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0:40

You hunt Big Game two?

0:41

I have?

0:42

Yeah, Yeah, I've got a I

0:44

haven't hunted big game in about

0:46

four years now, but I've shot a lot

0:48

of deer, antelope, elk, bighorn,

0:51

sheep, you bears, and I

0:54

just I train dogs and a bird hunt.

0:56

That's what I do now.

0:57

And so that's podcast.

1:03

Yeah, earlier

1:05

this about in the podcast,

1:08

I.

1:08

Might bring that pigeon down here in a couple of days. Let

1:10

him walk around up here.

1:12

At home, build a little roost for him in here.

1:15

Pretty tame, extremely tame. Nice

1:18

when you all it tries to do is get into the house.

1:20

You're kidding me, because it knows people are in the house.

1:23

Did you raise it?

1:24

My kids did?

1:25

It's not going to be a shooter then, right, No,

1:28

you got to.

1:28

Pass for

1:32

forty of his uh roostmates

1:35

went to bird dog trainers.

1:37

Yeah, but this was so what's his

1:39

name?

1:41

Peanut butter? Peanut but because

1:43

there was peanut butter and jelly but jelly, Uh,

1:45

John had to get euthanized. Yeah, I

1:48

had a health had a congenital birth effect

1:50

as far as we can tell.

1:51

Come on, you really did

1:53

euthanize it. You didn't train it?

1:55

Yeah, well it had as

1:58

it started passing its own intestine. Oh

2:01

my god, real buzz kills. Yeah,

2:05

yeah, Brody is over.

2:07

Is peanut Butter aware of the windows

2:09

outside and know where?

2:12

But it knows where the door is. It goes to the door.

2:15

Unbelievable.

2:17

Does it live outside?

2:18

Lives outside?

2:19

Oh?

2:19

Nice, it's at a bird sitters house? Right

2:21

now?

2:22

Did he fly over there?

2:27

You got the pigeon Gooso comes back home.

2:29

This is the start of the show.

2:30

We're already rolling. Give

2:33

me your book. There you go, Phil,

2:40

where's a good spot.

2:41

That's a great spot.

2:42

That looks good. Yeah, we're missing the bottom.

2:44

Quarter of the book of the cover, but we've got the time.

2:48

That's better. That's better. Joined

2:52

today by Diane Boyd, who came

2:55

on the you were on the

2:57

show.

2:57

A while ago, probably five years now.

2:59

Five years ago, way back in episode

3:01

one, six six days. Okay, that was a

3:03

great episode.

3:04

Thanks you made it great.

3:06

We did an episode called Hunting with Teeth with

3:08

Diane Boyd lay

3:10

out your can Can you lay out your your an

3:13

abbreviated form of your resume so people

3:15

know what you're all about?

3:16

Oh golly, yeah. I started working

3:18

with wolves in Minnesota in nineteen

3:20

seventy six. I was just

3:22

a child prodigy, Not really, I'm just old. And

3:25

anyway, I picked up Minnesota

3:27

wolves. I went worked in Wild the Wolves in Northern

3:29

Minnesota, and then I worked as a

3:31

for one summer before I came to Montana

3:33

as a depredation control trapper

3:37

and research collar northern Minnesota.

3:39

And then I moved to Montana in seventy nine

3:41

to pursue a couple of graduate degrees.

3:43

And I basically started

3:45

with the first wolf that walked down from

3:48

Canada and have maintained wolf

3:52

reintroduction, recolonization

3:55

information, all those yeares so kind

3:57

of from the first wolf to three thousand wolf.

4:00

Now that's what we got in the West.

4:01

Got it? And reason I like the

4:03

reason I like Diane Boyd and reach

4:06

he's back on the show. Is you

4:08

caught a lot of the hysteria and

4:13

a lot of the on each side.

4:17

If I don't know it, it's not right, especially

4:19

in today's climate of an election season.

4:21

I don't want to put it as the left and the right. How do

4:23

you put it the inn and the yang? Now? Okay,

4:28

if this can you see the book

4:30

and my hand film, if

4:32

this is attitudes of wolves,

4:35

and this is what this side

4:37

is that they're going to kill your children, okay?

4:41

And this side is that they

4:44

snuggle fawns.

4:45

They're going to save the planet, that

4:47

they're gonna.

4:48

Yeah, they're gonna save the planet, and and

4:50

and and reverse climate change. Diane

4:55

Boyd is, I don't want to have you be the middle finger.

