Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 046: Saratoga, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with guests Ronny Boehme and Ed Arnett, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew.

Transcript

Ep. 046: Saratoga, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with guests Ronny Boehme and Ed Arnett, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew. · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening don't eat podcast.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You can't predict anything, all right, So recently, uh this
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: has nothing new what we were talking about. But recently
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: we've identified, we've been we've been trying hard to identify
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a style of humor that is used by uh our
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: man dirt myth who who who's his parents know him
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: as Garrett Smith, whom we love dearly. We're trying to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: get him a quick tobacco Everybody, please send your emails
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to get Jared to get Garrett to quit. Uh yeah, yeah,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Durt Smith's the chronic tobacco user and wor thinking about
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: implementing a tobacco free work space, and it's gonna be
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: like very hard on dirt myth. But dirtmouth humor is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: explained dirtmouth humor. There actually is no humor involved. There's yeah,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: there's it's an attempt. It's an attempt at humor, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it's like when the person themselves thinks that what they're
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: gonna do or say, it's gonna be funny. But in
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: essence is if some if you if someone asks you
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a question like, hey, uh, can you grab me the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: milk either refrigerator and you open the fridge door and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you go, no milk in here, but you actually just
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: looked at a gallon of milk and then you giggle
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to yourself, Yeah, you don't know, just kidding or it's
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: just it's just kidding humor. That might be the way
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: he'd be like, yeah, I saw a bear and you're
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in an area with a lot of bears. He'd be like, oh, no, ship, No,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, and its being but it's not funny
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and it is totally plausible. Anyways. It's a spin on
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: twin light humor, which my old girlfriend identified when we
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: were standing on my the lake I was brought up
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: on and someone said to her, Hey, do you see
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: that sign across the lake? And she said no, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: they go, dah, you couldn't see a sign across that
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: lake and she just it's like and she's like, this
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: is a The people in this community use the style
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of humor that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Are we tying
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: this into anything? No? Okay, but right before we turned
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the podcast machine and we're talking about dirt, myth humor
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: had dirt Myth just attempted some humor, Dirt, did you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: just try to say something money to go over? No,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Ron made sort of just a low brow kind of us. Yeah, no,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: one more thing has nothing to do with anything Yanni.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You were just finishing up a couple of odds and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: ends we were discussing before we turned up the podcast machine.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: On Yanni, you were a moment ago saying it's actually
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a recording machine that that you can't tell if a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and speaking of in speaking about selecting a mate and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: selecting a wife, you were telling Dirt Myth that a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fella can't identify someone who's gonna be a good mom wife. No, mom,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: you're actually putting these words in my mouth. No, I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: just heard you saying this. You're talking about No, I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: not last night right now, Okay, go ahead. You were
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: saying that you you were saying that it somehow is like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: uh like when you get married to someone and then
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you have a child with them, that it's a complete
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: unknown whether or not they're gonna be a good mom
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: or not. There's no way to anticipate paid their mom nous. No,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that wasn't me, Yes, it was dude. Well, you're embarrassing me. Now,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: someone someone else here in the group might have been
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: saying that it was you, and I thought how odd
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: it was, because that does not jibe with the normal
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: kind of things you say about these issues. I was
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the one that made the point. We were talking about
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: marriage because there this because there's no there's no don't
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: talk about this because you're gonna because there's no nothing.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Nothing's good because coming it No. We were giving marriage
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: advice and I was just saying, she didn't want how
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I feel like that. I think he did that the commitment,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: the trust in the commitment is more important than being
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: swept off your feet and the whole love thing that
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was this morning. That was was not what you just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: said a minute ago. But that was a different conversation
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: that we had the last night. This morning this morning,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: kids was just discussing basically the same thing. Okay, but
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like I'm saying, I do not I'm sorry. I mean,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I could be just high from stage brush, but I
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: don't remember saying this thing about the mom knowing if
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: someone could be a good mom. Yeah, I do. I
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: have come to think and I don't want to talk.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Don't you know this isn't a I don't want to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: talk about love advice, um, but I have come to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I have come to realized that, you know, now, I've
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: been alive so long and married so long that I've
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: been to a lot of weddings, and I've been a
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: lot of weddings where I hear all about uh, people
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: who are like, oh, we're just so in love or
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: more in love than anyone else has ever been in love.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And you wouldn't understand this is like such a special
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: love we have. You know, we're so in love. We
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: need a special Yeah, preacher, because because this is so
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't get it right. I'm always like, dude, come
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: talk to me when there's a couple of babies. I'm
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: talking to some youngsters running around the house, and I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: would love to hear how special it is, because at
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: some point, and it's not all it is, but there
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: are days and times and weeks when it's just a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: bunch of work. Steve, could I segue into one thing
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: before we talk about sage grouse and hunting? Oh? Yeah,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: why not? Now? I mean we're okay. What you're talking
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: about are those guys who postings on Facebook and said,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you know, they state their anniversary, and I married my
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: best friend and it drives me crazy because if it's
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: your best friend, you can tell them how good looking
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that chick at the mall you saw was earlier today.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And if you can't tell your wife that she's not
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: your best friend, Ronnie and kind, I remind you of
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: one of your another quote of years that's always been
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a favorite of mine. What's that it was? I don't
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: even know. I don't even believe this. I just liked
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: it a lot. You said one time you were talking
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: about this is not meant this is not meant to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a fend anybody out there. You were somehow on a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: tirade about people who have their dad be their best
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and Brownie said, if your dad your best friend, and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you don't have any fucking friends unless you less you
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and your dad used to go in to absolutely great.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, if if your dad your best friend, you
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: don't have one birds because I mean, my dad didn't
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: camp in the backyard a pup tent, you know, scared
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Bookerman and stuff on. No, he was sleeping with mom.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Your best friend is you know, you like, but to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: an adult level of it, your best friend, you could
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: tell him anything. Your wife can be the best partner
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in old but you can't tell her everything. Yeah, you
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: cannot say, wow, look at the figure on that woman.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You can tell you you can tell your best friend
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that in all relationships, out of respect you have you
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: practice some like you practice some restraint. I'll know and
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: say things to my wife and she won't be annoyed,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: she said, she will just be like disinterested, and she'll
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: say that. I think that's like that sort of thing
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: is I think best left for the you know, the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: guys you work with, And I think that's a perfect
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I need to hear that. Yeah, you know, it's a
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: perfect segue into hunting, social hunting. You hunt with your friends.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: You know that. Let's let's work. Let's can we We
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: gotta come back around real quick, because I feel like
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you left it off saying that I somehow said that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you can't judge your girlfriend or fiance. Somehow you have
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: an idea of what sort of mom and I'd like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to clarify that. I sure do believe that there's a
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: lot of things I think that you can see from
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a from a person and judge their character, and like
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: being a good mother is definitely one of those things.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: When I had my first date with my wife. Now,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: it was a four day long date. So it wasn't
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: like going out to dinner or something. Right, Like, I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: was living in Alaska and she was living she was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: living in New York. Right, So when we agreed to
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: go on a date, we went and cruised up and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: down that we went up like by San Bernardino, Santa Monica,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and California, cruised round for a few days. So it
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was a date, but it was like a whole bunch
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of dates stacked end to end. But I go back
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: up to Anchorage after my first date and I said
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: to uh, you know, we're sitting in my brother's uh
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: drinking beer and my brother's kitchen, and I said to uh,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the guys there, I said, I'll tell you what. I'm
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: gonna marry her. And my friend Matt Carlson called bullshit me.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: He's like, you are not you don't what we're talking about.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So I said, I'll make a bat with you, man,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and we I said I'll pick a date, and I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: can't remember what it was. It was like, I'll be married.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'll be engaged to her a year from today, and
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I'll be married to her two years from today, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: we bet a hundred dollars and we drew up a contract.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I signed it, he signed it, My brother signed it
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: as a witness. Two years later, I get a hundred
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: dollar bill in the mail along with the contract. Because
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I knew, I knew, And part of that was I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: knew she'd be a I knew she'd be like a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: very good mom. And wouldn't you know you be I'd
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: be able to trust me with my children, not just
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: with him, but to have him. Yeah, Yanni's so engaged
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: by this, he said, like Morse cold and Flash, here's
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a segway for you, and you describe. You didn't introduce everybody, Steve,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you forgot all right, because I'm because it's gonna be
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: talking a whole bunch. I'm gonna do some introductions. Uh,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: there is the Levy and the Eagle. Yeah, he was
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: all put back together again. I recently when when Yannie
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: messes knee up, I wrote him off. I heard that. Yeah,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but they fixed his knee and he's back to normal now.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Now you can't keep up. It's still good. Um Ron Bam.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Lifelong friend hales from Twin Lake, Twin Lake Mission, but
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: also kind of lives in Virginia. I do Shannondoah Valley, Right,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: would you say that lives on a hilltop that he
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: actually named Beer Mountain? Lives on Beer Mountain. If you
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: send the mail and it says Beer Mountain, Virginia, you
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: look at to me. Just use the right postal code,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: though I don't actually have my own postal code, Like,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I know what he's got to be talking
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: about it because the beer kids go all the way
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: down the driveway to the mailbox. Brodi Henderson, Brodie say
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you wanna say any much? So you haven't the word yet.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm just listening. I've been married. You have
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: a good wife, right, I actually my tenth anniversary was
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: about four days ago. Two children, two children, two little boys,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: five and one and a half? Is your mom? Is
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: your wife? Like? Could you feel that she's doing a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: good job as a mom? D Yeah, he had a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: good feeling, so he wasn't like what Yanni was saying.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Then there's uh ed ed Arnett from the biologists with
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt. Conservation partnership is how you like to put
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it in? Sure that works for me? TRC Peak explained
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the explained the biome that we're in right now. Am
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I using that word right? Yeah? Explain where we are
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: right now. So we are in southern Wyoming, and what
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: many know is the sage brush. See it's um a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: landscape that is mostly dominated by sage brush. There's smatterings
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: of aspen draws and and uh and meadows that that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: are scattered throughout the buy and large this landscape is
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: dominated by sage brush. And we're at about seven thousand
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: feet above sea level. In uh Mark Twain, uh described
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sage brush as a monarch of the forest. I didn't
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: know that still tonight, but I was telling me A
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: monarch of the forest, an exquisite miniature, that's it. How
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: how old can a sagebrush plant be? Oh, they can
