Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #212: Wolves, Coyotes, and Hunters – w/ Bronson Strickland and Carter Neimeyer

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #212: Wolves, Coyotes, and Hunters – w/ Bronson Strickland and Carter Neimeyer · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This episode number two, d and twelve,
0:19
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're joined by Bronson Strickland
0:22
Speaker 1: and Carter Neo Meyer to discuss the impacts of and
0:26
Speaker 1: dynamics between wolves, coyotes, prey populations and hunters. All right, folks,
0:49
Speaker 1: welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. And today we've
0:53
Speaker 1: got a particularly interesting and unique episode for you as
0:57
Speaker 1: we are waiting into the murky water of predators, in
1:01
Speaker 1: particular wolves and coyotes, and we're discussing the dynamic between
1:05
Speaker 1: these predators and US hunters. Now, I've want to do
1:08
Speaker 1: a podcast about predators for a long time, but I've
1:11
Speaker 1: never really known exactly you're the right way to do it,
1:14
Speaker 1: or the right people to talk to coyotes and wolves
1:18
Speaker 1: and other predators. As many of you know, they stir
1:21
Speaker 1: up a lot of emotions. You know, this is true
1:23
Speaker 1: outside of the hunting community, but especially within and it's
1:26
Speaker 1: been this way for many thousands of years. Likely you know,
1:29
Speaker 1: if you go way back in deep history. Early on,
1:33
Speaker 1: big predators were danger to the lives of early humans,
1:36
Speaker 1: and then eventually they're viewed as competition for the scarce
1:39
Speaker 1: resources of food, so so built into our human DNA.
1:43
Speaker 1: For many, many generations, we've had this built in set
1:46
Speaker 1: of negative associations with these animals. Now, if you fast
1:50
Speaker 1: forward through time up to the settling of the New World,
1:54
Speaker 1: you've got this landscape now that was jam packed with predators,
1:58
Speaker 1: and again humans were in competition with them, and so,
2:01
Speaker 1: starting in the east and gradually moving west, our ancestors
2:04
Speaker 1: slowly went about knocking these predators back in an effort
2:08
Speaker 1: to make their lives easier or to eliminate a perceived
2:11
Speaker 1: danger or inconvenience. And they did this, you know, as
2:14
Speaker 1: many of us know now, they did this with disturbing effectiveness.
2:17
Speaker 1: This kind of wholesale war and predators that began the
2:20
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds led to hundreds of thousands of bounties being
2:24
Speaker 1: claimed on wolves and coyotes, led to the use of
2:28
Speaker 1: the widespread use of poison to to knock out massive,
2:32
Speaker 1: massive numbers of coyotes and wolves and bobcats and and
2:37
Speaker 1: all sorts of other critters. Even mange was purposely introduced
2:41
Speaker 1: to wild animal populations to try to eliminate them. So
2:45
Speaker 1: after decades of this, at least when it came to wolves,
2:47
Speaker 1: our predecessors largely achieved their goal, you know, by almost
2:51
Speaker 1: exterminating the entire wolf population in the lower forty eight
2:54
Speaker 1: States coyotes. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of coyotes were killed,
2:59
Speaker 1: but they of more difficult to actually get rid of,
3:02
Speaker 1: given some of the unique adaptabilities and the fact they
3:05
Speaker 1: have some of these built in traits that allow them
3:07
Speaker 1: to actually increase their reproductive capabilities and recalonize new areas
3:11
Speaker 1: where other populations have been killed out. So so this
3:14
Speaker 1: actually ended up leading to coyotes not only surviving the onslaught,
3:17
Speaker 1: but also expanding their range farther east and west as
3:21
Speaker 1: they filled in gaps that were opened up by the
3:23
Speaker 1: removal of wolves. But long story short, this war on
3:28
Speaker 1: predators led to dramatically changed predator levels across the country. Now,
3:34
Speaker 1: if you fast forward through time again to today, with
3:37
Speaker 1: changing societal values and an increased focus on restoring natural
3:41
Speaker 1: ecosystems and native wildlife, predators such as wolves have been
3:45
Speaker 1: able to restake a claim in parts of the lower
3:47
Speaker 1: forty eight, and you know, both coyotes and wolves to
3:51
Speaker 1: a lower extent are now present across wide swaths of
3:54
Speaker 1: the country. Once again, though, just like with other early ancestors,
3:58
Speaker 1: this is causing pension. You know, some people simply don't
4:02
Speaker 1: want these critters around, even hunters. And again, I think
4:05
Speaker 1: this comes down to competition in a lot of cases.
4:08
Speaker 1: So that brings us to this podcast today and why
4:11
Speaker 1: I wanted to put these conversations out there as a
4:14
Speaker 1: as a hunter myself, of course, and I'll admit a
4:17
Speaker 1: little bit of my bias here, but as a person
4:19
Speaker 1: who believes in conservation and as our role as hunters
4:23
Speaker 1: in conservation, I want to hear some of the vitriol
4:26
Speaker 1: today around predators. It concerns me a little bit because
4:30
Speaker 1: and this is just my opinion, um, but predators the
4:34
Speaker 1: way I see it, in the way a lot of
4:35
Speaker 1: people see it, in the way biologists see it. Predators
4:39
Speaker 1: just as much as deer or elk or we human hunters.
4:42
Speaker 1: They're part of the system, and we like to talk
4:44
Speaker 1: this big game as hunters that were the greatest conservationists
4:47
Speaker 1: in the land because of all we do for wildlife
4:50
Speaker 1: and and access taxes. We pay the pay for conservation work.
4:53
Speaker 1: But I'm worried that if we care about and protect
4:56
Speaker 1: one species, be it deer or elk, or pheasants or
5:00
Speaker 1: turkeys or whatever, if we're going to protect and care
5:01
Speaker 1: about that species but then advocate for the total destruction
5:05
Speaker 1: of another, I think we lose some credibility there. And
5:08
Speaker 1: it seems in my opinion that maybe there's maybe there's
5:11
Speaker 1: some kind of middle ground though maybe it doesn't have
5:12
Speaker 1: to be dear or predators. Maybe there's some way that
5:17
Speaker 1: these two things can coexist and hunters too, So rather
5:20
Speaker 1: than looking at coyotes or wolves as the scourge of
5:23
Speaker 1: the earth, maybe there's a different way we can look
5:26
Speaker 1: at and relate to these animals when it comes to
5:29
Speaker 1: when it comes to these creators, there's so much emotion
5:32
Speaker 1: and rumor and worry in some cases miss misinformation out there.
5:37
Speaker 1: And of course, you know this isn't just coming from
5:39
Speaker 1: hunters or those who have concerns about predators. There is
5:42
Speaker 1: also a lot of emotion and hyperbole coming from other
5:45
Speaker 1: parties on sometimes the other side of these issues too.
5:49
Speaker 1: But but either way, from either side, the way you
5:51
Speaker 1: look at this, so often these animals are looked at
5:54
Speaker 1: either as gods or devils, either divine or devilish. But
5:59
Speaker 1: maybe coyotes, wolves are not good or evil. Maybe they're
6:04
Speaker 1: just animals. Maybe they're just another piece of the system,
6:09
Speaker 1: just like the deer and the turkeys and the raccoons
6:13
Speaker 1: and turtles. And because of that, rather than worshiping or
6:18
Speaker 1: demonizing these animals, maybe the way forward is just learning
6:22
Speaker 1: about them and understanding how they fit into this millions
6:25
Speaker 1: of years old system, and then learning how we can
6:28
Speaker 1: fit into that system alongside of them. Maybe hunters and
6:32
Speaker 1: predators don't need to be an either or or maybe
6:38
Speaker 1: some of you might be thinking, maybe I'm nuts. I
6:40
Speaker 1: can't stay for sure. I might be nuts. But in
6:42
Speaker 1: today's episode, I wanted to present two conversations that explore
6:46
Speaker 1: this topic, that explore this idea of predators and our
6:50
Speaker 1: relationship with them as hunters, and as I alluded to,
6:54
Speaker 1: my goal here is to try and address some of
6:56
Speaker 1: the worries and the rumors around predators and then kind
6:58
Speaker 1: of level set. I want to kind of reality check
7:01
Speaker 1: what's going on out there, what we as hunters need
7:03
Speaker 1: to understand about predators and their impacts on wildlife and
7:07
Speaker 1: our hunting, and what this all means for us going forward.
7:10
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of what I want to achieve with
7:11
Speaker 1: this conversation. So to do that, we have two different guests.
7:14
Speaker 1: This is kind of a two parter. First off, we
7:16
Speaker 1: have Bronson Strickland, and Bronson's a wildlife biologist and extension
7:20
Speaker 1: professor at Mississippi State University specializing in dear biology and research.
7:26
Speaker 1: He's been in the show before. Hopefully you heard that
7:27
Speaker 1: past episode. It's a great one. He's an incredible resource
7:31
Speaker 1: of information. But I wanted Bronson to come on the
7:33
Speaker 1: show today to help us talk about coyotes because he's
7:36
Speaker 1: done a lot of looking into the interactions between coyotes
7:40
Speaker 1: and deer. So Bronson's gonna help us understand what the
7:43
Speaker 1: real impacts of coyotes are on white tails, how to
7:47
Speaker 1: determine if coyotes are having an impact on your local
7:49
Speaker 1: white tail population, and then finally, if they are, what
7:52
Speaker 1: are some reasonable steps to take to to manage that issue.
7:56
Speaker 1: And then from there we're going to switch gears and
7:58
Speaker 1: we're gonna go from coyotes over to wolves. Now, I
8:02
Speaker 1: did this interview with Carter nee Meyer while I was
8:05
Speaker 1: out in Boise, Idaho for the back Country Hunters and
8:08
Speaker 1: Anglers Rendezvous a few weeks ago, and Carter has a
8:11
Speaker 1: really interesting perspective on the issue of wolves because he
8:16
Speaker 1: was a government trapper and predator control agent and then
8:19
Speaker 1: eventually was pulled into the work of the reintroduction of
8:22
Speaker 1: wolves to the Rocky Mountain West in the nineties, and
8:24
Speaker 1: then afterwards he was tasked with managing and sometimes killing
8:28
Speaker 1: those wolves in later years. So he had to work
8:30
Speaker 1: with biologists and ranchers and hunters and environmentalists kind of
8:34
Speaker 1: everyone on all sides of the wolf issue, and coming
8:37
Speaker 1: out of that, he has this really interesting perspective on
8:40
Speaker 1: predators and humans and the dynamics between the two. So
8:44
Speaker 1: in my conversation with Carter, we talked about this history,
8:47
Speaker 1: We talked about the wolf reintroduction and subsequent events. We
8:51
Speaker 1: talked about the impacts of wolves, and then kind of
8:53
Speaker 1: get Carter's opinions on you know, how wolves and hunters
8:57
Speaker 1: and other humans can can kind of occupy the same
9:01
Speaker 1: space moving forward, How that's possible if so? Um So
9:05
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting one too. Now, with both of
9:08
Speaker 1: these conversations, my hope is that these discussions and guests
9:11
Speaker 1: can help us all just do a little bit of
9:13
Speaker 1: thinking as hunters ourselves and as conservationists, you know, you know,
9:16
Speaker 1: how can we or should we be thinking about predators?
9:20
Speaker 1: How can we live with prators? What do predators mean
9:22
Speaker 1: for hunting? What does all of this mean? Um? You know,
9:25
Speaker 1: you might not agree with everything said in today's episode,
9:28
Speaker 1: and there's likely going to be some ideas or opinions
9:31
Speaker 1: that are different than yours, But I don't think we
9:33
Speaker 1: need to look at that as a bad thing. You know,
9:35
Speaker 1: with partisan cable news, Facebook fees that are specially curated
9:40
Speaker 1: to reflect back just the only only the things that
9:43
Speaker 1: we already like and believe, it's sometimes easier to get
9:46
Speaker 1: lost in this kind of echo chamber of our own
9:48
Speaker 1: opinions were surrounded by nothing but our own worldview. I
9:52
Speaker 1: think though, that when this happens, we kind of lose
9:55
Speaker 1: out on something important in life, which, in my opinion,
9:58
Speaker 1: is this ability to hear and learn about and process
10:01
Speaker 1: new ideas in different ways of looking at the world,
10:03
Speaker 1: and then being able to move forward, you know, with
10:05
Speaker 1: those new ideas, maybe accepting some, maybe rejecting others, but
10:09
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately growing in one way or another. So
10:13
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. But I'm a fan of
10:15
Speaker 1: hearing new perspectives and at least getting to consider them
10:18
Speaker 1: for myself. So that's what we're gonna do today. That's
10:21
Speaker 1: what I'm hoping we could achieve today. Before I ramble
10:25
Speaker 1: on any further than I guess, we need to get
10:27
Speaker 1: this party started. We had to get going with this.
10:29
Speaker 1: It's a long episode, so I hope you can maybe
10:32
Speaker 1: come back to us one over a couple of drives
10:34
Speaker 1: or a couple of days at the gym, um, because
10:36
Speaker 1: it does stretch out over two hours, but I hope
10:38
Speaker 1: it's going to be worthwhile for you. I'm gonna leave
10:41
Speaker 1: you with one last quick recommendation, which is to go
10:44
Speaker 1: and read the essay titled Thinking like a Mountain by
10:48
Speaker 1: Aldo Leopold. Uh. This is an essay that actually gets
10:51
Speaker 1: brought up in both of these interviews, once by myself
10:54
Speaker 1: once by the guest um, and I think it's one
10:56
Speaker 1: that has influenced a lot of people when it comes
10:58
Speaker 1: to this topic of preditors and ecosystems and humans. And
11:03
Speaker 1: you can actually just go out online and google the title.
11:05
Speaker 1: You can find it online to read and full for free.
11:08
Speaker 1: But I thought I would leave you here with just
11:09
Speaker 1: a quick passage from that essay that I'll read for you,
11:13
Speaker 1: and then we'll get into our conversations with Bronson and Carter.
11:16
Speaker 1: So here from Thinking Like a Mountain by Eldo Leopold,
11:20
Speaker 1: I quote, in those days, we had never heard of
11:23
Speaker 1: passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second,
11:27
Speaker 1: we're pumping lead into the pack, both more excitement than accuracy.
11:30
Speaker 1: How to aim as steep downhill shot is always confusing.
11:33
Speaker 1: When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down,
11:35
Speaker 1: and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide rocks.
11:40
Speaker 1: We reached the old wolf in time to watch a
11:41
Speaker 1: fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then,
11:45
Speaker 1: and have known ever since, there was something new to
11:47
Speaker 1: me in those eyes, something known only to her into
11:49
Speaker 1: the mountain. I was young then and full of trigger itch.
11:53
Speaker 1: I thought that because fewer wolves meant more dear, that
11:56
Speaker 1: no wolves would mean Hunter's paradise. But after seeing the
11:59
Speaker 1: green or die, I sensed that neither the wolf northern
12:03
Speaker 1: Mountain agreed with such of you end quote. All right
12:10
Speaker 1: with me now again on the podcast is Bronson Strickland.
12:14
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show. Bronson, Thank you so much
12:17
Speaker 1: for having me. Glad to be back. Yeah, me and
12:19
Speaker 1: Dan when we chatted with you, if it was last
12:22
Speaker 1: year or two years ago, it was just a great conversation.
12:25
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to have you back for a while,
12:27
Speaker 1: and Um, I really should have brought you back on
12:30
Speaker 1: to talk about deer since you have so much to
12:33
Speaker 1: share in that world. UM, but I actually wanted to
12:36
Speaker 1: talk to you today about something different, Bronson, and I
12:39
Speaker 1: hope you're gonna be okay with that. I'm gonna take
12:41
Speaker 1: you away from our favorite animal and talk about something
12:45
Speaker 1: that does impact that. UM. And I was hoping to
12:48
Speaker 1: talk to you about predators, in particular coyotes, because there's
12:53
Speaker 1: there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of opinions,
12:56
Speaker 1: there's a lot of worry, there's a lot of hubbub
12:58
Speaker 1: it seems every few years, depending on where you're at,
13:03
Speaker 1: about coyotes and their impacts on deer and deer management.
13:07
Speaker 1: And so I kind of wanted to have a conversation
13:09
Speaker 1: with you to help us kind of level set, like
13:11
Speaker 1: what's the reality of this situation, what's happening out there?
13:13
Speaker 1: What do we need to know as white tailed deer hunters?
13:16
Speaker 1: UM and so with all that being said, Bronson, even
13:21
Speaker 1: though your dear guy, do you think you give us
13:23
Speaker 1: like a super high level overview of of the coyote
13:26
Speaker 1: as a species, maybe a little bit of natural history
13:29
Speaker 1: or its current status, anything like that, um, just to
13:32
Speaker 1: kind of help us understand this animal more than just
13:34
Speaker 1: it's a look kind of tiny wolf looking thing that
13:37
Speaker 1: runs around the fields every once in a while. Well,
13:41
Speaker 1: I thank you, Mark, I promise you I'll do my best.
13:44
Speaker 1: And you know, I studied deer, and I don't really
13:47
Speaker 1: you know, study coyotes specifically, except in you know, how
13:51
Speaker 1: they're affecting white tail deer um. So in the eastern
13:55
Speaker 1: us UM. A lot of people consider the coyote a
14:00
Speaker 1: novel you know, predator in the white tail system. And
14:04
Speaker 1: it really depends on where you're at geographically. We we
14:07
Speaker 1: tend to think of, you know, over over deep time,
14:10
Speaker 1: that the coyote was more of the western UH caneid.
14:15
Speaker 1: You know, it's involved more in you know, open areas,
14:19
Speaker 1: open habitat UH. It's omnivorous and so it's eating fruits
14:24
Speaker 1: and things like that as well as small mammals. And
14:26
Speaker 1: then you know, it's kind of opportunistic so it's not
14:29
Speaker 1: nearly like something like a wolf or you know, cougar
14:33
Speaker 1: slash mountain lion, where it's a you know, it's an
14:35
Speaker 1: obligate carnivore. It's it's kind of an opportunistic omnivore. And
14:41
Speaker 1: so as that species kind of moved from west to east,
14:45
Speaker 1: and you know, the best we can tell from from
14:48
Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence, genetic evidence, etcetera. You know, it's kind of
14:53
Speaker 1: like the way we are seeing the spread of wild
14:56
Speaker 1: hart mark up your direction is, uh, it was facilitated
15:04
Speaker 1: greatly by human beings, and so there's always gonna be
15:07
Speaker 1: natural movement, natural colonization. But some of the studies back
15:12
Speaker 1: in the southeast from you know, thirty or so years
15:15
Speaker 1: ago showed that a lot of the coyotes were brought
15:18
Speaker 1: in and contrary to popular belief, you know, they weren't
15:23
Speaker 1: brought in by a state wildlife agency under the cover
15:28
Speaker 1: of night. It was brought in by hunters for the
15:31
Speaker 1: purpose of hunting, and a lot of them were brought
15:35
Speaker 1: into the you know, fox pens or you know things
15:37
Speaker 1: like that where people like to run their dogs, uh
15:41
Speaker 1: to catch them, and those eventually escape and get loose
15:45
Speaker 1: and then over time that's augmented by natural colonization, and
15:50
Speaker 1: now we have you know, in the two thousand eighteen,
15:53
Speaker 1: we essentially have coyotes everywhere in the eastern United States,
15:58
Speaker 1: and we even have coyotes in urban settings. I'm pretty
16:03
Speaker 1: sure right now somewhere in Central Park in New York
16:06
Speaker 1: there's probably a coyote somewhere. So that just goes to
16:10
Speaker 1: show you how how adaptable that species is and more
16:15
Speaker 1: than likely it's here to stay. And I don't see
16:18
Speaker 1: any anyway at all that, um, we are not going
16:22
Speaker 1: to be managing deer, uh with consideration of coyotes and
16:27
Speaker 1: anytime in the near future in our lifetime certainly. Yeah,
16:31
Speaker 1: they seem to be one of those species kind of
16:34
Speaker 1: like deer that has become super adaptable to living with humans,
16:39
Speaker 1: unlike most other relatively large mammals that in some cases
16:43
Speaker 1: struggle with our encroachment on their habitat and are you know,
16:47
Speaker 1: just are are being present in the environment all the
16:49
Speaker 1: different things that entails. They've uniquely kind of found a
16:53
Speaker 1: way to intertwine themselves within, like you said, even in
16:56
Speaker 1: urban areas, kind of like white tailed deer or cockroes
17:00
Speaker 1: or rats or these different animals that have made a
17:02
Speaker 1: living off of living around humans. UM. They're kind of
17:05
Speaker 1: unique in that way, and some people may not like that.
17:09
Speaker 1: It might be viewed admirable in some ways too, if
17:11
Speaker 1: you're looking at purely as the you know, the evolutionary,
17:17
Speaker 1: I don't know creativity that these animals seem to have. UM.
17:21
Speaker 1: So that being said, like you've mentioned, coyotes are becoming
17:25
Speaker 1: ever more present across the eastern United States, south southeastern
17:29
Speaker 1: United States. UM, and we're becoming more aware of this
17:32
Speaker 1: is deer hunters too. There's, as you said, a lot
17:36
Speaker 1: of work being done to understand the interaction between coyotes
17:39
Speaker 1: and deer, and that's something you've worked on a lot before.
17:43
Speaker 1: We dive into what the results are of that kind
17:46
Speaker 1: of stuff and what the actual impacts are because there's
17:48
Speaker 1: a lot of rumors and opinions and ideas of what
17:50
Speaker 1: the impacts of kyotes are are on deer. I'm curious
17:53
Speaker 1: just to hear what kind of actual studies have been done.
17:57
Speaker 1: You know, what are we looking into? How are we
18:00
Speaker 1: doing these is? How are we learning about the interactions
18:02
Speaker 1: between coyotes and deer and that impact. Yeah, well, there's
18:06
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways to look at it. The
18:08
Speaker 1: two that are probably most common and uh, I would
18:13
Speaker 1: say very definitive. You know that they both of these
18:17
Speaker 1: types of studies provide irrefutable evidence on impacts. Are first
18:22
Speaker 1: of all, is just looking at what a coyote eats,
18:25
Speaker 1: and so those are simply you know, diet analyzes and commonly,
18:29
Speaker 1: you know, one of the cheapest and widespread and often
18:32
Speaker 1: used are what we call scats studies. But basically you're
18:37
Speaker 1: going into an area and you collect the poop and
18:42
Speaker 1: uh you do an analysis on that, and you can tell,
18:46
Speaker 1: you know, from the feces what of course what what
18:49
Speaker 1: the animal has been eating, and so you can identify,
18:51
Speaker 1: you know, the hair of different mammals that they've consumed,
18:54
Speaker 1: and sometimes the remains of different fruits and so forth.
