Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 052: Upper Bitterroot, Montana. Steven Rinella talks with Idaho game warden Eric Crawford, big-game guide Remi Warren, and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew.

Transcript

Ep. 052: Upper Bitterroot, Montana. Steven Rinella talks with Idaho game warden Eric Crawford, big-game guide Remi Warren, and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew. · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: can't predict anything. Uh, you know you're you're you're mature
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: when you can sit down with a game warden, I'd
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: be real nervous. Are you not nervous? No, I'm not
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: nervous at all. Yanny, I noticed little fidgety. He's fidgety
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: like he's hiding something right now? Um? Eric, Yes, yeah,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Eric Crawford introduced yourself, Eric Craford. We'd call you a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: game warden. Is that what you like to go by you?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You can call me a game warden. I guess professionally
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: referred to as a conservation officer, fish cop. That's one
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of the many terms and endearingly Yeah, yeah, exactly. So
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you would so, so give your official title, Like what's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: your business cards say on it? It would say regional investigator.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Actually so and so of in Idaho and you have
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: so you have a region within the state. Yeah, I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: work out of the Clearwater region, which is kind of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: central central north central Idaho. What does like a regional investigator?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: So you're not out driving around in a marked pick
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: up with a gun on your whole you know. Yeah,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it's not your deal. I am not. No, I more
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of a I guess you could say, uh, support function
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to the uniform officers now, UM a bit more of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a technical expertise. Whether it's with search warrants, UM, writing them,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: are executing them, and also um electronic Um, I guess
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you could say evidence. So whether it's UM stuff associated
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: with those search warrants, say cell phones and search as
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the cell phones and or electronic surveillance more of a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: passive passive type stuff. Hey, Yanni, who was real quick though?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Rammy's here, Remmy Warren, how's it going? Uh, command Master Hunter,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Rammy Warren. We're actually hunting with Remy right now. Taking
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a little break. Um, Remmy, tell them all about you
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: got a ball today? Yeah, I shot a nice bold today.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I've heard some words. I never thought Steve would say, Hey,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: why don't you shoot first? That's my I try to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: like be generous man. I don't know. Last time I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: felt you were like you're like step back, I'm gonna shoe.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: He was worried about your years. Yeah exactly. No, Actually,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: last time I think you used me as arrest once. Yeah,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I believe that I was usually as arrest today. Ye
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: should have? Actually, um, it was the Rammy got a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: bold day? That was fun? Uh? Where was everything appeared
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to be legal? H. We're not in your jurisdiction though,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: but you still like to sniff around. I still have
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: brothers over here that I can sniff around. We actually
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: even we even abided by rules. They don't even exist anymore.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Just in case the ones that are ingrained in you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: cut the tag before you do anything. And even though
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: they've changed the lingo a little bit, Montana, but did
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you uh had you spent time as a Oh let
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: me ask this first? Raise your hand. You've had violations.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I've had two violations, but their PFD violations the same
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: place Open Day duck season two years in a row.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I got tickets for not having a p f D.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And hear me out. We were only using the canoe
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to put decoys in because it was so shallow. We
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: would just wear our waiters and dragged the decoys in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: the canoe. Get a ticket, canoe and no life things.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like, but we're not even good warning, no seventy
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: five ticket. We're like, but we're not using the like
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: we're just and so the next year. I'm like, what
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the chance that happened twice? Get done? Dog on a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: different gentleman pulls in rights just the same day ticket.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: So that's my only that's not only bad violations? Now,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: n what kind of what all violations have you had?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It wasn't really me, but I was involved in violation.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I'm a little embarrassed to tell it because I'm kind
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of gonna throw my dad under the bus. Your dad,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: dad is a violator? Well, to get me hunting, Yes,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: dad is also honest out of state. We uh, with
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: everybody being names honest, we had like basically added like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a different dad in a different state once and it
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: caught up to us. Oh jeez, you honest. That's a
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: that's a residency issue. Is what we call that? A
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: wrong class license? Which is pretty serious. Yeah, yeah, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: i'd have it's a mandatory revocation. Oh is that right? Yeah?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: For how long? Minimum? One year? Good? Because we were
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: just in our pre discussion we were talking about some
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: we'll get to this, we're looking at some violations and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the fines and uh, yeah, I didn't know. Were quite
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: surprised that it seemed pretty lenient some of the fines. Yeah,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: if we were playing like prices right on violations, I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: would have guessed I would have been throwing out numbers
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: way higher. Yeah, and some of that stuff hasn't been
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: adjusted for inflation, right, Um, So that that's for sure.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But if there's no if there's no if the if
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the finals the goulopment twenty years, it winds up seeming
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: like very outdated. It would, it would. But so when
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you think about penalties, you know, so penalty is coming
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to two forms, financial or loss of privileges, and so
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: mainly that many of the prosecutors kind of way that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in their consideration of what they're gonna either pleaded out
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: or try to get for a penalty. So I mean,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: sometimes money doesn't mean anything to anybody, but losing privileges does.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So privileges anymore are far reaching because of this thing
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: called the Wildlife Violator Compact, which you explain that see
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: we're getting backlogged and things you need to explain. But
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: since run that explain next, that's good stuff. Man. So
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: there's I believe it's up to forty two states now,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: is it really? Yeah? I remember it was just like
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the West and Pennsylvania or something like. Yeah, yeah, but
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: now there's there's forty two states. I believe it's up
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to forty two. Um, and so if you're revoked in
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: one of those states, you're revoked in all those other states.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Can I go out on a limb, out on a
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: limb and say that Texas is not one of the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: forty two I don't. I don't know which which aren't.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: They're getting there though, I can just picture and being like,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: not on that list. Yea, we need a fact checker.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: See which my friend Doug Durn's real good at him?
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: He's not here right now? Are already check? Yeah? I could.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I can think of a handful of digital radio programs
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: that could use a staff fact checker. Um, you look
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: that up right of me, Remy's on it. Your report
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: back to us, Remy, So it isn't. Doesn't Wisconsin dear
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: season open like shortly? You know? Yeah? My friends Wisconsin
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: are always shocked when I don't when I have to
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: double check about when it opens. But it's like some
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Saturday that could be this Saturday. So uh so, yeah,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you lose your privileges of one state, and you lose
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: them in forty two states. Yeah, and that that started
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: in the West right did. Yeah, Idaho it was one
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: of the original members of the compact. And so you
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: can understand why it started in the West, because who
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: comes to hunt the West a lot of the times,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you know, easterns exactly. And so if they just they
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: just bump out into the next state. Yeah, if they
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just get go back to their eastern state, and we're like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: who cares? You know, I'm revoked in Idaho, alorade on
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: my home state. Yeah, now now it's far reaching. Yeah,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: so let me back up to somethings. I wanted to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: get some clarity out, sketch off me real quickly, like, like,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: how how you became what you are? So you went
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you studied what in school? So yeah? So I uh um,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: so I have an associates and environmental studies and bachelor's
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and fisheries. So I grew up back east. I went
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: to college and upstate New York first int and then
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: back to Pennsylvania to a state school. And then when
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I was completing my uh my senior year and my bachelor's, um,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I had to I was in the senior seminar class
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and I had to look for jobs. You know, you
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: learned to write a resume and all that, and then
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the focus of the class is looking for jobs pretty
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: much and writing resumes. And so I had already spent
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a summer in southeast Alaska on an internship, and so
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I knew, I knew I wanted to come back west,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: even though Alaska is a little bit different than Idaho.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: But I learned pretty quick that after our stint in Alaska,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be nearly as fun going back, just because
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of what we were doing and all the things we
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: got to do. And so it just happened to apply
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: for a job in Idaho and came out and worked
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: as a fishery seasonal for two years. Yeah yeah, and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: then uh, and then a wildlife seasonal for two more.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: So many guys I know that wound up doing fishing
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: wildlife work would do those seasonal star yeah. And that's
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: what like signing on the research programs, yea, And that's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: what That's what pretty much everybody does. That's pretty much
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: your foot in the door. That it's not how it works,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: it just you know, you need to gain experience somehow.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And so you know, I worked back east in New
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: York State for as a fisheries technician first a season
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and then went to Alaska and then came to Idaho,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and so I had a little bit of a resume building,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and so it just built here. And quite honestly, when
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I when I got to Idaho, I had no intentions
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to being a game warden whatsoever. And so I one
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: of the seasons I worked in wildlife, I was trapping bears,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: black bears, um for research. We're using Aldrich snares to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: do it. And so one of the game wardens came
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: out to work with me, and I've known him for
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a couple of years, trapping bears out in the woods,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: trapping bear? Is it out in the middle, out in
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the middle of it? What kind of snares? Yeah, yeah,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: foot snare yeah. And so one of the game wardens
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: came out and was helping me, and and so he
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: had had a master's scree. So the unwritten rule in
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the agency is that you have to have a masters
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: as a minimum to be a biologist. You know, there
