Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Dirk Durham and to Dight, I have Justin Webb.
Speaker 1: He's the executive director for the Foundation for Wildlife Management.
Speaker 1: Welcome Justin.
Speaker 2: Thanks Dirk. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been I've been wanting to interview you for
Speaker 1: quite a while, even before I got on this podcast.
Speaker 1: I've found what you and your organization are doing very
Speaker 1: fascinating and I want I think it's important for people
Speaker 1: to know about it. So anyway, I wanted to. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get you on here. First off, tell our
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3: A little about myself.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a fashionate outdoorsman. Grew up off the grid
Speaker 2: in the country in North Idaho. Spent most of my
Speaker 2: life hunting and fishing and camping, hike in the back country.
Speaker 2: I raised a family, My kids are grown now, and
Speaker 2: I have been able to kind of pour my heart
Speaker 2: and soul into what has become the Foundation for Wildlife
Speaker 2: Management and just feel blessed to be able to do
Speaker 2: something for a living that I would do for free
Speaker 2: given the free times. It's really near and dear to
Speaker 2: my heart. The mission of the Foundation for Wildlife Management
Speaker 2: and watching the negative impacts of the over abundance of
Speaker 2: wolves transpire over a ten year time frame was really
Speaker 2: saddening to me.
Speaker 3: And it's.
Speaker 2: A travesty in some areas, some places that's not you know,
Speaker 2: nearly as impactful, but sometimes very passionate about. I spend
Speaker 2: countless hours tracking wolves, studying wolves, talking about wolves, seeking
Speaker 2: out knowledge about wolves. There's not a whole lot about
Speaker 2: my life anymore that doesn't doesn't involve wolves on some
Speaker 2: you know, way, shape or form. But uh, I'll say,
Speaker 2: you know, prior to wolves, the majority of all my
Speaker 2: time was spent chasing giant meal deer bucks in the
Speaker 2: back country and hunting elk, and that passion has kind
Speaker 2: of been overrun with my passion for trying to save
Speaker 2: what ilk populations that we have in the back country,
Speaker 2: and that includes managing both populations.
Speaker 1: And I love that if you can, can you give
Speaker 1: a kind of a rundown on for our listeners, maybe
Speaker 1: folks who are not from the West or the Northwest,
Speaker 1: and kind of give them a brief snapshot of, uh,
Speaker 1: what what's all the hubbub about wolves in Idaho? You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like if you get on social media or
Speaker 1: any kind of forums, you can get a lot of
Speaker 1: difference of opinion on the condition of how many wolves
Speaker 1: there are in Idaho and some of these other western
Speaker 1: states and how they've affected our elk and deer and
Speaker 1: moose and other all the ungulets. Can you can you
Speaker 1: kind of discuss like where it all started with the
Speaker 1: wolves and kind of give everybody where it kind of
Speaker 1: started and where we're at now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 2: I mean I can share my own personal experience in
Speaker 2: my opinions.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 3: I can tell you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had a wolf as a pet when
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, we had a seven eights
Speaker 2: wolf from eighth husky and I absolutely love that dog.
Speaker 2: The the you know, the majority of my high school
Speaker 2: trips into the back country, she went with me. Her
Speaker 2: name was Dakota. Taught her how to pull a sled
Speaker 2: and drag me around ice fishing, and she spent all
Speaker 2: sorts of time in the woods with me. But the
Speaker 2: problem was you couldn't control her, You couldn't keep her home,
Speaker 2: you couldn't you know, keep her contained, and eventually things
Speaker 2: just didn't work out there. Long story short, when I
Speaker 2: first heard that we had wolves coming to North Idaho.
Speaker 2: I was super excited about it. I thought wolves were
Speaker 2: the most amazing animal on the planet.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I grew up watching National Geographic just like everybody else,
Speaker 2: and had this huge, you know, just fascination with wolves
Speaker 2: and all that they quote unquote stood for. And there's
Speaker 2: all this messaging throughout my life that you know, I
Speaker 2: had kind of soaked in about, you know, wolves being
Speaker 2: not only an apex predator, but some I don't know,
Speaker 2: some resemblance of what humanity should have been or should
Speaker 2: be to some degree. And so I heard we were
Speaker 2: getting wolves, and I thought that was the greatest thing.
Speaker 2: Couldn't wait to hear wolf howl in the back country,
Speaker 2: couldn't wait to see wolf.
Speaker 3: Tracks on the mountain.
Speaker 2: And then wolves showed up, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: everything I thought a wolf was I was questioning because
Speaker 2: everything that I'd been taught a wolf to be was
Speaker 2: not what I was witnessing in my backyard, in the
Speaker 2: back country around me, on my elk hunts, you know,
Speaker 2: on my excursions out picking up shed antlers. You know,
Speaker 2: they everybody talked about wolves being good for the ecosystem
Speaker 2: and the environment, and how only the alpha, male and
Speaker 2: female bread and they only killed the sick in the week,
Speaker 2: and they helped keep game herds healthy well. When they
Speaker 2: first transplanted wolves to Yellowstone National Park and to the
Speaker 2: back country in North Idaho, again I was super excited
Speaker 2: about it. They set it. They established a goal of
Speaker 2: three hundred total wolves within what they call the Northern
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain Distinct population Segment area. In that area, I
Speaker 2: wish I could show you a map. It encompasses all
Speaker 2: of Montana, all of Idaho, all of Wyoming eastern one
Speaker 2: third of both Washington and Oregon, and the section of Utah. Well,
Speaker 2: as with anything these days, the wolf topic was litigated
Speaker 2: from all sides, all directions. It was explored, it was reviewed,
Speaker 2: it was peer reviewed.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: You know, basically run through the ringer. What wolves are
Speaker 2: we supposed to have? How many are we supposed to have?
Speaker 2: What impact is there going to be on you know,
Speaker 2: our dear elk and moose herds? So many different topics
Speaker 2: and aspects. Well, while story short, after years of arguing
Speaker 2: about this stuff, they finally settled on three hundred total
Speaker 2: wolves as a recovery goal and a management objective of
Speaker 2: eleven hundred total wolves within that entire system. Now, a
Speaker 2: lot of that management objective, all this data you can
Speaker 2: find it in the twenty ninety listing rule in the
Speaker 2: Federal Registry. But all of that data, the majority of
Speaker 2: that data was based on how much suitable habitat that
Speaker 2: we have four wolves within that in our MDPs area.