4:57

That's a bad thing.

5:00

I'm gonna move this finger over where the middle finger

5:02

lives.

5:03

Great because it's like diet.

5:05

Yeah, she gives the middle finger to the sides.

5:09

I like that.

5:09

Never that way.

5:12

And she's got a new book coming out,

5:14

A Woman among Wolves, My Journey through forty

5:17

Years of Wolf Recovery. When is it available?

5:20

Right?

5:21

So it's coming out September tenth, it's

5:23

being released and you can pre ordered

5:25

on Amazon and

5:27

Barnes and Nobles. It's up there now, got

5:30

it.

5:31

My mom's husband, my mom got married. After my dad

5:33

died, my mom got remarried. Now that guy passed

5:35

away. You know he called Barnes and Noble. He

5:38

called it books and Nobles.

5:40

Wow, makes

5:43

sense.

5:43

Yeah, it was MacDonald's and it was

5:45

Books and Nobles.

5:49

Uh, case you forget later.

5:51

I think you should ask Diane. She's gonna read

5:54

her own audiobook.

5:56

Oh listen, I'm

5:59

gonna tell you the

6:02

audiobook. Don't don't have them to do a person.

6:05

Don't bring in a soap opera person. Who's

6:07

going to do the audiobook.

6:08

It's got to be you. Do you want to start a little

6:11

bit? So my Graystone

6:13

Publishing sold the audio rights to a media

6:15

company.

6:16

Ye, and that's how that's

6:18

normal.

6:18

They hired a professional actress

6:20

to read.

6:21

Did you really come in there and complain?

6:23

Well?

6:23

I didn't know that, And then when I found out,

6:26

I just said, well, you know, I know the story

6:28

pretty well, and I do a lot of public speaking,

6:30

and I think I've got an engaging voice,

6:32

even with my Fargo accent. So

6:35

they had me send an audio edition and

6:37

they wrote me back and he said, well,

6:40

if you want to do the reading, we're going to have to basically

6:43

train you and it's going to take a lot

6:45

of time and blah blah blah blah.

6:47

So you know why they're telling me that they

6:49

got these holsers that do it all the time.

6:52

Okay, and they come in they know they're going to get it done

6:54

in two days whatever. Don't

6:57

let that happen. I let that happen

6:59

before, and I've mentioned

7:01

bunch of times. I let that happen before. I

7:04

got the thing in. I

7:06

turned it on and I could not cross

7:08

the room quick enough to turn it off the

7:11

minute that person opened their mouth, Because

7:14

like, you live your work, yeah

7:17

right, and when you're writing it, you're it's

7:19

you. You're it's you know what I mean. You're doing

7:21

it, you're saying it, you're reading it to yourself, you're

7:23

making it perfect, and then some other person picks

7:25

it up and touches it. It's like watching It's

7:29

like, are you married? No, If

7:32

you were, it

7:35

would be like watching someone

7:37

handle your husband.

7:39

That was an impossibility. I was married briefly,

7:43

Okay, I get it.

7:44

You get it.

7:45

Picture that you were still married. You

7:47

really liked him, and you had to watch

7:50

someone else, right.

7:53

No go. But anyway,

7:55

I the other thing was they're doing

7:57

this. They wanted to be done when the book

7:59

is released in September tenth, and I'm

8:02

going bird hunting. I mean, I got stuff to

8:04

do, and I actually just don't. At

8:07

this point, I just threw my hands upisode whatever.

8:09

Yeah, I'm okay,

8:13

thank you though.

8:15

Next time, next time.

8:17

I appreciate the advice.

8:18

Yeah, I knew.

8:20

Whitetail Week coming up here at me

8:22

Eiter one week only nine to thirty to ten six.

