:27:31,200 --> 01:27:35,439
Speaker 1: not government funds. These are royalty funds that were paid

1379
01:27:36,280 --> 01:27:41,879
Speaker 1: to this fund, and they're supposed to be our dollars

1380
01:27:41,960 --> 01:27:46,160
Speaker 1: for conservation. And we're not getting of them anymore. We're

1381
01:27:46,200 --> 01:27:49,920
Speaker 1: getting less than fifty of them, So they're robbing that

1382
01:27:49,960 --> 01:27:52,080
Speaker 1: piggy bank as well. But you know, that's a whole

1383
01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:54,280
Speaker 1: another The first time it was the first time it

1384
01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:56,000
Speaker 1: was putting. It was put in place for for like

1385
01:27:56,040 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 1: what felt like forever, and then now there are was

1386
01:27:59,439 --> 01:28:01,880
Speaker 1: like dragging an out. They'll fund it for a year.

1387
01:28:02,320 --> 01:28:04,320
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's it's it's always like kept

1388
01:28:04,400 --> 01:28:06,599
Speaker 1: up in the air. But if you like to hunting

1389
01:28:06,640 --> 01:28:10,240
Speaker 1: fish or wander around outside, you should be you should

1390
01:28:10,240 --> 01:28:13,880
Speaker 1: be involved in making sure you have water conservation funded sound.

1391
01:28:14,000 --> 01:28:17,040
Speaker 1: You should be calling your senators and beating on them

1392
01:28:17,080 --> 01:28:21,080
Speaker 1: every day until they permanently re authored and not using

1393
01:28:22,240 --> 01:28:25,440
Speaker 1: crazy riders at it all the time, including the senators

1394
01:28:25,479 --> 01:28:28,479
Speaker 1: from Utah. But I won't point anybody out, but I

1395
01:28:28,479 --> 01:28:31,599
Speaker 1: don't think their phones work, said, I don't think they

1396
01:28:32,200 --> 01:28:37,600
Speaker 1: unplug those phones. That's that's a kind of a typical

1397
01:28:37,680 --> 01:28:41,799
Speaker 1: project for us work. But you're saying eight million dollars

1398
01:28:41,960 --> 01:28:45,840
Speaker 1: million dollars of of those funds and then our sel

1399
01:28:46,080 --> 01:28:51,960
Speaker 1: we were like the lead, uh, the lead group, if

1400
01:28:52,000 --> 01:28:54,880
Speaker 1: you will, lead public group in this. There were other

1401
01:28:55,479 --> 01:28:58,599
Speaker 1: local sportsman groups and whatnot. They didn't have a lot

1402
01:28:58,600 --> 01:29:00,600
Speaker 1: of money, but they wanted to be a part of it,

1403
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:02,800
Speaker 1: and you know, we welcome that, we want them to

1404
01:29:02,840 --> 01:29:06,600
Speaker 1: be I think we probably had two million in it.

1405
01:29:07,760 --> 01:29:10,320
Speaker 1: The whole thing ended up to be about eleven or

1406
01:29:10,360 --> 01:29:18,040
Speaker 1: twelve million, but today eight of that being eight or nine. Yeah,

1407
01:29:18,360 --> 01:29:20,280
Speaker 1: and then you guys had a couple million into it. Yeah,

1408
01:29:20,360 --> 01:29:22,679
Speaker 1: and what was the end results. So the end result

1409
01:29:22,840 --> 01:29:26,560
Speaker 1: is over eight thousand acres. Now that is one contiguous

1410
01:29:26,600 --> 01:29:30,839
Speaker 1: block of public land. Uh, this is your own private

1411
01:29:30,920 --> 01:29:35,519
Speaker 1: hunting ground, right, David Allen's right. Yeah, yeah, me and

1412
01:29:35,560 --> 01:29:37,439
Speaker 1: the Chief of the Forest Service get to hunt it

1413
01:29:37,479 --> 01:29:43,200
Speaker 1: all by ourselves and uh Steve's helicopter. But I mean

1414
01:29:43,240 --> 01:29:47,760
Speaker 1: it's spectacular country. It's just like it's like a new

1415
01:29:47,800 --> 01:29:53,400
Speaker 1: public land. Yeah. Yeah, forever open to hunt right now. Ye, Well,

1416
01:29:53,520 --> 01:29:57,200
Speaker 1: the fishing is spectacular. The Smith River Valley. I don't

1417
01:29:57,200 --> 01:29:59,120
Speaker 1: know if you've ever been on the Smith River. It's

1418
01:29:59,160 --> 01:30:02,720
Speaker 1: one of the most pristine rivers. Yeah. You got to

1419
01:30:02,760 --> 01:30:06,200
Speaker 1: apply permit the float the damn thing. Yeah yeah, and

1420
01:30:06,439 --> 01:30:10,920
Speaker 1: but it is spectacular. But the whole area is And

1421
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:14,240
Speaker 1: my kids both caught their first trout on the Tenderfoot

1422
01:30:14,280 --> 01:30:18,080
Speaker 1: Creek which runs right through this property. And yeah. So

1423
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:21,599
Speaker 1: that's that's a typical project of how we would work.

1424
01:30:22,479 --> 01:30:27,120
Speaker 1: The Force Service or BLM primarily will look to us

1425
01:30:27,160 --> 01:30:30,479
Speaker 1: to be the lead partner. Get that's just because you

1426
01:30:30,479 --> 01:30:33,960
Speaker 1: guys are more nimble and don't have as much regulation, right,

1427
01:30:34,520 --> 01:30:36,800
Speaker 1: no red tapes and all that other We can just

1428
01:30:36,840 --> 01:30:41,080
Speaker 1: go do They don't need to go get a congressional approval. Correct,

1429
01:30:41,640 --> 01:30:47,680
Speaker 1: And uh, then all of us will go lobby our

1430
01:30:47,800 --> 01:30:52,960
Speaker 1: senators now that tenderfoot one specifically, Um, I would be

1431
01:30:53,000 --> 01:30:56,200
Speaker 1: the first one to give Senator Tester most of the

1432
01:30:56,240 --> 01:31:00,320
Speaker 1: credit because he got that on the priority list for

1433
01:31:01,360 --> 01:31:06,200
Speaker 1: LWCF money that year. And uh, you know, the Democrats

1434
01:31:06,200 --> 01:31:09,040
Speaker 1: were in power at that time and he was in

1435
01:31:09,040 --> 01:31:12,920
Speaker 1: a position to provide that and he did. And uh

1436
01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:20,200
Speaker 1: that's how it works, already trusted their own kind on it. Yeah, yeah, um,

1437
01:31:20,240 --> 01:31:22,320
Speaker 1: but we'll do a lot of projects like that. But

1438
01:31:22,439 --> 01:31:28,160
Speaker 1: we'll also have mom and dad rancher probably in their

1439
01:31:28,200 --> 01:31:32,920
Speaker 1: seventies or eighties, and the kids don't want that ranch,

1440
01:31:33,960 --> 01:31:37,840
Speaker 1: and uh mom and dad don't really want to let

1441
01:31:37,880 --> 01:31:41,360
Speaker 1: go of it or see it busted up or see

1442
01:31:41,360 --> 01:31:45,320
Speaker 1: it sold to a Californian or whatever you know, and

1443
01:31:45,400 --> 01:31:53,760
Speaker 1: it yeah, um, the joke is that that's where So

1444
01:31:55,040 --> 01:32:01,600
Speaker 1: it's pretty common or fairly common for these older generation

1445
01:32:01,760 --> 01:32:06,240
Speaker 1: ranchers to start looking for avenues or what are they

1446
01:32:06,240 --> 01:32:09,120
Speaker 1: gonna do? With these ranches, because there's a lot of

1447
01:32:09,160 --> 01:32:12,800
Speaker 1: them now in the West that are you know, in

1448
01:32:12,840 --> 01:32:17,080
Speaker 1: the third or fourth generation. And the kids don't necessarily

1449
01:32:17,120 --> 01:32:19,280
Speaker 1: want to stay on the ranch, or they don't want

1450
01:32:19,280 --> 01:32:21,519
Speaker 1: the ranch or whatever. They might want to cash in

1451
01:32:21,600 --> 01:32:26,320
Speaker 1: on it or something. But the folks who have lived

1452
01:32:26,320 --> 01:32:30,680
Speaker 1: there most likely born and raised there. We want to

1453
01:32:30,720 --> 01:32:36,439
Speaker 1: see that ranch stay whole if they can, and we

1454
01:32:36,560 --> 01:32:40,480
Speaker 1: do too for a number of reasons. The most important

1455
01:32:40,520 --> 01:32:47,800
Speaker 1: one is again to keep that that migration uh corridors

1456
01:32:48,520 --> 01:32:52,400
Speaker 1: healthy and to keep the habitat available for the elk

1457
01:32:52,479 --> 01:32:57,920
Speaker 1: and and other deer and so uh they'll come to

1458
01:32:58,160 --> 01:33:01,960
Speaker 1: us in uh you know, one or two or three

1459
01:33:02,160 --> 01:33:07,360
Speaker 1: different types of scenarios. One is um it might be

1460
01:33:07,520 --> 01:33:12,280
Speaker 1: a paid easement. They want to do an easement where

1461
01:33:12,280 --> 01:33:15,680
Speaker 1: they'll sell you the easement so they can get some

1462
01:33:15,720 --> 01:33:20,639
Speaker 1: money and do whatever. We're not doing many of those anymore.

1463
01:33:20,720 --> 01:33:23,759
Speaker 1: We're trying not to. But what we'll try to do

1464
01:33:24,040 --> 01:33:29,600
Speaker 1: is either find a public way to keep that landhole,

1465
01:33:30,000 --> 01:33:32,720
Speaker 1: or we'll try to go out and find what we

1466
01:33:32,840 --> 01:33:36,760
Speaker 1: call a conservation buyer and somebody who might be interested

1467
01:33:36,920 --> 01:33:41,599
Speaker 1: in a ranch like that but will agree to keeping

1468
01:33:41,600 --> 01:33:45,719
Speaker 1: it in a conservation easement and keeping it whole um.

1469
01:33:46,400 --> 01:33:48,559
Speaker 1: And this would be in these cases you're talking about

1470
01:33:49,080 --> 01:33:52,760
Speaker 1: the landowner, yes, knows they're not going to make as

1471
01:33:52,840 --> 01:33:55,840
Speaker 1: much money on this as they could correct they're trying

1472
01:33:55,880 --> 01:34:00,000
Speaker 1: to get Oh yeah, the land means more to them

1473
01:34:00,120 --> 01:34:03,559
Speaker 1: than the money in most cases, but they want out

1474
01:34:03,680 --> 01:34:05,559
Speaker 1: or need to get out. And if they can get

1475
01:34:05,600 --> 01:34:11,879
Speaker 1: something and know it is protected and frankly, the buyer

1476
01:34:13,960 --> 01:34:18,519
Speaker 1: knows that he or she may actually be buying something

1477
01:34:19,240 --> 01:34:22,040
Speaker 1: that is going to be very limited for them on

1478
01:34:22,080 --> 01:34:25,240
Speaker 1: the other end to get rid of someday. But if

1479
01:34:25,280 --> 01:34:31,280
Speaker 1: they have a conservation passion or ethic um, I actually

1480
01:34:31,320 --> 01:34:35,080
Speaker 1: think that sometimes that enhances the value of the property.

1481
01:34:35,080 --> 01:34:38,080
Speaker 1: But I you know, everything's in the eye of the beholder.