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: be well over a hundred and some of the stuff
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you were probably walking in today and I was walking
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: in today was over a hundred years old. But we
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: can still be um. They can still be yanked out
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: pretty easy. Yeah, it's pretty shallow soils. I mean, you
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: know that's the the shallows. The soils are pretty shallow.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And that's what caused question, not a silly one, is
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: is there an altitude like we're sage brush existing, quits existing?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Or is it always up high like like we are,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Like if you get down to the Great Plains? Is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it so it fades out in the Great Plains? For sure?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Is it? Is? It probably an elevational issue, but I
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: can think of a lot of stage brush below three
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: thousand feet. Kind of depends on where you're at, for example,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: it's not necessarily an altitude thing. Yeah. Stage brushes makes
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: up a large part of southeast Oregon, and it's not
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: seven thousand okay, And explained like its role in the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: in the in the in the natural systems out here
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: like what all? What all sort of uses the sage
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: brush seat. And before you do, I'll say that at
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: times you can walk through the sage brush Sea and
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: it can feel um, really empty. Yeah, And it's been
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: referred to as the Big empty too, which is a
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: false impression exactly, but it can seem that way. There's
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like it seems like low and kind of monotonous, and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you sort of missed the details because of the expansiveness.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. When you spend time in
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the sage rush see, and especially when you were hunters
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: who spend time looking and watching for lots of things.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It's teeming with life. There are three hundred and fifty
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: different species of plants and animals that depend on this
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: particular ecosystem in one way, shape or form. Summer plants
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and animals, but sage sage grouse are what we call obligates,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: so they have to have sage brush. Mule deer and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: other species don't necessarily have to have at their associates,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but they strongly dependent on it. I mean, you find
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it plenty of plenty of mule deer and sage brush.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Some call the sage brush see the big empty because
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: as you said, we can walk. You can walk for
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: miles and not see anything. But it's so vast that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: if you're not paying attention, you know, you'll miss what's
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out there. And there are three d D plus species
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: of plants and animals that are dependent on this ecosystem.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Some of them are obligates, and an obligate is something
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that has to have that particular plant community. In sage
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: grouse or a good example of that, others like mule deer,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: which use all kinds of different you know, plant communities,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: they associate with sage brush, and they associate very closely
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: with and it's very important for mule deer. But they're
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they're not what we would consider I'm true, obligates. Elk too,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: there's elk out in this system right now, but they're
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: not obligates. Not obligates. Why like, why does the sage grouse?
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Why is the obligate the sage brush. That's how they evolved.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: They evolved in this particular but like in his daily
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like in its daily life. Is it just that in
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: its absence they go away? Does he does he rely
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: on in some absolute they rely on it. They eat
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: exclusively sage grouse in the winter Jesus back that up
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and edited cannibalistic. No, theyclusively sage brush in the wintertime. Yeah,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and in this you know, this time of year, they're
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: still picking on insects and forbes, but they're starting to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: shift into sage brush. But they have evolved and they
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: don't have a gizzard. I think you knew that. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: so they you know, they question for death quick definition.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I was I was reading one time that No,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a guy a biologists tell me one time a fella
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you probably know you probably, I'm sure in your in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: your wanderings you've run into Robert Abernathy, Robert, he was
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: telling me one time that a turkey and the turkey polt,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: so you know, when a turkey comes out of the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: egg is eating. It needs a lot of protein, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: they're eating se animal matter, plant matter, and then with
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: an adult Robert, if you're listening and I'm messing us up,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I feel like I feel like this
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the proportion and in in in their adulthood. It's inverse yea,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: about seventy five percent plant insect matter. That's you know,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And I didn't look up the you know, the proportions
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: for sage grouse before were sitting out and talk, but
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: definitely the chicks are eating eating a high proportion of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: insects and forbes for material. But that's that's basically what
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: they eat is forbes, sage brush and insects in a nutshell.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And that's what you know. They use this for nesting cover,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they use it for wintering habitat. It's food, So they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: are truly obligates of the sage brush ecosystem. And when
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: it goes away, and even small proportions, the sage grouse
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: numbers decline precipitously and it's very well documented the science.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Now you know you hear like that. I think the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: two little fact the ways people hear about sage grouse
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: all time. It has no gizzard, and it's the biggest grouse.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Ye second largest game bird of second only to the turkey.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: It's the biggest grouse. It's second only to the turkey. Yep, turkeys,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: if you people do consider them the game bird. So yeah,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: for sure, the second largest game bird. But it is
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: definitely the largest grouse in North America. I'm not sure
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: if there's a bigger one in Europe or not. Is
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Lly Kelly's Is it a gross? I don't know. I
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: thought they were anyway. It's a big damn bird. It's
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the biggest one in North America. You know, in South America,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I hunted um with with indigenous peoples in South America,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I hunted uh curis house you sent with that bird
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: from your show, Curisaw, crassless curisaw. And those things sit
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: up in a tree in their roost and who like
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a turkey, And you're sneaking underneath them while they're hooting.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: And those boys don't wait from to come down out
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of the tree. They get under the tree and they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: try to skylight it. It's not that different from the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: sudi grass. No, not at all, you know what, it's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: more close to that. So Yanny cool up to know.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I do have a question. I had some groundwork. Yeah,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: what would be another I'll but get of the stage
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: rush community another stage rush, I'll get species. Um the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: sage thrasher and pig me rabbits or probably it's with
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the sagebrush couple. What's the thrasher snake? It's no, it's
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a it's a song what I referred to earlier today
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and it was reprimanded for sparrow. Actually, actually thrash and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: trash are not far off. You should when we reprimmated you,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you should have said, oh no, you missed me. Thrash
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: bird not a to trash bird. We had, we had
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Bravo went on point. We were many hours in the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: hunting and it was a solid point and I finally
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I got all excited, cameras going in and everything's cool,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and these little birds fly out at the stage and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I said, trash birds. Yeah, my old man, My old
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: man had the same thing. My old man believed that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: there was you had all the game birds, which you
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: damn sure knew what their name was. And then blue jays,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: which he despised because he loved the other bird he knew,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: which was Robbin's and he knew that blue jays were
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: going to kill a robin, So you didn't have any
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: use for those. All other birds were classified as tweetie birds.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, And I gotta who was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I got a friend of the waterfowl biologist, and he
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: was talking about some of the guys he grew up around,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: who in their mind there were two species of ducks.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: There were mallards and scrap ducks. There was an alcohol
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was it you? No? No, the body minds bud. Yeah,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: he said, there's mallards and scrap dunts. You know, we
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: always said, Louisiana, there's two kinds of wildlife. There's game
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and potential game. So all right, so sage grouse, I
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: want to just like set the mood here. How many
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: sage grouse? I'm sure there's an't even be more applicant
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: species of sage brush. Sketch out their range, their historic
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: range historically, what all sorts of areas, like, what kind
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of collections of states would you live in Arizona? All
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the way into three provinces of Canada, the Great Plains
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: there basically the Great Plains, and into the Inner Mountain
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: west and to the Great Basin, so California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: UM used to be in Arizona, but not anymore. Nebraska
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: was the furthest east extent. They're they're gone from two states,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Nebraska and Arizona gone gone, not there anymore. North Dakotas
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: getting close. They're they're pretty tight, pretty small numbers. Um.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: They actually close their hunting season and we'll probably talk
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: more about that later about hunting and such. But not
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to go to May. Every institute of there's this year.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't check it before it came, but I think
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: they were talking about it. I talked to the director.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But so that's kind of the eastern edge right up
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to the Great Plains and then all the way into
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: or into the stage step into the Great Base. So
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: they go into it. So they're outside of the Great Plains,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the Great Basin. Yeah, yeah, plains. The Great Planes begin
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: roughly at like the Hunter the Meridian and go westward
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to the Rockies. It's kind of like a thumbshaped thing
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: actually in uh, Texas panhandled up into Canada. There's no
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: state that's entirely great planes. Some people define it by rainfall,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: so like like like fourteen inches fourteen or less presentation thing. Yeah,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: there's no state entirely in the Great Plains. But then
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: these birds jump over and going to the Great Basin.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: So very actually there's very population there an iconic Western
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: purpose at the time of European contact, or however you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: want to define it. How many were there? Those estimates
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: are like Buffalo sixty Do you know where the sixty
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: million estimate came from? I don't remember. I've heard this, Yeah, okay.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Colonel Dodge of Dodd's City Fame, once I saw a
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: large herd of buffalo. He estimated the width of the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: herd and the time it took, how much time it
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: took the pass, which took correspondence with other individuals to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: figure out. Then he took a look at a map.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I figured out how many there must have been there.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Took a look at a map, and he's like, hey,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I know the range of where they are,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and that was probably all the ones that lived in
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that area. So by my calculations, there were sixty millions,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and that became the fashionable estimate for over a century.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: And we've heard sixteen million for and I can't remember
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: where it comes from, but we've heard sixteen million, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: well before the turn of the center stage grouse. Say, okay,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: because the nowadays the fashionable estimate. Yeah, the fashionable estimate
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: for buffalo now is thirty two million. Somebody perfected it
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to get it to thirty two. Yeah, so it was
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: sage grouse. It's what, uh, sixteen million before European settlement.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: But no, but it was millions of birds. I mean,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: think about the range of buffalo. I mean they ranged
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: much further eastn sage grouse too, so it's a range issue.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: But you know, there were a ship ton of sage
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: grouse and it has to be just the wild as
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: absolutely so now but now it's it's still hard to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: estimate them because we based the counts basically on the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: number of males that have ten lecks, and then the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: scientists you can't just say that you're right, I can't, Okay,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it's based on the number of males that
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: attend their breeding grounds, which are called lex so they
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: l E K and so all the prairie grouse, sharp
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: tailed grouse, lesser and greater prairie chickens, sage grouse. They
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: all go to what are called blacks and they're very
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: high fidelity to that. They go to those year after
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: year after year and like a little dance. It's it's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: where the boys go to pick up the girls. It's
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: it's a sage grouse singles bar. So they dance and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: they puff and they do all their things in the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: spring to to attract females and just describe, describe the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: topography of a leck, like what make it's actually very flat.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It's different. It's it's quite different than the say, you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: know what you're used to walking around for sage grouse
