Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 047: Laramie, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with Wyoming policy advisers David Willms and Nephi Cole, Ronny Boheme, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew.

Transcript

Ep. 047: Laramie, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with Wyoming policy advisers David Willms and Nephi Cole, Ronny Boheme, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew. · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is a me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely vote bitten in my case, underwear listening makes eat podcast.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You can't forget anything, all right, this is this is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: here's the deal. We're right now. And what the highest
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: stadium highest high states of America. Yeah, so if you've
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: ever wondered, if you ever been laying in bed at
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: night wondering what the highest altitude college football stadium is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: in America, which I was talking about that with my
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: wife last night. Um, it's this one Memorial Stadium. And
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we're actually in Uh, if there was a game going on,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: we would look out the window and see it. We're in. Like, no,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I want to call it a press box. It's the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: athletic Director's box, the v A P suite, it's his
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: luxury box. Yeah, his luxury box. I'm here with introduce yourselves?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: How much not? How much can you guys say, like
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: what you do for a living? I mean, I don't
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: know talk are you here? But I mean are you
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: here in your like can you talk to us in
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: your official capacity? Both? Well? Probably you know, as long
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: as it doesn't this like your work account or your
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Gmail account. This is my work account. Gail I'm not qualifier.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I'm a policy advisor. That's what I meant for the governor.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Why I'm a governor, Matt Mead and uh, I'm working, working,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: working for for about four years, and I do natural
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: resource Paul See. I came onto his team doing energy
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: UM work and I do UH right now. My main
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: deal is water, but interestingly enough, I also do UH.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I do water, I do firearms, refugees, international trade. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: think that's a really build out, like poker cards. That's
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: two of them showed up last week. We well, just
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: short short stories. That's why. I mean, we do not
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: have a refugee settlement program, so we'll just leave it
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: at that. And so it's just not a whole lot
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of workloads there. Yeah, Dave, Yeah, David Williams. I'm a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: policy advisor as well for the governor. I'm basically if
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it's got hoofs or claws or pause, I'm working on
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: it for him. Wildlife other natural resource issues for the governor.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: UM and been doing that for about a year. Uh.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And you went to regular college and law school here.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I did. This is my alma mater. I did undergrad
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and wildlife management and environment, natural resources and got my
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: law degree here as well. And then, uh, you worked
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: for fishing Wilder. I always want to call it fishing game,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: but what you worked for the department here too, right, yes,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: sort of? I mean I I was their attorney for
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I was with the Attorney General's Office assigned to represent
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the game of fish department. So yeah, I got involved
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of that. Yeah, so I did a lot
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of their work. I don't know why. I've talked about
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: this many times and you can talk about this year podcast.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: The name. Let you guys are down with who Laramie
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: was Jacques Yeah, yeah, spelled his name though l a
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: like law and then rumy and got a lot of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: stuff named after him for like and eight. He was
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a trapper out here in eighteen twenty he went off
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: to go trap the headwaters at the Laramie eighteen twenty one,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't show up at the rendezvous, never find his body.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: There's all kinds of room is about what happened to him,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and winds up with half the state named after him.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. Yeah, Laramie, Peak, Lammie River, town of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Laramie radically change geologic episode. Dude, if he would have lived,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: he would have had like he could have taken you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: people out and been like in this and he for
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a dude, they don't even know what happened to him.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He didn't even know he had a river named after him.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: If he lived, nothing would have been named after Hi's
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: like being an artist, right, it might be you gotta
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: die to become famous. Before we get into what we're
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: talking about, I want to talk about something that just
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: struck me so funny. Man. I was reading up on
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Collapsible twenty twos and I and yesterday I took my
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I took my daughter to her ballet class, and it
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't long enough that you'd go and actually get something done,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you know, so I just kind of waited for and
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: while doing it, I fell in one of those internet traps.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I was just reading up on class with twenty two
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and then I want to buy a on a survivalist website.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting is this guy gets into what I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: now think of as the ecology of apocalypse and what
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: he's what he's talking about was he's arguing what's the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: best caliber for a post apocalyptic firearm? And he's like,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you got your commando, guys, you got your ninja guys,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But I'm gonna give you the straight dope on what's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: up with post apocalyptic situation. He's like a twenty two
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: because you know, you're gonna have a lot of flooding
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and whatnot, he's saying, and when that happens, it tends
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to dry vermin out. This guy is so wrong. So
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: he's like, you're gonna be dealing a lot of rats
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and wild dogs, and the twenty two, you see, is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a economical way to deal with all that. And he
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: goes in the deer populations only the last year, at
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: which point we're just gonna beating muskrats and whatnot, so
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you're not even gonna need a big gun. The guys
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: out of he had the whole deal, like the and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I realized that there's like a good field of inquiry
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: would be the eco pology of the post apocalypse. You
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: could carry a lot of that stuff. You know, you're
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: can carry a lot of six. You're in the wrong
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: state talking to the wrong guys on that argument, because
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, in Wyoming, we just get up
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and go to work. Yeah, get up and go to work.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: That was even my brilliant segue is um, yeah, there's
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the ecology and the and the wildlife of the hypothetical
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: post apocalyptic future, and then there's the actual wildlife. Uh
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that's here right now that we deal with. And you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: guys already pointed out you work for the governor. I'll
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: point out you guys, governs, as far as approval ratings go,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: has a like a pretty good, like an admirable approval rating. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he's often putting the top tier of of governors, like
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: usually of the people like you're doing really good, but six,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I was look at six. Yeah, he's
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: one of the time. I mean, they have different people
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: published top tens, and he's always in the top five.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: He's he hasn't of course number one. You know, if
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: there's if it's messed up somewhere and they put somebody
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: else first, I'm sure that's a claric claro they can
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: take care of because is number one. Number one. Now,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: he's a he's an amazing governor. He's a he's smart,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: he's pragmatic, he's uh intelligent, he's a really easy guy
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to work for. And I know Dave's just like me, Um,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you know some he uh he tapped me from the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: industry I was in and asked me to come join
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: his team, and I got to think about it for
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a long time, and I got to, you know, to
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to look at him and how he does business, and
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it's been He's just a really easy guy to work for.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And it's a it truly is a privilege. I mean,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: he's a fantastic individual. One of the things I think
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: is enviable about being the position you guys are in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in a state like this is you have uh like
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: uh I mentioned to you on an email, you have
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: sort of an intact suite of mega fauna like you
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: guys have. You're one of the few states really anywhere
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  Speaker 1: that has its um that has specimens of all of
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: your law our channels, pretty much everything, all of the
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  Speaker 1: pre contact of large mamals. Maybe not in the abundances,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: but very few states are able to really say that
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: because you, I mean, you have a dozen Like if
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you count a coyote and bigger as a large man,
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  Speaker 1: you guys got about a dozen large mammals at least. Yeah. UM,
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  Speaker 1: So a big part of your job is that you've
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  Speaker 1: got people who actually sit around and thinking about wildlife
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: on a state level. And I think a lot of states.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it always comes up. I mean it's like
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: a huge part of the work here. Yeah, I mean
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: trying to keep the people happy while also doing a
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  Speaker 1: responsible job of managing a menagerie of wildlife has a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: lot of complications. This is a digree. I do want
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: to get back to. I do want top of what
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about. We're talking about wildlife management issues. UM,
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  Speaker 1: but do you want do you want to have do
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you wanna UM take to task you have? We talked
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: about stream access on the previous episode and you and
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you felt that we were playing a little fast and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: loose with a couple of definitions. Do you care? Do
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you does it matter enough that you'd want to say, like,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: here's where I think you were wrong? Now you bad?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'd be happy to you know, I don't know if
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: you want to go there now? And no, I mean
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: if you can do it in a quick way, if
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you can say, let me just let me break it down,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: let me just refresh yourmen's memory. So, in case you
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: didn't listen to this, we did an episode about stream
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  Speaker 1: access law and and the and in doing that, basically
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that comes down to UM, whether you and your state
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: or where you hang out, whether you're allowed to float
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  Speaker 1: down a river. Okay, so in some states you're allowed
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to stable or high water mark in your river, and
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that means you can as long as you can get
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: in the water to fish, you can wait up and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: down the river and you're cool. Um a stream gets
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: small enough to where you're not allowed to do that anymore,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you'd never go, you know, waiting up into private property
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and a drainage ditch for instance. Like just the fact
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that it's water doesn't mean as public access. So there's
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: all these definitions that govern what is what's known as
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a navigable stretch of water, and there's some of these
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and some of the definitions are so difficult in dealing
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: with it. For the last hundred years, people have been
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: arguing about it in courts, like um does said river
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  Speaker 1: warrant public access, you know, like I, should you be
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: allowed to float it? Should you be allowed to wait
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and it even though you don't have permission from landowners
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: who are on the river banks. The whole thing about that,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And afterwards N five very respectfully said that pointed out
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: some errors in yeah, just yeah, I mean it's a
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: tricky issue because I mean, and I think what I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: mentioned is, you know, the way you guys are using it,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: you're probably fine because you know, when you're talking about
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: navigable waters as you know, if you're saying navigable water
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: something I can put a boat in and quote and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: really navigate, then you know you're fine. But the challenges,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you know, since you know, nineteen seventies, there's been uh,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the term navigable waters is used almost interchangeably with the term,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you know, waters of the United States or waters of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the US or not. People are saying votas. So if
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you've never if you haven't heard that before, um, I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: saw you use that unfamiliar with pods. But potas is
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: largely responsible for where we're at with votus right now,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and so waters the United States. When the Clean Water Act,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, nineteen seventy two, there's there's a suite of
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: just seminal you know, foundational important you know, environmental legislation
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that came out all around the same you know, tan
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: twenty year period in our nation really had an awakening,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and that includes the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act, the you know protections that are
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: so you know, we talked about Land and Water Conservation
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Fund and all these acts. There's you know, what you
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: had is bipartisan effort where everybody came together and said,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you know what, these things are bigger than me, They're
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: bigger than my issue, They're bigger than just one state.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Let's work together on these issues. And uh, you know
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: that's so you have this this passage of all these
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: acts and over time, am there's been some significant mission
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: creep in some of these and the Clean Water Acts,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the definition of waters in the US definitely falls into that,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you know ground where it started out, you know, protecting
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the chemical, physical, biological integrity of the waters of the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: United States. And you know, it was largely at the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: beginning navigable waters, you know, and a few people are
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: going to argue that, and that's because a navigable water,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the Clean Water Act, it's all it's hitched up to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the commerce clause of the Constitution. So that so what
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: lets it work, What gives it its authority to go
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: into an area that you know, you know, some would
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: argue federalism should keep the federal government out of and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: should be states rights. Is that those streams you can
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: use them for commerce because you can get your boat
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in that stream and go across the line, and you're
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you know, doing you bet. And so what happened is
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: over time you had things, you know, you had some
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: things like that. Before two thousand one that had gone
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: as far as having a rule card that called the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: migratory bird rule right, which said, off, a migratory bird
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: flies across state lines and could land in that puddle
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: no matter where that puddle is at. Well, now that's
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: part of interstate commerce, therefore regulated by the federal you bet.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And the Supreme Court struck that down in two thousand
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and one. And I gotta be really careful about counselor
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Dave here. The attorney is gonna, you know, when he
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: when he's you know, you mean to say so back up,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: because I find it real hard to believe. You're saying
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that someone proposed and from purely all touristic regulated Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I wish they would have won from a purely altruistic way,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: because that'd be real good for me as a duck hunter.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: But you're saying this uthing. But I would have a
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: real hard time justifying to add to a lot of people.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You're saying that it was an idea that if a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: duck can land in it, it's federal property. Uh, not
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: federal the company it's but it's regulated by them, so
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: it's not like it's their pond. Yeah, but you want
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to do something with that pond, you're going to ask
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: them for a permit. You're gonna come and say, mother,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: may I And if you don't, you're going to get
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the thirty thou dollar a day fine, you know, just
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a fat fine on and that's you know. So that
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: was challenged and uh, and the court sent it back