1482
01:34:38,479 --> 01:34:41,160
Speaker 1: Because this person saying that like they're right in a

1483
01:34:41,280 --> 01:34:44,040
Speaker 1: check for land that they're not gonna be able to

1484
01:34:44,120 --> 01:34:47,479
Speaker 1: change their mind and they can't well, they can't develop it,

1485
01:34:47,600 --> 01:34:50,880
Speaker 1: you know, they can't break it up into twenty acre

1486
01:34:51,000 --> 01:34:56,920
Speaker 1: ranchets or and then most easements then you know there's

1487
01:34:57,000 --> 01:35:00,960
Speaker 1: covenants in those easements, but most of them are not

1488
01:35:01,320 --> 01:35:04,799
Speaker 1: so restrictive that you can't do anything with the land.

1489
01:35:04,840 --> 01:35:08,680
Speaker 1: But breaking them up and into parcels is one that

1490
01:35:08,720 --> 01:35:12,680
Speaker 1: would hardly ever, if ever agreed to. And there's some

1491
01:35:13,000 --> 01:35:16,679
Speaker 1: on their part. There's are some tax incentives that ease

1492
01:35:16,800 --> 01:35:23,479
Speaker 1: that burden for people, and oh yeah, they get the

1493
01:35:25,320 --> 01:35:29,960
Speaker 1: person putting it into the easeman gets a significant tax

1494
01:35:30,000 --> 01:35:34,640
Speaker 1: credit based on a couple of things. And one is

1495
01:35:36,160 --> 01:35:39,560
Speaker 1: how much is that their principle place to live or

1496
01:35:39,640 --> 01:35:42,000
Speaker 1: they're making a living off of that land? What's the

1497
01:35:42,400 --> 01:35:46,759
Speaker 1: what's the place a praise for I mean, we're into

1498
01:35:47,920 --> 01:35:51,519
Speaker 1: the beginnings of a project now that will be really

1499
01:35:51,640 --> 01:35:58,080
Speaker 1: significant if we can succeed at it. Again, LWCF would

1500
01:35:58,080 --> 01:36:02,280
Speaker 1: play a role in it. It's not a huge piece

1501
01:36:02,320 --> 01:36:06,240
Speaker 1: of property, but it's in the Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone,

1502
01:36:07,320 --> 01:36:13,160
Speaker 1: really critical calving area and winter area for elk. Tons

1503
01:36:13,200 --> 01:36:15,760
Speaker 1: of elk there. But there's a lot of bears and

1504
01:36:15,760 --> 01:36:18,479
Speaker 1: a lot of wolves there too. But the owner is

1505
01:36:18,600 --> 01:36:22,960
Speaker 1: wanting to sell. He was a million, he's now dropped

1506
01:36:23,120 --> 01:36:29,439
Speaker 1: twenty two million. But that's a lot of money, and um,

1507
01:36:29,520 --> 01:36:33,680
Speaker 1: you know, the state of Montana is interested in the property.

1508
01:36:33,760 --> 01:36:37,200
Speaker 1: If we can put the thing together and make it work,

1509
01:36:37,280 --> 01:36:41,920
Speaker 1: it would become again public ground forever and would be

1510
01:36:42,120 --> 01:36:46,720
Speaker 1: open to the public. So you know, we're trying to

1511
01:36:48,000 --> 01:36:52,360
Speaker 1: work on that one now and and fundraise. And there's

1512
01:36:52,400 --> 01:36:59,839
Speaker 1: actually some pretty significant uh people in that Paradise Valley

1513
01:37:00,080 --> 01:37:04,160
Speaker 1: that own property that probably would donate. The founder of

1514
01:37:04,200 --> 01:37:08,720
Speaker 1: Home Depot has a ranch over there, and Richard Schilder's,

1515
01:37:08,760 --> 01:37:12,280
Speaker 1: you know, from NASCAR, has a ranch real near this property,

1516
01:37:12,360 --> 01:37:17,639
Speaker 1: and there's some others. So, uh, we think that if

1517
01:37:17,800 --> 01:37:20,320
Speaker 1: we can get some l w CF, we can get

1518
01:37:20,360 --> 01:37:22,720
Speaker 1: it high enough up on the list of priority for

1519
01:37:22,880 --> 01:37:26,519
Speaker 1: l w CF. We think we can. Um made me

1520
01:37:26,600 --> 01:37:29,759
Speaker 1: make this thing happen. You know, an interesting land deal.

1521
01:37:30,439 --> 01:37:34,120
Speaker 1: I know you guys are involved in. Hope you you

1522
01:37:34,200 --> 01:37:37,360
Speaker 1: remember some details, more details and now I remember. But

1523
01:37:37,439 --> 01:37:42,360
Speaker 1: the story goes this is again another story from Montana.

1524
01:37:42,479 --> 01:37:46,680
Speaker 1: But uh, a guy was driving somewhere to get some

1525
01:37:46,760 --> 01:37:53,120
Speaker 1: twenty two shells in north central Montana and on the way,

1526
01:37:53,160 --> 01:37:55,840
Speaker 1: his wife picks up one of those little flyers with

1527
01:37:55,960 --> 01:37:59,880
Speaker 1: like cells used cars and stuff, and on the drive

1528
01:38:00,040 --> 01:38:02,280
Speaker 1: she's like, I find this little weird patch of ground

1529
01:38:04,640 --> 01:38:06,840
Speaker 1: that's for sale. And they check it out and it

1530
01:38:06,840 --> 01:38:09,479
Speaker 1: winds up being that it's sort of a bridge that

1531
01:38:09,600 --> 01:38:13,320
Speaker 1: connects the road system with a large chunk of land

1532
01:38:13,360 --> 01:38:17,120
Speaker 1: locked BLM. I don't know that. I think I read

1533
01:38:17,160 --> 01:38:19,960
Speaker 1: about this in bugle. Yeah, he probably do. Then you guys,

1534
01:38:20,720 --> 01:38:24,160
Speaker 1: you guys came in and uh facilitated with that couple

1535
01:38:24,240 --> 01:38:27,040
Speaker 1: did to purchase and and and I believe the OLT

1536
01:38:27,040 --> 01:38:29,040
Speaker 1: Foundation was evolved in it. And want to becoming a

1537
01:38:29,080 --> 01:38:35,080
Speaker 1: public access well to give people access to and we're

1538
01:38:35,160 --> 01:38:42,320
Speaker 1: developing some software right now that will identify, uh where

1539
01:38:42,360 --> 01:38:47,160
Speaker 1: properties lie with corners lining up or not lining up, etcetera,

1540
01:38:47,640 --> 01:38:52,360
Speaker 1: in all the Western states. But a good example much

1541
01:38:52,439 --> 01:38:57,120
Speaker 1: like that one, um you mean, in order to enhance access, yes, well,

1542
01:38:57,160 --> 01:39:00,320
Speaker 1: and to find these opportunities little pieces. That was a

1543
01:39:00,360 --> 01:39:03,000
Speaker 1: forty acre piece. But yeah, but just to be clear,

1544
01:39:03,080 --> 01:39:05,000
Speaker 1: that's not that don't really doesn't really do anything for

1545
01:39:05,040 --> 01:39:09,120
Speaker 1: the ELK. I mean, obviously if you buy that, it's

1546
01:39:09,200 --> 01:39:14,760
Speaker 1: good for the public. Yeah. This particular one, uh that

1547
01:39:14,880 --> 01:39:19,000
Speaker 1: happened is you had the county road and you had

1548
01:39:19,040 --> 01:39:22,760
Speaker 1: this great big ranch over here and they owned some

1549
01:39:22,800 --> 01:39:28,839
Speaker 1: property over here. But they're property corners for some reason,

1550
01:39:29,000 --> 01:39:31,000
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how to draw it didn't line

1551
01:39:31,080 --> 01:39:34,320
Speaker 1: up square. There was a hundred feet where they were

1552
01:39:34,520 --> 01:39:39,200
Speaker 1: off and there was a forty acre piece of private

1553
01:39:39,880 --> 01:39:44,120
Speaker 1: where the corner was off by a hundred feet, you know,

1554
01:39:44,160 --> 01:39:48,719
Speaker 1: where they didn't line up exact. And we heard about

1555
01:39:48,720 --> 01:39:51,080
Speaker 1: it through a volunteer of ours that it was going

1556
01:39:51,200 --> 01:39:54,200
Speaker 1: up for sale. It hadn't been offered yet, and the

1557
01:39:54,240 --> 01:39:56,680
Speaker 1: guy that owned the big of a chunkle at this

1558
01:39:56,760 --> 01:39:59,000
Speaker 1: was forty acres. But what it did is it opened

1559
01:39:59,080 --> 01:40:05,840
Speaker 1: up twenty an acre. Yeah. We bought it sight unseen, uh,

1560
01:40:05,880 --> 01:40:09,760
Speaker 1: for a hundred and ninety dollars because this rancher, very

1561
01:40:09,840 --> 01:40:16,160
Speaker 1: large rancher, wanted it to keep things locked up and

1562
01:40:16,160 --> 01:40:19,000
Speaker 1: and we and we turned it over to the Montana

1563
01:40:19,120 --> 01:40:22,240
Speaker 1: Fish Wildlife and Parks and they made a parking lot

1564
01:40:22,280 --> 01:40:26,120
Speaker 1: in a trailhead out of this piece right here, and

1565
01:40:26,200 --> 01:40:28,960
Speaker 1: now today you can go in and access that whole

1566
01:40:29,000 --> 01:40:32,000
Speaker 1: twenty acres. That's what that was, what I'm talking about

1567
01:40:32,120 --> 01:40:34,960
Speaker 1: what could be. Yeah, it was a volunteer and it

1568
01:40:35,080 --> 01:40:36,960
Speaker 1: was a funny story how his wife was like, oh,

1569
01:40:36,960 --> 01:40:41,880
Speaker 1: what's this little piece? Yeah. Yeah, And but there are

1570
01:40:42,560 --> 01:40:46,840
Speaker 1: a lot of those out there that just we don't

1571
01:40:46,880 --> 01:40:51,599
Speaker 1: know about and people don't know about, and those are

1572
01:40:51,720 --> 01:40:54,880
Speaker 1: so ripe for the picking to open up. So you guys,

1573
01:40:55,360 --> 01:40:59,679
Speaker 1: so the Elk Foundation like you guys are looking at um.

1574
01:40:59,800 --> 01:41:04,400
Speaker 1: You guys have a mandate apparently to enhance public access.

1575
01:41:04,560 --> 01:41:09,040
Speaker 1: Access is huge for us and are our members. It'll

1576
01:41:09,080 --> 01:41:13,120
Speaker 1: come back as when we pull our members, it will

1577
01:41:13,160 --> 01:41:16,240
Speaker 1: come back just about every time. Is one of the

1578
01:41:16,240 --> 01:41:21,280
Speaker 1: two top priorities UM that they won't expect from us nowadays.

1579
01:41:21,439 --> 01:41:23,960
Speaker 1: What would be another one? Well, another one who's advocacy

1580
01:41:24,280 --> 01:41:29,160
Speaker 1: advocate for you know, hunting and whatnot and obviously habitat

1581
01:41:29,240 --> 01:41:33,840
Speaker 1: Those are the three big um across the board every time,

1582
01:41:34,560 --> 01:41:38,400
Speaker 1: and you guys try to stay responsive to what people. Yeah,

1583
01:41:38,640 --> 01:41:42,439
Speaker 1: we try to put a lot of effort into all three.