18:57
Speaker 1: So that that was done decade ago. Um. Now you
19:02
Speaker 1: might might imagine mark. One of the things that can
19:04
Speaker 1: be misleading is when you find a lot of deer
19:08
Speaker 1: in the diet of a coyote. You you don't know
19:12
Speaker 1: if the coyote killed the deer or scavenged on the deer.
19:16
Speaker 1: You would assume if you found fawn hair uh in
19:20
Speaker 1: the scat. Yeah. More in like of the coyotes killed
19:22
Speaker 1: the fawn, but for adults you never knew, and you
19:25
Speaker 1: would see a higher prevalence rate during deer season, which
19:28
Speaker 1: you would assume is from carcass remains or from a
19:31
Speaker 1: wounded deer um. And so that that then leads to
19:35
Speaker 1: more sophisticated analyzes where you can really you know, determine
19:40
Speaker 1: impacts and and directly measure um the prevalence of predation.
19:46
Speaker 1: And that's when you mark individual deer and and most
19:50
Speaker 1: commonly what is done UM is what we call call
19:54
Speaker 1: fawn depredation studies. And you know, one of the best
19:59
Speaker 1: ways to do that it is you will mark a
20:01
Speaker 1: dough a pregnant female. So you would capture a pregnant
20:04
Speaker 1: female and you can actually insert this transmitter into their
20:09
Speaker 1: vagina and when they give birth, then that transmitter comes
20:15
Speaker 1: out of the doe's body, goes out to the ground
20:18
Speaker 1: and then there's a difference in the ambient temperature of course,
20:21
Speaker 1: from being inside of the dough to being exposed to
20:25
Speaker 1: you know, the outside air, and that transmitter then sends
20:28
Speaker 1: sends a signal a GPS location and researchers Russian and
20:33
Speaker 1: they can find the fawn or fawns, and they basically
20:36
Speaker 1: mark them. They put a little ear tag on them
20:38
Speaker 1: and put some type of GPS transmitter on them, and
20:42
Speaker 1: those little transmitters allow the researchers to know when that
20:45
Speaker 1: fawn is alive and when it's dead. So when that
20:48
Speaker 1: transmitter stops moving for a X amount of hours, you
20:51
Speaker 1: get an alert saying, hey, something's going on with this fawn.
20:54
Speaker 1: And then once again you go there and you determine um,
20:57
Speaker 1: the cause of death. Often this is obvious based on
21:02
Speaker 1: the way the fawn has been uh consumed or you know,
21:07
Speaker 1: torn apart, so to speak. You can diagnose whether it
21:09
Speaker 1: was a bobcat kill or died of starvation or a
21:12
Speaker 1: coyote um. And then even most sophistics, the sophisticated way
21:16
Speaker 1: to do it is if if you can't readily identify
21:20
Speaker 1: the predator, is that you can take swabs and get
21:25
Speaker 1: d n A samples from the remains of the fawn
21:27
Speaker 1: so that you can detect the saliva of the predator
21:31
Speaker 1: that was chewing on the high, chewing on the bones,
21:33
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so that that kind of c s
21:36
Speaker 1: I technology really allows you to definitively determine uh, you know,
21:44
Speaker 1: the rate at which you know, you have a sample
21:47
Speaker 1: of fawns on the landscape, this cohort of fawns, and
21:50
Speaker 1: you can determine, you know, what we call cause specific mortality,
21:55
Speaker 1: how many of them died and those that did die,
21:57
Speaker 1: what were they killed by? And so those studies again
22:01
Speaker 1: have been done largely in the last decade, probably some
22:06
Speaker 1: a little bit more, but that's where the best technology
22:11
Speaker 1: has has really been refined in the last decade. And
22:13
Speaker 1: so a lot of the studies that you see now
22:15
Speaker 1: are are are based on those types of technologies and
22:19
Speaker 1: those types of results. So have there been any definitive
22:26
Speaker 1: answers then that have come from these studies? Can you
22:29
Speaker 1: give us a blanket statement and say coyotes make this
22:32
Speaker 1: impact on dear or is a little more nuanced than that?
22:36
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it's nuanced, and people get so sick and tired
22:40
Speaker 1: of dear biologists always having to qualify saying, well, it depends,
22:44
Speaker 1: but this is this is a classic it depends type study.
22:49
Speaker 1: So you can go to any particular location and you know,
22:54
Speaker 1: you think about these different dynamics that are going on.
22:57
Speaker 1: Mark you've got you know, you've got variation in coyote
23:00
Speaker 1: density as you've got variation in the number of hunters
23:04
Speaker 1: on the landscape, you've got variation in the amount of
23:06
Speaker 1: prey on the landscape, and then you've got variation in
23:10
Speaker 1: the hiding places for the prey. And so there have
23:13
Speaker 1: been several studies, uh that have you know, beyond the
23:18
Speaker 1: shadow of a doubt, you know they will mark these
23:20
Speaker 1: fawns and anywhere from thirty forty fifty up to you know,
23:24
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the fawns will be eaten, killed and
23:29
Speaker 1: eaten by coyotes. Um, you have some other places where
23:33
Speaker 1: some of those dynamics are a little bit different and
23:36
Speaker 1: you won't see such a big impact. I think if
23:40
Speaker 1: you want a blanket statement, I think it's safe to
23:43
Speaker 1: say that wherever you have a sufficient number of a
23:48
Speaker 1: viable population of coyotes on the landscape and a viable
23:51
Speaker 1: population of deer, you are going to have deer that
23:56
Speaker 1: are killed either fawns, mostly fawns, and also some adults
24:00
Speaker 1: are gonna die by coyotes every single year and there's
24:04
Speaker 1: nothing you can do about it. The most important question
24:08
Speaker 1: is are they a driver of that population? And you
24:13
Speaker 1: really can't tell mark. You can't even even at a
24:17
Speaker 1: county scale. You can't say that coyotes are driving that population.
24:22
Speaker 1: It's a little more site specific than that. Can you
24:24
Speaker 1: can you elaborate on what that means. But when you
24:26
Speaker 1: say driving the population, uh, think of it as being
24:32
Speaker 1: the most important limiting factor. So think of it as
24:37
Speaker 1: as in terms of one single variable affecting the dynamics
24:43
Speaker 1: of that population. Uh. It would in this case if
24:46
Speaker 1: we were to say predation is driving the population, then
24:50
Speaker 1: that would mean that would be the single most important
24:52
Speaker 1: factor that is influencing the stability, rise or fall of
24:57
Speaker 1: the dear population. Now here's a I don't know if
25:00
Speaker 1: this is I'm assuming this is gonna be somewhere, But
25:04
Speaker 1: is it fair to say that across most areas of
25:07
Speaker 1: White Tail Country that hunters are the largest driver of
25:12
Speaker 1: a population, and hunter not hunter predation, whatever you wanna
25:15
Speaker 1: call it, our our kill of deer every year? Is
25:18
Speaker 1: that accurate? Yeah? Yeah, I'm sure there's gonna be an
25:21
Speaker 1: exception here or there, and especially in US urban and
25:25
Speaker 1: suburban environments. But yeah, on the average, I think that's
25:28
Speaker 1: very safe to say. Okay, So then so then you're
25:31
Speaker 1: saying the tough thing, though, is finding a situation or
25:35
Speaker 1: determining how much of a driver predator impacts actually are
25:40
Speaker 1: um And you mentioned there's been different studies that have
25:42
Speaker 1: shown a significant impact. There have been different studies that
25:46
Speaker 1: have shown not a significant impact. I know from from
25:49
Speaker 1: reading up on a lot of these myself and studying
25:51
Speaker 1: them over the years. A lot of this has to
25:53
Speaker 1: do with something that we call faun recruitment, and that
25:56
Speaker 1: is kind of this indicator of that impact. Can you
25:59
Speaker 1: can you dive into that for us, help us understand
26:01
Speaker 1: what that means and then how coyotes might or might
26:04
Speaker 1: not be impacting that in different areas as absolutely. Um
26:11
Speaker 1: So we often say that if if you could only
26:14
Speaker 1: measure one thing, you know, it's it's it's not as
26:17
Speaker 1: fun or sexy as you know, measuring antlers. But if
26:21
Speaker 1: you were managing a deer population, and it's like I
26:24
Speaker 1: could only have this one piece of information to make
26:27
Speaker 1: decisions about managing that population, it would be recruitment or
26:30
Speaker 1: fond recruitment. And so so think of that as a
26:34
Speaker 1: paycheck going into your account, you know, every month, every
26:37
Speaker 1: year or whatever. If you are going to harvest the
26:41
Speaker 1: population at some level, I'm gonna take five ten percent
26:45
Speaker 1: In some places, in real productive herds, thirty percent of
26:49
Speaker 1: the herd could be harvested every year. You have to
26:52
Speaker 1: know what the inputs are going to be. If I'm
26:55
Speaker 1: putting thirty percent in, I can take thirty percent out
26:59
Speaker 1: and that population would remain stable. So that is what
27:02
Speaker 1: fawn recruitment is. And so biologists are wanting to know,
27:06
Speaker 1: you know, how often, how many fawns are and and
27:10
Speaker 1: recruiting just simply means living long enough to be recruited
27:15
Speaker 1: into the population. And we typically mean that you know,
27:19
Speaker 1: they made it through hunting season, they made it to winter,
27:22
Speaker 1: and assume they're going to be recruited into the springtime population. Okay,
27:26
Speaker 1: So Mark, let's say you have a scenario where you
27:30
Speaker 1: had twenty years ago, there were very few coyotes, uh,
27:35
Speaker 1: in this particular area, and it's the heavily hunted area,
27:39
Speaker 1: and doe harvest is pretty high, buck carves is pretty high. Uh.
27:44
Speaker 1: You know, so it's providing ideal hunting recreation for you know,
27:48
Speaker 1: the public. And now you change that one single variable. Uh,
27:54
Speaker 1: the amount of hunters haven't changed, the amount of hunting
27:57
Speaker 1: area hasn't changed. You kind of every year. I'm just
28:00
Speaker 1: making up numbers here. But we're gonna, you know, we're
28:03
Speaker 1: gonna have five hundred hunter mandates on our property this
28:07
Speaker 1: year and every year, you know, your permit system, and
28:10
Speaker 1: five people get to spend a day on the out
28:12
Speaker 1: on out on that property a year killing deer. And
28:15
Speaker 1: then you add in this new element um called you know,
28:19
Speaker 1: coyote fawn depredation. And rather than recruiting again let's just
28:25
Speaker 1: say easy numbers. Whereas you used to recruit you know,
28:28
Speaker 1: three hundred fawns into the population every year, now you're
28:32
Speaker 1: only recruiting a hundred fawns into the population. The result
28:37
Speaker 1: won't be immediate, but over time, three years later, four
28:41
Speaker 1: years later, five years later, because that paycheck going into
28:46
Speaker 1: the account is getting less and less and less, you
28:49
Speaker 1: start noting the principle in your account. The adult population
28:53
Speaker 1: goes down, down, down, because you are spending more than
28:57
Speaker 1: you're putting in. And that has been one of the
29:01
Speaker 1: biggest UH sources of some of these studies over the
29:05
Speaker 1: past a decade, is what in the heck is going on.
29:09
Speaker 1: We've got this big property or this area, uh maybe
29:13
Speaker 1: you know county scale type thing where we used to
29:16
Speaker 1: have plenty of deer and now hunters aren't killing as
29:19
Speaker 1: many deer as they used to, they're not seeing as
29:21
Speaker 1: many deer as they used to, and coincidentally, we are
29:25
Speaker 1: seeing a lot more coyotes than we used to. And
29:28
Speaker 1: sure enough, when you do some of those studies and
29:30
Speaker 1: you start marking those fawns and and figuring out what
29:33
Speaker 1: caused specific mortality, is you learned that, Yeah, well that's
29:36
Speaker 1: the reason the dear population is declining because they're only
29:39
Speaker 1: recruiting about half as many fawns as we used to.
29:44
Speaker 1: So is yeah, what am I trying to say here?
29:50
Speaker 1: Is that always? M hm? He guess Number one? How
29:55
Speaker 1: often is that actually happening? Because you hear you hear
29:59
Speaker 1: people talk about coyotes, coyotes, coyotes, But the situation you
30:02
Speaker 1: just mentioned where you have that fund recruitment rate reduced
30:06
Speaker 1: so significantly that the population does decline, do you have
30:10
Speaker 1: any idea? I mean, could you say that, you know,
30:13
Speaker 1: maybe if we had to lump all of White Tail
30:18
Speaker 1: Country into a bucket, and then could you say that
30:20
Speaker 1: in one out of ten, ten percent of our populations
30:24
Speaker 1: had that kind of impact or is it fifty of
30:26
Speaker 1: the populations are having those kind of Is this rare?
30:29
Speaker 1: Is this common. Um. I don't know how exactly articulate this,
30:33
Speaker 1: but is this the rule of the exception? I would
30:38
Speaker 1: say somewhere in between. I think. I think it definitely
30:43
Speaker 1: tends to be more of an exception. UM and and
30:47
Speaker 1: market all depends on scale as well. You know, Um,
30:52
Speaker 1: is the deer herd doing well in the state of
30:54
Speaker 1: Michigan or Iowa? Well, yeah, what about in this county
31:00
Speaker 1: pretty much? How about on this property or you know,
31:02
Speaker 1: or within this five thousand acre area. Um, you would
31:06
Speaker 1: kind of have to look at it like that. You know,
31:09
Speaker 1: in the eastern, especially the southeastern US, the deer herd
31:14
Speaker 1: is certainly doing just fine. In the presence of coyotes.
31:19
Speaker 1: People are still seeing dear, people are still hunting deer.
31:22
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of support that the deer
31:24
Speaker 1: population has declined somewhat, but not a lot when you
31:28
Speaker 1: look at that type of scale. You know, and I
31:30
Speaker 1: can speak for Mississippi, you know, the deer herd depending
31:34
Speaker 1: on the index and the analysis you do, Yeah, over
31:37
Speaker 1: the past decade, it may have declined a little bit,
31:40
Speaker 1: but not a lot. Now you can go to certain
31:43
Speaker 1: areas within Mississippi based on a lot of details and
31:47
Speaker 1: it's usually the interaction of you know, is there a
31:50
Speaker 1: high predator population like coyotes, and what is what are
31:53
Speaker 1: the habitat conditions like And there's some pretty powerful evidence
31:57
Speaker 1: that coyotes have really taken a toll on that your
32:00
Speaker 1: population at at a much more local scale. So you know,
32:06
Speaker 1: you kind of said, Mark, you know, is it is
32:09
Speaker 1: it you know, ten percent or you know, I am
32:12
Speaker 1: just really guestimating here. I would say it's probably somewhere
32:17
Speaker 1: less than and it might even be it may even
32:20
Speaker 1: be less than ten percent. Where coyotes are really you know, driving,
32:24
Speaker 1: you know, they are the single most important thing of
32:27
Speaker 1: affecting the population. Okay, but but there are certainly things
32:32
Speaker 1: that we can do proactively with that. Uh, it's just
32:36
Speaker 1: identifying why is the deer population declining so much? Is
32:40
Speaker 1: it indeed coyotes? And then you know what what type
32:43
Speaker 1: of steps can you can you take to to help
32:46
Speaker 1: it out, to help the deer hurt out? So here
32:48
Speaker 1: here's a question, could would it be or is there
32:54
Speaker 1: are there any benefits to having coyotes on the landscape
32:57
Speaker 1: as a deer hunter and manager, because one way I
33:01
Speaker 1: could see this in some situations and so maybe I'll
33:03
Speaker 1: throw out a possibility and you tell me if this
33:06
Speaker 1: is true or false or maybe somewhere between. But for
33:09
Speaker 1: decades now, um white tailed researchers and managers have been
33:13
Speaker 1: telling us that we have too many deer, too many doughs,
33:15
Speaker 1: too many doughs. We need to we need to harvest more,
33:18
Speaker 1: we try, need to try to bring the population back
33:20
Speaker 1: in balance with the habitat. And in a lot of places,
33:23
Speaker 1: even now, even where I hunt and and hang out,
33:26
Speaker 1: that still doesn't seem to be the case. They're still
33:28
Speaker 1: seem to be way more dear than a healthy habitat
33:31
Speaker 1: and support, which is leading to probably deer that aren't
33:34
Speaker 1: quite as healthy as they could be, probably leading maybe
33:37
Speaker 1: in part, is impacting fond recruitment too, because these these
33:40
Speaker 1: deer aren't getting the nutrition they need because of the
33:43
Speaker 1: fact that the habitat isn't in balance of the herd.
33:45
Speaker 1: In a situation like that, is having natural predators back
33:49
Speaker 1: on the landscape a good thing because they can help
33:52
Speaker 1: us balance things because if we the hunters aren't doing
33:55
Speaker 1: enough ourselves, they serve that ecosystem function. Is that a
33:59
Speaker 1: way to look at this in some cases too, Or
34:01
Speaker 1: is that Bologney. I think that's the furthest thing from blogny. Um.
34:06
Speaker 1: I agree with that sentiment and the way you describe
34:09
Speaker 1: that perfectly. And you know that it's never ever with
34:14
Speaker 1: the deer management and deer hunters, it's never gonna be
34:17
Speaker 1: a you know, one size shoe fits all. Um, my
34:22
Speaker 1: colleague here at the Deer Lab, Steve Demeris, that is
34:25
Speaker 1: something that has been a presentation he has given many
34:27
Speaker 1: many times, um, different seminars, is you know, the sky
34:33
Speaker 1: is not necessarily falling here. We we have a new
34:36
Speaker 1: predator on the landscape, has been here quite some time,
34:38
Speaker 1: and it's gonna getting a lot of attention. But there
34:41
Speaker 1: are probably more situations where the coyote maybe helping the
34:47
Speaker 1: deer herd out some bringing some of bringing this herd
34:51
Speaker 1: back into check and back into balance with with the habitat.
34:56
Speaker 1: And a lot of that mark is the what have
34:59
Speaker 1: hunters expected to see for so long? And we think
35:03
Speaker 1: back when when the uh qd M, the Quality of
35:06
Speaker 1: Deer Management Association began and started educating people about we've
35:12
Speaker 1: got to get this dear herd back into balance with
35:15
Speaker 1: the habitat, you know, for healthy deer and for healthy
35:18
Speaker 1: habitats and in a lot of places, Um, it's it's
35:23
Speaker 1: just really it causes Um, how should I say it,
35:28
Speaker 1: it's too much a work that you know, the novelty
35:31
Speaker 1: of doe harvest wears off really quickly for a lot
35:34
Speaker 1: of people. And so rather than a particular hunting club
35:39
Speaker 1: in the South having to kill fifty seventy a hundred
35:42
Speaker 1: and fifty does every year, you know, coyotes moving into
35:46
Speaker 1: the system and maybe only having to harvest fifty does
35:49
Speaker 1: a year. Um, that's really not a bad trade off.
35:53
Speaker 1: And you know in a lot of those systems too,
35:56
Speaker 1: where you have healthy habitat, I think you're gonna be
36:00
Speaker 1: hard pressed to see where coyotes are going to be
36:03
Speaker 1: really hurting the deer herd at all. So in a
36:06
Speaker 1: case like that, I think you're actually helping the deer
36:09
Speaker 1: hunting scenario and helping the deer herd quality having that
36:12
Speaker 1: predator in the system. Yeah, it's interesting because this is
36:16
Speaker 1: actually impacting me right now. Um. One of the main
36:19
Speaker 1: properties at hunt in Michigan for the longest, for the
36:22
Speaker 1: first I don't know, five six, seven years that I've
36:24
Speaker 1: hunted here, I'd never got a coyote on trail camera,
36:27
Speaker 1: never saw one, never heard one. UM nothing. And UM.
36:31
Speaker 1: I had heard about there being some really significant UM
36:34
Speaker 1: coyote trapping and hunting being done in the area over
36:37
Speaker 1: the years, UM guys running in with dogs and lots
36:41
Speaker 1: of stuff like that, and it just seemed like there're
36:42
Speaker 1: never as much of a population left over, at least
36:44
Speaker 1: that I was anecdotally seeing. UM. And then over the
36:47
Speaker 1: last couple of years, I have been seeing that tick up.
36:50
Speaker 1: I'm hearing them at night, I'm seeing them getting one
36:52
Speaker 1: picked on trail camera. And at first I was like, oh,
36:55
Speaker 1: is this going to be an issue, But then very
36:57
Speaker 1: quickly another side of me said, well, weight Mark, for
37:01
Speaker 1: years now, you've complained about the fact that no one
37:03
Speaker 1: else shoots those around here, and there's so many deer,
37:06
Speaker 1: and it's just totally out of whack. There's so many doughs,
37:10
Speaker 1: hardly any bucks. You can't go anywhere in the property
37:12
Speaker 1: without spooking deer. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing, UM,
37:16
Speaker 1: And I think that it's really natural. It's kind of
37:20
Speaker 1: ingrained human nature because of kind of our our deep
37:23
Speaker 1: history with predators as competition in many cases. You know,
37:28
Speaker 1: way back in the day, we looked at these animals
37:30
Speaker 1: as competition for a scarce resource, which is our food,
37:33
Speaker 1: and or as a danger to our health. And that
37:35
Speaker 1: I think has stuck with us over the thousands of
37:39
Speaker 1: years ever since. And I think there's there's always this
37:41
Speaker 1: natural tendency to when they when they're one of the
37:46
Speaker 1: options to point a finger at, it's really easy to
37:48
Speaker 1: point that finger and be like, oh, that's that's the issue.
37:51
Speaker 1: Maybe sometimes it's not quite as much as our gut
37:54
Speaker 1: instinct always tells us. And that's kind of what I'm
37:57
Speaker 1: what I'm kind of seeing in this own personal example
37:59
Speaker 1: of my own here. Um. Not. Something else that I
38:03
Speaker 1: I've read a lot about and I know you you've
38:06
Speaker 1: talked about in the past on some of your own podcasts,
38:08
Speaker 1: is some of the ways that deer naturally deal with predation. Um.
38:13
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about things like birth
38:15
Speaker 1: synchrony and some of the other things that that white
38:18
Speaker 1: tails do to to help live with predators and survive. Yeah,
38:23
Speaker 1: that that's probably and it's really interesting topic. UM. Yeah.
