WEBVTT - Ep. 166: Hunting with Teeth 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.760 This is me eat your podcast coming in you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:17.560 severely vote bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:26.160 You can't predict anything? Okay, all right? Our guests Diane 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:31.560 boy A carnivorre and wolf specialists, but kind of mostly wolves, right, 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:36.040 that's your thing. So let's just let's just dispatch with 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.000 the other one real quick. What we're like. Let's say 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.479 we're not Let's say we weren't talking about wolves. What 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.519 would you be a subject matter expert on? Um? Well, wolves, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:49.360 but I also end up taking the lions, otters, bobcats, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.680 you know, other fur bears that come in bears. Let's 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:54.240 do my colleagues, but I do a lot of it. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.440 But I've mostly researched wolves all my life. But I've 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.360 I've done a few other things to some a little 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.240 bit of game big game work, um, but mostly wolves. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.840 Do you remember what was your first Did you have 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:14.200 a wolf? An initial wolf experience that became kind of 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.160 your personal genesis? Do you know what I'm saying? Like 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.160 people like to later, it doesn't even feel like it's 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.440 happening in real life, right in real time. Oftentimes you 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:28.240 later look back and you realize that there was like 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.240 a moment, right, did you have a moment? There are 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:33.840 a couple of things I ended up. Um, I was 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.119 really fascinated by wolves growing up in the Twin Cities 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.760 because Minnesota was the only place in the seventies that 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.440 had wolves in the whole lower forty eight. Really, yep, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.119 there were none in Wish Michigan, or Wisconsin the last stronghold, 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.000 and there were none anywhere in the United States anywhere else. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.640 So is that really that's true? Yes, you can read it. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.560 Look Google. I didn't know that. But but but what 0:01:54.640 --> 0:02:00.240 about like the Ile Royal head wolves in two they 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.360 came in. Yeah, there were wolves in IOLs Michigan. There 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.640 was a handful starting nineteen fifty. But so you're saying 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.799 that Minnesota never ran out, they never lost him. No, 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:12.440 when I was a kid, I think they got down 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.920 as low as somewhere like seven hundred or eight hundred. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.760 And when I left Minnesota in nineteen seventy nine to 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.040 come here to start wolf work, there were about a 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.880 thousand in Minnesota then, and there was just a handful 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.160 in Wisconsin. And I don't even know you p had 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.040 any back yet. I had him because they were stuck there. 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.200 But actually, I was just in yellow Stone this week 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:36.040 with tick Tale and his wife, and Dave Dick was 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.600 the first guy. He has been studying looking for wolves 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.960 in Wisconsin since he was like fifteen, and he told 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.320 the story over dinner just last night. He found his 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.640 first confirmed wolf tracks in Wisconsin in nineteen seventy four. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.320 There weren't wolves there before that he was looking, and 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.480 then over the years eventually they got critical mass and 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:57.160 they had the first pack. I think it was like 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.000 in seventies seven or seventy eight, the first pack. They 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.919 were just coming back, so it's pretty recent recovery, much 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.160 like us here in the West. I feel as though 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.000 you can correct me if I'm wrong. I feel as 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:15.440 though I cut my first wolf track in Michigan in 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.000 ninth and it would have been October or November of nineteen. 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.520 They're there, yeah, I know. They was when they started 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.480 sending ways out from Minnesota with a Recovery and Endangered 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.639 Species Act, and that's what allowed them to come back 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.040 in Wisconsin and Michigan. There's you know, they've got hundreds 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.280 and hundreds now in Wisconsin and Michigan. I'm sure you 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.960 did see wolf tracks in ninety four, but he wouldn't 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.400 have been nineteen seventy, so you grew up in you 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.240 grew up in the last bastion of of lower forty 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.840 eight wolves. Yeah, and as a kid, I was pretty 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.520 fascinated by him. And Dave meach was on campus University 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:56.760 of Minnesota. He is um uh, he is the guy 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.840 for wolves. I mean he is Dave meach l David 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.680 Meets University Minnesota. He's actually I think he's employed by 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.440 the federal government at the university. But he started doing 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.480 wolves in the sixties. He was early on Aisle Royal. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:11.960 He was the first one of caller Wolf in northern Minnesota. 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.119 I believe close to it. Um and he is now 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.039 he's the authority for the world. He's he's he's a 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.479 amazing guy. He's eighty and he's still working full time 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.440 because he loves what he does. He loves and he's 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.440 he's consulted from people over the world. And he's very 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:33.599 he's very uh. He's publishes constantly. He's the consummate scientist 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.560 and he's he accepts every viewpoint, looks at every viewpoint. 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.720 His brain is like a computer. When you asked him 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.760 a questions like off the goalist and spends on all 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.240 these realms. This is delightful, Okay. So I started y 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.200 asked how did I get involved? So he was on 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.880 campus where I was a student. He started in school's 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.240 pre veterinary medicine student. There also was a place called 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.960 Como Park Zoo in St. Paul which had this was 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.680 a new concept and the teen seventy three to put 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.960 out pens with wild animals that looked wild that was 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.520 you know, not everything else was like concrete. That So 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.680 they built a wolf exhibit and I think it was 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.680 five acres inside something like that, and I was fascinating. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.039 I would go there all the time because it was 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.760 close to campus, very close to campus, and um I 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.200 would go to look at the wolves and sometimes you'd 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.040 see them and sometimes you wouldn't because it was all 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.440 forced and would it much like outside. And one day 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:33.520 I brought my arm folks dog, just a little pound mongrel, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.360 really sweet little guy, and we were looking and the 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.320 wolves came up to the fence and he was sniffing 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.280 noses with the fence. So I can show you how 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.920 naive I was. Right, single chain link fence, single, no 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.720 double barrier. There was sniffin noses through the fence, and 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.040 then my little dog, being a mail he went up 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.840 to urinate bras leg mark on the fence because he's 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.000 a male, and that little foot it was just smaller 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.679 than the dimension of the diamond in this cyclone fence. 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.240 And the wolf is there anyone, And he got his 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.279 leg and he drug his legs to the cycling fence 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:06.880 and they were tearing his leg off. This is my 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.080 first wolf experience, you asked. And I was screaming, and 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.040 some guys came running over from the parking lot and 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.040 they threw themselves against the fence, and my dog got 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.800 his leg back was still attached, and we had some 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.280 pretty major surgeries and stuff. But you asked, that was 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.480 kind of my first wolf experience. Really, I was fascinated 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.560 much as I was sorry for my dog. But he survived, 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.200 blah blah blah, he did fine. And then I started 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.800 volunteering on these studies. Each was over many studies in Minnesota, UM. 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.000 The graduate students study at a preserve not far o 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.680 the Twin Cities. And then in nineteenth summer of nineteen 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.080 seventy seven, I had an opportunity Dave me to offered 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.640 me his internship up in northern Minnesota by Eli where 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.880 he had his wild wolf study. And I was like, 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.280 oh my god, this is it. It's like my dream. 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.640 And I just I didn't have I thought, how am 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:55.359 I going to pay for this? I'm not gonna get paid. 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.839 So I had to sell my motorcycle, show you how 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.720 important this was to me, kind of motorcycles. I had 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.160 a Yama already three fifty bright orange, just a little 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.960 hot ring ding ding, but sold it. And you mentioned 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.800 a cyclone fence. I call him cyclone fences, and no 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.400 one knows the hell I'm talking about. Just I know, 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.720 I know, damned your motorcycle and fences, but no one 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.800 knows what it's like. No one uses that word anymore. Work. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.360 How do you know that word? Did you grow up? 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.720 Call them cycle and fences? What? I think? Everybody else 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:27.560 just calls him chain link. I know when I say 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:29.720 something about a cycle and fence, people look at me like, 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.480 what do you what kind of fence you're talking about? 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.920 Go on, you sell your motorcycles yea. And so my 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.160 next wealth experience was I was so excited. I was 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.480 so thrilled to go for the summer and study. We're 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.520 going to trap and call her and study wild wolves. 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.240 And I was driving up in the middle of nowhere 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.120 and this this is seventy seven. How many wolves are 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.120 up there at that time, Well, that was probably when 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.320 there was close to a thousand, nine to a thousand. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.760 So I'm driving on the highway at night. I borrowed 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.280 my parents car to get up there because they had 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.480 sold my motorcyle coal their second car. And I'm driving 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.840 along this windy highway and I'm really sleepy and it's 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.720 totally dark, and all of a sudden, out of the side, 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.040 no kidding, a wolf shoots out into my headlights and 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.520 I nearly rented over a jam on the brakes, and 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.160 I come to rest and I feel kind of sick 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.320 to my stomach. The adrenaline thing. It's like, oh my god, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.920 my first wild wolf when I nearly killed it. But 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.320 that was my next experience, and then from then then 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.880 we were out working with wild wolves all summer, and 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.160 I was thrilled right up by the Boundary Water Canoe 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.480 area up in northern Minnesota Elie Babbitt area. You guys 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:35.800 are trapping them, putting collars on them. Yeah, how are 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.239 you guys catching them? Back then Foothold traps, modified foothold traps, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.400 like you laminate the jaws so they're thicker. Not back then. 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.000 We do know when you say modified modified, how they 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.679 had well back then and back now. It's not a 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.040 whole lot different. But the traps we had springs in 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.400 the bottom side. We checked them twice a day, so 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.160 they didn't sit there very long. Um. Some of them 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.840 had rubber jaws, not back then, but now we have 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:04.280 a rubber serrated jaws, so it's more kind of their foot. Um. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.000 Then you use it like a serrated like a toothed 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.560 rubber jaw. Now it's not tooth. I mean that gives 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.480 an ugly image. They're kind of square flattened, but it's 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.120 hard rubber like a tire. And they that's the thing 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.800 you put over the jaw, you know, it's it's part 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.559 of the jaw there there. I don't know how they 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.000 make them one piece, but you boil it drops and everything. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.280 It doesn't come off. It's on their permanently. And when 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.920 you say springs underneath, you mean like double coil spring 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.040 traps springs in the chains. Your double long spring spring 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.920 under the pan and a spring going to the tensions. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.240 So if the wolves pulling, they're not hitting a hard end. 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.080 And and now we didn't back then, but now we 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:48.800 have underpan tensions spring devices to keep all their bycatch down. 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.600 So you can set that weight. We set it with 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:53.640 a measured scale and you can set it for two 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.120 pounds or twenty pounds or whatever. Do you wolves ten 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.440 pounds of pressure? That's a red fox? Walk right over? Fox? 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.720 Coyotes blinks, yeah, walk right over. Well, you think about, like, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.440 how much is your average kyote? Pounds? Maybe and it's 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.439 four ft, So you divide their weight by four for 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.400 the amount of weight on a roughly, if you had 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.240 a huge coyot, you maybe catch it. And then how 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.120 would you so you'd go into a likely wolf area? 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.520 And would you just make set like dirt hole sets 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.040 on roads and stuff where they're traveling or you're asking 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.640 me secrets in my trade, you're really pushing the arms tea. Uh, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.560 we don't. I hardly ever use a dirt hole set 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.120 because that's what everybody else does. You sent post sets 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.000 some what do you like? You really don't want to 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.080 tell how you catch blind sets? Some really what the 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.520 what's a blind set? I don't know? Lure no attracting right. 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.320 You have to know where the animals are, right, So 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.240 then you're just working there a trail or a path 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.360 and you don't do it or you're gonna get a 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.280 out of bike catch. So you have to know where 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.640 the wolves are are, like a Runde bows site or 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.120 something where they're using a particular trail a lot, and 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.040 you know from like if it's winter, you know they 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.520 use a certain trail system a lot. In the spring 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:11.280 you can look in the mud and if they're still 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:12.959 using it, you know, you know where they're danned, or 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.000 you know where the round site is. You've you've snagged wolves, 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:22.360 trapped them, trap, you've trapped travel hooks, you've trapped wolves, 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.000 no lure, no bait, no nothing, just said where he 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:32.840 wants not most you have done that. I have not. Actually, 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:37.120 there was one pack in um in the Swan Valley 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.200 that had a lot of trapping pressure for a lot 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:40.679 of years. There was a guy who was really good 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.600 trapper there and he'd take his limit every year and 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.920 so these wolves were very very hard to catch. We 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.240 put out traps. My first year, we trapped, we trapped 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.120 in trapped. We never had any luck. We did every 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.280 turk I could think of everything I could think of, 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:59.120 and finally and they were actually avoiding him, walking around 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.360 him digging them. They knew they were there. I finally 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.520 went to doing a blind trail set, which I don't 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.960 like to do because you chance catching deer or anything 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.640 that comes by. But I knew where the randevousite was. 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:14.080 I said, okay, I'm going to tiptoe. Can you explain rendee? Oh, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.440 I'm sorry, sure, And then I want to get back 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.240 to Minnesota. So when wolves have pups, they have the 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.480 den and they dan. I like to tell people, oh, 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.280 when did they dan? And when did they breat breeding? 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.480 Pika breeding is about Valentine's Day, Pika danning is about 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.280 tax Day. Okay, so those are just dates to remember. 