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and said, you know, I don't think so that's your
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: your overreaching. And then there are a couple more decisions
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that occurred UM in round two thousand and six that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: they're not going to go into details and born you
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with swank and ripono's but those decisions the same thing,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: basic thing happened. You had UM people challenging and said,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you've gone too far, and this is you know,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you've taken too much authority. You know, you've gone past
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the limits of what the commerce clauses should be allowing
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you to do within the clean water wreck and uh,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and they the agencies were instructed to go back and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and kind of fix this issue and find and read
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and and get defined what the waters of the United
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: States are, to get a definition of waters in the US.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And uh, the famous decision that kind of pushed everybody
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: back that way, you know, the pin and that everybody
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: that everything hinges on is Justice Kennedy who used the term,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: excuse me, significant nexus, and he said, basically, look, if
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you want this to attach to the Clean Water Act,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: basically there has to be a connection. It has to
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: be significant. You can't just have you know, the grab
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: things from wherever. Has to be connection has to be significant.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And the reason he's pivotal is because four members of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the court said, we'd give you know, Army Core and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: ep I can have jurisdiction of any waters they want.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Four members of the Court said, these guys are way
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: out of bounds. If it's not like right on a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: navigable water, they shouldn't have it. So Kennedy said, well,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you know, if it's a significant nexus, then but now
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to find significant nexus and so we've been in this
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: kind of gray area defining you know, what is a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: water the US, which again people use interchangeably with you know,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: navigable waters, where there's been a lot of discretion. People
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: been trying to figure out, well, what is it really? Yeah,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: when we were the argue, the discussion we had was
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: we never even talked about what the FED said. We
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: talk about how the different states define that, and that's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and honestly that's that's a different challenge because like in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Montana was one of the states we discussed, they defined
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: it as was it used for commerce? And that's again
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that's where I say, like, where you guys are using
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it the way you're using it, you're probably fine. But
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you know, for a lot of the people who are
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: out there when they hear navigable waters and they think
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that that's a settled question on the national scale, you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: especially with the correlation, it's really not a settled question.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And so right now it's actually in the courts right now,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you know, trying to you know, the the agency is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: basically what happened is the EPA and Army Corps they
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: rolled out a proposal where they said anything with a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: bed bank and an ordinary high water mark waters in
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the US, anything with a bed bank in an ordinary
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: high wank because you sent me a picture of something
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: that I would even call a stream, And then that's
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the issue. It doesn't even have to have water in it.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: It's anything with a bed bank in ordinary high water marks,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: so anything that shows sorting, anything that you know, So basically,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: you know, pick a draw, you know, and if there's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: potentially have a storm event and it's gonna have water
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: going down that draw, you know, going into a navigable water,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: they think that that should be water. Us. That's a nash.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You're saying, that's a national national Yeah, it's and it's
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's not being implemented now because the courts, so
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: there were multiple efforts. Thirty two states challenged this thing
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and said you've overstepped your bounds. And so in the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: there's there's there's two stays on one of them within
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a district court which includes you know, thirteen states including Wyoming,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and then one of them at a federal level it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: sixth Court of Appeals where it's also a state. And
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: what the stay means is that the states came in
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to the judges and argued and said these guys overstepped
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and then they looked at the they looked at the
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: evidence in front of them right now, and they said,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you can't let them implement this now because
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it's gonna harm us. And the courts said that there's
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a preponderance of likelihood that the states are gonna win
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: on the merits. And so this still has to play out.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It's going to play out in the circuit court, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: it's going to probably go to the Supreme Court. Um.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: From my perspective, you know, and and and it's dicey,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a challenging issue. And the unfortunate
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: part about it kind of trying to come back around
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to all these environmental laws that are so foundational important
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it is because we didn't have to be there. You know,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: there were some proposals for how you could define you know,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: because there there's a The State of Wyoming protects all
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: waters to a degree higher than what the Clean Water
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Act does. You know, if there's water on the ground
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in the State of Wyoming, we protect that water and
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you know, dump your cup over. You know, we're gonna
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: protect that water. We have water quality standards for that.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But the challenges when from my perspective that when you
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: have that influence coming in there, that that that federal influence, um,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: it makes it really hard to be champions of of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of doing the right thing when somebody comes in and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: tries to take it all away from you from a
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you know, from that level. And really that's what we
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: feel happened with the Clean Water Act. You know, we
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: can take care of these waters. We know how to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: do that. Montana can take care of theirs, they know
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: how to do that. You know, these these small streams,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: these these other areas. You know we're good at you know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: come to Wyoming, comes see comes see our state. You're
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: gonna agree we're pretty pristine. We do a good job.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So do you guys feel this is what we emailed
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: about earlier more time with this and I want to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: allow you to give voice this. But you feel that,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: uh that that is a general theme in the American West,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: in the US kind of this this Uh yeah, you know,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I mean as far as as far as when it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: comes to natural resources management wildlife, do you feel that
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: there is a tug of war going on between states
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and in the federal government? Absolutely? Where do you do?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that that's particularly true in the West
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: or around the whole country? So, I, I mean, I
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: think it's more Western based, and part of it's because
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you have all your public lands and west, so you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: have you have your federal landownership, uh, federal land management decisions.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Then you have wildlife in the in the state's claim
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: ownership of the wildlife right, are trying to manage the wildlife,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and so you have inherent conflicts between the states and
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the federal government in the West. Um, I'm sure it's
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a I'm sure they have issues in the East as well. Um,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: but it's I think it's probably more pronounced in the West,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: at least on the wildlife issues because of those the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: public land interface with uh wildlife man, because it gives
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: them something to have jurisdictions. Yeah, yeah, um okay, because
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: because I think waters esoteric, it might be even a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: hard thing to discuss. Now he is gonna go to
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: law school now after that? I mean it was good, Yeah,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I thought it. It was good. But I want to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: make I make a mean pizza as long as you
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: keep the cheese on top. Ways here in law school,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: So I wanna do that same thing. But tell like, like,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: tell me the story. Explain in terms of wolves, because
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: people love wolf. Yeah, explain like the state federal dispute
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: all right, in terms of wolves and wolves? I'm gonna
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: talk wolves, that's all I'm gonna am. I talk bears
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I want to talk, but for sure, wold, okay,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear. I'd love to hear in terms
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of wolves and bearrass. All right, So wolves, I'm gonna
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: do some devil's advocacy, don't do it just to make
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: sure we get the whole point out. That's a complicated thing,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it is, for sure. So history of wolves in Wyoming zero.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: There were zero wolves in the state of Wyoming. Wolves
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: are are introduced or reintroduced depending on who you talk to. Uh,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: depends need state to stay reintroduced. It depends on who
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you talk to. We is someone saying that, is someone
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: proposing that wolves had migrated down from Canada. Look, no,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you know what you have is you have to two
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: trains of thought. And you have some folks that said, well,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the wolves that they brought in from Canada are different
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: than the wolves that in Wyoming before. And they're debating
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: introduced or reintroduced exactly. Yeah, anyway, so that different topics
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that yeah, okay, yeah, alright, alright, so that's a that's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a great story, a great thing that they brought down
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: super wolves. Yeah, that's for another. And we've even met
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a guy. We met a guy who told we met
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a guy in BC who was like, oh, yeah, we
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I knew one of the guys that was catching him.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I need a trapper, And he said he'd go in
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: there and pick out the meanest, nastiest ones and sent
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: him down to Wyoming. Anyway. Inefficient. Yeah, they've been effective wolves.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So yeah, So so I was messed up reintroduction introduction,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: let's just let's just say and let's just say reinduced.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It's it's all the same. It's all the same species
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in a, in a in Lena in terms, yeah, all
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the same species reintroduced uh in ninety six, something like
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: thirty two or thirty four total wolves. Yeah no, But
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: just to get the full story, sure, where was the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: state of Wyoming on that. That's an interesting one because obviously,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: for the years leading up to that, uh, Wyoming didn't
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: want to see wolves come back into the state. But
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: it got to a point where, uh, we saw the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: writing on the walls this was gonna happen. So we
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: negotiated what's called a ten J rule. So, and which
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: under the Endanger Species Act ten J is an experimental
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but non essential population. So theoretically, uh, you can put
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: them in there. The overall population. If you take those
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: wolves out that you put in there, it's not gonna
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: have an effect on the overall population. And so it's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: experimental non essential. Uh. And and by getting that designation,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we said, okay, as long as they're experimental non essential,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we'll take these wolves. Didn't because it gives
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you some more latitude. It gives you some more latitude
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: with like lethal control and things if you right. It
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: so gives you more regulatory flexibility. That people are following
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: all this complicated, Yeah, I try. I'm gonna limit my interruptions,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: but I just wanted to paint one quick picture for
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: right now. There was a period of time when in
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the bit roots, the bit root range, people were like
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they were talking about in reintroducing some grizzlies in the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: bit root range, and it would have carried the reinroduction,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: would have carried with it that ten J status, or
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: you could have waited for the inevitable, which is one
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: was gonna show up there on its own. If it did,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: it would have a whole different status. That's because it
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: wandered in there on its own. And I remember thinking
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that the people who were uneasy with grizzlies, I like,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you ought to make a deal with the devil and
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: go with the ten J, Go with the ter go
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: with the ones that were put in their mechanically, because
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a little more leeway because eventually they're
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: gonna get in there anyway, and then you're gonna not
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: have any leeway. That's right. And the flip side is
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: if if they leave the ten J area, uh, they
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: take on the threatened status. Yeah. So so you have
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a designated area, so it works both ways. You have
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: this ignated ten J population and boundaries for the ten
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: J area. So Wing said, okay, uncle, do it right.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So we have them, Uh, they're reintroduced. We have wolves. Uh.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Since that time, over the course of the last twenty
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: years or so, Uh, we have managed that population to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the point that it was twelve thirteen years ago that
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: we met all of the recovery criterias. So the US
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Fish and the Wildlife Service said, for purposes of delisting,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you need to do you need to meet X, Y
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and Z. You need and they at the time at
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the time of the yeah, yeah, and they worked with
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the states on that, so set up these this framework
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: for Okay, if you get to this point, we'll start
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the d listing process. So we met that twelve thirteen
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: years ago and I I you'll you'll ask me what
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: were those numbers, And I can't remember the specific numbers,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: but it was somewhere around a hundreds. That was maybe
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: even less than that hundred wolves outside of UH. I
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: think it was outside of Yellstone National Parks, outside of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the outside of the park. So they cut they cut
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: thirty two loose inside the park. They did, and then
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: we had a requirement for what the management had to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: be outside of the park UH and the wind River
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Indian Reservations up there, and so those wolves don't count
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: towards our obligations as the state to meet these recovery crinteria.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So this one wolves was like gradual spill over from
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the population that was introduced in Yellastone. I would not
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: call it gradual. I would call it almost instantaneous. I mean,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: so now today we have almost four hundred wolves in
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in Wyoming, not just outside the that's counting the park
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and everything. But you've hit four times recovery objective. We've
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: we've were way over recovery objective. The Fish and Wildlife
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Service has tried to delist wolves uh in Wyoming at
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: least a couple of times. Um, we've been in five
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: different losses and point that's the Feds. Yeah, that's people
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that ran the introduction. That's right, it's not it's not
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the state. I mean, the state's been pushing for for delisting,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: but the federal government, the US Fish and Widlife Service
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: actually wrote two rules to d list wolves in Wyoming
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and the and other states too much like them saying, Hey,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the wolves we put in there have got to the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: point where we wanted them to get. We will now
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: turn them back to the state to manage. Can you
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: explain why people can hunt him in Idaho? The road
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you hear the voice of to give you give you
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a little bio real quick fishing guide, mediator, production assistant
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: general paint in the ass right, but yeah, I want
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to get to that real. Have a question I think
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: that's relevant right now, is what the goal all along
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: was to get him off of the list, right, right?