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: or sagebrush hunting for grouse. It's usually a flat area
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: where they can get out and display. They're quite vulnerable
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to predators when they're doing this. Predators they're waiting for
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the stage grouse hold out every yeah, oh yeah, I
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: don't think they haven't figured this out. And the raptors
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: figured it out pretty fast. They kind of key in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on it to get to elect um. These birds use
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: big landscapes and they are quite capable of traveling long
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: distances to aleck um. I'm not sure on the statistics
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: on that, but between seasonal ranges they're well documented at
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: least six thirty miles plus from winter to summer range.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Those kinds of things, they can travel a long way,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and I they're actually further distances. I just haven't verified it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I talked to a friend of mine in Montana, so
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: they were moving sixty plus miles um so seasonally, which
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: really makes it complicated for some of the conservation stuff
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: we're working on if you don't know where they're going
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: all the time. Back to the numbers, so biologists really
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: are dependent on counting those males at these breeding grounds,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: these breeding sites, and then and they're just not all
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of them. You don't you don't always find all of them,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: so there's a detection bias, and they move sometimes they
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: may move quite a distance sometimes you know, quarter a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: half mile or more to a different site and for
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: whatever reason. But you know, if a biologist doesn't know
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: to go look, or they're not doing aerial services, they
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: may miss. So there's kind of a detection factor that's
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: really fine. You can find lecking birds from there, yeah, yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you can see him from there. So um, but most
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: most people county they either you know, they do the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: aerial surveys, but then they'll also send in people the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: ground truth to make sure they're getting the right count.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: But what what they do basically, uh, when they go
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: on the left. April is really the peak. Early April
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: is a peak, So late March through you know, probably
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: about the second week April or so. Bidden by by
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: late April, they're pretty much done. But you know, like
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to come back out not very far
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: from here, there's quite a number of les all around here.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: You come out here in early April and you'd see
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: males and emails. But it's really quite a spectacle to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to see the boys doing their thing. But basically the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: calculation is pretty rudimentary. It's pretty simple. Uh, it's really
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the best we've got right now. There's some people that
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: are working on some pretty fancy modeling. But you take
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the number of males counted on lex and you take
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the proportion of females in the population. That's just based
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on like you know, when you guys kill your sage grouse,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and you will, you're gonna deposit a wing and the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: wing barrel somewhere down the road, and the biologists use
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: those wings to tell males from females. That plus capture
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: data that they have uh, nesting data, all these kinds
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: of things with chicks and and the ones that radio marking.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: All of this data is used to figure out proportions
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of males to females and the population. That's a basic calculation.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: You take the number of males and multiply it by
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the estimated number of females and there's are are. Multiply
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: it by the proportion and and uh you figure out
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: your total little populations. But so does do of every
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: male that comes out of egg in the spring at
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: one year of age. The next April. All those males
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: are gonna lack. They're all gonna go lack. They're gonna try.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: But Jason Jackson, gobblers, they exactly the gobblers get in
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: there and doing the dominant males are the words. They're
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: going to breed. But but you're counting them. If not,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: you'd have the factor in how many of those are
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: out there? And there are there there's a bias there
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: as well. You're not counting them all. There's an observer bias.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So you and I might see things very differently when
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we go to counterlack um. I mean we try to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: reduce that obviously with the same observer, same lack that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: kind of you to make sure they had a good game.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I I know, some people you put out there and
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: need come back and tell you anything exactly and whether
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to you know, whether and those kinds of things really affected.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: So they leave for the actual breeding, they'll breed, they'll
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: breed in the vicinity and on the lack and then
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and then the females leave and they how far did
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: they go? Well, it depends on this. You know, some
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of the states document like Wyoming here a friend of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: mine has documented at roughly nine of the females nest
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: within four miles of elect but that varies. It can
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: be further. So they're going long distances. And you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: part of the reason, you know, we have to manage
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: and conserve large landscapes is because they use big landscapes.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: We're talking townships, not sections. You know, you know, you
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: know the word for what it is where. But let's
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: say a turkey, let's say a hand turkey's gonna drop,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: you know, ten eggs, twelve eggs. There was the eight
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: eggs on the average in the vicinity right somewhere between
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: eight and twelve. Are you familiar with there's a term
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: maybe you know, maybe maybe there is no term for it,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: you know, like a female turkey, a female turkey, let's
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: she's gonna lay eight to twelve eggs. She needs a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: breed with that male. She like breathes the mail right,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: then drops an egg, breathes the mail, drops the egg,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: breathe the mail, drops the egg. I mean she doesn't
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you know, so she's only dropping one egg every day.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: She don't believe that's the way it is with sage
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: grounds and flies off. Yeah, so she's got enough in
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: her to do that. And I can't remember the term,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: but wants her does she do that? Like one? Because
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what a turkey? She'll lay an egg every day and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: then synchronize the eggs because she won't incubate them until
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: they're all down right, so they don't hatch over the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: span of eight to ten days. She heats sinks them.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: You know. Now, I think all game birds practice that
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: because it wouldn't make sense to leave four eggs in
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the in the nest and have four chicks. You got
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: to take care of them. Absolutely not all right, So
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: there we are. We gotta let felicals out there counts
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: them up, extrapolate from there based on some informed to
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: some assumptions, and you got what how many how many
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of these grouse have we got? Well, a couple of
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: years ago when running I were out here hunting, we
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: figured there were somewhere between two and two hundred thousand
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and four hundred thousand at that particular time. Now it's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: upwards of four hundred plus thousand, because the numbers are up. Um,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: we've seen a couple of increases in the last few years.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: They really started coordinating back in the mid fifties the
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which is the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: professional association of the state wildlife agencies. All the biologist
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: get together and and um they have working groups and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and um. You know, the Prairie Grouse group was you know,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: coordinating this work for a long long time. But the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: formal number starting point for LEC counts is in nixt
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and we've got a long term trend between nineteen sixty
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: five and now. Obviously we've increased effort with the whole
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: issue of the bird being potentially listed, petitioned and considered
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: for listing under the ESSA. That increased the research effort
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: means listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: But the Endangered Species Act, just just when you're listened
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: under the s A doesn't necessarily mean you have endangered status,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: because you can be listed under the ESA with threats, vulnerable, threatened,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: or what order it threatened, endangered, endangered, extinct. So threatened
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: is the UM is the classification that it has a
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: high likelihood because of all the threats surrounding it of
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: becoming endangered. Endangered is they actually have a high likelihood
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of becoming extinct. That's the difference. Gone, gone, gone, Sorry,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I've lost my podcast, Daddy, God, I forget. I can't
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: throw all these terms around. Yeah, so but I'll get
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: you very word. Because you were saying that, uh, people
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: started counting in. So it's been increased interest as we
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: realize that something's happening with these birds. So we've increased
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the amount of effort and the monitoring. But the numbers
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: go up and down. Game bird populations fluctuate dramatically. I
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: mean they can fluctuate in some years just because of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: drought conditions or other factors, and naturally, naturally so that's
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you know, that's what makes a population estimate so hard
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: because they do this, you know, I mean, they're very
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: short lived and well sage grouse are a little longer
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: lived than some other grouse, and we should talk about
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that a little bit as it relates to hunting. But
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: they're not like quail and and pheasant. They're a little hardier,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: but they, like the majority, don't die within the first year.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: A chunk of them certainly do, no question, But once
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: they hit that first year of age, they have a
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: They have a good likelihood of living to two to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: four years, and I think some males can live up
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't remember what the oldest is, but
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: it's not It wouldn't be uncommon to find a five
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: year old. So they're a lot hardier. They have good
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: hoever winter survive pivol. So you know, when we start
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the juvenile survival after you know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: a hard winter, you know, your prairie grouse are oftentimes
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a little hardier, particularly safe grouse, compared to like quail
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and pheasants and some of the other exotics that have
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: been introduced, huns and shuckers and those kinds of critters.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: They're a lot hardier, like you look at the pheasant
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: funny to die exactly. Now. I've seen spots running in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the woods hunting, not hunting duskies, but I've been hunting
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: elk or something you find like a fir tree and
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: underneath it it's just literal with dusky grouse scat, right,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I mean just piles on top of piles, on top
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of piles where it seems like that bird said the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: whole winter in that tree, probably roost right, which they
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: kind of do, That's what I've been told at least right,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: they'll literally like pick a spot when the snow gets deep,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: and they kind of hang out in one little zone
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: in one tree. Yeah, so do these bird because we
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: today hunting saw a couple of areas where it was
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: definitely like the poop was very concentrated. Do they do
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the same thing, kind of have their little zone of
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: stage and just they do. They use these big landscapes,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: but they used specific parts of that landscape. And of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: course if we could figure that out every time, we
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't we wouldn't be skunked sometimes when we go on.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: But we don't know a lot about winning habitat, you know,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: not that we're focused on winter here, but but they're
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: just starting to understand some things about wintering habitat. But
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: once those there's there's you know, they're they're gonna have
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the nest, they're gonna they're gonna go away from the
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: lack at some distance away from that and nest in
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: that landscape. And then when the bird hatches, they're going
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to take them to you know, birdering what we call
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: birdering habitat, and quite often that's brood rearing habitat body
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and that's where the moms are taking them to to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: get that high protein content. A lot, a lot of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: these wet meadows that are around here very very important
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and that's why a lot of private lands are important. Goes.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Quite often, you know, the wet meadows are concentrated on
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: private land because that's what was settled first. So um,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: these these wet stringer meadows are vital to brood ring habitat.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Winter habitat is a little different. Obviously, these are going
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to be covered with snow and lots of snow, so
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that's totally different. It's gonna be more on higher ridges
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: and and um, but it's still gonna have safe wind
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: swept exactly all right, So let me let me let
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: me back you up, min Brod, Are you cool right now? Nothing?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Everything you wonder both been taken care of. I have
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a question, Yeah, that sounds interesting. Sage grew in Colorado.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: We kind of talk about Wyoming. Is it just that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: chunk of Wyoming it is close to Wyoming? Or is Colorado?