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.080 They use the den six seven weeks maybe eight. But 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.600 they start moving them away from the den, and they 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.080 move them to a rendezvous site. And it's generally um 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.280 a more open area meadow that has thick cover around 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.880 it that they can escape to safe terrain and their 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.640 water nearby. And so wolves can't hunt with a bunch 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.720 of goofball pups dangling along, So they leave them at 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.360 the rendezvous site. The wolves go out and hunt and 0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:59.640 they bring food back, and they generally leave an adult 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.319 at the on site, so it's gets to be this 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.280 like a pat it's just a pack down area with 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.079 toy wolf toys and bones and chewed up antlers and scats, 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.800 and you know, all summer they're there and they move 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.560 around a few times or not. Some packs move and 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.760 use different rounde bous sites. Some stay pretty station. They 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.280 most of them change round. It was site. But there's 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.840 spokes coming off from these rendezvous sites like a wheel. 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.680 And if you can find that in the summer months, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.160 that's the spot you don't want to catch it. Usually 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.840 you won't because you've got that spring tension set. So 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.040 to catch this one wolf. And how come the rendezvous 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.720 site doesn't go into the fall because it pups become 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.280 mobile and they start traveling with the adults. They're just 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.800 station periods only three months, two months. It's iganical to 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.480 a dog sixty two days. Yeah, two months. Yeah, well 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.280 I wasn't in my math. That's a cancer. Early February 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.640 Valentine's at tax day. Yeah, okay, give her take a 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:05.440 little it and it's latitude oriented. So yeah, so anyway, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.120 that's how I caught the wolf, was finding the rondevousite 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.680 and putting a blind sin in on a trail leading 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.560 into it. And I never walked down the trail again ever. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.800 I was checked it with binoculars and it was like 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:19.960 a little stick or something that had to step over 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:25.600 so a place. It's foot in the right place every time. Yeah, alright, Minnesota, 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.920 there you are. You almost run over one and you 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.040 set the trap on them. Did you guys have some 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.320 with collars on him at that time in Minnesota? Yes? 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.320 Oh yeah. His study had been going on for years 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.040 in the Superior National Forest. What were you guys primarily 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.720 interested in looking at everything? Because at that time, I 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.520 mean you gotta remember, this is the late seventies, and 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.000 there was there was VHF callers, and there was airplane 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.880 flying to see them, but that was it. And it's 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.520 in the thick, thick Superior National Forest with a lot 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.120 of water and bogs and forest. You never saw them never. 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.160 It's not like yellow Stone where I just came from 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.640 you going down and have your theramisic offee and you're 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.720 you know, muffins and you sit and watch wolves. It 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.080 just it just wasn't that way. So um yeah, and 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.440 so we would learn what we could by following them 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.080 in the airplane. In the summer, you can't follow tracks. 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:15.960 So a lot of what I did from ment to 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.480 my career was tracking wolves on skis in the snow 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.640 when you can see every place they step, everything, they sniff, everyplace, 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.720 they mark, scent mark whatever. So this was a lot 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.600 of interpretive stuff. And you guys were interested in what 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.280 how far they move, what they eat, what they eat, 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.200 their ecology were they done, what kind of habitat that use, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.240 how many there are, how many what happens when two 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.880 over packs overlap? Do they kill each other? In trespassing issues? 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.800 I mean just everything you couldn't see behavior. You could 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.440 interpret a little bit, you know, but you couldn't see it. 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.680 I read an interesting thing out go ahead. I was 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.120 just gonna ask what those wolves were eating. Mostly mostly 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.840 white tailed deer and a few moose. And actually wolves 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:58.600 in the Midwest eat a lot of beaver. That's all 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.760 going to bring up I read a good already. A 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.240 thing is they were doing a scat analysis, and you 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.240 know how you know, beavers disperse after ice out, and 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:12.240 it would be that you know, something like and in 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.760 May and June, nine percent of wolf scats would have 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.480 beaver remains in them, but then it would taper off. 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.040 But they would really nail them when they're dispersing. Sure. 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.200 I mean, if you think about a beaver, a lot 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.200 of fat in a beaver, very good and slow. If 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.000 you can get them not in the water, catch them 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.480 on land, you're pretty vulnerable. I mean, wolves aren't there 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.240 swimming for looking for beaver. They're not bobbying for beaver 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.720 in the ponds, catching them on the damns or or houses. 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.320 Remember the track, the track I saw nine, The first 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.680 like wolf track I ever laid eyes on in the 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.520 wild was skirting the edge of a beaver day. And 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.200 bobcats would hunt those things a lot, and then then 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.520 they would ice up, and the bobcats and hunt the ice, 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.000 just going trying to catch them out where they come out. So, 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.400 you know, over my area we don't have so many beavers, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.720 so it's not as much of a diet. So wolves 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.760 are strictly opportunists. They'll take whatever they can get. They're 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.800 not out there selecting, well, we're going to go look 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:10.840 for a nice fat cow elk to I mean, that's 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.560 not how they hunt. Whatever they catch is what they catch, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.760 you know, people think they can kill it will They can't. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.879 If they had, I mean, they wouldn't work. What do 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:22.960 you mean people think they can kill it will Well, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.120 I've heard people say, well, wolves killed just for fun, 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.480 or they can kill whatever they want. And the truth is, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.720 if if they were that efficient, they wouldn't be living 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.600 in packs. A mountline is a really efficient, very effective 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.280 killer because they have all the teeth, and they have 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.520 sets of sabers on every pond. They can hunt alone 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:39.320 and they can jump on a milk's back and kill it. 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.640 Wolves don't have that advantage. Every time a wolf has 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.959 to eat, they have to catch a fleeing hoofed mammal 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.639 with their mouth. Think about it, if you had you 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.359 want to get a milk steak, you had to catch 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.520 that elk with your teeth. How successfully you think you 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.160 would be you'd want a lot of buddies. Yeah, that's 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.600 why they're they're cooperative, obligatory hunters. They're obliged to cooperate 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.800 to eat, and their prey base determines the size of 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.000 the pack. If they were mostly praying on white tailed deer, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.000 the packs maybe smaller. If they're praying on mooser elk, 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.840 the packs maybe larger, but it actually just came from 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.399 ill the stone and um Erk mcintaro showed me this 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.080 amazing photo that Doug Smith took of wolf nine eleven. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.560 It was a clean jock because the wolf was killed, 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.879 but he had broken his jaw completely in half, disarticulated, 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.800 most most likely got kicked. They saw this massive fight. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.399 This wolf tried to kill an elk and it nearly 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.800 got killed. And the wolf was underwater for a long 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.119 time and the elk was stomping it, and it finally 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.400 came up out of the water and crawled away. Four 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.200 months later, I get back to the jaw. Four months later, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.440 this wolf by itself had killed an elk in the river. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.480 They had photos of this interaction. And while it was 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.560 there with this elk, a pack of eight wolves came 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.119 along and killed the wolf. The wolf stood his ground 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.400 to defend the milk, and it was killed by this pack. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.639 So after they had killed it, they got the skull 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.000 back this jaw from the first elk, and counter was 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.840 broken completely in half, and it healed and was all 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.040 gnarly in kelcifite and completely separate, completely separate, and they 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.640 watched it pulled out and kill this elk by itself. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.200 People don't think that wolves suffer. I just think. I mean, 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:17.960 if you had a broken jaw that you could never 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.720 heal and you had to catch things with your mouth, man, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:25.840 I'd beat starved very quickly myself. They have that, and 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.439 lots of wolves that are flying turn up dead. We 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.800 had this discussion again over dinner last night. Things was 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.840 a great dinner conversation. Things you find in dead wolves? Wow, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.240 we were talking all these glary stories. But they suffer 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.520 a lot of injuries in a daily life. So the 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.560 eight that killed them, they were not affiliated. They were different, 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.400 a different pack, So yeah, did they were? They cannibalize 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.760 them when they kill them. They don't know. I it's 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.040 very very very rare that you ever hear that they 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.840 kill them And Durham, I mean it. They're not so 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.600 different from us. They defend their home turf, they defend 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.560 their terror tory, and when trespassers come in, if they 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.280 can catch him, they'll kill them. Some most times sometimes 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.800 they drive them out. It's kind of depends on the 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.120 leadership of the pack that's larger might mix right, and 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.760 it depends on if it's if hormones, it tends a 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.320 breeding season depends on if they're missing an alpha breeder. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:20.879 I mean this is how packs form. They do allow 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.880 other wolves, and sometimes, obviously because they have genetic exchange, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.359 packs are not in bread. But most times when a 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.360 pack encounters a trespasser, they will chase it vigorously and 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.480 if they catch it, they'll kill it. Most times, did 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.960 the you know? Oftentimes I see that the people who 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.800 are who research and work on the Yellowstone Wolves, they 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.080 get very upset if a Yellowstone wolf leave the park 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:46.960 and gets killed by a hunter outside of the park. 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.399 Do they get really upset one one of their wolves 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.800 gets killed by wolves? Does that bother them? You have 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.600 to ask them. You never had that conversation with anyone. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.280 I don't work down there, You're just there. I went 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:02.280 down there as a as a guest record. I mean 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.439 I watched there's a lot of wolves. Wolves die. The 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.160 biggest cause of mortality in Yellowstone Park is wolves killing 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.040 other wolves. Oh vast majority. Because there's no there's no 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.960 hunting or trapping within the park. They get killed by ungulates, 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.119 they drawn, they starve, they get parbo iristes temper. But 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.720 the biggest cause of mortality, and said Yellowstone Park is 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.280 wolves killing wolves and these usually these trustpass or inter 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.160 territorial strife things. Oh my goodness, yeah, packs come apart. 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:36.240 Packs form all through mortality. Do they mostly when wolves? Uh? 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:42.720 Like when wolves commit frature side? Is it mostly? Um? 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.320 Does it mostly occur as in fanticide? Like? Is it 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.960 mostly killing young? Or is it mostly killing old? Or 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.880 is it just nondiscriminate? First of all, I wouldn't put 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:53.800 the term fracture side on. I would say because they're 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.000 not friends. They're they're simply defending the resources, much like 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.320 we do in war, or much like you would defend 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.879 your home, or much like Chicago defends its people for 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.840 the police force or whatever. They defend their resources, whether 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.200 it's food or at home or whatever. There's no malice. 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:14.880 It's not done with usually forethought, although there have been incidences. Um, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.800 they're generally not going to den's and digging out each 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.600 other's pops and killing them because the dens are They 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:22.959 generally do not do because the dens are protected by 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.240 the resident wolves. Why would you try and go in 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.560 and take on a pack with its pops, You'd be 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:31.200 you'd be killed. They do do that with coyotes. They 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:35.600 o coyotes and killer pops. That's done with forethought, and yeah, 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.440 that's a plan. But wolves just wolves, like any other 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.879 carnival remoteline. They dispatch each other's competitors, that's all it is. 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:45.919 That's why they don't generally eat the carcass. They just 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.600 kill them and move on. And I think you know people, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.480 I give it, so it's nondiscriminatory. It's not like they 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.240 target the young because they're easier to kill, or the 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:56.880 old because they're easier to kill. It's just like opportunistically, 0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:59.439 like do you have the advantage and you take a 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:01.479 take a vantage of the advantage. And I think this 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.320 is a question you have to ask the folks in 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.440 Yellowstone because they study this intimately. And I don't want 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.359 to be miscoded or lead people of stray. Sometimes the 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:12.399 alphas are killed because they're out front of the charge. 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:15.600 And I don't know the ratio of the percent of 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:18.680 animals are killed at home, anyam are young of the year, yearlings, 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.399 two year olds, alpha's I don't know that you have 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.680 to ask them. But that's the leads, that's the lead 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:29.000 cause inside the inside Yellowstone Park wolves, yes, they published 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:31.640 on that and outside of Yellowstone like where I live 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.119 over in western Montana. The lead causes human variety of 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:40.480 human causes, from hunting to vehicles, everything yep, or complaints yep. 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.440 Do you count livestock complaints as human Yeah, I guess 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:48.720 you would. Sure, Yeah, I mean wildlife services, UM trains, vehicles, hunting, 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:53.040 trapping trains. Yeah, they get by trains occasionally, and I 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:55.159 think in those cases they're probably feeding on animals have 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:59.360 been hit on the track. There's a cost. So let's 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:01.800 let's back up and pick up your biography again. So 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.320 you work up in Minnesota. I did, And what happened then? 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:08.320 You were just like you were a grad student, right, 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:11.760 So it was really pretty interesting point in my life. Yeah, 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:16.040 I was a young undergraduate and I just graduated. I 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.840 was still a student when I took on in nineteen 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:22.080 seventy seven working for Dave Beach, and then the summer 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.640 of nineteen seventy nine, I just finished goal graduated. I 0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:28.600 was working for Steve Fritz up in northern Minnesota in 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:32.000 a very very tiny, very conservative, little small farming community. 