1584
01:41:42,840 --> 01:41:47,080
Speaker 1: And I would say we're we're more actively looking for

1585
01:41:47,120 --> 01:41:52,240
Speaker 1: the access opportunities today than anything else because that just

1586
01:41:52,280 --> 01:41:56,040
Speaker 1: start around that much and somebody private is gonna buy up.

1587
01:41:56,880 --> 01:41:59,880
Speaker 1: It's a tight issue. Well, I'd have to be honest.

1588
01:42:00,200 --> 01:42:04,840
Speaker 1: If I knew what I knew in a different time

1589
01:42:04,840 --> 01:42:07,800
Speaker 1: and place, i'd have paid a hundred nine acres for

1590
01:42:07,840 --> 01:42:10,799
Speaker 1: that piece of ground. It's a beautiful little piece of ground,

1591
01:42:11,200 --> 01:42:13,519
Speaker 1: A little tiny stream goes through it, and I would

1592
01:42:13,560 --> 01:42:16,600
Speaker 1: have had my own private I couldn't do it in

1593
01:42:16,640 --> 01:42:20,400
Speaker 1: this job, but yeah, you know, I mean it would

1594
01:42:20,400 --> 01:42:23,120
Speaker 1: have sold easily. People would have bought and that's why

1595
01:42:23,160 --> 01:42:27,920
Speaker 1: that rancher wanted it. So what's that relationship like now?

1596
01:42:28,160 --> 01:42:31,200
Speaker 1: Is he pissed at you guys? No, I don't think

1597
01:42:31,200 --> 01:42:36,400
Speaker 1: he's so mad so much. Uh, it's been kind of

1598
01:42:36,439 --> 01:42:42,519
Speaker 1: an adversarial relationship with the public anyway. Um. I've actually

1599
01:42:42,560 --> 01:42:44,880
Speaker 1: met with one of them. It's two brothers. It's the

1600
01:42:44,920 --> 01:42:50,480
Speaker 1: Wilkes brothers that are kind of infamous in Montana. They own, uh,

1601
01:42:50,520 --> 01:42:52,719
Speaker 1: well they own I think they might be the largest

1602
01:42:53,040 --> 01:42:56,560
Speaker 1: private landowner in Montana. Now there are the two gentlemen

1603
01:42:56,600 --> 01:43:00,680
Speaker 1: that perfected the fracking technique, and they sold company for

1604
01:43:00,720 --> 01:43:05,080
Speaker 1: a couple of billion dollars bot land, and they're buying

1605
01:43:05,240 --> 01:43:06,960
Speaker 1: more and more of it all the time in in

1606
01:43:07,080 --> 01:43:15,360
Speaker 1: different states, in Idaho and in in Oregon and whatever. Um.

1607
01:43:15,400 --> 01:43:19,559
Speaker 1: But you know, we don't have like a warm and

1608
01:43:19,600 --> 01:43:23,280
Speaker 1: fuzzy with them as far as the relationship. But I

1609
01:43:23,400 --> 01:43:27,599
Speaker 1: try not to get real cross ways with landowners either,

1610
01:43:27,680 --> 01:43:30,880
Speaker 1: because you know, you gotta they gotta be a part

1611
01:43:30,880 --> 01:43:33,120
Speaker 1: of the equation. Yeah, but I mean in that case,

1612
01:43:34,000 --> 01:43:36,519
Speaker 1: it seems to me you're performing a you're performing a

1613
01:43:36,560 --> 01:43:41,280
Speaker 1: public service. Oh we were, no question that's that. Yeah,

1614
01:43:41,400 --> 01:43:43,599
Speaker 1: usually when you try to perform a good public service,

1615
01:43:43,760 --> 01:43:46,200
Speaker 1: probably someone's gonna be pissed. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a

1616
01:43:46,320 --> 01:43:49,439
Speaker 1: general thing, that's true. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean

1617
01:43:50,000 --> 01:43:56,120
Speaker 1: they're not hurting for land or elk. They probably control

1618
01:43:56,240 --> 01:43:58,680
Speaker 1: access to four or five thousand head of elk in

1619
01:43:58,760 --> 01:44:02,559
Speaker 1: central Montana, a low and in that area, so they're

1620
01:44:02,560 --> 01:44:08,479
Speaker 1: okay and they'll yeah yeah yeah, And we would still

1621
01:44:08,520 --> 01:44:13,519
Speaker 1: work with them on anything that made sense for our mission.

1622
01:44:13,720 --> 01:44:15,960
Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm I'm not trying to pick a

1623
01:44:16,000 --> 01:44:18,720
Speaker 1: fight with him, but we'll compete with them if the

1624
01:44:18,880 --> 01:44:23,479
Speaker 1: opportunities there. But that's that same Dirty Hills. Well, that's

1625
01:44:23,479 --> 01:44:27,160
Speaker 1: where the Dirty Hills are at the Dirty Hills are

1626
01:44:27,240 --> 01:44:33,280
Speaker 1: as the crow flies probably oh six seven miles from

1627
01:44:33,320 --> 01:44:37,360
Speaker 1: that little piece that we bought. Yeah, the same thing,

1628
01:44:37,479 --> 01:44:43,840
Speaker 1: you know, So what are the like, what's the what's

1629
01:44:43,880 --> 01:44:46,840
Speaker 1: the future of the old foundation? Looked like you guys

1630
01:44:46,880 --> 01:44:49,080
Speaker 1: are you guys are in a good financial position. We're

1631
01:44:49,160 --> 01:44:54,200
Speaker 1: in a great financial position. Um, yeah, we really are.

1632
01:44:54,320 --> 01:44:58,519
Speaker 1: We've eliminated all of our depth that there was and

1633
01:44:58,800 --> 01:45:05,519
Speaker 1: uh um the ranch that was gifted to us and

1634
01:45:05,680 --> 01:45:09,519
Speaker 1: two thousand in New Mexico and then the family later

1635
01:45:09,640 --> 01:45:13,639
Speaker 1: let us sell that ranch with the agreement that we'd

1636
01:45:13,680 --> 01:45:17,120
Speaker 1: put a hundred percent of it into an endowment fund.

1637
01:45:18,040 --> 01:45:21,120
Speaker 1: It was a concept that I took to them because

1638
01:45:22,040 --> 01:45:25,200
Speaker 1: we're not ranchers and we shouldn't be in the ranching business.

1639
01:45:25,680 --> 01:45:29,080
Speaker 1: So we went back to them and asked them if

1640
01:45:29,080 --> 01:45:32,439
Speaker 1: they would be willing to amend the deed restrictions and whatnot,

1641
01:45:32,479 --> 01:45:37,080
Speaker 1: and and uh, it took about eighteen months when they

1642
01:45:37,120 --> 01:45:41,040
Speaker 1: agreed to it. And so we ended up turning a

1643
01:45:41,160 --> 01:45:47,640
Speaker 1: hundred thousand acre unbelievable Elk property in New Mexico into

1644
01:45:48,320 --> 01:45:53,320
Speaker 1: a thirty million dollar endowment fund. And of course, now

1645
01:45:53,400 --> 01:45:55,880
Speaker 1: that thirty million in the stock market the way it's

1646
01:45:55,920 --> 01:45:59,160
Speaker 1: been the last few years, has grown substantially, so that's

1647
01:45:59,200 --> 01:46:01,280
Speaker 1: given you guys a lot of muscle for somebody's projects.

1648
01:46:01,320 --> 01:46:04,880
Speaker 1: And we agreed that we would not spend anything on

1649
01:46:05,000 --> 01:46:10,920
Speaker 1: that from that endowment on general funding, the light bill, salaries,

1650
01:46:11,000 --> 01:46:16,120
Speaker 1: anything would all be spent on mission and we only

1651
01:46:16,160 --> 01:46:20,559
Speaker 1: take a percentage of the earnings every year. The corpus

1652
01:46:20,680 --> 01:46:26,960
Speaker 1: is never touched, and so it's been generating roughly a

1653
01:46:27,040 --> 01:46:29,840
Speaker 1: million and a half to two million dollars a year

1654
01:46:29,920 --> 01:46:34,200
Speaker 1: of gravy for us to spend on core mission on mission,

1655
01:46:34,760 --> 01:46:38,800
Speaker 1: but even not all your money like you gotta don't

1656
01:46:38,800 --> 01:46:41,200
Speaker 1: you got your obligator to spend. Oh yeah, we have

1657
01:46:41,280 --> 01:46:43,160
Speaker 1: a lot more were I mean, we're spending a lot

1658
01:46:43,200 --> 01:46:46,600
Speaker 1: more than saying like what percentage of you what percentage

1659
01:46:46,600 --> 01:46:52,280
Speaker 1: of your total money goes to mission? Oh? Um, you're

1660
01:46:52,320 --> 01:46:56,800
Speaker 1: talking about how sharing charity navigations, And it's right, it

1661
01:46:56,920 --> 01:47:04,519
Speaker 1: fluctuates depending on the year between to um and some

1662
01:47:04,720 --> 01:47:09,320
Speaker 1: some of that the remainders administrative or promotional. Yeah. Yeah,

1663
01:47:09,360 --> 01:47:13,400
Speaker 1: and that's all in your administrative and cost of fundraising

1664
01:47:13,439 --> 01:47:16,280
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, which is very good. I

1665
01:47:16,320 --> 01:47:19,960
Speaker 1: mean we we uh nearly every year have a four

1666
01:47:20,040 --> 01:47:22,200
Speaker 1: star rating. Every once in a while it might drop

1667
01:47:22,240 --> 01:47:26,200
Speaker 1: to a three. Actually, the sale of that ranch caused

1668
01:47:26,320 --> 01:47:30,719
Speaker 1: us to drop a star in the rating one year

1669
01:47:30,760 --> 01:47:39,439
Speaker 1: because the way Charity Navigators rates organizations nonprofits, it's based

1670
01:47:39,439 --> 01:47:42,559
Speaker 1: on a formula they have, but it's basically how much

1671
01:47:42,600 --> 01:47:45,040
Speaker 1: of the money that comes in is actually going out

1672
01:47:45,160 --> 01:47:50,559
Speaker 1: towards mission. Well, we bring in thirty million dollar sale

1673
01:47:50,560 --> 01:47:54,599
Speaker 1: of a ranch and a million and a half goes out,

1674
01:47:55,520 --> 01:47:59,760
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, made it look bad on paper, but

1675
01:48:00,120 --> 01:48:02,479
Speaker 1: so you look at the bigger picture. Yeah. Yeah, so

1676
01:48:02,960 --> 01:48:05,760
Speaker 1: but that all works out and then we're back to

1677
01:48:05,840 --> 01:48:09,759
Speaker 1: a four, and you know that's okay. Do you feel

1678
01:48:10,200 --> 01:48:15,920
Speaker 1: generally optimistic for ELT when you look ahead ten years,

1679
01:48:15,920 --> 01:48:20,600
Speaker 1: twenty years, Yeah? I do. For that short term. Um,

1680
01:48:20,640 --> 01:48:26,360
Speaker 1: I think, like we talked earlier, I uh, I have

1681
01:48:26,520 --> 01:48:33,080
Speaker 1: more concern maybe for the little bit longer vision down

1682
01:48:33,120 --> 01:48:41,760
Speaker 1: the road of will this culture sustain? And um, I

1683
01:48:41,800 --> 01:48:47,439
Speaker 1: don't know. I just see how much chipping away there

1684
01:48:47,600 --> 01:48:50,880
Speaker 1: is at it from so many angles, from you know,

1685
01:48:51,000 --> 01:48:58,360
Speaker 1: gun rights to UH predator issues to the social issues. Um.