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And when it's time to get him off the list,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: why would like Wyoming be pushing for it, and why
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: would the feds be pushing for it. If they even
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: were pushing for like, what do they get out of it?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: If if like they say, please do this, let's do this,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and it does happen. So the states get something the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: feds get. So the states get on ship and you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: get management of their wildlife back, the ability to make
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: management decisions and and deal with uh, you know, they
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: can have hunting seasons, they can deal with damage problems, wolves,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: killing livestock, you know that sort of thing. The federal
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: is mostly just like the ownership then of the regulation
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and the wildlife right and the manes all the wildlife anyways, right,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and so from the federal government standpoint, it's an opportunity
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: to say, here's an example where the Endangered Species Act worked.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: You know, we we had a listed species, we recovered
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that species, we got them off the list. We can
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: move to the next thing and do it. See the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act works. So that's what the federal government
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: gets out of it. Plus they get out of the management.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, they get the they can move on to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: other things, and their money doesn't have to go free
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: up those dollars, that personnel, you know, all that stuff.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Because the Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: law in they've listed about two thousand speed sees over
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: that ye about now, and I think they've no species
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: get off the list and a handful of ways that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: they don't want to get off. Where they realized they're
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: extinct that's ten, or they realized that they messed up
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the count and found populations that they didn't know about.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh, they're not they're not endangered. You got
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the numbers good, or you're making them, or you actually
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: recover them. And how many have recovered out of two
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: tho roughly thirty four maybe thirty six have been recovered. Yeah,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: so there's a lot of works to be done, although
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I'd argue six that have come off the list to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the recovery. There are other species on that list that
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: have recovered. Wolves and example, we have talked to you
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: guys that works on Cariboo in the lower forty eight
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: and there's about fifteen. Right, So here we are, you
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: got four hundred wolves whelming on. You know at the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: point we left off you want up right right? That's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's where we are today. Yeah, And so
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I was only we we've now had I think five
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: different lawsuits since two thousand and four challenging the Fish
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and Wildlife Services attempts at delisting wolves in Wyoming. And
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: we've been through so we've been through multiple rounds and
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and in one of them, and this will get to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: your question about about Idaho and Montana, So in one
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of them we have and this is a big controversy,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: but in Wyoming we put together a wolf management plan,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: you know, and all the states had to put together
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: before there was delisting. All the states right had to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: put together a wolf management plan that said, once wolves
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: are delisted, here's what we will do. And it needed
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to be endorsed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the service to be able to move forward. And we
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: had some lawsuits over our plan. The Service wasn't liking
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: our plan, but ultimately we had a court say it
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: was fine. The biggest tea, the biggest hang up in
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: our plan was we we created a dual classification for wolves.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: So in northwest Wyoming, where most of the world, well,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: where all of our wolves are, we called them trophy game,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: which in Wyoming is limited to things like grizzly bears uh,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: wolves um, black bears, mountain lions uh they have a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: certain there's a there's there's certain thresholds to be able
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to hunt them. Yeah, if it's all there right now,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: big horns are just a game animal, just a big
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: game anilso trophy game is treated a little different and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: they have, you know, different quotas that they've set up,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and they manage them a little different. So it's more
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: heavily regulated. And so that's how they were classified there.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: In the rest of the state, outside of this trophy
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: game area, we classified wolves as predators and in Wyoming,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: like coyotes, in Wyoming predators you don't need a license.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: It's open season. Um you know, no license, no season,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: you go out and shoot as many wolves as you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: see in the predator zone. And that was they didn't
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: like it, But we did have a federal judge say, look,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the the objective here is to recover wolves. The plan
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: that Wyoming's written still meets the requirements for having a
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: recovered wolf population, and they just have a different way
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: of doing business than Idaho and Montana. Um so, so
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: they moved forward with a d listing rule with that
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: management plan. Well, a different federal judge didn't much care for, uh,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: for our management plan. Uh. And so the what ended
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: up happening, I guess is that the Service wound up
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: moving forward with trying to delist just in Idaho and
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Montana because there were problems with our plan and uh
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: in Idaho and Montana. UM what that went to litigation
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: as well, and the court there said, uh, you cannot
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: delist in just those two states. You know, they tried
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: to create what was called a distinct population segment UH,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: which is another provision under the Endanger Species Act to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: delist these wolves. UH. That didn't include Wyoming, and they said,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you cannot, right, you cannot draw the judge so you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: cannot draw a DPS distinct population segment on political boundaries.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: It has to be biological boundaries. These wolves are moving
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: across state lines. And so that's when Congress got involved. Uh.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: So they struck down the judge struck down the rule
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to delist in Montana and Idaho, and Congress got involved
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and reinstated that rule and made it uh litigation proof.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: So put the rule back in place, litigation proof. They
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: be that rule then meant those wolves in Montana and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Idaho were delisted. The ones in Wyoming stayed on. We
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: got another rule to de list in Wyoming in two
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: thousand and twelve, the service put forward another rule to
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: de list in two thousand twelve. We actually had management
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: authority for two years. UH. At that point, you guys
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: ran two wolf seasons. We did, and actually, in at
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: least in our first wolf season, we never actually met
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: our quota. Turns out wolves get really smart after being
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: shot at for a day or two, and they get
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: real hard to find. Was the quota? Oh, I think
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the total quota. I'm gonna I'm just gonna throw a
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: number out there because I'm not gonna get it spot on,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: but around fifty uh, and I think we missed that
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: by ten or so or fifteen uh in that first year.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Second year, I don't think we hit the quota either.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And then the court came out and UH vacated that
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: rule and they went back on the list again. And
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: actually last Friday we have the Fishing Wireless Service appealed
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that decision. UH, and last Friday we had arguments on
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that in d C. And it was kind of funny
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: that the judge and that not funny in a hahaway,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: but the the judge and that in that district court
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: case in d c didn't argue that the that wolves
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: had actually recovered, said, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: dispute the services decision or determination that wolves in Wyoming
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: have recovered. Her biggest problem was that our wolf management
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: plan wasn't it wasn't adopted in regulation or statute, and
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: so it wasn't it didn't have We made all these
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: promises that she felt like we could just break, uh
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to maintain our wolf populations. Of course, in Wyoming, we
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: say we don't want to go through the last twenty
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: years again. Yeah yeah, uh so we I mean, we're
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: gonna be pretty conservative and we're going to manage these
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: wolves and we're gonna have wolves well into the future
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: because we don't want to go through what we've had
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: to go through the past twenty years. It is possible
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that it could happen. Oh yeah, I mean, like it's like,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: there's nothing preventing relisting from happening. Well, it's except having
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: enough wolves. I mean that's what I'm saying. Like, in
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a legal way, if all of a sudden they were
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: all gone, they just get relisted right now, they're all gone.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: If they if they got below a threshold, well if
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the population started creating. Yeah, there's two ways. I mean,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the service couldn't look at it themselves and say, you know, Wyoming,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: you're not doing a good job the populations created. We're
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: we're we're gonna have to do it ourselves and relist ourselves.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Or uh, you know, somebody, anybody could file a petition,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: uh with the Fishing Wilife Services and say, relist these wolves.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: They're struggling. Um, we don't think that that's gonna happen.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I mean we we think we've proved in the two
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: years we managed the wolf population, Wyoming remains strong and
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: way over objective. So so who has me? Like what's
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: going on in Montana and idhol Right now? They have
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Montana and Idaho they're managing wolves. They it's the states
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: of there's state animals. Now there's state wolves. But you
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: guys have not gotten the back. We have not gotten
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: why But why won't We're stubborn? But why not capitulate.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: What's the argument for just saying like, Okay, what does
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the plan they have? How did they get management? Why
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: don't we mirror that plan and get management? Every state's different,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: we have our own priorities. You're you're taking your your
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: your approach is that you're like, no that we're right, Oh,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: go ahead, I have the answer. Okay, if it's a
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: goofy answer, don't tell me. Okay you later. Then does
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: it have anything to do with Montana and Idaho managing
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: them as game animals that you gotta buy tags for
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and Wyoming calling them predators and it's just a free
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: for all? That that was ultimately the reason why uh
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: why Montana and Idaho got there and we didn't. So
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: off Wyoming got control back. Would they handle it more
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: like Montana where you got to buy a tag and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: it's a game animal and no, we I mean we
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: have we have a management plan. I mean, this dual
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: classification system has been signed off on by judge right now.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: The problem is do we have it? You know, are
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: are the commitments we've made to maintain a certain population?
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Are they sufficient? That? Yeah? Yeah? That also that's where
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it still is that now, Yeah, yeah, that's that's like
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: whether it's whether it's been adopted into the sort of
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: rigid enough sense of the law. Can the states be trusted?