Speaker 2: And one of my latest talking points, you can talk
Speaker 2: to an elementary school kid and share with them the
Speaker 2: concept that every living thing has to have a set
Speaker 2: amount of food, water, shelter in space to be able
Speaker 2: to thrive, and they can understand that. If you ask
Speaker 2: them what happens if you have more animals than what
Speaker 2: you have food, water, shelter in space, known to biologists
Speaker 2: as suitable habitat. Elementary school kid can tell you it's
Speaker 2: a bad thing and that only negative can come from that.
Speaker 2: So fast forward, we've gone from meeting our recovery goal
Speaker 2: in the year two thousand in just four years. Basically
Speaker 2: it's time for states to take over management of wolves.
Speaker 2: Lawsuits start to rise up. Takes us nine years to
Speaker 2: get management of wolves into the hands of the states.
Speaker 2: In that time, wolf populations just exploded. Reproduction rates were
Speaker 2: extremely high, way higher than I think anybody really expected
Speaker 2: by the year two thousand and nine, and then they
Speaker 2: delisted them within that rule. The US Facial Wildlife Service
Speaker 2: stated that should we maintain the fifteen hundred wolves that
Speaker 2: we had at that time, that that would deplete wolve's
Speaker 2: own prey base and cause chronic livestock depredation. A lot
Speaker 2: of people think that, well, I should say not think.
Speaker 2: A lot of people make this statement that nature will
Speaker 2: balance itself, and I one hundred percent believe that, But
Speaker 2: what they don't understand is what that looks like. So
Speaker 2: for those that don't know, you have a prey base,
Speaker 2: and you have a predator base. As your predator populations
Speaker 2: grow and expand, eventually it outweighs your prey base, causing
Speaker 2: your prey base to collapse. Well, then all of your
Speaker 2: predators die from disease and starvation. In the case of wolves,
Speaker 2: the majority of them disperse. Most predators don't travel the
Speaker 2: way wolves do or the distances that wolves do. You know,
Speaker 2: there's been numbers of wolves that have been documented with
Speaker 2: caller data having traveled more than forty five hundred miles
Speaker 2: before they take up residence somewhere. We've got wolves now
Speaker 2: that you know started here in Idaho and Yellowstone National
Speaker 2: Park that have expanded all the way across washing to
Speaker 2: the coast, all the way across to Oregon, all the
Speaker 2: way down into California. Two wolves have been shot in
Speaker 2: Texas that came from the North Country. Wolves just travel
Speaker 2: way farther and way faster than what people realize. So
Speaker 2: when we obtained the ability to manage wolves in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, we arrogantly thought, as passionate backcountry successful
Speaker 2: elk hunters, that we were going to go solve our
Speaker 2: problem as soon as we got a hunting season, And
Speaker 2: we hunted our casters off that entire first season, foregoing
Speaker 2: our dearn elk hunts afield just to target wolves, and
Speaker 2: at the end of the year we hadn't harvested any.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, isn't it. That's very different than what some
Speaker 1: the different picture than some might paint. They kind of
Speaker 1: painted as a hunting seasons a slaughter of the wolves.
Speaker 1: But I've always had a kind of a standing bet
Speaker 1: that if anybody can, any wolf activist wants to bring
Speaker 1: me a really good, high quality picture that's in focus
Speaker 1: within you know archery range or even you know short
Speaker 1: rifle range out of the North Idaho country. If you
Speaker 1: can bring me a picture of that, I'd probably give
Speaker 1: you a thousand dollars. And it's almost impossible. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could almost find anything that'd probably be easier to
Speaker 1: do than that.
Speaker 3: It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody talks about how we hunted and trapped
Speaker 2: wolves to extinction, they don't realize that there was a
Speaker 2: huge fear of wolves and so, you know, back when
Speaker 2: we first decimated their populations, there were a full time
Speaker 2: you know, local state and government employees that did nothing
Speaker 2: but pursue wolves. There was such a hatred of wolves
Speaker 2: that everybody shot them on site. Those that didn't hate
Speaker 2: wolves feared them so much that everybody shot them on site,
Speaker 2: and that still wasn't enough to control their numbers, and
Speaker 2: so they actually poisoned them. That's what happened to the wolves.
Speaker 2: And they didn't poison them because they wanted to see
Speaker 2: the animals suffer. They poisoned them because they couldn't figure
Speaker 2: out what to do to control their numbers that would
Speaker 2: allow other populations a game and livestock to thrive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well, if you take a if we look
Speaker 1: back in the you know, in history, for instance, the
Speaker 1: journals of Lewis and Clark. When they came across the
Speaker 1: Bitterroot Mountains, they nearly starved to death. They had to
Speaker 1: eat their saddles, they ate candlewacks, they ate their horses.
Speaker 1: They were on death's door by the time they were
Speaker 1: saved by the Nezpers Indians. And that country that they
Speaker 1: just traveled through back then, if you go there now,
Speaker 1: it's very similar kind of country. I mean, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of big game in those mountains anymore, because,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, I think because we let the wolves
Speaker 1: running unchecked up there for too long without any management practices,
Speaker 1: and they ate and displaced a lot of elk and
Speaker 1: deer and moose to where now it's pretty hard to
Speaker 1: hard to find any animals up in that country, you know.
Speaker 1: And some of the wolf advocates will say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's all about habitat for the deer and the elk
Speaker 1: and the moose. But I think in two thousand and
Speaker 1: fourteen and maybe even a little earlier, we start getting
Speaker 1: a lot of forest fires up in that country, burn
Speaker 1: a lot of ground. It's fantastic habitat. It was great
Speaker 1: habitat before, but now it's even you know, it's everything
Speaker 1: an elk could want, but they still haven't came back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you bet. So you can have all the habitat
Speaker 3: that you want.
Speaker 2: If your predator population is that way in your prey base,
Speaker 2: there's not a whole lot that you can do to,
Speaker 2: you know, to change that without controlling the predator numbers.
Speaker 2: Don't understand that, you know, as you mentioned Lewis and
Speaker 2: Clark testimonies, journals and what they went through, that's what
Speaker 2: nature balancing itself would look like. No, we spent one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty years using the North American model wildlife
Speaker 2: conservation to maximize our dear elk and moose or ungulate
Speaker 2: populations for both consumptive use and recreational enjoyment. And I
Speaker 2: absolutely love going out and watching the elk calve in
Speaker 2: the springtime, you know, glass and watching migrating herds looking
Speaker 2: for antlers in the spring. There's so much about wildlife
Speaker 2: that people think that because you're a hunter, that you
Speaker 2: obviously don't care about it, and it couldn't be further
Speaker 2: from the truth. You know, I don't want nature to
Speaker 2: balance itself. I want to maintain the abundance of wildlife
Speaker 2: that I grew up with so that my kids and
Speaker 2: grandkids get to have the experiences that I've been blessed with.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So fast forward to modern day, and since we
Speaker 1: kind of talked a little earlier about how hunting wolves
Speaker 1: is just not a very good tool to manage their numbers,
Speaker 1: but folks have found success trapping wolves and that's been
Speaker 1: used as a really good tool to try to keep
Speaker 1: their numbers in check. Why is it so important that is?