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it chunk of Colorado that's right on
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: the border. There's two different areas of Colorado that holds
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: stage gross northwestern Colorado from just west of Steamboats brings
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: out towards craig As as a big chunk habitat. It
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: looked like this kind of like yeah, very real similar. Yeah.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: And then there's a smaller chunk of sage house habitat
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: in north Park near Walden, Colorado, which only has a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: two day hunting season, smaller populations. Job Brody, thank you
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: just talked way back there. All of a sudden just
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: rolls out some good info. YEA man, get anything else
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: right now? I want to see a shoot one. Well,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna back end up to something. If every
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: just want make sure you're gonna back him up to
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: the ford or you're gonna just back him up, back
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: them up in time from back him up in time
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: in two ways in time. This is a segue kind
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of here's here's what I didn't get. They the numbers
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: are like like every not like everything, but like a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: lot of things. The numbers are way down from our
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: suppositions about what the situation might have been like at
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: the time of European contact. Right, okay, but between you
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: said when there became a concerted effort to sort of
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: tally up stage gross in nineteen sixty five, breakdown for me, like,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: what's kind of happened since nineteen sixty five? Like what
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: are the trends? And I know what you're saying. It's
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: hard because they go up and down by fifty percentage points, so, um,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the long term trend let me let me just say that.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people hang up on these numbers
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and they misinterpret them, and you know, the trends are
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: very interesting, but when you see these wild fluctuations, you know,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: right now, we're sixty three percent higher this past year.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, last year was sixty three percent higher
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: counts than relative to the counts, but the counts were
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the second lowest in history of the nineteen for since
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty first lowest, I can't remember way ago or
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: it was like I think or something like that year
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the earth is set a new record for the hottest year.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: It's not like that. It was like it was like
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: ninety five, I think something like that in mid nineties
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and in fact, a little bit of pi Let me
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: finish this up with a little bit of history. It
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: all kind of really started in ninety five when people
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: really got concerned because that was mid nineties. That was
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: one of the lowest points in record. But a lot
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of people have been saying, well, gosh, you know, we've
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: got six more birds this year. That's proved positive that
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: things are on the mend, well sixty three as well,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: within the range of what a bird can do a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: game bird population can do naturally. And it has a
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: good spring exactly, and we've been having rain, you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: we've been getting rain since and we did pretty good
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: this year. It's been dry lately, but we had a
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: pretty good spring and so the bird numbers are doing
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: pretty well. Plus we've been you know, putting out all
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: this conservation on the ground, you know, for stage grouse
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and trying to protect them, and so it's all manifested
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: into higher numbers. But if we get a drought again,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: they're gonna drop regardless of The key is is keeping
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: them dropping so dramatically low and try and reduce the
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: amplitude of that drop. That would be the goal of conservation.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: They're gonna fluctuate, but the deal is trying not to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: have them dropped so freaking much dangerously low. Exactly inasmuch
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: as I have followed this, I understand that that, uh,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: when you look at sort of the decline of sage grouse.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna correct me where I'm wrong. I'm
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: gonna rattle off some things you hear. I do have
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: one more statistic throughout you because I meant to tell you, Uh,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you talked about the long term trend, the long term
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: trend from even with all these ups and downs, that's
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: where I was going with the crescendo here. The long
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: term overall trend is point eight percent decline every year.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So the so what that means is we're still on
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: a negative trend over that point every year. That's the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that's what the current over the course of fifty years since.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, damn near so, so basically it results in
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: an annual decline of about point eight percent per year,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and it's still on the decline, so we need to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: stabilize that as well. That's what I'm getting at. Why
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: is that? And I'll tell you with the things I
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: always he No, I'm not gonna why. There's no point
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: for me telling what I always here? Why is that?
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: And I know you don't know absolutely, but why? Well?
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Have it that loss? Primarily? Yeah, we've lost fifty We
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: started out a while back talking about the range. We've
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: lost them in a couple of states. They're dramatically reduced
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in others. You know, they're in eleven states and a
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: couple of provinces now, but they're dangerously low numbers in
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Alberta and and and an other parts of Canada and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: some of the states, like we kind of have to
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: be right now, Wyoming as the largest population. I believe
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Idaho is is next, the Nevada, then Oregon. So Colorado
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: actually only has four percent of the birds, but they've
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: got spectacular habitat and Northwest Colorado has broody said and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and North Park is still pretty good too, but it's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: been habitat loss. We've lost fifty of the range. And
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I remember when the calculation started, but somewhere in around
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: two thousand or so people started looking at this stuff
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: real serious, and they figure about fifty of the of
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the range is going. We're, you know, fifty of our
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: uninterrupted sage brush half correct. As a downward trend of
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: mule deer populations, it makes that it tracts it interestingly
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: close at times. Yeah, because mule deer are again not
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: truely obligates, but they are really dependent. Yeah. Interesting. I
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: heard one time, and I think you probably draw a
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: parallel here. Someone was talking about, um the notion of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of predators swamping. When you have a population of any
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: kind of population that when they when they synchronize, there
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: reproduction so that all the young are born synchronized, that
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: it puts so much food on the ground all at
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: once that you're gonna have some of those animals wind
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: up getting out of infancy safely because there's just not
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: enough predators to get them all at one time. If
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: you staggered it out over the course of a month,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: it might be a different story. But it's like bam,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: they're they all. You can't get them, And then what
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: they're talking. What they're pointing to a certain species of
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: birds that we'll form these big nesting conglomerations and the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: predators just work on the edges like snow and they
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: never get to the core. And what this thing was
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: once you start to break those groups up, you increase
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the edges and you end up seeing like strange things
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: happen because and what this, what this kind of alludes
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to is how you know, all the passenger pigeons we
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: used to have, how they went so precipitously into extinction
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: when it wasn't like why was there a long evening
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: period when there was just some Why did it have
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to be there's millions and then none or none? And
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: it was like because somehow having any, like having any,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: relied on there being millions, and maybe you like broke
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that something like seriously, like something fractured and there's no
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: there was no middle ground for the species. Market hunting
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: was a good example for her. You get them to
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: a point and it's just like they just systematically collapse.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: But but sage cross have had to have an autumn. Oh,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know I was gonna get at with that
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: is it doesn't mean necessarily that we've lost fifty of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: our sage brush plants. We've lost our like big open
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: expanses of stage bush that aren't interrupted by development, right right, Yeah,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of the original range has been completely lost to either
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: cropland development, urbanization, other energy type development whatever. It's been
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: just fire, but it's been just lost. So it's gone.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: After fire will come back, but it takes it takes
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: decades for some of these fires to restore. It's amazing
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: how long it takes a sage of rush to come back. Well,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Steve, when you forest like we talked, when
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: you talked about the passenger pigeon, you know they nested
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: in the hardwood forests in northern Michigan so predominantly, And
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, you wonder if the stage grouse is that's
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: a bird that's just I don't want to say doomed,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: but like it's gonna no matter what we do. Could
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it just eventually go away? You know what I mean.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: It's like it depends, like you say, big country, big area,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: and when that reduces it sounds like it could almost
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: be like a passenger pigeon thing without market hunting. I think,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: with you know, the conservation efforts that are underway now,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: and we probably need to talk a little bit about that,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you know, because things have changed dramatically since the mid
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: two thousands or so. I'm optimistic, however, we're still still
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: chunking away and it remains to be seen. It's kind
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: of a big test right now after whether all these
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: conservation efforts are gonna work over time. But I think
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the conservation efforts trying to address but basically in the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: eastern part of the range of the Greater stage Grouse,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: energy development, which would be the Inner Mountain West and
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: where we're sitting right now. You know, energy development, infrastructure development,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: when you know wind energy, oil and gas development, UM, urbanization,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things are major threats. We've
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: also had West Nile virus issues in this area. But
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: in the West, UM, you know, in the Great Basin, Idaho, Nevada,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Southern Oregon. Fire and cheat grass are real bad combination.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: You get these massive fires that burned really hot and
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: then it takes decades for that stuff to come back
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: so exactly, and that cheat grass is a real flashy fuel.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: It's an annual it's a real problem. UM. And also
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: conifer encroachment with with juniper encroachment on sage brush habitats,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: and there's a a big effort underway, particularly in a
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Great Basin, but other parts of the country as well,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Utah and other other other states as well, where they're
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: really going after eradicating juniper, which is good for it's
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: good for deer, it's good for livestock production, it's good
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: for it's good for sage house and one ranger in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Idaho or not Idaho and Oregon coined the phrase what's
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: good for the bird is good for the herd, because basically,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: you cut these trees out, maybe even change your grazing
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: practice a little bit. It's good for the livestock, it's
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: good for the goods for sage grouse, very compatible. But
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: those are kind of the major threats um Okay. Now
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: explain how it came to be that a year ago
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: everyone was on the edge of their seats about us,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: included about whether or not the they were going to
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: get listed as a threatened species, as a federally as
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a federally protected species under the Endangered Species That so,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: as quick as I can give you the timeline, so
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I said, in the mid nineties, biologists now other people think,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the like the serial litigant. Environmental groups were
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the ones that originally thought about this issue of sage
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: grouse populations. It was the biologist with in this Western
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies group that became deeply
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: concerned in about because that was again one of the