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:35.399 I was hired as a federal trapper do trap and 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:40.600 remove livestock depredating wolves. So federal with Wildlife Services, US 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:43.040 Fish and Wilife Service would be like wildlife services. Okay, 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.720 So for me, I mean growing up a little bit storry, 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.240 I didn't really interested in research. All of a sudden, 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.480 I was thrust into this world of wolf conflict and 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:55.800 management and mitigation. And wolves were still they were threatened, 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:59.640 so the landowners couldn't take it into their own hands 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:01.439 like we can here, but they had to call in 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.200 the game warden like that. When you say threatened, they were, 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.080 they were, Yet there were any yes, listed as a 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.840 threatened species, and so um I was be called. The 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:12.440 game weren't to be called. I'd be called, and we 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:14.760 go out to the farm. They weren't called ranches. They 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:17.080 were called farms, and it was dairy cattle and beef. 0:25:17.560 --> 0:25:19.800 We would look at the carcass and determine if wolves 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.680 had killed it or not through tracks, the nature of 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:24.639 the bite, wounds, wed skin the cow and whatever. You 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:26.439 could tell what it killed it? What would you what 0:25:26.520 --> 0:25:29.560 was the most? Uh? Tell me a couple of telltale 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:33.800 signs that it was wolf? Um tracks? Uh? Leading to 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.639 with the chase scene with bites the bite marks. I 0:25:37.640 --> 0:25:39.560 mean you can't just because wolf tracks are there, doesn't 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:41.880 mean they killed it, but you go on, you'd skin 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:43.960 out the cow and you'd see the bite marks in 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:46.280 various places. And if they had hemorrhaging around them, the 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:49.639 animal was alive when it was bitten, no hemorrhaging. They 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:51.959 were feeding on a dead call. So you look for 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:55.000 that um scats full of cow hair, but you have 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:57.960 to find the bite wounds. So that was tough because 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:01.320 if they took a small calf, there wouldn't be any 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:04.600 thing there, there'd be nothing. Sometimes they take it apart 0:26:04.640 --> 0:26:08.800 and it would be gone overnight. What's the window of opportunity? Um? 0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:11.200 How many how many hours days do you have before 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:13.120 it becomes too late? Well, it depends on if it's 0:26:13.160 --> 0:26:16.160 a you know, a thousand pound cora eighty pound calf. 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:18.560 So as soon as you get the call, you go 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:21.720 out there. And because they were smaller operations, they generally 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:25.199 could see their livestock. But we're in the West, we 0:26:25.240 --> 0:26:27.600 have allotments and you know, you don't see your stock 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:31.360 sometimes for weeks um. So people were pretty on top 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:33.960 of it, but it was it was a really interesting 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:37.760 turning point for me and my education that you know, yeah, Diane, 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:41.720 wolves or do cause problems and people don't really love them. 0:26:41.760 --> 0:26:44.239 And just because you had this wonderful research experience, you's 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:46.320 a whole another world out there. So it was really 0:26:46.359 --> 0:26:48.280 important for me growing in my career. And I had 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:50.800 to drop these wolves that were killing stock and we 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:53.400 hauled them down to ground rapids where they were euthanized. 0:26:54.280 --> 0:26:59.199 Um really, yep, Why why would you move them to 0:26:59.200 --> 0:27:01.280 euthanize them? Because at that point in time, we weren't 0:27:01.280 --> 0:27:04.360 allowed to shoot them, So how would you transport them? 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:06.840 I drugged them. I'd catch them, I sedate them and 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:09.879 put them in a crate at home to Grand Rapids, 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:12.000 which was very close, and then they would be a 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:15.879 Grand Rapids Minnesota. Yeah, okay, that all right? That was 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:18.280 confusing Minnesota. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. How many when 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:21.320 you're doing that work? Howming did you catch that summer? Oh? 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:23.600 If you are handful, I don't know how many. It was. 0:27:23.640 --> 0:27:25.600 It wasn't a lot, but it was enough that I 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:27.960 could do my job. There wasn't a lot of complaints, 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:30.439 to be real honest, And Steve Fritz, my boss, had 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:33.359 told me, well, when you have times when there aren't complaints, 0:27:33.800 --> 0:27:35.560 then I want you to call it in radio collar 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:38.320 for research. So I was dropping all summer. So I 0:27:38.359 --> 0:27:40.639 don't know ten fifteen wolves. I mean, it wasn't that 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:43.520 just wasn't that much problems, to be real, honest. But 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.240 if you were the particular farmer that was having the problem, 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:51.159 it was pretty significant to you. And certain farms chronically 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:54.040 had problems, in certain farms never had problems, and they 0:27:54.080 --> 0:27:56.720 could be four miles apart. You might not be comfortable 0:27:56.760 --> 0:28:00.959 answering this, but go back to those days, das, Okay, 0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:06.000 those days in that place. Um, if you run cattle 0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:08.120 or have cows, they die from all sorts of things. 0:28:08.119 --> 0:28:11.639 They died during they died during birth, Okay, they just 0:28:11.680 --> 0:28:14.200 get hung up in fences and die, They hit by cars, 0:28:14.240 --> 0:28:17.720 all kinds of plants, poisonous plants, there's another one. Did 0:28:17.800 --> 0:28:23.840 you find then, that for a farmer or rancher to 0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:28.600 lose an animal to a wolf seemed to weigh on 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:32.440 them more heavily or inspire more rage in them than 0:28:32.560 --> 0:28:36.119 if they were to lose one too poisonous plants, or 0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:38.440 lose one to getting hit by a car because it 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:41.280 jump the fence, or any number of other causes. Did 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:43.240 you feel that it was that there was an imbalance 0:28:43.320 --> 0:28:49.520 about how people perceived that death. Yeah, and some people 0:28:49.560 --> 0:28:51.600 there definitely was. And I think a big part of 0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:54.480 it was because they had no ability to control those 0:28:54.520 --> 0:28:58.760 wolves legally, so they couldn't do much about it. So 0:28:58.880 --> 0:29:02.200 when they had the wolf was recovering because they were 0:29:02.200 --> 0:29:06.320 protected and they couldn't do anything, and they might have literally, 0:29:06.360 --> 0:29:09.120 they might literally be seeing wolves in their pen tearing 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:12.640 some calf or cow apart, and legally, you know, they 0:29:12.640 --> 0:29:15.400 weren't supposed to be doing anything about it, so that 0:29:15.480 --> 0:29:19.160 that sense of helplessness made it worse. Now Here in 0:29:19.200 --> 0:29:21.560 the West Montana, I mean, if a rancher's got to 0:29:22.360 --> 0:29:24.720 wolves and the pan are about to chase cows or whatever, 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:26.560 they don't even you know, they can take care of it. 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:29.000 They can shoot them legally and they just call and 0:29:29.040 --> 0:29:32.000 report it. It's called a Senate built two hundred. They're 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:34.960 legally protective. They can't keep the hide or anything, but 0:29:35.320 --> 0:29:36.720 we go pick it up and it's over and it 0:29:37.320 --> 0:29:44.760 helps diffuse animosity. What was your next move from So 0:29:44.800 --> 0:29:46.800 you did that one summer? So while I was there, 0:29:47.120 --> 0:29:49.400 I just you know, graduated, like I said, I applied 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:51.440 to graduate schools, and while I was working in northern 0:29:51.440 --> 0:29:56.040 Minnesota on this wildlife services job. I got accepted at 0:29:56.040 --> 0:29:59.240 the University of Montana for graduate school in the fall. 0:29:59.400 --> 0:30:02.560 So when I departed Minnesota, I packed at my little 0:30:02.600 --> 0:30:05.440 car and I drove to Missoula, where I had the 0:30:06.080 --> 0:30:09.600 graduate project. And it was really interesting because I just 0:30:09.640 --> 0:30:12.960 came from all this whirlwind of two years of intensive 0:30:13.000 --> 0:30:18.200 wolf research and university college ecology classes and and now 0:30:18.240 --> 0:30:20.680 this new world of this conflicts going on, and we 0:30:20.760 --> 0:30:24.640 had this opportunity in Montana. In nine was there was 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:29.680 one wolf outside of Minnesota, west of Mississippi, and we 0:30:29.720 --> 0:30:32.680 had the university to put a collar on it, just 0:30:32.800 --> 0:30:35.520 north of Glacier Park, like six seven miles and that 0:30:35.600 --> 0:30:40.000 wolf tiptoed down occasionally into Glacier Park, and that was 0:30:40.040 --> 0:30:43.920 the only wolf in the west and the only one 0:30:44.320 --> 0:30:47.800 they tried to come down female, And Bob Ream named 0:30:47.800 --> 0:30:50.600 her Kishnina after a creek that was just north of 0:30:50.640 --> 0:30:55.280 Glacier And so people don't realize those wolves walked down 0:30:56.280 --> 0:30:58.840 out there seventy nine and so she came down into 0:30:58.840 --> 0:31:01.000 the northwest corner of Glacier Park and a few wolves 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:03.160 have been trickling down me and wolves here and there. 0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:06.600 He had a wolf shot you're on Montana occasionally, but 0:31:06.640 --> 0:31:09.240 they never stuck. They're just they weren't allowed to stay 0:31:09.240 --> 0:31:12.160 at the wolves walking in on their own from camp. 0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:15.440 They absolutely walk. So for me to do a master's project, 0:31:15.480 --> 0:31:17.280 I had to think of some kind of an interesting 0:31:17.320 --> 0:31:20.160 project so we can monitor this wolf and still have 0:31:20.360 --> 0:31:22.600 enough data. So what I did was, they decided I'm 0:31:22.600 --> 0:31:24.080 going to look at because I was a good trapper, 0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:27.040 I decided I would look at this wolf and compare 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:30.760 her food selection, at rice selection, and habitat use with 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:34.080 coyotes within her territory and outside of her territory. So 0:31:34.160 --> 0:31:35.760 I caught and call it a lot of coyotes. In 0:31:35.760 --> 0:31:38.040 the meantime, I kept trying to catch more wolves, and 0:31:38.080 --> 0:31:40.400 there weren't any. So that was the core of my 0:31:40.480 --> 0:31:43.480 master's thesis. But I was fascinating how they were interacting 0:31:43.520 --> 0:31:46.000 on the landscape. Now, when you were doing that, you 0:31:46.000 --> 0:31:49.920 you presumably had like a course load you had to do. Yes, 0:31:50.120 --> 0:31:52.120 how did you balance that with being in the class 0:31:52.200 --> 0:31:54.200 Like one hand, you're in some classroom with a bunch 0:31:54.200 --> 0:31:56.320 of ding bat students, right, and then the next in 0:31:56.360 --> 0:31:59.200 the other hand, you're up trapping wolves. I alternated with 0:31:59.440 --> 0:32:01.200 queer in the order system. Then so I do a 0:32:01.240 --> 0:32:02.840 quarter in the field and then a quarterer in school 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:04.320 in the quarter in the field, and go back and 0:32:04.360 --> 0:32:07.280 forth through around through two and a half years. So 0:32:07.320 --> 0:32:10.280 I had to read the classroom part. No, I didn't. 0:32:10.280 --> 0:32:13.840 Actually it was interesting to me, and great professor's back 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:16.560 then class I'm not hacking. I went to graduate school 0:32:17.600 --> 0:32:21.160 Jouncle Barto Gara, Bobbery and all these old wonderful guys 0:32:21.200 --> 0:32:25.440 who were real good mentors. So no, but I was 0:32:25.600 --> 0:32:28.080 always Jones and to get back, always Jones, going to 0:32:28.120 --> 0:32:30.760 get back up the North Fork. And that Collard, the 0:32:30.800 --> 0:32:32.760 Collard female that you had that was coming down. You 0:32:32.760 --> 0:32:34.840 guys are getting data off that it was still a 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:38.000 good college. Yeah yeah, and um it's it died out 0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:40.560 in about a year and a half. It should have 0:32:40.640 --> 0:32:43.040 lasted longer, but it didn't. But we continued to see 0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:46.000 tracks of a female because you can tell by the 0:32:46.040 --> 0:32:49.120 yur nation and the snow through her territory throughout the 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:51.520 winter and using the same travel routes. I mean, I'm 0:32:51.520 --> 0:32:54.720 sure it was her. And then the next she met 0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:56.760 a mate the next year and they produced the first 0:32:56.840 --> 0:33:02.719 litter in mate in what country Canada, of course, so 0:33:02.800 --> 0:33:05.200 just north the glacier. They did, just north the glacier. 0:33:05.240 --> 0:33:07.280 How many miles outside of how many miles north of 0:33:07.280 --> 0:33:11.320 the border, seven or eight? And she's flirting with the border. 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:16.360 She's flirting. Yeah, she crossed occasionally. So um her died 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:21.600 that summer and she it was captured inadvertently in a 0:33:21.640 --> 0:33:28.640 barret trap in Canada. They were researching trap research. So 0:33:28.720 --> 0:33:32.760 this female raised she had seven pups, half for gray, 0:33:32.760 --> 0:33:35.720 half for black, with no help. We were worried about 0:33:35.720 --> 0:33:41.040 her their survival because she was really remarkably um proficient, 0:33:41.080 --> 0:33:43.440 apparently because no one was feeding her. I mean this 0:33:43.480 --> 0:33:46.480 was out where their oil gas exploration and log trucks 0:33:46.520 --> 0:33:50.200 and wilderness and wild things and lots of game. And 0:33:50.440 --> 0:33:52.640 by that winner we would still see tracks in snow 0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:55.720 of eight wolves. So they all made it. And then 0:33:55.840 --> 0:33:58.920 about two years later another female came in and the 0:33:58.920 --> 0:34:02.000 next letter was born in five. And then in nighties 0:34:02.120 --> 0:34:06.400 six they moved more down to the park a lot 0:34:06.960 --> 0:34:10.759 and an eighty six the first pack was born in 0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:14.480 Glacier Park in over fifty years first litter, so that's 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:17.400 the progression kind of went from like one to two 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:22.200 to seven to fourteen and then they just kept expanding. 0:34:22.200 --> 0:34:25.800 But all of those wolves, all of those wolves prior 0:34:25.840 --> 0:34:29.960 to reintroductions in the bark in Idaho, they all walked 0:34:30.040 --> 0:34:33.799 down and nobody brought them. Nobody brought those wolves. And 0:34:33.840 --> 0:34:37.840 it's so hard people don't grasp that I was there. 0:34:38.440 --> 0:34:41.480 I know that there were many of us hard, you know, 0:34:41.560 --> 0:34:45.520 volunteers and students and starving technicians, following these tracks around, 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:49.120 and we know that they were not brought there did 0:34:49.880 --> 0:34:51.719 so I didn't know that. I know that people like 0:34:51.760 --> 0:34:54.840 are up there up in arms about the Yellowstone wolves 0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:57.000 being brought there, but there are sort of I guess 0:34:57.040 --> 0:34:59.839 would you'd call them a conspiracy theorist that people think 0:34:59.840 --> 0:35:02.400 that those wolves up there were brought into and they 0:35:02.440 --> 0:35:04.680 didn't walk in. I don't know what you'd call it, 0:35:04.680 --> 0:35:06.600 because I'm not a believer in it. I mean, I'm 0:35:06.680 --> 0:35:10.400 the factual check fact checker there. I was there, and 0:35:10.520 --> 0:35:13.319 they were native. And the interesting thing was, while we 0:35:13.320 --> 0:35:15.080 were killing off her wolves down here, there was a 0:35:15.080 --> 0:35:18.880 big program in southwestern Elbird in southeastern BC to poison 0:35:18.920 --> 0:35:21.719 off wolves. So in the sixties, by the late sixties, 0:35:21.960 --> 0:35:24.560 there basically was kind of a wolf free zone, right 0:35:24.600 --> 0:35:27.960 around the international border. So when Kishnina arrived, she had 0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:31.760 to come some distance, maybe Jasper, but at least mamp 0:35:32.400 --> 0:35:34.799 She had to run that gauntlet down through all these 0:35:34.920 --> 0:35:38.239 hazards and she made it. Yeah. Well, a mountain lion 0:35:38.560 --> 0:35:40.719 you know about this recently left the Black Hills of 0:35:40.760 --> 0:35:45.320 South Dakota and got hit by car and Connecticut it's nothing. 0:35:45.360 --> 0:35:47.440 And so when my tracking, so I call her this 0:35:47.480 --> 0:35:51.600 one little wolf in Glacier and we had her in 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:53.080 the area for a year and a half and I 0:35:53.120 --> 0:35:54.840 caught her again and I replaced her. Call her. She 0:35:54.920 --> 0:35:57.000 was not very big, and she was an average small 0:35:57.080 --> 0:36:00.239 female And like, what tell me this eight pounds? What's 0:36:00.280 --> 0:36:05.200 a big male? So the biggest wolf I've ever caught pounds, 0:36:05.200 --> 0:36:07.080 which is almost as much as I weigh. So it's 0:36:07.360 --> 0:36:13.319 pretty amazing when you see hundred and fifty pound is 0:36:13.360 --> 0:36:17.680 like the two and I'll yes, I'll get there. But 0:36:17.719 --> 0:36:19.920 what I want to say about this one wolf is 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:23.600 she she was collared and then she floated around again. 0:36:23.600 --> 0:36:25.480 She'd been for a year and then she just disappeared 0:36:25.480 --> 0:36:27.399 and we couldn't find her. And that happens with these 0:36:27.480 --> 0:36:29.840 VHF collars because they're not GPS collars and you have 0:36:29.920 --> 0:36:32.040 to physically go out and listen for the signal with 0:36:32.080 --> 0:36:35.600 airplanes and ground whatever. She was shot seven months later 0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:39.600 at Poosh Push Poosh Coupe, which is up very in 0:36:39.680 --> 0:36:43.719 northern Alberta b C area, which is north of where 0:36:43.760 --> 0:36:46.680 some of these wolves to Mellowstone were captured to bring down. 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:49.799 So the moral of the story is that wolf was 0:36:49.840 --> 0:36:53.480 connected with wolves further north than these wolves were taken 0:36:53.520 --> 0:36:58.040 for reintroduction. They are one species here, one population. They 0:36:58.080 --> 0:37:03.080 are not different. Okay, Okay, you're getting That's great, You're 0:37:03.080 --> 0:37:05.200 getting ahead of me a little bit. I'm just sorry. 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.239 I want to back up hit a couple points. Okay, No, 0:37:07.320 --> 0:37:08.239 I want to get to that. I want to get 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:10.360 to the super Bowl thing. I want to we hat 0:37:10.440 --> 0:37:12.040 to like set the table for that one a little bit. 0:37:14.400 --> 0:37:19.760 The urination pattern females between their legs, males and female 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:21.880 like a spade female dog will razor leg, but it 0:37:21.920 --> 0:37:23.640 doesn't go up high on it tree, you know what 0:37:23.719 --> 0:37:25.479 I mean. They mark a little snow bank or something 0:37:26.080 --> 0:37:28.600 spade female does. So you can tell from the urine 0:37:28.600 --> 0:37:31.920 pattern from the tracks relative to the where the piss lands. 0:37:32.560 --> 0:37:38.240 You can tell somewhat age of the female, not age, 0:37:38.320 --> 0:37:40.799 you can tell if she's dominant or not dominant, meaning 0:37:40.880 --> 0:37:44.400 within her social structure. And an old female doesn't necessarily 0:37:44.480 --> 0:37:46.520 the dominant one. So what does the dominant one due 0:37:46.560 --> 0:37:49.759 to raised leg your nation. But it's just you know, 0:37:49.840 --> 0:37:52.040 the squat and raise their little leg up because you 0:37:52.080 --> 0:37:54.560 don't off to more of an angle, just a little 0:37:54.560 --> 0:37:57.080 to the side. It's not quite between their legs. Is 0:37:57.120 --> 0:37:59.759 she There's no way to know. But is it that 0:38:00.040 --> 0:38:04.319 she's mimicking a male? Like? What is that? Like? Why 0:38:04.320 --> 0:38:06.160 does a dominant female raiser leg a little bit? You 0:38:06.160 --> 0:38:09.480 ever seen a spade female dog do that. I've had 0:38:09.520 --> 0:38:11.440 spade female dogs that do that, and they had a 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:13.400 Spade female dog. But I just I feel like she 0:38:13.440 --> 0:38:16.200 would just squat. Okay, well, she probably wasn't a very 0:38:16.200 --> 0:38:21.720 dominant dog. No, I was dominant man, see, as should 0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:25.239 be with dogs. But so the dominant thing, it's just 0:38:25.440 --> 0:38:28.840 it's a higher mark, higher in the leanscape, more visible, 0:38:28.920 --> 0:38:33.560 more detectable. They may have a higher androgen level in 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:36.680 their body. It's like a female dog doesn't have much estrogen. 0:38:36.800 --> 0:38:40.520 They tend to start raising their leg. It's just that way. 0:38:40.600 --> 0:38:44.040 It's just behaviorally, but more dominant the mark, the more 0:38:44.080 --> 0:38:48.320 dominant the animal. Okay, I know this isn't the most importance. 0:38:48.760 --> 0:38:50.800 Have you ever seen where a female was dominant and 0:38:50.800 --> 0:38:54.000 then lost dominance and stopped raising her leg or once 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:56.920 they start they never stop. I never. I didn't get 0:38:56.960 --> 0:38:58.360 to see the wolves in the North Fork of the 0:38:58.360 --> 0:39:01.200 Flathead like Minnesota, because it's so forced. That's a question 0:39:01.239 --> 0:39:03.440 for Yellowstone where they can actually see them out in 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:07.480 the I'm sure they published papers, they're probably documented. I 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:11.040 don't know. The male, of course, raised like urinates, and 0:39:11.239 --> 0:39:13.840 a dominant male will make a very high mark and 0:39:13.920 --> 0:39:16.160 tail flag and just be like, oh, I'm just the 0:39:16.200 --> 0:39:19.200 boss up. So they'd like to they like to urinate 0:39:19.280 --> 0:39:21.440 on a on a poster or tree. Yeah, in a 0:39:21.600 --> 0:39:25.680 in a real subordinate mail might actually squat urinate when 0:39:25.719 --> 0:39:29.200 he's younger, especially, but yeah, the higher the mark, the 0:39:29.280 --> 0:39:34.560 higher the status. Nice. Um, then that was behind on 0:39:34.560 --> 0:39:38.400 another thing too. Oh, let's not get into the superwolf 0:39:39.160 --> 0:39:42.960 the suit. No, we're gonna get there the superwolf conspiracy theory. 0:39:43.719 --> 0:39:47.439 If that I don't know that that's a conspiracy theory, right, Yeah, okay, 0:39:47.480 --> 0:39:49.719 so we're gonna get into that see. You know what's 0:39:49.760 --> 0:39:53.040 funny is you might learn from us. You might learn 0:39:54.080 --> 0:39:56.719 um besides us just learning everything from you, you might 0:39:56.800 --> 0:40:00.960 learn from us about what sorts of thing creep around 0:40:01.000 --> 0:40:05.000 in the ether among hunting and fishing type folks. So 0:40:05.440 --> 0:40:06.920 I try to heard it all though I am a 0:40:07.000 --> 0:40:11.040 hunting and fishing type of I have not heard at all. 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:13.480 But do you? But do you ever spend time undercovered? 