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: certainly are other avenues to do that, and so um,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: he had a masters and I couldn't understand why I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: was in game warden. And so here we are sitting
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: on a river eating lunch and he and he it
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: was yeah, he just like, listen, what we're out here,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: where's your supervisor in the office. You know, we're out
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: doing the fun stuff. And light came on. I was like, yeah, heck, yeah, yeah,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I should probably be a game warden. And the kind
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of you know, that was sixteen years ago. So yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: just because of that little lunch on the river with
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the game warden wash it was it was so, did
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you for a while become a game warden? What do
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you call the verse? Like a what do you call
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a warden? New is just out in his patrol vehicle,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: checking license, just a regular So it would be, uh,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you start out in Idaho as a conservation officer when
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you first come on, and you're in that position for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: about a year, and then you jump up to a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: senior conservation officer and so that would be the actual,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: uh uniform function, the patrol function where you have a
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: patrol area and this is kind of a and you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: did that for a while. Yeah, for the vast majority
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of my career. UM I worked as an investigator for
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: almost five years in another region and then came back
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to investigations just a few years ago. But the vast
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: majority of my time was in uniform, and so I've
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: had the pleasure of working all around the state so far.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: But the the interesting thing in Idaho, Um, there's only
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: seventy seven uniform officers and so on. Average uniform guy
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: has eleven square miles to patrol in the state Idaho,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: so bigger, you know, yeah, huge and eastern standards. Have
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you ever figured out the ratio of hunters per per
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: per square miles? No hunters per war so yeah, I'm
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: not sure how many. I think we don't even know
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: how many hunting licenses first per yeah, which oh yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the states Texas gets a little redemption because of a Delaware, Hawaiian, Massachusetts, Nebraska,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and New Jersey not on the list. Yeah, those are
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the ones that aren't on there. And it looks like
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: most of them, except for Nebraska and maybe New Jersey,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: are in the process of changing. Huh. There you go. Um,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: so now you're gonna work on how many lights? Yeah?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The ratio of hunters per officers. Now, someone was recently saying,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to be honest, he's a conservation officer, was saying, to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: be honest, right, He's like, I don't need to go
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: out in the field anymore. I got Facebook. Yeah, it
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: certainly can be a tool. And it's kind of funny
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: because the the younger officers, I mean, they like being
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: on there. I don't have the patience for it. But
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: it's we've gotten to a society that, you know, likes
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to promote themselves, and some of society isn't necessarily as
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: smart as they should be with what they promote, you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and UM in a way, in the sixteen years that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I've been a CEO, things have changed drastically in those
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: sixteen years of UM people's motivations and whatnot to to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: violate and some of its self promotion. And I want
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to be want to be known. That's what those boys
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: said down in um oh not in Kentucky. Where do
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: we cross the river? And went into? Was what state
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: do we go into? Was it Ohio? No? Should Rember
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky? I thought we'd call swamp route. We were
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: still in Kentucky. Anyways. They were with wardens that worked
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: both sides of the river. But yeah, I was like
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: they kept talking about these rings and like these guys
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: were they were drug eithers, right, Yeah, and they bust
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: up this poaching ring and I'm trying to think like,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: why is there a poaching ring? And finally, so I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: asked like, well, why are they a poaching He's like, oh,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: just so they can brag. Yeah, And sometimes you see,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you know, as far as a poaching ring, I mean,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I haven't been exposed to a ring, but you'll definitely see.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: You know, there's value in wildlife, whether it's in the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: sale of the meat or the sale of the antlers.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, antlers are worth a lot of money either
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: if you're selling them by poundage. Do you ever catch
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: anyone who's selling meat? Uh? We have knowledge of people
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: that are selling meat. Yeah, yeah, into what like how
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: they're going about it? So um advertising on craigs List.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Oh no, ship really sometimes And I thought you saying
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: at one time went to this dinner. I went to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: this dinner one time down and it was in Charlotte,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. Is that kind of like a like a
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: not a hippie dippie town, but like kind of like
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a cool little town. Oh it's a giant city of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the South. I was in some cool little town in
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. Yes, that's it. Who said that? You google
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: cool little town in North Carolina? So yeah, I was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: there and I go to this thing. This guy's having
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: his wild game dinner and I'm already smelling a fish
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: because he's selling tickets to it. So he's charging seventy
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: five dollars a plate to have a wild game dinner.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And you come in there and he said, I had
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: kind of been in on this from the ground, like
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you can't do that, Like I know people do it
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: for fundraisers. So this guy it comes out and says, oh,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we're doing it as a fundraiser for the trc P.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: So I quickly called t rc P and I'm like, hey, man,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: tell me when the donation comes in from it never
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: came in. But here's what kind of messed it up too,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: is the dude serves one of the dishes and he said, oh,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it's alligator snapper from such and such river, and you know,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: as you know, there's you know, you're not there's not
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: a harvest on alligator snappers out there right now. And
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I later learned he was way off. There are no
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: alligator snappers in that river. So no, I don't know
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: if the whole thing was just a sham. Do. I mean,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like he's just selling whatever and acting like it's yeah,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And we don't. Would you mean you don't see somebody
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that that is that? Yeah, that is that out out there.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: What we see kind of nowadays is pretty much the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: sale antlers or the sales meat, but it's mainly associated
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: with with drugs, say meth. You know somebody that's a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: meth user. It's easy to get antlers, it's easy to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: get um trying to raise mo Yeah, somebody that's an addict,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you know. For example, So a couple of years ago,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I get a call. It's January. It was like a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: January tenth or so, get a call from the local dispatch. Um,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I guess we got it from our Citizens Against Poaching
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: hotline that this person was calling in to report a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: guy was going out to help his buddy um retrieve
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a moose. Now, moose season had been closed for for
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: months January tenth. There's no big game season other than
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: lying open at that time of the year. And so
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: lo and behold, we go out there in the middle
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of the night and actually contact these two guys. And
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: so the interesting thing was that the guy that was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: doing the shooting, he had an appearance two days from
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: then for possession of meth. Oh really yeah, And so
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: those are the kind of people that you deal with,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: you know. He wanted he thought he's gonna sell the hit.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he was thinking, you know, but
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: it was probably Yeah, and he they didn't have a moose,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they didn't harvest the moose. Um they had shot it deer.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was very apparent you could throw snow
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in the ground, and so you could. They had spotlights
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it was he uh, you know, he was
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: hitting up on the hill when we got there, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: it's pitched dark, so it's a little bit of a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: safety issue, you know. And so he ended up coming
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: out and then uh ended up finding his backpack, backtracking
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: him in the snow and finding his backpack and then
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: going through it. He had this uh fairly family hairloom
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: twenty two with a contractors laser electrical tape to the barrel. Dude,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that's a good idea. Yeah, But then here was the getter.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: So and then he had a knife and it was
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it was lock blade. So he opened it up and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: on it says poacher and there's a whole bunch of
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: hashtags on it. No ship. Yeah, and he claims that
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: somebody gave it to him. But that that kind of
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: explains the mind of people, you know that. I mean,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it's the things that we see as officers or game wardens.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Are a lot of people you couldn't even dream it up,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you know. But what's the what's the most common what's
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the most common violation? So generally, as a patrol guy,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it would be like fishing without a license. You know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: somebody's just gonna go fish and you know, take their chance.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: You're just gonna write there ticket all day long. Yeah,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: all day long. What's the most common hunting related violation? Uh,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: probably evidence of sex, you know, and sometimes you gotta
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: do you know. So you know, as a uniform guy,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: you're looking for compliance. Right. It's a great day when
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: everybody is compliant, you know, and then you want to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: balance that with deterrence, right, So you got to present
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this tarade that you're everywhere all the time, you know,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to to so people don't violate because they're afraid they're
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: gonna get caught, right, But if they know they're not
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: going to get caught, then there's no motivation to not violate.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: That's what that's Elder Leopold's famous line is ethics. You
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: know you're hunting ethics are what you do when you
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: know you won't be called and so yeah, a term
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: that I use anymore. Our situational ethics, you know, and
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: so um, each situation dictates at the ethics. And so
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: during the course of my career, you see different ethics
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: depending on which part of the state you might work in.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: You know, we had a uh, the Citizens Against Poaching
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: program have a bunch of trailers with a bunch of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: seized um heads in them. Tax there mad you know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and stories related to it. And so we were running
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: one of those trailers in a in a small rural
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: town and this very nice older gentleman came up and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: was thanking us for the job that we did, and um,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: so on and so forth. But then he stopped and said,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I don't care how how hard you boys work. It's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: just a way of life here. That's what we do
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: as poach. You know. It's just like it kind of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: takes the wind out of your sales. You're like, hey,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: thanks for being so appreciative, but thanks for telling us