38:27
Speaker 1: But but synchronizing birth is kind of you know, natural
38:32
Speaker 1: selection over time, you know, and that's just a product
38:35
Speaker 1: of differential survival and reproduction. Um. But but over time
38:42
Speaker 1: when you quote swamp the predators. So if if you
38:46
Speaker 1: could pick you know, a three day or a three
38:48
Speaker 1: week time when all of the females dropped their fonts,
38:53
Speaker 1: their their calves, their pups, whatever, um, you simply overwhelm
38:59
Speaker 1: the number of predators that are on the landscape and
39:02
Speaker 1: so it stinks for for your offspring to be chosen.
39:06
Speaker 1: You know, they're the ones that's eaten. But it's kind
39:09
Speaker 1: of one of those uh bet hedging strategies where um,
39:15
Speaker 1: if you can swamp the predator population by having yet
39:18
Speaker 1: the synchronized birth event, then you know that is that
39:23
Speaker 1: is a way to ensure that at a population scale,
39:26
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're always gonna have recruit have some
39:29
Speaker 1: type of recruitment of young um the other way. So
39:32
Speaker 1: that that's kind of more at a population scale. Now,
39:37
Speaker 1: of course, at an individual scale, UM, the mother is
39:41
Speaker 1: going to be selecting the most appropriate cover and so
39:45
Speaker 1: there's gonna be variation uh in in habitat, vegetation, the
39:50
Speaker 1: appropriate amount of cover on the landscape, and that could
39:53
Speaker 1: be based on experience. You know what a mother has learned. Uh,
39:57
Speaker 1: mother has learned that if I go to this area
40:00
Speaker 1: and I bed down and this type of cover, I
40:02
Speaker 1: keep having fawns, and so she repeats that behavior over
40:06
Speaker 1: and over again. Um, whereas you have another mother that
40:09
Speaker 1: doesn't have doesn't even live in the best habitat or
40:13
Speaker 1: or doesn't have you know, access to it, um drops
40:17
Speaker 1: her fawn and they keep getting eaten. And so you know,
40:20
Speaker 1: things just kind of evolve over time like that is
40:24
Speaker 1: an individual strategy. And here's something really remarkable of how
40:29
Speaker 1: these these things can really evolve in real time and
40:34
Speaker 1: in our lifetime is my colleague Marcus Lashley, he and
40:40
Speaker 1: others when he was a PhD student in post doc
40:43
Speaker 1: at NC State, they did a real interesting study on
40:47
Speaker 1: Fort Bragg. And so it's a really really open landscape
40:52
Speaker 1: and lots of details here, but um, bottom line they
40:57
Speaker 1: they used to prescribe fire on an annual basis or
41:01
Speaker 1: every other year, and Um, the vegetation because of that
41:06
Speaker 1: is kept very very low to the ground. So it's
41:08
Speaker 1: a very very open landscape in terms of the understory.
41:14
Speaker 1: So what you have is more developed structure near what
41:20
Speaker 1: we call the drains or the creek banks. You know,
41:22
Speaker 1: is these these wetter areas where the fire stops burning.
41:26
Speaker 1: And these may be very narrow corridors, but it's where
41:30
Speaker 1: you might have more shrub development and things like that.
41:34
Speaker 1: And so a doe being a doe, you know, going
41:38
Speaker 1: somewhere where you know in her you know her her
41:41
Speaker 1: search image, you know, through her eyes and brain of
41:44
Speaker 1: this is where I need to lay down and have
41:46
Speaker 1: a fawn. Unfortunately, because that vegetation type is so limited
41:52
Speaker 1: and linear, that coyotes can easily hunt those drains. And
41:58
Speaker 1: so he actually saw that fawn survival dropped in a
42:02
Speaker 1: really really good hiding cover was lower than in an
42:07
Speaker 1: area that was completely wide open with hardly any cover
42:10
Speaker 1: what's what whatsoever, because the coyotes were not searching that
42:14
Speaker 1: open landscape. The coyote was being a coyote and walking
42:18
Speaker 1: an edge, walking along that edge, smelling the fawn and
42:21
Speaker 1: you know, uh, capturing it and killing it. So that's
42:26
Speaker 1: one of the things where the dope picking the dope
42:29
Speaker 1: pick to the right cover, you know. But unfortunately, because
42:33
Speaker 1: that type of cover was so rare on the landscape,
42:36
Speaker 1: it actually gave the coyote the advantage. Interesting, so they're working,
42:43
Speaker 1: uh simultaneously, Mark, could could you speak a little bit
42:49
Speaker 1: more to this habitat component of coyote impacts on fawn predation,
42:55
Speaker 1: because it seems like more and more of the things
42:57
Speaker 1: I read, it seems that that's a huge factor. See
43:00
Speaker 1: mentioned the linear cover versus a different type. Can you
43:03
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that, what we're learning
43:05
Speaker 1: about how habitat does influence the impact. Yeah. Absolutely, And
43:13
Speaker 1: this has been really difficult to prove so far. Um
43:19
Speaker 1: it ends up being a little bit more of a
43:21
Speaker 1: complicated study than you might imagine trying to develop all
43:25
Speaker 1: these all these cover types and so forth, So you
43:27
Speaker 1: end up kind of looking retrospectively that, Okay, what were
43:31
Speaker 1: the habitat characteristics where fond survival was greater? What were
43:34
Speaker 1: the habitat characteristics where fond survival was less? And bottom line, Mark,
43:40
Speaker 1: it's um. It can come in a lot of different shapes.
43:46
Speaker 1: So I don't like to say, like, for in your
43:49
Speaker 1: neck of the woods, Mark, I wouldn't say it needs
43:51
Speaker 1: to be this particular cover type or this vegetation type.
43:56
Speaker 1: It's more like and I don't I don't know, Mark,
44:00
Speaker 1: if you saw this little video we we made we've
44:02
Speaker 1: had on our social media site, we called the the
44:05
Speaker 1: basketball technique, but it kind of that kind of provides
44:10
Speaker 1: you know visually, um, what we're talking about. And so
44:14
Speaker 1: we just kind of as a little game to demonstrate
44:16
Speaker 1: a point is you know, you'll have me and Marcus
44:18
Speaker 1: or me and Steve, and you know, one of you
44:20
Speaker 1: cover your eyes, turn around and let me hurl a
44:23
Speaker 1: basketball not very far you know, ten or fifteen yards
44:26
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then try to find it. And obviously
44:31
Speaker 1: where there is well to develop cover, so I'm talking
44:34
Speaker 1: about cover that is knee high to waist high, Um,
44:38
Speaker 1: it can take you a while to find that basketball. However,
44:42
Speaker 1: if you were to go uh in a typical forest
44:47
Speaker 1: stand So let's go into a place that has a
44:49
Speaker 1: developed forest, a developed canopy. You know with eight nine
44:54
Speaker 1: canopy closure, that shading has caused the the understory to
44:59
Speaker 1: grow away. And so you even though you have trees
45:03
Speaker 1: and you have the structural cover, uh, in terms of
45:07
Speaker 1: a forest, when you get down on your knees, you
45:10
Speaker 1: can see anything on the ground. Not only can you
45:12
Speaker 1: see a basketball, you can see a baseball if you
45:15
Speaker 1: rolled it on the ground. That is not providing any
45:18
Speaker 1: type of fawning cover. And so it's more easy pickings.
45:22
Speaker 1: A coyote or a group of coyotes can work through
45:25
Speaker 1: that type of vegetation really really easy. It's not to
45:32
Speaker 1: say whatsoever that, hey, if I have great fawning cover,
45:35
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna experience mortality from coyotes. Not not at all.
45:40
Speaker 1: But what you've done is you've increased the search time.
45:44
Speaker 1: You've you've complicated the coyotes eyes, you've complicated his nose,
45:49
Speaker 1: the scent where it's coming from, it's going to be
45:51
Speaker 1: broken up. And so essentially you you've just made it
45:55
Speaker 1: um much more difficult for a coyote to find a fawn.
46:00
Speaker 1: They may find them eventually, but they're not going to
46:02
Speaker 1: find them at the same rate. And so that's what
46:04
Speaker 1: what we're looking at, Mark, is you want larger areas.
46:09
Speaker 1: Bigger is better. You don't want them in strips. And
46:13
Speaker 1: that was like what I was referring to with Marcus
46:15
Speaker 1: study is you can just think about this where if
46:20
Speaker 1: the only cover you had was ten or fifteen yards
46:24
Speaker 1: wide and a hundred yards long, man a coyote could
46:28
Speaker 1: hunt that out in a matter of minutes. It's just
46:31
Speaker 1: literally gotta walk on the edge up one side, down
46:33
Speaker 1: the other, through the middle of it, and it's probably
46:35
Speaker 1: going to detect via side or smell of fawn that's
46:38
Speaker 1: in there. But now if you had this in a larger,
46:41
Speaker 1: wider area in terms of acres, you know, ten acres
46:45
Speaker 1: or twenty acres or thirty acres, and you had that
46:47
Speaker 1: distributed all over the landscape, now you've really stacked the
46:51
Speaker 1: odds in favor of the fawn being able to hide
46:55
Speaker 1: from a hide from the predator like a coyote. So
47:01
Speaker 1: tell me this then, Bronson, because we're talking about some
47:05
Speaker 1: of the different habitat impacts. But I guess I kind
47:07
Speaker 1: of got ahead of myself by asking you about that,
47:09
Speaker 1: because what I want to what I want to make
47:11
Speaker 1: sure we understand two is how do we even know
47:13
Speaker 1: this is a problem. So I guess my first question is,
47:16
Speaker 1: how do we determine if we might have a coyote
47:21
Speaker 1: issue or or influence that we need to think about,
47:24
Speaker 1: Like how do you how do you figure out if
47:25
Speaker 1: your fonal recruitment rate is too low or or whatever
47:28
Speaker 1: it might be. How do we determine that? And then
47:30
Speaker 1: I want to know I guess my second question would be,
47:33
Speaker 1: then how do we determine which one of the levers
47:35
Speaker 1: we need to push? So I think based on what
47:38
Speaker 1: you're saying, here, if we determine there's a challenge here
47:42
Speaker 1: with our fond recruitment, I'm thinking there's three different levels
47:45
Speaker 1: we can push, and you tell me if I'm wrong here.
47:47
Speaker 1: But number one, first level you just talked about could
47:50
Speaker 1: be habitat. We could change your habitat to try to
47:52
Speaker 1: address that issue. Number two, we could try to push
47:55
Speaker 1: the predator level, which would be some kind of predator management.
47:58
Speaker 1: And then number three we could just adjust our own
48:02
Speaker 1: doe harvest. So hunter doe harvest, you can adjust that
48:05
Speaker 1: lever um. So here I am asking me a thousand questions.
48:08
Speaker 1: I guess number one, Branson, are those there? Are those
48:10
Speaker 1: the three levers? And then I'm gonna take us one
48:12
Speaker 1: step back after you answer me that, Yeah, that that's
48:15
Speaker 1: because that those are the three levers. Yeah, those are
48:17
Speaker 1: the three options you have. If you manipulate any one
48:20
Speaker 1: or all of those, then you can make a change exactly.
48:24
Speaker 1: So then would that be in the case, how do
48:26
Speaker 1: we determine if there's an issue? I guess, yeah, let's
48:31
Speaker 1: start that. How do we figure that out? Okay, so
48:34
Speaker 1: you can do this um with with the data collection,
48:38
Speaker 1: so it doesn't need to be anything sophisticated, but all
48:42
Speaker 1: it is is going to take some time. So and
48:46
Speaker 1: I have seen this firsthand, and so I'll be and heck,
48:52
Speaker 1: one of these was the home hunting club that I
48:54
Speaker 1: was a part of. I started noticing a big problem
48:58
Speaker 1: in that if you have really healthy deer I mean
49:03
Speaker 1: the doze that we were harvesting or in fantastic condition
49:08
Speaker 1: uh body size, body fat. But man, I started noticing
49:14
Speaker 1: this trend. This was the first year I was in
49:15
Speaker 1: this hunting club, and like, gosh, I don't understand this.
49:18
Speaker 1: Half of the dose that we harvest during both season,
49:22
Speaker 1: not late gun season, during archery season are not lactating.
49:27
Speaker 1: Like we've we've got a problem here. And so I
49:31
Speaker 1: let this go on just to make sure it wasn't
49:33
Speaker 1: an anomaly. And you know, year two, yes, the exact
49:36
Speaker 1: same Thing's like we we have less than uh fifties
49:40
Speaker 1: sometimes only for lactation and adult females that are otherwise
49:46
Speaker 1: in fantastic condition. Um. Then we started noticing that. UM.
49:53
Speaker 1: I noticed right when I got on the property or
49:56
Speaker 1: the hunting club that uh, the state of our forest
50:00
Speaker 1: on that property was it was the obvious to me
50:03
Speaker 1: that we didn't have any cover and coinced completely coincidental.
50:08
Speaker 1: A little natural experiment took place. Uh. The property owner
50:12
Speaker 1: of where we leased was a timber company. UH. Timber
50:15
Speaker 1: company then came in and did a timber harvest, removed
50:21
Speaker 1: three or four acres September. Uh. The next spring and summer,
50:26
Speaker 1: now we had cover everywhere and even more developed the
50:30
Speaker 1: next year and immediately, UH, the fawning fawn survival and
50:35
Speaker 1: lactation rates shot right back up to normal. They were
50:39
Speaker 1: seventy and eight. So that was just something personally that
50:42
Speaker 1: happened to me. I didn't have to take any sophisticated measurements.
50:46
Speaker 1: It's just basically where if I'm looking at lactation rate
50:50
Speaker 1: and it is well below fifty or then you have
50:54
Speaker 1: fawn's dying for some reason. Now, how would you assume
50:59
Speaker 1: that it's kaya bodies? Well, A lot of that can
51:02
Speaker 1: come from uh, your camera surveys. A lot of that
51:05
Speaker 1: can come from scat surveys. You know. Things I would
51:08
Speaker 1: do is I would get on my a t V.
51:10
Speaker 1: And I would just drive our roads and when you're
51:11
Speaker 1: seeing uh scat everywhere, I'm seeing deer hair in it
51:16
Speaker 1: when I'm putting up. But you know I was doing
51:17
Speaker 1: camera surveys all year long, and mean I get camera
51:20
Speaker 1: surveys where I see a pack of two or three
51:23
Speaker 1: coyotes in one frame and then an hour later I
51:26
Speaker 1: see them running back with a fawn head in its mouth.
51:30
Speaker 1: You know, all these things like that are pretty easy
51:33
Speaker 1: to diagnose that when the deer herd, the condition of
51:36
Speaker 1: the dough is very healthy and reproduction is low, then
51:40
Speaker 1: that's probably what's going on. And even if you don't
51:44
Speaker 1: want to, you know, if you don't want to get
51:46
Speaker 1: back to the skin and shed and you don't you're
51:47
Speaker 1: not sure about how to do this, lactation measurements and
51:50
Speaker 1: lactation index um, use the tools that we have available
51:55
Speaker 1: to you, or you know, just writing it down that
51:58
Speaker 1: every time you go sit in a stand, you are
52:02
Speaker 1: recording how many doughse and how many fawns you are seeing.
52:06
Speaker 1: And if you get to beat the end of archery season,
52:09
Speaker 1: assuming you had sufficient samples and well into gun season
52:13
Speaker 1: where your hunters still can accurately identify an adult dode
52:17
Speaker 1: or versus a fawn, and you've only seen about uh
52:22
Speaker 1: one fawn for every three does or something like that,
52:26
Speaker 1: then you very well may have you know, uh a
52:29
Speaker 1: lot of fawns being eaten by predators. Is there any
52:33
Speaker 1: formula or um easy system to input data into the
52:39
Speaker 1: will help us determine some of those things that you said,
52:42
Speaker 1: like fawn recruitment or whether it maybe whether observations or
52:45
Speaker 1: trial camera surveys. Is there something like that out there
52:47
Speaker 1: that you could point people towards to help actually, you know,
52:50
Speaker 1: quantify this a little bit. Oh, absolutely well. A tool
52:55
Speaker 1: that we develop some I'm very biased here of course,
52:59
Speaker 1: but it's one of the tools we developed called the
53:02
Speaker 1: Deer Hunt App, you know, a mobile app, and not
53:05
Speaker 1: only does it do that for you, you know, you
53:08
Speaker 1: can keep track of buck age structure, you can keep
53:10
Speaker 1: track of adult sex ratio, you can keep track of
53:13
Speaker 1: where hunters are seeing deer, where they're not seeing deer,
53:16
Speaker 1: they're seeing them during the morning or during the afternoon, etcetera, etcetera.
53:20
Speaker 1: But but literally, mark that was one of the most
53:23
Speaker 1: prominent goals we had in mind, was that someone while
53:28
Speaker 1: they are hunting is to collect data and you don't
53:32
Speaker 1: have to rely to when your hunt is over and
53:35
Speaker 1: drive back and record it on a data sheet. It
53:38
Speaker 1: is simply an app that you can open up specific
53:41
Speaker 1: to you, specific to your your property or your hunting
53:44
Speaker 1: club and during your hunt you're just recording. You're just
53:48
Speaker 1: tapping a button, doe, dough fawn or there's a dough
53:52
Speaker 1: and two fawns. And then over time, if you and
53:56
Speaker 1: enough people are doing that, then yeah, on on our app,
54:00
Speaker 1: you just run a report and there is a metric
54:02
Speaker 1: for you FAWD recruitment falls perdue and so literally the
54:06
Speaker 1: math has done for you. And it's it's nothing that
54:10
Speaker 1: you can't do yourself. I mean it is literally nothing
54:13
Speaker 1: that if you got back to your truck or to
54:15
Speaker 1: the skin and shed or whatever and wrote it down
54:17
Speaker 1: on an index card or in an Excel spreadsheet. We're
54:20
Speaker 1: not doing anything special. We're just making it very very
54:23
Speaker 1: easy for you to do it and conveniently to do it. Yeah,
54:27
Speaker 1: I love it. That's that's a big thing. Convenience. Um
54:31
Speaker 1: So hey, Mark one more. I'd be remiss if I
54:34
Speaker 1: didn't say this too. It depends on where you're at
54:38
Speaker 1: in the country and relative to when fawning dates are
54:41
Speaker 1: parturition dates. But also another way to do that is
54:44
Speaker 1: of course with a camera survey. Um. Some people might
54:50
Speaker 1: do a preseason you can kind of kill uh um
54:53
Speaker 1: a bunch of birds with one stone and do a
54:56
Speaker 1: preseason camera survey, and you can see, hey, what's my
55:00
Speaker 1: buck age structure, what bucks do I want to protect?
55:02
Speaker 1: What bucks DOILL want to harvest? And if if fawning
55:06
Speaker 1: season was back, you know, six weeks or two months
55:10
Speaker 1: before that time, then you would be able to also
55:13
Speaker 1: count the number of fawns per doe you're seeing there.
55:17
Speaker 1: So another easy tool you can do there that's not
55:20
Speaker 1: as easy in Mississippi. A lot of times our fawns
55:22
Speaker 1: are hitting the ground uh just maybe sometimes even a
55:25
Speaker 1: few weeks before both season begins, and so we typically
55:29
Speaker 1: underestimate fond recruitment when we do a preseason camera survey,
55:33
Speaker 1: so we'll sometimes do do hours at the end of
55:36
Speaker 1: the season. But but I wanted to say that, So
55:39
Speaker 1: there there's typically three things you can look at. The
55:41
Speaker 1: lactation index, you can look at uh during deer season
55:45
Speaker 1: hunter observations, and then use your camera surveys through three
55:49
Speaker 1: different ways you can tell now sometimes just thought of
55:52
Speaker 1: as as you're describing this, you know, if we're looking
55:54
Speaker 1: at those three different um OH variables or whatever, it
55:59
Speaker 1: help us determine if there's an issue. Could those things
56:01
Speaker 1: be impacted by other factors though, So could something like
56:06
Speaker 1: just poor habitat in general, poor nutrition available, Could that
56:09
Speaker 1: impact faun recruitment or lactation rates and things like that.
56:12
Speaker 1: So we might be seeing these negative red flashing lights
56:16
Speaker 1: and then we say, oh, it's gonna be coyotes then,
56:18
Speaker 1: but could it be something else? Absolutely, I'm I'm glad
56:22
Speaker 1: you brought that up. Um, So for me, what would
56:25
Speaker 1: be the biggest signal to me that not only do
56:28
Speaker 1: I have a fawn cover habitat problem, I've got a
56:31
Speaker 1: food habitat problem. If the deer and poor condition, so
56:37
Speaker 1: if dose, if their body weight is blow average, if
56:40
Speaker 1: buck body weights and antler weight, antler sizes blow average,
56:45
Speaker 1: and and even looking at fat, you know, getting when
56:48
Speaker 1: you're skinning the deer and looking at that level of
56:50
Speaker 1: fat on the rump, looking at kidney fat index, things
56:52
Speaker 1: like that. That's when I start leaning more towards we've
56:55
Speaker 1: got a situation here that yeah, predators maybe uh augmenting
57:01
Speaker 1: the situation. They may not be the cause of it.
57:04
Speaker 1: It looks like we've got a nutrition problem, and then
57:07
Speaker 1: the predators are simply you know, making it a little
57:09
Speaker 1: bit worse. So I look at the condition of the deer. Now,
57:14
Speaker 1: you can always have a disease event, you know, it's
57:18
Speaker 1: all It could always be possible that there's some specific
57:20
Speaker 1: virus that may hit fawns a little more than it
57:23
Speaker 1: would adults. Um, But that's probably just gonna be a
57:26
Speaker 1: one year anomaly type thing. Most of these mark are
57:30
Speaker 1: pretty chronic. You're not just gonna have this one year
57:33
Speaker 1: where faun recruitment is really down unless it was some
57:35
Speaker 1: type of disease. Usually these things build slowly over time.
57:39
Speaker 1: The habitat gets progressively worse over time, Predator populations grow
57:45
Speaker 1: over time, and you start seeing this trend that you
57:47
Speaker 1: can pick up. Okay, so we've we've kind of determined
57:52
Speaker 1: that if you're seeing a healthy deer population like the
57:57
Speaker 1: deer that are on your property or healthy, what your
58:00
Speaker 1: fond recruitment is lower, the lactation raise is low. That's
58:03
Speaker 1: pointing two. Okay, maybe we have a predator impact happening here.
58:06
Speaker 1: And as we talked about already, that's probably more so
58:09
Speaker 1: the exception than the role. But let's say we're in
58:11
Speaker 1: that situation where we're looking at these different factors and saying, Okay, yeah,
58:14
Speaker 1: it really does look like predators are making a significant impact. Here.
58:18
Speaker 1: We've got three levers of press. As we talked about already.
58:21
Speaker 1: We we said we could actually manage the predators. We
58:23
Speaker 1: could improve the habitat, or we could adjust our harvest.