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I mean that's what it was down. Can the states
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: be trusted to maintain this population. This is coming right
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: back around to the company the overarching issues. You started
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: with wolves. But when you look at these environmental laws,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: we just talk about wolves in my opinion. You know,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the same groups that sue Wyoming, you know they're gonna
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: see Wyoming no matter what. They just needed to you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: they needed a reason to do that. Those guys, they
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: don't want anybody hunting wolves. They don't want Montana and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Idaho hunting wolves. They don't want anybody hunting bears. They
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: don't want you know, it's just that's that's not the priority,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and so favorite animals. And when you look at so
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you look at what you know, it wasn't an issue
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: how many wolves there were. You know, it's an issue
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of hunting wolves. And when you look at you again
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: found out foundational pieces of environmental law. These these laws
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that came together. Everybody's like, hey, let's work together. Is
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: a big team to protect this stuff. Endangered Species Act, Honestly,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the Clean Water Act is so similar to it and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: how it kind of came about and works that it's
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're really all these laws are very similar.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: But when you have every when you have a big
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: group come together saying let's keep water clean, Let's work
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: as a team, let's save alms, let's work as a team.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And you have you know, there are some folks that
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: that's you know, they don't have the same I mean,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I think that these laws and we see people pushing
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: against these laws and saying they don't work anymore. It's
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: not that the laws don't work anymore. It's that, you know,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: we have to find a way to get back to
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the original intent of the laws, to get back to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: what when Congress built them, what Congress hadn't mind, because
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: that's how you get everybody on board, rather than having
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the law become a tool for uh a minority viewpoint,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: If that makes sense. Yeah, that that's the point I've
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: made a handful of times. What happened a discussion is
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that people, I feel have taken well meaning laws like
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act and sort of weaponize them where
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: you use it as a tool, where you're not talking
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: about what the intent of it is. You're talking about
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: how you can use it as a way to to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: pursue some goal. And I feel as though I said
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: as many times, I feel as though you wind up uh,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: delegitimizing the Act like if you say, it just pains
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: me to think that someone would would kill a grizzly Berger,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: So in order to save Risley bears, I will take
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: something like the the E s A and sue on
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: grounds of how you're interpreting the E s A when
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you're not really talking about the Endangered Species You're not
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: talking about the function of the Endangered Species Act. You're
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: talking about that you don't want someone to kill bears,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: which would be I would suggest in that case you
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: should pursue some whole other thing like um, My Favorite
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Animal Act or America's Most Cuddly Seeming Animals Act, by
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: which you could just pursue your goals in a way
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that you're you're actually articulating what it is you're after,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: rather than using it. You know as well as not
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: has has not intended to you know, these are they're
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: really challenging issues. But the reality is, and I think
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: that this is where we have a great opportunity right now.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I think people have seen I think people are tired
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of they're tired of divisiveness. I think we've all seen
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: issues out there where you know, we've we've seen how
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work to just get on opposite sides of
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the table, put a problem in between us, and then
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: just argue about who whose fault it is. And I
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: think I honestly believe the majority of people now we're
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you know, we, you know, the pragmatic problem solvers. I
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: think most of us are that. I think most people
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: are that. I think we have a unique opportunity with
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: these at this point in time to get people who
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: are like all these people sitting around this table now,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: who are just saying, hey, you know what, let's make
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: everything work, you know, because these things are too important
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to fail at. You know, they're too important to fail at.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And and you see, you know, you know, I I'm
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a fan. I listened to a lot of your stuff,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and I think, you know, pick the environmental law, pick
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the issue. You're always going to be able to find,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: whether it's on this side over here, on left side
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of that side over there on the right side, you're
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to find voices who are out there
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that are on those those far you know, opposite sides
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: of an issue. And unfortunately, I think it's too easy
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: right now to get on Facebook and become friends with
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: people that only believe exactly what we believe and then
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to believe that you know that that's exactly what you
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: should be doing, when in reality, I think if we
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: could all back away and look, you know, and not
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: demonize everybody's opinions or their point of view based on
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the outliers that are within their community, we find that
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: we all actually do want the same thing still. We
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: all want healthy wildlife populations. And whyoming you know, we
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: believe we have the local knowledge and we've proven it
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: to know how to manage those things correctly to keep
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: them there. We all want clean water, you know, we
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: all want fish in that clean water. Um, but you
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you have to at some point step back and trust
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the people who are on the ground that have the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: local expertise, and trust them with the ability to manage
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and ultimately get their buy in, whether it's the private
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: landowner buy in or the local government buy in, because
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: it is the buying of those people living in those
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: ecosystems with those issues that's what ensures the success of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: that species. That's what ensures that that stream gets fixed.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: It's not a law, it's not a regulation. It's not
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: people who write a check from in place far away.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: It's people who want to come and fix the issues
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: on the ground today and live with those issues and
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: make sure that they're kids like my kids. You know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I have a six year old and the three year old. Man.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going into the wilderness to hunt elk on Thursday. Yeah,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: we're exactly going. Yeah, well, I'll tell you the wilderness
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the exact coordinates. It's right next to Colorado, right, David. Okay,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: maybe I won't tell you. How much do you guys file?
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: How much you guys follow the UH wolf fishing to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: other states? I follow? Are you talking? You're going Western
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes on me? I want to talk. Well, let's
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: talk about Western Gray Lakes, which is where I'm from,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: or where you say Northern Great Lakes or the Mexican
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: gray wolf like Mexican gray wolf. But no, because this
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: brings up a point you're talking about with with state
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and federal stuff. So the Mexican gray wolf smaller than
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: a Northern gray wolf. They used to range in New Mexico, Arizona,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Western tech Us, Northern Mexico UH one extinct. They got
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: listed around the same time. Yeah, I released mid seventies. Okay,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: then you wind up having I would say that in
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: a national sense you had overwhelming public support for reintroduction
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: of the gray wolf, and under the idea that if
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: you had a species, we have a species of wildlife
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that when extinct due to human causes, so we brought
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: it to extinction. A lot of people feel that that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: would mean you have a moral obligation to correct to right.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: You're wrong if assuming that, like the God given animals
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: that live on the planet should be present, that's like
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: a basic assumption. People said, if we accept that that's true,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: that we don't have the right to drive things to extinction.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: We needed to right the wrong. Overwhelming public support. Now,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I would say generally when it comes to the Mexican
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: gray wolf, you've had generally, um, the States kind of
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: dragging their heels about this. There's a recent fight going
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: on where not too long ago, they had some animals
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: in there, and the Feds have been doing reinroductions using
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: with state permits. So they would do renin inductions, they
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: would get state permits. They weren't able to secure some
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: state permits and went and dumped into a couple more
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: wolves just on their own without state approval. I gotta
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: slap on the wrist about it, all right, But in
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: a case like that, wouldn't you say that the Feds
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: are sort of pursuing a national interest on federal property,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: almost in conflict with people who have a local interest.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: But they if you ask them, if you have the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: people acting on that bad if they would say that, well,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: our mandate is to the people of the nation. So
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: but but how do you feel, like, how do you
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: rectify those two things, because I'm wondering how were like
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: people generally want to accept like a local person, right,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: a local person has sort of a you know, it
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: should be allowed like a reasonal amount of say in
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: issues that affect his backyard. But we also have the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: bigger picture. Meaning if I pollute a stream in my
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: yard and I just say, but it's my stream, it's
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: my property, someone might say, but where does the water go? Right,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: it goes down into my place. So you're not just
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: acting on your place, You're acting on everyone's place. Like
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: in a case like that, when you look at me
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: like and and personally, I support the idea that I
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: think states do a good job of managing wildlife that's
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: on the in the here and now. States to a
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: phenomenal job of managing wild if found the ground. That's
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: right here. But what about these cases where overwhelmingly people
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: want grizzly bears, they want wolves, and you have a
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: state that kind of is is up front in the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: beginning of the process, not into the idea. Then all
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: of a sudden they get there against that states will
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: You can see how the FEDS would then say, I'm
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a little reluctant to hand this over to you because
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: you guys didn't want this to happen. Do you remember,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: like how do you feel about that? Like that situation
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: where does the switch occur? Yeah, where the state says
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: you're right, I didn't, but they're here now and I promise.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: So so that's where the I think the Endangered Species
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Act comes into play, right, Yeah? So yeah, and that
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I mean that brings us back to wolves in Wyoming.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's where you're going, right, And well, anything
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: in Mexico, you know, you know, I don't Arizona. I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: probably won't talk about that too. I'm very comfortable with
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the microcol with it's an analogy, right, and and so
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: in Wyoming, yeah, we we very clearly didn't on them.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Uh but because of what, because of what reasons? Just
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: be just be Frank, I mean because you have a
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: huge Like you guys have what what percents your industries last, Well,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: it's our third largest industry in the state, behind energy
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and tourism and then agriculture, and so yeah, there are
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of grazing allotments up in the National Forest
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and Northwest Wyoming. Uh. It's also uh the impacts to sportsmen,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: especially on large angulus, so elk moves deer hunters, that's
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: a primary food source for wolves. And so there was
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of fear and it turns out some rightful
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: fear in what what bringing wolves back into Northwest Wyoming
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: might do to some of those angul population. Man, they
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I mean how many you got four hundred outside of the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the park. The seven pounds me today counting the park,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that counts the park. I mean they eat seven pounds
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: of me today. So I mean you've seen this right Montana, Yeah,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the elk herd. I moved to Montana. The elk herd
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: my brothers still hunts the same el Kurt he's hunting
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: one third the number of elk to use hunted nine
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: to night. It's been real interesting living in northern Colorado,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: watching what's happened up there because pretty much everyone in
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: northern Colorado has a wolf story. Who knows if they're
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: there or not. But but yeah, you want to don't
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: have Colorado. But it's been interesting watch because Colorado just
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: wrote a preemptive wolf management plan based on the Mexican
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: gray wolf and based on what's happened up here. And
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the gist of the plan was is we don't want
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: we will absolutely not put up with any kind of
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: reintroduction program. If they make it here naturally, so be it,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: but we do not want wolves reintroduced in Colorado. And
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: that and that wolf management program, as far as I know,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: was approved and it's so it's a lot of it
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I think was politically driven, just seeing the kind of
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: the ship storm that revolves around wolves. But you know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: because they're worried about that, you are they down? Are
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: they they've been confirmed? Siding I know they're in Colorado. Yeah, no,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: they've they've been wolves in Colorado. Are they have they
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: set up packs? I don't really answer to that. So
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the reluxtance livestock, what it's gonna do to large ungulate
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And then I think, you know, just to be frank,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: having the federal government for something. It's a trust issue.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, at the heart of it, it's a trust
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: issue where you know, I've got a great friend who's