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that we're not having a we're not being you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: deterring your your behavior. And it's just kind of how
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it how it rolls, you know, and so you just
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: got to balance at deterrence and compliance. You know, like,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: for example, I'm a field training officer, so I get
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: to train newer CEOs and so, you know, you might
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: have a close season elk for instance, and solve the case.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So you collect some kind of firearms evidence, ballistics evidence
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and link it all up and the whole cases is solved.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: You know who your suspect is, they get prosecuted. But
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the thing that I related to a young officer is
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: we might have caught the bad guy, but that elk
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: is still dead. Yeah, it's not walking around anymore, you know.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And that's what you know, hopefully, that's what you want
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to do, is having much of a terrence factor so
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that stuff doesn't happen. My older brother, um, he's half
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: probably like my my father had a son long you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: he was a grown man by the time I was born. Um.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: He was a game ward in Colorado and he once
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: worked a case where a guy was colvert trapping black
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: bears but then selling them to clients. Jeez, but what
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: do you do is he opened the door on the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: colvert and the client and shoot the bear when it
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: come out of the thing, and he had all these
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: pictures he showed me where he stakes it out with
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the camera where the guys releasing the bear and the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: guy opens the colvert and the bear runs out the guy.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: The shooter misses the bear, so the bear just gets away,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: but he goes and takes the guy to court and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: presents it. And only he got the guy on with
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: something because the guy never killed the bear. It was
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like some dischargeing a firearm or yeah, and sometimes there
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: was no dead animal. Yeah and no, no, it was
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the guy got a legal transport of wildlife. Oh the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: guy that was trap and so yeah, some of that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: You know, you gotta look at the code. You know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that's what we enforces um Idaho code. It's specifically Title
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: thirty six. And so as an officer, you have to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: really learn the definitions. So um, you know, the definition
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of like take is all encompassing. You know, it's uh
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: any attempt to do so you know, it's pretty much
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: how it sums it up, you know, the pursuit actually hunting.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It's it's very broad. And so knowing that you understand,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you get a better understanding how you need to react
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to a certain situation in the field, like when you
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: see Interregg's attempt to take, yeah, attempt to take Yeah. No,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: so you don't have to actually kill something, yeah, exactly
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to do it when uh so, not
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: leaving evidence of sex on a quartered out animal is
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a very common violation. Yeah, it is. And a lot
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: of times it's just somebody gets carried away and drops
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the necessary items off, you know, when they're skinning it
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: or quartering it. And so it's just one of those
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: things you can use it as an educational tool. Yeah,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: what's another What are the more common ones? Is want
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and waste common or not common? It's not so common.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Um so you see good compliance, sir, you do, you do,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: you do, And it's kind of interesting. So in that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: same little rural town, you know, you try to make
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in roads. You know, the success of a of a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: uniform guy really relies on um their relationships. Right, So
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: if they appreciate, at least in my experience, if they
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: appreciate you beyond just being the game warden. You know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: if you if if they see that you're treating everybody
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the same, you know, then they're going to give you
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit more respect. And so but for whatever reason,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and in those rural towns they're like, hey, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: people gotta eat. As long as they're not wasting it,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it's none of my business, you know, And it's you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, listen, you know that might have been
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the case back in the depression years, but there's lots
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of programs anymore where you know, you can get meat
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: to fill your freezer, you know, other than poaching the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: state's wildlife, you know, And it's I mean, in the end,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: it's it's all of our wildlife, right, you know, whether
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you're a licensed buyer or not, or appreciate wildlife in general.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And so that's kind of the sad thing to you know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you can't break it, get over that hump with them.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: You know. It's just like it's more than like if
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: someone's using it needs it. It's I think people would
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: argue that it's in the rules. Man. Do you does
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Idaho have the deal where shooting trophy animals is way
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: worse than Yeah, they're they're they're associated with trophy penalties.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So break that down for people. So in Idaho there's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a general civil penalty, and so I believe and I
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: can't rattle off to the actual numbers. But I think
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it's a like for an elk, it would be just
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: generally elk, it would be a seven or fifty dollar
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: civil penalty. Okay, that's what's assessed. I think that's right
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: on a fact checks. Go, yeah, I got it that
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: we got for the for the game warrings, the closer
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I can finally just broken down by a number of people,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: California is the worst, uh for game wardens per hunter. Yeah,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it's um d eighty five thousands, and then Montana had
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: In contrast, Montana has about undred, and Wyoming is hundred.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Alaska has one for every Yeah about those and that's
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: just that's just population that's not actual. Then you can
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: you can kind of draw some conclusions from there. Yeah,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: so of the population hall but then a California has
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: one of the lowest participation rates exactly, so one New
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Jersey California. So we're we're oh, yeah, so shooting big
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: critters compared little critters. Yeah, and so then it it
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: jumps up. Okay, so, uh, like a trophy, what would
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: it be a trophy which is bounces off of the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Boone and Crockett definition of trophy, it would be what
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the minimum is for antler size UM, with the exception
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of any sheep, any mountain goat, any moose, um, any caribou,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: mountain caribou. They those have specific there's no trophy associated
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: with it, just straight up um ten dollar trophy five yeah, yeah, yep.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And so so what okay? Why that? Why is it
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: seven and sixty for an elk and ten thousand for
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a mountain goat? So that would be just for so
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: if they take um and I should have the numbers
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in front of me, I don't want to miss quote them.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But so a uh so like a cow ow close season,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: it would be seven fifty al right, that would be
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the civil penalty. But if it was a bull elk
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and it was trophy, I think it jumps up to
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: two thousand and so those are those inflation numbers, right,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: They may not have been they haven't been adjusted forever,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: you know, but but it is. It is trying to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: send a message, is trying to differentiate the pot hunter
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: but from the guy who's the swinging, dick bragging hunter. Well,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I think it just I don't think that's really the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: necessarily intention of it. You know, It's just I think
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: that society or hunters value trophy animals more, you know,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and so there's just more value placed on those individual
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: animals as compared to a cow, elk or a dome ule,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: deerra white house. So you don't think it's a way
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to like be leaning on people who are shooting portion
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: for meat. No, No, not at all. It's just the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: value system, the value of the animals to the state. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: And so you know, and all of that is you know,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it's ida whole law, and so it's it's enacted by
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: the legislature of the state and so which you know,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: do as the people want theoretically, and so that's how
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: those things come about. Do you feel that, um, And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to put you in any kind of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: situation where you're, you know, where you're saying stuff you
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: should say, or you know, we're walking to five a line.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But do you feel that people in enforcement such as yourself,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: do they generally feel that, man, we should be um
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: having steeper penalties or should this you know, I can't
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: believe this guy got off with this amount of money
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: or do you generally feel like that the punishment fits
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the crime? So I think generally you don't even have
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to break it down in into terms of enforcement personnel
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: or somebody else, you know. I mean, even you just
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a second and said, man, why why is it so low?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I mean so I think the general
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: public would would think, you know, depending on how egregious
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the crime is. And you see it all the time,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: you know, on the internet anymore, that people are are
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: very hyped up when there's good penalties. I mean you'll
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: see it. It'll it'll hit the internet and it's great
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and people are happy with that, and you know, or
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: if it's a bad penalty, I mean you'll see that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: on the internet, you know, in social media that man,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: why didn't you get more of a fine or more
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: of a revocation? And so, you know, it's it's as
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: much of a It's kind of interesting because here we
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: are as as sportsman, and we we do our part
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: in conservation, but there's one more staff and that's you know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: we always talk about biology as a course of conservation,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: but rarely do we talk about enforcement, you know, And
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: so that's more of a way for the public to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: get involved as enforcement, not only reporting violations, but taking
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: note to these penalties that are assessed and even you know,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: doing what ever to enhance the penalties. Yeah, you need
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: telling about the violation we reported the other night. M M.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It's a long story. We just have to be hunting
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: near a populated area, but you just happen to have
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: national forests, like, you know, right behind folks houses. And uh,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Steve had never been in that situation, so he's a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: little uneasy about it. I'm like, yeah, but it's like
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: it's fine, Like we're following the rules, like it's all good,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you know. It's like, yeah, as long as you're not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: killed elk there, killed elk there, killed elk there. There's
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a sign where on national forest. Yeah, as long as
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: you don't like shoot at the elk when the houses