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:14.839 Do you ever just sitting in the bar and act 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:17.279 like you're not who you are? Just absorb what people say? 0:40:17.400 --> 0:40:19.120 I am. What you see is what you get. I 0:40:19.160 --> 0:40:21.080 am who I am. Okay, So you never just like 0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:24.279 get into a wolf conversation bait the person along to 0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:26.720 try to get to try to find out what they're thinking. 0:40:26.800 --> 0:40:28.680 I'm not saying I didn't do that when I was younger, 0:40:29.719 --> 0:40:31.440 but I don't do it now. Before you just sit 0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:35.920 there go you don't say, you don't say so, Um, 0:40:36.200 --> 0:40:39.040 what's the big Okay, tell me in your career the 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:43.120 biggest wolf you've ever weighed on? We're talking certified scales 0:40:43.239 --> 0:40:45.240 right like you do it where you're getting the actual 0:40:45.320 --> 0:40:47.920 real weight. So the biggest wolf I've ever caught was 0:40:47.920 --> 0:40:52.359 a pounds. He was the breeding male of the Headwaters pack. 0:40:52.640 --> 0:40:56.960 What's the biggest weight, um that you've like, do you 0:40:57.000 --> 0:40:59.319 know the highest acceptable way? Because I know they've gotten 0:40:59.320 --> 0:41:01.480 some bigger weights and Alaska, for instance, a little bit 0:41:01.560 --> 0:41:03.920 the high We were asking this of the Yellowstone folks. 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:07.439 So the biggest wolves they've ever weighed there, and those 0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:10.600 are very you know, they're doing pretty well. Um. I 0:41:10.640 --> 0:41:13.120 think it was close to like a hundred and forty 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:15.759 seven pounds or something like that, which is more than 0:41:15.800 --> 0:41:20.360 I wait, that's a really big yeah. And I've also 0:41:20.400 --> 0:41:25.200 heard that when you get those high end weights, it's 0:41:25.200 --> 0:41:29.400 typically something with twenty pounds of meat in its belly typically, 0:41:29.560 --> 0:41:34.560 which you know can really yeah, really like tip it 0:41:34.600 --> 0:41:37.360 to the high end. So in my career, considering starting 0:41:37.360 --> 0:41:41.799 with Minnesota, and I've I've worked in the Canadian National Parks, 0:41:41.840 --> 0:41:47.000 I've colored wolves in British, Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Royal, Romania. 0:41:47.440 --> 0:41:52.439 I mean, I've had a huge Romania in Minnesota. So 0:41:53.080 --> 0:41:55.200 the wolves on average in the West where we are, 0:41:55.200 --> 0:41:57.640 because your audience is the Western audience, we got them 0:41:57.680 --> 0:42:02.080 all over places. Some Minnesota wolves are on average twenty 0:42:02.120 --> 0:42:06.560 maybe smaller. Far more people will listen to this who 0:42:06.560 --> 0:42:08.520 aren't in the West than are on the West Saks. 0:42:08.560 --> 0:42:11.640 I didn't know that. Okay, So they're smaller the Midwestern wolves. 0:42:11.680 --> 0:42:14.359 It's a smaller and it's called the Eastern wolf. It's 0:42:14.520 --> 0:42:18.160 slightly different. Our wolves in the West are slightly larger. Again, 0:42:18.200 --> 0:42:20.360 it's prey based. The wolves in the Midwest live on 0:42:20.480 --> 0:42:23.840 deer and beaver and occasionally almost Wora wolves live predominantly 0:42:23.880 --> 0:42:27.880 almost The wolves out here live primarily deer and elk 0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:31.200 occasionally most, but they have a larger prey that they 0:42:31.239 --> 0:42:33.359 go and the ones that came from Canada they may 0:42:33.360 --> 0:42:35.960 have bread and caribout which again are larger and more 0:42:36.040 --> 0:42:39.399 most so they are what they eat, just like us. 0:42:39.480 --> 0:42:41.839 And if you're you know, if you're if you're taking 0:42:41.880 --> 0:42:45.000 down a hundred forty pound deer, that's your diet. Does 0:42:45.040 --> 0:42:47.160 not behoove you toway a hundred forty pounds because there's 0:42:47.160 --> 0:42:48.879 a lot of you they're gonna eat. So just being 0:42:48.920 --> 0:42:52.640 smaller that just works out. It just if you need 0:42:52.760 --> 0:42:54.759 take down a really big, a thousand pound animal, you 0:42:54.800 --> 0:42:58.720 need a lot of real big beefy animals. So, okay, 0:42:58.840 --> 0:43:03.600 super wolves, are you ready to lay out? I don't 0:43:03.600 --> 0:43:04.920 even want to do it. I'm not even do it. 0:43:05.600 --> 0:43:10.319 Lay out what lay out the super wolf, lay out 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:12.640 the super wolf. It's been a while since I have 0:43:12.760 --> 0:43:14.640 had to do this or even think about it. But 0:43:15.520 --> 0:43:21.359 I think that the theory goes that I don't know. 0:43:21.520 --> 0:43:25.120 I don't know the reason why or the proposed reason why. 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:29.360 But the theory is that for some reason, they trapped 0:43:29.400 --> 0:43:31.959 a bunch of wolves. And we even talked to a 0:43:32.000 --> 0:43:34.640 trapper told us who told us that, and he that 0:43:34.719 --> 0:43:37.239 he had an evidences this was true that because he 0:43:37.360 --> 0:43:41.160 knew the trapper that trapped these wolves in Canada. It's 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.439 it's okay, go ahead. But there's there's two there's two 0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:48.520 competing wisdoms about the super wolf. Okay, well, either way, 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:53.239 that they they picked out and they they picked out 0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:57.440 the biggest, baddest, nastiest, meanest wolves, and those are the 0:43:57.440 --> 0:43:59.799 ones that they brought down and put into els on 0:43:59.840 --> 0:44:03.239 that sational park. I bet again, I don't know why 0:44:03.400 --> 0:44:06.680 or well, okay, and there's that, and we were told 0:44:06.719 --> 0:44:09.600 that by a fella. Yeah, and there's another one that 0:44:09.640 --> 0:44:14.879 they took the wrong wolves, the long species of wolf, right, yeah, 0:44:14.880 --> 0:44:20.520 they're sober, the wrong variety. Yeah, from way too far north. 0:44:21.520 --> 0:44:24.560 And the ones that were here, the native wolves here 0:44:24.560 --> 0:44:28.840 where these little rinky dinky plant very like mild mannered, 0:44:29.200 --> 0:44:33.520 polite little wolves. And they went and got these big 0:44:33.960 --> 0:44:37.960 northern savages that are two fifty pounds, and they cut 0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:42.439 those loose down. As soon as they got here. They 0:44:42.560 --> 0:44:47.600 just reigned holy hell on the north Yellowstone Elkerve. Yeah, 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:51.360 the heard went from twenties some plus thousand all the 0:44:51.400 --> 0:44:58.000 way down to four because biologists, can you remember to 0:44:58.120 --> 0:45:00.160 within this. I'm just gonna let you run. Okay, I'm 0:45:00.160 --> 0:45:01.799 gonna let you run. Be careful. How much time do 0:45:01.840 --> 0:45:04.440 you let you run? But but I we're gonna see 0:45:04.480 --> 0:45:08.319 how good you are. Um as you run on this, 0:45:08.960 --> 0:45:14.319 however you see fit? Can you also touch on the 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:17.320 idea and I think this comes from you, the idea 0:45:17.440 --> 0:45:24.719 that the reintroduction maybe it was not necessary. You just 0:45:24.800 --> 0:45:27.520 give me four hours with some materials recover, so I 0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:31.160 will start. Let's do it. Let's start with the super 0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:35.880 wolf first. So the wolves that they captured up in 0:45:36.040 --> 0:45:39.200 a Hinton and for in St. John's are within dispersal 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:42.719 distance of our wolves here? Where are those places? Tell people? 0:45:42.719 --> 0:45:47.040 Where those places? So? Um one is in Alberta and 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:50.200 one is in BC. They're close to the Alberta BC line. 0:45:51.600 --> 0:45:55.960 Um there about. One is about three miles north or so. 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:58.839 One is about five miles north or so of hair 0:45:59.120 --> 0:46:02.319 of Glacier Park the border give you a take. And 0:46:02.360 --> 0:46:04.719 so the crew went up there and they just had 0:46:04.840 --> 0:46:08.880 guys who are trapping bringing you know, call and they 0:46:08.920 --> 0:46:10.440 went out put a radio collar on them to have 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:12.399 a judice wolf, so then they could go out and 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:14.680 fly and catch more wolves and dark than whatever. They 0:46:14.760 --> 0:46:17.319 just took the whatever wolves they could get. There was 0:46:17.360 --> 0:46:24.560 not a selection for bigger, meaner, badder, uglier, beautiful whatever wolves. 0:46:24.560 --> 0:46:30.480 They just random sample those locations. I don't need to 0:46:30.560 --> 0:46:32.600 have to ask somebody from Yellowstone. I think it's because 0:46:32.640 --> 0:46:35.840 the Canadian government says, we're really glad to give you 0:46:35.920 --> 0:46:38.520 all the worlds you want. They're free, come and get 0:46:38.560 --> 0:46:43.799 them serious. Because out there they still aerial gun them, 0:46:43.920 --> 0:46:47.440 don't they in certain places. I don't think so, not anymore. 0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:51.120 I don't think so. I'm not sure, but I don't 0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:55.400 think so. Maybe back then they were they were killing them. 0:46:55.440 --> 0:47:00.640 I mean, they economically valuable pelt they have, and so 0:47:00.760 --> 0:47:02.720 they kept them in the wolves that they could catch 0:47:03.320 --> 0:47:05.520 as a family group. Were the wolves that they put 0:47:05.520 --> 0:47:07.759 into Yellowstone and the holding pens with the hopes that 0:47:07.800 --> 0:47:10.359 they would stay together as a pack. And the young 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:13.960 teenage kind of age wolves that would be potentially good 0:47:13.960 --> 0:47:17.960 dispersers or unassociated with other wolves. They caught those and 0:47:17.960 --> 0:47:21.000 they put them in Yellowstone because the idea wasn't in 0:47:21.320 --> 0:47:23.920 I mean in Idaho. They caught those and put them 0:47:23.920 --> 0:47:26.440 in Idahole. The idea was they wanted family groups to 0:47:26.480 --> 0:47:28.640 stay in the park, but when they dropped him off 0:47:28.680 --> 0:47:31.160 with the wilderness Boundary and Idaho, they wanted them to 0:47:31.239 --> 0:47:34.759 just blow like dandelion fluff in the wind and disperse 0:47:35.320 --> 0:47:37.840 and find each other and pair and form new packs. 0:47:37.880 --> 0:47:40.360 So they were tartly. Oh yeah, So the ones that 0:47:40.400 --> 0:47:43.120 they put in Yellowstone was called a soft release because 0:47:43.200 --> 0:47:46.040 the ones by Frank Church, they wanted them to split. 0:47:46.560 --> 0:47:48.719 They didn't put packs in there, they put in individuals. 0:47:49.000 --> 0:47:53.319 They wanted them. They dropped what wolves there over two years, 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:56.520 and they wanted them to just go go high and 0:47:56.560 --> 0:48:01.120 wide and find each other. Hot hot release, hard hard release, 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:03.880 herd release. And was that to so they can monitor 0:48:04.000 --> 0:48:08.359 sort of two different versions of releases and research too different. Yes, 0:48:08.440 --> 0:48:11.240 because you've got to realize prior to the Yellowstone wolf introduction, 0:48:11.320 --> 0:48:13.479 this had never been done anywhere in the world ever, 0:48:13.920 --> 0:48:15.880 and so they didn't know how it turned out. It 0:48:15.920 --> 0:48:17.720 was like, this is our best guest. So we'll build 0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:21.960 these pans with cycle and fences, like we will hold 0:48:22.000 --> 0:48:27.000 them for through breeding season, and just before they're gonna welp, 0:48:27.040 --> 0:48:29.359 we're gonna cut them loose. And those pregnant females aren't 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:31.279 going to probably go very far. And they've got their 0:48:31.280 --> 0:48:33.960 pack mates now they've made it, and we're gonna hope 0:48:34.000 --> 0:48:36.000 they stick together and stay in the park and Idaho 0:48:36.040 --> 0:48:38.239 it's like, you guys, better run your tails off and 0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:40.200 get the heck away from people and go find each 0:48:40.239 --> 0:48:42.799 other and disappear in the wilderness and mates. So it 0:48:42.880 --> 0:48:45.440 was a totally different starter, and they were literally the 0:48:45.480 --> 0:48:47.200 doors are opened up, the wolves were kicked out, and 0:48:47.200 --> 0:48:50.920 they're gone in idahol it's totally different. So both worked, 0:48:51.280 --> 0:48:54.479 and yeah, they both worked. Interestingly, I had a wolf 0:48:54.480 --> 0:48:58.080 that caught and Glacier Park and he hung around for 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:00.160 a while and then he ended up going over to 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:04.440 the Kelly Creek area in Idaho wild Area and he 0:49:04.640 --> 0:49:07.000 stayed there, and the fish and game would keep drag 0:49:07.040 --> 0:49:09.160 of him, and we'd see him occasionally, and he was 0:49:09.160 --> 0:49:11.400 there with a radio collar, and he just bided his 0:49:11.480 --> 0:49:14.040 time by himself up in the Great Burn country. And 0:49:14.880 --> 0:49:16.719 I mean it's a big wolf by himself. He was 0:49:16.760 --> 0:49:18.920 a hundred eleven pounds on e cottom, pretty big male. 0:49:19.960 --> 0:49:22.400 He lived by himself, killing whatever you could do. And 0:49:22.400 --> 0:49:27.319 when they let those wolves kicked him loose in seven 0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:29.959 at the edge of the wilderness, this little black young 0:49:30.040 --> 0:49:33.080 female found her way up to Kelly Create and paired 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:36.080 with that collared male from Glacier Park and they formed 0:49:36.080 --> 0:49:38.920 the Kelly Creek and he lived to be eleven. He 0:49:38.960 --> 0:49:42.799 lived a long long time. That's an old wolf, very 0:49:42.920 --> 0:49:45.719 very very old. Average life expectancy of a wolf. They've 0:49:45.760 --> 0:49:49.480 calculated it in Yellowstone four point six years, I believe, 0:49:49.520 --> 0:49:54.760 and in Minnesota four point one average life expectancy in years. 0:49:54.800 --> 0:49:57.720 You make it to five, you're doing really well. Eleven 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:02.200 is very old. So you've only seen a handful over 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:06.399 ten years. Yeah, I can count him on one hand. Huh. 0:50:06.440 --> 0:50:08.400 They just don't live very long. I had one brought 0:50:08.440 --> 0:50:10.960 in for checking this fall that a trapper caught over by. 0:50:10.960 --> 0:50:13.600 Libby was really interesting because it had been trapped in 0:50:13.600 --> 0:50:16.120 two thousand and twelve. Was an adult already and he 0:50:16.200 --> 0:50:18.080 was brought in so he think he was about nine, 0:50:18.120 --> 0:50:20.560 and that's a really old wolf. The trapper brought him 0:50:20.600 --> 0:50:22.719 in dead. Yeah, he caught. He harvest I didn't know 0:50:22.719 --> 0:50:24.320 if he meant like trapper, like you were a trap. No, 0:50:24.920 --> 0:50:27.680 harvested him for for and um he yeah, he lived 0:50:27.680 --> 0:50:30.560 on that landscape all that time and avoided Oh my goodness, 0:50:30.600 --> 0:50:33.120 I can't tell you how many times he'd probably you know, 0:50:33.560 --> 0:50:35.759 had experiences with humans that he should have died and 0:50:35.760 --> 0:50:39.399 he didn't. So actually he had a bullet, a small 0:50:39.480 --> 0:50:41.560 twenty two caliber lodged in the base of the skull 0:50:41.840 --> 0:50:45.520 that healed over. Really, I'm telling you these wolves he did. 0:50:45.520 --> 0:50:47.720 He sent me the photo. They don't have it easy. 0:50:48.800 --> 0:50:53.120 So back to the super wolves. Yeah, we're digressing. So 0:50:53.320 --> 0:50:57.400 the should I repeat about the glacier wolf, about the 0:50:57.440 --> 0:50:59.800 one that I caught that dispersed. You could remind me 0:51:00.480 --> 0:51:02.719 because you're making because now I think the connection will 0:51:02.719 --> 0:51:05.479 have more potent. So all these people are concerned about 0:51:05.520 --> 0:51:07.880 these wolves not being the same wolf. So this little 0:51:07.920 --> 0:51:10.560 female that I dropped in Glacier Park at about age two, 0:51:10.719 --> 0:51:15.920 and she dispersed in nine seven. This is one of 0:51:15.920 --> 0:51:18.359 the ones that walked in original. Yeah, she was born 0:51:18.400 --> 0:51:20.680 in Glacier Park. I know because we caught her as 0:51:20.680 --> 0:51:23.800 a pup. I know she was born there. Anyway, Um, 0:51:23.880 --> 0:51:26.960 she went up and dispersed and disappeared, and she ended 0:51:27.040 --> 0:51:30.200 up being killed by a farmer. And she was traveling 0:51:30.200 --> 0:51:33.200 with other wolves in July and called it in because 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:35.239 out of the radio color a phone number. Game Warden 0:51:35.320 --> 0:51:37.400 called me and this is where she was shot. And 0:51:37.400 --> 0:51:41.040 it was north where most of the Yellowstone wolf were 0:51:41.120 --> 0:51:45.560 taken from. It was equally far north as the furthest 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:48.319 north Yellowstone what was were taken from. So clearly that 0:51:48.520 --> 0:51:51.760 range that she traveled, it's all one set of jeans. 0:51:51.840 --> 0:51:55.440 It's one wolf population. And I can tell that to 0:51:55.520 --> 0:51:58.120 people time and time again. And she's not the only one. 0:51:58.160 --> 0:52:00.400 She was the first one that we documented. She spirst 0:52:01.800 --> 0:52:05.480 five and forty miles straight line. No, I don't know. 0:52:05.560 --> 0:52:07.759 She may have gone further past that. When they do that, 0:52:08.600 --> 0:52:12.319 I'm really interested in the anomalies. What is it that 0:52:12.360 --> 0:52:15.480 made her do that? Because she's a wolf, I mean, 0:52:15.520 --> 0:52:18.080 this is she's not unusual. It's just that it's really 0:52:18.160 --> 0:52:20.960 hard to document it, and not that we have GPS colors. 0:52:21.040 --> 0:52:23.600 Oh my god, they are all over the place. We 0:52:23.640 --> 0:52:26.719 had wolves and Yellowstone go to Colorado and Utah. I mean, 0:52:27.080 --> 0:52:30.239 this is not unusual now that we know, we just 0:52:30.280 --> 0:52:33.680 didn't have the tools to detect it. Average wolf dispersial 0:52:33.760 --> 0:52:38.560 instance is probably average including all habits, probably around fifty miles. 0:52:38.600 --> 0:52:42.319 But there are those that gos and in Canada where 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:44.920 they're following migratory hurts, Oh my god, they'll go thousand 0:52:45.000 --> 0:52:49.720 miles easily. Remember that we're on Remember what you spose 0:52:49.800 --> 0:52:52.200 you're talking about. Let me let me sidetracking from Matt 0:52:53.200 --> 0:52:58.480 Have you have we yet had um? I'm sure we 0:52:58.520 --> 0:53:04.400 have introduced wolves intermingle with wolves that came in on 0:53:04.440 --> 0:53:07.920 their own. Yes. So originally we had the native wolves 0:53:07.960 --> 0:53:11.239 that walked down from Canada that colonized northwest Montana and 0:53:11.280 --> 0:53:17.200 started spilling at Idahole a little bit. The introductions were winters, 0:53:19.520 --> 0:53:23.319 and those populations in Idaho Yellowstone in northwest Montana were 0:53:23.360 --> 0:53:27.480 separate for quite a long time genetically, and they didn't 0:53:27.480 --> 0:53:32.640 begin to successfully not just dispersed, but dispersed land and 0:53:32.719 --> 0:53:35.720 breed that's the sign of success when they're only inter England. 0:53:36.040 --> 0:53:38.800 And now we have shown through genetics and radio collars 0:53:38.840 --> 0:53:45.000 their one population Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, you know, Wyoming. 0:53:45.120 --> 0:53:48.279 It's one about the ones in northern California just came 0:53:48.280 --> 0:53:50.920 from Oregon, which came from Yellowstone. Yeah, I mean nobody 0:53:50.960 --> 0:53:53.120 put them there, and you could say, well, they were 0:53:53.120 --> 0:53:56.520 put into Yellowstone? Yeah? Or seven? The thing? Why did 0:53:56.560 --> 0:53:59.440 they not come out of the frank Church. They may have. 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:02.440 I'm trying to think. I'm pretty sure that our seven, 0:54:02.520 --> 0:54:05.000 I'm pretty sure it came from yellow Stone. But sorry, 0:54:05.120 --> 0:54:08.839 I don't actually remember. Okay, so now maybe it came 0:54:08.840 --> 0:54:10.719 from I'm feeling good on the stup. Maybe it can't. 0:54:10.719 --> 0:54:12.480 It probably came from Idaho. You're right, not the one 0:54:12.480 --> 0:54:16.480 that wou or seven's the number. Um, I'm feeling good 0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:19.440 on super wolves? Are feeling good on super wolves? Yeah? Okay? 0:54:19.600 --> 0:54:23.120 Now what about the idea? Well, the other thing is 0:54:23.160 --> 0:54:25.600 I've heard that wolves have eight canines. These super wolves 0:54:25.640 --> 0:54:28.400 were a hundred seventy pounds and they have double canines 0:54:28.440 --> 0:54:31.960 with eight canines too. I hear it. You really have 0:54:32.160 --> 0:54:34.480 heard that public meetings, and you can't laugh at a 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:38.160 public meeting. Someone told you that at the meeting that 0:54:38.200 --> 0:54:40.640 they're super heavy and got extra teeth. I've heard a 0:54:40.640 --> 0:54:46.080 lot when you point out when what are you getting at? Am? 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:49.840 I I'm right that you observed that we would have 0:54:49.920 --> 0:54:52.520 landed We would have eventually landed in the same place 0:54:52.719 --> 0:54:57.600 had we not done the Yellowstone in Idaho reintroductions, that 0:54:57.640 --> 0:55:00.680 we would have gotten there. Anyways, do you just point 0:55:00.760 --> 0:55:04.160 that out as an interesting idea or do you point 0:55:04.160 --> 0:55:06.200 that out because you feel that there's a lesson there 0:55:06.719 --> 0:55:08.800 or did you feel that there was a mistake made. 0:55:10.840 --> 0:55:13.520 This is a very complex question, so I'm going to 0:55:13.680 --> 0:55:15.880 start with complex show. I'm going to start with data 0:55:15.920 --> 0:55:21.560 because I'm a scientist, so I believe it was there 0:55:21.560 --> 0:55:25.319 were two wolves that showed up, one inside Yellowstone Park 0:55:25.520 --> 0:55:29.080 and one south of Yellowstone Park two years at least 0:55:29.080 --> 0:55:32.440 two to three before the reintroductions, might have been ninety one. 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:36.120 There was a filmmaker here from Bozeman, right Panovich. He 0:55:36.239 --> 0:55:39.680 was in Hayden Valley filming for Bush Productions filming, and 0:55:39.719 --> 0:55:43.960 he was he was out monitoring a bison kill and 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.680 he was filming this. The grizzlies and the grizzlies and 0:55:47.680 --> 0:55:51.240 the coy its interacting and just just as was getting 0:55:51.280 --> 0:55:54.440 too dark to film, he's packing up his camera, this 0:55:54.600 --> 0:55:57.520 form comes out of the dark and he's going, oh 0:55:57.560 --> 0:56:01.120 my god, I think it's a wolf. And it steps 0:56:01.200 --> 0:56:03.279 up to the kill with the grizzlies and the wolf 0:56:03.360 --> 0:56:05.920 like it belonged there, and they're all tearing at this 0:56:06.280 --> 0:56:08.480 feeding on it. It was too dark to film, so 0:56:08.520 --> 0:56:11.080 he got up like three o'clock the next morning. It 0:56:11.120 --> 0:56:15.000 makes his way back out. Um. I believe it was August. 0:56:15.080 --> 0:56:17.239 It was a summer month and he goes right at 0:56:17.400 --> 0:56:19.280 sun before the sun is there, and he's there waiting 0:56:19.320 --> 0:56:22.040 and as the sun comes up, there's this wolf feeding 0:56:22.040 --> 0:56:24.840 on this kill. Before years before the introduction, he was 0:56:24.880 --> 0:56:27.760 so excited about it. All the whiologists saw the video. 