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: lowest I think that was the lowest. Uh. That was
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the lowest number of accounts in the history since they've
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: been counting them. They actually considered petitioning to list. They
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: decided at that point in time fishing fishing, game agencies,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and they decided it didn't meet all the criteria for
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: listing at that time. A few years go along, we're
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: still chunking away habitat um. You know, there was some litigation, UH,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: basically the petition. Another petition was filed and UM the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: UH there was a petition to list the bird in
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and again because of habitat loss
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and declining populations. In two thousand five, it was considered
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: not warranted for listing. However, there was more litigation UM.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Seemingly UH. The judge was convinced that there are issues
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: with the science and and more data were coming in
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: during these lawsuits and they said, and the court said, basically,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: you have to go back and revisit that two thousand
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: five decision. That decision had to be rendered in two
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: thousand and ten, And in two thousand and ten the
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: bird was in fact considered warranted for protections under the essay,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: but precluded. And what that means is, basically, they do
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act. But but the
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Fish wife Service has, you know, hundreds of species they're
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: dealing with. There were others that had higher priority. So
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: there was another bit of litigation, and basically the court
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to make a decision
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: by September two thousand fifteen. That's how that all manifested.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: And in the interim between two thousand five and and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the two thousand fifteen decision, an awful lot of decision
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: would be continually informed by whatever is going on. The
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: decision was going to be based upon two thousand five stuff. No,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: not at all new stuff coming in. And between two
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: thousand you know, in the tooth of air of two
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand ten, there was a lot of
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: oil and gas development, There were a lot of big fires,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of things that were threatened there
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: West Nile virus outbreaks. There was new science coming out
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: showing that crop conversion in Montana, for example, if you
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: just converted a small percentage into crop land, you saw
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: big drops in sage grouse. So we're starting to really
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: understand the landscape relationships and the loss of the habitat.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So that was all informing this. And then and you know,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the service was ordered by the court in indeed, they
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: were ordered to make a decision by But that kind
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: of had to happen because nothing was happening. I mean,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say nothing was happening. I apologized to my
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: friends that have been working on this forever killed me
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: for saying that. But a lot of things had been happening,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: but not enough was happening to thwart off a listing.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: And when that listing decision was set in stone in
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, people started scrambling trying to figure out what
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: to do. The states that hadn't put plans together, all
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, we're starting to try to figure out
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: how they're gonna put their planning. And they had strategies
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: that we're dealing with sage grounds. All these states have
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: been working with sage grounds for for decades, but it
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: puts emergency into actually getting meaningful, strong conservation plans and measures,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of private land efforts that were on
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: that started happening in about two thousand ten. All of
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: that really started because of that two thousand ten warranted
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: but precluded and then the listing deadline, and you know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the Natural Resource Conservation Services Sage Grounse initiative was spawned
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten and they put almost a
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: half a billion dollars into that. I mean, we don't
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: see a half a billion dollars floating into very many
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: conservation issues on private lands. So it's been historic and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the states put all their plans together. Wyoming led the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: way they started in two thousand and eight. They saw
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the writing on the wall and Governor Dave Freedenthal, then
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Governor Dave Freedenhall, and now Governor Mead, who you've spoken
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: with a number of times on this issue. You know,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: they they took the took the bull by the horns
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and leadership from the state's perspective and put a pretty
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: good plan together. Other states have put their plans together,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: but some are they're all varied. Some are better than others.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: But the federal plans are now in place, and these
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: are land and resource management plans developed by the Bureau
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: of Land Management and the Forest Service for the sage
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: brush ecosystem driven by sage grouse. But it's really a
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: new way of doing business in this ecosystem. It doesn't
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: shut off oil and gas, it doesn't shut off grazing
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: and all of these kinds of things that people are saying.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: In some areas, it does, but it tries to reduce
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: that disturbance which is so detrimental to grouse. But how
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: do they know. So if in two thousand and fifteen
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: they came out and said, Okay, he's got a good plan,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: listing is not warranted. But you're also telling me that
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the point eight percent decline is still happening annually, and
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: and the plans haven't all been implemented. So it was
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: it was speculative. It's speculative, and it's it's a policy
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: that came in um. I believe in the mid two thousand's.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Colleague of mine, Steve Williams, was was the architect of
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: this and and he was then director of the Fish
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service and it's called the Peace policy. It's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: a policy for evaluation of conservation efforts, and basically it
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: gives the Fish and Wildlife Service the ability to consider
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: things that will happen, but they have to have assurances
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: that they will be implemented, and they have to have
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: some level of appreciation and understanding that they'll be effective.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: So if when, if, when Wyoming put a plan together
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: and you and you hear often that Wyoming put a
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: good plan together, it was aggressive about is that is
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: that a fair? Yeah? What? What what was the plan like? If?
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you had to like just very quickly
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: give us the opposite of what the plan would be. Yeah.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: So the main nuts and bolts of it is it
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: basically allows us a maximum amount of disturbance in a
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: landscape surrounding Lex, which is about four miles around Lex,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: because of the data showing that the vast majority of
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: females nest within you know, four mile radius of a LEX.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: So basically buffering those um and allowing a certain amount
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: of disturbance that's backed by at least for now, we
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: think it's backed by this at the time was backed
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: by the best science available. So it allows a certain
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: amount of disturbance, which equates to uh, basically one well
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: pad and an associated road and infrastructure per section of land.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: So imagine thinking about a section and having one well
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: pad and a road going into it. That's it across
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: the landscape. That's the max And and Wyoming has done
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: a pretty good job of like enhanced drilling techniques to
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: get and that's the other ticket, Steve, because it's a
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: very good point because you know, at the time when
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: cold bed methane was being developed in northeast Wyoming, UM
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and you know, out in the Jonah Field and some
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: of the country where you did the beaver trapping work
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: in the episode. There in the Jonah Field that was
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: downhill drilling, and I mean you could look over at
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: the truck and there'd be another from here to the
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: thirty yards away, and there'd be a wellpad space. The
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: spacing was ridiculously close. But now you know, the spacing
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: is much much further. The horizontal drilling you can put
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: multiple you know, well you know, wells on one pad
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: and go out in different directions and get the resource
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: without the disturbance. So it's changed dramatically. And I don't
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: remember the exact statistics, but I want to say that
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: it basically downhill drilling has been virtually eliminated with the
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: horizontal drilling, so it's really helped technology helped reduce the footprint. Certainly,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: certainly has Can you say, are you comfortable saying, like,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: name a state that has a bad plan, who doesn't
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: want to play ball. Are you not comfortable doing that? Well,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that the state plans fall on a gradient,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: and some of them are based on voluntary mitigation programs
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of it um And others are like
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Wyoming where they have you know, pretty strong statutorial assurances
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: and you know they have um the executive orders from
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: the governor, those kinds of things that really and they're
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: committing to do it and they're doing it um. So
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: they fall along a range of gradients. Most of them,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a couple of pretty good ones and
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: some in the middle and some that are are dependent
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: I would say on the federal plans being in place.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of a big argument right now because
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: some in Congress are trying to basically say that the
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: federal government should use state plans on federal ownership. And
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: there's there's all kinds of problems with that, uh, starting
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: with you know, you know, hundreds of years of statues
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you know of public lands and having states managed public lands.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: But again, some of those state plans just simply could
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: not with they couldn't address all of the threats. I
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: mean fires a really good example, because you know, firefighting
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: costs are astronomical as most of us know, and you know,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: a given state couldn't probably deal with handling those threats
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: on on their own, you know, they're they're dependent on
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: federal partners and private partners too. So so one of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the things the Bartment of Interior did was, you know,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: with the states was developed as coordinated firefighting and an
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: invasive weed plan as well. But the firefighting plan seems
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: to be working, um, and there's just more coordination now
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: between counties, states, federal agencies, and private you know, landowners
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: on firefighting than there ever was in the history of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: life conservation. And quite frankly, you know, in my history
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: as as a biologist, in my career, I've never seen
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: anything quite like this. I mean, we've never really seen
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: anything like this since Theodore Roosevelt's days, and when we
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: had to do something or we're gonna lose buffalo, elk,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: mule deer, pronghorn, all these species that were just that
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: close to becoming extinct because of market hunting and habitat loss.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Do you think that we were like were we did
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: we come it's close to losing elk? We damned here
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: came as close to losing big horns as we are
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: right now. But did we come as close to losing
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: elk as we are right now? Of stage growth? No,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think so close. We came closer to losing turkeys.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: That probably closer with turkeys, But yeah, I mean stage
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: grouse were on the verge, and I think that I
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: think the urgency, Well, it's like you said earlier. You
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: know some of these populations there's a tipping point. Every
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: population has a tipping point, and they just viral out
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: of control. And I've heard one grouse by I'll just say,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: once they get below a hundred thousand, they just spiral.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: At Water's prairie chicken is a really good example. There's
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: a handful hanging on in Texas, but they're never going
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to come back. Probably. Can you talk about the Gunnison
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: subspecies a little bit. I haven't worked on him as
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: much but it's a subspecies of stage grouse and they
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: are endangered. Correct. Yeah, so they're managed differently than these
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: birds that correct, They now are are managed by the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: federal government basically. But they're working on that. They're gonna