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: got a big ranch up uh, you know, right outside
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: the thoroughfare in Wyoming and just beautiful place. Uh go
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: hunt there, everyone, Um, Actually, don't go hunt there, go
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: on someplace else. I'll be there next week. Beautiful, beautiful,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: beauty flurry. But I mean, you know, you talked to
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: this guy, and you know he lives with these prejutoricses
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: backyard every day and his number one goal, you know
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: what it is make sure that ranch gets passed down
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to his kids, is to keep his lifestyle going. And
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: so we kind of demonize these folks and the reality
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: is these honestly, these guys, it doesn't matter whether they're
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: raising cows or whether they raising horses, or whether they
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: were raising bears. The fact is if you let them
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: keep their lifestyle going, you let them keep that place
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: economically viable. I mean, that's what's important to them. You know,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: it's not they're not out there, you know, trying to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: make biological decisions for everybody. They just want somebody to
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: come in and and honestly ruin their life and I've
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: got a good friend and said, hey, look I love fish.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I love you know, wildlife, and you know, between water
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and fish, I'm gonna put some water from some water
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: in my ditch. So we always have fish. But don't
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: make it between my life and the fish. You know.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: There's another value to that too, uh, And it's for
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: wildlife habitat. Northwest Wyoming is a pretty popular place for
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: people to move, you know, Jackson holds so forth. The
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: having these landowners that are able to continue their livelihood
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and pass their ranches down to future generations allows a
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: buffer between you know, the federal land, the wilderness areas,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and your you know, highly fragmented ranch at type of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: developments and communities. So you create this buffer habitat. So
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it's pretty important and and I think we recognize that.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And you know the other thing we've done for wolves,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: to help these landowners and to help this happen is
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: by state law. If they can, If if we can
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: send somebody from our game and fish out and confirmed
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: that their livestock has been killed by a wolf, we'll
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: pay for Sportsmen are paying for it. Even though you
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: don't have management. Even though we don't have management, we
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: still compensate our landowners. You guys put the bill for that.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: We put the bill, not the federals, the states. We
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: do it for grizzly bears, we do it for wolves, um,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and then we do it for other species. To elk,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you know, get into a haystack, we'll compensate the landowner
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: for that. But one of those wolfs, why don't you
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: guys just say, hey, it's not my problem, you know what,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: because it is our problem still. Yeah, I mean, the
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: federal government is admirable to doing it, but I just wouldn't.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that it winds up being your financial respont.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: The federal government is not going to come in and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: do it. They don't have the money to run a
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: wolf management program anyway. They definitely don't have the money
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: to to pay landowners for the type of damage we're
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: talking about, you know, million dollar numbers a year in
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: uh damage. That that's a huge misconception. I think that somehow,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: because these laws exist, that the federal governments come with
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the checkbook and taking care of all these issues, whether
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: it's on impaired streams, whether it's you know, wolf or bear. Honestly,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: private landowners and states are the ones that they're paying
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to fix these issues. You know, that's where the majority
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: of the money is coming from. I think that shows
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: a commitment from Wyoming too to having the wolves on
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: the landscape. Is the fact that you know, we're doing
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: everything we can to make our landowners whole, uh, which
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: in turn build some some goodwill and and support, you know,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: at least some support for having wolves there from landowners
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: if they know they're at least being made whole for
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: their losses. Uh. You know, we've been doing this for
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: years with grizzly bears. Last year, I think we spent
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: one point two million dollars on damage claims on compensating
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: landowners for losses to livestock from grizzly bears. We don't
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: have management authority at all over grizzly bears. Uh, but
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: we're still paying for it. Yeah. So so. But but
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I want to get back to one point. What do
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: you think about all this so far? Oh? Hi, Steve, nothing,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I just uh, it drives me crazy. What does the
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: whole fact that the federal government tells the states what
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: they could do? I don't what does that? How could
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: that be true? It's true because it's in my head.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: It's true. I mean, but I mean, but it's a
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: it's a state, it's a state of way ow me.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: How does the federal government even because we're in the
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: United States of America. I know, But they put the
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: wolves up in Yellowstone. Didn't they ever think about the
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: fact that they're gonna just migrate out of there? Yeah,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they knew what they were gonna, know, somebody
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: with a dream catcher. I thought it was a good idea.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I hate wolves. I'm sorry. I'm a dog. I'm a
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: dog guy. But wolves are dogs, I know. But they
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: kill dogs. And come on, they kill a lot of dogs. No, yeah,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: they Okay, yeah, they'll kill some dogs, know what I'm saying.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Come on about I still think it's fair, that's fine.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I still love you. I still love you. I just
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: think that's a wrong statement. Okay. I just wish we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have meddled with it in the first place. Where
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: could they be they'd be I don't know, there's a
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of they would have probably Okay, they
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: came into northern Montana, they would probably be down there anyway.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I live in Michigan. Yeah, they would they came into Michigan.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: They didn't get reintroduced in the year home state, Your
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: home states, Illinois. There's no reintroduction in Michigan. There's no
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: reintroduction in Minnesota. There's no reintroduction Wisconsin. Why they came
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: in on their own? Why are they only picking areas
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: where the sports been used more ground and there's less
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: they're putting wolves because those are areas that are suitable
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: for wolves. Because one of the things that makes them
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: suitable for wolves is like they don't get in trouble
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: every five minutes. It's like, so we're gonna put something
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: into this, and no one put it in there. They
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: came in on their own. They were there. They were there. Okay,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: if you looked at at the time of at the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: time of Columbus's arrival in the West Indies, wolves were everywhere,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: right and they were in all the places we're discussing.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: They were extra pated for good reason. I don't know.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want to put a value judgment at the
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: time for what seemed like a very good reason. At
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: the time, it seemed like a great reason. But I mean,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: people's mentality shift over time. But yeah, at the time,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: it was like here's the thing that competes for my interests,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and and we, like all species are, are a selfish species.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: So now I think that the arguments focused on most places.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I made this play with grizzy bears. Grizzly
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: bears were native from the Missouri very roughly from the
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Missouri River to the Pacific coast. No one's talking about
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that we need grizzlies in in park. Okay, well, yeah,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: there's if you're gonna pull Americans, or if you're gonna
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: like get a bunch of ecologists together. They would say
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: that the argument has has found its way into talking
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: about ways where you have what might be defined by
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: some as suitable habitat when they can come in and
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: get a toe hold on their own, which is what
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: we're seeing with mountain lions that are pushing east. No
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: one's doing mountain lion re introduction reintroductions. They're they're they're
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: doing it on their own, Okay, very effectively. Right now,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Wolves in the Northern Great Lakes did it on their own,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: just crossing the ice and came down from Ontario northern
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Montana the same way here they some people came in,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and maybe they now regret it, but they came in
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: and sort of made a little jump and put them
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: on a on a little island of land, and not
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: an island, but an island of land that people in
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the US tend to. There's a thing I've identified recently
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: is Yellowstone syndrome. It's what happens when the only thing
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you know about wildlife comes from Yellowstone Park. When you
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: went to Yellowstone, your mom and dad, or ship you
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: watched it was filmed in Yellowstone, and that's your entire
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: idea of wilderness and wildlife. You know. The governor, you know,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: is one of the statements he always says, it's not
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: that we don't like these things, but we are not
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: a zoo. We live here, and I think that for us,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it comes back. There's a misconception
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: that again the States somehow, if you, you know, hand
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: these animals over the States, it's all gonna happen all
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: over and they're gonna be gone. That's just not true.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: It's not it's not true because you would be because
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: the hammer is over your head. You know. I think
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: that I know you. I don't like that, and that's
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: not that I don't really like the way I put it.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: But that's a factor, right it is. No, No, the
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Endanger Species Act does some good things.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and argue that
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: it's not maybe the most impact full federal law from
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: a species protection standpoint out there. Uh No, I think
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: it's a really strong case to be made that that
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: is not working that well. Right, No, it's it's not,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it's not, you know, I like to I would like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: to tell people I think the Endangered Species Act is
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: you know, think of it as a nice new car
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: that you bought, you know, in nineteen seventy three, and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: it it's and you loved it, and you treated it,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: treated it well for a little while, and then you
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: started neglecting it, and then it went through this horrible
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: hail storm. So all the parts are the same, but
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's been kind of messed up and it and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: it needs a little bit of work because I mean, frankly,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: the the hammer is not it's not necessarily a bad
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: thing to have, uh to have at least, I don't
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: want to use the word hammer. But you have the
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: E s A out there, so it's a it's a motivator,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: you know. The SA is kind of a motivator. You
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: want to do the right thing. Anyway, the e s
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: A as a motivator to make sure you do the
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: right thing because on a state's right standpoint, you don't
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: want him to go back on the list. Um. And frankly,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: right now that with the way the e s A works,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: when things go on the list, they just don't come off.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: And so that's a pretty good that's a pretty good
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: motivator to not want anything that you don't have on
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: the list right now to get there, which is why
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: we were so proactive with stage grouse, for example, and
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: why the Midwestern states were so proactive with lesser prairie
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: chicken um. And you're seeing a lot more proactive voluntary
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: conservation efforts all over the country and particularly in the West,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: for species that aren't even listed yet to keep them
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: from getting there. But we still have the problem of
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: how do we get things like wolves and bears off
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: the list when they've so obviously met these recovery criteria,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: you know, how do we get them off the list?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: How do we get them back to state control? And
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest hurdles right now is
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: you have instead of instead of the s a being
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: interpreted uh biologically, it's being interpreted socially and emotionally. Yeah,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: that's right. And you have a lot of judges now
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: uh that that pull those social uh impacts or social
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: thoughts into their decision making on what are really what
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: really should be biological questions. Biologically, wolves have recovered in Wyoming, Biologically,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: grizzly bears have recovered in Wyoming. Socially, taking those off
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: the list is frankly very unpopular outside of the inner
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: inner Rocky Mountain West. Oh yeah, especially with grizzly bears.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: There's outside of the West, there's there is not a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: lot of support uh for delisting grizzly bears because of
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: exactly what you said, this this Yellowstone syndrome. People think
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: of grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area as the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: grizzly bears of Yellowstone, Golden gate Bridge. I mean people
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: that that's you know, when you don't again, it's it's
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: respecting the knowledge problem. Somebody who doesn't live in those
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: you know, in close proximity or or immerse themselves frequently
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: in that just I mean, they really don't have a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: real idea of what it looks go. No, I don't
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: know if they know they're in grizzly bear country. I mean,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: if they're country, but it makes them feel good and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I respect this. You know, somebody who lives in New York,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you know, they want to feel like they want to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: feel like there's wild places that have bears someplace, and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: so hearing that somebody might take away it's hearing somebody
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: might take away bear. I mean they mean you look outside,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: you know. I can imagine if if I lived in
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: d C. There's nothing I don't want to except escape
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: every weekend to Wyoming, so I can be in the mountains,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: you know, and people want to know that's there, and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: so they want that protected. But there's not a lot