0:56:28.239 --> 0:56:31.760 I know him. It was a real thing. That wolf 0:56:31.880 --> 0:56:35.200 was around. It disappeared, never seen again, and then it 0:56:35.239 --> 0:56:38.160 was black and silver, kind of your classic wolf that 0:56:38.239 --> 0:56:39.880 we see here in this equo system. Now it's like 0:56:39.920 --> 0:56:42.000 an older, middle aged animal. Unlike the rest of us, 0:56:42.200 --> 0:56:43.759 they get gray hair as they get older. What was 0:56:43.760 --> 0:56:46.520 the word you just said, You said, we see here 0:56:46.560 --> 0:56:53.160 in the like we see here now. The classic Sorry 0:56:53.320 --> 0:56:57.200 too much Catheine. And then in September and that fall, 0:56:57.400 --> 0:57:01.359 that same fall, a black pound wolf was shot at 0:57:01.400 --> 0:57:05.879 Fox Park Fox Creek, just south of Yellowstone Park, and 0:57:05.920 --> 0:57:07.640 it was shot by somebody who claimed they thought it 0:57:07.680 --> 0:57:10.520 was a kaya. It was unds in black, but who knows, 0:57:10.840 --> 0:57:12.960 but it wouldn't be in that case, It wouldn't be 0:57:12.960 --> 0:57:15.000 in their mind that it would be anything other. I 0:57:15.040 --> 0:57:17.360 don't know, but it was not the one that was 0:57:17.400 --> 0:57:21.360 filmed because this was black. So I was doing my PhD. 0:57:21.440 --> 0:57:24.120 We got the genetic sample. I worked with the Fish 0:57:24.120 --> 0:57:26.600 and Walife Service. We the genetics were done on all 0:57:26.640 --> 0:57:29.400 of those introduced wolves and then about a hundred wolves 0:57:29.440 --> 0:57:31.560 that I had samples from collected over the airs, from 0:57:31.680 --> 0:57:35.040 road killed colored animals, wolves from Canada. We had many 0:57:35.080 --> 0:57:39.120 collaborators contributing samples. That wolf that was shot south of 0:57:39.160 --> 0:57:42.800 Wyoming Genetic Lab in Nason Organ said it was most 0:57:42.880 --> 0:57:48.080 closely related to wolves from nine Mile, Montana. It walked 0:57:48.200 --> 0:57:51.800 down there. It wasn't native wolf too. So there were 0:57:51.800 --> 0:57:55.640 two animals that got down there prior to reintroductions, so 0:57:55.680 --> 0:57:59.280 they were getting there, but they both disappeared overre dead 0:57:59.440 --> 0:58:01.440 and it's kind know where we were at in seventy 0:58:01.520 --> 0:58:04.480 nine and the North Montana we had one wolf that 0:58:04.600 --> 0:58:06.960 made it for a couple of years and finally phoned 0:58:07.000 --> 0:58:09.880 one other and it was just at that threshold. So 0:58:09.920 --> 0:58:13.040 in the early years when this reintroduction was being planned, 0:58:13.680 --> 0:58:16.360 Bob Riem and I keep mentioning Bobby was the father 0:58:16.440 --> 0:58:20.040 of the wolf research here in Montana, fabulous man. Neither 0:58:20.080 --> 0:58:23.720 of us supported reintroduction because we've seen the natural recognization 0:58:23.920 --> 0:58:26.880 work so well. They were making it on their own. 0:58:26.920 --> 0:58:30.040 And when they when they run or trond the gauntlet 0:58:30.360 --> 0:58:34.080 down the rocky mountains, those wolves that are too bold 0:58:34.280 --> 0:58:36.960 or bothers, somebody shoot shovel and shut up, they're gone. 0:58:37.360 --> 0:58:39.240 So it kind of selects for wolves that are a 0:58:39.280 --> 0:58:42.240 little more shy and and there it's more accepted by 0:58:42.240 --> 0:58:44.760 the local people. If the wolves aren't put there, because 0:58:44.880 --> 0:58:46.960 I'm in the controversy here, most of it's because these 0:58:46.960 --> 0:58:51.200 wolves aren't native. So we were against reintroduction for those reasons. 0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:54.360 And then the reintroduction moved forward and it was it 0:58:54.440 --> 0:58:57.200 truly has been, like I cannot think of a more 0:58:57.240 --> 0:59:01.320 successful recovery story anywhere in any dangerous species. It's phenomenal 0:59:01.320 --> 0:59:04.640 because they took over it and they gone everywhere. And 0:59:04.680 --> 0:59:06.600 I just came from a listen to watching wolves. I mean, 0:59:06.600 --> 0:59:09.320 I love to watch them, but I still think that socially, 0:59:10.080 --> 0:59:12.440 it would have been more acceptable if our wolves from 0:59:12.440 --> 0:59:16.760 northwest Montana could continue spreading and they weren't reintroduce. However, 0:59:17.400 --> 0:59:21.240 would it take five years fifty five d That was 0:59:21.280 --> 0:59:25.600 the factor time and the window of opportunity opened through 0:59:26.200 --> 0:59:30.280 the Administrations in charge Center McClure from Idaho, owns from Utah, 0:59:30.360 --> 0:59:33.840 Simpson from Myoming. They've introduced bills to reintroduce wolves because 0:59:33.880 --> 0:59:38.560 they wanted them reintroduced as non essential experimental under the 0:59:39.040 --> 0:59:41.880 Dangerous Species Act instead of really endangered. And that's how 0:59:41.920 --> 0:59:46.920 it moved forward because because you feel that they did 0:59:46.960 --> 0:59:49.880 that because they knew they like you, knew that it 0:59:49.920 --> 0:59:52.640 was going to happen anyway, and it would be better 0:59:52.680 --> 0:59:55.240 for management if it happened experimentally, because it gives you 0:59:55.320 --> 0:59:59.600 greater latitude and lethal control. That's what the reasoning would 0:59:59.680 --> 1:00:01.760 lead one to conclude. I don't know what's in their brain, 1:00:01.800 --> 1:00:04.080 but I would think so. You have to ask that, 1:00:04.200 --> 1:00:06.320 but I would assume so because it would make sense 1:00:06.360 --> 1:00:09.440 as a as a person in charge of conservative states 1:00:09.440 --> 1:00:12.240 that you would want to have some control, especially for 1:00:12.280 --> 1:00:15.600 your live stock constituents, to be able to manage these wolves. 1:00:15.600 --> 1:00:17.720 And if they were fully endangered, you couldn't do anything. 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:21.960 So they're thinking, you're the constituents. Wolves reproduced rapidly have 1:00:22.080 --> 1:00:25.000 great resilience, they can take it, and they have. I mean, 1:00:25.040 --> 1:00:27.680 this is there's wolves. We in the West have almost 1:00:27.720 --> 1:00:30.360 two thousand wolves across scattered across all of the West 1:00:30.360 --> 1:00:32.800 now from one I mean I was there with the 1:00:32.800 --> 1:00:34.600 first peop don't realize that there's so many more in 1:00:34.640 --> 1:00:36.840 the Upper Midwest and the Upper Great Lakes and the 1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:39.560 Great Lakes has another. So we have almost two thousand here, 1:00:39.600 --> 1:00:41.800 not quite the Great Lakes, there's a four thousand one. 1:00:41.840 --> 1:00:44.720 We have like six thousand wolves now in the lower 1:00:44.760 --> 1:00:49.520 forty eight states connected to one population with Canada. It's 1:00:49.520 --> 1:00:52.960 a vast meta population is no more isolated. Worry they're 1:00:52.960 --> 1:00:55.280 going to go extinct, that is not even a concern anymore. 1:00:55.800 --> 1:00:58.520 When they were kicking around the idea, When when when 1:00:58.520 --> 1:01:02.120 they were um building a plan to do the reintroduction 1:01:02.200 --> 1:01:06.680 and you felt that it was not necessary. Were you 1:01:06.760 --> 1:01:09.400 coming from the perspective of someone who wanted to see 1:01:09.480 --> 1:01:12.320 wolves return, or were you coming from some of the 1:01:12.320 --> 1:01:14.720 perspective of someone who was ambivalent about whether or not 1:01:14.800 --> 1:01:17.720 it happened in terms of like who you were cheering for. 1:01:18.200 --> 1:01:21.520 I was coming to the perspective of coming from Minnesota, 1:01:21.600 --> 1:01:26.280 where they success successfully dealt with conflict issues to resolve 1:01:26.320 --> 1:01:30.960 them where they're still protected but only threatened, not fully endangered. 1:01:31.040 --> 1:01:32.960 To minute to hear where there was one wolf, and 1:01:32.960 --> 1:01:36.200 now we're seeing this wave of wolves coming out that 1:01:36.280 --> 1:01:38.520 we're not bothering a lot of people and the ones 1:01:38.560 --> 1:01:41.000 that were being bothered while life services going to remove. 1:01:41.120 --> 1:01:43.720 So I saw a good window of opportunity for wolves 1:01:44.040 --> 1:01:47.160 to be on the landscape and resolve the conflicts. It 1:01:47.360 --> 1:01:50.160 wasn't so much of a concern with the hunting community 1:01:50.160 --> 1:01:52.400 at that time. Was more live stock at that time, 1:01:52.560 --> 1:01:55.120 because there were so few wolves. I saw it as 1:01:55.160 --> 1:01:58.000 a great opportunity and I wanted them to succeed where 1:01:58.040 --> 1:02:00.520 they could be welcome, where there weren't conflicts of livestock 1:02:00.560 --> 1:02:02.760 that were in conflicts with hunting. There's so much game 1:02:02.800 --> 1:02:05.000 on the landscape. They had plenty of food, they had 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:09.920 plenty of refugia to live in, landscapes where they could 1:02:10.560 --> 1:02:14.680 be unbothered. They don't need wilderness. Wolves would live in 1:02:14.720 --> 1:02:17.360 Bozeman if they could. And they don't need a wilderness area. 1:02:17.360 --> 1:02:19.640 They just need to have someplace where they can raise pups, 1:02:19.840 --> 1:02:24.120 find wild ungulates to eat, and live long enough to reproduce. 1:02:24.240 --> 1:02:26.640 They can live anywhere. I mean, the wolf lives from 1:02:26.640 --> 1:02:28.880 the Arctic Circle down. There's wolves in the Gaza Strip. 1:02:28.920 --> 1:02:30.720 They can live in any biome. They can live in 1:02:30.760 --> 1:02:33.440 the desert, they can live in a temperate force, they 1:02:33.440 --> 1:02:35.840 can live in the Arctic. They are really adaptable. So 1:02:35.880 --> 1:02:38.920 it's just matter where we will tolerate their presence. And 1:02:38.960 --> 1:02:41.919 I knew all that, and I could see him successfully 1:02:41.960 --> 1:02:44.120 making it. That's why I thought we would be better 1:02:44.160 --> 1:02:48.080 off holding off in reintroduction, allowing the social landscape to 1:02:48.160 --> 1:02:51.720 evolve as wolves slowly made their way down the landscape, 1:02:51.720 --> 1:02:54.480 because it's a social issue. It is not an ecological issue, 1:02:54.560 --> 1:02:57.439 never has been with wolves. So at the at that 1:02:57.480 --> 1:03:02.919 time when there was this very controversial plan to to 1:03:02.920 --> 1:03:06.600 to do a reintroduction, Um, did you sort of feel 1:03:07.440 --> 1:03:11.080 that were you ostracized by the superpro wolf community for 1:03:11.080 --> 1:03:16.200 for for not wanting, for not uh advocating or condoning 1:03:16.400 --> 1:03:18.760 the reintroduction, or was it that you all felt like 1:03:18.800 --> 1:03:20.400 you were kind of striving for the same thing, you 1:03:20.440 --> 1:03:24.280 just had different approaches to get there. I don't know 1:03:24.320 --> 1:03:26.680 that I really would care, because I hear both sides 1:03:26.720 --> 1:03:29.800 all the time. I mean, I'm always I'm I like 1:03:29.880 --> 1:03:32.080 the wolves the middle of the road. We have to 1:03:32.080 --> 1:03:34.200 live in the middle. We can't live out on either end. 1:03:34.320 --> 1:03:38.720 And I've worked a lot with hunting groups and ranters 1:03:38.720 --> 1:03:43.440 and wolf conservationists and wolf protectionists. I'm a scientist and 1:03:43.440 --> 1:03:46.120 I'm driven by science, and US science says that there 1:03:46.240 --> 1:03:48.800 is place on this landscape for wolves and it's not 1:03:48.840 --> 1:03:52.800 going to be Nebraska, and probably it's it's not gonna 1:03:52.800 --> 1:03:55.960 be Boulder, Colorado. But there are places where they can 1:03:56.000 --> 1:03:58.240 be in and and as long as we can handle 1:03:58.240 --> 1:04:01.520 and manage the conflicts, there'll be anywhere we want them 1:04:01.560 --> 1:04:04.280 to be. And as a scientist, I was seeing it happen. 1:04:04.360 --> 1:04:07.040 So that's why I was against reintroduction. And I imagine 1:04:07.080 --> 1:04:09.720 there where people that would slap me upside the head 1:04:09.760 --> 1:04:11.720 if they could, saying, well you should love wolves and 1:04:11.760 --> 1:04:13.840 have them everywhere, or what the hell is what are 1:04:13.880 --> 1:04:15.720 you thinking? They're gonna wipe out all the deer. Knilk. 1:04:15.840 --> 1:04:18.000 I don't listen to that. I'm doing what the science 1:04:18.000 --> 1:04:20.760 shows me and they can do. But here's here's where 1:04:20.800 --> 1:04:23.600 you're not. Here's it's not where you're wrong. But it's 1:04:23.600 --> 1:04:26.640 a little bit where you're like misleading because it's not 1:04:27.120 --> 1:04:32.280 Science isn't telling you. Science isn't telling you that we 1:04:32.360 --> 1:04:37.520 need wolves or that we need grizzly bears. Right, you 1:04:37.520 --> 1:04:42.560 can make the people make these claims. Nod, I said need. 1:04:42.560 --> 1:04:45.320 But here's the thing. It's a decision. It's it's a 1:04:45.360 --> 1:04:48.960 decision that we that society makes. It's totally a social 1:04:49.000 --> 1:04:52.880 fabric thing. Yes, yes, so. And I'm not even wanting 1:04:52.880 --> 1:04:54.480 to push you too. I'm not trying to push you 1:04:54.520 --> 1:04:56.760 into a thing because I feel like you know, I'm not, 1:04:56.840 --> 1:04:58.240 because I feel like you and you and me are 1:04:58.360 --> 1:05:02.800 like very much aligned. I them around. Okay, you haven't 1:05:02.800 --> 1:05:04.920 said this, but I'm assuming you do. Like I enjoy 1:05:05.160 --> 1:05:08.320 them being around. It just comes with um. I have 1:05:08.440 --> 1:05:15.600 certain requests that come with them being around, about conflicts, 1:05:15.600 --> 1:05:18.760 like how we control conflict and how we weigh out 1:05:18.840 --> 1:05:23.040 and value the interests of different stakeholders. And I feel 1:05:23.080 --> 1:05:26.440 that the ranching perspective is valid and important, and I 1:05:26.480 --> 1:05:29.440 think the perspective of big game hunters is valid and important. 1:05:29.480 --> 1:05:31.480 And I don't think that these people are being hysterical 1:05:31.800 --> 1:05:33.920 when they point out that there are some things that 1:05:33.960 --> 1:05:35.560 need to be resolved in order for them to get 1:05:35.560 --> 1:05:38.920 comfortable with this. I didn't. I know, I know, I know, 1:05:38.920 --> 1:05:41.720 I feel like we're on the same team. But what 1:05:41.760 --> 1:05:44.120 I'm saying, like when you talk about whether or not 1:05:44.240 --> 1:05:47.320 wolves would have recolonized the lower forty eight on their own, 1:05:47.440 --> 1:05:49.720 or whether we needed to do a recount, or whether 1:05:49.760 --> 1:05:52.400 we need to do a reintroduction to bring them back, 1:05:53.440 --> 1:05:57.760 I don't accept that you had no sense of what 1:05:57.840 --> 1:06:03.280 you hoped would happen. You had to have hoped something 1:06:03.280 --> 1:06:06.440 would happen. I can tell you when it came out 1:06:06.440 --> 1:06:08.280 here in seventy nine and there was one wolf, I 1:06:08.320 --> 1:06:11.880 thought of it as an interesting and novel idea and 1:06:12.280 --> 1:06:15.080 experimental to see if if it would make it or not. 1:06:15.440 --> 1:06:17.400 If you would have asked me in nineteen seventy nine 1:06:17.440 --> 1:06:20.480 if we'd be harvesting three hundred wolves a year in 1:06:20.520 --> 1:06:22.320 two thousand and eighteen, and he said, are you oh 1:06:22.360 --> 1:06:24.520 to your mind? I mean I never would have believed 1:06:24.520 --> 1:06:27.480 would have been this far along. So, I mean, I 1:06:27.480 --> 1:06:30.240 think wolves are pretty amazing creatures. I think that elk 1:06:30.280 --> 1:06:33.280 are pretty amazing creatures. I think cougars are amazing creatures. 1:06:34.120 --> 1:06:38.120 I mean, I like all wildlife. I'm trying to think 1:06:38.120 --> 1:06:40.720 there's an exception, maybe not quite so fun of skunks, 1:06:40.760 --> 1:06:43.480 but I could have a bird dog. But I mean, 1:06:43.560 --> 1:06:46.320 I like to see all the full complement of all 1:06:46.360 --> 1:06:48.360 the predators and all the prey in the landscape. And 1:06:48.360 --> 1:06:51.080 the thing that I would think back you've read Lewis 1:06:51.080 --> 1:06:54.760 and clark Journals, Undaunted Courage. They came out here. They 1:06:54.760 --> 1:06:59.160 are uncountable hundreds of thousands of game animals. Right. It 1:06:59.280 --> 1:07:01.720 was like to Saren Jetty and there was pray animals 1:07:01.760 --> 1:07:04.560 and they were predator animals everywhere, and nobody was shooting 1:07:04.680 --> 1:07:08.000 or controlling any of them, and they were just fine. 1:07:08.640 --> 1:07:10.560 And when people really push me on an issue, but 1:07:10.760 --> 1:07:13.800 we have to manage this or that, Yeah, we're doing 1:07:13.800 --> 1:07:16.120 pretty well managing wolves in Montana. We harvest a lot 1:07:16.160 --> 1:07:18.400 of them. They're still adequate wolves hair, there's a lot 1:07:18.440 --> 1:07:20.920 of them, They're very resilient. We can go on like this. 1:07:21.600 --> 1:07:23.720 But if you want to say, you have to manage 1:07:24.000 --> 1:07:27.360 predators or they'll eat all the game. If they ate 1:07:27.400 --> 1:07:30.960 all the game, they'd be dead, right, there'd be no 1:07:31.000 --> 1:07:32.800 more wolves. There'd be no more game. So what I'm 1:07:32.840 --> 1:07:37.280 just saying before, when Lewis and Clark came out, nobody 1:07:37.320 --> 1:07:40.560 managed anything. We barely had firearms at that time, right, 1:07:44.360 --> 1:07:49.080 limited in scope. Yes, animals manage themselves. The wolves in 1:07:49.200 --> 1:07:52.640 Yellowstone they kill each other off and the population took 1:07:52.640 --> 1:07:55.280 off rapidly when they were first introduced. It went up 1:07:55.320 --> 1:07:57.920 to a peak of about hundred sixty animals in two 1:07:57.920 --> 1:08:01.120 thousand eleven. It dropped down after that to be about 1:08:01.160 --> 1:08:03.240 a hundred and it's been about that level for a 1:08:03.240 --> 1:08:05.520 long time. This year there's less I heard there was 1:08:05.560 --> 1:08:10.000 about wolves. Now nobody's shooting those wolves. They are regulating 1:08:10.040 --> 1:08:13.760 themselves based on the prey. Prey populations go up and down, 1:08:14.480 --> 1:08:16.920 the predator population goes up and down. It's it's a 1:08:17.000 --> 1:08:20.640 leg time just slightly. That is the normal. And we 1:08:20.720 --> 1:08:23.280 as humans and I'm a hunter, we like to see 1:08:23.320 --> 1:08:25.559 something always at a level that we're used to, and 1:08:25.600 --> 1:08:28.200 when it drops below that way panic. If it goes 1:08:28.240 --> 1:08:30.000 above that, it's like, oh good, it's getting back to 1:08:30.040 --> 1:08:32.759 the good old days. The good old days is the average, 1:08:33.240 --> 1:08:35.280 but we don't look at that. And I'm just saying 1:08:35.280 --> 1:08:37.800 that if we didn't, if we didn't manage elk or 1:08:37.840 --> 1:08:40.200 deer wolves, and my department may have an issue with 1:08:40.640 --> 1:08:44.919 differences of opinions, but animals manage themselves in the landscape, 1:08:44.920 --> 1:08:48.920 and if there's too few. We had after the big 1:08:48.960 --> 1:08:53.519 winter of seven, there's a huge record amount of snowfall 1:08:53.560 --> 1:08:57.280 in northwest Montana and Yellowstone. When they die, not and 1:08:58.200 --> 1:09:01.479 our white tail died in Montana that one in northwest 1:09:01.560 --> 1:09:05.320 Montana that spring. The wolves are doing pretty well feeding 1:09:05.320 --> 1:09:07.519 on carcasses until they had these pups. And then there 1:09:07.520 --> 1:09:09.680 weren't any fonds in June as alike, as most of 1:09:09.720 --> 1:09:12.920 the dose died, we had a huge pop mortality. That's 1:09:12.920 --> 1:09:14.720 how wolves reached fond They don't know the food. The 1:09:14.720 --> 1:09:17.840 pups don't make it. Meantime, the next winter neew was 1:09:17.880 --> 1:09:20.479 milder and the prey populations built up, and then the 1:09:20.520 --> 1:09:22.840 wol was built up. Just this leg cycle, but we 1:09:22.840 --> 1:09:24.800 always want it right here on the average in the 1:09:24.840 --> 1:09:30.519 middle um. Two things, a thing that I've always laughed about. 1:09:31.680 --> 1:09:33.040 I have a lot of friends who are just like 1:09:33.320 --> 1:09:36.160 rapidly anti wolve. Hey wolves and it's the end of hunting, 1:09:36.600 --> 1:09:39.479 but they all want to hunt in Alaska. I was like, dude, 1:09:39.520 --> 1:09:41.320 it must be great to hunt Alaska. And I was like, yeah, 1:09:41.320 --> 1:09:44.519 you wouldn't like it. Bro these wolves running around, the 1:09:44.720 --> 1:09:47.479 grizzlies running around, why would you want to go up there? 1:09:47.880 --> 1:09:50.840 But it's like people view it as they don't. I 1:09:50.840 --> 1:09:55.320 don't know because people like things to be static. And 1:09:55.720 --> 1:09:58.519 on that point, my wife's reading this book right now. 1:10:00.400 --> 1:10:04.439 Uh buyout Buddhist monk and he talked about one of 1:10:04.439 --> 1:10:08.439 the greatest challenges for people is to accept that there 1:10:08.479 --> 1:10:14.680 there is no static line that every year you intercept 1:10:15.720 --> 1:10:22.160 everything in life. You intercept everything in life amidst radical change. 1:10:23.880 --> 1:10:26.679 And there's something that makes you want to hit something 1:10:27.840 --> 1:10:30.799 a relationship, whatever, a place you'd like to go on vacation, 1:10:31.320 --> 1:10:33.880 that you want to act like you hit it in 1:10:34.040 --> 1:10:39.880 stasis and that that's normal. And then you watch as 1:10:39.960 --> 1:10:42.960 everything changes and it's disappointing to you. But you hit 1:10:43.040 --> 1:10:47.559 everything mid change. There's no there's no place to feel 1:10:47.560 --> 1:10:52.200 comfortable or you have to be comfortable with the idea. 1:10:52.520 --> 1:10:55.320 There's no place to be comfortable that the only constant 1:10:55.479 --> 1:10:58.880 is change. Yeah, and I see in the literature now, 1:10:59.000 --> 1:11:02.519 I mean the terms equilibrium is going away. It's nothing 1:11:02.640 --> 1:11:05.320 is ever in the uniquilibrium things that are always changing. 1:11:06.080 --> 1:11:08.240 Are you comfortable doing? Uh? We like to play a 1:11:08.240 --> 1:11:10.680 little game called looking through the crystal ball. I don't know, 1:11:10.880 --> 1:11:13.720 not looking through it into it? What's your Colorado? What's 1:11:13.720 --> 1:11:16.520 your Colorado do? Right now? Do you think it's inevitable? 1:11:16.880 --> 1:11:18.720 Will you ask? Okay, a minute ago, you asked me 1:11:18.760 --> 1:11:21.040 about how I felt about the change in the Lower 1:11:21.080 --> 1:11:24.400 forty eight, because Colorado may be affected by that. Okay, ahead, 1:11:24.439 --> 1:11:27.200 so we'll start there. So this this change of the 1:11:27.520 --> 1:11:30.040 taking away in and protection of wolves in Lower forty 1:11:30.240 --> 1:11:32.599 it will have no impact on the Western States essentially, 1:11:32.640 --> 1:11:36.519 and because we're already harvesting them and managing them. It 1:11:36.600 --> 1:11:38.400 may have a little impact in the Midwest because the 1:11:38.439 --> 1:11:41.040 states there haven't had their hands on the management for 1:11:41.080 --> 1:11:44.040 a couple of years. But what's your perspective on that, 1:11:44.680 --> 1:11:46.640 the harvest and trap like we do at some at 1:11:46.680 --> 1:11:48.720 some level they did for a little bit. We're just 1:11:49.400 --> 1:11:53.760 her jerky over there. It's litigation stuff. But in the West, weird, 1:11:53.960 --> 1:11:58.040 you know, Montana Idaho, Wyoming harvesting wolves. It's hard to 1:11:58.080 --> 1:12:00.639 say exactly where're at because it's really hard count wolves. 1:12:00.680 --> 1:12:04.360 It's very hard. Is it very hard? Yeah? You never 1:12:04.400 --> 1:12:06.439 see them. Their secret to them, they're elusive. Is it 1:12:06.479 --> 1:12:10.680 harder to count wolves and grizzlies? With grizzlies they've been 1:12:10.720 --> 1:12:15.400 doing DNA work care work. Bears are large there. Yeah, 1:12:15.520 --> 1:12:18.160 they don't disperse us far. I would say, yes, it's 1:12:18.160 --> 1:12:20.559 harder to count wolves, and we weren't doing DNA work 1:12:20.640 --> 1:12:24.040 and sampling everyone. We just know that there's this range 1:12:24.040 --> 1:12:26.000 of this many wolves out there, and there still seem 1:12:26.080 --> 1:12:28.720 to be a lot and three hundred wolves sounds like 1:12:28.720 --> 1:12:31.400 a lot. We don't know how many illegal marks are, 1:12:31.479 --> 1:12:33.800 how many natural marks, but there's still quite a few 1:12:33.840 --> 1:12:37.800 wolves out there. Motity sorry, mortalities. Yeah. Well, I always 1:12:37.840 --> 1:12:40.360 say if we start pushing the wolves too hard, people 1:12:40.360 --> 1:12:42.120 are going to be less able to harvest them because 1:12:42.160 --> 1:12:44.719 there'll be that much smarter and they're hard to see anyway, 1:12:44.720 --> 1:12:48.040 and the harvest level will go down. We'll have to see. 1:12:48.160 --> 1:12:49.920 This is kind of new wolves coming back in the 1:12:49.920 --> 1:12:51.720 West with a big harvest. We'll just see how it 1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:56.160 works out. Um. Then your question again, sorry, what's gonna 1:12:56.160 --> 1:13:00.200 happen in Colorado? Colorado? Because Colorado is like Colorado right 1:13:00.200 --> 1:13:04.280 now is in other states too. Um. I think the 1:13:04.400 --> 1:13:07.439 writings on the wall Oregon, Washington is sort of like 1:13:07.760 --> 1:13:10.920 you're now very like you are in a wolf state 1:13:11.200 --> 1:13:14.200 and you're gonna see more wolves, um and there because 1:13:14.400 --> 1:13:17.439 the political leanings of those states, it's less likely that 1:13:17.439 --> 1:13:20.280 you're gonna see in any time in the near future. 1:13:20.280 --> 1:13:22.360 It's less likely you're gonna see the kind of control 1:13:22.720 --> 1:13:24.840 that I think the hunting and ranching communities would like 1:13:24.880 --> 1:13:29.840 to see. California never gonna see any control probably. And 1:13:29.880 --> 1:13:34.400 then but Colorado kind of on the fence politically, on 1:13:34.439 --> 1:13:37.920 the fence state, UM used to be maybe that changed 1:13:37.960 --> 1:13:41.599 in recent years. Um. And they're gonna have wolves are 1:13:42.120 --> 1:13:46.040 there's documented wolves showing up there. And there's also a movement, 1:13:46.439 --> 1:13:49.880 like a social movement of people wanting to move a 1:13:49.920 --> 1:13:55.400 little faster and put wolves on the ground. Um. Based 1:13:55.400 --> 1:13:58.719 on the things that you've seen that we've learned from 1:13:59.040 --> 1:14:03.280 the experience and Northern Great Lakes, the experience in the 1:14:03.280 --> 1:14:07.840 Northern Rockies. Uh, what do you think will end up 1:14:07.840 --> 1:14:11.320 happening in Colorado? And what would be your advice two 1:14:11.320 --> 1:14:16.200 managers in Colorado. Is that a fair question, it's a 1:14:16.200 --> 1:14:18.880 fair question. I don't. I don't. I don't have the answer. 1:14:18.920 --> 1:14:21.240 I would say, if they want wolves and landscape. So 1:14:21.280 --> 1:14:25.040 there's a talk of reintroducing Mexican wolves up to southern Colorado, 1:14:25.120 --> 1:14:28.040 and there stock of wolves, allowing wolves to migraty and 1:14:28.120 --> 1:14:31.679 remain on the landscape from Yellowstone. Those are different gene pools. 