1686
01:48:58,479 --> 01:49:02,120
Speaker 1: I live in Montana. There should not be a public

1687
01:49:02,160 --> 01:49:05,760
Speaker 1: school in Montana that you can't talk about hunting and

1688
01:49:05,760 --> 01:49:11,640
Speaker 1: fishing in. And I can assure you in most of

1689
01:49:11,840 --> 01:49:18,439
Speaker 1: the Billings high schools it isn't very high on. I mean,

1690
01:49:19,040 --> 01:49:22,320
Speaker 1: it's probably frowned upon as much as it is embraced.

1691
01:49:23,280 --> 01:49:27,760
Speaker 1: And that's kind of scary. Um it just I mean,

1692
01:49:27,880 --> 01:49:31,040
Speaker 1: it's such a part of our culture and the legacy

1693
01:49:31,080 --> 01:49:35,720
Speaker 1: of that state that it's like, what is wrong with it?

1694
01:49:37,720 --> 01:49:39,559
Speaker 1: You know? I dealt with well, I lived in New

1695
01:49:39,640 --> 01:49:41,760
Speaker 1: York for a while and dealt with that with my

1696
01:49:41,880 --> 01:49:44,760
Speaker 1: kids there I've dealt with here. I looked that ship

1697
01:49:44,760 --> 01:49:48,000
Speaker 1: in the face and stare it down. I win every time, though,

1698
01:49:48,040 --> 01:49:49,719
Speaker 1: I win every time when I'm dealing with these people.

1699
01:49:49,800 --> 01:49:52,839
Speaker 1: You know why is because you're just speaking the facts,

1700
01:49:53,560 --> 01:49:56,519
Speaker 1: you know, and and what I you know, what I

1701
01:49:56,600 --> 01:49:59,599
Speaker 1: like about the way you do it is you do

1702
01:49:59,640 --> 01:50:04,720
Speaker 1: it a methodically, very matter of fact lee and honestly

1703
01:50:05,160 --> 01:50:07,960
Speaker 1: you don't get all hyped up and you're not making

1704
01:50:08,080 --> 01:50:12,760
Speaker 1: up a bunch of gibberish. And it's like, yeah, we

1705
01:50:12,840 --> 01:50:15,880
Speaker 1: eat meat, this is how you get meat. I mean,

1706
01:50:16,320 --> 01:50:20,400
Speaker 1: most of the people that are criticizing hunting are eating

1707
01:50:20,920 --> 01:50:23,639
Speaker 1: steak and lamb and chicken and whatever else at home.

1708
01:50:23,680 --> 01:50:27,120
Speaker 1: If they had any idea how that actually got to

1709
01:50:27,240 --> 01:50:32,080
Speaker 1: their to their plate. And and not only are they

1710
01:50:32,080 --> 01:50:35,280
Speaker 1: eating meat, but they're not putting a dime or a thought,

1711
01:50:35,840 --> 01:50:39,320
Speaker 1: a diver thought, and a long term like the long

1712
01:50:39,439 --> 01:50:41,840
Speaker 1: term well being of wildlife in America, not a bit.

1713
01:50:42,400 --> 01:50:47,479
Speaker 1: I think it just all happens with having nice thoughts. Yeah, yeah,

1714
01:50:47,520 --> 01:50:51,800
Speaker 1: they live in a in a mythical Yeah, I just

1715
01:50:51,920 --> 01:50:54,519
Speaker 1: think enough about how much I like animals, everything will

1716
01:50:54,560 --> 01:50:56,720
Speaker 1: be taken care of. It's like, that's not how it's

1717
01:50:56,760 --> 01:51:00,479
Speaker 1: gonna be told. So when we grew up up it's

1718
01:51:01,320 --> 01:51:03,880
Speaker 1: you know, we all grew up with that, or at

1719
01:51:03,960 --> 01:51:08,160
Speaker 1: least I did. It's the Disney syndrome of Bambi and

1720
01:51:08,200 --> 01:51:12,880
Speaker 1: all of that. And folks, even the people that talk

1721
01:51:13,000 --> 01:51:15,960
Speaker 1: about man needs to get all the way and let

1722
01:51:16,040 --> 01:51:19,400
Speaker 1: nature take care of itself, if they had any idea

1723
01:51:19,479 --> 01:51:23,559
Speaker 1: how cruel nature really is at times, and it is,

1724
01:51:23,920 --> 01:51:27,439
Speaker 1: that's part of nature. Uh look at the winter we

1725
01:51:27,520 --> 01:51:30,720
Speaker 1: just had. Oh yeah, yeah, and then you look at

1726
01:51:31,120 --> 01:51:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, and I get it a lot over the

1727
01:51:33,000 --> 01:51:39,120
Speaker 1: predator debates. Well, and I don't uh fault the predators

1728
01:51:39,160 --> 01:51:43,520
Speaker 1: for it. That's what they are. But it's a grizzly

1729
01:51:43,640 --> 01:51:47,799
Speaker 1: process for no no pun intended for a a wolf

1730
01:51:47,920 --> 01:51:50,960
Speaker 1: or a bear to bring down an adult elk and

1731
01:51:52,600 --> 01:51:56,080
Speaker 1: kill it and need it. And sometimes they eat it

1732
01:51:56,520 --> 01:51:58,720
Speaker 1: before it died, before they kill it, you know, And

1733
01:51:59,200 --> 01:52:02,400
Speaker 1: cruel is it's if exactly how we look at it,

1734
01:52:02,439 --> 01:52:05,840
Speaker 1: exactly that DearS me eating half alive might not look

1735
01:52:05,880 --> 01:52:11,000
Speaker 1: at it as tho. We do not know that, yeah right, yeah,

1736
01:52:11,000 --> 01:52:13,320
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know what they think. It's just

1737
01:52:13,439 --> 01:52:17,960
Speaker 1: their day to day. Yeah, they're they're surviving every day

1738
01:52:18,000 --> 01:52:22,639
Speaker 1: that's that's there. That's all they're worried about staying alive,

1739
01:52:23,600 --> 01:52:28,840
Speaker 1: you know. So, um that stuff worries me because there's

1740
01:52:28,840 --> 01:52:35,160
Speaker 1: so much political that can be injected into this. And um,

1741
01:52:35,280 --> 01:52:37,800
Speaker 1: I mean you look at the state of California. You know,

1742
01:52:37,880 --> 01:52:41,200
Speaker 1: we we kind of laughingly joke about it once in

1743
01:52:41,200 --> 01:52:44,800
Speaker 1: a while, but it's getting harder and harder for real

1744
01:52:44,920 --> 01:52:50,400
Speaker 1: wildlife uh management to take place there. It's getting so

1745
01:52:50,560 --> 01:52:57,640
Speaker 1: restrictive and so controlled by oh well H s U

1746
01:52:57,880 --> 01:53:00,240
Speaker 1: s and some of those folks that the influence is

1747
01:53:00,280 --> 01:53:04,960
Speaker 1: so heavy. Ah, So you feel that like, uh, like

1748
01:53:05,920 --> 01:53:11,840
Speaker 1: you might see a gradual erosion of people who are

1749
01:53:11,880 --> 01:53:18,959
Speaker 1: incentivized to perform duties of wildlife conservation, financial work donors,

1750
01:53:19,000 --> 01:53:22,840
Speaker 1: just because of a degradation of like the culture around hunting. Yeah,

1751
01:53:23,000 --> 01:53:25,559
Speaker 1: and we become more and more urbanized all the time,

1752
01:53:25,600 --> 01:53:30,200
Speaker 1: and we're more and more removed from the wildlife and

1753
01:53:30,240 --> 01:53:34,679
Speaker 1: from rural and um I I want us the Elk

1754
01:53:34,720 --> 01:53:40,320
Speaker 1: Foundation to start an effort in promoting rural values because

1755
01:53:40,320 --> 01:53:42,840
Speaker 1: that's where really all of this hits the road, is

1756
01:53:42,840 --> 01:53:47,479
Speaker 1: the wildlife's in the rural areas and and it's uh,

1757
01:53:47,479 --> 01:53:51,519
Speaker 1: it's so key to the future of wildlife the rural. Besides,

1758
01:53:52,400 --> 01:53:55,680
Speaker 1: I just like rural better I do. I think I

1759
01:53:55,720 --> 01:53:58,679
Speaker 1: think they're more aligned with my values. I'm not saying

1760
01:53:59,800 --> 01:54:05,720
Speaker 1: the you're person yeah right, Oh no, I I hear you.

1761
01:54:05,800 --> 01:54:07,160
Speaker 1: You know, I think that one of the best ways

1762
01:54:07,160 --> 01:54:13,479
Speaker 1: ever heard it put was, um, that there's a you know,

1763
01:54:13,520 --> 01:54:15,439
Speaker 1: I've lived much of my life in urban areas, but

1764
01:54:16,280 --> 01:54:19,519
Speaker 1: I was born in a rural area, living an urban area. Um,

1765
01:54:20,600 --> 01:54:25,040
Speaker 1: but there's a perception, I think it's kind of a

1766
01:54:25,080 --> 01:54:31,000
Speaker 1: toxic perception in urban America of wildlife as a relic

1767
01:54:31,520 --> 01:54:36,360
Speaker 1: of the past. Yeah, where it's like you're looking at

1768
01:54:36,400 --> 01:54:39,400
Speaker 1: this thing that doesn't really relate to us, and it

1769
01:54:39,520 --> 01:54:43,160
Speaker 1: kind of exists as this reminder of the way things

1770
01:54:43,280 --> 01:54:46,720
Speaker 1: once were, and um, it's best just kind of like

1771
01:54:46,760 --> 01:54:51,040
Speaker 1: looked at, you know. And that Foster's kind of a

1772
01:54:51,160 --> 01:54:56,520
Speaker 1: naive perspective on what it takes to maintain and manage

1773
01:54:56,560 --> 01:55:00,800
Speaker 1: these things that are not going to just because the

1774
01:55:00,920 --> 01:55:06,480
Speaker 1: nature of civilization and being in the industrialized world, that

1775
01:55:07,080 --> 01:55:11,080
Speaker 1: aren't going to remain static with no one minding them.

1776
01:55:11,800 --> 01:55:13,960
Speaker 1: It's like every islence of the ground we have at

1777
01:55:13,960 --> 01:55:17,960
Speaker 1: this point up until eight I don't know what the

1778
01:55:17,960 --> 01:55:21,640
Speaker 1: hell was up until eighteen nine when the Frontier officially closed.