Speaker 1: Why is trapping such an effective method versus hunting?
Speaker 2: Well, I think to understand the gravity of that statement
Speaker 2: that trapping is so much more of an effective method
Speaker 2: than hunting, it's important to look at the data. So
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, I went back in DIOD a
Speaker 2: bunch of research and looking at tag sales and different things.
Speaker 2: Seventy four thousand, forty one wolf tags were sold in
Speaker 2: Idaho and Montana in twenty twenty one. Of that, four
Speaker 2: hundred and eleven people actually used their tags, and forty
Speaker 2: two guys took more than two wolves. The majority of
Speaker 2: those were trappers.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So you know, when you look and compare let's say
Speaker 2: a thirty or thirty five percent success rate on an
Speaker 2: l hunt, this we're talking about less than one half
Speaker 2: of one percent success.
Speaker 3: Rate on wolves.
Speaker 2: Now, when I say that, a lot of people think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: wolves must not get shot, and that's also not true
Speaker 2: because approximately half of the state's harvest is via hunting.
Speaker 2: The difference there being the majority of those wolves that
Speaker 2: are taken while the guy is out deer el hunting
Speaker 2: is from just that they're out deer elk hunting and
Speaker 2: the wolves bump into them. It's not that there's you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of people who have successfully identified the means
Speaker 2: to get themselves within rifle range of a wolf and
Speaker 2: be successful harvesting them with a rifle. It's that there's
Speaker 2: so many people in the woods during the fall hunting
Speaker 2: season that wolves end up bumping into people. And so
Speaker 2: I think that that's one aspect that's important to realize.
Speaker 2: And the other part of it is folks don't realize
Speaker 2: how far and fast wolves travel, and more recently, I
Speaker 2: you know, it's almost a daily occurrence. If you follow
Speaker 2: social media at all, somebody will be on a wolf
Speaker 2: hunting page or something and they'll say, oh, we'll just
Speaker 2: go find the elk and you'll find the wolves. And
Speaker 2: I wish that that was the case, but that's just
Speaker 2: simply not how it works. You know, wolves are are wolves. Specifically,
Speaker 2: in Idaho, we've got an average pack size of six,
Speaker 2: each having an average litter size of seven. Thirty percent
Speaker 2: of our packs are having more than one litter because
Speaker 2: more than one female gets bred. And you know, on
Speaker 2: that data actually aligns right with Yellowstones Wolf report as well.
Speaker 2: I was shocked the first time I saw multiple size
Speaker 2: pup tracks within one pack. I did not believe that
Speaker 2: more than one female would be bred. And you know, again,
Speaker 2: I guess that kind of takes me back to the
Speaker 2: the reason that when some people get frustrated by folks
Speaker 2: who are standing up for what they believe in, but
Speaker 2: they're bashing hunters for harvesting wolves, it's a lot easier
Speaker 2: for me to have an open conversation and dialogue with
Speaker 2: those people, you know, and give them some grace because
Speaker 2: just like them, I believed everything they believed before wolves
Speaker 2: were in my backyard. So kind of getting sidetracked. But
Speaker 2: bottom line, you know, wolves are running a two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty square mile home range, often on a three
Speaker 2: to five week cycle, and though it's real common for
Speaker 2: them to run ten or twenty miles in a night. So,
Speaker 2: you know, a guy will call me and they'll say,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going up Johnson Creek and I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I heard there were some wolf tracks up there this
Speaker 2: last week, and I'm going to go hunt some wolves
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm so excited. I'm gonna go kill
Speaker 2: and I you know, it's hard for me to help
Speaker 2: them understand that Johnson Creek is ten miles long and
Speaker 2: five miles across, and the evening those wolves passed through there,
Speaker 2: those wolves hunted ten or fifteen basins of that size,
Speaker 2: and you know, and now they're seventy five miles from there.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's difficult for people to really grasp
Speaker 2: how far and how fast wolves travel. So that brings
Speaker 2: me to, you know, back to the topic in your question,
Speaker 2: why is trapping so effective? Well, if I know a
Speaker 2: wolf's going to come through here, somewhere in this two
Speaker 2: mile stretch at some point in the next three to
Speaker 2: five weeks, I can set a trap in the most
Speaker 2: likely location using their instincts against them, namely their territorial instincts.
Speaker 2: Wolves consistently mark the borders of their pack boundary lines.
Speaker 2: So if you can find one of their peposts and
Speaker 2: set a trap on it. You know that at some
Speaker 2: point in the next month, the wolf pack's going to
Speaker 2: come back through there, and one of the mature wolves
Speaker 2: is going to go over and mark that peace post
Speaker 2: if they show up at one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: Different than hunting, I have a trap there that's still working.
Speaker 2: There's still a trap there waiting for them when they
Speaker 2: pass by. If I go out and try to hunt
Speaker 2: a wolf, I'm trying desperately to identify what part of
Speaker 2: their two hundred and fifty square miles they happen to
Speaker 2: be in on that day. Hopefully they're not traveling that day,
Speaker 2: and I can, you know, try to howl to locate
Speaker 2: them and then getting close enough to capture their attention
Speaker 2: and try to call them in. But the odds of
Speaker 2: that are extremely low. Wose are the smartest animal I
Speaker 2: have ever been around, and I have been actually putting
Speaker 2: quite a few trail cameras out over the last several years,
Speaker 2: and this year I finally got some just incredible video
Speaker 2: footage of them, and it's it's just been such a
Speaker 2: learning experience watching them learn from interacting with where my
Speaker 2: sign and scent is in the woods. They're just such
Speaker 2: an amazing animal. But yeah, you know, bar none trapping
Speaker 2: is the most effective method that we have to manage
Speaker 2: wolf combers.