1:14:31.680 --> 1:14:36.840 The Mexican wolf is distinctly different genetically, behaviorally, morphologically from 1:14:36.920 --> 1:14:39.200 all the rest of the wolves in North America. So 1:14:39.200 --> 1:14:41.439 it's a little different animal which I don't care to 1:14:41.439 --> 1:14:44.320 get into. But the gray wolves will get there, and 1:14:44.360 --> 1:14:46.720 I would The best advice I could give about Colorado 1:14:46.760 --> 1:14:50.479 would be, don't panic there. There's gonna come in. You've 1:14:50.520 --> 1:14:53.719 got plenty of time to set up a management plan, 1:14:53.800 --> 1:14:56.600 a system, and get wildlife services in place, get you know, 1:14:56.680 --> 1:14:59.639 get input from hunters, get all your public input, get 1:14:59.640 --> 1:15:01.840 people as aligned as you can. It will never be 1:15:01.920 --> 1:15:05.320 perfect because people are just very controversial either side, but 1:15:06.000 --> 1:15:09.599 be prepared, and um look at other states. I mean 1:15:09.640 --> 1:15:13.080 in Montana. I don't have figures on other Western states, 1:15:13.120 --> 1:15:16.400 but an hour Montana I hear a lot Oh, the 1:15:16.439 --> 1:15:18.760 wolves have killed all the darren elk, and I hear 1:15:18.800 --> 1:15:23.479 that a lot from some segments. Is that true? No, 1:15:23.680 --> 1:15:26.720 That's where I'm gonna go. So we have our harvest data, fish, 1:15:26.760 --> 1:15:30.360 willife and parks, and we can show through the harvest, 1:15:31.120 --> 1:15:33.600 the check stations every fall and the spring green up 1:15:33.640 --> 1:15:36.519 council where we can't recruitment, number, number of funds or 1:15:36.520 --> 1:15:40.040 cabs per female b darren elk or sheep or whatever, 1:15:41.160 --> 1:15:43.840 and our numbers. Wolves have been on the landscape for 1:15:43.920 --> 1:15:46.320 quite a while, though it's not like they've changed greatly 1:15:46.360 --> 1:15:49.040 in ten years there except that we had one show 1:15:49.120 --> 1:15:52.240 up at buildings, but otherwise they're kind of it full. 1:15:52.400 --> 1:15:55.080 The landscape is full of wolves and deer. Nelk numbers 1:15:55.120 --> 1:15:58.400 at present are in the long term average. They've slightly 1:15:58.439 --> 1:16:00.479 to the high end. The last two winners are slightly 1:16:00.520 --> 1:16:04.360 down because we've had pretty long winters um and we 1:16:04.360 --> 1:16:07.840 haven't had the recruitment. But they're not they're not off 1:16:07.880 --> 1:16:10.280 the scale in the black hole. So when people say, 1:16:10.880 --> 1:16:13.800 I used I've hunted this area for thirty eight years 1:16:13.880 --> 1:16:15.000 and I used to be able to go up there 1:16:15.040 --> 1:16:17.240 and get an elk and the wolves. Since the wolves 1:16:17.240 --> 1:16:20.280 have come back. They've killed all the elk, and I'm 1:16:20.520 --> 1:16:22.920 thinking about that, and our numbers don't support that. The 1:16:22.960 --> 1:16:26.200 game struct stations in the spring count showed the animals 1:16:26.560 --> 1:16:29.800 are in the region, But maybe the habitat has grown 1:16:29.880 --> 1:16:32.400 up there, maybe there's more road access, maybe there's more 1:16:32.439 --> 1:16:36.280 competition for people going after those animals. There's a variety 1:16:36.280 --> 1:16:38.240 of things. There's wildfire, and I just say, well, if 1:16:38.400 --> 1:16:40.320 if you're hunting the same area for thirty years and 1:16:40.360 --> 1:16:42.960 the animals aren't there anymore, maybe move ten miles or 1:16:43.000 --> 1:16:45.799 fifteen You don't so you don't accept, like take for instance, 1:16:45.840 --> 1:16:49.160 the Idaho Panhandle or the Northern Yellows don't hurt. You 1:16:49.200 --> 1:16:56.519 don't accept that those elk populations were reduced by two thirds. 1:16:57.240 --> 1:16:59.479 I don't know about the Idho Panhandle situation. I don't 1:16:59.479 --> 1:17:02.679 follow it. I can only tell you from Montana. Sorry, 1:17:02.760 --> 1:17:05.680 that's just my limited scope of my job. So I 1:17:05.720 --> 1:17:10.880 do know. I'm just saying the harvest data shows the 1:17:11.000 --> 1:17:13.360 animals are still out there, but they may be using 1:17:13.400 --> 1:17:18.799 the landscape differently. They may be moving during hunting season differently. 1:17:18.840 --> 1:17:23.240 We do have climate change. Things are changing differently. I 1:17:23.240 --> 1:17:24.800 don't have an answer to all for it. I'm just 1:17:24.840 --> 1:17:27.840 saying numbers show that the animals are still out there, 1:17:27.840 --> 1:17:29.960 and if people aren't seeing them, maybe the animals are 1:17:30.000 --> 1:17:33.599 becoming more nocturnal. I don't know. I don't know, and 1:17:33.640 --> 1:17:37.720 I've hunt darn up too, and I'm able to get 1:17:37.760 --> 1:17:39.599 dar nol and i live where there's a lot of wolves. 1:17:39.760 --> 1:17:44.040 So um I have in the past. UM. I don't 1:17:44.080 --> 1:17:47.679 have an answer except to say that wolves can drive 1:17:47.800 --> 1:17:51.639 population is really low, they can keep some bear. If 1:17:51.680 --> 1:17:54.280 that happens, the wolf numbers decrease, they gotta have food. 1:17:55.800 --> 1:17:59.080 How long does that cycle play out depends in the habitat. 1:17:59.160 --> 1:18:02.840 I mean you've orout up earlier about the Northern Netherland herd. 1:18:02.880 --> 1:18:04.880 I think, honest, you brought it up. Was it twenty 1:18:04.920 --> 1:18:07.439 thousand or so? And then wolves came back and they 1:18:07.479 --> 1:18:09.600 went down to four thousand. I think this year. I 1:18:09.640 --> 1:18:10.960 just heard the number of this week when I was 1:18:10.960 --> 1:18:13.160 down there, it's up like six thousand. Now there's a 1:18:13.360 --> 1:18:16.559 lot of bison. Yeah, I'm reading right now about the 1:18:16.600 --> 1:18:21.160 Northern herd, and it's the last count in seventeen was 1:18:21.560 --> 1:18:25.960 five thousand, threety nine, so it has been so that's 1:18:26.080 --> 1:18:29.280 two seventeen yeah, and it's been stable like that. We're 1:18:29.320 --> 1:18:34.400 increasing for four years. It so the northern herd. So 1:18:34.439 --> 1:18:39.160 the wolves went in the winter nine seven. I think 1:18:39.160 --> 1:18:42.280 they put thirty one wolves in half each of those years. 1:18:42.760 --> 1:18:44.720 We had that enormous winter. I don't know if you 1:18:44.720 --> 1:18:48.240 guys were here in n seven. The snow at my 1:18:48.280 --> 1:18:52.400 out house was five ft deep. That's what killed the 1:18:52.400 --> 1:18:56.880 elk in one winner. I mean thirty fifteen thirty one 1:18:56.880 --> 1:19:00.080 wolves over two years. Do you think the eighteen was 1:19:00.120 --> 1:19:04.280 an elk or fifteen elk in two years? Think about it. 1:19:04.479 --> 1:19:07.680 I mean the numbers dropped off really fast, and then 1:19:07.720 --> 1:19:10.200 they've been kept low, and I can't say if the 1:19:10.200 --> 1:19:11.960 wolves kept him low or not. Probably has something to do 1:19:11.920 --> 1:19:15.040 do it. There's wolves, there's grizzly bears, there's lions there 1:19:15.120 --> 1:19:17.400 and the wolves. It's interesting they have switched. There was 1:19:17.479 --> 1:19:20.000 printed and primarily an elk grocery store when they first 1:19:20.000 --> 1:19:23.559 got there, and now they're switching to bison because there's 1:19:23.600 --> 1:19:27.599 more biomasso bison. It's a lot harder to kill a bison. 1:19:27.640 --> 1:19:32.000 There's less wolves. But I don't want to do. Why 1:19:32.000 --> 1:19:35.240 do you have shirt written on your hands? Reminder? Something 1:19:35.240 --> 1:19:41.479 I had to do later today there are Okay, they 1:19:41.479 --> 1:19:43.920 eat seven pounds of meat a day. They can eat 1:19:43.920 --> 1:19:48.040 more maintenances, like eight pounds per day. So you have 1:19:48.160 --> 1:19:53.120 several hundred of something eating pounds of stuff a day. 1:19:53.400 --> 1:19:57.040 There's has to be there has to be an effect. 1:19:57.400 --> 1:19:59.040 I thought we had this conversation with one of your 1:19:59.040 --> 1:20:05.400 colleagues who works mountain lions, where I find that, um, 1:20:05.479 --> 1:20:09.160 I find that you have these two extreme views. You 1:20:09.320 --> 1:20:14.200 have the perspective of people who again feel that they 1:20:14.600 --> 1:20:19.439 annihilate the prey base and eliminate ungulates from the landscape, which, 1:20:19.479 --> 1:20:21.960 as you pointed out, is counterintuitive because then you would 1:20:22.000 --> 1:20:26.040 also lose the wolves to die and maybe gone. And 1:20:26.080 --> 1:20:31.080 then you have the perspective of the ardent apologists who 1:20:31.120 --> 1:20:34.320 want to tell you that there is no population level 1:20:34.400 --> 1:20:39.320 impact from wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, what have you, and 1:20:39.360 --> 1:20:43.320 that they somehow subsist on nuts and berries. You you 1:20:44.760 --> 1:20:49.240 hear from these you hear from these different views. And 1:20:49.400 --> 1:20:51.960 when someone tries to sell me on one of these 1:20:51.960 --> 1:20:57.519 two perspectives, I get frustrated. There there there is I 1:20:58.200 --> 1:21:01.080 feel like you're tiptoeing around, tiptoeing around it. I feel 1:21:01.080 --> 1:21:03.960 like you're trying. You're suggesting that there's not a population 1:21:04.040 --> 1:21:07.400 level impact from having hundreds of wolves on the landscape. 1:21:07.560 --> 1:21:09.960 I didn't say that, but you kind of. That's I 1:21:10.080 --> 1:21:11.200 trying to get you. I want you to say it. 1:21:11.280 --> 1:21:13.000 I want you to say what you think is So, 1:21:13.040 --> 1:21:15.840 what I'm telling you is that fish wife and parks 1:21:15.840 --> 1:21:20.360 harvest data data and the spring count data are still 1:21:20.400 --> 1:21:23.200 within the norm range and a little on the high end, 1:21:23.200 --> 1:21:24.960 except the last two years where the winter has been 1:21:25.000 --> 1:21:27.919 bad and there are hundreds of wolves in the landscape. 1:21:27.920 --> 1:21:31.920 That's for deer. Now do you feel that winter do 1:21:31.920 --> 1:21:33.720 you feel that winter is more? Is more of a 1:21:33.840 --> 1:21:37.519 driver of Absolutely is more of a driver. One winter 1:21:37.640 --> 1:21:40.680 like this es it came in and killed in the 1:21:40.680 --> 1:21:43.320 white tails. You could have sauce and wolves and the landscape. 1:21:43.400 --> 1:21:45.400 They're not going to kill forty percent of the white tails. 1:21:46.240 --> 1:21:50.400 Winter is the ultimate driver. And the when people when 1:21:50.439 --> 1:21:52.840 wolves look where wolves are gonna live, they say, oh, 1:21:52.840 --> 1:21:54.479 where are they going to live? They're going to live 1:21:54.479 --> 1:21:56.479 in place where the winter ranges. They're not going to 1:21:56.600 --> 1:21:58.120 live up in the snow and rocks in the Wilderness 1:21:58.160 --> 1:21:59.800 series like some people think they do. It's like, what 1:22:00.000 --> 1:22:02.759 the hell are they gonna eat in december, there's nothing 1:22:02.840 --> 1:22:05.559 up there. They come down in the valleys, they come 1:22:05.600 --> 1:22:07.760 down in the winter ranges, they come down to where 1:22:07.800 --> 1:22:09.840 people are in calves because it's the valley bottom and 1:22:09.880 --> 1:22:12.320 they're loud as lousy with deer and elk were starving 1:22:12.360 --> 1:22:14.160 along with the calves that are being born this time 1:22:14.200 --> 1:22:17.200 of year. It's you know, there's conflicts set up. Potentially 1:22:17.400 --> 1:22:20.880 some wolves have conflicts and don't you know, it's in 1:22:21.040 --> 1:22:23.800 back to this things. So I'm not saying it was 1:22:23.840 --> 1:22:26.920 all winter. I'm just saying there was a really So 1:22:26.960 --> 1:22:29.040 if you know, if you saw Yellowstone in the sixties, 1:22:29.040 --> 1:22:32.479 they were paid people to go out to kill mule, deer, 1:22:32.520 --> 1:22:36.480 and elk because the landscape was so devastated by the overgrazing, 1:22:36.479 --> 1:22:38.720 because there was no predators. That's a fact. You can 1:22:38.840 --> 1:22:41.200 look it up. People gunners were paid to shoot deer 1:22:41.240 --> 1:22:43.840 and elk on the landscape. So now we're up to 1:22:44.880 --> 1:22:49.360 it is never Historically it wasn't that high. I mean, 1:22:49.360 --> 1:22:50.840 if you look at you could go down to the 1:22:50.840 --> 1:22:53.559 Old Stone knowledge still see major impacts on the brows. 1:22:53.640 --> 1:22:55.760 You can look at the exclosures, defenses. You know, the 1:22:55.760 --> 1:22:58.080 story down there it's not new to us and maybe 1:22:58.120 --> 1:23:00.840 new to your listeners. Wolves him on the landscape. We 1:23:00.880 --> 1:23:04.200 had this massive hard winter. He died like flies. Additionally, 1:23:04.240 --> 1:23:06.000 there were a lot of what it has been termed 1:23:06.080 --> 1:23:09.120 naive elk that had never seen a wolf, and the 1:23:09.160 --> 1:23:10.720 wolves come running up to him and they just kind 1:23:10.720 --> 1:23:13.160 of stand look because they don't know what it is. Boom, 1:23:13.200 --> 1:23:16.640 they're dead. They had fat city, those those wolves the 1:23:16.640 --> 1:23:19.160 first few years, and they definitely helped take the numbers down. 1:23:19.240 --> 1:23:25.679 There's no doubt about it. Um, So, is five thousand sustainable? Yeah? 1:23:25.880 --> 1:23:32.040 Is it socially acceptable some circles know. Is socially acceptable? 1:23:32.200 --> 1:23:36.479 You bat? Is it ecologically sustainable? No? So you kind 1:23:36.479 --> 1:23:39.400 of have to think about what is realistic to be 1:23:39.439 --> 1:23:42.000 on the landscape. Yeah, that we weren't going to hold 1:23:42.040 --> 1:23:45.000 that as a norm, correct, That's what I'm saying. I'm 1:23:45.000 --> 1:23:47.240 not saying that that's a really good point because nobody ever, 1:23:47.360 --> 1:23:50.360 everybody always loves that twenty thousand number. Nobody ever says 1:23:50.400 --> 1:23:53.400 what it was five years prior. That's when we that's 1:23:53.400 --> 1:23:56.080 when we came into the country. Man, me and my 1:23:56.160 --> 1:23:59.840 bro started hunting that herd and how many what was 1:23:59.880 --> 1:24:02.040 the Oh? Yeah, when they were at there. I remember 1:24:02.040 --> 1:24:03.920 where I was standing, I remember where I was staying it, 1:24:03.920 --> 1:24:05.400 and I could figure I could sit and figure it 1:24:05.439 --> 1:24:07.240 out by year. I remember where I was staying when 1:24:07.240 --> 1:24:11.439 I heard the first wolf hole down there. Yeah, and 1:24:11.520 --> 1:24:13.840 you know what we thought it was. I heard it 1:24:13.960 --> 1:24:18.320 rip out. I thought it was a bugle. Oh sure, 1:24:18.720 --> 1:24:21.719 because it's just like you know what it was? Well, yeah, 1:24:21.800 --> 1:24:24.040 I thought I thought it was some kind of crazy bugle. 1:24:24.920 --> 1:24:27.840 And they we're like, holy ship, that's wolves, man, and 1:24:28.160 --> 1:24:31.160 all this extreme viewpoint on the yellow Stone or all 1:24:31.200 --> 1:24:33.879 I can see is just kind of let the rhetoric 1:24:33.920 --> 1:24:36.080 go in the BS drop and kind of think about 1:24:36.240 --> 1:24:39.160 the sustainability and maybe you want to see the herd 1:24:39.200 --> 1:24:43.800 at ten thousand. Oh, that would maybe happen, but it 1:24:44.000 --> 1:24:47.240 probably won't. It's probably gonna stay about where it is 1:24:47.439 --> 1:24:52.360 unless there's some huge campaign to kill off lions and 1:24:52.439 --> 1:24:54.120 wolves and bears, and then you know what's gonna happen. 1:24:54.120 --> 1:24:56.519 You're gonna have your jump up and they're gonna starve 1:24:56.560 --> 1:24:59.559 again like they were doing. Uh, what's going on with 1:25:01.960 --> 1:25:07.400 Isle Royal National Park? So Iole Royal. The two Wolves 1:25:07.439 --> 1:25:10.439 came out in about ninety or so. Back up, back up, 1:25:11.880 --> 1:25:14.160 because I gotta say something first. It's an island and 1:25:14.240 --> 1:25:18.880 Lake Superior belongs to Michigan, right, yeah, yeah, it's the 1:25:18.880 --> 1:25:21.360 only little free standing national park and it's not very big. 1:25:21.560 --> 1:25:23.439 I think it's oh my gosh, I think it's only 1:25:23.439 --> 1:25:27.240 two square miles or something. Okay, our country wolf territories 1:25:27.280 --> 1:25:29.960 are bigger than that. For one pack. Oh that's interesting, 1:25:31.200 --> 1:25:32.599 take it away. I just wanted people know what we're 1:25:32.640 --> 1:25:36.240 talking about. Midwestern wolves, smaller groups, smaller wolves, they have 1:25:36.320 --> 1:25:41.080 smaller territories. So anyway, Ile Roil has never been colonized. 1:25:41.080 --> 1:25:43.320 Initially in the fifties, they've had a couple of the 1:25:43.400 --> 1:25:45.320 wolves that have shown up when the lake is frozen, 1:25:45.360 --> 1:25:47.640 but it's a rare thing. The lake freezes about once 1:25:47.680 --> 1:25:51.680 every decade, allowing genetic exchange potentially. But they've determined through 1:25:51.680 --> 1:25:56.200 genetics the wolves have not had outbreeding and they're all 1:25:56.280 --> 1:25:58.320 very closely related and so by now they've been in 1:25:58.360 --> 1:26:01.760 breeding for seventy years. So the the original ones that 1:26:01.800 --> 1:26:04.080 showed up, they kind of made Ile Royal like a 1:26:04.120 --> 1:26:07.720 wolf place walked across the ice in Canada. Correct, they 1:26:07.720 --> 1:26:09.720 were not put there either, They walked and frozen when 1:26:09.800 --> 1:26:11.960 they documented it, and they showed up and just had 1:26:12.360 --> 1:26:14.280 and had the running place because there's a bunch of 1:26:14.479 --> 1:26:16.360 there's a bunch of moves, oh heck yeah. And there's 1:26:16.400 --> 1:26:19.519 nothing to eat the most except ticks. The biggest predator 1:26:19.640 --> 1:26:22.280 tick on the Royal Moost is a winter tick. It 1:26:22.439 --> 1:26:26.040 was more more wolves than than wolves, I think so. Anyway, 1:26:26.080 --> 1:26:28.960 so the wolves make it out there, and they're all 1:26:28.960 --> 1:26:31.439 in bred now. And the last surviving two wolves as 1:26:31.479 --> 1:26:33.840 a father and a daughter, and they were down to 1:26:33.880 --> 1:26:38.120 two two there don't inter breed and they're wolves don't 1:26:38.120 --> 1:26:40.800 do well when there's not a lot of exchange. No, 1:26:40.840 --> 1:26:44.040 they're just so in bred. They've got they've got through 1:26:44.040 --> 1:26:46.559 the four genetics. Are like siblings. All them are like 1:26:46.600 --> 1:26:49.720 siblings now. And of course they are not gonna they've 1:26:49.720 --> 1:26:52.840 been in a breeding for too long, and they've got deficiencies, 1:26:52.840 --> 1:26:55.960 physical deficiencies. They're not resilient to disease. They got screwed 1:26:56.000 --> 1:26:58.640 up tails, they got screwed up spines. Anyway, they're kind 1:26:58.680 --> 1:27:02.040 of a mess. They're done. So then this reintroduction efforts 1:27:02.120 --> 1:27:05.599 just happened and as of this morning, hot off the press, 1:27:06.080 --> 1:27:09.120 they have brought fifth They brought thirteen new wolves to 1:27:09.160 --> 1:27:12.439 Ile Royal to add to the two they calmed legacy wolves. 1:27:12.479 --> 1:27:14.640 The two that are remaining, they aren't going to be 1:27:14.720 --> 1:27:16.600 breeding unless they could mix it up with some of 1:27:16.640 --> 1:27:19.160 the new ones, which is the whole they're bringing in 1:27:19.200 --> 1:27:23.120 super wolves. They're bringing in those little tiny midget Great 1:27:23.200 --> 1:27:27.160 Lakes wolves from So they got some from a little 1:27:27.160 --> 1:27:29.880 island called Coton, which is in Lake Superior, but it's 1:27:29.880 --> 1:27:32.320 in the Michigan portion. They've gotten some from the mainland 1:27:32.360 --> 1:27:36.160 Ontario there, and they've taken some from Minnesota close by, 1:27:36.439 --> 1:27:38.200 and they may now try and get a few more 1:27:38.200 --> 1:27:43.800 out of you, Michigan to keep the genetic stock variability. 1:27:43.960 --> 1:27:46.559 They added thirteen. That's the number as of this morning. 1:27:46.560 --> 1:27:49.280 They just brought some more in this week to mingle 1:27:49.320 --> 1:27:50.800 with the two that are there. So they have a 1:27:50.840 --> 1:27:54.160 total of fifteen now it's about half male and half female. 1:27:54.160 --> 1:27:57.160 They how can such how can two square miles support 1:27:57.200 --> 1:28:00.639 fifteen wolves because they're so dang many moose there, they 1:28:00.680 --> 1:28:03.439 can't possibly can't eat them all, I find it. So 1:28:03.560 --> 1:28:06.360 this is this question about We were just talking about 1:28:06.360 --> 1:28:09.160 this last night again at dinner. But so the wolves 1:28:09.160 --> 1:28:11.920 on Ile Royal can eat beaver, and they can eat moose, 1:28:12.720 --> 1:28:15.960 and there's a few fox and that's that's it. That's 1:28:15.960 --> 1:28:18.080 their food source. But there are so many moose. And 1:28:18.120 --> 1:28:21.519 because wolves are territorial, the population of the island, I 1:28:21.520 --> 1:28:24.200 think that its highest point. I'm trying to remember the numbers. 1:28:24.200 --> 1:28:26.200 You're really pushing me on this. It might have been 1:28:26.200 --> 1:28:30.200 about fifty or so that many wolves around them, multiple packs, 1:28:30.560 --> 1:28:32.519 and then it dropped back down and then it's been 1:28:32.560 --> 1:28:34.320 lower and now we're down to two and they're gonna 1:28:34.360 --> 1:28:37.559 they're gonna go to extinction. Driven to extinction, clearly, but 1:28:37.640 --> 1:28:39.360 it's not due to lack of food. They did never 1:28:39.439 --> 1:28:41.880 kill the moose up. They never got you. They never 1:28:41.880 --> 1:28:44.559 did it. But that is different from what we have 1:28:44.680 --> 1:28:50.400 most other extinction extrapation, well extrapation indicates to me human 1:28:50.439 --> 1:28:53.240 cause I don't know anyway, a regional, okay, like regional, 1:28:53.400 --> 1:28:57.280 like very specific regional extinction, the island island would be 1:28:57.280 --> 1:29:00.880 free of wolves once again. And my thoughts on that 1:29:00.960 --> 1:29:04.240 are probably over e ens of time and glacial periods 1:29:04.240 --> 1:29:08.840 and whatever. Ile Royal has had multiple colonizations and disappearances 1:29:08.880 --> 1:29:13.160 of wolves over time, and interestingly, I was talking to 1:29:13.200 --> 1:29:15.519 a biologist day Mates who worked on there early, and 1:29:15.520 --> 1:29:19.080 he said the people who were there around nine ten, 1:29:19.160 --> 1:29:21.440 they were out there early and they were miners and trappers. 1:29:22.280 --> 1:29:26.200 Around the turn of the century, the island had caribou 1:29:26.880 --> 1:29:32.640 and links and there were no wolves, caribou and a 1:29:32.720 --> 1:29:36.040 few most but remember the ratio of moost to caribou. 1:29:36.080 --> 1:29:39.639 But the caribou and extinct. And Dave said he saw 1:29:39.680 --> 1:29:42.160 what was probably the last links track on the island 1:29:42.160 --> 1:29:46.560 when he arrived there about nineteen sixty sometime in the sixties. 1:29:47.040 --> 1:29:49.800 And now there's not so things constantly changed. So we 1:29:49.840 --> 1:29:52.360 want our window to be the right window. So if 1:29:52.400 --> 1:29:55.120 you look at Isisle Royal nine hundred, there were no 1:29:55.200 --> 1:29:58.320 wolves and not and there's tons of caribou links and coyotes. 1:29:58.400 --> 1:30:00.800 There was coyotes and there was no fox. It's a 1:30:00.840 --> 1:30:04.479 totally different ecosystem now and that's not because we've changed it. 1:30:04.680 --> 1:30:06.599 The wolves have changed it. But moose got out there 1:30:07.200 --> 1:30:09.280 and they caribou went away. I mean, there's a brain 1:30:09.320 --> 1:30:11.200 worm that goes for most to carible. I'm not sure 1:30:11.200 --> 1:30:14.080 why the caribl went away, if they were overhunted or 1:30:14.240 --> 1:30:17.240 or died from brainworm or whatever, but it's a completely 1:30:17.240 --> 1:30:20.080 different ecosystem in a very short lifetime that we can 1:30:20.160 --> 1:30:24.240 document that happens all over. Are you gonna blame somebody 1:30:24.320 --> 1:30:28.839 or a species or a fire or whatever. It's everything 1:30:28.960 --> 1:30:32.439 is so complex. You asked me these black and white answer. 1:30:32.640 --> 1:30:35.680 I want to know what you have, and it's like, 1:30:36.479 --> 1:30:38.519 I can't. It's kind of like the change in Big Game. 1:30:38.560 --> 1:30:40.200 If you aren't seeing Oak, or you've been seeing him 1:30:40.200 --> 1:30:43.040 for thirty eight years, go someplace a little different. There's 1:30:43.080 --> 1:30:45.800 places in Montana where they just so bloody overrun without 1:30:45.840 --> 1:30:48.479 they're giving away to permits, and they're having shoulder seasons either. 1:30:48.560 --> 1:30:51.280 And it's like if you're living someplace and you want 1:30:51.320 --> 1:30:53.840 to get to go to one of those areas, I mean, 1:30:54.040 --> 1:30:57.759 you don't have to go five miles, but the animals 1:30:57.760 --> 1:31:00.519 are out there. They may be using the lanski differently, 1:31:00.520 --> 1:31:03.559 they may be more nocturnal. There are some areas where 1:31:03.600 --> 1:31:05.800 there's more hunting pressure than there used to be. Go 1:31:05.960 --> 1:31:10.120 someplace where there's less. We were hunting one time and 1:31:10.240 --> 1:31:13.479 met a guy. I didn't actually talk to him. Do 1:31:13.479 --> 1:31:16.040 you remember who actually talked to him? We're hunting with Remy. 1:31:16.240 --> 1:31:24.599 I was there, Yeah, and uh, Pat and uh I think, Yeah, 1:31:24.640 --> 1:31:27.439 he was hunting deer, and he was on his way out, 1:31:28.320 --> 1:31:32.040 and he had been hunting following tracks and ran into 1:31:32.360 --> 1:31:35.559 wolf tracks and just said that that was the norm 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:38.840 now there that always his deer tracks always end in 1:31:38.880 --> 1:31:42.920 wolf tracks, and therefore there's no deer around. He's not 1:31:43.000 --> 1:31:46.120 killing any deer. He left in a huff, but you're 1:31:46.120 --> 1:31:51.360 seeing deer tracks and parts of the same place. So 1:31:51.800 --> 1:31:53.760 I have to tell you the most incredible. I thought, 1:31:53.800 --> 1:31:55.320 I've kind of heard all the wolf stories, but this 1:31:55.360 --> 1:31:57.680 is kind of a fun one. I just heard from 1:31:57.720 --> 1:32:01.400 a friend who had talked to somebody about wolves a 1:32:01.400 --> 1:32:03.040 few years ago. I said, you know who was really 1:32:03.080 --> 1:32:06.320 pushing the wolf for introduction. Don't you choose a government employee? 