58:27
Speaker 1: Could you rank for me how affect or how would
58:31
Speaker 1: you rank those three levers in effect in scale of
58:34
Speaker 1: what's the most effective to least effective, and or which
58:37
Speaker 1: ones we should try first? Like? How should we go
58:39
Speaker 1: through those lists of levers? Okay? Sure thing? So one
58:43
Speaker 1: thing we have to consider from from the onset is
58:46
Speaker 1: do you own the property or not? Or do you
58:48
Speaker 1: have permission and the ability to manage the habitat? So
58:54
Speaker 1: like me the situation I was in, I least property,
58:58
Speaker 1: I had that that option, that lever was taken away
59:01
Speaker 1: from me. I can't manage the habitat. So I'm left
59:03
Speaker 1: with two things. I'm left with. Um, we need to
59:08
Speaker 1: adjust our expectations. So it might be that we just say, hey,
59:13
Speaker 1: our dear herd is going to be smaller than it
59:16
Speaker 1: used to be. Um, we might are we satisfied with that? Uh?
59:21
Speaker 1: Maybe rather than harvesting this level of dose every year,
59:25
Speaker 1: we only need to harvest you know, this level half
59:28
Speaker 1: the amount of dose every year and we might reach
59:31
Speaker 1: then an equilibrium. The coyotes are gonna take some, but
59:34
Speaker 1: the hunters are taking less, and so we can reach
59:37
Speaker 1: that that balancing point of where we're still happy as
59:40
Speaker 1: hunters with the number of deer we're seeing in the
59:43
Speaker 1: condition of those deer that we're seeing. Um. The other
59:47
Speaker 1: one would be, if I'm leasing land, would be to
59:50
Speaker 1: try to manage the predator, and that is just not
59:55
Speaker 1: going to be for most people that effective. Um, it's
59:59
Speaker 1: gonna be very costly unless you're doing it all yourself.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: And these coyotes are pretty darn amazing in terms of
1:00:08
Speaker 1: how quickly once you remove them from the landscape, that
1:00:11
Speaker 1: territory or home range that was left vacant uh quickly
1:00:16
Speaker 1: becomes occupied. And so we advise people if that is
1:00:21
Speaker 1: an action you choose to take, you really need to
1:00:25
Speaker 1: focus your trapping efforts during or immediately preceding the fawning season.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: Whenever fawns are hitting the ground uh in your neck
1:00:35
Speaker 1: of the woods, right before that is when the trapping
1:00:37
Speaker 1: effort should be taken place. And you know, if it's
1:00:41
Speaker 1: one of these, if you have a sizable property and
1:00:44
Speaker 1: you're only removing two or three coyotes off that property.
1:00:48
Speaker 1: Unless you just have fun doing it, you're probably not
1:00:52
Speaker 1: having an impact whatsoever. You really need to remove a
1:00:56
Speaker 1: large proportion of coyotes off the lands escape and then
1:01:00
Speaker 1: it becomes an annual event. But of the those those
1:01:07
Speaker 1: coyotes are gonna transient coyotes that are moving around looking
1:01:11
Speaker 1: for an open territory as soon as the one's gone
1:01:14
Speaker 1: to backfill and and occupy that new territory. So that
1:01:18
Speaker 1: that brings me to you know what, am I getting
1:01:21
Speaker 1: the most bang for the buck for pun intended? That
1:01:25
Speaker 1: is gonna, you know, be enduring that I'm gonna get
1:01:28
Speaker 1: years and years of benefit from. And that's gonna be
1:01:32
Speaker 1: habitat management. I'm never gonna eliminate fawn predation by coyotes.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: I'm never going to eliminate that, but I think it
1:01:42
Speaker 1: can be minimized to a great degree by just managing
1:01:46
Speaker 1: the understory. And that's gonna be the habitat tools we
1:01:50
Speaker 1: talk about all the time. At Priority number one is
1:01:53
Speaker 1: getting sunlight on the ground, and whether that be whether
1:01:59
Speaker 1: that be with prescribed fire, whether that be with typically
1:02:03
Speaker 1: it's gonna take a thinning operation. It might be a
1:02:06
Speaker 1: clear cut. It might be thinning whatever that is, but
1:02:09
Speaker 1: getting sunlight on the ground and developing that understory so
1:02:14
Speaker 1: that you can develop both cover and food. Like I say,
1:02:18
Speaker 1: you know, knee hide to waste tile where you can
1:02:20
Speaker 1: throw that basketball and hide it. That is probably gonna
1:02:23
Speaker 1: be over time, the least amount of effort you have
1:02:27
Speaker 1: to put in and you're gonna get the most result
1:02:29
Speaker 1: from it over time. Yeah, there's one other lever um
1:02:35
Speaker 1: that I'm wondering if you would add to this too,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: that I just thought of. I've I've heard in the past.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier birth synchrony, that you can influence birth
1:02:46
Speaker 1: synchrony um a little bit with your herd structure, with
1:02:50
Speaker 1: doing things to improve your heard, whether it be aid
1:02:53
Speaker 1: structure or about to do ratio. Is that true? Are
1:02:56
Speaker 1: the things we can do when we make our hunting
1:02:58
Speaker 1: shooter don't shoot decisions that actually help us make sure
1:03:01
Speaker 1: we get that prey overload that could help minimize predation
1:03:04
Speaker 1: as well. Um, Yes, to a degree. Um. Usually the
1:03:11
Speaker 1: way that happens historically, you know, when we talk about
1:03:15
Speaker 1: back in the day before you know, quality deer management
1:03:19
Speaker 1: really took hold in North America when we had when
1:03:23
Speaker 1: we were during the establishment period, dose were protected and
1:03:28
Speaker 1: the you know, the bucks were just hammered, and we
1:03:30
Speaker 1: had these adult sex ratios that were way out of whack,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: and so we had four to one, five to one,
1:03:36
Speaker 1: six to one, etcetera adult dose to adult bucks. That
1:03:41
Speaker 1: is the single biggest cause of the ruts or conception
1:03:47
Speaker 1: dates being spread out so long. And the reason that
1:03:50
Speaker 1: is is that when you have dose coming into heat,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: they are pretty much already synchronized in an area, and
1:03:58
Speaker 1: so they're coming into heat and you literally don't have
1:04:01
Speaker 1: enough adult bucks to breathe the dose as they come
1:04:05
Speaker 1: in to heat, and so you might have you might
1:04:09
Speaker 1: only get half of the dough's bread during their first
1:04:12
Speaker 1: extra cycle, and then they have to cycle again, you know,
1:04:15
Speaker 1: about twenty eight days later, and then they're bread the
1:04:17
Speaker 1: second time and maybe even the third time. That's typically
1:04:21
Speaker 1: when we see those partriition dates really spread out. We
1:04:25
Speaker 1: don't see that as much nowadays. Um, without a doubt.
1:04:29
Speaker 1: In some places, the sex ratio is still far in
1:04:32
Speaker 1: favor of females, but it's typically not on a large
1:04:34
Speaker 1: scale the way it used to be. So just getting
1:04:37
Speaker 1: the adult the buck to do sex ratio in that
1:04:41
Speaker 1: good you know, two to one or one and a
1:04:44
Speaker 1: half to one ratio, then then your your partriition dates
1:04:48
Speaker 1: are pretty much going to be synchronized for you without
1:04:51
Speaker 1: you having to really take any active role. Okay. Interesting,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: That's always been one of those things that I've wondered
1:04:57
Speaker 1: if if you can improve things a little bit there. Um.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: So it's good to get that additional context. So I
1:05:04
Speaker 1: feel like we we've covered a lot here, Bronson. We've
1:05:06
Speaker 1: kind of gone down this funnel of ideas to help
1:05:10
Speaker 1: us understand, Okay, what's the situation, how much of an
1:05:12
Speaker 1: impact of predators have in what ways of the making
1:05:15
Speaker 1: an impact? How do we determine what that impact is,
1:05:18
Speaker 1: how do we choose what levers to push if there
1:05:21
Speaker 1: is an impact? Um. It's it's really interesting stuff. And
1:05:25
Speaker 1: I think what I was hoping we could do here,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and what I think we did is I think we've
1:05:29
Speaker 1: kind of kind of done like a reality check because
1:05:33
Speaker 1: there's a lot. As we talked about a little bit
1:05:34
Speaker 1: a while ago, it's easy sometimes to point the finger
1:05:37
Speaker 1: at like the big pointy, sharp edge, sharp fang, shiny
1:05:42
Speaker 1: thing and say that's that's the big bad wolf for
1:05:44
Speaker 1: the big bag coyote, maybe sometimes they are, they are
1:05:47
Speaker 1: a challenge, maybe sometimes they aren't. But I think going
1:05:50
Speaker 1: through this helps us understand, Okay, what are the impact?
1:05:53
Speaker 1: How do we work within the constraints of whatever situation
1:05:57
Speaker 1: we're in to to deal with that, live with that,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. UM. But I'm going to ask you,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: and maybe you don't want to do this, but would
1:06:06
Speaker 1: you if you're willing to take off your scientists research
1:06:10
Speaker 1: or biologist hat I take off that head and then
1:06:12
Speaker 1: put just your hunter um or. And I'm assuming based
1:06:17
Speaker 1: on everything I know about you and as I've talked
1:06:19
Speaker 1: to you, I think that you are not only just
1:06:21
Speaker 1: a hunter and a researcher, but a conservationist and someone
1:06:24
Speaker 1: who appreciates wildlife. Is there if we're looking outside just
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the management implications, is there an ethical um obligation that
1:06:37
Speaker 1: we have just as people who who like to call
1:06:39
Speaker 1: ourselves conservationists UM two, not just what am I trying
1:06:46
Speaker 1: to say to to somewhat embrace or learn to coexist
1:06:50
Speaker 1: with predators? Is there is there something to be said
1:06:53
Speaker 1: about learning to live with these other animals versus the
1:06:57
Speaker 1: scorched earth policy of the fact that our compet Titian
1:07:00
Speaker 1: we gotta wipe him off the face of the earth,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: because that's kind of what we did in the eighteen hundreds,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: in early nineteen hundreds. Um, and things have changed. Um,
1:07:08
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious if you would be willing to
1:07:10
Speaker 1: speak at all to what your opinion or thoughts are
1:07:13
Speaker 1: on on the ethics of of how we interact with predators. Um,
1:07:17
Speaker 1: if it's a good thing, if it's a bad thing,
1:07:18
Speaker 1: if we can learn to find a middle ground. Is
1:07:20
Speaker 1: that something you can offer a few thoughts on. Well, heck, yeah,
1:07:24
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think I can be wrong since
1:07:26
Speaker 1: you said I could take off my scientist's cap and
1:07:29
Speaker 1: just give you my opinion. Um. You know, I certainly
1:07:35
Speaker 1: have a bias, um, just because of who I am
1:07:40
Speaker 1: and how I'm made up and my interest. Um. I
1:07:45
Speaker 1: think back to an Aldo Leopold essay, one of my
1:07:50
Speaker 1: most favorite, and it's called think like a Mountain, and
1:07:55
Speaker 1: Aldo's perspective was, you know, and there's so many nuances.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just beautiful, just a beautiful essay. But
1:08:03
Speaker 1: but essentially the mountain needed the wolf because when when Aldo,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: you know, shot that last she wolf and saw the
1:08:14
Speaker 1: fire go out in that she wolf's eye that the
1:08:16
Speaker 1: mountain subsequently suffered for that, and the dear population grew
1:08:22
Speaker 1: and took over the range. And you know, he was
1:08:25
Speaker 1: really making a point there that predators are part of
1:08:29
Speaker 1: the system, and predators are are are needed, you know,
1:08:33
Speaker 1: for for for a balanced ecosystem. So UM, I really
1:08:39
Speaker 1: think you know, in society at large, you know, and
1:08:42
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of different sides to this argument, but
1:08:47
Speaker 1: there was very compelling evidence for you need in Yellowstone,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: you need to have some wolves. Uh, you need to
1:08:54
Speaker 1: have the predator. Um. One of my mentors years ago,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: I hope I can remember his famous quote said it
1:09:02
Speaker 1: so beautifully. One of my advisors when I was undergraduate
1:09:05
Speaker 1: was Larry Marshington at the University of Georgia and said,
1:09:10
Speaker 1: the the predator needs the the prey needs the predator,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: just like the predator needs the prey. If you take
1:09:19
Speaker 1: away the predator, Uh, a deer becomes a cow, a
1:09:25
Speaker 1: wolf becomes a dog, and what does man become. I
1:09:31
Speaker 1: don't know if I got that exactly right, but that's
1:09:33
Speaker 1: the part I could remember, and and that thing really
1:09:36
Speaker 1: stuck with me that you know, we also play a predator,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: we play a predatory role with deer and and uh
1:09:44
Speaker 1: and other animals in the environments we live in. And
1:09:47
Speaker 1: so I think it's really important. I think it's important
1:09:51
Speaker 1: for the ecological integrity of of the places we hunt
1:09:55
Speaker 1: and conserve that the predator should be part of the system. Now,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: without a doubt, Uh, can they Um? Can population levels
1:10:04
Speaker 1: get out of control? Absolutely? Uh? Can humans coexist in
1:10:10
Speaker 1: some areas with some really large predators, Well, that's gonna
1:10:13
Speaker 1: be really difficult. It'd be really difficult for um mountain
1:10:18
Speaker 1: lions to be saturated saturate the forests of Mississippi, you know.
1:10:22
Speaker 1: There there are some of these really big predators that
1:10:25
Speaker 1: that do make it more difficult for us to coexist
1:10:28
Speaker 1: in terms of a human safety perspective, but in terms
1:10:32
Speaker 1: of a predator that maybe limiting in some places a
1:10:36
Speaker 1: deer population by taking a few adults deer here and
1:10:39
Speaker 1: there and taking a few falls here and there. You know, honestly,
1:10:43
Speaker 1: I'm just fine with that. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you
1:10:48
Speaker 1: sharing that, bronze, And I think that's a really really
1:10:50
Speaker 1: helpful perspective to here, especially from your from your experience
1:10:54
Speaker 1: that being involved in a lot of the a lot
1:10:56
Speaker 1: of the data and numbers and research behind understanding these
1:11:00
Speaker 1: interactions both from the ecological perspective, but then also from
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the social perspective, how hunters and predators kind of sometimes
1:11:08
Speaker 1: clash sometimes can coexist. That dynamic between these two sometimes
1:11:13
Speaker 1: competing um parts of the system out there, it causes
1:11:17
Speaker 1: a lot of turmoil at times. But I think, and
1:11:20
Speaker 1: I gain this is just my opinion, but I think
1:11:23
Speaker 1: that it's it is important for us to find that
1:11:26
Speaker 1: way to coexist for all the reasons you just said,
1:11:29
Speaker 1: and then also because and this is something that i've
1:11:32
Speaker 1: again I've thought just from a pragmatic standpoint that if
1:11:38
Speaker 1: if we want to call ourselves conservations, if we want
1:11:41
Speaker 1: to like make this pitch to the outside world that
1:11:44
Speaker 1: we as hunters are good for conservation and we protect
1:11:48
Speaker 1: wildlife and do all these things. Um, if we just
1:11:51
Speaker 1: point to deer and say we we do that for deer,
1:11:54
Speaker 1: but we're not going to care at all about this
1:11:56
Speaker 1: other pocket of of species, I think we lose some
1:11:59
Speaker 1: credibility there. And that's always been one of the things
1:12:01
Speaker 1: that if if we care at all about how the
1:12:04
Speaker 1: rest of the of the country looks at hunting and hunters,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: and how we can go forward in the future. I
1:12:10
Speaker 1: think simply from that standpoint, it benefits us to learn
1:12:14
Speaker 1: to to be conservations for all species and animals and
1:12:17
Speaker 1: learn to think about these things as is a it's
1:12:20
Speaker 1: a larger integrated system. I think that's beneficial just from
1:12:23
Speaker 1: that standpoint to um, So, I could not agree more,
1:12:27
Speaker 1: could not agree more. Yeah, when you say integrated system,
1:12:30
Speaker 1: that that's an ecosystem, and that that's what we're supposed
1:12:33
Speaker 1: to preserve and and protect and conserve and be a
1:12:37
Speaker 1: part of. Yeah, how do we keep the integrity of
1:12:40
Speaker 1: an ecosystem while we're a part of it and and
1:12:43
Speaker 1: predators are a part of it as well. Yeah. So,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: So to wrap this up, Bronson, I want to read you,
1:12:49
Speaker 1: um a summary from a University of Georgia report that
1:12:52
Speaker 1: came out a year and a half or two years ago. UM.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: I think it kind of sums up a lot of
1:12:57
Speaker 1: what we've talked about really neatly, and I just like
1:12:59
Speaker 1: to read it and then if you want to add
1:13:01
Speaker 1: anything or clarify anything, just so we can kind of
1:13:04
Speaker 1: wrap a bow on this for everyone. Tell me if
1:13:05
Speaker 1: you agree with us too. Um. But the summery of
1:13:08
Speaker 1: this report says this quote white tailed deer have multiple predators,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: and individuals sometimes are killed by those predators. However, healthy
1:13:16
Speaker 1: deer herds can and do exist in places with abundant predators.
1:13:20
Speaker 1: Although it is easy to dismiss the role of predators
1:13:23
Speaker 1: as purely negative when regarding deer management, it's important to
1:13:27
Speaker 1: remember that predators are a natural and normal part of
1:13:29
Speaker 1: a healthy, well managed ecosystem. To assume predators have no
1:13:34
Speaker 1: beneficial purpose and deer management is to ignore the facts. However,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: when predator populations become too abundant and affect deer management
1:13:42
Speaker 1: goals and open discussion regarding the appropriate management action is justified.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: Predator reductions via trapping or shooting, habitat management, excuse me,
1:13:51
Speaker 1: habitat management, and or changes in deer harvests are all
1:13:54
Speaker 1: possible options that require careful and calculated review of available facts.
1:13:59
Speaker 1: The answer is not a landscape without predators. End quote.
1:14:04
Speaker 1: Does that kind of tie this all up? Or do
1:14:06
Speaker 1: you disagree with anything there? Or would you add anything?
1:14:10
Speaker 1: I think that was appropriate and beautiful. Yeah, I could
1:14:15
Speaker 1: not agree or endorse that anymore. I think the they
1:14:19
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head. Awesome, Bronson. I can't
1:14:23
Speaker 1: thank you enough. For taking the time to talk through
1:14:25
Speaker 1: all this with us, and I want to make sure
1:14:28
Speaker 1: to give you an opportunity to share with our audience
1:14:31
Speaker 1: where they can learn more from you from what you
1:14:34
Speaker 1: guys are doing over the Deer Lab. Any new projects
1:14:36
Speaker 1: you have, what what can you tell us and where
1:14:38
Speaker 1: can we find some of this stuff? Yeah? Absolutely, thank
1:14:42
Speaker 1: you for the opportunity. I really enjoyed today. Um So
1:14:47
Speaker 1: some things we have coming up. We are in the
1:14:50
Speaker 1: midst where you're halfway through a project that I can't
1:14:52
Speaker 1: wait to visit with you in the future about looking
1:14:55
Speaker 1: at the interaction of bucks and hunters and and uh,
1:15:01
Speaker 1: we're doing an experiment. It was very similar to something
1:15:03
Speaker 1: Steve Demeris did in Oklahoma about a decade ago. But
1:15:07
Speaker 1: we're looking at the response of bucks essentially to hunting pressure.
1:15:12
Speaker 1: How often they get disturbed, Does it change their activity pattern,
1:15:16
Speaker 1: does it change where they spend time and how they
1:15:18
Speaker 1: spend time? And so we think that's gonna be really
1:15:21
Speaker 1: really insightful looking at that how hunters and level of
1:15:25
Speaker 1: hunting intensity is going to impact the deer hurts. So
1:15:28
Speaker 1: we have that going on, and we have some prescribed
1:15:31
Speaker 1: fire studies going on looking at timing of fire and
1:15:34
Speaker 1: when is it most beneficial from a deer and wildlife
1:15:38
Speaker 1: perspective to burn a lot of other projects like that. UM.
1:15:43
Speaker 1: We have a podcast that I would hope people would
1:15:46
Speaker 1: tune into, and it's all about dear biology and deer
1:15:50
Speaker 1: management and science. And it's it's less about hunting but
1:15:54
Speaker 1: more about the nitty gritty of the things you probably
1:15:57
Speaker 1: put you to sleep when you were in high school biology.
1:16:00
Speaker 1: But when we take those topics and kind of apply
1:16:03
Speaker 1: them to to deer management, and we try to take
1:16:06
Speaker 1: all the different questions and myths you know that people
1:16:09
Speaker 1: may talk about, you know, learning about the moon phase
1:16:13
Speaker 1: or you know, learning about this particular plant or food plot.
1:16:16
Speaker 1: We just try to really scientifically, you know, evaluate all
1:16:19
Speaker 1: these types of topics and get that information out. Uh.
1:16:23
Speaker 1: Something we did recently we're excited about. We we wrote
1:16:27
Speaker 1: a book on a topic that is near and dear
1:16:30
Speaker 1: to our hearts, Steve de Marison and myself, UM about
1:16:34
Speaker 1: bucket management. And the name of the book is Strategic
1:16:38
Speaker 1: Harvest System How to break through the bucket management glass ceiling.
1:16:42
Speaker 1: And so it's something and that market might have been
1:16:46
Speaker 1: something you and I talked about last time about you know,
1:16:49
Speaker 1: really how to manage the buck side of the deer
1:16:52
Speaker 1: herd to you know, to get you where you want
1:16:54
Speaker 1: to be, and that is available on Amazon if anyone
1:16:57
Speaker 1: is interested in in that. UM, I guess that is
1:17:03
Speaker 1: it for now. The the our our website is MSU
1:17:06
Speaker 1: deer lab dot com. If someone was interested in that
1:17:09
Speaker 1: hunting app that we talked about for measuring fund recruitment,
1:17:12
Speaker 1: we've got a page there with all of our apps
1:17:14
Speaker 1: that they can download and that are free to use. Awesome. Well,
1:17:19
Speaker 1: you guys are just putting out so many helpful resources.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: I highly recommend the Deer University podcast. I've really enjoyed it.
1:17:26
Speaker 1: You guys are doing a great job. I haven't got
1:17:28
Speaker 1: to check out the book yet, but I need to
1:17:29
Speaker 1: because I'm sure that's gonna be just jam packed with
1:17:32
Speaker 1: helpful information. So Bronson, thanks for the work you guys
1:17:35
Speaker 1: are doing. And uh thanks for sharing it with us
1:17:37
Speaker 1: here on the podcast. Anytime, glad to help anyway I can.