Speaker 1: Now I've heard you say this before. The average cost
Speaker 1: out of pocket you have to spend per wolf to
Speaker 1: trap one, And I'm gonna go ahead and let you
Speaker 1: talk about that, but it's it's a lot more than
Speaker 1: the average person that hasn't heard that number may think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you bad. So you know, I'll start off, I
Speaker 2: guess just in trapping similar to everyone else. When I
Speaker 2: first started looking at wolf trapping, I i you know,
Speaker 2: saw it out. What is the cheapest trap that's big
Speaker 2: enough to hold a wolf that's on the market that
Speaker 2: I can get my hands on. And I went out
Speaker 2: and I bought a specific trap, and I bought three
Speaker 2: dozen of them. And I went out and I put
Speaker 2: in a whole lot of effort. I didn't catch anything
Speaker 2: that year, but I put in a whole lot of effort.
Speaker 2: I thought, well, you know, cost wise, I can make
Speaker 2: snares for relatively cheap. I'll buy the cable, I'll buy
Speaker 2: the walks, I'll buy the wire, I'll buy the stops
Speaker 2: and the Farrells and the Suager and all these different
Speaker 2: things to make snares and I'll try that.
Speaker 3: It didn't do me any good.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was chasing my tail for a
Speaker 2: long time. Learned some hard lessons the first couple of years.
Speaker 2: But you know, one of the best traps out of
Speaker 2: the box on the market today is it's called an
Speaker 2: Nobs wolf trap. And by the time you get chain
Speaker 2: and swivels and everything on it set up to go
Speaker 2: in the field, you're looking at about seventy eight dollars
Speaker 2: probably a piece. And then all of my traps, I
Speaker 2: actually get a powder codd which is another fifteen dollars
Speaker 2: on top of that, so you're you know, you're pushing
Speaker 2: the hundred dollar mark by the time you try to
Speaker 2: put a drag on the end of it, or even
Speaker 2: by cheap earth anchor for it, so you're looking about
Speaker 2: a hundred bucks a trap really realistically, by the time
Speaker 2: you get done, you know you have to have bacon
Speaker 2: soda to boil them in, to descent them, all these things.
Speaker 2: So let's just say one hundred dollars a trap. Right now,
Speaker 2: I've got one hundred and nine traps. I think that
Speaker 2: I'm running, so that in itself is a pretty pretty
Speaker 2: big expense. So in addition to that, fuel is by
Speaker 2: far the number one expense out there, and one of
Speaker 2: the biggest reasons is knowing that wolves travel a two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty square mile home range. My best odds
Speaker 2: of having wolves near a trap are to get on
Speaker 2: the boundary lines of multiple packs, and so my trap
Speaker 2: line consists of about seventy five to eighty miles of backcountry.
Speaker 2: The majority of that is now run on my snowmobile,
Speaker 2: but even when I can drive it in the early season,
Speaker 2: that's a long ways in the mountains. You know you're
Speaker 2: and you're not going to be getting twenty five miles
Speaker 2: to the gallon by any means. So by law in Idaho,
Speaker 2: I have to be at every trap every seventy two
Speaker 2: hours during the hunting season. When there's this huge influx
Speaker 2: of people in the woods, it's really difficult, I'll say,
Speaker 2: not to go at least every other day. And the
Speaker 2: biggest reason is because people don't seem to understand the
Speaker 2: importance of trapping, and so they've been tampering with traps.
Speaker 2: They you know, bump into them in the woods and
Speaker 2: they're afraid of them. They don't understand how they operate,
Speaker 2: and so we've ended up with, you know, a little
Speaker 2: bit of conflict, people sticking sticks and traps or I've
Speaker 2: had don't know thirty five hundred dollars worth of worth
Speaker 2: of traps stolen over the last five years or so.
Speaker 2: But just the fuel bill alone, you know, I calculated
Speaker 2: it up and for each of the forty two wolves
Speaker 2: I've got, it's still pushing the fifteen hundred dollars mark
Speaker 2: just for fuel because I have to be in every
Speaker 2: trap set every seventy two hours. Well, when that pack
Speaker 2: comes through and they're not going to be back for
Speaker 2: three to five weeks, sometimes eight weeks, I still have
Speaker 2: to be there every third day, regardless of what the
Speaker 2: pack's doing. And so, you know, a guy that really
Speaker 2: puts some effort in, if you trap really hard from
Speaker 2: the opener in September all the way through the end
Speaker 2: of March, you're doing really good. If you pick up
Speaker 2: five or six wolves. You know, there's guys out there
Speaker 2: that are really good at this, but those people are
Speaker 2: very few and far between. So you know, the expensive
Speaker 2: fuel alone is very extravagant, and a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Don't understand that.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy. Now I've seen some of your posts
Speaker 1: on social media about folks tampering with traps, stealing traps,
Speaker 1: taking wolves out of your trap, shooting the wolf in
Speaker 1: your trap. That's just not acceptable, is it?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, everybody, it's kind of an interesting, interesting
Speaker 2: dynamic that we're in right now, with how bad everybody
Speaker 2: wants a wolf and how extremely difficult they are to
Speaker 2: come by.
Speaker 3: I genuinely believe that.
Speaker 2: Most sportsmen go into the woods with a moral code
Speaker 2: and some form of ethical belief. And I don't believe
Speaker 2: that anybody out there, Darren l cunting or hunting anything
Speaker 2: else for that matter, would intentionally steal from somebody if
Speaker 2: they had any idea how much time and how many
Speaker 2: hours and how much effort was put into establishing a trap,
Speaker 2: set a trap line, identifying a legal place that you
Speaker 2: can set a trap for a wolf back, that you
Speaker 2: can convince a wolf to put his foot out of
Speaker 2: his two hundred and fifty square mile home range. You're
Speaker 2: convincing him to put his foot on a silver dollar.
Speaker 2: And those spots are few and far between. Now, as
Speaker 2: a trapper, I go out and I spend all summer
Speaker 2: running trail cameras, scouting, hiking, howling to locate GPS and
Speaker 2: scout GPS and scratch marks, taking my dogs and hiking
Speaker 2: them through the territory so that they can show me
Speaker 2: where their territorial pe posts are. There's a tremendous amount
Speaker 2: of scouting time that goes into wolf trapping. I used
Speaker 2: to think that I put a ton of time scouting meal,
Speaker 2: deer and elk, because that was my passion for a
Speaker 2: lot of years. I had no idea what a lot
Speaker 2: of time was until I started trapping wolves. So you
Speaker 2: put all this time and effort energy into it. You
Speaker 2: find the one spot that you can access with all
Speaker 2: that heavy equipment and get in and out of there
Speaker 2: every third day when rain, hail, snow, blizzard trees down.