8:26

White Tail Week's the best time stock

8:28

up on whitetail gear with deals from first

8:30

like FHF Gear, Phelps, game calls, Dave Smith,

8:33

Decoy's at the me Eater store,

8:37

plus a full

8:39

week of white tail content we've done he's

8:41

in the past. It's like, you know, there's

8:44

a TV channel that

8:46

has a they celebrate a fish all week

8:48

every year. It's

8:51

like that, but it's for people that like white tails. Oh

8:54

you know, it's funny. I'm

8:57

working on this new project and

9:00

we got to do a bunch of scuba diving over the last week,

9:02

and we had these underwater It's

9:05

like an you can talk underwater. It's

9:08

a special mask like you don't, you know, normally use

9:10

a you have like a breathing apparatus and a regular

9:12

mask. But it's this big contained things you can hold a button

9:14

like talk underwater to people, it's

9:16

hard to be heard

9:20

and h it's just

9:22

it's not a perfect system, as you can imagine talking

9:24

underwater and

9:28

someone so we rented

9:31

this equipment from this place that rents this stuff

9:33

out, and like, well, how in the world on Shark

9:35

Week are they all talking to each other underwater? He

9:38

goes, Oh, they dubed that all the uh

9:45

mid uh

9:48

this is you folks will appreciate

9:50

this. Sometime between mid and end

9:52

of September, The

9:56

Fucked Up Bullshitters Calendar is out. It's the third

9:58

in our ft up series. We the Deer

10:00

Stands Taxidermy

10:03

and now it shitters. Some of the

10:05

world's best

10:08

and worst worst not

10:10

best, yeah, the best

10:12

of the worst old shitters laying

10:14

around out in the woods from

10:17

the Arctic to the Midwest

10:21

and probably points south.

10:22

Did you do captions this time?

10:23

Oh?

10:24

Yeah, great captions.

10:25

Oh yeah, I don't know that I'd say that they're

10:27

all the worst because some of them are

10:29

just intriguing intriguing,

10:31

like you you'd want to give them a run.

10:34

Yeah, carved out a giant tree stumps. So

10:37

like one, Yeah, one is sort of I don't know

10:39

what. It looks like, a giant redwood or a sequoia or

10:41

something. I don't know what it is, probably not. No, it's a cedar,

10:44

a huge Western red seedar, that's what it is.

10:47

And they carved a shitter out of a Western

10:49

red seater. It's beautiful. So in the caption

10:51

process, we sit around thinking of what would

10:53

be funny, and we're like, something

10:55

to do with e walks would be funny, and

10:58

then you work that into a caption. There's

11:00

one that is very Southwest

11:04

and when I looked at it, I thought of the Alamo. And

11:06

so then you work up a caption that's like a joke about

11:10

the Alamo. That's

11:13

all that process.

11:14

Are there any uh outhouses

11:17

or ships that you wouldn't want to Oh?

11:19

Yeah, there are.

11:24

I'd say the one I wouldn't want to do the want need

11:26

of an upholstery job.

11:28

I wouldn't touch that thing until someone's

11:31

mm hmm.

11:32

There was definitely something that made

11:34

me lose my faith in humanity, like gross

11:37

like stuff.

11:38

That didn't make the cut. There's nothing gross

11:40

about the count.

11:40

No, no, no,

11:44

we had some gross submissions, a

11:46

lot.

11:47

Of gross submissions. There was none of our submissions

11:49

has none

11:51

of the submissions are like poor etiquette.

11:54

None of the submissions. There's no there's

11:57

no fecal matter. There were a.

11:59

Couple that you guys didn't see that.

12:00

We're being used the

12:03

people send in.

12:04

Oh you cut those out. We have no people

12:06

in it.

12:07

I didn't.

12:07

I didn't think they'd make the cut, so I didn't

12:09

send those alone.

12:10

It's twelve months, that's

12:12

how many months, or in a year, it's

12:15

twelve months of beautiful

12:19

photography of if you were wandering around out

12:21

in the woods, or wandering around up in the Arctic,

12:24

or wandering around wherever, and

12:26

you came into a and you came across

12:28

an old shitter, and you're like, gow

12:31

the stories that old shitter could

12:34

tell, that's what this calendar is all

12:36

about.

12:37

And they're all shitters you'd tell someone about. Oh,

12:40

you're like, you wouldn't believe what I found.

12:41

Oh yeah, If you were hunting with your buddy or whatever,

12:44

and you went off to go check on something and

12:46

you encountered one of these shitters

12:49

and you came back. I don't care. If you saw

12:55

two booner bucks fighting and stuck

12:57

together, you'd

12:59

run back to your body and you'd be like, you

13:01

would not believe the shitter. I just saw it.

13:03

Oh.

13:03

Plus, there's two booner bucks stuck together

13:05

over there. That's

13:08

how that that's the quality of these shitters.

13:10

Like recently, I was was last

13:12

hunting season, I was up on the Rocky Mountain

13:14

front, and that Augusta showedo zone.