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: they're gonna work on um. I think, UM what led
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: to that decision is now being addressed and the services
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: working very hard to work with states called the state
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: of Colorado and and you taught to uh to get
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: that decision to bring that population to a point where
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: they can they can take it off the list. Um.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: There there's one core population in Gunnison County with with
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: a solid number of birds, and then there's a bunch
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: of satellite populations. And the satellite populations became an issue
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: for the service and they some of them were pretty
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: close to blinking out. And it's a hundred birds. And
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: you know, when I talked to my state colleagues, they
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of a lot of them felt
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: that some of those that just there was nothing more
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: that could be done. I mean, they've got easements, they've
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: got all the protections that could possibly do so, but
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: they're working together, they're reproducing. It's just UM, at that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: particular juncture. The Service felt like they had to they
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: had to go ahead and list the bird um can
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: I questioning about the SAD Is there any is there
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: any relocation of sagre ell is being done? A little bit,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: you know, of a little bit um that's that's fairly
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: controversial plation. Well, I think some and it's not biologists necessarily,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: that are stirring up the controversy. I think some state
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: legislators wonder why we're moving our birds to somewhere else
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: when we when we have to, you know, have impacts
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: on oil and gas industry and the wind industry and others,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: And now we're shipping our birds to Canada or somewhere else.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: That's that's a little bit of the controversy. But it's
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: been done. And you know, I had a comment on
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the blog post I just had recently on captive rearing.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Now I can assure you captive rearing is the only
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: reason we still have blackfooted ferrets. I guarantee. I went
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: to grad school with the guys that went out and
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: caught some of those original ones and worked on some
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: of the ferret work. We would not have blackfooted ferrets
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: in this country or condoors for that matter, without a
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: captive break. It didn't work with turkeys. Yeah, and I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: don't think it would work with sage grouse. That's kind
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: of what I wrote the individual was we weren't at
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that point. But even if we got to that point,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced it would work. I've never been done
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: with with game birds like that. So although you could
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: probably argue, you know, with the exotics that are here,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: there's some some precedent for that, but they essentially do
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: it with pheasants, but it doesn't actually work exactly like
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: you established population tenually stock pheasants, you wouldn't I have
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: them exactly. It's like basically like it's basically like a
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: farm animal that you hunt for exactly, So I don't
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think it would work for sage grouse. So
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: so okay, So where we're at now is the US
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: fishing While their service says okay, sounds like everybody's ready
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: to play ball. You guys have some good plans put together.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: We trust that you're going to pursue these plans. If
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: you had to rate um the adoption and enforcement of
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: the plan on a one to ten national average, where
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: are we as far as people being like, I'm doing
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: the plan. Look, I already started. It's kicking ass. I'm
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: gonna put my professor head on because I never get
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: perfect scores by any stretch. But I'm not gonna give
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: an average either. I'm gonna give it a seven. And
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the reason I give it that is it was an
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: exper not very often, um, but but I wanted, but
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get to a ten. I want implementation seven. Well,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: I think right now just nines in some states. Two. Yeah,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I think so, And I think, yeah, you said overall,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: so I gave you this, but I think, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: some are just getting started, and the BLM is really
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: just getting started. They've been they just released instruction memorandums
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: to the field offices and all that is for everybody
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: out there is guidance to the field offices on what
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: they're supposed to be doing, on implementing stage grouse conservation
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: and these plans. And so they've been implementing some things,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: but they're just kitting started. And I think, you know,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: and we've got um a little bit of a hammer.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: The s a kind of hanging over everyone's head. And
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: it's called the five year Review. So they're going to
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: review this in That was my next question, and what
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the service is looking for. You know that there's a
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: short document I'll send you. You'll find it intriguing because
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: they are looking for exactly what we've been talking about. Implementation.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Have you did you implement the plans the way you
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: said you would? Did you care about anything but where
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: the numbers are? Well? Okay, okay, like they're they're concerned
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: about the numbers too. I mean, they definitely are gonna
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: look at the numbers. If everyone implements their plans and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: it has no effect, well at that point they might
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: be what are we gonna do if we list them? Yeah,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: well that'll be an interesting challenge for us. If all
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: this actually gets implemented and the numbers still continue to decline,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: then we're gonna have to readjust. It's gonna get We're
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: gonna have to readjust. And we're talking passenger pigeon, so
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: or you know, you're probably talk in es A. They
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: may they may list the bird if if if the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: numbers are not responding again, keeping in mind they fluctuate,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: you know, within you know, a wide range, as game
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: bird populations do. But I'm pretty optimistic. I see what
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: you're saying, because you could have a five years stretch
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: of just like per perfect weather conditions, but then the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: core problems have never been addressed. You might still be like, yeah,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: we've got some good birds because it's been wet, but meanwhile,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: we've seen sage, sage brush habitat, sage grouse habitat continue
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to plumb it. Once we get a five year drought,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: the birds are cooked. And that's exactly it. Because when
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: we have that drought, and I guarantee you we will,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and oil prices are gonna go back up and there's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: gonna be more demands for resources on these public lands,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: then we're gonna really test conservation. Then we're really gonna
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: see how it works. Because we got in my opinion, Steve,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: we got lucky because the rains came back. If we
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: had stayed in drought, That's part of the reason the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: birds plumbent died like they did, prairie chickens plummeted. I mean, Ronnie,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: we had I mean, you know, across our bird hunting
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: range and all the birds that we hunt was phenomenally.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Quail really took it hard in those droughty years as
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: they always do, and had those rains come back. I'm
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: convinced that the Service probably would have listed the bird
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: because the numbers would have been even lower and kept
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: going down. Fifteen we got we got lucky in there
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: on an uptick. It gave us a breather to finish
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: the plans and now get him implemented. So yeah, exactly
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: to your point. Now we've got to deal with the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: core of the issues, and that's what the plans are
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: gonna hopefully address. One thing I found interesting looking at
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: what kills sage growth that they fly low and they're
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: crashing defenses. Yeah, occasionally they do. How significant is that? Um,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of talk and going to
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: marking fences, lowering fence heights. Yeah, they definitely kill some birds,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: but it's not a major threat. Neither is hunting. I mean,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: you know, hunting has never been identified as a major
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: threat by the Fish and Wildlife Service or any of
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: the state agencies. But certainly the individuals they a shot
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: or hit a wire, they're they're they're out of the population.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: The list of major threats, well, you know, again it's
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: mostly about habitat loss and disturbance, So you know, it's
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: it's pretty short. I mean, it's a long list of
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: things that kill sage grouse and cause problems, but the
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: major major threats are really pretty short. Why has Why
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: do some states continue to allow sage growth hunting? Well
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: in part because and I just preface that by saying,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: the state Wildlife Agency has really done a very good
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: job of managing hundred hundred UM hunters and in bag
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: limits and seasons. I mean, sportsmen have have sacrificed, I'll say,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: and maybe that's not the right word, but we have
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: certainly contributed by loss of opportunity UM. And that's that's
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: exactly what the states should do. When populations are low,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: they should manage hunter numbers and or UM season and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: bag limits. In Oregon, it's been a two bird permit
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: system for long as I can remember I moved there
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: in it's still like it's a trophy tag. You get
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: two birds a year and that's it. And it's been
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: that way forever, regardless of whether the numbers are upper down.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: It's just the way they do it. But they may
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: issue more permits SA in the years when they're up.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: The states feel that they're gaining Okay, they're losing some
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: number of birds that are being mechanically removed, Like there's no,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: there's not a habitat destruction. There's not a significant disturbance. Right,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: They're not affecting um chick survival and mortality. Like but
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: so I see that. But like when when a state
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: weighs out, Okay, we're gonna lose some birds, but we're
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: gonna gain some what by having a hunting season, they
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: gained advocates and they gained support, and they provide opportunity
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: for the sports and which are their customers basically and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: again in Montana, recent article I read in Montana of
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: I think undred birds have been radio marked over over
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: about a sixteen year period. Nine of them were hunter
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: harvested birds. So they use those statistics to determine that,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, hunting mortality is like a market recapture. Well,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: it's just radio marked birds that were turned in and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: cause of mortality determined. Nine of those were hunter harvest
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: How many they have three birds, it's just a fraction
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: and nine got killed by hunters. So that's one study.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: Now it's going to vary from area to area. Obviously
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: this area that you know, well depends on how much
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: how long the hunts exactly. So Wyoming used to have
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I think when I was going to grad school here
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: in the eighties, it was a thirty day hunting season,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: three day bag limit, and I shot any number of
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: stage groups and in that that month AIOD and I
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: may have been longer. Montana I think was at least
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: two months, and it might have been a little longer.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: But again, the states have responded, so they have contracted
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: season lengths. We've been at two weeks, uh two birds
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: a day here in Wyoming for a while. I think
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: in thirteen it might are In twelve it was one
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: week and two birds foreign possession. So they've adjusted those
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: harvest rates accordingly, and they've actually closed seasons. You know,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: the northeast part of UH. Wyoming used to have strong
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: populations of sage closed now. And are you saying you
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: can hunt two days? That's North Park so near a
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: wall than just a few game management units around Walden
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: in Colorado? Do you ever go hit the two days season?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I did last year, Spinny birds did. Uh. It's the
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: thing I've got. It's the thing I've been curious about
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: for a long time and I think about all the time.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Is this idea of um gain an advocacy. I was,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: I was recently had occasion to have a conversation with