Speaker 2: I had to cut four hundred and eight trees one
Speaker 2: time to be able to get to my traps. Wow,
Speaker 2: by wah, I still have to be there every seventy
Speaker 2: two hours. You find that one spot, You go in there,
Speaker 2: you scattered out, you put cameras up, You get the
Speaker 2: wolves coming through, You learn when they're coming when they're not,
Speaker 2: You learn when they're using that terrain. You go in there,
Speaker 2: you set up. You have descented all your clothes, you've
Speaker 2: descented all your tools, you've descented all your traps, You've
Speaker 2: done all of this prep work. You get everything set
Speaker 2: up just right. You go in, you set up, you
Speaker 2: back out, you go back up, and you check every
Speaker 2: third day, every second day while there's people in the woods.
Speaker 2: And one day you show up and there's a big
Speaker 2: blood mark, and it's obviously you've caught a wolf. Somebody
Speaker 2: has very often shot it. There's boot tracks right there
Speaker 2: in the little bit of snow that's there, there's blood
Speaker 2: and hair blown all over the ground. What that person
Speaker 2: when they came around the corner and saw that wolf
Speaker 2: in a trap and freaked out and was so excited
Speaker 2: to shoot a wolf. What they don't understand is that
Speaker 2: they just saved the entire rest of the pack. And
Speaker 2: this is why if you get a wolf in a
Speaker 2: foot trap and it's alive, the last thing the entire
Speaker 2: pack knew was their buddy was standing right here, and
Speaker 2: that night and or the next night, they're going to
Speaker 2: be right there again. The hardest part about trapping wolves
Speaker 2: is getting them to a set that's still operable. While
Speaker 2: it's still operable, because the snow, the freeze, thaw, the
Speaker 2: you know, whatevery different conditions and issues that we run into.
Speaker 2: So if I get in there and I'm able to
Speaker 2: dispatch that wolf quick clean, without scent, without blood, I
Speaker 2: reset the trap and I back out of there as
Speaker 2: fast as I can and leave that area alone. That night,
Speaker 2: when the pack comes down, they're going to wander around
Speaker 2: and I'm going to catch another one, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to go back and repeat the process and I'll catch
Speaker 2: another one. The most I've ever caught back to back
Speaker 2: was six in a row.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: This year, I'm on a pack that's extremely educated. They
Speaker 2: know my sin personally. I've caught numbers of wolves out
Speaker 2: of this pack. They've learned to dig up anything where
Speaker 2: I'm using wax dirt, which is kind of a new challenge,
Speaker 2: but it's extremely difficult. So when I show up and
Speaker 2: somebody has not only taken this wolf that I've busted
Speaker 2: my butt for all year to try to get to harvest,
Speaker 2: they've taken all of that work away from me, and
Speaker 2: now I have to start over completely from scratch because
Speaker 2: the pack's not coming back there. Once there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of wolf blood all over the place, or the pack
Speaker 2: has come in and seen a wolf dead there. A
Speaker 2: lot of people think they're doing you a favor. They
Speaker 2: come up, they see a wolf bouncing in a trap,
Speaker 2: they get all I did, they shoot it. Then they
Speaker 2: feel bad because then they realize, well, you know, I
Speaker 2: probably shouldn't have done that. Well I'll just I'll leave
Speaker 2: it here for the guy. I was trying to do
Speaker 2: him a favor, so the wolf wouldn't get away, is
Speaker 2: what they tell themselves, and they drive off. Well that's
Speaker 2: just as bad, because then if that's not the night,
Speaker 2: then I'm going to be back there. The pack comes in,
Speaker 2: sees that dead wolf, and they leave, and they won't
Speaker 2: come back to that spot. They now associate that area
Speaker 2: to the dead wolf, and it's just eliminating my chance
Speaker 2: of catching the rest of the pack.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So you know there's a lot that goes into that,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not gonna lie. There's a there's
Speaker 2: also a I mean, there's a sense of accomplishment and
Speaker 2: an award of such you do all of that work,
Speaker 2: and that's not the reason that I'm trapping wolves. I'm
Speaker 2: not trapping it to say look at me, I'm not
Speaker 2: trapping it. To have a wolf pelt on the wall.
Speaker 2: I donate most of my wolf pelts to generate funding
Speaker 2: for the program.
Speaker 3: But when the little bit of reward.
Speaker 2: And satisfaction that comes out of all of the effort
Speaker 2: that goes into it gets taken from you by somebody
Speaker 2: that you're trying to help by doing all that work,
Speaker 2: it kind of breaks your heart.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that would be heartbreaking. So much work
Speaker 1: and then finally you get one and somebody took it,
Speaker 1: dang it or yeah, yeah, oh that's that's brutal. So
Speaker 1: for our listeners that this that love a good challenge
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know this, this sounds like something
Speaker 1: I would really love to do. What's the first step
Speaker 1: in getting set up to start trapping wolves? Do you
Speaker 1: have to take any courses with the fishing game? Do
Speaker 1: you have you know what square one?
Speaker 3: You do? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So step one would be to get on the IDO
Speaker 2: Fishing Game websites. Click click the education link, find the
Speaker 2: Trapper education link. You have to have completed a trapper
Speaker 2: education course and you have to have completed the Wolf
Speaker 2: Trapper Education course. So go get on their website and
Speaker 2: sign up. I believe the way that that system typically
Speaker 2: works is once they have enough participants interested in a
Speaker 2: class at a set area, then they hold the class.
Speaker 2: So you definitely want to go talk to them at
Speaker 2: the regional office and get yourself signed up. Second, start
Speaker 2: saving all of your receipts for anything that is related
Speaker 2: to your targeting of wolves. You'll need that for your
Speaker 2: wolf harvest expense reimbursement through the Foundation of Wildlife Management.
Speaker 2: Then I would do a little bit of research not
Speaker 2: only into wolves in the wolves in the area that
Speaker 2: you intend to trap, but into gear and supplies, the
Speaker 2: things that you really need. There's sneering and foot trapping,
Speaker 2: and there's a time and place for each where they're
Speaker 2: each most efficient and effective. I personally prefer foot trapping,
Speaker 2: and you know, for that very reason, if I get
Speaker 2: one caught in a trap, the last thing the wolves new,
Speaker 2: even if I drive in there and it spook to
Speaker 2: them when they leave, is that their buddy was standing
Speaker 2: right there, and so they're going to come back and
Speaker 2: look for them. If I snare one, I better snare
Speaker 2: all that I can the very first time that they're there,
Speaker 2: because if I don't, odds are they're going to spook
Speaker 2: and not come back to that location, so I would
Speaker 2: start doing some research on what you want to be,
Speaker 2: you know, what your preferred method might be. I can
Speaker 2: tell you that it's a whole lot more fun than
Speaker 2: exciting to walk up on a live wolf that's looking
Speaker 2: you in the eye, then it is to walk up
Speaker 2: on a dead wolf that's frozen to the ground in
Speaker 2: a snare. And so you know, for that reason, I
Speaker 2: typically try to foot trap everywhere.