1779
01:55:21,800 --> 01:55:27,560
Speaker 1: Up until ninety we had accidentally wild areas. They were

1780
01:55:27,560 --> 01:55:32,080
Speaker 1: wild because they hadn't you know, no one had gotten

1781
01:55:32,120 --> 01:55:36,160
Speaker 1: there yet. Had everything we have now, all the wild

1782
01:55:36,160 --> 01:55:38,880
Speaker 1: life we have now and all the wild places we

1783
01:55:38,920 --> 01:55:43,560
Speaker 1: have now are because someone made an took active steps

1784
01:55:43,600 --> 01:55:45,800
Speaker 1: to make sure that that was the case. It's not

1785
01:55:45,880 --> 01:55:48,400
Speaker 1: just there because like, oh, it's just there because God

1786
01:55:48,440 --> 01:55:50,920
Speaker 1: put it there. It's like now, it's like there because

1787
01:55:50,960 --> 01:55:56,400
Speaker 1: someone or somebody of people made some sacrifices and did

1788
01:55:56,440 --> 01:55:58,480
Speaker 1: some stuff and spent some money or whatever to make

1789
01:55:58,520 --> 01:56:02,040
Speaker 1: it be there. It's a very different kind of like

1790
01:56:02,120 --> 01:56:04,280
Speaker 1: we live in a very different kind of world. And

1791
01:56:04,320 --> 01:56:08,040
Speaker 1: to act like we're gonna somehow step away from wildlife

1792
01:56:08,080 --> 01:56:12,560
Speaker 1: management and wild wild lands management and have this eden,

1793
01:56:13,920 --> 01:56:15,680
Speaker 1: you know, where no one even looks at it or

1794
01:56:15,800 --> 01:56:19,600
Speaker 1: touches it, it's just like it's false and you can't.

1795
01:56:19,640 --> 01:56:21,480
Speaker 1: You're not gonna go anywhere around the world and point

1796
01:56:21,680 --> 01:56:24,760
Speaker 1: out of place that works like that. No, you're absolutely right.

1797
01:56:24,800 --> 01:56:28,040
Speaker 1: And that's why the whole public lands debate and all

1798
01:56:28,080 --> 01:56:33,920
Speaker 1: that other stuff becomes even more Germane today is we

1799
01:56:34,040 --> 01:56:36,720
Speaker 1: have to have it. Without it, this whole thing crumbles

1800
01:56:36,880 --> 01:56:39,040
Speaker 1: when it goes away. And the fact that we're back

1801
01:56:39,080 --> 01:56:42,960
Speaker 1: to happen like that conversation. And that's like one of

1802
01:56:42,960 --> 01:56:47,080
Speaker 1: the things that are very happy with with some of

1803
01:56:47,080 --> 01:56:48,960
Speaker 1: the people we have in power right now, is it

1804
01:56:48,960 --> 01:56:50,840
Speaker 1: seems like there's some good resistance. I mean, you have

1805
01:56:50,880 --> 01:56:54,760
Speaker 1: people in power who are pushing against federal land management

1806
01:56:54,920 --> 01:56:57,800
Speaker 1: on behalf of the American people, but also some powerful

1807
01:56:57,840 --> 01:57:02,160
Speaker 1: people now who are uphole are very old and very

1808
01:57:02,200 --> 01:57:06,720
Speaker 1: successful idea. Yeah, land management on behalf of the American people. Yeah,

1809
01:57:06,840 --> 01:57:09,480
Speaker 1: and it yeah. And and not to get into that

1810
01:57:09,480 --> 01:57:12,800
Speaker 1: whole debate because you know it's been hashed over so

1811
01:57:12,880 --> 01:57:19,000
Speaker 1: many times, but it's just physically and fiscally impossible. It's

1812
01:57:18,520 --> 01:57:22,280
Speaker 1: just it's just a ludatic idea to think that states

1813
01:57:22,320 --> 01:57:24,920
Speaker 1: are going to take over these places and all of

1814
01:57:24,960 --> 01:57:28,880
Speaker 1: a sudden it's just gonna be so much better. It's like,

1815
01:57:29,360 --> 01:57:32,600
Speaker 1: for what what what are you basing that on? There's

1816
01:57:32,600 --> 01:57:34,960
Speaker 1: no there's no good example to go look at. Well,

1817
01:57:35,400 --> 01:57:39,240
Speaker 1: but where that's coming from to me is where the

1818
01:57:39,280 --> 01:57:44,400
Speaker 1: debate needs to go is what's driving that guy our

1819
01:57:44,520 --> 01:57:49,520
Speaker 1: gal to want to change ownership or direction of that

1820
01:57:49,600 --> 01:57:55,280
Speaker 1: public land. Most of it's coming from there's some deficiencies

1821
01:57:55,320 --> 01:57:59,120
Speaker 1: on that public land now and it's making people crazy.

1822
01:57:59,480 --> 01:58:02,600
Speaker 1: And that's where the debate needs to go. And we

1823
01:58:02,680 --> 01:58:07,040
Speaker 1: got to fix our public land management strategy. Part of

1824
01:58:07,040 --> 01:58:10,080
Speaker 1: the problem is we don't really have a strategy in

1825
01:58:10,120 --> 01:58:15,360
Speaker 1: so many areas now. Has just been so much lawsuits

1826
01:58:15,440 --> 01:58:19,840
Speaker 1: and fighting and political posturing and all of that. It's

1827
01:58:19,880 --> 01:58:22,520
Speaker 1: time to like treat some of the symptoms. Yeah, yeah,

1828
01:58:22,640 --> 01:58:26,920
Speaker 1: forget instead of euthanizing the patient. Yeah exactly, yeah, because

1829
01:58:27,000 --> 01:58:30,040
Speaker 1: you will absolutely kill the patient, you know, and then

1830
01:58:30,120 --> 01:58:34,720
Speaker 1: we'll have nothing. So let's fix Let's get some real

1831
01:58:36,000 --> 01:58:40,720
Speaker 1: uh debate going, and let's make some adults get in

1832
01:58:40,760 --> 01:58:44,040
Speaker 1: the room and sit at the table and say, Okay,

1833
01:58:44,640 --> 01:58:49,800
Speaker 1: when I say logging, you say clear cut. That's not

1834
01:58:50,160 --> 01:58:53,120
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta stop this stuff. Having clear cutting

1835
01:58:53,160 --> 01:58:56,520
Speaker 1: over thirty years in this country. But the minute we say,

1836
01:58:56,520 --> 01:58:58,960
Speaker 1: well we want to do a timber harvest or a

1837
01:58:59,000 --> 01:59:01,600
Speaker 1: thinning project, they're gonna clear cut. Oh my god, let's

1838
01:59:01,640 --> 01:59:04,800
Speaker 1: get to the courthouse. We gotta sue them. It's like no.

1839
01:59:05,120 --> 01:59:07,600
Speaker 1: And you feel that that kind of stuff creates that animosity,

1840
01:59:08,240 --> 01:59:11,040
Speaker 1: it's driving a lot of it. It's driving a lot

1841
01:59:11,080 --> 01:59:15,640
Speaker 1: of it, and it's not helpful at all. And it's

1842
01:59:15,680 --> 01:59:19,200
Speaker 1: not it's not helping the wildlife. It's not helping the

1843
01:59:19,320 --> 01:59:24,240
Speaker 1: land and and it's uh ruining the whole debate. And

1844
01:59:24,360 --> 01:59:27,120
Speaker 1: you know, we got to start managing these lands. We

1845
01:59:27,200 --> 01:59:31,400
Speaker 1: can't make everything wilderness. I am sorry. I love going

1846
01:59:31,440 --> 01:59:34,760
Speaker 1: into world. I've had some great experiences in wilderness, but

1847
01:59:34,800 --> 01:59:37,720
Speaker 1: it's not the best habitat in the world. Um, the

1848
01:59:37,760 --> 01:59:41,480
Speaker 1: best habitats where these animals are hanging out most of

1849
01:59:41,480 --> 01:59:46,720
Speaker 1: the time is private land. That's because it's managed for

1850
01:59:46,760 --> 01:59:52,720
Speaker 1: another reason, you know. But um, we we gotta get

1851
01:59:52,760 --> 01:59:55,320
Speaker 1: some adults at the table, and it needs to start

1852
01:59:55,360 --> 01:59:58,560
Speaker 1: with our political leaders. They got to quit trying to

1853
01:59:58,600 --> 02:00:03,920
Speaker 1: take advantage of the squeaky wheels and trying to you know,

1854
02:00:04,160 --> 02:00:07,560
Speaker 1: make political hay out of it, which is all they're doing.

1855
02:00:07,640 --> 02:00:13,120
Speaker 1: They're just trying to leverage uh, somebody's passion or somebody's heartburn,

1856
02:00:14,160 --> 02:00:18,560
Speaker 1: and they're not providing any solutions or any answers or

1857
02:00:18,600 --> 02:00:22,720
Speaker 1: any fixes. They're not trying to. It seems a lot

1858
02:00:22,760 --> 02:00:25,920
Speaker 1: like burning the house down. Now. Oh it's crazy, it's

1859
02:00:25,960 --> 02:00:34,000
Speaker 1: it's insane. So yeah, ye, including thoughts. What's uh, what

1860
02:00:34,040 --> 02:00:37,200
Speaker 1: would what would be like a surprise state that's like

1861
02:00:37,320 --> 02:00:39,480
Speaker 1: that you know of that that people are thinking about

1862
02:00:39,560 --> 02:00:43,040
Speaker 1: trying to decent elk work that it's not on anyone's radar,

1863
02:00:43,360 --> 02:00:46,240
Speaker 1: like maybe back east that might be coming up soon.

1864
02:00:46,440 --> 02:00:49,960
Speaker 1: Well i'll tell you where we get right now, the

1865
02:00:50,080 --> 02:00:56,240
Speaker 1: most calls from through our volunteers and whatnot, uh consistently

1866
02:00:56,400 --> 02:01:03,400
Speaker 1: is New York, upstate New York. And we're not opposed

1867
02:01:03,440 --> 02:01:07,680
Speaker 1: to it, but they gotta get you know, the state

1868
02:01:09,480 --> 02:01:12,000
Speaker 1: on board, and they got to get their wildlife agency

1869
02:01:12,040 --> 02:01:17,080
Speaker 1: on board, and some wildlife agencies just for whatever reason

1870
02:01:17,200 --> 02:01:20,160
Speaker 1: or probably a number of reasons, they just don't want

1871
02:01:20,160 --> 02:01:24,440
Speaker 1: to bite it off. It's you know, it's hil with

1872
02:01:24,480 --> 02:01:27,720
Speaker 1: the hassle. Yeah. Yeah, and they know that it's gonna

1873
02:01:27,760 --> 02:01:30,600
Speaker 1: be a hassle. And I'm not saying that's New York.

1874
02:01:30,640 --> 02:01:33,800
Speaker 1: I don't know, but but it comes up along. Do

1875
02:01:33,880 --> 02:01:37,960
Speaker 1: you guys help um? If you have private citizens saying hey,

1876
02:01:38,040 --> 02:01:40,280
Speaker 1: let's make this happen in New York and you say, well,

1877
02:01:40,360 --> 02:01:42,160
Speaker 1: you got a lot of You've got a lot of

1878
02:01:42,200 --> 02:01:44,240
Speaker 1: groundwork to take care of before we can get involved,

1879
02:01:44,840 --> 02:01:47,320
Speaker 1: do you kind of help them understand what that might

1880
02:01:47,360 --> 02:01:50,480
Speaker 1: look like. Yeah, we will tell them. And the very

1881
02:01:50,560 --> 02:01:54,720
Speaker 1: first thing is their wildlife agency, whether it's fishing, game

1882
02:01:54,840 --> 02:01:58,520
Speaker 1: or whatever they call it. That agency has to sit

1883
02:01:58,560 --> 02:02:03,640
Speaker 1: down and start to eveloping a long term management plan.