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: of you know, I think we all need to. I
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: think we'd all agree there needs to be respect for
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the knowledge problem, which is that when you are removed
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: from that thing, you're not right there with it. You
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: gotta respect that the people who are on the ground
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: who are managing that every day probably have a better
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: idea than you the best way to management. So if
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: you give them guidance, and that's what the SA is,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: that's what the clean wires react is. It's strong guidance.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: You gotta step back and let him work with it.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: You got to trust them to do that. And the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: challenge now, I think is that people aren't trusting states
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: to make the final calls on those things. They're not
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: trusting them to do the work that these acts allow
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: them to do and put them in the position to
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: be able to do. Instead, people who live miles away,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: who don't open their window and see that stream every
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: day or see that bear, they want to make the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: calls and what's occurring with those things at the end
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: of the day, even though they don't really know the way.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Kind of my overall of you on it. A couple
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: of things like I'm a firm believer in the scientific process,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: so I get a little bit uneasy when um things
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: like what is it recovered species? What is an endangered species?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Becomes the falls under the purview of just emotional decision
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: making about what's my favorite animal or what animal do
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I like to look at the most, because I think
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: that we have had if you look at the US
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: in terms of our total population, our g MP, everything,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: it's um, it's kind of miraculous that we have the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: wildlife that we do like, no one's no, no other
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: countries managed to even come close to what we've managed.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: And the way we've done it is by managing through
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: scientific like scientific pursuits. Okay, we we use biologists very well.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: We have systems in place by which we ascertain population levels,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: make decisions about what sort of harvest can be pulled
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: from that in order to take into account everyone's needs
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: from wildlife viewing the people who rely on wild meats
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: for food to have, you know, to having like genetically
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: viable populations, we've done a pretty fantastic job. I'm not
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: saying when you compare it to like what your dream
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: scenario is, but when you compare it to actual countries
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: that around the actual earth, no one comes close. Now,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: A big part of that recipe of success, recipe for
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: success has been state management of wild life. One could
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: always go and look and look and say like, oh, yeah,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: but wolves went um wolves went extinct, So our wolves
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: were extirpated from some of these states. So they haven't
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: done a good job. But that problem was occurring before
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: these places became a state. Elo Leopold has his you know,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: has his famous epiphany that he that he gives in
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: san County Almanac, which occurs when he was down and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: I believe in New Mexico doing some wolf depredation. He
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: was down in New Mexico, and New Mexico is a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: US territory killing wolves for the federal government. So when
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: we're now look and want to blame states on past
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: sins were oftentimes blame, it would be like me getting
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: pissed at you about something your grandfather did. It is
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: like a common thing that happens. The buffalo was driven
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: to extinction when these were U S territories. It didn't
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: happen under state management. So the idea of sort of
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: like scientifically based state wildlife management agencies that came after
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the problems that these states are still trying to rectify
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: when we have had the federal government come in and
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I would argue, different than some of the people in
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: this room, for sure, the same as some of the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: people in this room, and different than some of them,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: I would argue that we do have an obligate that
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: that it's a moral wrong to drive animals to extinction.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: At times, I think that the federal government has done
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: It's just me talking, not defined David. I think the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: federal government has done. The kind of things that the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: federal government does well is stepping in with a lot
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: of power and a lot of money and doing some
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: big picture things to try to move things along. And
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: I think that in some cases they've done good things
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: in terms of wildlife, because I am the rare middle
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: ground where I feel that we should have grizzly bears,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: we should have wolves, and they should be managed as
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: a renewable resource by the states which are white. Point
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: out the state of Wyoming is right now and has
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: been very successfully managing white tailed deer, mule deer, elk moose,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: black bears, mountain lions, big horn sheep, mountain goats. I
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: said mountain lions, wrong, horn saiday, antelope didn't. I. Okay,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: we're not stage grouse. We're not trying something new here.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: People who worry about states management act like, oh my goodness,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: what's the state gonna do? But it's like they're already
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: doing all of that, So it's not outlandished to act
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: like that that we would use the system that has
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: served us very well in the modern age and not
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: try to blame people and things that happened when they
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: weren't even a state. Do you know who started all that. No,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: please tell me states the very first game laws. You know,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: when you had when you were losing passenger pigeons, when
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: you were losing bison, when you were losing deer, uh, antelope,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: elk wasn't the federal government that came in and passed
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of game laws to to build these populations
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: back up as states first first white tailed deer laws came.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: I think they were in New York. Uh. Yeah. It
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: was states responding to these types of activities that led
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: to the development of the North American model you're talking about,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: and and led to the recovery of pronghorn from as
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: few as twenty five thousand to now well over a million.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I believe that we have in pronghorn, same thing with elk. Uh.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: You just go down the list of the species, the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: local territorial government. There was a guy trying to ban
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: dynamite fishing for trout in Montana before the Little Big
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: Horn massacre. At you point out the Custer lived to
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: be older than Laramie. You know, I used to live
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: right after Custar hit thirty seven. Larry died at thirty six.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Larry may have died a better death. Oh dude, So
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: we don't know, we know, we know, having to George Armstrong.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: So but that's my take on it. It's and it's like, yeah,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: I just feel like there's a there's a misconception with
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: people who live outside of wilderness state. Let's just I
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: don't know, like states, a lot of wildlife wilderness states,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: is that they want to look and be like, like,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: you come from a state where everything's destroyed. You know,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: your your native wildlife is not intact. It has no
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: chance of even being attacked. No one's even having a
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: conversation about putting wolves back into Maryland. Like it's not
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: even on anyone's radar. It can't even be approached conversationally.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: So but you want look and say that I wouldn't
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: want that to happen here because you know, but out
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: there those people that still have intact mega fauno and
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: they have all of their species running around. And in
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: the case of Wyoming, that has like what is mathematically
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: regarded as the most remote area in the lower forty
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: eight United States. And I'm giving a hint and he's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: already named it. Just remember, if you want to hunt
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: wilderness in Wyoming, you have to have a guide. Yeah,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: if you're from out of states, if you call wilderness
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: getting far away from the road, Wyoming has the biggest
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: piece of wilderness in lower forty eight. So why is
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: the state villainized in the outside perspective as being they
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: can't Oh, they're gonna mess it up. It's like based
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: compared to what compared to who? Well and one other point,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: so we have you mentioned before species on the endangered
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: species list, Wyoming this most state with all the wilderness
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: and the most most remote place. I think of those
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: dred we have twelve, and and some of them are
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: shared by other states, and some of them are plants species,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: and a couple of them we think are recovered in
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Chica that we've been talking about. Off that list, that's
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: pretty solid. We have got the tenth largest state by
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: area in the country, and we have twelve. I couldn't
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: tell you, but I can tell you Hawaii has almost
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: five hundred. I can tell you California has three hundred
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: and fifty something like that. Uh. You know, those those
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: two states combined have something like a third of all
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: listed species. Uh. Wyoming has twelve. Uh. You go to
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: places and that's an it's an aspect of this that
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: boggles my mind where you think that more people would
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: look and it would be like, what are those boys doing.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of like like economic factors
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: that I don't want to simplified. There's a ton of
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: economic factors. But I also think that it's like as
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: far as finding a way to balance human needs, you
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: guys have good spending on public schools relative to other states.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I feel I don't live in Wilming, but I feel
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: bad for I feel bad for you guys on the
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: grizzly issue, and I feel bad for you guys on
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: the wolf fish. We appreciate that doesn't change your sympathy. Yeah,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: but no, you're right, You're right. I mean, it's uh,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: it's a frustrating place to be where we feel like
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: we can we can point to example after example of
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: example of what we do right and how we do
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: balance all of the competing needs in the state and
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: what happens. People come from all over the country and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: all over the world to view our wildlife. Our tourism
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: is our second largest industry. And they're not coming here
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: to look at an oil rig or a coal mine.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: They're coming here because of our wild life. Yet somehow
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: we can't be trusted to manage two species of wildlife
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: that we have shown and for grizzly bear, for example,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: we've been the boots on the ground the past forty years.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: It's been the State of Wyoming that's been leading the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: charge on recovering grizzly bears. Yet we're not trusted that
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: we can then do it once they're delisted, that will
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: continue uh to manage these once they're delisted. It's it's
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: a very frustrating thing, uh, to to have folks that
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: don't live here, that have never been here tell us
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: what we are and are not capable of, when they
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: don't really understand what we do and what we've done. Yeah, man,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: any concluding thoughts, I just want to talk about Dave's rifle.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: It's fantastic. They they you're you're you're hunting luddite. Oh yeah.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Dave was saying, if you wanted to get to a
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: four yard shot, you'd have to add up how many
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: of the last about about probably probably four or five
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: maybe more no nos. To get to a one yard shot,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: you have to add up probably the last three elk
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I've killed to get to this. Man like, honestly, he
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: deserves some kind of a trophy. So if people are
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: out there, please I mean, I'm not I don't know
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: whether you should idolize him or you know, but man,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: my goodness, this guy is gun he's shooting a gunnygout
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: and he's fourteen years old. And while I wanted in
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: a raffle, actually my dad wanted in a raffle and
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: gave it to me. Still shooting a hand me down.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, shoulder strap broke. I hold it together
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: with a zip tie. I carry extras in my pack.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: So is it like but is this like, are you
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: making a point I don't about, honey, or is it
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: just like a general like life view you have about
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: If it's like that, you just have you have respect
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: for things that functioned, and yeah, you know you not
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: what you don't want to take part in the disposable.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean I I've killed a lot of animals with
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: that gun and and the other things that I use. Uh,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I I have a seventy dollar scope on it.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: You don't need a scope when you're up putting the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: rifle right in there side. She got a hole and
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a little cheap I'm a little cheap. That's the fact. Okay, okay.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: So it's the hunting thing, if you had to pick
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: a word, it's a hunting thing like sort of um
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: like the hunting gear thing, reverence for sort of objects
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: that are around in your life you'd like to have.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Continuity is the us that you hate to spend money.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: So it's a combination. But my wife would tell me
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: it's the latter. Yeah, she'll tell you I'm the cheapest person.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: She knows. Part of it is there's a sentimental attachment
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: to some of the stuff I've got, you know, and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: it takes me back to when I was a kid
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: hunting with my dad. I still wear I got My
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: dad bought me a vest when I started hunting in Wyoming,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: an orange vest reversible you know, sold you Yeah, that's what. Yeah,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: thirty seven, I still wear that same vest. Uh. Zipper
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. Uh oh the zipper broke ten years ago.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Uh it's I mean, it's all it's faded. It's it's
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: like a worn traffic cone instead of you know, bright orange. Uh.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: Is that legal? Probably? Not. Yani got remanded. Yanni got reprimanded.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: He got he got reprimanded. Not fined but reprimanded for