Speaker 3: That I can.
Speaker 2: Snares definitely play a big role, especially once a wolf
Speaker 2: pack is educator. A certain wolf educated to foot traps.
Speaker 2: But and then if I had one tip to give
Speaker 2: somebody new that's interested in targeting wolves, that's buy enough trap.
Speaker 2: I you know, I started out with the cheapest traps
Speaker 2: I could get my hands on that everybody said was
Speaker 2: a good wolf trap. And those traps are. They're great
Speaker 2: for specific instances. Some are trapping being one of those
Speaker 2: when you don't have to deal with freeze and thought
Speaker 2: conditions where you end up with six inches of snow
Speaker 2: and then it rains on it and then it freezes.
Speaker 2: Those lighter traps with less spring tension or a whole
Speaker 2: lot more usable. They don't they they won't freeze to
Speaker 2: the ground. If you're not dealing with freeze thaw issues
Speaker 2: that nobs. Wolf Extreme trap is my go to personally.
Speaker 2: There's lots of traps on the market. Alaska Number nine
Speaker 2: is another one that that I'm very confident in. Those
Speaker 2: are a little on the spin to your side. There's
Speaker 2: a new trap made by Duke Kate fifty Wolf Trap
Speaker 2: that now that they've got some adjustable pain tension on
Speaker 2: the new version of that trap, I really think for
Speaker 2: cost efficiency, that's going to be a really good trap
Speaker 2: for GAD to buy. But I'd say, you know, start
Speaker 2: out with no less than a couple of dozen traps.
Speaker 2: I tell myself to never set just one wolf trap.
Speaker 2: If I set one in the ground, I'm putting at
Speaker 2: least three in that area because wolves are packing animals,
Speaker 2: and although they may be a mile apart when they
Speaker 2: come hunt through a basin, oftentimes they're traveling together. And
Speaker 2: if you catch one, odds are there's going to be
Speaker 2: others roaming around investigating around that wolf that's caught. And
Speaker 2: so I've caught doubles numerous times just from having more
Speaker 2: than one trap there. So by the most trap you
Speaker 2: can afford, by enough trap, you know something that's that's
Speaker 2: beefy and gonna break through freestyle conditions, crusts, and then
Speaker 2: I'd say take your dog into the mountains and start
Speaker 2: watching their behavior. Anything your dog peas on, stop and
Speaker 2: investigate it. My dogs are invaluable on my trapline. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't I wouldn't know half of my set locations without
Speaker 2: watching my dog's behavior.
Speaker 3: GPS.
Speaker 2: I started GPS and wolf scat and road systems, and
Speaker 2: it sounds silly at first, but once you have covered
Speaker 2: enough territory and you start identifying these crossing points where
Speaker 2: a wolf is actually close to a road, close enough
Speaker 2: for you to be able to access it with these big, heavy,
Speaker 2: bulky traps, you'll start noticing a pattern if you put
Speaker 2: it on a GPS round a map. And that's been
Speaker 2: real valuable too. So those are the things I would
Speaker 2: suggest doing. You know, to get started, Go get your
Speaker 2: class done, Start researching what style of trapping you prefer
Speaker 2: or would like to do. Talk to some trappers, take
Speaker 2: a trapping course. We have at for W started putting
Speaker 2: on a Wolfer's summit we had when this last July
Speaker 2: was our first one and we had sixteen of our
Speaker 2: top producing wolfers from our program come and give instruction
Speaker 2: on how to be productive and on you know, mistakes
Speaker 2: that they've made, sharing the ins and outs and dues
Speaker 2: and don'ts, and what they believe to have helped them
Speaker 2: be successful in the woods. And had over one hundred
Speaker 2: people attend last summer in our next next one next July.
Speaker 2: It's the weekend of the nineteenth and twentieth, I believe.
Speaker 2: But you know, you can look into that and come
Speaker 2: join us for that. I learned a lot from YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of really good YouTube videos out there
Speaker 2: to start familiarizing yourself. But I would have to say
Speaker 2: probably the largest thing is prepare yourself mentally. The patients
Speaker 2: and persistence. There's nothing that's ever challenged me in the
Speaker 2: woods the way wolf trapping does. And most people after
Speaker 2: a month of not seeing sign of life where they
Speaker 2: put wolf traps out, give up and throw.
Speaker 3: In the towel.
Speaker 2: So I would I would also say, you know, prepare
Speaker 2: yourself for for the long game mentally, because it's it's
Speaker 2: it's brutal out there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, because sometimes folks they have
Speaker 1: this idea what it's going to be, and maybe they
Speaker 1: think of some instant gratification, like Oh, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go out and set some traps and I'll probably catch
Speaker 1: one because I've seen wolf tracks here a lot. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like that's always the case, and it
Speaker 1: more often than not it's going to be the long haul,
Speaker 1: like you said, So don't get discouraged. You know, that's
Speaker 1: the nature of the beast. Enjoy the process, like enjoy
Speaker 1: figuring out you know, the wolf, like like like what
Speaker 1: you've been saying. You've been studying wolves. You've been learning
Speaker 1: everything you can about wolves. Even when you're not catching them,
Speaker 1: you're still learning and understanding the process. And I can
Speaker 1: only assume you love the whole process.
Speaker 3: I you know it's work. I'll see that.
Speaker 2: You know how. You know how when when you and
Speaker 2: your buddies are young and you're gung ho and you
Speaker 2: found this basin on a map that nobody, you swear nobody,
Speaker 2: there's no way any person in his right mind has
Speaker 2: ever gone there to hunt elk. And you go there
Speaker 2: and you love the trip, and some idiot, usually me,
Speaker 2: shoots a bull in this backcountry basin that's five days
Speaker 2: hike from anywhere, and by the time you get that
Speaker 2: last load to the truck. You just looking at each
Speaker 2: other like you're a bunch of idiots and asking why
Speaker 2: did I do this? Wolf trappens very.