1884
02:02:04,320 --> 02:02:07,320
Speaker 1: But do you guys help with that? Sure, absolutely, will

1885
02:02:07,440 --> 02:02:11,520
Speaker 1: will stance. But you can't make them want. We can't

1886
02:02:11,560 --> 02:02:14,520
Speaker 1: make them, that's correct, right, they have to want to

1887
02:02:14,560 --> 02:02:19,080
Speaker 1: do it first. And like in the case of West Virginia,

1888
02:02:19,720 --> 02:02:22,960
Speaker 1: this was a governor, uh, the governor who was just

1889
02:02:23,120 --> 02:02:28,880
Speaker 1: turning out there who he's from the area where they're

1890
02:02:29,040 --> 02:02:32,920
Speaker 1: releasing them and reintroducing them, and he is like, we're

1891
02:02:32,920 --> 02:02:36,120
Speaker 1: gonna make this happen. And then all of a sudden,

1892
02:02:36,120 --> 02:02:42,440
Speaker 1: everybody got religion. But until that happened, it was like, yeah,

1893
02:02:42,560 --> 02:02:45,120
Speaker 1: you know, well we don't know, we got other things

1894
02:02:45,120 --> 02:02:48,200
Speaker 1: to do. Didn't have a good partner on the ground. Yeah,

1895
02:02:48,240 --> 02:02:51,120
Speaker 1: and it has to come from the state agency first,

1896
02:02:51,400 --> 02:02:53,880
Speaker 1: and then yeah, then a lot of wheels can start

1897
02:02:53,920 --> 02:02:57,240
Speaker 1: sharing and upstate New York, from what little I know

1898
02:02:57,320 --> 02:02:59,520
Speaker 1: about it would probably be a pretty good area in

1899
02:02:59,640 --> 02:03:04,680
Speaker 1: something around that. Yeah. Yeah, our our members out there

1900
02:03:04,720 --> 02:03:08,360
Speaker 1: and be like all over it, and you can imagine

1901
02:03:08,360 --> 02:03:10,320
Speaker 1: the people out there that would be all over it.

1902
02:03:11,800 --> 02:03:16,200
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll be watching for it. Yeah, I would

1903
02:03:16,280 --> 02:03:18,240
Speaker 1: love to see it. I mean, catch one right now

1904
02:03:18,240 --> 02:03:21,560
Speaker 1: and turn them loose. Yeah, between the four of us,

1905
02:03:21,560 --> 02:03:24,240
Speaker 1: we could drive straight there. I was kind of the

1906
02:03:24,320 --> 02:03:29,560
Speaker 1: second one. You have a high level position. We uh

1907
02:03:29,720 --> 02:03:32,160
Speaker 1: we touched on a little bit where you're where you're saying,

1908
02:03:32,200 --> 02:03:34,720
Speaker 1: how in California, you know, it's getting really hard to

1909
02:03:34,720 --> 02:03:38,120
Speaker 1: make any sort of you know, real wildlife management decisions.

1910
02:03:38,160 --> 02:03:40,400
Speaker 1: And it seems like a lot of places, and I

1911
02:03:40,440 --> 02:03:43,000
Speaker 1: believe Michigan sort of is. They're trying to address it,

1912
02:03:43,040 --> 02:03:48,080
Speaker 1: but where um, we're not letting science no make those

1913
02:03:48,120 --> 02:03:50,960
Speaker 1: decisions anymore. And I kind of feel like science is

1914
02:03:50,960 --> 02:03:53,640
Speaker 1: stuck in the middle because you have people like um,

1915
02:03:53,880 --> 02:03:57,480
Speaker 1: humane society, you know, just they get people emotionally riled up.

1916
02:03:57,680 --> 02:04:01,200
Speaker 1: They can let them, you know, make get decisions made

1917
02:04:01,520 --> 02:04:04,000
Speaker 1: point that direction. And then on the other side of

1918
02:04:04,040 --> 02:04:07,400
Speaker 1: the spectrum you have the you know, you know, if

1919
02:04:07,400 --> 02:04:10,040
Speaker 1: it's like a predator issue or whatever, that again isn't

1920
02:04:10,080 --> 02:04:13,200
Speaker 1: you know, science base, and it goes you know, and

1921
02:04:13,240 --> 02:04:17,120
Speaker 1: it's just like science is stuck in the middle. And yeah,

1922
02:04:17,280 --> 02:04:19,000
Speaker 1: it seems like a big problem, but I don't know

1923
02:04:19,000 --> 02:04:22,720
Speaker 1: how to address it. Yeah, science is being manipulated and used,

1924
02:04:22,880 --> 02:04:27,240
Speaker 1: and um, you know, put it in the jargon of

1925
02:04:27,320 --> 02:04:30,520
Speaker 1: nowadays is there's probably some fake science and some real

1926
02:04:30,560 --> 02:04:36,280
Speaker 1: science and whose science are you gonna believe? And um,

1927
02:04:37,760 --> 02:04:42,680
Speaker 1: it's sad because when we lose real science, we're really

1928
02:04:42,680 --> 02:04:48,040
Speaker 1: gonna lose. So, um, there's a lot of that. Playing

1929
02:04:48,080 --> 02:04:52,320
Speaker 1: on emotions you mentioned is a huge one. Uh. You

1930
02:04:52,360 --> 02:04:54,760
Speaker 1: know there's things that oh, look at this. Uh, this

1931
02:04:54,840 --> 02:04:57,040
Speaker 1: is the thing I kept wanting to talk about, is

1932
02:04:57,120 --> 02:05:03,640
Speaker 1: the House Joint Resolution sixty nine, right exactly? Let me yeah,

1933
02:05:03,680 --> 02:05:05,640
Speaker 1: can I can? I? Yeah, I wanted to comment on this.

1934
02:05:05,840 --> 02:05:13,040
Speaker 1: But so a state, like generally, states managed wildlife in

1935
02:05:13,080 --> 02:05:19,160
Speaker 1: their state regardless of who owns. So, um, if you

1936
02:05:19,200 --> 02:05:22,960
Speaker 1: have a state, let's say Wisconsin, right, you got some

1937
02:05:23,120 --> 02:05:26,520
Speaker 1: state land, some federal lands, some privately held land, some

1938
02:05:26,640 --> 02:05:30,800
Speaker 1: county land, and let's just say we're talking about turkeys,

1939
02:05:31,880 --> 02:05:35,960
Speaker 1: turkeys living all this stuff, but those turkeys are managed

1940
02:05:36,000 --> 02:05:40,440
Speaker 1: by the state regardless of what bit of land they happened. Now,

1941
02:05:40,480 --> 02:05:41,960
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say, like, well, how come

1942
02:05:41,960 --> 02:05:45,240
Speaker 1: you are I saying that federal land management is good

1943
02:05:47,240 --> 02:05:51,160
Speaker 1: and state land management is good, Like how could that be?

1944
02:05:51,200 --> 02:05:52,840
Speaker 1: Like how why wouldn't it be that one is better

1945
02:05:52,880 --> 02:05:56,920
Speaker 1: for everything? Well, the same reason that like, uh, the

1946
02:05:57,000 --> 02:05:59,600
Speaker 1: federal government is really good at maintain in the military,

1947
02:06:00,400 --> 02:06:03,440
Speaker 1: the state government is real good at licensing vehicles. And

1948
02:06:03,480 --> 02:06:06,400
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with inertia. States

1949
02:06:06,400 --> 02:06:10,320
Speaker 1: have managed wildlife very successfully for over a century, and

1950
02:06:10,360 --> 02:06:14,040
Speaker 1: the federal government has done relatively a pretty good job

1951
02:06:14,080 --> 02:06:18,040
Speaker 1: with large tracts of undeveloped land over a century plus.

1952
02:06:18,600 --> 02:06:22,520
Speaker 1: And interrupting that static system that has proved pretty successful

1953
02:06:23,600 --> 02:06:25,960
Speaker 1: is going to lead to problems or could potentially lead

1954
02:06:26,000 --> 02:06:28,880
Speaker 1: to problems or lead us to unknown areas. And state

1955
02:06:28,920 --> 02:06:32,600
Speaker 1: management works well. But in Alaska you have of the

1956
02:06:32,640 --> 02:06:37,160
Speaker 1: state is refuge land National refuge Under the Obama administration,

1957
02:06:39,640 --> 02:06:46,160
Speaker 1: man some management, some wildlife management aspects were stripped away

1958
02:06:46,320 --> 02:06:52,480
Speaker 1: from the state on national wildlife refuge lands, so they

1959
02:06:52,520 --> 02:06:54,920
Speaker 1: had always managed it. Then there was a period that

1960
02:06:55,000 --> 02:06:57,600
Speaker 1: came up during the eight years the Obama administration where

1961
02:06:57,600 --> 02:07:02,000
Speaker 1: they lost some of that management capability. Now we're correcting

1962
02:07:02,040 --> 02:07:06,200
Speaker 1: the situation and we're in the process of handing Alaska

1963
02:07:06,320 --> 02:07:12,640
Speaker 1: man its own management of the wildlife everywhere in the

1964
02:07:12,680 --> 02:07:15,840
Speaker 1: state back to them. So we have this thing. Now,

1965
02:07:15,920 --> 02:07:20,080
Speaker 1: all the management practices that Alaska does with predator control

1966
02:07:20,120 --> 02:07:24,200
Speaker 1: or whatever is happening on eight of the state already.

1967
02:07:24,600 --> 02:07:30,400
Speaker 1: It's happening everywhere, always was happening there, Okay. So all

1968
02:07:30,440 --> 02:07:34,440
Speaker 1: of this killing wolf babies and digging grizzlies out of

1969
02:07:34,480 --> 02:07:37,120
Speaker 1: holes in the ground and torturing them and killing them

1970
02:07:37,480 --> 02:07:42,960
Speaker 1: and slaughtering cubs is all ship that has not been

1971
02:07:43,040 --> 02:07:47,200
Speaker 1: happening categorically across of the state. And they were doing

1972
02:07:47,240 --> 02:07:51,800
Speaker 1: the same management practices on the chunk of land up

1973
02:07:51,880 --> 02:07:56,520
Speaker 1: until recently anyways, And in their tool kit that they

1974
02:07:56,520 --> 02:08:00,240
Speaker 1: have at their disposal to do management is a thing

1975
02:08:00,280 --> 02:08:04,320
Speaker 1: called predator control. Where now and then, depending on the situation,

1976
02:08:04,720 --> 02:08:06,520
Speaker 1: you will have a rise of thing where you have

1977
02:08:07,000 --> 02:08:12,240
Speaker 1: a population of animals that becomes somewhat endangered through predation,

1978
02:08:12,680 --> 02:08:15,400
Speaker 1: and in a way to alleviate pressure on that population

1979
02:08:15,440 --> 02:08:18,120
Speaker 1: of animal, be at a herd of moves, herd of

1980
02:08:18,200 --> 02:08:21,960
Speaker 1: caribou could be a non game species, you might get

1981
02:08:22,000 --> 02:08:27,600
Speaker 1: aggressive about curbing predator numbers on that spot. That's something

1982
02:08:27,600 --> 02:08:29,880
Speaker 1: that Alaska, like I said, they do it in eight

1983
02:08:30,040 --> 02:08:32,120
Speaker 1: percent of their state. They used to do it in

1984
02:08:32,120 --> 02:08:36,160
Speaker 1: one they're gonna now be doing it on again. The

1985
02:08:36,200 --> 02:08:38,280
Speaker 1: fact that people have turned this into that they're now

1986
02:08:38,360 --> 02:08:43,760
Speaker 1: being allowed to like torture baby bears is what they're

1987
02:08:43,800 --> 02:08:47,120
Speaker 1: getting at, is this. It would be like there are