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: his orange being a little too old. What state were you?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I think Brody might have actually been with Remember it
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: was his hat, his hat. The guy was like, you know,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: next year, Toy said, yeah, He's like, next year it
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: might be too bad. Something like that. We might be
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: talking about, right. Um, a guy there's a there's a
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: friend of mine, Robert Abernathy. He's a big turkey hunter
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: and he uses really old stuff. But it's kind of
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: to him. It be sort of became. Um it's large
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: response to like disposable culture. It's like it's like a
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: person of rebellion against this idea that that you just
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: that you just need. You know, I don't have that problem.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like fixated that I love that kind of stuff.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: I like checking stuff out. You know, I would love things.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: So I think it's because I'm so cheap. I would
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: love if people would buy me a bunch of stuff,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: I'd probably use it. But like my backpack, the pack
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: I've used for the past ten years. It was my
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: computer bag in law school. I just repurposed it. It's
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: now it's now my hunting my tape. Yeah, unt together,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: this is why it just doesn't work. Yeah, I saw
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: you don't hunt the part that holds the laptop. I
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: just that's where I put my knives in my Uh.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I'm the opposite into the spectrum. I don't have a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: lot of time, so I'll drink. I'll drink a pumpkin.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: I'll refill it when it's done with a two later bottle.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: I'm the cheapest guy. My friend I have a I
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: guess he's kind of a friend. There's a there's a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: person I used to me friends with, and she married
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: this dude named Chris. And I saw a hunting picture
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: for Chris had really old, old little hunting clothes on,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: and I, because of my occupation and whatnot, I tend
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: to have a lot of hunting clothes laying around. And
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: I asked her. I said, hey, I noticed that Chris
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: is you know, threads are looking a little thin. Would
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: he is he making a point? Or would he like
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: me to send him over a box studs? And she
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: pointed out that he's making She's not entirely sure what
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: it is, but he's making some sort of point. Hey,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: this gets worse for Dave. I mean, this is the
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: sad thing about David. This is a guy who's the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: lead attorney for game and Fish right? I mean for
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: years he's on the like the team for Safari Club.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Where's your fathering in my work, Dave? I won't go
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: into that. I don't want to pimp product, but you
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: know at that point that you know that suggested me
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: he's harboring a drug and alcohol gambling problem and that's
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: where all this money is gone. So that's your same best.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: That's my best. Slide through a couple of pictures there,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: he'll see me go, He'll see it go through time
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: really see you know, you know, the wrong going the
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: wrong way, go the other way? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: see some other pictures pop up. I think my concern
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: is what's like like, I have tons of respect for
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the man's game, but he's gonna teach some hunter is
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: going to see this and think that's what you're supposed
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: to do. You have a lot of people out there
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: with hypothermia. You're gonna have. I like it, though, I
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: must say, yeah, I can't say I'm gonna start doing that,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: but I do appreciate it. But I was hoping you're
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: gonna hit me some some real philosophical stuff. I got
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: no I'm just, I'm just, but this man has a
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: whole warrant to the bottom with Yeah. I mean, yeah,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: it's it's true, it's true. But I mean there is
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: some philosophical more sentimentality philosophy. You know. It's a lot
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: of the stuff that I hunt with, the stuff that
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: my dad gave me. Uh, you know when I art
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: a hunting and an extent I can still use it.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: That means a lot because it makes me remember those moments.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: And yeah, but vest I have he had, he had
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: the same that it fits. It fits. You still have
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a boyish you still have a boyish frame. Yeah, thanks
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: for that. I thought about this a lot with a
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: guy we worked with, one of the camera guys who
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: worked with working on a totally unrelated project in Africa,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: and he comes out and huntled us. So he also
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: he's like in the jungle, having nothing to do with
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: hunting at all, but he's filming in Africa, and some
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: shots ring out in the in the brush and he's like,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: that's a familiar sound. And out of the woods steps
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: of a fella. Hold in no shirt, paar of shorts,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: pair of flip flops, a shotgun, no bag or bag.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: They we forget a backpack like nothing but a gun,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and he's got a big brush buck over his shoulder.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: And I did look at that, and I'm like, where
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: have we gone that? This guy he's got like a
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: pocketful of shells and goes out and I don't just
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: dripping with gear, and I'm like stepping back in time
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: for twenty years with my gear. But I get stuff
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: every you know, every year, we can. You can do
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: it both ways. You're more comfortable than I am because
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: I've taken it upon myself. That's that's all relative. Man.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: I feel like when you when people say like, uh oh,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: you know, um mountain men were were so tough. I
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: feel that this is the theory amount of pet theory
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: of mine. I feel like they were just about as
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: comfortable as we are there. I feel like their perception
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: of comfort, like at any given moment, the relative perception
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: of comfort, probably put their comfort right about where we
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: think of our comfort. That's probably true. But I'll bet
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: if I put on your rank gear, I'd be more
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: comfortable in a rainstorm than when I wear my arms
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: never had but you've only been wearing But because you've
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: only been wearing garbage bags, your whole life. You don't know. Now,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: if you took my stuff away from me and gave
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: me your stuff, I'd be uncomfortable because relative to my
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: normal understanding of what I feel like, right, I think
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: I think that discomfort Here's what I'm trying to say.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I think the discomfort is always just sort of like
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: what's your baseline, like what are you what? What comfort
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: are you used to and where are you at compared
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: to that. You know, if every day when you woke up,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: the first idea was hit your hand with a hammer
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: right over time, your idea of how uncomfortable that is
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: is gonna slowly change. Earlier, ask your concluding thought. Dave
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: has an old gun. Every listening to Steve, he's talking
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: about how he went to bomb Tana so to could
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: go to school, so he could go someplace where this
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: big game. I just want you to know, reminder, we
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: are sitting at the highest altitude college football stadium in
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: the nation. If you want place to go to school
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: where you can go out and hunt elk on the weekend,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: you need to consider that it was it was just
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: half a chance that I went there, not not quite,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know one thing from the other I was,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: I had got accepted kids to make that same mistake, Steve.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: I got accepted grad school in Colorado, and I got
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: accepted at c s U, and I got accepted to
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: graduate University of Montana, and I had a full ride
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: at Colorado, and I had to pay at University Montana
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: take out loans. I was clearly gonna go where I
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: had a full ride. I met my friend, the late
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: buddy mind Eric Kern and bow Nicky's Bar. Eric Kern
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: had just come he was doing his PhD program in Montana.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: We went at bow Nicky's bar. He goes right around
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: the time that O. J. Simpson was was driving his
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: Bronco down the road with the helicopters over him, and
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: everything is right around then it might even do that night.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: And he he swayed me just based on his knowledge
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: of hunting and fishing in southwest Montana compared to the
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: hunting and fishing he was hearing about from his buddy
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: in Colorado. So I'm like, you know what, that's all
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: I needed to hear. I'm gonna switch and told him no,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: told turn down the thing there and went here. I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: now say I used to always say like I'll wind
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: up back there, I now say, I will. I like
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: if when people like if you can move anywhere and
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: you didn't have to deal with the things that you
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: deal with work, family. Um, I've now switched it where
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: I say here. Well, that's the right answer. You say Wyoming.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: That's that's what I now think and say, so I
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: knowing that story and that Wyoming wasn't one of two
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: choices you made totally arbitrary, as totally but as a
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: as a University of Wyoming alumnus, myself and and CS
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Colorado State is a is a one of our principal rivals.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: I think you made the absolute right call to go
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: to Montana rather entangled. You don't want to, you don't
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: want to end up there. The better choice obviously would
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: have been Wyoming. At least at least you got yourself
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: a good education by going to Montana. But feeling the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: Colorado love, I never felt Colorado love from you. John
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: Denver ruined it for me. I feel like John who
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: stay at John Denver store. I was working in Grand
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: Teton National Park and there's this place called Dornan's just
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: north of Jackson on the border a Grand Teetow and
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: they used to have a hoot in any of there.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: And John Denver showed up one time, just hammered and
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: sang for the the whole player. That's what happens when
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: magic happens. Not long before he wrecked is playing. Yeah, Yeah,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of Colorado love. I've never
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: falt it. I'll tell you where it comes from. Um,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: this is one of the main things the someone was
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: explaining to me, Like the day that uh, sort of
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: like the day the Denver and Fort Collins became one
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: city became you know, the day that they all of
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: a sudden constituted like fifty one percent of the state's population.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: You lost for bear management. Well and and yeah, and
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: I've always just had it's always just such a bad things,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: the bear thing, the ref bear referendum. Yeah, it's like
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: you have the people least likely to be dealing with critters. Um,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: it's a bit of a California feel, Yeah, mandating to
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: the people most likely to be dealing with critters about
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: how they should go about dealing with those critters. Kind
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: to say, I thankful for the companies like Magpole and
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: Hives and thunderbe Storms who who made the smart decision
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: to move across the border Wyoming. And for the rest
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: of you who are still in Colorado, the doors are openly.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: Come on, why don't you tell him to stay out? Okay,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: you gotta work for this. I would say that I state,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: like Montana is in danger of the same thing. Oh yeah,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: it will happen in my lifetime. I'll be time. But
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, man, when I used to hang out Montana,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: I remember when. No, it'll be yeah, I think yeah,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: I think that you know, Bowsman will become Denver. Yeah,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: is that your concluding thought? Yeah? I want more color
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: more Colorado love from you, especially start especially in like
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: a month and a half. If I have a good
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: hunt down there. The last time I hunted in Colorado,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: um my goodness, I think that wasn't Colorado, Dude, that
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: was not Colorado's fault at all. You have a bad
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: hunt anywhere. I don't know, Man, talk to you after
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: this weekend. I think you're gonna have a hard time here. Really,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: they're all great, Dave, including thoughts. Uh, you know what? Uh?
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: One one thing I maybe I have to one. I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: really do want to thank the university owing for letting
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: us use this place. Uh, so this is the best location.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's great. Uh. But second thing I want
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: to I want to thank you Steve for uh, you
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: know that article you wrote in the New York Times
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: and Grizzly Bears. Uh. You know, we needed a voice
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, to talk about how important it is,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: uh to recognize that there are other people in this
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: country that are trying to manage species and that it
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: can be done the right way, and that we're doing
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: it the right way. And I guess my take home messages.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really think uh states in the West
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: are trying to do what right by wildlife. Uh and
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: and you know, regardless of whether they're listed species or not.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: And uh, I'm just it's a great place to be
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, appreciate you having us here and
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: and thanks for taking up in interest in in some
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: of these wyoming issues because it's they're becoming national issues.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, No, I'm watching you guys because I
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: like to watch the states that have the most to
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: lose when it comes to wildlife rather than the states
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: that are sitting on something where they're never I mean,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: it's just where it's unfathomable that they're ever going to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: put it back together again. This is where the this
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: is where the interesting stuff is taking place in my
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: mind here in a handful of other players. It's not color.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: I don't have a concluding thought. I've have a concluding
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: question for you guys. Maybe you can make me feel
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: better about it as a non resident hunter and it
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: might want to come to Wyoming. Very good, very good point.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: What can I won't even ask you guys, can just
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: answer it the question why? Why? Why is it that way?
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: What's the question? Are you talking wilderness? Break it down?