Speaker 1: Similar, question your sanity a lot.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you definitely do It's it's just a lot
Speaker 2: of work.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I've been really blessed in my hunting career, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I've taken some some real unique specimens. Dear
Speaker 2: Elk bears. Uh you know for what our ground has
Speaker 2: to offer. And I'll tell you there is nothing in
Speaker 2: our mountains that have ever challenged me the way wolves do.
Speaker 2: And so you know when I say prepare yourself mentally,
Speaker 2: you know I don't take it lightly. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of guys they you know. The phone call goes the
Speaker 2: same every year. Man, justin I'm so excited. I got
Speaker 2: some I got my classes out of the way, and
Speaker 2: I got myself some traps. And I've had wolves in
Speaker 2: my oat ground every year. We see them every year.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go catch me some wolves. And I tell them,
Speaker 2: rob Robberie, you go get them. I'm so excited for you.
Speaker 2: And they called me a couple of weeks later and
Speaker 2: they say, you know, I'm so excited. I went out
Speaker 2: and I put all this gear in. Oh you just
Speaker 2: there was wolf tracks there. I can't wait when those
Speaker 2: wolves come back. Boy, I'm gonna get them. And I
Speaker 2: tell them ra Rari, go get them. I'm so proud
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 3: A good job.
Speaker 2: And then two weeks later they call me and they say,
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened. What do you mean, Well,
Speaker 2: you know I bought all those traps, and I spent
Speaker 2: all that money, and you know I've had to wax everything,
Speaker 2: and now my garage is all covered in wax and
Speaker 2: die and all this stuff. And I got all this money.
Speaker 2: My wife's mad at me. I didn't go hunting. You know,
Speaker 2: I missed my hunting time with my buddies. I just
Speaker 2: I don't know what I did wrong. The wolves didn't
Speaker 2: come back. And I said, well, how long has it
Speaker 2: been since since you said? Well, you know it's been
Speaker 2: it's been four weeks since.
Speaker 3: I said.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, Well, you know they run a three
Speaker 2: to five week cycle. That just means your dude their
Speaker 2: due back any day.
Speaker 3: Whatever you do, don't go.
Speaker 2: Pull your gear. Well, I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: for me. I tell them, just don't pull your gear.
Speaker 2: Be patient. They'll show up by the next week. It's
Speaker 2: the same, the same phone call. It's Oh, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go pull that gear out of there. I
Speaker 2: got to get back to work. I know, I've been
Speaker 2: going up there every second day and amount of gas money,
Speaker 2: and I just don't know what to do. And I'm
Speaker 2: just bigging man. If you've waited five weeks, now is
Speaker 2: the time you're about to catch a wolf?
Speaker 3: Do not give up, you.
Speaker 2: Know, hang in there, hang in there.
Speaker 3: And then that night I'll get.
Speaker 2: A phone call and he'll say, you'll never know what
Speaker 2: You'll never guess what happened. I drove up the mountain
Speaker 2: and there's a wolf standing there in my trap. And
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's the guys that that pushed through
Speaker 2: that that stick it out through the long haul, that
Speaker 2: produce every single year consistently, most guys, by the time
Speaker 2: they get to that fifth week throwing the towel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see it's it's a pretty dawning task. Really. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: So I have to ask it big buzz. Today on
Speaker 1: social media, Colorado released wolves. What's your take on that?
Speaker 2: Well, there's several different thoughts that go along with that topic.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, we've got caller data that shows wolves
Speaker 2: being in Colorado for years. Sure, you know, there's ample
Speaker 2: amounts of information showing that Colorado.
Speaker 3: Already has wolves.
Speaker 2: So this whole ballot box biology concept, it just blows
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I genuinely think that these people that vote on stuff
Speaker 2: like this that they're they're the ones that haven't stuck
Speaker 2: in their head that nature needs to balance itself. Those
Speaker 2: people don't realize that Colorado has three times the old
Speaker 2: population that Idaho had when wolves came here, right, And
Speaker 2: they don't realize that unchecked, act, unmanaged, that wolf population,
Speaker 2: once it really gets established, is going to explode and
Speaker 2: it's going to destroy that elk population. And I don't
Speaker 2: think that they recognize the gravity of that, you know,
Speaker 2: or what that actually looks like. It's it's really sad.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: I was at the NASK summit last year in December,
Speaker 2: and there's overembozement. And for those that don't know the
Speaker 2: nasksim it's the National Association of Sportsman's Caucuses. Basically, state
Speaker 2: game management agencies and the legislators that deal with natural
Speaker 2: resources all come together once a year two a hash
Speaker 2: out and discuss, you know, natural resource topics. So I'm
Speaker 2: at this event and I'm waiting in line for for
Speaker 2: our dinner, and I've been talking with the gentleman standing
Speaker 2: next to me for quite some time. It's a long line.
Speaker 2: And I get up there and there's the guys getting
Speaker 2: this food. After I've been spewing all this information about
Speaker 2: wolves and wolf issues and the things we've been doing
Speaker 2: in Idaho and all this stuff, I find out the
Speaker 2: guy is actually the assistant director for Colorado Fish Wildlife
Speaker 2: in Parks and he's in charge of the wold transplant program.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And you know, it was it was interesting
Speaker 2: just listening to his perception and kind of the somberness
Speaker 2: in his voice when I asked him what he was
Speaker 2: going to do and it you know, it was kind
Speaker 2: of an eye opener for me at that point.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And again, this was a year ago. I didn't honestly
Speaker 2: expect this to transpire. I figured that with the devastation
Speaker 2: that's taken place and the complications with managing wolves in
Speaker 2: Idaho and Montana, that they would have paid a little
Speaker 2: better attention to what's taking place here and how difficult
Speaker 2: and how much of a task it's been to try
Speaker 2: to manage wolves, and that they would have stopped the
Speaker 2: transplant program and let them just naturally, you know.
Speaker 3: Become part of it.
Speaker 2: What Colorado does not have that we're blessed with is
Speaker 2: the right to trap. And Colorado does not have a
Speaker 2: mechanism to control wolf populations.
Speaker 1: Wow, they didn't put it. They didn't. They didn't get
Speaker 1: all that stuff figured out beforehand.
Speaker 2: So well, they lost their trapping years ago, so it's
Speaker 2: not legal to set a foot trap there.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And you know, for those that don't know, you, you
Speaker 2: think getting the coyote into a gage trap is is complicated.
Speaker 2: A wolf is not going in a box. They're they're
Speaker 2: extremely smart and extremely cagy and without trapping, there is
Speaker 2: no mechanism to control their numbers.
Speaker 3: And what will have and is.