13:17

You've probably Randall. Seems like you've

13:20

been to every bar in every small town in Montana's

13:22

you've probably been to this one. But in

13:24

their bathrooms they have pictures

13:27

of uh some outhouses. And one

13:29

of the favorite ones I've seen, it's like it's you can

13:31

see the front, but the outhouses

13:33

out in the flats and it's

13:36

got these it looks like two telephone

13:38

poles that are wedged like between it's

13:40

like upper corners at the eve and the

13:42

ground, just basically

13:45

meaning that the wind blows so hard

13:47

there that if this outhouse isn't

13:49

supported with telephone poles, like you

13:51

know at an angle.

13:52

It's gonna lift it off.

13:54

Yeah, or at least that

13:57

was brutalized by the wind. Pretty good.

13:59

Yeah, just there's just you're

14:02

looking down a hill and you can just see the

14:04

the shitter blown

14:06

off away. We also had a lot

14:08

of tandems, and we only put one tandem

14:11

in because I don't I don't really

14:13

understand, like my

14:15

when my little kids were littler,

14:18

I could see them utilizing

14:20

a tandem, but.

14:21

You wouldn't park next to you on in

14:23

the morning.

14:24

They're not going to utilize the tandem, right.

14:27

I know of a use for a tandem out house

14:29

at the pace. So my first year up there

14:31

in seventy nine, got Giardia

14:33

and there was a two seater outhouse and

14:36

there was a moment one day when

14:38

I needed to use both holes

14:40

at the same time, just

14:45

saying.

14:47

Yeah, do

14:49

you know what the next installment of ft

14:52

UP.

14:52

I want to do. It's a it's a photographic

14:55

challenge. I want to do fish cleaning stations

14:58

or just fucked up old fisher man. But

15:04

I'd like to do fish cleaning stations, just the nastiest,

15:07

grossest fish clean stations. But it's

15:09

hard to capture the smell. Never

15:12

scratch and sniff. When you were a kid, if

15:14

you could scratch and sniff old

15:16

fish cleaning stations.

15:20

Hit too nice. Now

15:22

after the fix up joke.

15:24

It wouldn't even be good anymore. I know we got

15:26

ruined for that. Yeah, I'm not sure,

15:28

but this one is. This one is great if you

15:30

know someone else appreciates an old

15:32

out house. Oh one of these old out

15:34

houses that got caught on fire and

15:37

put out. And I was trying

15:39

to think of a taco bell joke fire

15:44

too many flaming hot cheetos. But

15:48

I think on that one, the joke landed around

15:50

like it was from Southeast Alaska, and

15:53

I think the joke was something about how hard it is

15:55

to get anything to burn in southeast Alaska,

15:58

but nothing wants to burn there, so

16:00

how would you get, you know, some kind of joke like that.

16:03

A couple thoughts from Helfelfinger on

16:05

a past episode. It's

16:08

a rebuttal, it's a retraction. It's

16:10

actually not. It's a fortification. But

16:15

half a Finger had a good quote. It's not his quote.

16:17

He wrote it down. A retraction

16:21

never gets the traction of

16:23

the reaction to

16:25

the original action.

16:28

Once again, a retraction never gets the

16:32

from the top. A

16:34

retraction never gets

16:37

the traction of

16:39

the reaction to the

16:42

original action. A

16:45

great illustration of that would be

16:47

when it came out two

16:50

I can think of years ago, it

16:52

came out that like a guy supposedly

16:54

got died from

16:57

eating squirrel brains, and

17:01

then it was all that was everywhere.

17:04

Every news agency picked this article up,

17:08

and then it came out, well, actually,

17:11

no, he just died of a brain disease.

17:14

And in his past he had eaten a squirrel

17:16

brain. So

17:18

of the one hundred or two hundred people that die

17:20

of this every year, he happened

17:23

in his history had eaten a squirrel brain. And

17:25

it just didn't quite

17:27

get the traction of the reaction to the original

17:29

action. I

17:32

was commenting. I used to always tell people.