1:32:06.560 --> 1:32:11.639 She said, no, who, she says, the insurance companies. Why 1:32:11.720 --> 1:32:15.519 is that? Because the rate of white til der and 1:32:15.640 --> 1:32:18.280 car collusions is so high in northwest Montana that they 1:32:18.320 --> 1:32:20.240 want to the wolves there to take down the number 1:32:20.240 --> 1:32:23.599 of deer, so they pay outlish insurance. I thought, I've 1:32:23.640 --> 1:32:25.720 never heard that one before. That was a new and 1:32:25.800 --> 1:32:30.800 unique story for Yeah, please, I heard that it was 1:32:30.840 --> 1:32:34.000 the Clintons. The Clintons, and let me tell you why, 1:32:34.040 --> 1:32:39.880 Because if the Clintons could bring in wolves. The wolves 1:32:40.200 --> 1:32:44.160 would kill all the game, and then people in the 1:32:44.280 --> 1:32:47.479 Rockies wouldn't own guns anymore because there's nothing to hunt 1:32:47.880 --> 1:32:50.679 and there would be less resistance when it came time 1:32:50.880 --> 1:32:55.280 to seize everyone's gun. That's why we have wolves. Wow, 1:32:55.360 --> 1:32:57.439 you did one up me on that one. I mustn't 1:32:57.479 --> 1:33:03.160 anyone that's crazy anyway. Okay, well, what did we miss? 1:33:03.200 --> 1:33:09.000 I've got a couple. Just follow black and white. I hope, 1:33:11.120 --> 1:33:13.280 I don't know. I don't like them. They're challenging to 1:33:13.280 --> 1:33:19.080 answer because it's not black and white. Do wolves kill 1:33:19.800 --> 1:33:23.719 more bulls versus cows? Do they care one way or another? 1:33:23.880 --> 1:33:26.400 Do they tend to pray? There's a lot of literature 1:33:26.400 --> 1:33:28.920 out there, and then it depends on species and geographic area. 1:33:29.000 --> 1:33:31.519 But wolves will take whatever is most vulnerable. And what 1:33:31.560 --> 1:33:33.320 I can tell you is that is the young of 1:33:33.360 --> 1:33:35.519 the year. I don't care if it's an alcor fun 1:33:35.800 --> 1:33:40.760 wolves go into winter. Yeah, they could be a fawner calf. 1:33:40.840 --> 1:33:43.240 I mean, when you're going into winter, they're the smallest, 1:33:43.280 --> 1:33:45.960 they're the weakest, they're the slowest. Most of the animals 1:33:45.960 --> 1:33:48.800 you take are young of the year. Then beyond that, 1:33:48.880 --> 1:33:51.479 a big fat cow is not very vulnerable if she's 1:33:51.560 --> 1:33:54.920 middle aged or you know, a good age, but it's 1:33:54.960 --> 1:33:57.960 snow conditions. They're right. So what I say when people 1:33:58.280 --> 1:34:00.639 people say they take the oldest sick in the week, 1:34:00.720 --> 1:34:03.479 I said, you know, that's kind of the outcome, but 1:34:03.560 --> 1:34:06.799 that's not really the selection factor. They take what's vulnerable. 1:34:07.080 --> 1:34:09.960 So you could take a seven year old prime fat 1:34:10.200 --> 1:34:13.160 cow elk and you put her in this crusty four 1:34:13.160 --> 1:34:16.360 ft deep snow out there, and she's breaking through and 1:34:16.400 --> 1:34:19.800 the wolves aren't. There's nothing wrong with that elk. She's 1:34:19.840 --> 1:34:23.680 just vulnerable, and most situations she's not. She's the strongest one, 1:34:23.720 --> 1:34:25.280 and she might be in the major cow. You know, 1:34:25.800 --> 1:34:28.800 So it's vulnerable, and it's generally the old the sick 1:34:28.840 --> 1:34:30.639 in the week. But they're not doubt they're still electing 1:34:30.680 --> 1:34:34.400 for him, liking for what they can catch. A very big, 1:34:34.479 --> 1:34:39.280 huge buck or bull elk that goes into the rot 1:34:39.360 --> 1:34:42.240 and ruts his brains out, they can lose like of 1:34:42.240 --> 1:34:44.840 the body weight. They go into the winter in really 1:34:45.000 --> 1:34:47.880 terrible shape. They don't eat while they're breeding. In a 1:34:47.920 --> 1:34:50.080 couple of months, they hardly anything. They're skinny as are all. 1:34:50.439 --> 1:34:52.960 They're punched up. They might have puncture skewers that are 1:34:52.960 --> 1:34:56.519 bleeding from the other bulls. They're pretty vulnerable. You know. 1:34:56.600 --> 1:34:59.400 We think those are great trophies because they've got bigger acts. 1:34:59.520 --> 1:35:02.120 But reality is it's maybe it's even at the end 1:35:02.120 --> 1:35:05.320 of its life. It's done a lot of breeding. But 1:35:05.400 --> 1:35:08.639 it makes people really angry when they see wolves kill 1:35:08.680 --> 1:35:12.639 a big bull out. But they aren't selecting for the bulls. 1:35:12.640 --> 1:35:15.200 It's just that they're vulnerable. What I find really interesting 1:35:15.320 --> 1:35:18.400 is they helps still have their antlers now too. You 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:20.639 will rarely ever, I'm trying to think of I've ever 1:35:20.680 --> 1:35:24.720 seen in videos. Bob Landis has taken the most amazing footage. 1:35:25.560 --> 1:35:30.240 Rarely ever, if ever see a bull elk with antlers 1:35:30.479 --> 1:35:34.840 swing as antlers as a defense tool. They are strictly ornaments. 1:35:35.560 --> 1:35:37.080 So why do they hang on to all that weight 1:35:37.160 --> 1:35:39.600 all winter because they're done breeding in October? Why do 1:35:39.680 --> 1:35:42.280 they pack forty or fifty pounds on their head that 1:35:42.360 --> 1:35:44.599 slows them down if they aren't able to use them 1:35:44.680 --> 1:35:48.160 for either sexual selection because breeding is done, or predatory defense, 1:35:48.200 --> 1:35:51.400 why do they do that? I can your hunters, I'm 1:35:51.400 --> 1:35:53.760 just asking, I mean amusing ecologists like trying to think 1:35:53.760 --> 1:35:56.439 about this. Why would they do that? Anyway? I'm just 1:35:56.439 --> 1:35:58.679 saying the stuff out there. We don't know. Maybe somebody's 1:35:58.680 --> 1:36:01.000 answered that question. I haven't read on it. I read 1:36:01.080 --> 1:36:04.720 not long ago that a dear biologist was saying that 1:36:04.760 --> 1:36:08.240 if you could, if you can take deer in and 1:36:08.320 --> 1:36:13.120 manipulate him through photo periods, you could create to create 1:36:13.400 --> 1:36:16.640 no deer that would throw two racks a year. Huh, 1:36:16.680 --> 1:36:18.280 why would you want to do that? You wouldn't He 1:36:18.360 --> 1:36:20.439 just we're just talking about when you take a deer 1:36:20.439 --> 1:36:22.080 from let's say you take a deer from the northern 1:36:22.080 --> 1:36:25.479 hemisphere or taken out from deer. Let's take a deer 1:36:25.520 --> 1:36:29.280 from the northern hemisphere and put it in the southern hemisphere. 1:36:29.720 --> 1:36:32.920 How long does it take that deer to adjust to 1:36:33.040 --> 1:36:37.360 start right, to want to flip flop when it drops 1:36:37.400 --> 1:36:40.759 and girls antlers. And he's saying they do it very quickly. 1:36:41.320 --> 1:36:44.240 And he said, not only that, UM, not on if 1:36:44.280 --> 1:36:46.160 this has been done, or he suggested that he thinks 1:36:46.160 --> 1:36:48.120 it could be done. He said, not only that, I 1:36:48.120 --> 1:36:50.600 think you could put a deer in a an artificial 1:36:50.760 --> 1:36:53.960 situation and do photo periods and you could make it. 1:36:54.120 --> 1:36:57.320 You could trigger it to produce two racks a year. 1:36:59.160 --> 1:37:01.000 Mother nature doesn't do that because it would be really 1:37:01.000 --> 1:37:03.400 hard on the animal. Yeah, but he but you could 1:37:03.560 --> 1:37:08.000 point being this point being that it's it's linked to 1:37:08.040 --> 1:37:12.400 photo period, not not art, not the Gregorian calendar, whatever, right, 1:37:12.479 --> 1:37:15.479 whatever we live under here. Uh what you put a 1:37:15.479 --> 1:37:17.679 lot of miles on in the winter in the snow? 1:37:17.720 --> 1:37:21.080 What do you wear for boots? Uh? These days, I'm 1:37:21.120 --> 1:37:22.479 not doing it so much too Moore, but I did 1:37:22.479 --> 1:37:26.920 for most of my other research work. I were I've 1:37:26.920 --> 1:37:30.960 had snay boots, I've had sorrows. I'm mostly yeah, mostly 1:37:31.000 --> 1:37:33.120 just ski boots. I mean when I'm talking was, I'm 1:37:33.160 --> 1:37:37.040 mostly in skis, big heavy, back country three pin boots. 1:37:37.880 --> 1:37:39.160 I don't like I said, I don't and that's not 1:37:39.200 --> 1:37:40.479 part of what I do. Know, it's not part of 1:37:40.479 --> 1:37:42.360 my job to do that winter work anymore. Which is 1:37:42.560 --> 1:37:44.000 back and you were hard at it. You did most 1:37:44.040 --> 1:37:47.759 in ski boots. Yeah, yeah, hard hard plastic ski boots, leather, 1:37:48.000 --> 1:37:52.560 old marrows and uh yeah solos or oslos, depending on 1:37:52.560 --> 1:37:54.800 how you pronounce it. I got a pair of their 1:37:54.840 --> 1:37:59.599 sneakers on right now. Um got that question for you 1:37:59.720 --> 1:38:02.240 and I and other question for you. Let's say you're 1:38:02.360 --> 1:38:06.160 Emperor of the world. Okay, you control the world. Empress 1:38:06.200 --> 1:38:08.439 of the world. Sorry, you didn't want to be, but 1:38:08.479 --> 1:38:10.639 you are. Now you have to make all of the 1:38:10.720 --> 1:38:18.479 humanity's decisions. Um. Do you do you feel that would 1:38:18.520 --> 1:38:26.120 you allow wolf hunting and trapping to continue? Um? In 1:38:26.280 --> 1:38:31.439 areas that have sustainable populations of wolves? Empress of the 1:38:31.439 --> 1:38:35.200 world of the world. Yeah, so we're outside of profession 1:38:35.280 --> 1:38:37.360 right now, and now we're talking about the King of 1:38:37.400 --> 1:38:40.240 the world, Queen of the world. I don't live outside 1:38:40.280 --> 1:38:42.640 of my profession. Come on, you do too, There's no 1:38:42.680 --> 1:38:44.840 way you don't. I have the same problem my brothers, 1:38:44.880 --> 1:38:46.640 who are both ecologists. I'll be like, what do you 1:38:46.680 --> 1:38:51.760 hope happens? They don't like it. They don't like it. 1:38:51.800 --> 1:38:55.439 But come on, your Empress of the world. And someone says, oh, 1:38:55.520 --> 1:38:57.439 first thing, first quick issue we have to take care 1:38:57.439 --> 1:39:00.000 of is do we let the hunting and trapping seasons 1:39:00.000 --> 1:39:02.040 continue for wolves? And you have to make a quick decision. 1:39:02.760 --> 1:39:04.960 You have decide here. You are emers of the world. 1:39:05.360 --> 1:39:07.760 You're not gonna let the people down by lack through 1:39:07.840 --> 1:39:20.240 lack of leadership. Don't come on, really, really, wolves wolves 1:39:20.280 --> 1:39:22.920 can live anywhere that we tolerate them. In order tolerate them, 1:39:22.960 --> 1:39:24.599 we have to have some kind of a management plan. 1:39:25.479 --> 1:39:28.280 In a perfect world, wolves would never kill a coward 1:39:28.280 --> 1:39:30.760 of sheep and wolf, and unulate populations will never go 1:39:30.840 --> 1:39:33.559 up and down. There wouldn't be any controversies, right because 1:39:33.560 --> 1:39:35.800 that was a perfect world. Then he would need to 1:39:35.840 --> 1:39:38.640 remove them. But that's never gonna If there's not a 1:39:38.640 --> 1:39:41.880 perfect world, undulated population to go up and down, people 1:39:41.960 --> 1:39:46.679 get livestock taking their horrible and cheap that can happen. 1:39:47.080 --> 1:39:51.600 So in order for social tolerance to create possibilities for 1:39:51.640 --> 1:39:53.720 wolves to be you have to do that stuff. Let 1:39:53.720 --> 1:39:55.439 me hate with another personal one. Well, I just want 1:39:55.439 --> 1:39:57.760 to add that the perfect world is just perception. It 1:39:57.880 --> 1:40:00.840 might we might be living in the perfect world right now, 1:40:01.560 --> 1:40:05.040 but I do I'd say not. Look what's going on 1:40:05.080 --> 1:40:08.639 across our country, in the world, in the world. But 1:40:08.920 --> 1:40:12.760 it's been crazier in the past too. Oh yeah, we 1:40:12.800 --> 1:40:16.960 just have this thing called the Civil War. Yeah. Um, 1:40:17.280 --> 1:40:20.679 but kind of on that note, you hear a lot 1:40:20.760 --> 1:40:24.040 from the people that think that they could just survive, 1:40:25.760 --> 1:40:27.080 But I don't know if those are people that think 1:40:27.080 --> 1:40:29.160 they can just survive on nuts and berries. But anyways, 1:40:29.600 --> 1:40:33.000 that when some of these packs have a member of 1:40:33.000 --> 1:40:34.960 their pack that's killed by a hunter that you know, 1:40:35.000 --> 1:40:39.760 you have a dog wolf, it leaves the park and 1:40:40.000 --> 1:40:42.519 get shot and then it really disrupts the pack and 1:40:42.560 --> 1:40:44.040 it's like going to be the end of the pack. 1:40:44.600 --> 1:40:49.080 How true or false is that? Like have you seen 1:40:49.439 --> 1:40:51.640 have you been able to document and research that and 1:40:52.000 --> 1:40:55.559 see like what it does or doesn't do. You'd have 1:40:55.600 --> 1:40:59.400 to ask Yellowstone people specifically, because that's the concern down there. 1:40:59.439 --> 1:41:03.000 I know, when wolves or whatever, when they leave the 1:41:03.040 --> 1:41:06.719 pack and they get killed at Cook City or around 1:41:07.040 --> 1:41:11.960 Comin or Basin, it's it's very painful for some people, 1:41:12.479 --> 1:41:16.719 very painful. They common glued. That's tragedy beyond belief. They're 1:41:16.800 --> 1:41:22.120 very attached to these animals. As an ecologists looking at 1:41:22.160 --> 1:41:25.559 the population level, it's a loss of an animal. And 1:41:25.560 --> 1:41:27.920 as a breeder, it's it's more of an impact on 1:41:27.920 --> 1:41:30.519 the pack. The pack might split up, the pack might 1:41:30.760 --> 1:41:34.160 get a new breeder, the pack might fade away, they 1:41:34.240 --> 1:41:38.519 might have two breeders the following year. They there's this 1:41:38.640 --> 1:41:40.640 dynamic that goes on all the time, and death is 1:41:40.720 --> 1:41:43.720 part of it. She said, We as social people put 1:41:43.800 --> 1:41:48.559 judgments on the animals taken. And I know early in 1:41:48.560 --> 1:41:51.240 my career when there was only three packs of wolves 1:41:51.240 --> 1:41:54.960 in Montana, I knew those animals, not by name or anything, 1:41:55.000 --> 1:41:58.479 but we followed them enough in the snow on the trail. 1:41:58.560 --> 1:42:00.280 I flew once a week. It was very sense of 1:42:00.360 --> 1:42:02.840 kind of like here, except you didn't get to see them. 1:42:02.880 --> 1:42:06.240 And it was hardship early on because every one of 1:42:06.280 --> 1:42:09.840 those animals was critical to them coming back at all. 1:42:10.040 --> 1:42:13.960 So if you lost, if you had twenty animals and 1:42:14.360 --> 1:42:17.439 four were killed or something new, you kind of felt 1:42:17.479 --> 1:42:20.160 it and you saw the adjustment. But it's like, oh, 1:42:20.400 --> 1:42:23.240 well there's an adjustment, and that wolf's gone, and g 1:42:23.360 --> 1:42:25.400 where did this one come from? And none? Next year 1:42:25.439 --> 1:42:28.760 they got Pops. That one is gone. They move on, 1:42:28.920 --> 1:42:32.679 they don't think about it. They're wolves, and we put 1:42:32.680 --> 1:42:35.439 those values on it. And it is hard for those people. 1:42:35.479 --> 1:42:37.920 I know, they're friends and them are friends of mine 1:42:37.920 --> 1:42:44.440 from Yellowstone, and it's difficult. And that system has the bonus. 1:42:44.960 --> 1:42:47.759 I tell these people, my friends, you guys have a bonus. 1:42:47.840 --> 1:42:50.600 You live in a research bubble here. It's amazing. You 1:42:50.640 --> 1:42:53.800 can see these animals. You sit on the I just 1:42:53.840 --> 1:42:55.040 came from there. You sit on the side of the 1:42:55.080 --> 1:42:58.800 road with your service, then your apple pie or something, 1:42:58.840 --> 1:43:01.519 and you can watch these of That is not the 1:43:01.560 --> 1:43:03.880 real world wolves live in. They live where I live, 1:43:03.960 --> 1:43:06.080 and they're shot and hunting, trapping around over by cars 1:43:06.080 --> 1:43:08.800 and trains and whatever. That's the world wolves have to 1:43:08.840 --> 1:43:11.360 live in. And when one gets killed, it is not 1:43:11.479 --> 1:43:16.040 a tragedy. We don't, you know, it's just different. Yellowstone 1:43:16.080 --> 1:43:20.880 does like it does so much good. I know it 1:43:21.320 --> 1:43:24.720 does harm well, I would venture to say that. I mean, 1:43:24.840 --> 1:43:26.760 like I said, when I first was out there, I 1:43:26.800 --> 1:43:29.000 was against their introduction for all those reasons. We talked 1:43:29.040 --> 1:43:32.040 about most of the social fabric and the natural selection 1:43:32.040 --> 1:43:34.840 of wolves coming down blah blah blah. But now that 1:43:34.880 --> 1:43:36.639 they're there, I go there a couple of times a year. 1:43:36.680 --> 1:43:41.920 I so enjoy seeing them because they're they're not they're 1:43:41.960 --> 1:43:45.320 not remove. If they're they're pretty visible, and it's a 1:43:45.360 --> 1:43:49.880 different energy down there. Everybody goes watches those wolves, is 1:43:50.000 --> 1:43:52.080 very in love with seeing them and the experience, and 1:43:52.120 --> 1:43:55.240 it opens a lot of people's eyes. But that is 1:43:55.320 --> 1:43:58.600 not where the wolves live in of the world. But 1:43:58.680 --> 1:44:03.120 they lay the problem is is it? Yeah, it's like 1:44:03.200 --> 1:44:06.760 ecological has done so much good for recovering species. It's 1:44:06.760 --> 1:44:11.640 not a lot of good um. But the psychology of 1:44:11.680 --> 1:44:15.680 the place and its advocates is that they they they 1:44:16.000 --> 1:44:20.960 lay claim and take ownership of anything that touches it, 1:44:21.920 --> 1:44:25.160 so that a herd of elk, say that spend the 1:44:25.200 --> 1:44:28.960 bulk of the year not there, become the Yellowstone elk 1:44:29.840 --> 1:44:34.960 of grizzly that passes through becomes a Yellowstone grizzly. Um. 1:44:35.120 --> 1:44:38.080 And if something occurs outside of the park within some 1:44:38.200 --> 1:44:43.759 number of miles, it's a travesty because it was only 1:44:43.800 --> 1:44:47.040 a mile, only a five miles out of the park, 1:44:47.680 --> 1:44:51.600 as though it's footprint is inadequate, and it needs to 1:44:51.640 --> 1:44:56.519 sort of extend this psychological energy that reaches out like 1:44:56.560 --> 1:44:59.960 the tenles tentacles of an octopus to grab in anything 1:45:00.080 --> 1:45:02.880 ing around it. And I think that out of that 1:45:03.040 --> 1:45:09.200 that mentality drives a lot of creates a lot of 1:45:09.920 --> 1:45:14.479 like contentiousness and people who are competing over management of things. 1:45:14.600 --> 1:45:16.439 So when I say it causes harm, I think in 1:45:16.520 --> 1:45:22.160 that way where people become that The wildlife politics in America, 1:45:22.280 --> 1:45:26.320 like wildlife in America, is very complicated and there are 1:45:26.360 --> 1:45:28.519 a lot of factors at play, and a lot of 1:45:28.560 --> 1:45:30.680 people who need to be heard. And I think that 1:45:30.720 --> 1:45:33.840 when people are introduced to American wildlife through the lens 1:45:33.880 --> 1:45:39.160 of Yellowstone, they get a very distorted perception of what 1:45:39.360 --> 1:45:43.400 is actually what actually happens in the way people's lives 1:45:43.439 --> 1:45:47.439 are impacted and the different concerns going on. And I 1:45:47.479 --> 1:45:51.760 think that there's certain agencies like National Geographic is a 1:45:51.760 --> 1:45:54.040 big driver of this, The Smithsonian is a big driver 1:45:54.120 --> 1:45:56.439 of this. The people that push this thing that that 1:45:57.439 --> 1:46:01.559 wildlife just lives in this little protected place. Um, it's 1:46:01.680 --> 1:46:06.160 only there. It's surrounded by horrible people who want to 1:46:06.200 --> 1:46:09.320 do horrible things, and it's just by the grace of 1:46:09.400 --> 1:46:12.840 God that we have this little gem in which in 1:46:12.840 --> 1:46:17.439 which wildlife can exist. And they push that narrative, and 1:46:17.479 --> 1:46:20.400 it's it's frustrating. It's like, it's difficult to watch that happen. 1:46:20.439 --> 1:46:22.479 It is difficult. And when people got to realize, say 1:46:22.520 --> 1:46:26.599 there's say there's eighty wolves now, and this spring there 1:46:26.600 --> 1:46:30.479 will be several litters of five to six born who 1:46:30.479 --> 1:46:32.320 knows how many letters ten and there will be that 1:46:32.360 --> 1:46:34.960 many more wolves. The population will at least double or 1:46:35.000 --> 1:46:39.040 trouble based on reproductive and every year. This happens every year, 1:46:39.120 --> 1:46:41.080 and then by this time next year it'll be back 1:46:41.120 --> 1:46:45.120 down to every year. So a certain number of wolves, 1:46:45.160 --> 1:46:47.479 and they don't have percentage, but twice as many as 1:46:47.479 --> 1:46:52.439 there will disperse, get killed, die of disease, drowned, get 1:46:52.520 --> 1:46:55.040 killed by an get killed by the wolves. It happens 1:46:55.080 --> 1:46:57.200 all the time. But when it's a wolf that is 1:46:57.280 --> 1:46:59.479 seen often and as a number in a radio color 1:46:59.560 --> 1:47:02.240 and then it's killed by human, that is a beaut 1:47:02.320 --> 1:47:04.639 as a very large tragedy. And I wish people would 1:47:05.000 --> 1:47:08.080 I wish people would be more concerned about connectivity and 1:47:08.120 --> 1:47:10.240 linkage is out on the landscape. I wish people would 1:47:10.280 --> 1:47:12.880 be more worried instead of Scarface being killed illegal, the 1:47:12.880 --> 1:47:15.960 big grizzly bear that was killed supposedly illegally, and it 1:47:16.080 --> 1:47:18.160 was seen for twenty five years and yellow So I 1:47:18.200 --> 1:47:21.080 saw him and he's very identifiable. People identified with this 1:47:21.160 --> 1:47:23.720 bear for a long time. And he goes outside of 1:47:23.720 --> 1:47:26.000 the park and I believe he was illegally killed or 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:29.280 killed anyway, but it was outside the park. If people 1:47:29.479 --> 1:47:32.680 put all the energy and money into thinking about well, 1:47:32.800 --> 1:47:36.920 let's work on the connectivity linkage between yellow Stone and Montana. 1:47:37.000 --> 1:47:41.000 Those landscapes between McDonald Pass and you know, the Gallatin Valley, 1:47:41.520 --> 1:47:45.680 so that bears are are more free to maintain viability, 1:47:45.760 --> 1:47:49.840 so that it doesn't become this still pretty isolated. That's 1:47:49.840 --> 1:47:53.719 a bigger concern than the scarface being chop, much bigger 1:47:53.760 --> 1:47:56.760 in my mind, especially putting all this emotional energy into 1:47:56.840 --> 1:47:59.400 these single wolves, as you just said, for them to 1:47:59.479 --> 1:48:01.519 live to be I was a big deal. To big deal. 1:48:01.600 --> 1:48:03.840 And I I mean, I I love seting and I'm 1:48:03.840 --> 1:48:06.080 taking in and I love listening stories about who we 1:48:06.120 --> 1:48:09.400 got who, and I have I have ultimate respect for 1:48:09.439 --> 1:48:11.920 these people out there every day at like five in 1:48:11.960 --> 1:48:13.640 the morning. They're out there all day and they know 1:48:13.720 --> 1:48:15.840 these animals and they dedicate their life to it. And 1:48:15.920 --> 1:48:18.160 I you and I I mean benefit. I can pull 1:48:18.280 --> 1:48:20.200 up in my car and get out and ask what's 1:48:20.200 --> 1:48:23.479 going on. They tell me. I'm very appreciative, But I 1:48:23.479 --> 1:48:27.040 don't have that attachment to those animals, to the singles. 1:48:27.280 --> 1:48:30.160 You're interesting in population not down there, But I can 1:48:30.240 --> 1:48:33.639 understand the passion and they they're very passionate about It's 1:48:33.680 --> 1:48:35.880 like maybe me and my bird dog. I mean, I'm 1:48:35.960 --> 1:48:38.400 very passionate about bird hunting and training dogs and when 1:48:38.439 --> 1:48:41.320 dogs die, it's a tragedy. But the wolves are not 1:48:41.479 --> 1:48:43.800 my dogs. I don't know how to answer that. It's 1:48:43.840 --> 1:48:48.440 just challenging. Is there a time in like scientists education, 1:48:48.760 --> 1:48:52.799 where someone sits you down and says you you don't 1:48:52.960 --> 1:48:56.200 call animals by names. We do numbers and this is why? 1:48:56.439 --> 1:48:58.720 Is that like a very strict point thing or does 1:48:58.800 --> 1:49:01.439 that just naturally come along. That's a really good question, honest, 1:49:01.479 --> 1:49:04.920 because when we started the wolves, you know, in search study, 1:49:04.960 --> 1:49:08.040 and the first one was Kishena, and then we had Phyllis, 1:49:08.040 --> 1:49:09.880 and we had these wolves because there were so few, 1:49:10.120 --> 1:49:11.880 and yes, we were going down the same path and 1:49:11.920 --> 1:49:14.320 we saw him a lot. And the park services you 1:49:14.360 --> 1:49:16.840 can't name those wolves, and the fishing life services you 1:49:16.840 --> 1:49:18.960 can't name them because what happens when Phillis goes and 1:49:19.040 --> 1:49:22.120 kills a column. We've gotta take Phillis out. Okay. Every 1:49:22.120 --> 1:49:25.120 wolf had a number anyway, Some of mad names early 1:49:25.160 --> 1:49:28.760 on semed numbers. And people would be funny because you'd 1:49:28.760 --> 1:49:31.040 be talking to something the park service about wolf eight five, 1:49:31.120 --> 1:49:33.120 fifty and they say who is that, Well, that's Phillis, okay, 1:49:33.240 --> 1:49:37.040 or fifty three? Who's that? That's mohabb okay, but they 1:49:37.479 --> 1:49:39.839 knew the name, so it was kind of a trade 1:49:39.880 --> 1:49:43.320 we played. But and I know within fish Wife and 1:49:43.360 --> 1:49:46.080 parks they don't want us to name wolves, but all 1:49:46.120 --> 1:49:49.320 of the grizzly bears that they tag are everyone is named, 1:49:49.400 --> 1:49:53.840 every one of them. What's the difference? And I don't 1:49:53.880 --> 1:49:57.679 feel like if if I knew you boy so security number, 1:49:57.760 --> 1:49:59.280 you can give that to me later I'll follow up. 1:49:59.320 --> 1:50:01.639 But you are you so security number? I wouldn't when 1:50:01.720 --> 1:50:04.920 feeling different if you were like the fourteen oh seven 1:50:05.560 --> 1:50:09.240 versus Jannice, I mean you could and the other thing 1:50:09.280 --> 1:50:11.439 I mean, I'm turning to a scientist. Our papers are 1:50:11.520 --> 1:50:16.120 very technical and factual and models and statistics and all that. 1:50:16.240 --> 1:50:18.519 And I think one of the things that we need 1:50:18.560 --> 1:50:21.639 to do better is is scientists biologists, and I don't 1:50:21.640 --> 1:50:23.280 I'd love to hear the input, but I think that 1:50:23.320 --> 1:50:26.639 we don't do a very good job in reaching out 1:50:26.760 --> 1:50:31.000 to the general public who has concerns and thinks about 1:50:31.040 --> 1:50:33.760 being outside and enjoys all aspects of wild life, but 1:50:33.840 --> 1:50:37.160 maybe it doesn't really know how to predators and prey relay. 