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: are you know, on the other side of the elk. Yeah,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: being like national forest, but you're perched up above like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a small town. And I also said, I said, there's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: some locals running around here that no matter what, how
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: would it kind of mistake we could possibly make. They've
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: already done it and probably done in tenfold and not
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: what ten gooifteen minutes later we hear shots ring out
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and we're like ship that's closed. Were like, I'm thinking
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: about hitting the dirt. Yeah, and we finally find shots,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: find the origin of these shots, and we see a
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: dude running like we couldn't really see where he was
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: taking the shots from, but we see him running down
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: the road back to his truck. No orange John, No
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: running down the road with the right cars blowing past. Yeah,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: go ahead, Yeah, throws his rifle in the truck, put
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: his orange on. In Colorado, you have to have a
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: hat on. Doesn't put a hat on, then grab his
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: rifle and more AMMO and continues to go up the hill.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: But we don't know if he was He might have
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: been from the center line, which is yeah. But then
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: he finagles is way back down to the road, touches
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: off six more rounds to make a total of ten rounds.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And then the next time I shined my look like
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a my binoculars down there, he's been visited by police officer. Yeah,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: And it's it's amazing how people just lose their mind
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: over over wildlife. I mean, it's just it's kind of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: startling that that they they would do that. You know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: It's like I have a little respect for for the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: wildlife and fair chase for that matter, you know. And
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't understand it. Do you know? Have
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: you read or heard of a UM prominent conservationist and
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: author named Jim Postil. It's by chance I had occasion
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to interview him for a movie project. A film project
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: will inherit the Hunt right beyond Fair Chase, Yeah, which
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is that's a staple and hunter education now UM interviewed
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: him for a documentary we're doing? What do you guys
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: going on over there? Remy? I was just checking things,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't find the fines or any of that.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: But there is a regulation book sitting right there somewhere
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: if you see it, just on the check anything do
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: because I know you've been busy and you've been doing
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a great job. But is there anything you need to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: add at this point? Well, I think with some of
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the violations, you know, the fines even like say these
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: trophy areas or whatever, I would think, why don't they
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: just open it up to an auction. See how much
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: someone would pay for that tag? Because I know it's
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: quite a bit more than they're paying for the fines
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: for the charge that so they double so somebody gets
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a tag next year for that to do the shot
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: has to pay that. Yeah, they dude, they got that
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: gigantic buck off that winter range arian Wyoming. Yeah, that's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a hundred thollar bucked. Right, Why don't why don't we
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: let the market decide what that guy's finest auction off
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: one tag? And that's the thing. I mean, you think
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: about how valuable wildlife is anymore, and I mean that's
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: how that's how civil penalty should be assessed, you know,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: as what you know, granted, more people, some people have
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: more money than others, but I mean market value of yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: because it's a lot more than three thousand or two
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: thousand all what I mean. You know, in some of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: these places, people are paying ten times that to go
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: shoot something like that? Can hear? Somebody stole it from
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a guy that could have drawn that tag on his own,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and now you know he's taking from everyone and it's
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: not it doesn't seem like the return is the same
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: as especially if it's something that was intentional and he's
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: set out that day to go make that violation. Yeah,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that's nothing I want to ask you about. But let's
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: make this gym possible this point real quick. Um. He
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: said something to me when I was talking to him
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that it's really really uh stuck with me. We're talking
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: about like unethical hunting practices, but I think it's appropriate
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: for poaching too. He's like, why why it's so offensive?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: As he was explaining, is is that we've created like
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the symbol of American wildlife. Okay, So an elk, for instance,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: has its value because of this system we've created around
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: it where it's like this wild animal that takes a
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: skill set and effort to go get Okay, it's elusive,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it's hard. You have a lot of areas where success
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: rates are ten or right, So the elk value was
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: created by a monitored system of wildlife management. Okay, it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: there's an exclusivity to the animal, right. Yeah. And when
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: you when you cut corners to get it, what you're
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: chasing after is the value that was created by the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: legitimacy of the pursuit. And you just want like you
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: want the symbolism and you're cashing in on the value
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: of something, but you're doing it in a way that
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: like completely disrespects where the value came from, Like a
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: shooting a gigantic bowl. It's like buying it's like buying
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a uh a fancy watch in downtown Manhattan. But you're
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: only paying bucks for it, you know what I'm saying.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: You kind of like, no, there's this company, Rolex. It
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: makes you so when people see that, they think, oh,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: this is a man of mean with taste and class. Yeah,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: but I just bought it for twenty bucks. And then
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: here I am, and now people are gonna think the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: same way about me. Yeah, and here I have a
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: two mule deer on my wall. And man, that's a
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: heck of a mule deer, you know. And that's the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: story behind cashing in on all the glory created by
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: all the dudes out there pounding the ground. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: And I got it, and it's yeah, and it's a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: great point that jim makes, you know. And I mean
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: we've we've done it to ourselves in society, you know.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: It's just that the value has gone up and up
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and up, you know, Jimmy and the else a remy
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: right now, that's it. But I'll jump in when I uh,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: you were you were just talking. And remember you made
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: a point about especially when you've got malicious intent, like
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: like clearly you like you did like accidentally poach. Yeah,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I've seen well I have a newspaper clipping in in
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a cookbook that I have at home that's got the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: picture of a dead lama in the back of a truck,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and this guy legitimately thought that it was an elk,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you know. And it's like, I mean, that's just plain stupid.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: But then I've been around here before and seeing people
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: driving into a check station or whatever, going oh, look
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: at this white tail I shot and it's a bifurcated
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: four by four in mule here You're going, oh my god,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: it's and so I mean nothing. I think there's like
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a non malicious intent, a true accident, and then just
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: plain stupid and plain stupids up with malicious intent but
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: not as much as an accident. Yeah there there. There
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: was this old game wording that I I used to
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: work work with and he since retired, but you know,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: he sease the old comparison. If it walks like a duck,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it's a duck.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: And so but he would replace duck with poacher, you know,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: And and so it's it. It's a very broad statement,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: but once you do, once you're a game word or
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: ceo for long enough, you kind of figure it out.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: There are those people that make honest mistakes, and so
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: you have to you know, handle those situations as an
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: educational opportunity. And then there's others that are premeditated and
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: malicious about it and and so. But it's a it's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a fine line that you walk trying to decide on,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: you know, but you do you do practice leniency? Oh yeah,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: absolutely if you know the mistake was made. Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: You you'd sent me a thing where a guy you'd
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: sent me a thing where you were observing some fishermen.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Didn't you send this to me? Someone said this to me.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I thought were like early communicating about you coming out,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and he said me a think where a guy had
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: um where a fisherman had like costs and fish and
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: had him on a stringer. Then act that was probably
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: in the magazine. Yeah, had a video. It was a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: magazine article. Yeah, it was an article, you said, Yeah,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a copy of the Idaho a Warden magazine. But a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: guy like a Warden observes of dude catching fish he
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to have probably gross over limits string and
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: then when the warden goes down, um, he's like catching No, Well,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: what's that string out there, and then the guy would
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: wait around act like he couldn't find it, and they'd
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: all got in a way, yeah, letting him off. Yeah,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and then the warden went out and probably found the
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: stringer right where he thought it was. So there you
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: got a guy he's like just outright bullshit, absolute intent, yeah,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: which would which would kind of like almost make it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: like personal. Yeah, but you can't. So that that's another
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: thing that you know, for young officers to understand that
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not personal. You know, um, yeah, you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: wear this uniform today, but and it probably is in
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: a front to to the uniform, you know, like hey,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get one over on the game warden, you know,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: but they don't look at the name tag. You know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: it's you're you're the guy in the green in the gray.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what our uniforms are in Idaho. And
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: so it's the guy or the gal in the green
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: in the gray. I'm gonna get one over on the union,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: on the the game warden. And that's all it is.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: You know, at night, you can't go home taking everything personal.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would drive you crazy, you know. You know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: it's just not a good way to conduct business, because
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: then you just get yeah, I mean they're still hunters,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: they're still fishermen, they're still licensed buyers. There are great
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: hunters and fishermen out there, you know, in in reality
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: almost upwards. If it's ly close to the contacts said
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that we as CEO is make don't involve violation. It's
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: just a regular compliance contact, which is is great. You know,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: it's what whether it's a fisherman or you go into
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a camp during the fall, I mean, there's no violations.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Everybody's compliant. I mean it. And do you even push
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: it further if you've built the relationship with those people
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and then you look how to look forward to seeing them?