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: a professor who teaches animal ethics and he's an animal
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: rights advocate. Um, he's pretty true to form. I mean,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: he does a very strict vegan lifestyle. You can't point
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: to this dude and there's not a lot of hypocrisies
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: right Like he he has a set of beliefs, he
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: can defend them and he lives them. You know, he's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: not you're like anti hunter who like buys chickens and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: ship at the store, who I just can't even have
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: that have a conversation there. But this guy was fascinating
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: and very bright, and um, we're got this conversation and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I was trying to explain to him hunting conservation like
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: hunter conservationists, and I was just you know, as a
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: as a case in point, I just brought up, Uh,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I believe I I believe that the situation I sketched
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: out for him was. I was mentioning work done by
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain ELK Foundation. Okay, with how many you know,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: the the hundreds of thousands of acres they've helped protect
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: and set aside, right, all the work they've done in
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: habitat improvements, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: the money comes from dudes who like to hunt elk.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: And these dudes who like to hunt elk like hunting
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: elk so much that they go to these banquets and
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: whatnot and start giving have a couple of drinks or
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: whatever and start giving giving away money or to sit
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: at home, and just like right checks, They're like, I
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: like to hunt elk, Therefore I will spend a bunch
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: of money to not only help elk, but I'll spend
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of money to help elk habitat and increase
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: elk habitat. And he was saying, matisar rip and shooting
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: star over there. He was saying, it's a shame that
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: it takes that. And I'm like, yeah, but you just
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: have to open you have to be a pragmatic individual.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: He's like, why can't they give all that money and
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: not go hunting. I'm like, because they if they didn't
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: go hunting, they wouldn't have even been aware of the problem.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: And when and gave the money, Yeah, you don't give
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: the money first. It's like, you know, like it took
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: me until I was in my mid thirties to get
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: serious about conservation right, and like spending a conversation because
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, you go hunt ducks first, then you say
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: I want more ducks and better conservation. But no one
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: who's ever seen a duck or an elk or a
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: sage grouse. It's just like, I'm sorry, but generally those
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: people are not gonna be like, man, we need to
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: do something about stage brush. And it was like he's like, well,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: it's just too bad that that's the case. I'm like,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: you know what, it's too bad that all kinds of
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: ship is all kinds of ways. But at the point
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: you just have to kind of open up your mind
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: to the fact that that's that's frankly, that's how it works. Well,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the next series of questions is do you like open
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: natural spaces? Yeah? Sure, I love the open natural space. Well,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: what do you pay? You know what, what do you
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: pay into wildlife conservation? A lot of those folks don't
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: want to give money. Like I always tell people, buy
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: a duck stamper, buy a hunting license. You don't have
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: to go, just buy it. It goes to the game
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: and fish and they use that for habitat conservation all kinds.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: Of a matter of fact, it's a fit for all
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: you folks that don't hunt at all and then don't
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: spend deadly on wildlif conservation. Go buy a duck stamper,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: goes to wetlands habitat exactly which is going to run
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: out by a duck stamp. Well, part of their philosophy
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: there is that, well, no, it goes to hunting. It
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: goes toward hunting and hunter management. So philosophically they struggle
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: with that. But we have been trying to crack that
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: damn nut for since I've been in the profession and forever.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: How do you tax the non consumptive user and get
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: them excited about things? We can't get people excited about
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: sage grouse. Most sportsmen you say, hey, you know, we
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: gotta we gotta work on the sage grouse thing. It
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't resonate. What resonates is the sagebrush ecosystem. The fact
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: that this is home to the kinds of critters that
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: you like, pronghorn, elk, mule deer, those kinds oft the
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: and sage grass. That gets them excited. Then you start
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: putting the big picture together, and I think, really, you know,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: people they don't see the big picture. They can't see
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: the forest for the trees. And there was there was
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: a time with stage grass were exactly viewed as a
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: premier game bird, you know, several decades ago. Right, I've
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: heard so many people say, oh you oh, they're terrible
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: to eat. You know, it's crazy, but you know people
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: didn't even chase them hardly back in the day. Yeah,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: but I mean that kind of thing that people said
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: about everything. Yeah, everything, they say it about anything to
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: eat stage So all right, look into crystal ball. Matter
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: of fact, we should do a time castle. He has
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: to shovel in his truck. We'll make a time castle,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: will bury it right here, and we'll come dig it
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: up in uh in five years. What are they? What?
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: What's the what's the service? Gonna say? The federal you know,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: the US Fish and Wildlife Service, it's gonna take a gander.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: And don't give me something like optimistic bs or don't
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: give me pessimistic bs. Give me the straight dope, the
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: straight dope, like if you actually had to get it right,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: you had your your time capsule had to be right.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get it right on stage grouse. And I
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: want you to be telling me the truth, but I
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: don't want to be doing like your job right now.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: I can't help but be optimistic. But no, I I
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: I I think they'll come to not warranton in five
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: years and not Yeah, they'll continue with the not warranted decision.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: I um for the true tes of these conservation plans,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: you know, And again it's all predicated on them getting
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: implemented right now. You know, the the work of putting
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: all of this planning together and the science is done now,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: they just got to get it on the ground. They
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: do the work, and the private landowners are way ahead
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: of the game. They are doing the work. They are
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: they're doing the work. Man, They're putting a lot of
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: money into it, and a lot of good, very proactive
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: conservation ranchers just just good ranchers, just good people. They
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: know they know how to manage their land. Not everybody does,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: but the good ones are doing it right just right
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: over the hill. Here's my friend that it was in
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: that article. Great guy doing good things, And um, I
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: think we'll get there in But um, there's not a
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: lot of room to screw up. There's not a lot
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: of room. Just grew up because I don't know when
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: oil is gonna hit again. I don't know when the
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: next boom for something on our you know, extractive resources
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: in our public lands are gonna hit hard. There doesn't
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: ground to a stop, but it's slowed weight and slowed
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: wede and it gave us a breather. You know. Again,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: if we'd had eighty dollar barrel oil and a drought,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know how the service wouldn't have have I
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: give you, I'll give you a comparison. Lesser prairie chickens
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: were listed in May. They were contemplated in petition for listing.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: So this isn't just stage grounds. This has been happening
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: around the around the country, you know, with various game
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: bird population Lesser prairie chickens were really declining, and finally
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen they decided to list them. In
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: the previous two years, now, mind you, there were I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: think an estimated hundred and twenty thousand lesser prairie chickens.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I think at ninety five when they were contemplating this
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, I believe it was you know,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: below a hundred thousand, and the population had twice based
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: on leccounts and these crude population estimates they have in
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: the two years they were trying to make the decision.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: How do you not list the bird? They're estimated at
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: seventeen thousand birds? Where are they know? They're on the
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: uptick because the rain and conservation, so they're on the uptick.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know where they're sitting right now. But the
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: range wide population goal is now sixty thousand. I thought
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the number was too low. I mean, it's half of
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: what they were when they originally were petitioned. But it's
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it's still double what what the birds were
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. So they've they've come up,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: but you know, drought will hit that region again too.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: So my point is is the true test of these
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: conservation plans is is in the making. And I'll tell
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: you the wild card in our crystal ball jumping ahead
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: in our time machine is fire. You can have a
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand acre fire and nothing flat in some of
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: this country, and if it's not taken care of, it'll
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: it'll taken care of me. And if it's not put out,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: you can burn a lot acres pretty fast. That's a
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: whole other conversation now, and a half because you're and
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: that's you're perpetuating a problem. You've already created. This stuff
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: used to burn all the time in not severe way,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: so now we've prolonged it where we have tinder boxes
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: and now we're in a situation where we have to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: like keep doing the screw up to make up for
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: the bigger screw up. It's not a bad point, it's
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: a good point. I mean, the cheat grass is really
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: perpetuated in a great basin, you know. That's that's really
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: really created an untenable situation for those guys, and it's hard.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: They're they're making some advances on how to address cheat grass,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: but man, that's a big problem. My brother, one of
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: my both my brothers are a collegists um. One of
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: them has always worked on these plant ecosystems, aired land,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: you know, range land ecosystems, and has done a lot
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: of work on cheat grass. And right now he's focused
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: almost exclusively on uh shrub regeneration, getting sage brush and
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: other shrubs to come back on degraded landscapes or disturb landscapes.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: That he does. He does work all over the West,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: but yeah, he's in he's based in Montana and allows
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: to us like coal mine, Like when you do open
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: you know, open surface coal mines part of the remediation process.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: You know, at the time you could get away with
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: just being like, oh, you know, we put it up
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: in grass. Now you're like, no, it needs to be
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: you know, it's the more of the mind frame of
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: no needs to be kind of back to like what
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: it was. But it's very difficult to do. And um,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: he spends a lot of time working on that, and
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: he's and he talks about he talks about the sage
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: grouse issue has had a has had an impact on
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: his work because it's effective where money flows. Yeah. Absolutely,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: they're pumping tons of money into it. Is he getting
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: some of that? Yeah? I mean, you know I always
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: hesitate to because the things he works on are you
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: know that there's you know, it's nuanced and sensitive. And
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I don't what does he say he was here, What
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: does he say about reclamation time? It takes decades in
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases, but you have to But I'm
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: just curious. Yeah, I'm not a restoration ecologist. He had
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: some sort of he had the most, he had the
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: most groundbreaking. Uh. He was telling me that he had
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: the what he felt was gonna be the most impactful
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: thing of his career, something he found out about regenerating shrubs.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: What do you got, You got a little marriage advice?
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about today's hunt? Was that too early?