1:17:42
Speaker 1: All right, and that is the end of part one. Now,
1:17:46
Speaker 1: before we move on to part two, we need to
1:17:49
Speaker 1: take a quick break to thank our partners at White
1:17:51
Speaker 1: Tail Properties who helped make this podcast possible. In white
1:17:55
Speaker 1: Tail Properties somewhat recently has started really cool YouTube video
1:17:59
Speaker 1: seere is called the land Beat, and on this series
1:18:04
Speaker 1: they've got a whole bunch of different topics covered related
1:18:07
Speaker 1: to managing your property for white tails and wildlife, sharing
1:18:10
Speaker 1: some really great information. The most recent video is titled
1:18:14
Speaker 1: Planting Fruit Trees, in which they talked through a bunch
1:18:17
Speaker 1: of ideas about planting and establishing fruit trees for wildlife
1:18:20
Speaker 1: on your property. They talked through the tools that you need,
1:18:23
Speaker 1: different tips to ensure that those trees survive. Um very
1:18:27
Speaker 1: interesting stuff, so I'd highly recommend heading over to the
1:18:30
Speaker 1: white Tail Properties YouTube channel, subscribe there and check out
1:18:34
Speaker 1: that Planting Fruit Trees video and look for many more
1:18:37
Speaker 1: of these to come. I hear there's gonna be a
1:18:39
Speaker 1: bunch more coming in the near future, so check them
1:18:42
Speaker 1: out and you can also learn more at white tail
1:18:44
Speaker 1: properties dot com. Now back to the show. As I mentioned,
1:18:49
Speaker 1: our next guest is Carter Niemeyer. He's going to give
1:18:53
Speaker 1: us a wolf perspective when it comes to predators and
1:18:57
Speaker 1: hunter human dynamics. Like I mentioned, Ler, he's got an
1:19:00
Speaker 1: interesting and unique perspective and I think we can all
1:19:04
Speaker 1: learn a little bit from from that as well. So
1:19:06
Speaker 1: here we go. Hope you enjoy all right, So with
1:19:10
Speaker 1: me now, and I'm really excited about this. Is Carter
1:19:12
Speaker 1: knee Meyer. That's the right way. Your last name right,
1:19:15
Speaker 1: knie Meyer. That is correct? Perfect, And Carter. I read
1:19:19
Speaker 1: your book Wolfer a few years ago because I've always
1:19:23
Speaker 1: been interested fascinated by wolves in general, being an outdoorsman
1:19:29
Speaker 1: person who just loves wildlife and wild places. They've always
1:19:31
Speaker 1: been one of those animals that is just intriguing. They
1:19:34
Speaker 1: to their detriment, maybe they symbolize a lot um and
1:19:38
Speaker 1: so that was always interesting growing up. But then also
1:19:41
Speaker 1: as a hunter within my world and in this community,
1:19:44
Speaker 1: there's obviously a whole lot of negative energy around them too.
1:19:48
Speaker 1: So I've always been just interested in that dynamic and
1:19:51
Speaker 1: why there is this these strong polarizing emotions around this
1:19:55
Speaker 1: animal from different different communities. Um In your book and
1:20:00
Speaker 1: your perspective for me was still refreshing because it seemed
1:20:03
Speaker 1: like you could approach this topic with a level of
1:20:06
Speaker 1: objectivity and logic that um I could. I could take
1:20:11
Speaker 1: in what you had to say and know that it's
1:20:13
Speaker 1: seeing there's no bs there because you've seen it from
1:20:15
Speaker 1: all sides. You approached it from a from a set
1:20:18
Speaker 1: of experiences that I think is pretty unique compared to
1:20:20
Speaker 1: most people that like to throw their hat in the
1:20:23
Speaker 1: ring when it comes to the wolf debate. Um, so
1:20:26
Speaker 1: I guess number one, thank you for taking the time
1:20:28
Speaker 1: to talk. And number two, rather than me try to
1:20:32
Speaker 1: butcher your history, I'd just love to hear it from you.
1:20:36
Speaker 1: How did you get to this point? Um? Can you
1:20:38
Speaker 1: give me a little bit background how you got involved
1:20:41
Speaker 1: with predators and then eventually into this whole wolf thing. Well,
1:20:45
Speaker 1: it's been a long story, it's turning out to be
1:20:48
Speaker 1: because I'm seventy one years old now, so we go
1:20:51
Speaker 1: way back. But I got my first gun when I
1:20:55
Speaker 1: was nine, and Uh, I started trapping foxes when I
1:20:58
Speaker 1: was a teenager. And UH grew up in northern Iowa
1:21:03
Speaker 1: in a rural setting, rural community, and we had a
1:21:06
Speaker 1: little farm ourselves. So that early hunting, trapping, fishing experience
1:21:12
Speaker 1: really made me an outdoorsman. And UH some points, I
1:21:17
Speaker 1: think when I got a car, it was not to
1:21:18
Speaker 1: date girls, it was to go hunting and trapping. So
1:21:22
Speaker 1: it perked my interest enough that when I got out
1:21:25
Speaker 1: of high school, I went to college, got a bachelor
1:21:29
Speaker 1: master's degree at Iowa State University in wildlife biology, and
1:21:36
Speaker 1: my first job, unexpected to me, was offered to me
1:21:40
Speaker 1: out in northeast Montana, a little town called Plentywood. Um.
1:21:47
Speaker 1: I was offered the job on a Thursday. I accepted
1:21:49
Speaker 1: it on a Friday, and a hopton am track train
1:21:51
Speaker 1: on a Saturday and landed in Wolf Point, interesting name,
1:21:56
Speaker 1: Montana and was ready to go to work that next Monday. Um.
1:22:03
Speaker 1: That job was raby's suppression. It was catching skunks trying
1:22:07
Speaker 1: to suppress a raby's outbreak there because that's what I
1:22:10
Speaker 1: did my master's study on. It was serology study of rabies.
1:22:14
Speaker 1: And then that job fizzled out. So I was a
1:22:17
Speaker 1: fur trapper that winter up plenty Wood and I trapped
1:22:21
Speaker 1: close to four hundred fox and coyotes. Prices were good then,
1:22:25
Speaker 1: and I did that to survive, and uh, my reputation
1:22:31
Speaker 1: began to grow and the agency called Wildlife Services. Um,
1:22:36
Speaker 1: I thought this guy likes to trap, We need a trapper.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: So my first job was to actually be well, yes,
1:22:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna skip one part of my career and go
1:22:46
Speaker 1: straight to Dylan, Montana. And my job was catch golden
1:22:50
Speaker 1: eagles that were praying on livestock down there. Um. So,
1:22:55
Speaker 1: in one springtime period from March to the first of June,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: I and another fellow trapped on forty nine golden eagles
1:23:05
Speaker 1: out of a township size area that were killing newborn lambs.
1:23:13
Speaker 1: All those eagles were banded, put in boxes, and we
1:23:16
Speaker 1: shipped them to Colorado, Northwest Montana and someone to Yellowstone.
1:23:22
Speaker 1: We tried to break up that migration, dispersed those birds,
1:23:25
Speaker 1: and it didn't solve the problem, but it effectively diminished
1:23:31
Speaker 1: the problem. How do you catch a golden eagle? Ah,
1:23:34
Speaker 1: that's an excellent question. Um. We used coyote traps, the
1:23:40
Speaker 1: regular foothold traps. They were weakened traps, older traps, and
1:23:44
Speaker 1: we wrapped them with sponge rubber weather stripping so that
1:23:48
Speaker 1: they were basically rubber eyes jaws. And then we found
1:23:52
Speaker 1: newborn lambs that the eagles were feeding on. And we
1:23:56
Speaker 1: also killed whitetail jack rabbits and stake them to the
1:24:01
Speaker 1: ground and conceal these traps around these dead rabbits and
1:24:05
Speaker 1: the dead lambs out in the fields, and the eagles
1:24:09
Speaker 1: would fly down to scavenge, thinking that I'm eating something
1:24:15
Speaker 1: another eagle killed and they would step in that trap,
1:24:18
Speaker 1: usually with a toe, and then they would just lay
1:24:22
Speaker 1: out on the ground with their wings fanned out. And
1:24:24
Speaker 1: we would sit on a high ridge about a mile away.
1:24:27
Speaker 1: And every time you catch an eagle, we had several
1:24:30
Speaker 1: trap sites. The birds, once they were caught would flop
1:24:33
Speaker 1: out on the ground, fan their wings out, and you
1:24:35
Speaker 1: would see this big dark circle on the ground. Uh.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: So we drive over, grabbed their feet, um put them
1:24:44
Speaker 1: in wooden boxes with a slide door, and uh we
1:24:49
Speaker 1: kept them in log cabins. Actually fed them dead livestock, rabbits, lambs,
1:24:57
Speaker 1: and every time we had about fifteen in captivity and
1:25:00
Speaker 1: they would go out on a shipment to Colorado or
1:25:03
Speaker 1: some direction. And we just kept doing that until June
1:25:07
Speaker 1: come and then the migration of eagles pretty much stopped.
1:25:11
Speaker 1: At the time, the government was being pressured to give
1:25:15
Speaker 1: kill permitst or answers to shoot all these eagles, but
1:25:18
Speaker 1: that didn't happen, so we we trappers were the alternative answer.
1:25:25
Speaker 1: Can you describe what it is that Wildlife Services did
1:25:29
Speaker 1: or does now? Because I don't think a lot of
1:25:30
Speaker 1: people understand that. Yes, UM, Wildlife Services back when they
1:25:36
Speaker 1: hired me in nineteen seventy five were called a d
1:25:39
Speaker 1: C or Animal Damage Control, so they went by that title,
1:25:43
Speaker 1: and then there was a name change. At that time,
1:25:47
Speaker 1: Animal Damage Control was within the US Fish and Wildlife
1:25:50
Speaker 1: Service Department of Interior. Subsequently it moved into the U
1:25:54
Speaker 1: s Department of Agriculture, and then the name was changed
1:25:57
Speaker 1: to Wildlife Services. Today, and it sounds somewhat sarcastic, but
1:26:06
Speaker 1: Wildlife Services are basically the hired gun of the livestock
1:26:09
Speaker 1: industry because most of our work, especially at that time,
1:26:14
Speaker 1: was responding to reports of livestock being killed by mostly coyotes,
1:26:21
Speaker 1: but also eagles, black bears, grizzly bears, wolves, not so
1:26:26
Speaker 1: much wolves, then mountain lions, and our agency would respond.
1:26:32
Speaker 1: There was about a dozen trappers in the western part
1:26:35
Speaker 1: of Montana about a dozen in the eastern portion of Montana.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: UH those trappers would assess the damage, determined what predator
1:26:43
Speaker 1: was involved, and then we would remove the problem animal.
1:26:47
Speaker 1: And with the exception of grizzly bears, those and golden eagles,
1:26:52
Speaker 1: of course, the predators were killed and UM Wildlife Services
1:26:57
Speaker 1: still exist today and it varies from state to state
1:27:02
Speaker 1: what they do. UM some of these Western states like Montana, Wyoming,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: Idaho are heavy into killing coyotes and removing problem bears
1:27:15
Speaker 1: lands wolves. You get into states like Washington, Oregon, it
1:27:19
Speaker 1: could be pigeon control, you know, feral pigeons on buildings
1:27:23
Speaker 1: or under bridges. It could be protecting salmon smalt from
1:27:28
Speaker 1: different kinds of bird predators. UM A big project of
1:27:36
Speaker 1: Wildlife Services nowadays two is helping out airports national international
1:27:44
Speaker 1: size airports to reduce bird strikes where birds get in
1:27:48
Speaker 1: front of jet aircraft could kill everybody on board. That's
1:27:53
Speaker 1: a big project. And then uh more and more. Take
1:27:58
Speaker 1: the state of Texas. They've got an estimated four million
1:28:03
Speaker 1: plus farrell hogs. So wildlife services down there have they're
1:28:09
Speaker 1: still hunting predators, native predators, but they're also trying to
1:28:14
Speaker 1: reduce the feral pig population and so they are very diversified,
1:28:22
Speaker 1: and they exist in many states from here to the
1:28:24
Speaker 1: east coast to the South. And uh, whatever is a
1:28:30
Speaker 1: unique situation or problem with nuisance animals in those states,
1:28:34
Speaker 1: wildlife services adapt their programs to those needs. So Southern
1:28:40
Speaker 1: after the Golden Eagles, then for you what was next
1:28:43
Speaker 1: where you go from there? Well, I guess I did
1:28:45
Speaker 1: such a good job they made me a district supervisor.
1:28:48
Speaker 1: So I essentially became a twenty some year old supervisor
1:28:55
Speaker 1: over a bunch of fifty year old seasoned government trappers
1:29:00
Speaker 1: and pretty much helped them lying out what they were
1:29:04
Speaker 1: going to do or what I wanted them to do.
1:29:07
Speaker 1: So um it took it. It taught me a lot
1:29:11
Speaker 1: of finesse at a very young age how to get
1:29:13
Speaker 1: a bunch of ornery old guys old enough to be
1:29:14
Speaker 1: your dad to listen to you and do what you asked.
1:29:18
Speaker 1: And so along those lines too, I got involved in
1:29:22
Speaker 1: a lot of problem grizzly bear management. And because I
1:29:28
Speaker 1: was the college boy, the college educated Iowegian, a lot
1:29:32
Speaker 1: of those OTTD guys called me um. I was kind
1:29:35
Speaker 1: of the technical guy with the dart gun and the drugs. Uh.
1:29:41
Speaker 1: Those trappers preferred not to know what a milligram a
1:29:43
Speaker 1: mill of leader or was so bringing carter down. So
1:29:49
Speaker 1: when we had a problem grizzly, we would set foot
1:29:51
Speaker 1: snares catch the grizzly, and I would be the dart
1:29:54
Speaker 1: man to knock the bear down. Uh. Never killed a
1:29:57
Speaker 1: single grizzly during my tenure. We put them all in
1:30:00
Speaker 1: a culvert trap and turned them over to the state
1:30:03
Speaker 1: who relocated them or took some up in Canada and
1:30:07
Speaker 1: relocated them. And then, uh, that was pretty much my responsibility.
1:30:13
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time to directing State of
1:30:16
Speaker 1: Montana three helicopters devoted entirely to killing coyotes. So my
1:30:22
Speaker 1: job too is to make sure those helicopters were cycled
1:30:27
Speaker 1: around to the trappers and that everyone was prepared and
1:30:30
Speaker 1: did their homework and knew where they wanted to hunt coyotes,
1:30:33
Speaker 1: and I pulled the fuel trailer for them. At that time,
1:30:37
Speaker 1: we skinned coyotes, saved the pelts, sold them, put in
1:30:40
Speaker 1: the fuel fund, and uh and then um that That
1:30:48
Speaker 1: was pretty much my career until about mid nineteen eighties
1:30:52
Speaker 1: when suddenly gray wolves started coming across the border from
1:30:56
Speaker 1: Canada and showing up in the North Fork of the
1:30:59
Speaker 1: Flat Hit around Glacier and on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation.
1:31:04
Speaker 1: And that's where I became acquainted with gray wolves, which
1:31:07
Speaker 1: were never on my radar before that. So can you
1:31:11
Speaker 1: You've got a whole book worth of knowledge about this
1:31:13
Speaker 1: whole experience that I encourage people to read, called wolfer
1:31:17
Speaker 1: Um but can you give us the cliff notes version
1:31:19
Speaker 1: of what happened from that point when those gray wolves
1:31:22
Speaker 1: started coming down across the border to the point where
1:31:26
Speaker 1: reintroduction happened and what your involvement was through that process. Yeah.
1:31:31
Speaker 1: So the recolonization um where wolves were just crossing the
1:31:35
Speaker 1: border on their own, started around six and uh from
1:31:41
Speaker 1: that point forward, we had wolf packs pop up west
1:31:44
Speaker 1: to callis Bell, Montana, and then down the nine mile
1:31:48
Speaker 1: just outside of Missoula, and a pack showed up just
1:31:53
Speaker 1: west to Hellna, Montana. So they were coming down on
1:31:55
Speaker 1: their own. And um, my job at the time, you know,
1:31:59
Speaker 1: we no no budget, we had no experience, and we
1:32:02
Speaker 1: had no field equipment you know, traps to capture wolves.
1:32:07
Speaker 1: And during that time I inadvertently darted a wolf from
1:32:10
Speaker 1: a helicopter, which had never been done in the lower
1:32:13
Speaker 1: forty eight to my knowledge. So I became Carter the
1:32:16
Speaker 1: Darter and pretty much was the go to guy to
1:32:20
Speaker 1: do the all of that early wolf capture work, either
1:32:22
Speaker 1: with foothold traps or with the helicopter when there was
1:32:28
Speaker 1: a problem, and then even started helping the agencies you know,
1:32:32
Speaker 1: collar them just to start counting them and keep track
1:32:36
Speaker 1: of the packs. And if I can interrupt you real
1:32:38
Speaker 1: fast before you go any further, at this point in
1:32:41
Speaker 1: your in your life and your career, what we what
1:32:44
Speaker 1: did you think about wolves? Like, what was your feelings
1:32:48
Speaker 1: about wolves being back in America? Were you approaching it
1:32:52
Speaker 1: from like, crap, these guys are back, this is trouble
1:32:55
Speaker 1: or were you just interested in them? Or what do
1:32:57
Speaker 1: you think? I was fat sinated with wolves, never had
1:33:02
Speaker 1: one negative thought about a wolf. I felt privileged to
1:33:09
Speaker 1: be the guy to actually start looking at the wolf
1:33:15
Speaker 1: problem that was perceived, and to be the get go
1:33:18
Speaker 1: to guy to go out and examine livestock and see
1:33:22
Speaker 1: what what the wolves did if they did kill them. Indeed,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: so no, I've never had really a negative thought towards wolves. Ever. Um,
1:33:33
Speaker 1: I was fascinated. And then I think after that, I
1:33:38
Speaker 1: just developed a tremendous respect for the animal and admiration,
1:33:44
Speaker 1: and uh it went from there and and of course
1:33:48
Speaker 1: you have to remain objective always. And so there's a
1:33:53
Speaker 1: lot of tough times when you catch this beautiful wolf
1:33:57
Speaker 1: and look in its eyes and think what a cool
1:34:00
Speaker 1: animal and later either recover its body or someone had
1:34:04
Speaker 1: killed it, or in some cases later in my career,
1:34:09
Speaker 1: I had to go out and be the trigger man
1:34:11
Speaker 1: and kill him myself. And so you you have to
1:34:15
Speaker 1: accept that. UM. But one of the things I guess
1:34:20
Speaker 1: I learned or taught myself was to be objective and
1:34:24
Speaker 1: not to be biased and not to have predetermined um
1:34:29
Speaker 1: perceptions of what was going on. Uh. I always compare
1:34:34
Speaker 1: it to being in law enforcement. You know, the guy
1:34:37
Speaker 1: carrying the badge. You've collecked evidence. You're not to judge
1:34:41
Speaker 1: and jury. You just collect evidence and present it to
1:34:43
Speaker 1: a judge and jury. And that's what my job became.
1:34:47
Speaker 1: More and more was looking at more and more dead
1:34:49
Speaker 1: livestock because as wolves received publicity, more people started looking
1:34:55
Speaker 1: at that dead cow in the field through a different
1:34:58
Speaker 1: set of eyes, you know, in different lenses. Uh. And
1:35:03
Speaker 1: so I started really learning a lot about forensics because
1:35:07
Speaker 1: I skinned out these animals and would look for injuries
1:35:13
Speaker 1: that were caused by predation versus injuries caused by accidents.
1:35:20
Speaker 1: And then you're also looking for lightning strikes, birthing problems.
1:35:25
Speaker 1: Um said before the National statistics, you know about five
1:35:30
Speaker 1: percent of livestock die from predation causes, so of them
1:35:36
Speaker 1: are dying from all kinds of possibilities. So how do
1:35:39
Speaker 1: you know that that an animal was killed by wolf?
1:35:43
Speaker 1: What are those telltale signs that you look for to
1:35:45
Speaker 1: determine whether or not this was actually a wolf. Well,
1:35:49
Speaker 1: the key is you need to have someone find that
1:35:52
Speaker 1: carcass as soon as possible. But we're looking for trauma,
1:35:56
Speaker 1: and trauma UH is usually revealed with em reach. A
1:36:00
Speaker 1: lot of profuse bleeding means the animal was alive, there
1:36:04
Speaker 1: was blood pressure at the time, and there's something happened
1:36:08
Speaker 1: to this animal. But again, UH, predation can resemble gunshot
1:36:13
Speaker 1: wounds just so people can imagine what it looks like.
1:36:18
Speaker 1: So it remains it's important to remove the skin from
1:36:22
Speaker 1: the animal and you know, is it a gunshot or
1:36:26
Speaker 1: are these tooth punctures? Or did this animal run into
1:36:30
Speaker 1: a fence post? Did it get impaled on an irrigation pipe.
1:36:34
Speaker 1: There's so many possibilities, but every predator has a signature.
1:36:40
Speaker 1: I call it wolves kill uniquely compared to how a
1:36:44
Speaker 1: mountain lion kills, compared to how a grizzly bear kills,
1:36:49
Speaker 1: compared to eagles using talents. So you have to become
1:36:54
Speaker 1: familiar with those signatures and look at where the injuries occur.
1:36:59
Speaker 1: Cougar is attack a lot at the neck throat area.
1:37:03
Speaker 1: UH might inflict some claw marks where they hang onto
1:37:07
Speaker 1: the victim. Bears are dorsal attack. They come over the shoulders,
1:37:12
Speaker 1: over the back, bite down on their prey. Even a
1:37:17
Speaker 1: thousand pound herford will be bitten over the shoulders and
1:37:21
Speaker 1: over the top of the neck by a grizzly bear,
1:37:23
Speaker 1: for instance. And UH wolves attack laterally and from behind.
1:37:30
Speaker 1: Wolves try to get their prey running, and then they
1:37:33
Speaker 1: attack from the side and behind and so UH. Of
1:37:38
Speaker 1: the wolf attack, injuries will be revealed under the legs,
1:37:44
Speaker 1: under the front legs, the armpit or whatever you want
1:37:47
Speaker 1: to call it, in the groin areas, around the soft
1:37:50
Speaker 1: belly and downwards, say, where the utter is. And then
1:37:55
Speaker 1: a lot of bite wounds occur along what they call
1:37:57
Speaker 1: the hamstrings, you know, from the genitals down the back
1:38:00
Speaker 1: of the hind leg. So once you do this for
1:38:04
Speaker 1: a long time, you can pretty quickly determine what you're
1:38:10
Speaker 1: working with. And then all these other causes of death
1:38:14
Speaker 1: often resulting no trauma. You've got a animal laying they're dead,
1:38:18
Speaker 1: not a mark on it. And again I'm not a veterinarian.