Speaker 2: Their population will grow and expand until which time their
Speaker 2: prey based collapses and those wolves will end up dying
Speaker 2: from disease and starvation or they'll disperse to new ground. So,
Speaker 2: you know, to answer your question, what's my thoughts, I
Speaker 2: think that it's horribly sad that ballot box biology is
Speaker 2: destroying wildlife as we know it. Ballot box biology is
Speaker 2: destroying one hundred and thirty years and billions of dollars
Speaker 2: that sportsmen have spent creating the wildlife that we now
Speaker 2: have through the North American model of wildlife conservation. It's
Speaker 2: devastating that preservation extremist groups have taken our label of
Speaker 2: conservationists and turned it into what the media presents a
Speaker 2: conservation group to be. To day, you and I are conservationists.
Speaker 2: That's preservation extremism.
Speaker 3: Ma'am.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on here today.
Speaker 1: I want to see if you can connect our listeners
Speaker 1: who care about wildlife. They're interested in help helping management
Speaker 1: manage wolf populations. How do they get involved with the
Speaker 1: Foundation for Wildlife Management?
Speaker 2: So first thing if they just go to f the
Speaker 2: number four WM dot org stands for a Foundation for
Speaker 2: Wildlife Management. At four WM dot org. Hop on there,
Speaker 2: you can join, you can donate. We've got five chapters
Speaker 2: in Idaho. We've got a chapter in Sandpoint, one in Cordelane,
Speaker 2: one in the Clearwater region based in Lewiston, that's where
Speaker 2: our banquet is. Anyhow, we've got one in Salmon. We've
Speaker 2: got one in the Treasure Treasure Valley that banquet's in Caldwell,
Speaker 2: and we also have four in Montana, one in the
Speaker 2: Flathead Valley there in Kalispell, one in Libby, Montana, one
Speaker 2: in Trout Creek, the Sanders County chapter, and then we
Speaker 2: just have a new one that's just started up down
Speaker 2: on the Bitter Route there in Hamilton. Each of those
Speaker 2: chapters has a fundraiser banquet. Our first one is January
Speaker 2: twenty seventh up in Kalispell, Sandpoints February tenth, we've got
Speaker 2: a couple in March, and all the way through to
Speaker 2: I think our last banquet of the years, Libby's May eighteenth.
Speaker 2: Always looking for donors, supporters, assistants, help gathering donations, constantly
Speaker 2: looking for volunteers. For each chapter, we challenge all of
Speaker 2: our chapters to do one of a few different things.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, the fundraiser banquet is where the majority
Speaker 2: of the membership comes from. That's where the majority of
Speaker 2: the income comes from. It also gives us an, you know,
Speaker 2: an excuse to advertise, kind of gets us out there
Speaker 2: in the public eye, gives us a great opportunity to
Speaker 2: We always get up on the stage and give a
Speaker 2: little bit of educational speech during those fundraiser banquet events
Speaker 2: so that people can come to better understand the wolf
Speaker 2: problem and what's really taking place out there. And then
Speaker 2: we also have a trade show booths eats chapter. I
Speaker 2: challenge each of them to attend a trade show booth,
Speaker 2: whether it's at the fair or you know, their local
Speaker 2: sportsman show or whatever it happens to be. We last
Speaker 2: year we went to Grand Slam Club Ovist, the Sheep
Speaker 2: Show the Western Hunt Expo. This year we're doing Cheap
Speaker 2: Show in Western Hunt Expo. But look us up online
Speaker 2: join donate our contact informations on there if you click
Speaker 2: the about section all of our boards. We've got a
Speaker 2: board of nine people. The contact information for each of
Speaker 2: those board members is in there as well. If you
Speaker 2: have other questions and don't want to listen to Justin's voice,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people get tired of listen
Speaker 2: to me talk about wolves once I get started. But uh,
Speaker 2: you know, we'd we'd love to have you be part
Speaker 2: of a chapter. Like like I said, we're always looking
Speaker 2: for for help. It's a pretty amazing program. I you know,
Speaker 2: when I go give a presentation to people that are
Speaker 2: wanting to start a chapter, I always tell them you know,
Speaker 2: share your why. What is the reason that this is
Speaker 2: important to you? And I'll just tell you and the listeners.
Speaker 2: You know, Barna and my my favorite experience in my
Speaker 2: life is you know, hiking in in the dark upper
Speaker 2: ridgeline during elk season and sitting and watching the sun
Speaker 2: come up with elk bugling in the basins below me.
Speaker 2: And I firmly believe if we don't control our wolf
Speaker 2: populations that your kids in mine and their kids will
Speaker 2: not get to expe experience that, and that I think
Speaker 2: it would be just devastating. You know, it's our wildlife
Speaker 2: is a big part of what makes Idaho and Montana.
Speaker 2: You know what it is and the reason that I
Speaker 2: that I love it so much. I think I speak
Speaker 2: for a lot of sportsmen that are passionate about wildlife.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, I agree one hundred percent. I need that.
Speaker 1: That reminds me I need to re up my membership, so.
Speaker 2: Super if you if you just hop on online there
Speaker 2: at f the number four WM dot org, click the
Speaker 2: join button or the renew button, either one that I
Speaker 2: think it'll take you the same place, but we can
Speaker 2: get you taken care of on there. But appreciate your support.
Speaker 2: And you know a lot of people don't don't realize
Speaker 2: we've removed I don't know. We started this in twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: we got our five oh one c three and twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: funded our first wolf in twenty twelve, and we've now
Speaker 2: removed more than two thousand, one hundred wolves MIIDO in
Speaker 2: Montana with roughly one point nine something million dollars. We're
Speaker 2: just shy two million dollars that we've generated through memberships
Speaker 2: and fundraiser banquets, you know, just creating a mechanism that
Speaker 2: a guy that doesn't have the means to get out
Speaker 2: there and chase wolves can still be part of the solution.
Speaker 2: While you and I are sitting on our couch with
Speaker 2: our kids watching football, somebody is out there married to
Speaker 2: a trap line through rain, snow, sleet, hail, miserableness.
Speaker 3: You know it.
Speaker 2: Those guys need our help and covering their expenses is
Speaker 2: the least that we can do.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, thanks so much for what you do and
Speaker 1: your organization. Appreciate everything they put back into the the
Speaker 1: outdoor community to manage these wolves. And and maybe I'll
Speaker 1: get to see you at Western Hunt. I'll be on
Speaker 1: there at the Phelips Booth super yeah, you bet all right.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Justin you bet Her appreciate you having me
Speaker 1: on