1:50:37.200 --> 1:50:39.600 When do they kill or not kill everything? And we 1:50:39.600 --> 1:50:42.160 don't put it out in a format that's very user friendly. 1:50:43.120 --> 1:50:47.799 People just see these papers with his Latin and figures 1:50:47.840 --> 1:50:51.360 and numbers, and it just gone. I think it's there 1:50:51.400 --> 1:50:53.680 for people that want it. It's hard. I mean, I 1:50:53.720 --> 1:50:56.200 go do a lot of public presentations and different groups, 1:50:56.600 --> 1:50:58.880 different people grasp different things. But I find a lot 1:50:58.880 --> 1:51:01.680 of groups as soon as you start talking data, this 1:51:01.840 --> 1:51:03.920 light goes out and I have to ask you, because 1:51:04.280 --> 1:51:07.040 how do how can I be a better communicator to 1:51:07.080 --> 1:51:10.360 the public about these very important issues, Like when we 1:51:10.600 --> 1:51:12.599 do some of these meetings and people say, oh, that's 1:51:12.640 --> 1:51:15.080 not right, those numbers are wrong, you know you blah 1:51:15.120 --> 1:51:19.040 blah blah. Well they are what we have. And but 1:51:19.040 --> 1:51:21.439 but I don't think that you're asking something that can't 1:51:21.479 --> 1:51:24.680 be answered, because I think that the people have. But 1:51:24.840 --> 1:51:29.200 that same problem exists everything, with every subject. It exists 1:51:29.200 --> 1:51:31.240 with every subject. Care if you're talking about if you're 1:51:31.240 --> 1:51:34.120 trying to explain social services, if you're trying to explain 1:51:34.840 --> 1:51:39.960 um climate, I'm trying to explain wildlife populations, trying to 1:51:40.160 --> 1:51:43.120 explain the mility, the budget for the military or whatever. 1:51:44.200 --> 1:51:49.720 You're gonna always run up against people who um cannot conceptualize, 1:51:51.040 --> 1:51:53.800 can't make sense of data. There's people that can't look 1:51:53.800 --> 1:51:58.559 at them, that that can't understand the landscape um from 1:51:58.600 --> 1:52:01.320 having lived on it and travel across it and occupied 1:52:01.320 --> 1:52:04.520 it for their entire life. Then you represent that landscape 1:52:04.560 --> 1:52:07.680 to them in an aerial image, or you represent that 1:52:07.800 --> 1:52:12.000 landscape to them as a map, and they cannot they 1:52:12.000 --> 1:52:15.719 can't make that jump. So I think that to say, like, how, 1:52:15.800 --> 1:52:18.000 because I hear this from wildlife professionals all the time 1:52:18.360 --> 1:52:24.640 who wring their hands about they're perceived inability to articulate 1:52:24.720 --> 1:52:28.519 complex ideas to the public, and they're like, well, how 1:52:28.520 --> 1:52:31.120 do we fix it? There's probably some things you can do, 1:52:31.400 --> 1:52:33.280 but I think that you would say, well, we're gonna 1:52:33.280 --> 1:52:37.920 have to tackle it through our public education system at 1:52:37.920 --> 1:52:42.280 the elementary school level, because I don't know, when you 1:52:42.360 --> 1:52:49.240 see someone take something that's complicated and beautiful and then 1:52:49.320 --> 1:52:52.080 you see attempts to like strip it down and dumb 1:52:52.120 --> 1:52:56.479 it down, it gets really ugly and it becomes not 1:52:56.560 --> 1:52:59.880 satisfying anymore, and you almost feel embarrassed for the person 1:53:00.240 --> 1:53:01.960 that stripped it down. I'm not gonna say what it 1:53:02.000 --> 1:53:06.960 was by recently read an attempt to take something counterintuitive 1:53:08.040 --> 1:53:13.320 um to take this like counterintuitive idea and demonstrate it 1:53:13.360 --> 1:53:18.720 to the public, and and and it happens to be 1:53:18.760 --> 1:53:21.400 a point that I desperately want to see demonstrated to 1:53:21.439 --> 1:53:23.880 the public. But when I saw it stripped down to 1:53:23.920 --> 1:53:28.680 its barest, most easily digestible form, I looked at it 1:53:28.720 --> 1:53:31.559 and all of the wonder and beauty was gone, and 1:53:31.600 --> 1:53:36.439 it was just stupid. So I don't really know that 1:53:36.479 --> 1:53:41.519 you're going to get there. I think that, uh, it's 1:53:41.560 --> 1:53:45.880 just from the ground up, trying to invite people to 1:53:46.080 --> 1:53:51.640 be invite people to like being surprised. My father was 1:53:51.760 --> 1:54:00.160 very resistant to any discussion about human evolution. Okay, his 1:54:00.240 --> 1:54:03.759 resistance to discussions about human evolution is that they change 1:54:03.840 --> 1:54:08.080 the story too much. It used to be this, Now 1:54:08.160 --> 1:54:11.320 you're telling me it's this. So what he wanted to 1:54:11.360 --> 1:54:15.720 see was he wanted to see an explanation that was 1:54:15.840 --> 1:54:20.080 the end all, be all, final answer, that this is 1:54:20.160 --> 1:54:25.360 what happened. If someone failed to give him that the 1:54:25.520 --> 1:54:29.519 absolute thing that in twenty years will not change, he 1:54:29.640 --> 1:54:31.880 wanted to discard the whole thing because he didn't want 1:54:31.920 --> 1:54:36.800 to take the energy, the mental energy to follow a 1:54:36.960 --> 1:54:41.640 constantly evolving narrative that had new inputs in the upset 1:54:41.800 --> 1:54:45.920 old understandings. It was frustrating to him. So the minute 1:54:45.920 --> 1:54:50.080 you changed it too many times, he became suspicious of 1:54:50.160 --> 1:54:54.200 the entire body of knowledge. How do you change that? 1:54:54.720 --> 1:54:59.240 He was a smart dude, very smart, but some things, um, 1:54:59.280 --> 1:55:02.600 he wasn't Like there's certain aspects of learning that he 1:55:02.680 --> 1:55:06.000 didn't enjoy. The journey. You had to give it to him. 1:55:06.000 --> 1:55:07.680 And if next year you came and told him that, 1:55:07.760 --> 1:55:10.000 you know what, we're kind of thinking this, but now 1:55:10.040 --> 1:55:12.320 it looks like this, he's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna 1:55:12.320 --> 1:55:15.760 forget everything you've ever said to me. So that's maybe 1:55:15.760 --> 1:55:19.800 what's hard about wildlife issues because it's always in flux 1:55:20.520 --> 1:55:23.680 and there. And by learn you learn more. I mean 1:55:23.720 --> 1:55:27.320 the tools they're using now with the remote cameras and genetics, 1:55:27.320 --> 1:55:30.800 Oh my god, the tools are non invasive monitoring. We're 1:55:30.880 --> 1:55:33.520 learning things, amazing things that you can't see even with 1:55:33.600 --> 1:55:37.280 the radio caller. Dear biologists just last week tell us 1:55:37.280 --> 1:55:40.360 that now the amount of data he can pick up 1:55:40.360 --> 1:55:43.720 in one day it might have taken him years twenty 1:55:43.800 --> 1:55:47.600 years ago. Great, And I don't know that it's necessarily better, 1:55:47.920 --> 1:55:50.600 but it sure is helpful and trying to look at 1:55:50.640 --> 1:55:52.960 some things, but it opens up a lot more questions 1:55:53.320 --> 1:55:57.640 looking at Yeah, genetics is an especially powerful tool. I 1:55:57.640 --> 1:56:00.920 I'm very amazed with what can be or no by 1:56:01.040 --> 1:56:04.680 picking up a scat temple or urine sample, even from 1:56:04.720 --> 1:56:07.520 an ungulate and looky whatever it is, but usually a 1:56:07.640 --> 1:56:11.720 terror or scat and learning, you can glean enormous amounts 1:56:11.720 --> 1:56:14.280 of information about where this animal came from, how it lived, 1:56:14.320 --> 1:56:17.680 how it died, whatever, who was related to. It's just 1:56:17.760 --> 1:56:22.360 an amazing tool. Yeah, people people really, some people really 1:56:22.440 --> 1:56:27.880 like uh we keep talking about change. Some people like 1:56:28.000 --> 1:56:30.200 things that don't change. We're just down. We just had 1:56:30.240 --> 1:56:32.720 our little family vacation down in Baja and we bought 1:56:32.760 --> 1:56:37.200 a really small bananas like those, a little dinky finger banas. 1:56:38.000 --> 1:56:42.280 My daughter, who doesn't like bananas, liked these bananas. My 1:56:42.360 --> 1:56:45.480 son is upset by this for some reason, and it's 1:56:45.480 --> 1:56:49.800 saying to her, I thought you didn't like bananas. And 1:56:49.880 --> 1:56:52.480 I said to him, it was like any sentence that 1:56:52.560 --> 1:56:56.160 you begin with the words I thought you didn't is 1:56:56.160 --> 1:57:01.640 a not necessary sentence where you're calling someone out for 1:57:01.760 --> 1:57:06.520 having changed something. But he didn't like it, and maybe 1:57:06.520 --> 1:57:09.280 he likes his sister to not like bananas because she 1:57:09.360 --> 1:57:12.280 doesn't like bananas. And I think a big part of 1:57:12.320 --> 1:57:16.080 the whole wolf thing is in our memory of our 1:57:16.120 --> 1:57:19.120 parents and grandparents, there were not wolves on the landscape 1:57:19.200 --> 1:57:23.480 and now they're back and it's change. But if they 1:57:23.480 --> 1:57:27.240 went back two years ago, the landscape was crawling with 1:57:27.240 --> 1:57:31.000 wolves and that was the normal. So we are selective 1:57:31.000 --> 1:57:33.000 in our memory about what we want to think about 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:35.680 or how we analyze things. In hunting and fishing, dudes 1:57:35.840 --> 1:57:39.240 are generally in love with the Lewis and Clark era. 1:57:40.760 --> 1:57:42.920 They're like, man, if I could do one thing, it 1:57:42.920 --> 1:57:46.200 would have been out with those boys, all the wolves 1:57:46.280 --> 1:57:51.160 running up down Chase and everything, killing all the game 1:57:52.840 --> 1:57:56.120 except for the ten million vice and whatever. Yeah, no, 1:57:56.280 --> 1:57:58.800 it's it's an interesting concept. So I always ask people that, 1:57:58.960 --> 1:58:02.160 just instead of thinking of just how things are today 1:58:02.240 --> 1:58:05.640 or in your mind, try and think on a bigger scale. 1:58:06.840 --> 1:58:09.840 And the future, I mean the future is there's going 1:58:09.880 --> 1:58:12.800 to be left less and less landscape available for wildlife, 1:58:12.840 --> 1:58:15.320 and that that frightens me. And I think I would 1:58:15.360 --> 1:58:17.720 like to see people instead of hating this or that 1:58:17.920 --> 1:58:20.120 or wanting to kill all the wolves or whatever, I 1:58:20.160 --> 1:58:23.520 would be more concerned about protecting and preserving a wildlife 1:58:23.560 --> 1:58:27.680 heritage on the landscape. And I think ranting community and 1:58:27.760 --> 1:58:31.320 hunting communities are absolutely key to that. I mean, I work. 1:58:31.840 --> 1:58:33.560 Do you look at where they look at where the 1:58:33.560 --> 1:58:36.160 big game winners? Think about these ranchers. Man, you look 1:58:36.240 --> 1:58:40.280 drive between Livingston and Gardner, Holy crafters. Thousands of animals 1:58:40.320 --> 1:58:42.760 out there eating up. There's nothing this the grass that 1:58:42.880 --> 1:58:46.040 looked like this table and they got to raise cattle 1:58:46.080 --> 1:58:48.800 on it next year. It's private land. They support all 1:58:48.840 --> 1:58:52.040 that wildlife. Your own people want to get rid of 1:58:52.120 --> 1:58:56.360 their cattle because wolves get killed. You know what. They 1:58:56.440 --> 1:58:59.360 provide a huge amount of wildlife resource. I want to 1:58:59.360 --> 1:59:00.920 see them there. I want to see him stay in 1:59:00.920 --> 1:59:02.560 the landscape. I got I know a guy down in 1:59:02.640 --> 1:59:05.360 Utah and they had some unusual snowfall patterns this year 1:59:05.400 --> 1:59:08.840 in Utah and he lost forty dollars or they hey 1:59:08.920 --> 1:59:11.520 to a group of elk, And he texted me that 1:59:11.560 --> 1:59:17.960 he's trying to be cool about us they season. So 1:59:18.320 --> 1:59:21.960 it's it's really complicated. It's it just does Uh Do 1:59:21.960 --> 1:59:23.920 you have any final little things you wanted to wedge 1:59:23.920 --> 1:59:26.440 in there that we didn't get to. I don't think so. 1:59:27.360 --> 1:59:30.680 Um No, We've covered a lot. I like your point 1:59:31.520 --> 1:59:35.680 that space for wildlife. That's why I become front. That 1:59:35.760 --> 1:59:38.240 might be one of the reasons I become frustrated with 1:59:39.520 --> 1:59:44.160 UM aspects of the animal rights community or people who 1:59:45.120 --> 1:59:51.520 UM oppose any kind of wolf hunting or wolf trapp trapping. 1:59:51.520 --> 1:59:54.960 For the hides would be that when I look in 1:59:55.000 --> 1:59:57.320 the future, like, I see a problem that needs to 1:59:57.320 --> 2:00:02.040 be addressed, and it's maintaining half a tat, maintaining space 2:00:02.120 --> 2:00:04.960 for wildlife. And I'm like, how are you so, Like, 2:00:05.400 --> 2:00:07.480 how do you when you look into the future, how 2:00:07.520 --> 2:00:12.080 do you see? Um? Why do you Why are you 2:00:12.120 --> 2:00:14.520 not worried about that? Why are you worried about Why 2:00:14.520 --> 2:00:16.480 are you bringing so much energy into this thing when 2:00:16.480 --> 2:00:20.120 the real problem is that the real problem is habitat. Yeah, 2:00:20.120 --> 2:00:23.640 and the two things That one is that habitat for 2:00:23.640 --> 2:00:28.480 world life is not not necessarily or at all exclusive 2:00:28.520 --> 2:00:31.160 to human presence. Like I just point out the ranching. 2:00:31.600 --> 2:00:34.080 The ranch lands are the winter range for the most part, 2:00:34.640 --> 2:00:36.800 And I think people get hung up on wildlife has 2:00:36.840 --> 2:00:41.760 to have wilderness, No, I have to have it. Yes, 2:00:42.680 --> 2:00:45.040 we all do. I mean that's part of the I 2:00:45.040 --> 2:00:46.440 do have one more point that I want to tell 2:00:46.880 --> 2:00:49.440 it's called a concluder. Kind of concluder. So the thing 2:00:49.480 --> 2:00:51.800 that I think about a lot here in the West 2:00:52.000 --> 2:00:56.360 especially is but it's true anywhere, is how do we 2:00:56.480 --> 2:00:59.760 create a value for wolves, Because the only way they're 2:00:59.760 --> 2:01:01.560 gonna be hilerate on the landscape is if they have 2:01:01.600 --> 2:01:04.560 a value. That value can be in terms of uh, 2:01:04.760 --> 2:01:09.240 cultural it can be in terms of hide value selling hides. 2:01:09.360 --> 2:01:11.520 It can be what's wolf hide worth right now? I 2:01:11.520 --> 2:01:14.080 think it was told hundred seventy five dollars. So like 2:01:14.200 --> 2:01:18.320 up in Alaska, some of the biggest opponents of aerial 2:01:18.360 --> 2:01:23.160 gunning were the trappers because it's their culture, subsistence and income, 2:01:23.240 --> 2:01:25.040 and they didn't want to see those wolves gonned off 2:01:25.040 --> 2:01:27.840 because they cont on trapping them and catching them. So 2:01:28.000 --> 2:01:31.760 that's a value. Another value would be aesthetic. Maybe you 2:01:31.840 --> 2:01:34.000 live in Des Moines, Iowa, and you'll never see one, 2:01:34.040 --> 2:01:36.440 but you like to know they're just out there. Maybe 2:01:36.440 --> 2:01:38.800 you come to Yellowstone Park and your value is seeing 2:01:38.840 --> 2:01:41.440 them in that environment or potentially hearing them hall. I mean, 2:01:41.760 --> 2:01:43.960 I don't care what the value isn't those values are 2:01:43.960 --> 2:01:46.720 on opposites in the scale, and they may be conflicting values. 2:01:46.920 --> 2:01:50.000 But they have a value because if something lives in 2:01:50.040 --> 2:01:52.640 our world and it doesn't have a value, it's gone 2:01:52.680 --> 2:01:57.640 pretty quickly or is innocuous or is innocuous. Well maybe 2:01:57.880 --> 2:02:00.440 I don't know. Well anyway, I'm just and I think 2:02:00.440 --> 2:02:04.960 it's really important that you know, we they have a 2:02:05.080 --> 2:02:08.720 value to survive. And I know in this particular in Montana, 2:02:08.760 --> 2:02:10.960 for example. What I mean by that is what I 2:02:10.960 --> 2:02:13.000 mean by that actually clarify the point. What I mean 2:02:13.120 --> 2:02:17.200 is things that require some level of sacrifice have to 2:02:17.240 --> 2:02:20.680 have a corresponding value. You could have something like you know, 2:02:20.760 --> 2:02:23.880 people might not put a lot of cultural or economic 2:02:24.000 --> 2:02:29.560 value on apossums, but will continue to have apossums because 2:02:29.600 --> 2:02:32.360 they're not you know, we're not we're not making a 2:02:32.400 --> 2:02:36.600 decision about their fate. Generally, you provide certain things and 2:02:36.600 --> 2:02:40.280 they just continue to exist. They're not controversial. Um, we 2:02:40.320 --> 2:02:42.840 don't need to have meetings in public comment periods about 2:02:42.880 --> 2:02:44.560 what we're gonna do. I don't know, I don't know. 2:02:44.640 --> 2:02:50.600 I possum country. Okay, Okay, we don't talk about possums. Okay, 2:02:51.200 --> 2:02:54.560 damn shoure talking about everything else, right, steelhead deer, turkeys, 2:02:54.640 --> 2:02:58.120 we talk about it possums. Nope, what's kind of like matlons. 2:02:59.000 --> 2:03:01.480 So you know, Jimmy, I didn't hear Jim's podcast, but 2:03:01.920 --> 2:03:04.160 there's three times as many mountain lions and the landscape 2:03:04.160 --> 2:03:07.400 in Montana's there are wolves. People aren't angry about mountain 2:03:07.400 --> 2:03:09.480 lions and the landscape. They aren't piste off. They don't 2:03:09.480 --> 2:03:12.040 want to seem eliminated. They're introducing twelve bills into the 2:03:12.160 --> 2:03:14.720 legislature this year to kill more mountain lions. And it's like, 2:03:15.240 --> 2:03:17.320 you know, if there's three times as many mountain lions, 2:03:17.320 --> 2:03:18.840 it's two and a half to three times as many. 2:03:18.920 --> 2:03:21.560 Is there are wolves, you can presume that they're killing 2:03:21.800 --> 2:03:23.360 three times as much, two and a half to three 2:03:23.360 --> 2:03:28.280 times as mentioned. Game as wolved. Why aren't people concerned? 2:03:28.400 --> 2:03:32.560 I heard an explanation. Please tell me this is out 2:03:32.600 --> 2:03:34.480 of a thing that this is out of a research 2:03:34.520 --> 2:03:37.400 piece in Idaho and they kill people. This is not 2:03:37.520 --> 2:03:44.040 a research piece in Idaho where you, let's say, annually 2:03:44.920 --> 2:03:49.919 you lose sixteen seventeen per cent of your elk calves 2:03:50.240 --> 2:03:54.320 or no, it's like you lose or your elk calves 2:03:54.320 --> 2:03:57.600 every year two mountain lions. And it's been that way 2:03:57.640 --> 2:04:00.320 for a long time, and people are used to a 2:04:00.360 --> 2:04:03.360 certain cow calf ratio. But then you come in with 2:04:03.400 --> 2:04:08.280 this additive, this new additive thing, and all of a 2:04:08.320 --> 2:04:15.320 sudden it adds a five mortality rate that you feel 2:04:15.400 --> 2:04:19.840 that five. You can observe that five in your lifetime 2:04:20.360 --> 2:04:24.120 because static, your idea of static was the mountain lion presence. 2:04:24.640 --> 2:04:27.680 So people see a shift the new thing to point 2:04:27.720 --> 2:04:31.760 to ours, just to change, and so that's where the 2:04:31.800 --> 2:04:36.000 animosity grows. When all along you've been losing this very 2:04:36.080 --> 2:04:39.160 high percentage to mountain lions, but you've always you're used 2:04:39.160 --> 2:04:41.360 to that. When you're out and you see cows and calves, 2:04:41.360 --> 2:04:44.520 you're used to a certain ratio. The ratio switches and 2:04:44.600 --> 2:04:49.960 people perceive that new thing as being the problem. This 2:04:50.040 --> 2:04:53.760 is articulated through something that the buddy sent me. But 2:04:53.880 --> 2:04:56.000 still the majority of them are being killed by lions, 2:04:56.000 --> 2:04:58.240 had shown over and over and people don't worry about 2:04:58.280 --> 2:05:03.280 it because it's And I also think in addition to that, 2:05:03.280 --> 2:05:05.800 that's a good point. But in addition to that, moultlines 2:05:05.840 --> 2:05:08.360 have a value. How much is an outfit or charge 2:05:09.160 --> 2:05:12.280 for a mountline hunt four? And how many does he 2:05:12.320 --> 2:05:17.120 do it? Year? Many? So it has a value to him. 2:05:17.360 --> 2:05:21.040 The Houndsmen are very well organized. They're very vocal proponents 2:05:21.080 --> 2:05:23.720 of keeping lions on the landscape. They're also pretty vocal 2:05:23.760 --> 2:05:28.000 about getting rid of wolves. From what I've seen, dogs 2:05:29.120 --> 2:05:34.240 killing dogs and kill mountlines and compete with them. So 2:05:34.640 --> 2:05:38.520 but my point is, you know, honsman her amazing. They're 2:05:38.560 --> 2:05:40.920 amazing to learn from when they bring in mountlines to 2:05:40.960 --> 2:05:42.480 be tagged. At work with a lot of them tagging 2:05:42.520 --> 2:05:44.080 their lines, and I learned a lot from them. They're 2:05:44.080 --> 2:05:46.920 really good information sources about where they're seeing wolves and 2:05:47.080 --> 2:05:50.360 how many lions are out there. But they have that value, 2:05:50.600 --> 2:05:53.640 and then nobody goes drives and spends thirty five millions 2:05:53.680 --> 2:05:56.920 annually to go to look at mountainins and Yellowstone Park. 2:05:57.000 --> 2:06:01.480 That's yeah. I mean, I'm just saying they're sneaky, they're quiet. 2:06:01.520 --> 2:06:03.160 You don't know they're there, and there's a lot more 2:06:03.200 --> 2:06:05.120 of them and people don't. I mean, they kill a 2:06:05.120 --> 2:06:09.400 few people every so often in mal people it's like, oh, whatever, 2:06:09.800 --> 2:06:12.960 I can tell you when it happens sometime in the future. 2:06:12.960 --> 2:06:16.720 Who knows if wolves kill a person, Oh my god, 2:06:16.960 --> 2:06:20.520 it's gonna be really all over the front page for 2:06:20.720 --> 2:06:24.680 weeks on end. It's happening all the time with lions embarrassed. Well, 2:06:24.720 --> 2:06:27.520 I mean there hasn't been alone. I mean, yeah, there 2:06:27.560 --> 2:06:29.520 was a couple of Yeah, there was two I can 2:06:29.560 --> 2:06:34.640 think of. Yeah, there's a couple of years more in Oregon, one, Washington. Yeah. 2:06:34.680 --> 2:06:37.800 I'm just saying there's a different value system on these 2:06:37.800 --> 2:06:45.360 different animals, economic, cultural, ecological, visual. It's something can be 2:06:45.440 --> 2:06:48.560 interesting to think about. So my point is we need 2:06:48.600 --> 2:06:52.600 to create value on wolves. Could guided wolf hunts be 2:06:52.640 --> 2:06:55.760 the salvation of wolves? I don't think. I don't think 2:06:55.840 --> 2:06:58.480 it's hard. But you know what, some people are taking 2:06:58.520 --> 2:07:00.800 people out to kill wolves as they learned how to. 2:07:01.000 --> 2:07:03.200 They've learned how to get them, and they're good at it. 2:07:03.280 --> 2:07:05.959 And I know some of them and they're they're pretty efficient. 2:07:05.960 --> 2:07:09.040 They understand wolfee college, they understand behavior, they know how 2:07:09.040 --> 2:07:11.400 to find them. They mostly calling yea, they know how 2:07:11.400 --> 2:07:14.240 to call them. And so the sounds are they using 2:07:14.800 --> 2:07:16.840 so you don't have to ask them? You do know? 2:07:16.960 --> 2:07:21.880 I don't know, you never got curiousness? Do you need? 2:07:21.880 --> 2:07:25.040 They're using wolf vocalizations? Do you think they're using pre vocalizations? 2:07:25.160 --> 2:07:27.120 I'm saying, is there what could be a business for it. 2:07:30.240 --> 2:07:32.520 There could be a business for it. And and there 2:07:32.600 --> 2:07:34.440 is business for a wolf. I mean, look at the 2:07:34.520 --> 2:07:37.440 number of wolf safaris. I mean there's a huge economic 2:07:37.720 --> 2:07:39.840 value to seeing wolves. But if you wanted to do 2:07:39.880 --> 2:07:44.480 them for hunting, and right now with the move to 2:07:44.520 --> 2:07:47.240 pay bounties on wolves, that will incentivize for people. It's 2:07:47.280 --> 2:07:50.160 a monitory. Does put a value on them. It may 2:07:50.160 --> 2:07:51.880 not be your value or my value, or might be 2:07:51.960 --> 2:07:53.760 I don't know, but it puts a value on them. 2:07:53.760 --> 2:07:56.560 They get a thousand bucks a wolf, they can Uh, 2:07:57.200 --> 2:08:00.440 it's not called a bounty. It's a compensation program. H 2:08:00.840 --> 2:08:04.760 and at least got a value, right Liner, It may not, 2:08:05.720 --> 2:08:08.920 I mean it sit well with everybody. No, it won't, 2:08:11.560 --> 2:08:15.640 all right, Diane Boyden, Yeah, you got any final concluders, 2:08:16.880 --> 2:08:20.840 I don't mind, say, Shade, we go on forever. Like 2:08:20.880 --> 2:08:24.560 you said, there's hours and hours, but what he'll come back. 2:08:24.720 --> 2:08:27.000 We'd love to have you again. One last yes or 2:08:27.000 --> 2:08:34.120 no question. You had to go back to seven all 2:08:34.160 --> 2:08:36.760 over again. Would you have like sold your motorcycle and 2:08:36.800 --> 2:08:38.880 drove off to work on wolves up in Eale, Minnesota. 2:08:38.880 --> 2:08:42.760 Wouldn't think twice about it? Absolutely, that's good. No, thank 2:08:42.760 --> 2:08:45.000 you very much for coming on the show. Thank you. 2:09:01.320 --> 2:09:06.280 MS convert to prove to feet