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, look folks from such and such a back
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: camp down at that same spot. Oh man, they got
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: a new wall tent this year. So so you you
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: find you find yourself rooting for the people, Like you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: pull up, You're not like, man, I hope they have
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a violation. Yeah, absolutely not. But with that being said,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: when you get out of the truck, you're like, is
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: there a violation? You're not like, man, I hope I
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: get to write a ticket. Absolutely not. And if that's
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: how you're doing. If that's how you're doing your job,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you know that, oh I want to I want to
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: write a ticket, then that's a poor way of doing
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the job. If you get out of the truck and
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: say my job is for compliance and and if there's
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: a violation, I'm gonna find it without a DOLLA. But
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you don't like hope, man, I hope this next camp
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: has a violation. Hope I get a ticket. Yeah, that's
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: not that's not how we operate. So what about people
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: who come Let's just say a hypothetical that you like. Hypothetical. Okay,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: just so that I've seen half, I know what happens.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: You shoot a deer and you go there, there's two
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: deer landers. Did you know there's one behind the deer. Okay,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: guy comes to you and says, calls up, I got
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: a problem. Here's what happened. Do you? Is that different
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: to you? Let's say, okay, let's say this happens to
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: two guys. Both we just know because of omniscient knowledge,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: we know that both were accidental. One comes and tells
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: you about it. Now they're both accidental. One guy homes
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: and tells you about it. When you find out about
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: do you view those two situations differently? Absolutely? So, yeah,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: it happens a lot. And we have this discussion with
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: with people that violate, and as you know, you can
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: make a poor action worse by the way you respond
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: to it, you know, and so um, you can dig
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: yourself a much deeper hole. And if you would just
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: be honest and come forward right away, that hole would
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: not have gotten dug at all. Right, And so that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: guy that reported that accidental kill, Yeah, there's ways of
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: handle in that. And it doesn't always involve a violation
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: or writing a citations. But the guy that leaves the
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: other one on the hill and then just denies he
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: shot it, until you dig a bullet out and be like, yeah,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: this this to seventy lead you know, when what are
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: you shooting two seventy You don't, well, no, it couldn't
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: have in me. Was there anybody else here with you? No? No,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: well let's line up the shot here. And yeah, that's
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: how they handle the situation. And you can make matters
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: a lot worse, you know, And a lot of times
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: that you see that, you know, so you would say
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: like and not just doing your job, but it being
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: a just just being a guy you would say that
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it's better to call up and go I have a problem. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: And we see it all the time. A few times
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: that we had to call and we would call in
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: when we had a violation. Some you know, you'd leave
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a client. I was a guide in Colorado. We'd leave
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a client and uh, the guy shoot him, youle dear
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: dough once thought it was a you know, small small
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: cow elk and uh that I kept trying to think
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: what the other one was. But but twice basically the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: war came up and uh, look the whole situation over
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and was like, all right, pay for the processing, donate
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to meat, you keep keep you talk, keep hunting. Yeah,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like it was individual. You know, there's a there's kind
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of this this unwritten playbook. I guess you could say
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: how to handle those situations, you know, and a lot
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: of times that that's what you see an officer will do,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: is you know, or say that say that they do
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: shoot the elk um, they say they shoot a bull,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: but it passed through kills a cow case and now
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you have a cow on the hill. And so rather
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: than uh, you know, leaving that on there, they leaving
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: it on the hill, They call and report it. You
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: go up and be like, okay, well you guys need
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: to pack that thing down to my truck and we're
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: gonna take to the food bank. That's back to that
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: whole thing, that there's opportunities for people to get game
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: meat other than going out and poaching it, and so,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you know, and and paying for the processing you know, um,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and so that those are the way you kind of
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: handle those things. And it's a good way. I mean,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: it's a good way for everybody. You know. Actually, they
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: would always give us a choice. It was like that
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: or lose your license and you next year, Like yeah,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: I don't you know, yeah we we, I don't. We
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: don't give choices. It's a you know, because then it's
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: almost like extortion in a way, like hey, you know,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: you hold faster your decision. No, this is what I've
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: done fifty other times. This is what I do how
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I handle the situation. So does the bulk of your
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: the bulk of your more high profiles not the word
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for, um, but serious offenses. Okay, serious, I'm
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: moving away from accidents now. Okay, So if you look
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: at you know, over the last few years or whatever,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and you look at the bulk of your what you'd
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: call poaching cases, like intentional malicious intent poaching cases. Do
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: most of those cases originate from tip lines or do
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: they originate from just field work and having officers on
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the ground. Yeah, so that's a that's a rate question, Steve,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: because we in Idaho, UM, I think it was. We
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: had a study done on our law enforcement program done
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: by the University of Idaho, and that was actually UM
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the questions I got teased out
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: of how do you report violations? And so very few
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of the violations come from the cap line. Most of
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: them come from UM contact with an individual officer because
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: people aren't using the lines, but they don't know how,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: they don't know how to use them effectively. I mean,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the the cap line gets a pile of calls, but
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: when you you start teasing it out and you're like, well, jeez,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: this this isn't a this isn't a violet. You know,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: it's not a violation. You know, like, oh, I've I
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: see five dumped carcasses. Well, it's because somebody was too
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: lazy to take it to the dump and they wanted
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: to they didn't want to put it in their garbage
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: can because pickup wasn't until you know Tuesday, and today's
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Monday or you know, Wednesday of the previous week. So
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't want it sticking up, and so
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: they just take it and dump it something or to
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: hear a shot. They hear shot somebody hunting season exactly,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and so there's you know, that's kind of where it
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: all balances. So the tipline gets inundated with calls, but
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: not a lot of like real workable stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I mean it does get workable stuff. And they're very
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: very they're a great tool. And I would encourage anybody
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that witnesses a violation to call it. You know, in
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Idaho and I'm sure in most western states and they
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: there's a reward for reporting violations and that are successfully.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: In Utah, they've got a deal where if you report
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: a violation and it's convicted in a trophy unit, you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: receive a tag the next year. I don't think there's
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: anybody Henry's and just start lasting for violators, because I
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: would catch a violator probably quicker than night every draw tag.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: You're kidding me, No, that's a cool that's a great
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: way to get a take because like the money thing
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: just seems kind of biggest. But it's like, if I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: could have a tag here next year, well plus we
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: could do something. We get a guy that doesn't hunt anyway,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: send him in there to commit a crime, but see
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: glass him up, turn him in, he takes the fall,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and we get a sweet tag. Don't see you take
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: he gets the fall, You get the tag. Then I
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: report the conspiracy. The dominoes are beginning to fall. That's
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a great that's a great idea. Man. I wonder if
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: they've given out any tags yet. I don't know so,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: but a lot of those steve they It comes down
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to again, it comes back to those relationships. It's so
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: important as a field officer to But let me back here,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: because you were saying, so you were comparing tipline to
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: what to individual officer relationships and reports directly to officers. Okay,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: if I met officers just sniffing stuff out now reported,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: so people will all their officers. We still I mean
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: as far as reports, Yeah, there's far more that come
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: that are successfully prosecuted through officer contact than there is.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: So people being familiar with their officer, calling their officer
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: directly and saying, hey, here's what's up. Yeah, yeah, it's
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I've like watched a few people poaching before and breaking
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: numerous violations and called the tipline and it's just like
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: nothing happened. Then they came back the next weekend did
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the same exact thing, and I just called the local
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: officer and within matter of you know, an hour, the
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I was completely yeah, you've been charged and everything. Why
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: do you think that? Is? I the so this time
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of the year that the tip lines are inundated with calls,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and again they don't a lot of them don't add up,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and then um, there are a lot of them are
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: call centers, and so you're not getting all the information.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: And but it's just like I said, it's just having
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: that positive relationship in your communities and then people just
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: know that, you know, you're going to treat treat those
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the next person the same way, you know, and so
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: they're more willing to give you good information with reportable
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: violations that are prosecutable. Now, what was the uh, what's
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: been the worst like poaching case You've worked so over
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: sixteen years. Of course there's been all kinds. It just
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: runs the gamut. And and so it's kind of say,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: like what the worst is, you know, like memorable, memorable, interesting, worst,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: like just a handful. I mean every year it gets
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: more memorable. You know. It's like we're looking at those uh,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: those decoy videos. I mean, yeah, they're pretty they're egregious violations,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: and they're you know, I think that most people would
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: be appalled when they watch them. You know, so uh,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: showing us before we came out and showing us videos
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of a essays, Yeah, artificially simulated animals. Yeah. So basically, uh,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: when you got some people, you know, we're up to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: know good, you put out like a fake dear elk
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: and then just see what happens when they drive by. Yeah,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and this thing doesn't look like a target. This thing
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: looks like it's a good full taxidermy. Yeah. Yeah, which
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: is in that public opinion survey that we did, um
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: that is ranked as one of the lowest acceptable forms
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of enforcement that we use by the public. They think
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: it's entrapment. No, they don't think it's entrapment. They just
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: don't like to be duped. They don't like to be tricked,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: is how it goes. Yeah, Yeah, but I think they
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: had three It had a handful of cases that it's
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's on YouTube, right game. Yeah, Um, so
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: they got it there. They put one out at night
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: on a road and this some bitch knew what he
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: was doing because this dude rolls up and it's instantly
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: out of the truck shooting like he knew it. He
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: was like night hunt. Yeah, because there's no way you'd
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: have he didn't take enough time to like assess the
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: situation look around for his gun. Yeah. This guy like
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: piled out of the passengers side and black. A lot
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: of those guys that we get in no situations, they
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: got sneakers on, like there's no way they're getting out
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: of the truck that day. They have no intention, they
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: have no intention to getting out of the truck that day.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: They're just gonna go road hunt all day, you know.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: And another one, some people roll up on a s
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: A that's a cowelt and the shooter is just riding
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: around in the back of the truck with shorts but
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: already in the back of the truck like ready to
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: roll get some cracks off. But her her, the driver,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: her man or whoever it was, he had a good
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: cow call coming out of called out of the running
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: out of the truck. Another guy. It was like some
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a party that was shooting a lot of white tails
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: out of a boat. Officers said, can't be shooting that
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: white tails out of the boat. Next year, they put
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: one out on the edge of the lake they like
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: to hunt out of their boat. They pull up, what
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: rip off fourteen shots at it? Yeah, in a minute
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: thirty seconds seconds. Yeah, out of two bolt action rifles,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: which I mean, that's a lot of reloading going on.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: The one with the lady in the back of the
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: truck shooting kind of maybe me think, like I've seen,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a handful of wildlife violations that I've reported,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them had family there, like there
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: was kids, there was and it's almost like they're just
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: raised Like when I teach someone how to hunt, like
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you know, ethics and this and that goes into it,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: and it's like they're just doing the exact opposite in poaching,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Like do you see that a lot where it's almost
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: a generational thing like that's how we hunt, that's how
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: they learned. And so yeah, it comes back to that
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: situational ethics at me and so in some in a
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: lot of these communities that we work. I mean, they're
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: very rural and so you as the officer or one
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: of the lead hunter ed hunter education instructors and so
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: you know all these kids and then shoot a couple
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: of years later, here they do. They come rolling up
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: blasting the decoy, you know, and it's just like, hey,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: weren't you Were you in my hunter ed class? You know,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: and it's just like what what where do we go wrong?