1988
02:08:47,160 --> 02:08:52,120
Speaker 1: bear seasons, Okay, so if you move a bear season

1989
02:08:52,200 --> 02:08:54,680
Speaker 1: early enough, people like, oh, bears are still in their

1990
02:08:54,760 --> 02:08:57,840
Speaker 1: den at that time, but the season is now open

1991
02:08:58,000 --> 02:09:01,040
Speaker 1: early enough where they're in the den. Therefore, now there's

1992
02:09:01,040 --> 02:09:03,480
Speaker 1: gonna be den digging. I'll point out that the Coyakok,

1993
02:09:04,800 --> 02:09:07,360
Speaker 1: the Native Alaskans, the Coyakok who live on the coya

1994
02:09:07,560 --> 02:09:11,480
Speaker 1: uh Con River, they know they dig bears out of

1995
02:09:11,520 --> 02:09:14,600
Speaker 1: den's because they think that any chicken ship could shoot

1996
02:09:14,600 --> 02:09:16,480
Speaker 1: a bear out of the ground. Takes special man to

1997
02:09:16,480 --> 02:09:17,960
Speaker 1: go down to the the den and drag him out of

1998
02:09:18,000 --> 02:09:20,760
Speaker 1: there and kill them. So there are some den diggers,

1999
02:09:21,280 --> 02:09:25,320
Speaker 1: and that's one group, a Native Alaskan group. But all

2000
02:09:25,360 --> 02:09:27,600
Speaker 1: of this talk you're hearing when you go on Facebook,

2001
02:09:27,640 --> 02:09:31,080
Speaker 1: all this bullshit about like all this awful stuff it's

2002
02:09:31,080 --> 02:09:34,080
Speaker 1: gonna happen all these animals, It's just like you're looking

2003
02:09:34,120 --> 02:09:38,400
Speaker 1: at what they're doing is taking management policies, looking at

2004
02:09:38,440 --> 02:09:41,800
Speaker 1: some kind of absurd worst case scenario that might arise

2005
02:09:41,960 --> 02:09:45,400
Speaker 1: out of a management policy, should they deem it necessary

2006
02:09:45,440 --> 02:09:48,120
Speaker 1: at some undetermined time in the future to do some

2007
02:09:48,240 --> 02:09:54,000
Speaker 1: level of predator control on of Alaskan ground. That's what

2008
02:09:54,040 --> 02:09:57,160
Speaker 1: this is all about. That's absurd and welcome to the

2009
02:09:57,200 --> 02:10:04,600
Speaker 1: playbook of the h you know, extreme environmentalist animal rights whatever.

2010
02:10:05,000 --> 02:10:07,640
Speaker 1: That that's right out of their playbook. If it's like

2011
02:10:07,680 --> 02:10:10,480
Speaker 1: I said a minute ago, If I say logging, they

2012
02:10:10,520 --> 02:10:15,480
Speaker 1: say clear cut. If I say, uh, wolf management in

2013
02:10:15,520 --> 02:10:19,960
Speaker 1: Alaska or bear management in Alaska, they'll say what you

2014
02:10:20,080 --> 02:10:25,680
Speaker 1: just described, that's slaughter till every wolf. Take it to

2015
02:10:25,760 --> 02:10:31,360
Speaker 1: the absolute extreme because they know there is a percentage

2016
02:10:31,360 --> 02:10:34,800
Speaker 1: of the population A doesn't know better and B isn't

2017
02:10:34,800 --> 02:10:38,240
Speaker 1: going to research anything, and they'll they'll buy it. And

2018
02:10:38,560 --> 02:10:42,440
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, primarily Dan ash who was head of

2019
02:10:42,760 --> 02:10:47,440
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Service at the time, caved to that

2020
02:10:47,560 --> 02:10:55,200
Speaker 1: kind of uh uh social pressure uh And basically because

2021
02:10:55,320 --> 02:10:58,600
Speaker 1: Dan knew he was leaving that job, and he came

2022
02:10:58,760 --> 02:11:02,920
Speaker 1: to it on his way out the door and said, here,

2023
02:11:03,840 --> 02:11:07,320
Speaker 1: Trump administration, Merry Christmas, here's a little present for you.

2024
02:11:08,360 --> 02:11:10,760
Speaker 1: That's about what happened. And it was like it was

2025
02:11:10,800 --> 02:11:15,080
Speaker 1: like someone the way animal rights works is you'all, you're

2026
02:11:15,080 --> 02:11:19,120
Speaker 1: always sort of looking for like a they're preg they're

2027
02:11:19,120 --> 02:11:21,480
Speaker 1: pragmatic in a way. They always look for like a

2028
02:11:21,520 --> 02:11:25,200
Speaker 1: little thing you could win, sure, right, so don't have

2029
02:11:25,240 --> 02:11:28,960
Speaker 1: to win the whole thing. Little. Yeah, it's like let's

2030
02:11:28,960 --> 02:11:32,080
Speaker 1: say hot mountain lions with dogs. We'll probably win that

2031
02:11:32,800 --> 02:11:38,320
Speaker 1: because if you pull Americans, hunting has a higher approval

2032
02:11:38,440 --> 02:11:41,960
Speaker 1: rating now that it didn't in the now in the

2033
02:11:42,000 --> 02:11:47,800
Speaker 1: seventies seventies, some percent of Americans support regulated hunting. But

2034
02:11:48,160 --> 02:11:51,240
Speaker 1: when you parse it out and start asking about individual

2035
02:11:51,400 --> 02:11:56,560
Speaker 1: aspects upon you'll find areas that enjoy less support. So

2036
02:11:56,800 --> 02:11:59,440
Speaker 1: you manipulate those areas when when people are like looking

2037
02:11:59,480 --> 02:12:03,360
Speaker 1: at that. Sometimes Alaska and and I'll point out that

2038
02:12:03,440 --> 02:12:06,560
Speaker 1: oftentimes when Alaska is doing heavy duty predator control. Due

2039
02:12:06,560 --> 02:12:13,080
Speaker 1: doing heavy duty predator control to aid subsistence cultures rural

2040
02:12:13,560 --> 02:12:17,000
Speaker 1: Native Alaska and subsistence communities to rely on a resource

2041
02:12:17,000 --> 02:12:20,360
Speaker 1: of moose or cariboo for as their primary protein resource,

2042
02:12:20,640 --> 02:12:23,839
Speaker 1: Alaska will oftentimes come in and do heavy duty predator

2043
02:12:23,920 --> 02:12:29,000
Speaker 1: control to enhance their and they have a right for

2044
02:12:29,040 --> 02:12:33,360
Speaker 1: that subsistence. Yeah, that's in fact, when Alaska parses out

2045
02:12:33,400 --> 02:12:37,840
Speaker 1: fishing game. That's the top. That's number one category subsistence,

2046
02:12:37,920 --> 02:12:40,320
Speaker 1: and it probably should be. And then it goes like

2047
02:12:40,360 --> 02:12:43,040
Speaker 1: then you got like commercial interests, and then down down

2048
02:12:43,240 --> 02:12:48,240
Speaker 1: you have like nonresident sport honting. So it's a thing

2049
02:12:48,280 --> 02:12:50,680
Speaker 1: they do and at times, yeah, at times they have

2050
02:12:50,920 --> 02:12:56,240
Speaker 1: like general you can't kill a sow with cubs, But

2051
02:12:56,320 --> 02:12:59,280
Speaker 1: if you deem that you have a major issue and

2052
02:12:59,320 --> 02:13:02,880
Speaker 1: you're trying to dus predation, you might ease restrictions and

2053
02:13:02,960 --> 02:13:06,480
Speaker 1: say that a sow or or a club could be killed,

2054
02:13:06,600 --> 02:13:08,720
Speaker 1: or you're gonna move the season early enough where some

2055
02:13:08,800 --> 02:13:11,200
Speaker 1: bears would still be in hibernation because you're trying to

2056
02:13:11,240 --> 02:13:12,920
Speaker 1: do like a very you know, you're trying to do

2057
02:13:13,560 --> 02:13:17,240
Speaker 1: a fairly isolated case of reducing predator numbers. So in this,

2058
02:13:17,400 --> 02:13:20,560
Speaker 1: in this blowback about sixty nine, they're acting like sort

2059
02:13:20,560 --> 02:13:23,200
Speaker 1: of like someone has said, you know what I wish,

2060
02:13:23,440 --> 02:13:26,400
Speaker 1: I wish that we would go into refugees and torture

2061
02:13:26,760 --> 02:13:30,640
Speaker 1: all the bears and wolves and kill them. And no,

2062
02:13:30,960 --> 02:13:32,600
Speaker 1: it's like the last thing they would want to do

2063
02:13:32,680 --> 02:13:36,880
Speaker 1: is actually explain the whole picture that these management practices

2064
02:13:37,080 --> 02:13:41,560
Speaker 1: are already being implemented on the vast majority of Alaska, which,

2065
02:13:41,720 --> 02:13:45,200
Speaker 1: unlike our own portion of the country, happens to have

2066
02:13:45,520 --> 02:13:49,160
Speaker 1: bears and wolves on ninety five or ninety six percent

2067
02:13:49,160 --> 02:13:51,520
Speaker 1: of their native range, and they have a lot of them.

2068
02:13:51,640 --> 02:13:53,480
Speaker 1: So you're kind of like you're kind of like taking

2069
02:13:53,560 --> 02:13:56,640
Speaker 1: the people who and granted historically they it was kind

2070
02:13:56,640 --> 02:13:58,320
Speaker 1: of handed to if you're sort of taking like people

2071
02:13:58,360 --> 02:14:00,640
Speaker 1: who are doing a phin I'm in a job with

2072
02:14:00,680 --> 02:14:08,080
Speaker 1: wildlife management trying to trying to hamstring them because you

2073
02:14:08,120 --> 02:14:10,960
Speaker 1: have no sort of memory of how things went down

2074
02:14:10,960 --> 02:14:14,400
Speaker 1: in our own area. See, and that's those those folks

2075
02:14:14,400 --> 02:14:18,120
Speaker 1: will be the first ones to scream science, all we

2076
02:14:18,200 --> 02:14:20,880
Speaker 1: gotta follow the science, blah blah blah. And here you

2077
02:14:20,920 --> 02:14:25,440
Speaker 1: have the state agencies that are living and driving the

2078
02:14:25,520 --> 02:14:29,640
Speaker 1: science every day, but they don't want to buy into

2079
02:14:29,680 --> 02:14:31,920
Speaker 1: their science. All. It's like I said, it depends on

2080
02:14:32,000 --> 02:14:34,560
Speaker 1: whose science you want to well what they attacked, though

2081
02:14:34,600 --> 02:14:39,480
Speaker 1: they generally attack like you'll have let's just take like

2082
02:14:39,520 --> 02:14:44,160
Speaker 1: grizzy bear dealistic. Okay, the people, you know, all the

2083
02:14:44,160 --> 02:14:47,680
Speaker 1: people who are working with the agencies on the grizzly

2084
02:14:47,720 --> 02:14:49,560
Speaker 1: bear problem will come and say, like you have a

2085
02:14:49,600 --> 02:14:53,640
Speaker 1: sustainable population to grip bears right, you've got enough of

2086
02:14:53,720 --> 02:14:56,800
Speaker 1: them in a big enough area wherein a hundred years

2087
02:14:56,920 --> 02:14:59,919
Speaker 1: we could still have this many bears in this area.