1:38:22
Speaker 1: By training, but when the rancher would allow me, we
1:38:25
Speaker 1: would open up that animal, we'd skin it, say there, well,
1:38:30
Speaker 1: there's no predation involved. So you go inside and they
1:38:34
Speaker 1: die of ulcers and uh issues internally pneumonia, And talk
1:38:41
Speaker 1: to any veterinarian and ask him how many bacteria and
1:38:44
Speaker 1: viruses kill livestock And you couldn't learn it in a lifetime.
1:38:49
Speaker 1: So I'm looking for hemorrhach That tells me that there's
1:38:54
Speaker 1: some trauma here which overlaps what predation would appear to be.
1:38:58
Speaker 1: So you're arding animals, You're starting to track these animals
1:39:02
Speaker 1: are coming down into Montana. You're checking on livestock predation,
1:39:06
Speaker 1: trying to understand are these wolf kills? Are they not?
1:39:10
Speaker 1: What what happens from there? Well? When when predators are
1:39:15
Speaker 1: not involved, sometimes that's a tough pill to swallow because
1:39:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people farm opinions and have all the
1:39:23
Speaker 1: answers before you get there, their minds made up. And
1:39:26
Speaker 1: when you say, I'm sorry, but predation, we can't confirm
1:39:31
Speaker 1: that happened here. And then if you killed you try
1:39:35
Speaker 1: to find an explanation for them, which included, you know,
1:39:41
Speaker 1: put the put the cow in the back of my
1:39:44
Speaker 1: government truck. I'll take it to your vet you need,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: so I refer them to their veterinarians. When I say
1:39:49
Speaker 1: it's not predation. If you really think you might have
1:39:52
Speaker 1: black leg or scours, go to go to an expert
1:39:55
Speaker 1: on that field if predation was involved. Early e on,
1:40:00
Speaker 1: we didn't kill wolves. We relocated them. So uh, summertime,
1:40:06
Speaker 1: especially using foothold traps, we catched those wolves, moved them
1:40:11
Speaker 1: to less problem area. Early on it was up in
1:40:16
Speaker 1: Glacier Park. It was politically expedient. Every wolf we got
1:40:20
Speaker 1: our hands on turned loose alive at a radio collars
1:40:23
Speaker 1: so that we could keep track of where that wolf is,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: what it did. And some of those were repeat offenders. Yeah,
1:40:31
Speaker 1: until about two thousand and two, we'd relocated a hundred
1:40:36
Speaker 1: and seventeen approximately a problem wolves h required not killing them.
1:40:43
Speaker 1: After about two thousand and two, Uh, no more relocations
1:40:47
Speaker 1: at least I had ho Wyoming Montana and we started
1:40:50
Speaker 1: killing the offenders. So where where did the idea of
1:40:58
Speaker 1: actually reintroducing wolves then to these different parts a little
1:41:02
Speaker 1: farther south? Where did that begin? What what happened? And
1:41:04
Speaker 1: how did you get pulled into that? Because the wolves
1:41:06
Speaker 1: are already coming down. Imagine, as you were saying, there
1:41:09
Speaker 1: was already some some controversy around that. Probably there are
1:41:13
Speaker 1: people upset about it, maybe some people were excited about it.
1:41:16
Speaker 1: But then there started to be this rise of interest
1:41:19
Speaker 1: in bringing them back to places like Yellowstone. Um, can
1:41:22
Speaker 1: you can you get us to that point? Catch us
1:41:24
Speaker 1: up on that, and then how you got pulled in
1:41:26
Speaker 1: all of it? Okay, Well, again, realizing that I worked
1:41:31
Speaker 1: with the U. S Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services at
1:41:35
Speaker 1: the time, and I was taking on these wolf responsibilities. Um,
1:41:41
Speaker 1: I was having to coordinate with the US Fish and
1:41:44
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service, who were the management authority over wolves whether
1:41:49
Speaker 1: they lived or died. So, um, it really wasn't any
1:41:54
Speaker 1: of my decision at the time two be part of
1:41:59
Speaker 1: those discussions. But back in the late sixties early seventies,
1:42:03
Speaker 1: there was talk about recovering wolves, so there was a
1:42:07
Speaker 1: lot of research done, a lot of field time where
1:42:11
Speaker 1: biologists went out and surveyed and looked for wolves in
1:42:14
Speaker 1: the lower forty eight states. Ah. And then to fast
1:42:20
Speaker 1: forward about fours when the discussions accelerated about talking about
1:42:28
Speaker 1: wolf reintroduction and I was sort of hearing about it,
1:42:31
Speaker 1: myself and I was in meetings where it was discussed.
1:42:35
Speaker 1: But they wrote an Environmental impact statement then, and I
1:42:38
Speaker 1: say they It was the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
1:42:41
Speaker 1: So at that time I was sort of swept up
1:42:43
Speaker 1: in this movement because I was a review member of
1:42:48
Speaker 1: the e i S team representing Wildlife Services who and
1:42:54
Speaker 1: we sort of represented the livestock growers, So I was
1:42:58
Speaker 1: privy to the discussions and when the c i S
1:43:01
Speaker 1: was written. At that point, there were conditions that if
1:43:08
Speaker 1: a viable wolfpack was found before the reintroduction actually occurred,
1:43:15
Speaker 1: that they weren't going to do it. But the surveys,
1:43:18
Speaker 1: the counting, the looking, the searching did not confirm any viability,
1:43:24
Speaker 1: any breeding activity in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. Were their wolves here. Absolutely,
1:43:31
Speaker 1: there were single individuals running around. People seen them, they
1:43:34
Speaker 1: were videoed, and those wolves were from Canada because we
1:43:39
Speaker 1: exterminated wolves in these states by the nineties, So these
1:43:42
Speaker 1: weren't progeny of some pre existing population. Uh. The fact
1:43:48
Speaker 1: that no viability was recognized identified the reintroduction occurred beginning
1:43:56
Speaker 1: of UH first year. The wolves were captured at Hinton, Alberta,
1:44:03
Speaker 1: which is just east of Jasper Park. Second year. They
1:44:07
Speaker 1: came from Fort Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, caught
1:44:11
Speaker 1: in a region west of a little place called Pink
1:44:15
Speaker 1: Mountain on the Alaska Highway. I was part of the
1:44:20
Speaker 1: capture team in helicopters who went up to get those
1:44:24
Speaker 1: wolves again. I was working for US d A Wildlife Services,
1:44:29
Speaker 1: but the US Fish and Wildlife Service borrowed me and
1:44:31
Speaker 1: covered my uh cost and salary while I worked kind
1:44:37
Speaker 1: of as a contractor for them. So that's how I
1:44:40
Speaker 1: got involved in the actual reintroduction. So so the story
1:44:44
Speaker 1: that we hear a lot um, especially maybe in the
1:44:48
Speaker 1: hunting community where there is some animosity around the return
1:44:51
Speaker 1: of wolves. Even today, you still hear that when the
1:44:55
Speaker 1: government went and got these wolves to reintroduce, they found
1:44:58
Speaker 1: these super wolves up in handed other of these big
1:45:00
Speaker 1: monsters that weren't anything like the wolves that were down
1:45:03
Speaker 1: in America beforehand. You were literally one of the guys
1:45:06
Speaker 1: that was up there bringing these cap trapping these wolves
1:45:09
Speaker 1: and bringing them down. So can you tell me these
1:45:12
Speaker 1: weren't super wolves? Right? Well? No, and and let's back up.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: I mean, I keep hearing these testimonies about these wolves
1:45:20
Speaker 1: are different than the ones that were here. I don't
1:45:22
Speaker 1: know anyone living that saw the wolves that lived here.
1:45:26
Speaker 1: You had to be alive before ninet and you had
1:45:29
Speaker 1: to be alive up until the reintroduction from the nineteen forties.
1:45:34
Speaker 1: Weren't very many people like that. There were a few.
1:45:38
Speaker 1: There's people tell me while I have some of the
1:45:39
Speaker 1: original wolf pelts from the original wolves, Well that's fine
1:45:44
Speaker 1: and dany I'm not going to argue that. But what
1:45:48
Speaker 1: really went into the planning was that the wolves that
1:45:51
Speaker 1: were selected to be reintroduced, the only source was Canada,
1:45:58
Speaker 1: and you needed wolves recognized moose, deer, and elk as
1:46:03
Speaker 1: pray species. So you don't want to run up to
1:46:06
Speaker 1: Alaska and bring down a bunch of Cariboo hunters, you know,
1:46:09
Speaker 1: or go to Minnesota and bring a bunch of wolves
1:46:13
Speaker 1: and hunt deer, white tailed deer or whatever. So that
1:46:16
Speaker 1: the attempt was to bring down a wolf that was
1:46:20
Speaker 1: closest to this area. And as I talked about in
1:46:25
Speaker 1: a seminar today, um through radio collaring, it's obvious that
1:46:31
Speaker 1: the wolves in Canada have no barrier like a fence
1:46:36
Speaker 1: or a moat or something to keep wolves from Canada
1:46:39
Speaker 1: coming into the Lower forty eight. They always have been.
1:46:43
Speaker 1: The problem was from forty with a few exceptions along
1:46:48
Speaker 1: the border, we were killing them because there's old news
1:46:52
Speaker 1: articles people finding wolves dead in their field, usually a
1:46:55
Speaker 1: gun shot, rifle shot in the side, or perhaps somebody
1:46:59
Speaker 1: flew over him in an air plane hunting coyotes and
1:47:01
Speaker 1: shot him in the back with babies. Um. It wasn't
1:47:05
Speaker 1: till we broke that gauntlet by actually airlifting wolves into
1:47:13
Speaker 1: the lower forty eight and releasing them here did enough
1:47:16
Speaker 1: wolves get to the same vicinity to go ahead and
1:47:20
Speaker 1: breed and actually, you know, be viable and the We
1:47:29
Speaker 1: achieved our objectives over three hundred wolves for three consecutive years,
1:47:34
Speaker 1: equitably distributed over Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. We reached that goal
1:47:39
Speaker 1: by two thousand and two, that soon after the reintroduction
1:47:43
Speaker 1: in six to show you how prolific and resilient wolves are,
1:47:48
Speaker 1: so like you, Like you've said, we essentially exterminated wolves
1:47:53
Speaker 1: across America by the forties because of long spread kind
1:47:56
Speaker 1: of campaign against predators for for so long as we
1:48:00
Speaker 1: expand our own populations across the West. Um, some people
1:48:04
Speaker 1: today would say that we did that for good reason,
1:48:08
Speaker 1: that you know, they shouldn't be on the landscape, because
1:48:10
Speaker 1: of the trouble to livestock, because of the trouble to
1:48:12
Speaker 1: hunters and wildlife populations and whatnot. So some people are
1:48:15
Speaker 1: saying it was a good thing, and then you have
1:48:17
Speaker 1: other people that look at and look at that as
1:48:18
Speaker 1: a travesty taking an entire species off of a landscape,
1:48:23
Speaker 1: a place that that it belongs has been for tens
1:48:26
Speaker 1: of thousands of years, millions of years maybe. UM. So
1:48:30
Speaker 1: when you got involved in this, obviously there was a
1:48:32
Speaker 1: lot of noise on either side of that spectrum. You
1:48:35
Speaker 1: were right there in the middle of it. Actually, hands on.
1:48:38
Speaker 1: What were your feelings at that point about the idea
1:48:40
Speaker 1: of reintroducing them. Did you feel like did you have
1:48:43
Speaker 1: a strong opinion? Um, at the time all of this
1:48:47
Speaker 1: reintroduction being discussed, UM, I don't know if I had
1:48:50
Speaker 1: an opinion, but I thought it was a cool idea,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: and gray wolves are native to this, to our lower
1:49:00
Speaker 1: forty eight states, and I thought, what a cool idea
1:49:04
Speaker 1: to bring back a native species and put it here.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: And uh, I guess, being real honest, was when I
1:49:12
Speaker 1: heard this team was farming, I wanted to be on it. Uh.
1:49:17
Speaker 1: It was, it was historical, it never been done, may
1:49:22
Speaker 1: never ever be done again. But UM, I have no
1:49:26
Speaker 1: remorse or whatever you want to call it about being
1:49:30
Speaker 1: part of it. I think it was a decision the
1:49:33
Speaker 1: country made at the time. Um I don't know exactly,
1:49:37
Speaker 1: but I think comments and letters and assemble all these
1:49:43
Speaker 1: comments came in on the environmental impact statement. I think
1:49:46
Speaker 1: we're talking around a quarter of a million comments, and
1:49:50
Speaker 1: the decision was made. Certainly wasn't my decision, but the sun, moon,
1:49:57
Speaker 1: stars and constellations and the politics all lined up uniquely
1:50:02
Speaker 1: at that time, during those couple of years, and it happened,
1:50:06
Speaker 1: and certainly a lot of people resentful of it happening.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: People just like wolves, but they dislike federal government as
1:50:16
Speaker 1: much or more. I've heard people say, you know, I
1:50:20
Speaker 1: don't like wolves, but I hate the government biologists that
1:50:26
Speaker 1: brought him here. You know. So there's this feeling that exists. Yeah,
1:50:32
Speaker 1: can you talk about that dynamic that was especially present
1:50:34
Speaker 1: at that point, because it seems like, like you just said,
1:50:36
Speaker 1: there was there was a lot of negativity towards the wolf,
1:50:40
Speaker 1: but then it also seemed like a lot of the
1:50:42
Speaker 1: hate was towards the fact that the government was forcing
1:50:45
Speaker 1: wolves on people. That some people that didn't want it. Um,
1:50:49
Speaker 1: can you talk about that what was going on there too? Yeah, well,
1:50:51
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of give you my viewpoint through the
1:50:56
Speaker 1: situation that existed, is that the wolves that were to
1:51:00
Speaker 1: be reintroduced needed vast open spaces, low human presence and
1:51:07
Speaker 1: low livestock numbers, and recognize available prey like deer Elkin,
1:51:12
Speaker 1: moose Um, the frank Church, and Yellowstone. We're just it
1:51:19
Speaker 1: was decided by scientists above me a different paygrade that
1:51:25
Speaker 1: those locations fit the bill. And we have to go
1:51:30
Speaker 1: back to talk about public land. Vast amounts of public
1:51:33
Speaker 1: land in the West. They don't belong two people. Just
1:51:38
Speaker 1: because you live in Idaho doesn't mean it's your public land.
1:51:41
Speaker 1: It belongs to everybody in the country. That's the way
1:51:44
Speaker 1: I've always looked at public land. Um, the public spoke
1:51:51
Speaker 1: the public. The majority, you can argue, but the percentages
1:51:57
Speaker 1: were higher to do it than to not do it.
1:52:02
Speaker 1: And I'll give ranchers and rural folks have benefit that
1:52:07
Speaker 1: they were probably outnumbered, outgunned, and out politics at the
1:52:11
Speaker 1: time because this was so new to everybody that the
1:52:15
Speaker 1: resistance you might say, wasn't organized to push back any harder.
1:52:21
Speaker 1: So the to go with the flow had happened, and
1:52:26
Speaker 1: there's a lot of resentments because in there has been
1:52:29
Speaker 1: tremendous number of lawsuits, you know, over listing and delisting,
1:52:33
Speaker 1: back and forth, the wolves been on the list and
1:52:36
Speaker 1: off the list, and as you get more groups and
1:52:40
Speaker 1: more attorneys involved and more hindsight, there's I think still
1:52:46
Speaker 1: these resentments that gosh, if we had just done it
1:52:49
Speaker 1: this way and they'd listened to us, you know, this
1:52:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened. And scientists at the time, I mean
1:52:56
Speaker 1: very prominent scientists, including wolf people, were opposed to it
1:53:05
Speaker 1: because they said, Wow, it's just going to create so
1:53:07
Speaker 1: much negativity. Why don't we just wait them out, let
1:53:10
Speaker 1: them come down on their own. There's people who believe
1:53:13
Speaker 1: that would have happened. Maybe it would have, maybe it
1:53:15
Speaker 1: wouldn't have. Um I think piecemeal they would have come,
1:53:19
Speaker 1: but have been very very slow. But we were killing
1:53:23
Speaker 1: wolves back in soon as it starts showing up, we
1:53:28
Speaker 1: were already killing them. To say that if we had
1:53:32
Speaker 1: just let them come in on their own, we could
1:53:35
Speaker 1: have lived with that, it's really not true because even
1:53:39
Speaker 1: when they were under the full protection of the Endangered
1:53:42
Speaker 1: Species Act, there was paperwork permitting us to kill endangered wolves.
1:53:50
Speaker 1: So in the reintroduction, they were introduced as experimental non
1:53:54
Speaker 1: essential wolves, which meant there was a lot more flexibility
1:53:59
Speaker 1: built in, and there has been because the numbers are
1:54:04
Speaker 1: so dynamic moving along. But we've killed about a wolf
1:54:07
Speaker 1: for every cow or calf that's been killed, you know,
1:54:10
Speaker 1: domestic animals. Um so control has always been on the
1:54:15
Speaker 1: table and it's always been applied where wolves have been
1:54:18
Speaker 1: a problem. So the wolf introduction happens in like you said,
1:54:23
Speaker 1: in Yellowstone, the frank Church. Now, you know, over the
1:54:27
Speaker 1: course of the next twenty years, the wolves did wonderfully
1:54:32
Speaker 1: from their perspective. They've reproduced, they've spread out, they've dispersed
1:54:36
Speaker 1: there now you know, present in states like Washington and
1:54:40
Speaker 1: Oregon and now recently northern California. There's been some spot
1:54:44
Speaker 1: in Nevada. They're they're dispersing all over the place. It
1:54:47
Speaker 1: seemed to between doing pretty well from a biological perspective,
1:54:50
Speaker 1: from the species perspective, but then you hear all these
1:54:52
Speaker 1: stories from people, whether it be hunters or livestock producers,
1:54:58
Speaker 1: who talk about all the negative packs that these wolves
1:55:01
Speaker 1: have had. Um They talk about decimated wildlife populations, the
1:55:04
Speaker 1: elk herds destroyed in certain regions. You hear about how
1:55:08
Speaker 1: they're hammering their calves and their sheep and different things
1:55:11
Speaker 1: like this. And I'm sure those things were being talked
1:55:13
Speaker 1: about in ninety six and they're still being talked about
1:55:17
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen. UM. But you've been on the ground.
1:55:20
Speaker 1: You've been going to check on these scenes. You've had
1:55:24
Speaker 1: to kill some wolves, You've had to tell some livestock
1:55:27
Speaker 1: producers this wasn't a wolf. You've you've actually been there,
1:55:31
Speaker 1: You actually have seen what the impacts have or have
1:55:34
Speaker 1: not been. So what have those impacts have been in reality?
1:55:37
Speaker 1: Not the stories and the conspiracy theories, but what has
1:55:40
Speaker 1: the real impact been. Well, the I S addressed all
1:55:47
Speaker 1: of the possibilities and being issues in the e I
1:55:53
Speaker 1: S was if it happened to address human health and safety,
1:55:58
Speaker 1: pets lives, stock, big game, ungulates, things like that. Um.
1:56:06
Speaker 1: Since the reintroduction in the lower forty eight States, nobody's
1:56:09
Speaker 1: been killed by wolves. UM. There's some stories going around.
1:56:13
Speaker 1: I call them anecdotal um. They need to be documented
1:56:17
Speaker 1: better if we're to believe them. But it's been only
1:56:21
Speaker 1: two humans killed in the twenty one century. Both of
1:56:24
Speaker 1: them occurred north of the border, one in Canada, one
1:56:28
Speaker 1: in Alaska, where there's sixty wolves estimated to live. UM.
1:56:36
Speaker 1: To talk about livestock loss, there has been some livestock loss.
1:56:40
Speaker 1: It's not across the board. Most ranchers have not had
1:56:45
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Certain individuals have. It's been taken serious.
1:56:50
Speaker 1: Wolves have been killed and in uh to correct the
1:56:55
Speaker 1: problems since then too. There's compensation for ranchers to offset
1:57:00
Speaker 1: some of the costs. AH, but progressive ranchers are taking
1:57:06
Speaker 1: it seriously and watching their livestock closer. And I think
1:57:10
Speaker 1: it's essential that people recognize that wolves aren't going to
1:57:14
Speaker 1: go away, that they can be a threat to livestock.
1:57:19
Speaker 1: Then you get into this two pronged discussion over private
1:57:23
Speaker 1: land versus public land. Um, if people I don't mean
1:57:28
Speaker 1: it in a negative way, but if if private landowners
1:57:30
Speaker 1: want to come in with napalm and kill every predator
1:57:34
Speaker 1: on their place, be my guest. I'm not going to
1:57:37
Speaker 1: fight that individual rights issue on your private property. But
1:57:43
Speaker 1: I think to be killing native predators, of which wolves
1:57:46
Speaker 1: are native, on public lands, we got to look at
1:57:49
Speaker 1: that a lot closer, and that it's just not that simple. UM.
1:57:55
Speaker 1: Their impact on big game animals like elk. I would
1:58:01
Speaker 1: have to contradict anyone who said that wolves are having
1:58:05
Speaker 1: a negative impact on elk overall. Now we can pick
1:58:09
Speaker 1: certain zones and certain districts in certain parts, UH, say, Idaho,
1:58:15
Speaker 1: there's some places where it's a habitat problem, always has been. Uh.
1:58:21
Speaker 1: Northern Idaho had a catastrophic fire back in n that
1:58:25
Speaker 1: created some spectacular elk habitat, and there were some years
1:58:29
Speaker 1: that elk hunting was fabulous. I am told it was
1:58:31
Speaker 1: before my time. Since then, those catastrophic fire areas have
1:58:36
Speaker 1: grown back and they're not as productive as they used
1:58:39
Speaker 1: to be. UM. There's other parts of Idaho and pretty
1:58:44
Speaker 1: much the states of Wyoming and Montana who are seeing
1:58:48
Speaker 1: tremendous elk herds over management objectives. UM. Montana has too
1:58:55
Speaker 1: many elk. It's been out there in the newspaper more
1:58:59
Speaker 1: than once. Hunter excess is the problem. More so in anything,
1:59:03
Speaker 1: it's not wolves killing elk. It's that the herd of
1:59:06
Speaker 1: elk have doubled in over twenty years, but the hunters
1:59:11
Speaker 1: can't get at them because much of the land is
1:59:13
Speaker 1: being sold in different ownership and all that. So in
1:59:19
Speaker 1: Idaho I believe set a new white tailed dear harvest record. Uh.