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: You know? Or hey? Who you know? You don't recognize
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: when I'd be like, hey, who'd you who would you
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: take hunter ed from? Oh, officers such and such? Well,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I know we covered this, so what's the deal, you know?
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: And it's that situational ethics. They just you know, like
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: one of them. One of the things that sticks out
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to me is a is another decoy. And we spend
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in the region and I work
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: in dealing with decoys because we have a trespass issue
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: and a road hunting issue, which is a is a
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: safety issue is what it comes down to. And they,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: I mean they it was a granddad taking his his
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: grandson out. And it's not like granddad was old, he
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: was in his fifties, but it was ten degrees that morning,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: and so here we are standing out in the bushes
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: and the dark, freezing her butts off. And then lo
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and behold they come rolling up and this kid just
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to hunt her head that year, you know, and it's
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: just like and Granddad's got sneakers on. He's like, well
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: it's ten degrees. You think we're gonna go walk in
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: the woods. Well why do you even leave the house?
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, it just I don't know, they just
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: lease their mind, do you think that? But but some
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: of these people is not like I could see if
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: you had some gigantic buck decoy out, yeah that's not Yeah,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: but I could see then you might have some guy
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: pull up and like the gears are turning right and
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: he's like this is wrong. But man, but the people
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: you were showing us aren't they're ready to roll. Yeah,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: they're like actively out hunting. Yeah yeah, actually not put
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: out large like um because I had heard that maybe
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: you used to be able to, but now you can
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: no longer it out like trophy sized animals. Yeah. We
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: don't have anything in in our whether it's our our
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: policies or standard operating procedures that prohibits us from doing
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: that we just don't. We don't need to, it's so rapid.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: The one my brother rolled up on was a big
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: mulder in eastern Montana. He rolled up on a big mulder, Yeah,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: and he said it had an electronic neck. Yeah, they
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: you know, tail flaps. He said he was looking at
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what was wrong with it, and
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: all of sudden someone's banging on his window telling to
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: move along. But he said it was a nice buck. Yeah.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I had a I had a buddy a couple of
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: years ago that was coming out of a spot and
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: uh and saw a really big bull on the side
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: of the road and it just stood there and stood there,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: and he looked at and he's like, man, those guys
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: must be running decoy. And he he drives off and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: he ends up texting me. He's like, man, I saw
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: you guys, decoy. I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: He's yeah, how are you guys running that the bull
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: elk on such and such a road? Nope, not us, Yeah,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: it was it was alive out just standing there being stupid,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: you know, ran back to and it was just like unbelievable.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: So but like one of I think like I said
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: that there's you know, not toot my horn. But there's
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: been a lot of memorable cases. But kind of earlier
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: on in my career worked with another officer that would
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: receive information that these two women had drawn moose tags
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: and that their husbands were actually bull bull moose, which
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: is a trophy species and I know, once in a lifetime,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: and so the husbands had already killed their bull moose
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: once in a lifetime and so now they had in
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: their pockets their their wives, and so we were yeah,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: it was a grand scheme that was just absolutely foiled.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: And so then so they each got ten thousand dollar fines.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: So they each one up killed a bull. Yep, And
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: you guys kind of knew who was gonna be pulling
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the trigger around those ups. Oh yeah, we had all
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the information we needed, and yeah, it was just a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: matter of tracking them down and interviewing them and coordinating
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: that the wives were nowhere to be found. They were
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: two miles on the other side of the state. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: ten bucks to kicking the nuts, Yeah yeah, and a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: vacation that goes along with it. Pull your privilege, oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: every every vile, every misdemeanor, you can have your license
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: revoked for up to a year or not more than
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: three years, I guess it is. Yeah, and then you're
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: losing it in forty two states. Yeah, yeah, that would stink. Yeah, man,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: And that happens and you can't Yeah, well the brass
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: you know, hawais got good hunt. Yeah. Um man, So
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: what what's your message to um? Like, like, what's your
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: message to sports? Know, when it comes to adher, it's
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: to the law. Do you ever get to say to
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: a guy a poacher? Right? Do you ever do you
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: ever get to tell him like, man, here's why you
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: ought to be with the program. I don't get into
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the point of lecturing very much. No, you know. One,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they're just absolutely ticked off that they
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: got caught. And so it's not the time nor the
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: place because officers safety to have that conversation, you know,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and so um you know, and some guys, you know,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I had another supervisor back in the day, it's long
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: since since retired that he'd be like, yeah, he's like,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: see that guy, he found religion, you know, and you
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: refer to that he was a reformed poacher, you know,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: And and so yeah, and some guys they turn around
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and then other guys are just like, catch me again,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and so you don't take the time to
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: be like, you know, this is all the abstract, but
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: you're stealing this from your fellow maybe yeah, no, we
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in some instances we do, you know, and you you
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: kind of it's not so much the guilt trip. But
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: you know it's not so much you know. I put
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it in terms of man, you got kids, You've got
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: a grandkid. You're stealing this from them. You're not hurting me,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: You're hurting them. You know, you're here in the next generation.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with me. You know, you're
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: stealing from somebody else. And we have that conversation routinely,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you know. And and I think when you put it
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: in those terms sometimes people see the light. They don't,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't put it in that broad perspective
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: of who's looking at it as a victimless crime. And
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: that's what wild wildlife crimes are, is a victimless crime.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: You know, you look at traditional policing in the United States,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: there's always a victim, right and and you know, whether
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: it's a homicide or you know, something like that, Yeah,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: there's always a there's always a victim. But in wildlife crime,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it's the it's the property of the state,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: and then you know, the residents are the state. But
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: in the end, you know, if you don't know, you
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know what you don't know, right,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: and so it just it ends up being a victimus crime.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, in the end, I mean, it comes
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: down to an appreciation of wildlife and what what its
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: value is, you know, and and you know, are you
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: willing to do it? Right? It's it's hard to understand
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: why some people do it, you know, because they'll just
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: keep doing it and doing it and doing it. But
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: like I think, like like what this guy was saying
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: about just people doing it for the for the bragging rights,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: I do really think that that's at least the kind
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: of poaching I find most problematic. I really think is
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: people saying I want the recognition, I want the respect
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: that comes with success in hunting. Um, I want to
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: be able to demonstrate to my peers, right, but I
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: don't want to go through all that bullshit and have
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: all the uncertainty. I just want to get it like this, Yeah,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: you want to see from home and come home and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: be the guy that got one. Yeah, it troubles me
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: more than like a dude who you know whatever shoots
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: white tail Doford Freezer. As wrong as it is, it's
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: just like different to me. Now. I know you, I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: know that that that like goes against everything right that
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: you probably believe in, being the job you have and everything.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: But just like I like, I like you do you
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: draw like you know, we have like all these relatives
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: when it comes not relatives like people with agy, but
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: you make like relative comparisons of of worse and worse
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and worse. You know. Then you have like the you know,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: like the fulk hero Robin Hood, right, I mean you
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: know he would poach the King's game to to to
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: give the meat to the poor. So it is kind
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of like ingrained in your head. There's like there's like
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: an acceptable thing. Well, and that's like I was saying
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: earlier with the with the the old you know where
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: it's the old guy. You know, we're gonna keep doing this,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: but hey, we're not going to report violations because they
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: needed the they needed the meat. You know, it's that
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to minimize the whole violation. So you're your point, Yeah,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: but I get your point, Like it's not the Great
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Depression anymore. No, no, no, And in society has you know,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: we see it more and more that society has placed
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: a pretty significant value on wildlife in the United States.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I mean that is why it's held in public trust,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: right because we all value it. It's just nowadays, in
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: this time, we have placed even more value on it,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, like it would be interesting to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: hear from you three, like I mean Remy already kind
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: of pointed it out with the Utah was the Utah
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: example or just that how much how much an auction
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: tag would go for, you know, and how much that
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: value is. But you know, I think that all of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: us would agree that, you know, wildlife any you pick,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: any species has a specific value you know, to you
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: whether it's a in intrinsic or a monetary value, you know,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: it just that's how yeah, I think I always think
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: about when I think about preservation wildlife and being a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: law abiding hunter and all things go with it. Um
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: At a time in our nation's history, for a long time,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: we had uh wildlife kind of like we had wildlife
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: despite our best efforts to eradicate it, meaning just uncontrolled
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: market hunting, environmental exploitation. You know, it was like we
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: were devouring the resources and we still had some. Yeah,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: and it's interesting because you know, and I think about that,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's part of part of conservation. Like
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I said in earlier is you know, you think about
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: those times, whether it was market hunting for plumage for
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: women's hats or unregulated bison hunting, you know that almost
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: decimated did decimate populations. What was the thing that stopped
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: at all? Regulations? Right, That's what changed everything, not not
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: us doing biology. Was about regulations and the fear of
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: getting caught. And so yeah, it doesn't that that wasn't
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: That was like the follow up point I was gonna make,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: because no, we have wildlife in this country because people
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: have worked their asses off in order to have it.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: It's not like they're kind of by happen chance anymore. No,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: not at all. I was there because No, because we
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: put together this elaborate system by which we could have
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: civilization coexist with wildlife. What's allowed that is creating laws
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: and enforcing them. Had we never got around to doing
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: that in in the years basically from around to around
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, if we hadn't put together the suite of
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: wildlife laws we have now and not like pulling this
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: out of my as, I mean, you would not have
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: American wildlife. Well yeah, and you look at um the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Lacy Act was from the nineteen thirties, right, I think
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is when or in the seventies when was Lacy Act?