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: Just not a lot to say? It was a big hunt,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: not a lot of harvesting. Yeah, we covered a lot
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: of ground, man, But I just feel like we're um,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, like, you know, my my
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: sage grouse, my lifelong sage grouse harvest today is one
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: because I've never focused on hunting them. I run into them, uh,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: because I like to, you know, being like generally a
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: big game hunter. I run into him hunting antelope. I
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: run into them out messing around. Um. We used to
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: run into a lot of them when we did a
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: lot of late season rabbit hunting on the planes. Um,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: but you know, the seasons are short, never lined up,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm just not This the first time I've ever
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: like devoted This is the first time I've ever devoted
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: a day to finding some and like any kind of thing,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you can cold roll well, as I know
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: very well from this spring, we cold rolled into a
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: new turkey hunting spot and there's no one talking about
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: listing turkeys right now we've got turkeys and then far
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: more stage than we had them at the time of
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: European contact. We rolled into a new turkey spot this
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: spring and had our asses handed to us for about
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: three days in a row. So it's like any kind
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: of like real hunting, um, any kind of real hunting,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: there's a learning curve, man, And it's like, you know,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: if you just if you just think you're gonna cold
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: roll into a new spot and start knocking the hell
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: out of everything, you either don't know where you're tom
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: bar or you've had some really unusual hunts in your life.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: So we were last weekend and didn't find them in
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: my honey holes either. And they move around. Yeah, So
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, it's like it's really it's I'm
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: really reluctant to have to have a bad day and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: talk about how it was a bad hunt. We had
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: something to happen to night. Those interesting as we got
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: to uh, we messed with the badger for a while
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: and um and uh you know him, not not messing
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: him like you know, just observed him to the point
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: where he got frustrated with us and gave us a
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: couple of hisses. But uh, you know it was we
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: had a fun day. But um no, it's it's interesting,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like you're trying to learn something new.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: Anything you stood up? Yeah? Any what's going on? Hes tired?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: I'm getting smoked out. I've been getting smoked out, so
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get out of there. You mean you
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: know your body makes it, Eddie. Yeah, it's not from
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: the fire. Oh, because you're really sensitive to Ron cigarette smoking. Yeah, cigar,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: small cigar, place than run smoke some run. Ron's only
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: I've ever met my entire life the chain smoke, swish
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: or sweets. Oh, you got to give it a try.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm like, that's all you got, Yanni. You're getting
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: sick of that smoke. Yeah, Ron, I would like to say,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: as a lifelong bird hunter, how frustrating it is to
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: try to do I feel like the guy I used
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: to take guys to South Dakota after I had my
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: learning curve, and I take friends of South Dakota, you
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: know a couple of them, Steve m And within sometimes
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: a half a day they start going, well, you know
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: what we ought to try, you know, And I found myself,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: like talking to Garrett today while we're walking overthinking the
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: hell out of it, you know, like, Okay, you know
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: what we should say, No, you know what we should
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: I'll bet you it's this. It was so frustrating because
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: everything else I've hunted, it's kind of like I've never
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: hunted I've never hunted an applicant species, and it just
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: kind of today it just drove me a little mad,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: crazy thinking, Okay, this looks like really good cover, because
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: I think birds that need really good cover. And then
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: we talked to somebody like no, no, don't go into
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: waist high cover, going the knee high cover, and like
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: we have, but there's less cover here. Why wouldn't the
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: bird want more cover? And it was just it's a
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: very frustrating day. I'm I'm ready to go at it
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: again tomorrow. Already, my knees are dad ib profits kicked in.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: I feel good. I've had a beer. But I've never
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: hunted a species. Was that aggravating before? Yeah, I think
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: that It's the part of the problem is you look
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: out there, like normally when you're hunting a game bird,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: you pretty quickly learn to sort of identify where you
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: can rule out you know, of the area. Don't go
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: into the hardwoods after grouse. Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll find
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: focusing on things and you you sort of look at
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: and you just start seeing it in the way of
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: like that's where they're going to go. It could be
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: really simple like the sunflower patch for morning does or
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: could be just like you know, you just look into
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: uh an alder standard poplar stand and you're like, you
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: see the parts where the grouse that hang out, like
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: just some undergrowth, see a thorn apple tree and there, Yeah,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: there all food. The whole valley is food. It's yeah,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: it's it's very tough. When they're concentrating in the meadows,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: you can hit those, you know, but they've scattered, They've
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: they've moved around. Like I said, we were out here
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: last weekend hunting where I thought they would be pretty
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: predictive where I thought it to be and I've shot
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: him before and not to be had and they hadn't
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: been harassed by hunters and moved around. Yeah, so they
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: were moving around the landscape. Broody. What do you got, oh? I.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: I just think it's pretty important to reiterate how especially
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: for a lot of guys that are big game hunters,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: how linked stage gross are too so much more popular
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: game animals like mule deer and antelope, Like, if you
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: like shooting giant mule deer bucks, you should be worried
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: about sage grass also, I think, so, don't you. I mean,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: wherever sage grass live, a good chance it's mule deer
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: winter range. And you know we've been looking at nice
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: antelope bucks the whole time we've been here too. So
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Michael Cling thought, I don't know accounts accounts of the thought,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: it's never very complete, has a question mark on the
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: end of it. It's like, I hope that I want
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: to believe in the idea that industry and wildlife can
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: continue to find a way to work together. When I
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: was young, before I got I developed the pragmatism that
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: comes with age. When it comes with age, I had,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: like I you know, I was acutely aware of environmental issues,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: and you know, in my twenties, and my solution was
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: that you would just destroy every road and and revert
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: everything back into like a pure wilderness. Over time you
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: started to be like, you know what, And I still
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: love you know, I I love the idea of that,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: But you go like that's not gonna work because people, um,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: including myself, we you fossil fuels, we have families, we
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: have jobs, we have income we need to support. Yeah,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: it's like it's like, you know, it's just we rely
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: on minerals, we rely on fossil fuels. Our economic health
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: depends on those things. And when you become if you
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: become a student of the world, you realize that one
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: of the worst things that can happen to wildlife is
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: societal impoverishment. Impoverished societies, Impoverished societies who have, you know,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: sustain endemic levels of unemployment, failed states. Okay, impoverished societies
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: do not do well with wildlife. Africa. Now, I remember
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: going to like, you know, I remember going to the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Philippines bringing my and being like, holy smokes, is this
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: gonna be good fishing? Right the Philippines coral reefs, seven
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: thousand islands. Dude, you can't find a fish. It's like,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: impoverished cultures that don't have strong leadership wildlife suffers immensely.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, yes, there is a great benefit to wildlife,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: to having an economically strong society of people who earn
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: a livable wage. It just is like It's hard to explain,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: but there's a correlation there. Wealthy wildlife is luxury that
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: can be supported by wealthy societies. So I've come to overtime,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: really root for our ability to be an advanced, wealthy
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: society that can attack things like poverty and can attack
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: unemployment and still find a way to coexist with sustainable
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: amounts of wildlife. And I think that watching right now,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: you can watch a handful of things play out. What's
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: happening in with with fisheries, redfish or red snapper, like
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: various fisheries in the Gulf States. You look and you
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: you you see that struggle um looking at wolves, grizzly bears,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: sage grouse in the West, you see the struggle where
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: it's You might take a superficial look and be like, oh,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: it's industry against wildlife and their diametrically opposed. But then
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: as you get a little more like if you get
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: a little more nuanced, a little more complex look at it,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: you realize that the struggle is finding the technologies in
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the intelligence and the restraint to allow those two things
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: to function together. It's not that one is going to
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: defeat the other. It's that you're gonna find a way
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: two allow them to come together. I heard a guy
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: talking about climate change and he was saying that the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: answer isn't gonna be personal restraints. The solution will wind
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: up being technological. It won't be because some people canceled
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: their vacation because they didn't want to fly on a
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: plane because they didn't want to increase their carbon footprint.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: It'll be because like technology, something fixes it. Yeah, that
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: we think of, you know, and you just it's like
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: I just want and like we're saying, like, you know,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: very like drilling technologies. If you want to get interested
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: in wild life, it's like you might also kind of
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: become interested in drilling technologies and in all these other
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: things that make it so uh just make it frustrating.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: And what you wind up not having is and it's
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: and it's really refreshing to have him. It feels great
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: is having bad guys and like the world, you know,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: there's just not a lot of there are some there
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: are not a ton of real bad guys. I agree,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are focused on some
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: aspect and they might weigh things differently, and you're trying
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: to talk to them, be like, yeah, I agree what
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: you're talking about is important, but can you just tip
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: it a little bit towards what I'm talking about. I'm
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: not asking you to ignore what you're talking about, but
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: just listen a little it's what I'm saying too. That's
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: where the extremes on both ends of this particular issue,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: to me, have been mildly marginalized because a lot of
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: people came together to seek that balance, because without the
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: public support of any of this, we don't have conservation
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: in this country. I mean, if you asked a basic
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: question of the population, would you be willing to pay
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: ten cents a gallon more for sage grouse? What do
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: you think the answer would be? I would say absolutely absolutely,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: They would know I would say that I would, Yeah,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: you and I would. But I think the majority of
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the public would say, now in the context that question,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: and but I think when you put that bigger picture
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: perspective and that balanced ideal out there about what these
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: ecosystems really provide, then they may they would understand general
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: public what you're saying. Would you pay it ten cents
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: more for stage grouse? Probably not. Would you pay ten
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: cents more for three hundred and sixty species that rely
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: on a certain system. Can we do nine? I'm up
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: for nine? Uh yeah. Final thoughts has been marriage advice
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: anything like that. No marriage advice. I've been married ten
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: years now, so good for you. Yeah, Ed Coker sand
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: Hill crane. That's a bird at uh that's a bird
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: that won't menu around. And now they're doing pretty good. Yep,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: doing good. Just uh, we do appreciate you having with
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: you guys. I uh appreciate what you do. The I'm
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: glad you got out to experience this eCos to him
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: because it's something else and so far, so far, our
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: party hasn't reduced stage gross population one bit at all. See,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: it's a fraction of the mortality. That's where they get
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: that hunter. Hunter has not much impact on the space.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: These hunters, Steve and I have not had zero impact.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: Like we looked into it and they don't do Steve
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: wrote me an email. I got a last conclusion with
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: Steve wrote me, you know, you know when we get
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: out there, maybe we should social restraint and came up
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: with like maybe we should just shoot just get one.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get one, And I wrote you back, let's
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: find one first, and that's what we're still doing we're
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: still trying to find a better day. Wise words, all right,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: thanks for listening.