1:59:28
Speaker 1: And Idaho, Montana, Wyoming all have been having record or
1:59:32
Speaker 1: near record elk harvests, especially peaking in like round, which
1:59:38
Speaker 1: tells me two thousand wolves or more on the landscape.
1:59:44
Speaker 1: We've got good elk herds and good deer herds and
1:59:49
Speaker 1: hundred success Uh. Some states like Idaho, you know, maybe
1:59:54
Speaker 1: one out of four hundred successful. In Wyoming it's one
1:59:57
Speaker 1: out of two hundred successful. So you can't convinced me
2:00:00
Speaker 1: right now. And I think anybody who's a hunter and
2:00:03
Speaker 1: it's being honest, uh, we'll have to admit that times
2:00:08
Speaker 1: are pretty darn good. If you liked that big game
2:00:11
Speaker 1: and it seems like and tell me if this is true.
2:00:13
Speaker 1: But I've heard, you know, right after the reintroduction in
2:00:16
Speaker 1: those areas specifically where wolves have been gone for a
2:00:19
Speaker 1: long time and now they're back, that at first these
2:00:22
Speaker 1: prey populations they didn't know that that was a danger yet,
2:00:25
Speaker 1: so it was easy pickings for the wolves. And so
2:00:28
Speaker 1: you did see some maybe drastic reductions in those populations
2:00:31
Speaker 1: outside of Yellowstone and some of those regions, but relatively quickly,
2:00:35
Speaker 1: I imagine those elk herds started realizing when you see
2:00:39
Speaker 1: a furry legged, ninety pound dog runna towards you, you
2:00:43
Speaker 1: go had the other direction real quick. And they started
2:00:45
Speaker 1: changing where they you know, where they fed, where they betted.
2:00:48
Speaker 1: They started becoming like elk again, what real elk had
2:00:51
Speaker 1: been like for thousands and thousands of years beforehand. And
2:00:53
Speaker 1: now you're seeing a lot of these places you're hearing
2:00:55
Speaker 1: and seeing about these elk populations rebounding and getting you know,
2:00:59
Speaker 1: right back up there pretty high levels, maybe not pre
2:01:02
Speaker 1: wolf levels exactly in some of these regions, but very healthy.
2:01:06
Speaker 1: That's what I've been hearing, um, is that what's been
2:01:09
Speaker 1: happening in most of these places that there's been a
2:01:11
Speaker 1: kind of rebound effect. Pray, dear elka figured out, Okay, yeah,
2:01:15
Speaker 1: we can adapt to living with wolves. Yeah, and I
2:01:18
Speaker 1: think most areas of wolves and elkive adapted each other,
2:01:22
Speaker 1: you know more through a natural uh getting used to
2:01:27
Speaker 1: one another. Talk outside of Yellowstone. But what we have nowadays,
2:01:33
Speaker 1: two is that elk are thriving in many parts of Idaho, Wyoming,
2:01:39
Speaker 1: Montana because of irrigated pastures, grassland, alfalfa fields, lawns um
2:01:47
Speaker 1: there's a you know, people are trying to there's people
2:01:51
Speaker 1: who are of the opinion that all those elk are
2:01:54
Speaker 1: down in these fields because the wolves won't let them
2:01:56
Speaker 1: go back to the mountains. But a lot of these
2:01:58
Speaker 1: elkers don't want to go back very far in mountains
2:02:00
Speaker 1: because when you've got grazing and forage like they have
2:02:04
Speaker 1: down here, why would you want to go up there.
2:02:07
Speaker 1: So that that's one of the issues. UM mentioning Yellowstone
2:02:12
Speaker 1: being that beautiful laboratory to study wolves. Um. There were
2:02:16
Speaker 1: about an estimated nineteen thousand elk and Yellowstone at the
2:02:20
Speaker 1: time of the reintroduction, and that heard diminished quickly over
2:02:27
Speaker 1: these twenty years down to around you know, between four
2:02:31
Speaker 1: and five thousand elk. UM. That has been the example
2:02:35
Speaker 1: by people who are anti wolf. Basically, look what they
2:02:38
Speaker 1: did to the elk and Yellowstone. Well, you've got a
2:02:41
Speaker 1: factor in grizzly bears, caribou, you've got a factor in drought,
2:02:46
Speaker 1: you've got a factor in forage conditions in the park.
2:02:49
Speaker 1: There was a lot of things at work, including wolves.
2:02:53
Speaker 1: But for those interested, if they check with scientists in
2:02:57
Speaker 1: Yellowstone Park, this year report just come out. It's a
2:03:02
Speaker 1: good report elk from a year agos estimate and counts
2:03:07
Speaker 1: are up. They're showing an increase now we're talking over
2:03:14
Speaker 1: seven thousand elk counted. They're on the way up. And
2:03:18
Speaker 1: what are the wolves done. When the wolves were reintroduced
2:03:21
Speaker 1: in Yellowstone, their population peaked at about a hundred and
2:03:24
Speaker 1: seventy two wolves for a while. Through no hunting and
2:03:29
Speaker 1: trapping or predator control in the park, that population has
2:03:34
Speaker 1: diminished to about one wolves plus or minus now. So
2:03:38
Speaker 1: the wolf population has plateaued and come back to a
2:03:43
Speaker 1: sort of balance with the available prey and the prayer
2:03:47
Speaker 1: on the increase. And that's reflected by what's going on
2:03:53
Speaker 1: outside the park in many parts of especially Montana, Wyoming.
2:03:58
Speaker 1: But I know regions of Idaho around this Boise Country
2:04:04
Speaker 1: going east and going northa here um elk numbers are
2:04:09
Speaker 1: are doing well, I guess, maintaining and increasing. Do hunters
2:04:15
Speaker 1: need to worry? There's a lot of people in different
2:04:17
Speaker 1: parts of the country where wolves are coming into the
2:04:19
Speaker 1: country again, or there's places like in the Upper Great
2:04:23
Speaker 1: Lakes where the wolf populations are still listed and they're
2:04:26
Speaker 1: kind of expanding in places like that, And there's there's
2:04:28
Speaker 1: some like fear and I feel like lots of times
2:04:31
Speaker 1: wolves or coyotes are the easy thing to pointed finger
2:04:33
Speaker 1: at because it's it's big, it's charismatic, there's all this
2:04:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, cultural stuff, stigma around these animals, and
2:04:42
Speaker 1: so it's really easy when something's not going well for
2:04:44
Speaker 1: you as a hunter, or you're not seeing animals or
2:04:47
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, that is a really easy thing
2:04:50
Speaker 1: to a it's got to be that I saw one,
2:04:52
Speaker 1: and since I've been here and i'm we haven't seen
2:04:54
Speaker 1: the deer, elk or whatever it is. Um, Can you
2:04:58
Speaker 1: speak to you or experiences with predators and being a
2:05:02
Speaker 1: hunter yourself, Do we need to be worried about predators?
2:05:07
Speaker 1: Can we co exist as hunters with predators? How do
2:05:10
Speaker 1: we do that? How do we think about that? Well,
2:05:13
Speaker 1: my opinion and from over thirty years experience in the field,
2:05:21
Speaker 1: it's undoubtable. We can live with predators. It's here's one
2:05:28
Speaker 1: of the reactions of just like killing coyotes, you know,
2:05:31
Speaker 1: and the government got involved over a hundred years ago
2:05:33
Speaker 1: in removing coyotes because they are a problem and their
2:05:38
Speaker 1: vermin whatever you want to call him, there a nuisance,
2:05:40
Speaker 1: say kill livestock. Um, coyotes some more you persecute them,
2:05:45
Speaker 1: actually you benefit them. I mean you're you're trying to
2:05:49
Speaker 1: kill them off for whatever reason, from retaliation and vengeance
2:05:53
Speaker 1: to just being practical at their problem. Um, those coyotes
2:05:58
Speaker 1: react to that. You lower the coyote density. You actually
2:06:03
Speaker 1: make the surviving coyotes healthier because freeze up some food
2:06:08
Speaker 1: that their competitors are eating. Um, the females get good nourishment,
2:06:13
Speaker 1: so they have maybe bigger litters of pups, and because
2:06:19
Speaker 1: of the available food, the more pups survive. And on
2:06:24
Speaker 1: a scale with wolves, wolves require two hundred and fifty
2:06:28
Speaker 1: square miles for a territory, similar things happen with wolves.
2:06:33
Speaker 1: You go in and you kill them for whatever justification
2:06:37
Speaker 1: you have. Um, you can break up those wolf packs.
2:06:42
Speaker 1: You can actually cause them to disperse sooner than they
2:06:45
Speaker 1: would and you recognize recognizing again whether you're talking foxes, coyotes, wolves,
2:06:51
Speaker 1: or any species. For the most part, when you empty
2:06:53
Speaker 1: out an area, create a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum,
2:06:57
Speaker 1: and animals that species outside that area you just cleaned
2:07:04
Speaker 1: out start moving in. So to me, it's senseless to
2:07:09
Speaker 1: think somehow that eradicating predators is going to solve the problem. Um.
2:07:18
Speaker 1: But now if you want to hunt coyotes or wolves recreationally,
2:07:22
Speaker 1: you can justify that and it's legal. Um. That's the
2:07:25
Speaker 1: way it is. UM. That's sport, that's recreation. That's called
2:07:31
Speaker 1: trophy hunting, because I don't think many people take fox
2:07:34
Speaker 1: and coyotes home and eat them. So UM, as long
2:07:40
Speaker 1: as state management agencies see this surplus, that we have
2:07:44
Speaker 1: a viable population of wolves or coyotes or whatever, and
2:07:50
Speaker 1: they provide very liberal seasons for people to hunt and
2:07:53
Speaker 1: trap them, I guess that's the way it is, even
2:07:56
Speaker 1: though many in society don't understand or except that. What
2:08:02
Speaker 1: have you learned, um, from your experiences with livestock producers
2:08:08
Speaker 1: or hunters or other parties that have been opposed to
2:08:11
Speaker 1: predators coming back into the area? Um? Have we have
2:08:15
Speaker 1: we learned anything that we can apply to how we
2:08:18
Speaker 1: manage this in the future. So, whether it be managing
2:08:23
Speaker 1: predator populations or the balance between predator and wildlife and hunters. Well,
2:08:30
Speaker 1: I guess maybe I should rephrase it. What's your vision
2:08:32
Speaker 1: for the future. What's the best way to do this
2:08:35
Speaker 1: better in the future. Well, I guess again, if you're
2:08:39
Speaker 1: a rancher, Um, do your homework. Recognize if you got
2:08:44
Speaker 1: wolves in your backyard or wolves moving into the neighborhood,
2:08:48
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to be more vigilant. I think any businessman,
2:08:52
Speaker 1: regardless of the business you run, you have to know
2:08:55
Speaker 1: your risks. UM. And the state managed many agencies have
2:09:00
Speaker 1: been pretty liberal, as were the federal managers too that
2:09:04
Speaker 1: when wolves were determined to be a problem, they were removed.
2:09:09
Speaker 1: But I think more and more as a society, we
2:09:11
Speaker 1: are also putting the burden on on say the rancher
2:09:15
Speaker 1: for instance, that since you raise livestock and many of
2:09:21
Speaker 1: you use public lands in the west as part of
2:09:24
Speaker 1: your grazing scheme, and um, you're gonna have to be
2:09:28
Speaker 1: a little more tolerant of them. So we're right at
2:09:31
Speaker 1: a kind of a stage at this point that we've
2:09:35
Speaker 1: got to recognize wolves are socially and legally protected and managed.
2:09:41
Speaker 1: Now they're not going to go away, and and a
2:09:44
Speaker 1: smart businessman will adapt, and perhaps you're going to have
2:09:48
Speaker 1: to put a range writer or cowboy out there with
2:09:51
Speaker 1: them and be more vigilant. Uh. And on a smaller scale,
2:09:55
Speaker 1: maybe it's you know, fencing flagry ribbon. I mean They're
2:10:00
Speaker 1: a whole list of these non lethal ways, but I
2:10:03
Speaker 1: think most of all, it's keeping an eye on your livestock. UM.
2:10:08
Speaker 1: I worked some colleagues in Canada who are taken care
2:10:10
Speaker 1: of some pretty large cow calf pair units and keeping
2:10:16
Speaker 1: predation very low. But it takes work and commitment to
2:10:21
Speaker 1: do that. UM. I know a lot of people don't
2:10:25
Speaker 1: accept my suggestions there. UM. Otherwise, UM, you can hunt
2:10:34
Speaker 1: him and trap them and kill them and persecute them,
2:10:37
Speaker 1: but long as it's within the contained within the legal hunting, trapping, snaring,
2:10:44
Speaker 1: and regulated seasons. I think the wolves are when I
2:10:48
Speaker 1: talk about viability, I think they're pretty much replacing themselves
2:10:52
Speaker 1: after the killing has happened and they have puffs in
2:10:56
Speaker 1: the spring, They're pretty much replacing their numbers here from
2:10:59
Speaker 1: what I see. Yeah, I've heard a lot. There's been
2:11:01
Speaker 1: a lot of studies done more of the Eastern United
2:11:04
Speaker 1: States around coyotes and trying to manage them, and a
2:11:08
Speaker 1: lot of people trying to manage for other wildlife species
2:11:10
Speaker 1: and understanding the impact the coyotes have on faunds or
2:11:12
Speaker 1: different things like that, and a lot of times they
2:11:15
Speaker 1: find that really, unless you do a whole scale eradication
2:11:18
Speaker 1: via some kind of trapping program at a specific time,
2:11:22
Speaker 1: you know, just the occasional. You know, some of the
2:11:24
Speaker 1: guys will say I'll shoot every coyote I see when
2:11:26
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting because of the killing my fawnds or something. Um.
2:11:29
Speaker 1: But to your early earlier point, science has shown that
2:11:33
Speaker 1: doesn't really make any impact at all because they just
2:11:35
Speaker 1: come right back in their litters increase UM. In many cases,
2:11:40
Speaker 1: it seems like the smarter way to manage that situation
2:11:46
Speaker 1: is maybe to a learn to live with this coexistence
2:11:50
Speaker 1: with another productor species. And then in some areas where
2:11:54
Speaker 1: you have like private landers and so there's things you
2:11:56
Speaker 1: can do to improve habitat to help provide a better
2:11:58
Speaker 1: situation for fawns so that you know that you can
2:12:01
Speaker 1: do the the the prey dumping kind of I think
2:12:05
Speaker 1: it overload where there's so many fonds on the landscape
2:12:07
Speaker 1: at one time and there's good fawning habitat, and then
2:12:09
Speaker 1: the coyotes might not necessarily kill as many fonds. Those
2:12:12
Speaker 1: little things that you can do that to learn to
2:12:14
Speaker 1: to live with predators but still achieve whatever goals you
2:12:18
Speaker 1: might have as a hunter manager. Different things like that
2:12:20
Speaker 1: that seemed to be maybe more effective pragmatically than just
2:12:24
Speaker 1: shooting or persecuting this other animal that you think is
2:12:26
Speaker 1: competing with you for the animal you want to see
2:12:29
Speaker 1: or shoot yourself or whatever it might be. Um, when
2:12:33
Speaker 1: we went to college, you know, we're talked, we talked,
2:12:37
Speaker 1: We're taught about biological carrying capacity. And that's with the water,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: habitat food. You know, whether you're talking to ring neck
2:12:45
Speaker 1: pheasants or coyotes or wolves, there's so much space, so
2:12:53
Speaker 1: much food, so much water that they require to be
2:12:57
Speaker 1: at their maximum density. And so that's the biological carrying capacity.
2:13:04
Speaker 1: Now we've gone to social carrying capacity to manage wolves
2:13:09
Speaker 1: as an example, we're talking about human tolerance now, Um,
2:13:14
Speaker 1: absent humans here, I mean absent humans in Idaho, absent
2:13:20
Speaker 1: humans killing wolves in Idaho. There's not a doubt in
2:13:23
Speaker 1: my mind that wolves would plateau at a certain number
2:13:27
Speaker 1: in relationship to the available food base. You know, the
2:13:30
Speaker 1: deer and the elk, whether you hunted or trapped him
2:13:32
Speaker 1: or did anything, we're not gonna We're just never going
2:13:35
Speaker 1: to get there. I don't think as humans because no
2:13:39
Speaker 1: one is willing to risk it accepted in the in
2:13:41
Speaker 1: the state agencies who manage them are they look at
2:13:45
Speaker 1: we have enough wolves, we can kill this many. As
2:13:50
Speaker 1: long as we stay above this threshold, we can do this.
2:13:54
Speaker 1: And that's our culture. That's the tradition, you know, with
2:13:58
Speaker 1: hunting and harvest sting the surplus. That's we're going to
2:14:01
Speaker 1: keep doing that. But yeah, I just think that it's
2:14:08
Speaker 1: futile if you think you're controlling them. I mean, all
2:14:12
Speaker 1: you can do really is reduce them in areas and
2:14:15
Speaker 1: target problems and deal with that. But going back into
2:14:20
Speaker 1: my predator control career, there's two concepts. There's corrective control
2:14:25
Speaker 1: and preventative control. Corrective control is when you have say,
2:14:30
Speaker 1: two coyotes killing someone sheep, and you go in and
2:14:32
Speaker 1: you kill those two kyotes. You've corrected the problem, the
2:14:37
Speaker 1: problems over, you go home and no more work to
2:14:40
Speaker 1: be done. But preventative control is always going on, which is,
2:14:48
Speaker 1: if there's a coyote out there and he's alive, he
2:14:51
Speaker 1: might eat a sheep. So we used to send up
2:14:54
Speaker 1: the gun ships all winter and shoot every kyote we
2:14:58
Speaker 1: could shoot wherever we had agreements to fly. And now's
2:15:03
Speaker 1: still going on in parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and
2:15:07
Speaker 1: then throw in sport, recreational hunting and trapping of wolves.
2:15:13
Speaker 1: There is that attempt to socially adjust the carrying capacity
2:15:20
Speaker 1: downward so that wolves won't be a problem to ranchers.
2:15:25
Speaker 1: Wolves aren't going to be a problem killing an excessive
2:15:29
Speaker 1: number of big game animals that hunters want to pursue.
2:15:32
Speaker 1: So but that's but that's the way the system is
2:15:35
Speaker 1: working and has worked and probably will continue to. Although
2:15:41
Speaker 1: there's people out there trying to attack that um, attack
2:15:48
Speaker 1: that culture or that mentality and try and get everyone
2:15:53
Speaker 1: to look at wolves and coyotes and they're a social
2:15:56
Speaker 1: or a family group. You're breaking up a family and
2:16:01
Speaker 1: you're not letting that family function ecologically like they could
2:16:05
Speaker 1: if humans didn't interfere. Right, it's funny with wolves. I
2:16:09
Speaker 1: think it was either you or whoever introduced you earlier
2:16:11
Speaker 1: today during the seminar, said that wolves are often looked
2:16:14
Speaker 1: at as either a a devil or a deity or
2:16:17
Speaker 1: a center saint. I mean, it's it's one thing or
2:16:20
Speaker 1: the other people worship them as this bigger than anything
2:16:24
Speaker 1: type of thing, or it's the worst type of evil.
2:16:28
Speaker 1: These animals are are evil, killing the poor, helpless, dear.
2:16:33
Speaker 1: They do these like rage killings, or they kill a
2:16:36
Speaker 1: bunch of animals just out of lust. Um, you hear
2:16:38
Speaker 1: all these these polarized to oppositities, or on the other side,
2:16:41
Speaker 1: you hear about these loving families of animals that have
2:16:44
Speaker 1: special personalities, and we can't, you know, we can't break
2:16:47
Speaker 1: up the family and daughters and sons. And then they
2:16:50
Speaker 1: humanize these animals in these different ways. And um, I
2:16:54
Speaker 1: think there's a middle ground where you can look at
2:16:55
Speaker 1: these things as as as an animal, a really unique,
2:16:58
Speaker 1: interesting to be spected and appreciate animal, but also something
2:17:02
Speaker 1: that that's part of this larger ecosystem that we as
2:17:05
Speaker 1: humans are now a part of two and we have
2:17:07
Speaker 1: for a very very long time, we've been a part
2:17:09
Speaker 1: of that food chain. Humanity has become a giant footprint
2:17:14
Speaker 1: on the globe, and predators especially are in a world
2:17:20
Speaker 1: of hurd in a lot of places in the world.
2:17:23
Speaker 1: And so I enjoy predators. I just I'm not a
2:17:29
Speaker 1: predator killer anymore. I there was a time in my
2:17:32
Speaker 1: life when I did that, and now I would rather
2:17:35
Speaker 1: go out and locate a pack of wolves and set
2:17:38
Speaker 1: up on a ridge of the spotting scope and watch
2:17:40
Speaker 1: them and just enjoy them same way seeing a mountain
2:17:45
Speaker 1: lion run across the road or watching black bears, you know,
2:17:49
Speaker 1: grazing in the spring up on the grassy slopes. That's
2:17:52
Speaker 1: where I'm at. And there's a time when, like I say,
2:17:57
Speaker 1: they're they're legal to hunt and trap or kill predators.
2:18:02
Speaker 1: As long as it's legal and you've got a tag,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: go for it. Yeah, but it boils down to individual choices.
2:18:10
Speaker 1: We have this huge impact, and um, I just pick
2:18:14
Speaker 1: and choose. I still hunt, and I my wife and
2:18:18
Speaker 1: I eat elk meat, so that's what I hunt pretty much,
2:18:22
Speaker 1: not hunting all these other things anymore because two people
2:18:26
Speaker 1: can only eat so much. Yeah, I, as we've talked about,
2:18:32
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated by wolves too. Um. But I
2:18:35
Speaker 1: also recognized the right to hunt them now and and
2:18:39
Speaker 1: state level management to maintain sustainable populations. I think that's
2:18:42
Speaker 1: I think that's great and and worthy, and I understand
2:18:46
Speaker 1: that the need in places to do some of the
2:18:47
Speaker 1: things that are done. But at the same time, I've
2:18:49
Speaker 1: never had this, um, I've never had the desire to
2:18:55
Speaker 1: kill a wolf. That's one of those animals that I
2:18:56
Speaker 1: think I would be more like what you just described
2:18:58
Speaker 1: there were for if I saw, I would just want
2:19:01
Speaker 1: to watch it, and nothing against someone who does want
2:19:04
Speaker 1: to hunt that animal, because I've hunted plenty of other
2:19:06
Speaker 1: animals and I've enjoyed that, and I get it. Um.