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: I should know this, Oh, the one that legal wildlife travel.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I think that I don't know if that came a
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: little later, but like Pittman robertson nineteen thirties ban market hunting.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Yet that stuff all came out around that time. And
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: in the ban on you know, sale of you know,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: sale of plumage, Migratory Bird Act, you know, like a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: whole suite of things started coming out somewhat earlier, because
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I think it was still the eight nineties and Wyoming
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: made it um a jailable ends to kill a buffalo, right,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: and then it became illegal to sell wild game in
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: New York City, and then you know, on and on
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and we created this thing and then we had this
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: radical rebound um and now we take some of us
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and and that's the I think that's a point we
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: need to clarify though, is that, um, most hunters and
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: anglers The vast majority are law abiding and and very
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: committed conservationists. It's just that very few that that ruined it.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I know a lot of people will
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: say like, oh, we shouldn't be having this conversation because
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: you're you know, you're making it look like all the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: stuff goes on, but we're talking about real stuff that
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: goes on. But I think that, like a poacher should
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: know the reason he even has something to poach, it's
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: because of wildlife laws. Yeah, exactly, that like wildlife laws
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: are keeping you from the resource. Wildlife laws created the
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: resource or allowed the resource to sist. Yeah, and and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: they absolutely take it for granted. Yeah. I think it's
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: like I think it might be motivated in some part
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: by lack of historic perspective. Yeah, I think historic perspective
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: and in appreciation, you know, like you said it, we
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: have these wildlife numbers now because of our forefathers, UM
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: decided that it was important that we're gonna spell out
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: stuff you can do, stuff you can't do. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: and so now, yeah, they just take it for granted
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: and be like, oh, you know, they're shoot, there's another
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: white tailed buck out there somewhere, you know, what's one, Rebby,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: what's your concluding thoughts. I just I'm gonna go a
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: little lower nine hundred Lacy Act and some of the laws.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: It looks like nineteen oh seven, we're starting to being forced.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: That's I was just glancing, but no, but I think
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: that like the whole Pittman Roberts that they was seven. Yeah,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: it was the Federal Restoration and Wildlife Act, and that
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: was when they put exercise taxes on firearms and ammunition
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: to support to support wildlife conservation. That was pr Pittman Roberts.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: And then ye, so you're gonna go more low bro,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: I want to know what the dumbest thing you've ever
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: seen is? Yeah, I mean you concluding thought could be
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: a question, yeah, because I mean I think that's just
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: there's got to be some stuff that you've seen. It's like,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is I think that the decoy
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: one with the Galleradin in the back of the truck.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen lots of stupid stuff, but that one.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: So to put that one in perspective, you know, like
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: the program you know says they were actually targeted that
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: that couple and they had drove by two weeks before
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: that spot, and we had contact him your old compliance
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: check and we're like, man, there's gonna be a tag
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: transfer here. The guy is gonna shoot her. ELK. Never
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: would I have imagined that she was gonna be riding
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: into the bed of the truck. But they had already
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: drove by the decoy once and we're like, man, they
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: didn't see it. Yeah, they know, they didn't see this
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: standing out in the stubble field. It's like, oh darn it.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: And then then they ended up turning around and I
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: can see them, and then they came back. I mean,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: that in itself is unbelievable. They were already contacted. I
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: mean within that hundred yards stretch of that roadway. They
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: were contracted by myself in another uniform officer, just ten
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: days before that. And so selling them what just a
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: regular compliance check. And then when we when we got done,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, checking licenses and tags and um, we're like, hey,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: you got permission here? Oh yeah, yeah, and it's just
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: like it doesn't sound like you do. It doesn't sound
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: like you know who the landowner is and uh, and
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: so yeah, it's a regular compliance check. And as we're
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: walking back to the patrol vehicle. You know, the officer
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: on with and we're both like, he's gonna shoot her out,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: there's no question about it. Lo And behold, no, not
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: at all. She's gonna shoot it from the bed of
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: the pickup laying on the When you guys put the decoy,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: you figured the dude would show up and shoot at it. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: with her tag turned out, he was just a great caller.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: That's funny. What's your gluten dog, Yonnie. It's a concluding
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: follow up question to um. I've always minished about, like
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: the pursuit of game in a vehicle, right, we know
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: you can't shoot from motorized vehicle and you can't Idaho.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah's with the exception of waterfowl. There's finally
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: just a few states. But then you can't shoot waterfall
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: unless the motors cut in the in all forward motions ceased. Yeah,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: so we'll speak just for Idaho. But I'm guessing you
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: can't harass wildlife from a vehicle, so you can't like
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: corral them or heard over, drive them. But these days
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of times you get a situation where so
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: how do they spell out? Like motorized used to like
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: pursue an animal. Is that so it would be as
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: an aid to hunting. Um, they're specific um hunt with
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: a motorized vehicle. So and we we kind of touched
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: on her earlier. That definition of hunt is very broad, chase, pursue,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: harass um, it's very broad, and so it's easy to
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: fill in what they're doing. See, that's I've always I
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: think maybe you're kind of thinking of like some Arizona
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: regulations as well, maybe because I think in Arizona, if
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: I spot, say I'm sitting in my truck with a
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: window mountain, I spot an elk, I have to lead.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: I can't actually go after that elk because I would
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: be from a motorized vehicle. No, you couldn't know you
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: technically you couldn't drive over there and then go after it.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: That's kind of my question is where do you do
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: glass from a truck? Well, but let's just say that
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: you're away, and then you drive over, you get out,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: you get out again, and then you hike up there. Yeah,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: it's a very fine line. I mean in in North
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Idaho where we all work, I mean, it's plain as day,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: they're just you know, for a lack of any better
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: term because it's not defined in in the regulations road
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: hunting that term in itself, I mean, we all know
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: what it looks like, but it's uh. I mean that
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: would be that hunt with a motorized vehicle. Now what
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: Remy's talking about spotting elk like two d two miles
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: away and then driving a mile and then hike in
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: the other mile up to him. I mean that would
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: certainly be within within bounds. So in in Idaho, though,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: say you you're driving down for a service road, you
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: look over, you see a deer, so get out and
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: you are I don't know what your rule is for
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: shooting off a road or whatever, kids you from publicly
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: maintained highway. So if you're on a for a service
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: road and you're actually off the road, and then you know,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: if you're not violating any is that so? So the
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: way that we the question that we usually ask, are
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: you looking for something to hunt? Are you looking for
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: a place to hunt? Okay, you're right, right, So so
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: for that road hunter, you know, are you are you
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: looking for a place to hunt? Are you looking for
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: something to hunt? Right? It makes sense, right if you're
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: just driving around all day looking for deer out of
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: the truck. We've got a problem if you're like incidentally
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: driving and all of a sudden, you know, you're like,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: ohly crap, slam on the brakes, get off the road,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: make sure you're not on posted property. Yeah, it's a
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: different story. Yeah. Now my my concluding thought, and I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: don't even want you to respond to it. I think
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: more states need to take a better look at radio hunting.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Radio hunting, Yeah, like using electronic communications. Some states are
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: out in front of it, Alaska, Montana. It's legal in
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Idaho and Nevada, not Montana. What I'm saying, and that's
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: that's that, you know, regulations are just hard to keep
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: up with technologies. Particularly it's gonna get It's like it's
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: gonna get worse and worse. Yeah, and yeah, absolutely, I
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: definitely agree with it. It's quote I quotedly Elo Leopold earlier.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: Elo Leopold said, we're always improving the pump, but not
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: the well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, ethics is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: constantly evolving. Hunter, ethics is constantly evolving, you know. But
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: but in this case, but that's an interesting point. But
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: in this case it's different than that, because this thing
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: is we're talking about emerging technology, not traditional use, but
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: emerging tech. Everyone clearly drones. People have no problem getting
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: out ahead of the drone issue. Yeah, and that was
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: quick to do, okay, So it's like that, you know
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: why it was quick and easy because there wasn't there
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't any emerging culture that we're of drone hunters. But
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: I think that they're kind of missing the boat and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: getting out ahead of electronic communications. I think that's just
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: gonna get worse. Yeah, that's all go ahead and stay well.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: So so on somebody's somebody's reading list on the meat
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: each site. Did somebody have Arctic dreams? Yeah? Me? I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: love that. Yeah. So in there, Lopez talks about how
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: anthropologists note the hunting of um buffalo by by cliff