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: You honest? Well, I don't know if I break it down.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: But as far as I understand, in Wyoming, to hunt
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: wilderness is a nonresident for big game, all game hunt
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: hunt wilderness. Now camping wilderness? Can camp? Can't even upland
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: birds can't. Can't. You have to be have a registered
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: guide or it doesn't have to it doesn't so you
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: have to have an outfit or guide or Wyoming resident
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: uh with you resident guide? Yeah, that's something I loves.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: You don't understand. If you've got a buddy, yeah, you're good.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: If you know Dave Alaska, does you don't mind hunting
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: dark timber with no skill. No, no, no, they have
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: some seri for some species that Alaska has some species
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: you have to be a guide or a relative like
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: grizzly bear relative, big horn sheep. But you could. You
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: could take me hunting in a wilderness as long as
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: I don't charge because I'm not I'm not a licensed guide,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: so I can't charge you for it. But yeah, I
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: could take fIF he won't spend it. Wyoming doesn't have
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: that requirement. You know. Here it's so you know, you
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: can get around the whole thing, not get around to
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: get around the wrong way to put it. If if,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: if you're worth a Wyoming resident, you can hunt wilderness. Yeah,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: called haven't go out with you. I mean it's all
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: it takes. You're not you're not kidding me or something. No, no,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: you gotta have Wyoming resident. And you know they can't
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: be you can't be charged. They can't be charging you
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: as an out. But they could be hunting to the
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: count justly. You know, there's not guys not doing for profit.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: It's like, if you got a buddy that lives in Wyoming,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: you want to go hunt Wyoming. People do that all
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: the time. Her friend comes over and again that's just wilderness, right,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: and there are some fantastic herres here. Don't overlook. For
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: those of you who are looking at hunting in Wyoming,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: Wyoming has wilderness like locations that are not wilderness. So
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at places like I don't want when
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: like Capital w it has to be desert. Literally. I mean,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of there's a lot of general
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: hunt areas here that are absolutely phenomenal, and I don't
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: want to tell you where they are, but come find them,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: all right, And can you just explain maybe like what's
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: the what's the thinking what you know without going into
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: too much detail. I mean it's probably and I can't.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know the whole history of it, but Mike,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: this is my best guess. It's a way to protecting
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: an industry, to to protect outfit their jobs and and
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: in all fairness, the offer is the other issue too.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, let's say I am going into
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to the thoroughfare next week to
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: hunt elk, but I'm going to another wilderness area. So
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: honestly those areas you know I'm going, I'm going sixteen
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: miles back up into a place where I literally am
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: going to see couple bears every day, and you know
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: that's not a place to mess around with just you know,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: driving and being like, hey, you know what I'm gonna do.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna wander up into that. Yeah. But but
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: that that that argument loses me because you could live
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: on the Idaho side of the border and spend your
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: whole life hunting in wilderness or in the back country
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: in Idaho, and then the second you step in Wyoming
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: you said you're not qualified. You gotta have a you
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: gotta have a guide. They're gonna be exceptions people in Wyoming. Yeah,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: but you have to give him some kind of test.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: I always saw, like in Alaska, the things you can't
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: hunt without it, you have to have a relative or
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: an outfitter. Are the things that happened to be the
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: things you could get yourself in most troubling. Um, mountain gools,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: dollarshep grizzy beards, like the things you like, the things
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: people are most likely to get tore up doing. Um,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: you need to have that. I don't. I don't. I
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: don't know that that's the case. It could be to
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: protect outfitting jobs, but there's a help A lot of
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: moose outfitters and you can hunt moose it out of guy. Yeah,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: But isn't there some there's some I've heard some rumors
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: that in Alaska they're looking at that for moose. Oh,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: there's some big stuff happen there for big implications because
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: as a dude with a with a brother who lives
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: in Alaska, Um, they're The Other thing they're changing up
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: is if I'm hunting with him on for for the
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: things that I need that he needs to be there
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: in order for me to hunt, it counts on my kill,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: counts on his bag limit. So it used to be
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: we could go sheep, we could go hunt doll sheep together.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: Now if I kill one, that's his doll sheep, so
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: that goes into effect between now in two thousand eighteen.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: But if it's but if you so, then if you
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: hire a guide, it doesn't you don't know it's the
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: only one you're doing the first it's only one you're
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: in the family hunt. So is that a is that
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: a protective law as well? Industry protection law? Uh? Danny
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: was pointing out to me that there's a the the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: the the doll sheep take and you know it's a
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: finite resource and the preponderance of dolls, sheep killing Alaska
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: killed by non residents. So they're they're they're doing some
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: things to um. You know, all states just for for listeners,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: you know, all states tend to not tend to all
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: states are gonna give priority to wildlife resources to residents
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: its state managed just stands the reason they're gonna give
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: preference to their own residents. Um. You know, sometimes like
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna hunt elk or let's say you're gonna
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: ut white tailed deer in Michigan on a resident tag,
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: you know it's twelve bucks or whatever. You're gonna hunt deer,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: there's a non resid you're gonna pay two hundred fifty dollars.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: So you generally, for your people in your state, UM,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: you give them a readier, less expensive access to renewable resources,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: and then people from out of state are gonna pay
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: a little more moreting help bankroll the whole thing. It
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: applies the lower place, uh it gets, it starts to
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: seem most severe in destination states, you know, um, Colorado, Montana, well,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: you know all the western states, Alaska like place where
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: people want to dream of go hunt. Sometimes they're often
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: have sticker shock because they've been buying resident licenses for
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: their whole life. My brother will ask you, you don't
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: pay You don't pay for tags for the most part,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: A residents don't pay for tax you buy a hunting license. Yeah,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: they're doubling all nonresident tag fees. I am going to
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: disagree with Dave on this issue just because, honestly think
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: you know, if most people were like your honest we're
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: like you, Stephen, they were coming here to hunt in
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: the wilderness, wouldn't be an issue. No, But most people aren't.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, disagree with me on that one. Most guys
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: who come out here for the first time and drive
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: out from Wisconsin to go hunt ILK Like, I'm not
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: sure you want those guys first time, you know, in
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: the wilderness with nothing but a total map. And that's
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: just you know, this is all theory. I feel you
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: can get his dream amount of trouble though. Chunkm yeah, yeah, alright, road,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: let's move on. Um, you know, before we move on,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: I want to make a point. Federally designated wilderness is
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: one of those cases where I feel that the FEDS
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: did what was right. I don't know to talk about
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: had your last thought. I agree this is not over Steve. No, well,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear your take on it. I
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: hate to drop a big bombshell on you like that
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: after you had I'll just say done correctly, you're right,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: but done correctly, you're right? Okay, Well, yeah, that's what
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: I would say too. Now that's where we might define
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: that differently. But yeah, I think that we're on the
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: same page. Was that your deal? You had a concluding question? So,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: just to clarify, federally designated wilderness stayed Wyloming. You gotta
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: have a guy to be with a guy from Wyoming, correct,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: And you guys have some serious bad country wilderness. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: we do. We've got some of the biggest in the country,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: at least in the lower forty eight Ron, what's your
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: concluding thought? You have an anti federalist rant. Have you
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: lost a dog to wolf? Do you have any friends?
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: I have? I have had dogs. I had acquaintances, not
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: friends like you and me friends or what beagles and
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: coon dog guys and and bear dog guys. So here's
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: my concluding thought. Cars, I love you. I guarantee they've
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: lost some dogs. Cars, I love you. I hate bears.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: I love dogs. I'm going on online. I love you,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: I hate bears. I love dogs, I hate wolves. I
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: love everybody here. And this has just been a silly
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: ass podcast because you're all on the same side. You
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: need to get somebody out here from the other side.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: So like we should have been asking you more questions
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: because exactly but you're you have the only viewpoint here
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: that I think is illegitimate. I've known you since you're
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: eighteen years old. You and I have never agreed on
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: anything except we're like arguing about stuff forever. That's fair.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna end the future. I'm gonna vite you back on.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: I want you to do some preparation. I want you
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: to come in. You convince me. You convince me that
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: we should hate bears. Not bad to say bears. Yeah, wolves.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: Grizzly bears were the ones I'm scared of. Two black
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: bears up in my porch up at the cabin this
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: month there last month with you, So I don't hate
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: black bears. That scared of them. Yeah, that's sure. You
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: did almost ski yet we left stocked right up on
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: my bottom of my sleeping bag. But no grizzly bears. Wolves.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: I don't like them. Sorry, I'm a dog guy, small
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: game hunter. You know. Here's my concluding thought. That wasn't it?
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: I'm working into Well, I haven't talked for an hour
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: and a half. I take two beers. I can't smoke now.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Finally I get how do you want to cut me off?
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: All right? I find you know, I listened to a
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: lot of podcasts listening your podcasts, been listening to a
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: few years. I got my own podcast, and I feel
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: like they talk about the dividing line between high fence
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: hunters and wild hunter you know, wild game hunters and
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: out east and out west. That to me is the
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: biggest dividing line ever Western hunters versus Eastern hunters. When
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: when I hear the podcast from all I hear about
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: is how big the rack was? What what's your buddy
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: with the podcast? That? In uh J, the two guys
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: J and DR, they literally just talked numbers on antlers, like, yeah,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: saw three about one? Do you want to heat this thing?
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: Kill somebody with it? I think what happened when everybody
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: moved western of Mississippi. They lost their noodles, okay, and
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: they got way too wrapped up in everything we're back east.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: We just do the same thing we've been doing since
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: we such bs down such the coq d m. A
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: thing is from the southeast. I don't pay attention to
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: your hunter. I'm a bird hunter. If you think that
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: wanting to shoot something big is a Western invention, dude,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: they're's bigger here. So you have no idea what you're
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: talking about, of course not, do you know that? Whatever
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: you argue with me, that stuff like the white the
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: white tailed deer world, you know what, and you know
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not a part of it at all, like zero,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: So all right, but it's just weird, I hear like
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: so much like it's kind of like the people out
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: west are obsessive about Yeah, Rex, super obsessive. Other than
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: Dave that doesn't have any money. It's closed from Arkansas,
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: family is or something. Anyway, My concluding thought is that
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me here, and let's go hunting tomorrow. No,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: we're going, Yeah, we're going hunting tomorrow. Um goss. The
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: whole story, I'm gonna save it. My including thought is
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: it's been thank you, NiFi Colon, Dave Wilms, the little
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: bit of time we've spent. Uh, I have an opportunity
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: to talk about the issues we've talked about, and then
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: that we've been able to share email correspondence. It really has. UH,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: it's really enhanced my understanding of wildlife issues in the US.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: I I I can't say, like like in a blanket way.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: I can't say that we might agree on every single
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: detail about stuff, but I really have appreciated watching and
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: just the little bit I've seen in our discussions, watching
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: in a real time way. UH, how decisions about wildlife
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: get made, how social perceptions are formed, and kind of
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: the complexities of being the people and around the people
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: who are who actually have to make the compromises and
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: forge the deals and have it be that you're looking
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: out for wildlife at the same time you're mindful of
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: a constituency who needs to live here, make a living here,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: raise their children here. It's been interesting to see. UM.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: I really invite people to to uh delve into some
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: of the complexities because I think that you'll find, uh
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: as you start to look at these issues, that that
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: there's no comfort in how easy the solution is. There's
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: a tendency to want to find ways where you look
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: and you'd be like, oh, it's simple they want to
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: do this or now they're gonna do that, And when
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: you look into what it actually goes on, and and
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: talking about these big emblematic things wolves and grizzly bears
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: and other things that it's um, it's a mine field.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: And and the fact that you guys have UH in
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: the state. I feel like ben in it in a
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: way and dealing with some things that are impacting the
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: rest of the country and trying to do it in
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: a thoughtful way and from a position that I know
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: personally comes from really admiring wildlife and wanting to be
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: out among wildlood. That you're like wildlife guys who spend
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: your time out of doors appreciating and enjoying wildlood. Um,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: it's refreshing. Man, It's great to see. And I I
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: trust that you have you know, wisdom and and and
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: good ideas going into the future. So thanks for coming on.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: Assssssssssssss