2:19:09
Speaker 1: But Eldo Leopold, you know, the great conservationist and wilderness
2:19:13
Speaker 1: advocate and game manager and philosopher of sorts. He he
2:19:17
Speaker 1: had this experience back in the twenties when he was
2:19:20
Speaker 1: down in New Mexico as a young Force Service UM
2:19:24
Speaker 1: ranger of sorts. And he at the time believed that
2:19:27
Speaker 1: the more wolves you killed, the more deer that would
2:19:29
Speaker 1: be in the landscape. So he thought, he shoot every
2:19:31
Speaker 1: wolf you see. And he has his famous essay maybe
2:19:34
Speaker 1: maybe you're familiar with it, UM called thinking like a Mountain,
2:19:37
Speaker 1: where he he shoots this wolf and he walks up
2:19:40
Speaker 1: to it, and he said he saw the green fire
2:19:42
Speaker 1: in his eyes die and he realized that all those
2:19:45
Speaker 1: preconceived notions he had, he realized that, and he had
2:19:49
Speaker 1: triggering it. Yeah, he had triggered it. And he realized
2:19:52
Speaker 1: that he'd been wrong, and something died there. And he
2:19:54
Speaker 1: realized that something that only now the mountain knew was
2:19:57
Speaker 1: was lost. Um. He had this kind of tiphany, and
2:20:00
Speaker 1: then from there he started to look at things a
2:20:02
Speaker 1: little bit differently. Um, the predators can also be part
2:20:05
Speaker 1: of this system that we are part of. Two. Um,
2:20:10
Speaker 1: you have killed wolves, you have been a part that
2:20:13
Speaker 1: You've You've walked up to a dead wolf. Um, what
2:20:18
Speaker 1: has that? What's that like? Is there something? Is that
2:20:20
Speaker 1: a powerful moment even for you having been involved with
2:20:23
Speaker 1: all these things? Yes, because I've personally, you know, my
2:20:30
Speaker 1: my capture record is I've caught myself or in since
2:20:39
Speaker 1: I'm in control of the situation or the person in charge.
2:20:43
Speaker 1: I've caught three hundred wolves and you might say had
2:20:46
Speaker 1: them on life support. We check temperature, pulse, respiration, we
2:20:50
Speaker 1: have drugs, mobilizing drugs, keeping them alive, to put a
2:20:55
Speaker 1: collar on him. Take some measurements when you do that
2:20:58
Speaker 1: with three hundred live animals as beautiful as wolves are, UM,
2:21:05
Speaker 1: I have lost any desire to kill one. So when
2:21:09
Speaker 1: I see one killed, or I see videos of them
2:21:12
Speaker 1: being shot or whatever, UM, I can imagine that it's
2:21:16
Speaker 1: a rush for somebody who hasn't been around that before,
2:21:19
Speaker 1: and that you know, a wolf is beautiful, I wanted
2:21:22
Speaker 1: for trophy or a wolf is I mean, he's got
2:21:25
Speaker 1: big fangs and uh, you know, he's a dangerous animal,
2:21:28
Speaker 1: and my buddies are going to really look up to
2:21:31
Speaker 1: be dealing with it. I look at wolves as you know,
2:21:34
Speaker 1: they're they're the source of our domestic dogs. They're just
2:21:39
Speaker 1: a big dog, but they're wild and untamed and um
2:21:44
Speaker 1: so yeah, to me, it's it's a bummer, anticlimactic A
2:21:51
Speaker 1: job I had to do when I was killing him
2:21:54
Speaker 1: as a result of livestock damage something like that, and
2:21:58
Speaker 1: I choose as a whortsman I could not possibly get
2:22:03
Speaker 1: any enjoyment out of, you know. And I've killed a
2:22:06
Speaker 1: couple of mountain lions in my life, and I found
2:22:09
Speaker 1: that anticlimactic. I've killed a few black bear early on
2:22:13
Speaker 1: when I first got to the West. You know, I
2:22:15
Speaker 1: got to get a bear, gotta get a lion, got
2:22:17
Speaker 1: to get a wolf, or whatever the feeling people have
2:22:20
Speaker 1: when it's something new. Um. But I've been there, done it,
2:22:25
Speaker 1: and got no joy out of it as a result,
2:22:29
Speaker 1: So I don't do it anymore. And that's my personal choice. Yeah,
2:22:33
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting to your perspective, given like you said,
2:22:36
Speaker 1: you've kind of been around at all. You've seen both
2:22:38
Speaker 1: sides of it. Um, it's very frustrating being a predator manager,
2:22:45
Speaker 1: you know, in predator control, it's very frustrating because I
2:22:49
Speaker 1: don't want to have to kill the lion or the bear,
2:22:52
Speaker 1: or the wolf or even the coyote. I don't want to,
2:22:56
Speaker 1: but so often they persist. I mean, it's like gone it.
2:23:01
Speaker 1: I was hoping if we did this or that, or
2:23:03
Speaker 1: maybe the rnswer moved his sheep somewhere. You know, you
2:23:07
Speaker 1: made some adjustments that the sheep can live, the livestock
2:23:11
Speaker 1: can live, the wolves or the predators can live. And
2:23:14
Speaker 1: then there's that persistence that it can't be resolved that way.
2:23:18
Speaker 1: We can't move away from the problem. The problem just
2:23:21
Speaker 1: moves with us. So yeah, I've just never enjoyed going
2:23:26
Speaker 1: out and killing that predator and going home with some
2:23:30
Speaker 1: satisfaction of Uh, I did solve the problem. That gave
2:23:35
Speaker 1: me relief. And when you remove a problem, I mean it,
2:23:41
Speaker 1: let's the community calm down too. You don't want this
2:23:45
Speaker 1: persistent headline every day, wolves killing cattle, wolves killing cattle. Um.
2:23:52
Speaker 1: Everybody gets tired of that, and sometimes you just gotta
2:23:56
Speaker 1: bite the bullet so to speak, no pun intended, and
2:24:00
Speaker 1: remove the problem. Uh, it's not been fun for me,
2:24:05
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's been a job that I've chosen
2:24:07
Speaker 1: to do and accepted the responsibility that goes with it.
2:24:11
Speaker 1: And uh, sometimes things ain't always fun at the job. Yeah,
2:24:16
Speaker 1: any job, but I imagine there were times, particularly in
2:24:19
Speaker 1: your case. UM. So, wolf seasons are open in many
2:24:23
Speaker 1: areas now, many states across the West, Um, several states,
2:24:27
Speaker 1: I guess, not so in the Great Lakes. UM. So
2:24:31
Speaker 1: regardless of what your opinions are though on that, Um,
2:24:34
Speaker 1: people are killing wolves now, people are killing lots of counties.
2:24:38
Speaker 1: Predator management is something that's done across the country. UM,
2:24:41
Speaker 1: in many cases. You know, I think it's, like you said,
2:24:43
Speaker 1: it's legal, well founded, people enjoy it. It's happening. Um.
2:24:48
Speaker 1: But you did speak a little bit earlier today about
2:24:52
Speaker 1: some of the things we can do as hunters that
2:24:54
Speaker 1: if we're going to go and do these types of
2:24:55
Speaker 1: things that can help us mitigate some of the risks
2:24:59
Speaker 1: as far is bad pr with that, because because there
2:25:04
Speaker 1: is so much, it's so emotionally charged, um, that when
2:25:07
Speaker 1: one side of this debate sees a dead wolf on
2:25:10
Speaker 1: Facebook or something, it can turn to a firestorm of
2:25:13
Speaker 1: of more madness. Um, what would be your your advice
2:25:18
Speaker 1: to to other hunters as far as how we talk
2:25:20
Speaker 1: about wolves or how we um post pictures, whether it
2:25:25
Speaker 1: be of dead wolves or talking about hunting or anything
2:25:28
Speaker 1: like that. How do we handle our pr when it
2:25:31
Speaker 1: comes to predators as hunters better. Well, my individual opinion
2:25:38
Speaker 1: on this, and I guess others would look at it
2:25:40
Speaker 1: from my walt perspectives. But if you're a hunter and
2:25:44
Speaker 1: you hate what you're hunting, um, you don't represent me.
2:25:49
Speaker 1: There's no animal I've ever killed because I hated it,
2:25:52
Speaker 1: whether it was a mouse or a pheasant or a wolf,
2:25:57
Speaker 1: um as you huted to the It just it makes
2:26:03
Speaker 1: me angry when I see some guy who's legally shouted
2:26:06
Speaker 1: wolf and he puts a bear hug on it and
2:26:10
Speaker 1: he tries to hold it up. And you know, with
2:26:12
Speaker 1: a little camera angle, you can make wolves look gigantic,
2:26:17
Speaker 1: you can make antlers look enormous, you can make fish
2:26:21
Speaker 1: look unbelievable. Um, if you want to take that picture,
2:26:27
Speaker 1: be my guest, take it home, put it in your
2:26:29
Speaker 1: album book. I don't want to see it. I mean
2:26:33
Speaker 1: there was a time and I was I'm as guilty
2:26:35
Speaker 1: as an next when when I was younger. You know,
2:26:38
Speaker 1: you got your first whatever, your first pheasants, your first rabbit,
2:26:41
Speaker 1: your first geese. Sure you got pictures and you took
2:26:45
Speaker 1: pictures and your friends you carried them around, showed them
2:26:47
Speaker 1: to each other. But that was on a pretty small
2:26:50
Speaker 1: scale at you know, in the home or community area.
2:26:55
Speaker 1: But people putting these photos of them holding their dead
2:27:02
Speaker 1: whatever going on Facebook and public media, that can go viral.
2:27:07
Speaker 1: I mean, you're doing hunters no favor at all. You're
2:27:10
Speaker 1: doing trapping no favor. A lot of people say, well, Carter,
2:27:13
Speaker 1: if you're a trapper, you ought to be representing trappers.
2:27:17
Speaker 1: I tell trappers count your blessings that trapping is even legal,
2:27:22
Speaker 1: and if you enjoy trapping and the state permits it,
2:27:27
Speaker 1: be my guest. But if you wonder why everybody's down
2:27:33
Speaker 1: on you as a trapper or a hunter, when you
2:27:37
Speaker 1: look at the display of death being shoved in people's face,
2:27:42
Speaker 1: nobody wants to see that um And I know that
2:27:48
Speaker 1: no matter how much I plead, it's not going to change.
2:27:52
Speaker 1: So if you hate wolves and you want to put
2:27:54
Speaker 1: your gory pictures of the wolves that you shot, the
2:27:59
Speaker 1: latest one right now is somebody with an a r
2:28:01
Speaker 1: fIF in Alaska that mowed down ten wolves on a snowmobile. Nonetheless. Two,
2:28:07
Speaker 1: I mean I have no respect whatsoever for somebody does
2:28:13
Speaker 1: that go out there on the ground, take your little
2:28:16
Speaker 1: single shot weapon, one shot, let's see you get ten wolves.
2:28:21
Speaker 1: And uh, I really don't care if you do or not.
2:28:24
Speaker 1: I'm not interested, and neither is the majority of the
2:28:29
Speaker 1: world I think is sick of carnage and sick of death.
2:28:33
Speaker 1: So I think hunters that want to perpetuate this sport,
2:28:39
Speaker 1: this hobby, this privilege have to really work at policing, hunting,
2:28:47
Speaker 1: trying to get people. Two. I guess just be ethical.
2:28:52
Speaker 1: You can. You can go out and do this with
2:28:55
Speaker 1: respect for what you kill, and you can do it
2:28:59
Speaker 1: in the private see of the field where you take it. Uh.
2:29:04
Speaker 1: I don't hauld things home on the hood of my truck.
2:29:07
Speaker 1: I mean, we we kill a deer and elk, we
2:29:10
Speaker 1: cut it up in the field, we put it in
2:29:12
Speaker 1: we call them game bags, wrap them up to keep
2:29:15
Speaker 1: the insects and dirt off of them, and we put
2:29:18
Speaker 1: it in our vehicle and we transported home. And we
2:29:21
Speaker 1: don't advertise to the whole world and every town we
2:29:26
Speaker 1: drive through the look at me, look what I killed.
2:29:30
Speaker 1: And I think that's what it's about. If you want
2:29:32
Speaker 1: to take pictures and show them to your family and
2:29:34
Speaker 1: your friends and your relatives, perfectly fine. I don't want
2:29:39
Speaker 1: to see him unless you're a friend of mine and
2:29:42
Speaker 1: I I want to see it, and you want to
2:29:44
Speaker 1: offer that opportunity for me to view it. Yeah, that
2:29:48
Speaker 1: that that's how I look at it. It's a big,
2:29:50
Speaker 1: tall order because, uh, we've just got so many people
2:29:54
Speaker 1: involved in hunting, and we all have different values and
2:29:58
Speaker 1: attitudes and we all react differently. It definitely is a
2:30:04
Speaker 1: tricky topic. And it's one of those things where when
2:30:06
Speaker 1: this imagery, especially imagery gets out there online, that when
2:30:10
Speaker 1: when seen by someone who doesn't have the context of
2:30:13
Speaker 1: why we do what we do or how we do
2:30:15
Speaker 1: what we do, when they just see this image, especially
2:30:18
Speaker 1: if it's not a particular respectful image, um yeah, it
2:30:22
Speaker 1: can be seen and be really upsetting the people and
2:30:26
Speaker 1: cause cause harm to the overall cunning community in a
2:30:29
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Where and I talked to us all
2:30:32
Speaker 1: this time, but we live in a democracy where we
2:30:35
Speaker 1: are not the majority, and um, if we want to
2:30:38
Speaker 1: continue what we're doing, we just need to be mindful
2:30:40
Speaker 1: of that and careful about that. In the end, it
2:30:43
Speaker 1: may result and nobody's fault but our own. If we
2:30:47
Speaker 1: want to maintain the privilege to be hunters, and yeah,
2:30:54
Speaker 1: falls back on our responsibility to promote it in a
2:31:00
Speaker 1: positive image. If there can be one mm hm and
2:31:04
Speaker 1: you know one of my when it's looping back to
2:31:07
Speaker 1: predators to UM. When I think about this, the the
2:31:10
Speaker 1: importance of hunters representing themselves well to the general public
2:31:14
Speaker 1: because we need their essentially their approval to continue what
2:31:17
Speaker 1: we're doing in the future. UM, to maintain that privilege.
2:31:21
Speaker 1: Part of our big claim to legitimacy as hunters very
2:31:24
Speaker 1: often is that we are great conservationists. We are stewards
2:31:27
Speaker 1: of the land of the wild life. We care about
2:31:29
Speaker 1: these animals. UM. We do so much to to help
2:31:33
Speaker 1: keep these animals and sustainable populations and and whatnot. But
2:31:36
Speaker 1: when you start being selective about what animals you care about,
2:31:40
Speaker 1: and you say, oh, yeah, I'm like great conservations, I
2:31:42
Speaker 1: care about deer and l can do this. But when
2:31:45
Speaker 1: it comes to wolves, shoot, shovel and shut up, get
2:31:47
Speaker 1: rid of those things. When you start seeing that happen,
2:31:50
Speaker 1: I think we lose all credibility to being conservationist if
2:31:54
Speaker 1: you start just being selected, I only care about the
2:31:56
Speaker 1: animals I want to shoot myself. UM. So I think
2:31:59
Speaker 1: if even if you don't like wolves, even if you're
2:32:02
Speaker 1: not interested in them in any way, even if you
2:32:05
Speaker 1: view them as competition for your resource, that's the way
2:32:07
Speaker 1: you want to see it. Whatever. But just from a
2:32:10
Speaker 1: pragmatic standpoint, if you want to be able to continue
2:32:13
Speaker 1: to hunt, you got to walk the walk of of
2:32:16
Speaker 1: being a real responsible hunter and conservationoust which which means
2:32:20
Speaker 1: we need to show respect to all the animals and
2:32:23
Speaker 1: the landscape and maintaining a true balanced natural ecosystem includes
2:32:29
Speaker 1: wolves and coyotes and bears and um, people can see
2:32:33
Speaker 1: rights of the b s. If if we're not being
2:32:35
Speaker 1: true to that, in my opinion, well, these predators and
2:32:38
Speaker 1: prey go together. I mean, it's it's the beginning of time.
2:32:41
Speaker 1: There's specific predators who prey on certain prey species, and
2:32:48
Speaker 1: I look at that. It's absolutely I mean, when I
2:32:50
Speaker 1: go out to a marsh, if I see a maink
2:32:53
Speaker 1: attack a muskrat, I'm thinking that's the way it's supposed
2:32:56
Speaker 1: to work. Um. And you just take in our backyard,
2:33:02
Speaker 1: we feed birds all winter, and we have sharp shinn
2:33:06
Speaker 1: and Cooper's hawks come through our yard every day all
2:33:11
Speaker 1: winter and kill a junco or kill a finch. We say,
2:33:17
Speaker 1: that's the way it works, and there's always more juncos
2:33:23
Speaker 1: and more finches next winter, so they replace themselves. And
2:33:27
Speaker 1: those hawks have every right to exist and to eat
2:33:33
Speaker 1: those prey. And I hear so many humans saying, well,
2:33:38
Speaker 1: I just ain't right. You know the way the way
2:33:40
Speaker 1: the wolves kill or the way the hawks kill. Well,
2:33:45
Speaker 1: look in the mirror, humans, you're either killing your food
2:33:50
Speaker 1: or someone's killing it for you. Uh. And it ain't
2:33:53
Speaker 1: pretty either, no matter how you want to paint it.
2:33:56
Speaker 1: So I, as I have gotten older, I am careful
2:34:01
Speaker 1: not to judge what goes on out in nature. It's
2:34:06
Speaker 1: kill or be killed. This is pretty much how it works.
2:34:09
Speaker 1: And the humans were just one species, and I don't
2:34:13
Speaker 1: look at us as superior to these other species. Now
2:34:17
Speaker 1: there's others who would say, well, Carter, you're dead, dear dead, wrong.
2:34:20
Speaker 1: And I've had a lot of people tell me, look,
2:34:22
Speaker 1: if an elk needs killing, I'll kill it, And sorry,
2:34:28
Speaker 1: I don't accept that at all. And there's people who say, well,
2:34:32
Speaker 1: the wolves are killing my elk and they're killing my dear.
2:34:37
Speaker 1: And so I've said that to people in the situation
2:34:40
Speaker 1: it's right. I said, well, you know, I have a
2:34:42
Speaker 1: deer and elk tag in my billfold this year, and
2:34:44
Speaker 1: they can have my dear in my elk if we're
2:34:48
Speaker 1: gonna add this possession. You know that there ours. They're
2:34:53
Speaker 1: not ours. We're just privilege some of us to be
2:34:58
Speaker 1: able to hunt the surplus us and uh get the
2:35:01
Speaker 1: opportunity to take some really good quality organic meat home
2:35:06
Speaker 1: with us to eat. But I don't look at us
2:35:09
Speaker 1: as privileged over any more than those predators out there
2:35:13
Speaker 1: that are doing what they do. I Uh, I really
2:35:17
Speaker 1: appreciate your perspective on all of this. It's it's really interesting.
2:35:21
Speaker 1: I think the things you've been involved with give you
2:35:25
Speaker 1: just give you a context that I think a lot
2:35:28
Speaker 1: of people don't have. The I mean, I can, I
2:35:30
Speaker 1: can say whatever I want about wolves from what I've
2:35:33
Speaker 1: read or seen, but I have no on the ground
2:35:35
Speaker 1: experience like that, And so many people that like to
2:35:36
Speaker 1: debate about wolves have no real on the ground context
2:35:39
Speaker 1: with predators in many cases. Um, but but someone in
2:35:42
Speaker 1: your shoes, who's who's been there, who's talked to all
2:35:44
Speaker 1: sides of this. UM, who's who's come at this as
2:35:48
Speaker 1: a predator manager at one point in your life as
2:35:51
Speaker 1: a hunter, as someone who enjoys wildlife. UM, it's just um,
2:35:56
Speaker 1: it's fascinating, it's interesting. I appreciate you speaking up about
2:35:59
Speaker 1: these things, give your opinion. I think, UM, we need
2:36:02
Speaker 1: to hear all sorts of different things like this, and uh,
2:36:05
Speaker 1: it's much appreciated. So thank yous for taking the time
2:36:07
Speaker 1: to to talk with us about it. Car Well, I
2:36:10
Speaker 1: feel privileged getting the opportunity to talk to you for
2:36:12
Speaker 1: a while about this. Never hesitate to share my opinions
2:36:18
Speaker 1: with people that want to listen. And that is a
2:36:21
Speaker 1: rap on our Wolves and Coyotes and Hunters podcast. Hopefully
2:36:28
Speaker 1: you found this one as interesting as I thought it was.
2:36:31
Speaker 1: I appreciate you sticking around hearing it out, listening to
2:36:34
Speaker 1: these different ideas, ways of thinking about predators and how
2:36:37
Speaker 1: we relate to them as hunters. UM. A couple of
2:36:40
Speaker 1: book recommendations for you. Number one, if you enjoyed hearing
2:36:44
Speaker 1: what Carter had to say, he has two very interesting
2:36:46
Speaker 1: books out. One is called Wolfer. I've read that. I've
2:36:50
Speaker 1: found that very interesting. It goes into detail of his
2:36:52
Speaker 1: whole history within this issue. And then his more recent
2:36:55
Speaker 1: book is called wolf Land. Also, um a book related
2:36:59
Speaker 1: to coyotes is called Coyote America by Dan Flores, and
2:37:04
Speaker 1: that is a really interesting book too. And then finally,
2:37:06
Speaker 1: if you want to read Thinking Like a Mountain and
2:37:09
Speaker 1: other essays by Aldo Leopold, I can't recommend enough his
2:37:13
Speaker 1: book A Sand County Almanac. So give those ones a read.
2:37:17
Speaker 1: I think you'll find something interesting and they're related to
2:37:20
Speaker 1: this entire topic that we talked about. Now, to wrap
2:37:23
Speaker 1: it up, I just want to thank our partners who
2:37:26
Speaker 1: helped make this possible. Big Things to Sick a Gear
2:37:29
Speaker 1: Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, may Haven Optics, White Tail Institute
2:37:32
Speaker 1: of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunter A Maps. And finally,
2:37:37
Speaker 1: thank you all for listening. I appreciate you coming at
2:37:40
Speaker 1: this episode with an open mind. I appreciate your comments
2:37:43
Speaker 1: and your opinions and their thoughts. I'm always interested in
2:37:45
Speaker 1: hearing what you think about this stuff. So thanks for listening,
2:37:47
Speaker 1: thanks for sharing your feedback, and until next time, stay
2:37:52
Speaker 1: wired to hunt