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: jumps and then also caribou by U river crossings and
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: then but at that time that was an ethical practice,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: you know, and so you know, which is interesting because
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: today we would cringe if somebody did something like that,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: because there are still there are still units in Alaska
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: where you can kill caribou in the water out of
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: a boat with the twenty two traditional use traditional use.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that was an area where that's like that's
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: hot traditional use. It's how people have utilized that resource
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: for a long time. And you can still sit at
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: river crossings there and kill sithing Carrey with the twin
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: two mm hm. But it's not I mean, you can't
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: do it, you know, if you're in that unit anyone,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you have to have a substance instigent.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: It's a subsistence only. I don't know if I but
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: like the law attends to like favorite traditional us just
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: like running deer with dogs in the South, Like you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: could run deer with the dogs in the South, Yeah,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: they hang in quarter you if you ran deer with
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: dogs in Michigan. Yeah, yeah, in Michigan, everyone looks at
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: if they see a dog chasing deers, your civic duty
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: to kill the dog, yeah, which is always a And
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: it comes back to the situational ethics. Like I said,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like it's like, you know, people kind
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: of get up in arms about you know, whether it's
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: um chasing bears or lions with hounds. But then you
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: you look at like a guy hunting birds upland it's
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: like man, you got that a quail and that big
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: dog chasing that thing where's the balance and the way.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: But the way I look at it as is that
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: people have been running bears and lions with hounds for
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: a hundred years. A hundred years Boon hunted bears of dogs.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: That's how Boon did all this bear hunting was with hounds.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: So it's like traditional use practice. Some emerging technologies come
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: in and you look at like like laser range finders
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: really changed the game of hunting. Now you could look
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: and say, oh, yeah, they allow people to take real
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: long shots. And I'm also saying okay, but they could
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: also dissuade you from taking shots you have no business taking,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: because it tells you more information, like it's not an automatic.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: It's like it could be helpful in other ways too.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Besides just like like like as Leopold said, it does
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: more than just improve the pump, right. Um. But I
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: think in some ways, some stuff like two way communications,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm not outlanded to bring this stuff because a
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: lot of states have and like these aren't like lefty
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: states Montan and Alaska, I mean like conservative states with
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: strong hunting cultures have gotten out and said two way
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: communications is not that's not something working. That's not a well,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: that's not a pump improvement we're looking at, right. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's just gonna be I think it's getting
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: out of control and it's gonna get worse. What do
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: you think about? Um, I've just kind of noticed this
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: over recent years is something that I could see it
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: probably never but Google Earth Maps, so you can be
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: walking around now on your phone and see exactly what's
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: in front of you. You no longer have to know
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: the area as well as the person ten years ago
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: that had to read a topo map and actually hike around.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, so but then you can also say,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: but then they had maps, and prior to that they
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: didn't have paper maps. Right, yeah, but what's the so
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: like anything you look at is is it giving a
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: disadvantage to the animals? I don't know. I think if
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you had some way that was giving you real time
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: imagery of where animals were, I think that's something they
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: would take a pretty serious look at. Yeah, but I
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: don't imagine. I'm just like, from a pragmatic standpoint, I
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: don't imagine that fishing game agencies they are going to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: start trying to control what mapping technologies you use. See now,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: here in Montana, it's illegal to use trail cameras after
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: season starts, right, Well, yeah, but while there's an open season.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: But that's pretty much the entire year, because I mean
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: there's there's bird seasons, there's there's always some there's that
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't break my heart. No, it doesn't mind either. I
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: mean I actually think that like in Nevada you can
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: use trail cameras on antelope. Well, the guy that used
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: to go out and shoot a poping young antelope had
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: to work his ass off for it. You had to
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: go out there and find the antelope, to spend days
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: in the unit, figure out where that analog watered. Now
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: you can just go out and if you've got enough money,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: you could set out a hundred trail cram cameras on
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: a hundred water holes and hunt one day. Not that
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: that doesn't take work, just that and the other thing.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: But your knowledge is not from hunting, it's from technology.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: And but when I look at these rules, I also
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: look at what sort of state we're talking about. Montana
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: is a is a very hunting friendly state. They just
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: you know that that initiative just came up where they're
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: trying to ban trapping on public land got shot down
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: by an overwhelming majority. So I'm like, when when Montana
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: do something like, okay, no trail camps during season, I'm like, Okay,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: that's coming from a hunting friendly position. That's not coming
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: from a position of just trying to like limit people's
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: activity in order to curb or curtail hunting. The trapping
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: band in Montana that got shot down, I'm like, that
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: wasn't coming from a hunting friendly position. That was just
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: coming from the position of people trying to whittle away
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: at your rights. So it's like you're weighing this stuff
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: out all the time in your mind. What's your concluding thought?
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, sportsman, I just need to get involved,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: support your local game warden. You know, bring the muffins
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: and coffee, you know, the middle this season, maybe a
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: fresh baked pie. Would you say on average that uh
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: CEOs are regarded or um uh you know, just like
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: yeah regarded. Do you get the respect you need? Just
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: like on average, if it's one out of two times
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: you like received in a positive manner or in a
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: negative manner? Positive, absolutely positive? Oh yeah yeah. People like
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: to see out there. Yeah, And in that public opinion, yeah,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: they say in that public opinion survey we did, they
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: say they don't see us enough, which you got eleven
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: square miles. It's hard to do. But is that just
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: the funding thing? If you guys had more funding, you'd
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: have more CEOs. I have no idea. I have no idea,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: but it's just a you know, people generally enjoy seeing
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: the game warden. They like to know that you're out
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: there and keeping the playing field fair. But it's you know,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: it's not just the game warden doing that. You know,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: we need the help of of sportsman, you know, report
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: and violations when you see them. Yeah, I I think,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a lot of game wardens
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: that are hunters, but it seems like now there's also
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I've been seeing a lot more that are not hunters.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: They're just in the law enforcement aspect. But I almost
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: think it is imperative that a game warden be a
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: hunter himself because they understand the value of the wildlife,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: not as a law but as an animal that you value.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: You hunt, you eat, And to me, I just don't
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: see how somebody that doesn't even hunt, can you know,
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: like make that work. Yeah, And we in Idaho, we
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: are still very stuck to you having some sort of
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: hunting and fishing background. Now, I don't think we we
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: check fact check like okay, so, so how many deer
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: have you harvest over your lifetime? You know, how many
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: days you've been out in the field. Um. But you
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: know that's one of the things I impress on those
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: new officers is hey, buzzloader hunt, No, well you better start.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: You know, there's no better way to talk to talk
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: than to be able to do it yourself. You know. Um,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: it's like hound hunting, you know, it's you know, has
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: you've been out behind hounds? Oh? No, you know that's
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: what the new guy, new guy would say, and our
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: new gal and well you need to go find one
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: of your local houndsman and buddy up to him and
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: get a better understanding of what's going on here, so
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: you know what you're looking at when you see it. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: So I agree with you, Ramy. It's it's imperative to
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: be a good game warden and an effective game warden
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: to totally understand and have that skill set. You know,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: it just helps you. You know, it's a in a way,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: as a game warden, your hunter yourself, you know, you're
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: just a poacher, you know what I mean. And so
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: you gotta understand that you gotta understand where the game
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: is and when to find the game, you know. And
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: so just driving her around patrol and happened. Stands running
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: into things just doesn't work. Yeah, alright, man. We talked
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: to a game where in the other day in Colorado,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: and I said, hey, you guy, do you think cool
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: you confiscated And he said, um, it's too hot, and Sony,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: no one's getting anything, so I can't confiscate anything. So
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: he knew, he knew the situation. He's looking at it
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: with the hunter's perspective. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's how
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: what you have to do. Yeah, all right, well thanks
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: for joining us many thank you. If we can keep
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: one guy from getting the ticket for something stupid that
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: he should not have done and it decides not to
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: do it because he listened to this, this will have
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: been a successful program. It will all right. Thank you,