2088
02:15:00,200 --> 02:15:03,960
Speaker 1: If you're asking me, have we achieved recovery in this

2089
02:15:04,040 --> 02:15:09,040
Speaker 1: patch of ground, the answer is yes. When when people

2090
02:15:09,040 --> 02:15:11,400
Speaker 1: go to shut that process down and close your listing,

2091
02:15:11,920 --> 02:15:15,760
Speaker 1: they're not attacking that. They sort of pick around the

2092
02:15:15,920 --> 02:15:20,480
Speaker 1: edges to find legal loopholes or problems. Are like in

2093
02:15:20,560 --> 02:15:25,200
Speaker 1: the review process, did you look at X? Yes? Did

2094
02:15:25,200 --> 02:15:28,680
Speaker 1: you look at why not to to not satisfaction? Okay,

2095
02:15:28,680 --> 02:15:30,840
Speaker 1: we're gonna suit you on that. They never they're not

2096
02:15:30,920 --> 02:15:33,880
Speaker 1: like suing the big picture idea. They're just finding little

2097
02:15:33,920 --> 02:15:36,040
Speaker 1: things where some federal judge is gonna come in and

2098
02:15:36,080 --> 02:15:40,680
Speaker 1: go like, okay, yes, you're right. They gotta go back.

2099
02:15:40,680 --> 02:15:44,840
Speaker 1: And they didn't dot that I quite effectively. The conversation

2100
02:15:44,920 --> 02:15:48,200
Speaker 1: is never is this all true or not true? That's

2101
02:15:48,240 --> 02:15:51,240
Speaker 1: not the conversation. It's how can we hold this process

2102
02:15:51,360 --> 02:15:54,920
Speaker 1: up through the manipulation of minor details. And that's the

2103
02:15:54,960 --> 02:15:58,720
Speaker 1: process that they played out with the wolves in Montana,

2104
02:15:58,760 --> 02:16:03,080
Speaker 1: Idaho and why me? And then they got so mad

2105
02:16:03,440 --> 02:16:08,120
Speaker 1: when the legislation came down and put an end to it.

2106
02:16:08,440 --> 02:16:11,960
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, they attached that to a continuing

2107
02:16:12,040 --> 02:16:16,960
Speaker 1: resolution in two thousand ten or eleven, which went back

2108
02:16:17,000 --> 02:16:20,240
Speaker 1: and reinstated the two thousand nine d listing rule, and

2109
02:16:20,240 --> 02:16:24,040
Speaker 1: it said, and it is no longer subject to judicial review,

2110
02:16:24,080 --> 02:16:28,280
Speaker 1: which means they can't go back to court anymore unless

2111
02:16:29,160 --> 02:16:33,920
Speaker 1: Montana or Idaho would to wander off of their management plan.

2112
02:16:34,520 --> 02:16:38,400
Speaker 1: But now Montana and Idaho have lived out the five

2113
02:16:38,480 --> 02:16:44,360
Speaker 1: year probationary period and so wolves are just wolves now,

2114
02:16:45,040 --> 02:16:51,360
Speaker 1: and they're subject to Montana's management or Idaho's management. And uh,

2115
02:16:51,400 --> 02:16:54,119
Speaker 1: but it makes them so mad when they say, well, yeah,

2116
02:16:54,200 --> 02:16:58,240
Speaker 1: but politics jumped in and delisted the wolf and the wealth.

2117
02:16:59,120 --> 02:17:02,720
Speaker 1: You kept over playing your hand. You wouldn't leave it alone.

2118
02:17:03,720 --> 02:17:06,520
Speaker 1: And that's why finally the politicians got tired of hearing

2119
02:17:06,600 --> 02:17:08,760
Speaker 1: it on both sides of the aisle, and they're like, hey,

2120
02:17:08,800 --> 02:17:12,600
Speaker 1: this is enough of this. It's been in court sued

2121
02:17:12,640 --> 02:17:18,080
Speaker 1: over silly things and and and it's ridiculous, and it's uh,

2122
02:17:18,160 --> 02:17:20,920
Speaker 1: you know, they're tired of getting phone calls about it

2123
02:17:20,959 --> 02:17:24,520
Speaker 1: and everything else. So they just said, all right, we're

2124
02:17:24,560 --> 02:17:27,160
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna do this. We're gonna go back to

2125
02:17:27,280 --> 02:17:31,080
Speaker 1: the rule that was issued in two thousand nine and

2126
02:17:31,120 --> 02:17:36,320
Speaker 1: it now becomes law. Period debates over. There's plenty of

2127
02:17:36,320 --> 02:17:40,200
Speaker 1: wolves and they're not threatened, and like you said, there's

2128
02:17:40,240 --> 02:17:43,359
Speaker 1: always a fallback plan if they veer off that management

2129
02:17:43,360 --> 02:17:48,800
Speaker 1: and think the numbers. That's the science, that's the beauty

2130
02:17:48,879 --> 02:17:51,520
Speaker 1: of our process. But that's the funniest thing about the

2131
02:17:51,520 --> 02:17:53,840
Speaker 1: the delisting issues to the even things that you have,

2132
02:17:54,040 --> 02:17:57,279
Speaker 1: Like you know in the Upper Gray Lakes, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan.

2133
02:17:58,680 --> 02:18:01,800
Speaker 1: Do you think that those people are going to go

2134
02:18:01,879 --> 02:18:06,400
Speaker 1: through so much trouble to recover the species and go

2135
02:18:06,480 --> 02:18:08,760
Speaker 1: through the d listing process and turn back a state

2136
02:18:08,840 --> 02:18:12,800
Speaker 1: management just to shoot them all dead again. It's not

2137
02:18:12,800 --> 02:18:17,160
Speaker 1: gonna happen. That's what they just dedicated decades to solving

2138
02:18:17,200 --> 02:18:19,840
Speaker 1: that problem. Well then, what, like, what what guy in

2139
02:18:19,879 --> 02:18:22,280
Speaker 1: the world I would think that that would be a

2140
02:18:22,280 --> 02:18:25,160
Speaker 1: good idea. Well, and what that really tells me, because

2141
02:18:25,200 --> 02:18:29,680
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, Steve, what that tells me is the

2142
02:18:29,840 --> 02:18:35,000
Speaker 1: endgame of the animal rights movement in that case is

2143
02:18:36,000 --> 02:18:41,640
Speaker 1: not their concern about the wolf. It's the endgame of

2144
02:18:41,760 --> 02:18:46,160
Speaker 1: they want to keep at hunting and keeping it. I

2145
02:18:46,200 --> 02:18:48,320
Speaker 1: think they want to continue to shift away at it.

2146
02:18:48,440 --> 02:18:52,360
Speaker 1: The more they can, the happier they are, and it's

2147
02:18:52,440 --> 02:18:56,640
Speaker 1: just what they the ironic part, like for the wolf

2148
02:18:56,720 --> 02:19:01,760
Speaker 1: reintroduction in the Yellowstone area, if elk hadn't been brought

2149
02:19:01,800 --> 02:19:05,080
Speaker 1: back in such a successful way, there would have been

2150
02:19:05,080 --> 02:19:07,480
Speaker 1: no way to bring the wolf back because there would

2151
02:19:07,480 --> 02:19:11,400
Speaker 1: have been nothing to eat. So they don't understand how

2152
02:19:12,000 --> 02:19:15,840
Speaker 1: they really have to have the sportsman and the hunting

2153
02:19:15,920 --> 02:19:19,520
Speaker 1: side of the aisle for this whole system to sustain.

2154
02:19:20,160 --> 02:19:22,720
Speaker 1: And that's what they don't get or they don't want to.

2155
02:19:22,840 --> 02:19:25,640
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know which it is, some of each,

2156
02:19:25,720 --> 02:19:36,760
Speaker 1: probably damn it rich field of inquiry. Um, Yeah, David Allen,

2157
02:19:36,959 --> 02:19:40,640
Speaker 1: what you got? What? What final thoughts? I want one

2158
02:19:40,680 --> 02:19:45,640
Speaker 1: of these jobs like this? This is fun? Um, your

2159
02:19:45,680 --> 02:19:48,440
Speaker 1: elbows get so you're you've been my hero, but now

2160
02:19:48,480 --> 02:19:50,720
Speaker 1: you're really my hero. You're getting paid to do this.

2161
02:19:50,720 --> 02:19:53,840
Speaker 1: This is fun. So thanks for coming on. Man. Well

2162
02:19:53,879 --> 02:19:57,160
Speaker 1: my final thought is I just I want to compliment

2163
02:19:57,240 --> 02:20:03,039
Speaker 1: you on how you represent our culture and and uh,

2164
02:20:03,480 --> 02:20:08,640
Speaker 1: you're representing it in venues where I wouldn't do so well,

2165
02:20:08,720 --> 02:20:12,840
Speaker 1: but where it needs to be represented well. And that's

2166
02:20:13,160 --> 02:20:16,320
Speaker 1: for the sake of my kids, your kids, their kids,

2167
02:20:17,080 --> 02:20:23,840
Speaker 1: those futures. Um. I I appreciate what you bring to

2168
02:20:23,920 --> 02:20:28,240
Speaker 1: the table. I do. It's uh, um, it's needed. We

2169
02:20:28,320 --> 02:20:31,920
Speaker 1: need that kind of leadership. Five years from now, you'll

2170
02:20:31,959 --> 02:20:34,480
Speaker 1: be here. I probably won't, but I appreciate you saying that.

2171
02:20:34,640 --> 02:20:37,920
Speaker 1: But um, no matter how much I do, it's not

2172
02:20:37,959 --> 02:20:41,120
Speaker 1: going to be Uh, it won't be as much as

2173
02:20:41,760 --> 02:20:43,920
Speaker 1: putting a bunch of public land on the ground, which

2174
02:20:43,920 --> 02:20:46,640
Speaker 1: is what you guys are doing. Well. Yeah, and that's sure.

2175
02:20:46,720 --> 02:20:49,879
Speaker 1: That isn't me. I didn't invent that, and no, no,

2176
02:20:49,920 --> 02:20:52,800
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to suggest

2177
02:20:52,800 --> 02:20:55,440
Speaker 1: you did. But you you have to be closely involved.

2178
02:20:55,480 --> 02:20:57,560
Speaker 1: I get to be a look an organization and it

2179
02:20:57,920 --> 02:21:02,200
Speaker 1: has a track. Yeah, and and I'm so humbled by

2180
02:21:02,240 --> 02:21:06,720
Speaker 1: our volunteers and our field staff and whatnot that for

2181
02:21:06,760 --> 02:21:10,800
Speaker 1: the things they do and how they do it. Um,

2182
02:21:11,240 --> 02:21:13,440
Speaker 1: it's just really cool to be a part of this

2183
02:21:13,480 --> 02:21:16,960
Speaker 1: whole thing. And I uh, it's like a second career

2184
02:21:17,040 --> 02:21:19,920
Speaker 1: for me, and I'm just really enjoying it. I am

2185
02:21:20,000 --> 02:21:25,640
Speaker 1: I'm I have the greatest job in America, and uh,

2186
02:21:25,920 --> 02:21:28,000
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even give it up to do this, so

2187
02:21:28,680 --> 02:21:31,720
Speaker 1: I don't think you should. You know, I don't want

2188
02:21:31,720 --> 02:21:34,720
Speaker 1: any competition. I have a face for radio, but that's

2189
02:21:34,760 --> 02:21:38,200
Speaker 1: about it, all right man, thanks for coming on. Hey,

2190
02:21:38,200 --> 02:21:38,920
Speaker 1: thank you guys.