17:34

I used to somehow, somehow, it was told

17:37

to me that automobile insurance

17:39

companies often

17:41

pushed to reduce deer numbers so

17:43

that to reduce their premium

17:46

load from all the

17:48

claims made from crashing and cars

17:51

hitting things. So agricultural

17:54

interests, and I would say, automobile interests,

17:56

automobile insurance interests would like to

18:00

suppressed dear numbers. Now

18:03

helfle Finger, I don't know where he hangs

18:05

out. He's saying automobile

18:08

insurance companies plural

18:13

have told Helfflefinger personally

18:15

they have no interest in spending any money to reduce

18:18

audio collisions because

18:20

they just run the numbers and charge whatever premium

18:23

they need to cover collisions with deer, while

18:26

they want to spend time or money on something

18:28

that might reduce deer collisions like overpasses,

18:31

when they can just simply take it into consideration

18:33

when they do all their math, they

18:39

pass it along to the consumer also,

18:45

so Hefflefinger commented on that. Hefflefinger

18:48

commented on this. We

18:52

were discussing a plan taking

18:54

route in Oklahoma and elsewhere

18:56

of taking this is a little bit

18:58

complicated. Some white tailed

19:00

deer farmers, white tail deer ranchers that

19:03

hell you call them, that believe

19:05

they have some deer that are resistant to CWD,

19:09

meaning they'll have a population deer and some de just

19:11

don't get it. And

19:13

they're saying, hey, we should take these deer that don't get

19:15

it and seed wild populations

19:18

with our resistant deer in the hopes

19:20

of sort of speeding along or

19:22

making you

19:24

know, these deer have a g mutation that makes

19:26

them not so susceptible. Let's

19:29

put them out in the wild, and hopefully they'll breed

19:31

with wild deer and eventually we will create this CWD

19:34

resistant wild deer herds, which

19:36

just strikes me as like incredibly dubious

19:40

health. A finger says, deer with that genetic

19:42

combo are not resistant to

19:44

c w D. They just don't die as fast,

19:48

and it's not a good thing to have CWD

19:51

positive deer running around for a longer period

19:53

of time in the environment shutting infectious

19:56

prions. I can't remember if I decided on preons

19:58

or prions.

19:59

What do you say, primes?

20:01

Okay, so I'm gonna stick with the

20:04

Pandora's box is that when you intensively

20:06

select for those CWD

20:09

related genes in captivity, you are

20:11

also selecting for other genes that are

20:13

close to them on the same chromosome.

20:17

Genes that are physically close to one another

20:19

on the same chromosome are inherited

20:21

together at a higher rate. We

20:24

have no idea what those other

20:26

nearby genes are. They

20:29

might be genes that lower reproductive rate,

20:32

produce smaller antlers, a

20:34

higher susceptibility to other diseases.

20:37

Tameness, who knows.

20:41

It's just a bad idea to circumvent

20:43

natural selection for a lot of reasons, and this

20:45

would never move the needle on CWD

20:47

spread or prevalence in the wild.

20:50

These genes associated with deer surviving

20:53

longer with CWD are in fact increasing

20:55

in frequency in the wild populations

20:58

through natural selection, but very

21:00

slowly. Steve's point

21:03

is right. Ha, that's

21:05

my favorite part of the letter. I

21:08

don't even know what I said. This

21:11

makes me feel like when I

21:14

once every five years and I go bowling, and I always

21:16

get like at least one strike. Steve's

21:19

point is right that releasing a few more

21:21

of those animals from captivity is not going to

21:23

change gene frequencies in a free ranging

21:26

wild population and has the potential

21:28

to do harm. He goes on to

21:30

say, if you like Sonoran hot dogs, Guero,

21:36

which I do, well, I think that's what he's talking

21:38

about. Who's

21:40

gonna take a stab at this?

21:41

Guero Canelo?

21:43

Guero Canelo very

21:47

good, top ten and two

21:50

sound number one in his opinion, But prices

21:52

have gone up in a way that the exceeds the quality

21:54

of the food.

21:55

He says, no, no, no, no, Guero

21:57

Canelo is where I always take you. He's

21:59

giving you a

22:02

another option.

22:05

Yeah, we plugged Guero Canelo in

22:07

a Trivia episode.

22:08

Oh, and he's saying, las cerrita del roro,

22:11

h is a better Mexican

22:14

hot dog.

22:17

I think it's La care delro

22:20

but you're close. Is that as good? That's

22:22

in Tucson as well, Yes, where

22:25

the Snoran dogs are famous, and

22:27

it looks way different. And I think

22:29

he can didn't he read what goes

22:31

on there and what is?

22:36

Or he wrote sorry, but yep,

22:39

Jim, if you Jim's got his eyes on a

22:41

good Mexican hot dog. Another

22:48

rebuttal. This is a rebuttal from

22:50

Bubbly Doug.

22:51

We're gonna eat him in January.

22:52

Half a finger. Bubbly Doug are sort of the main

22:55

rebuttal generators and clarification generators,

23:00

but.

23:00

This is from Doug's splash like a friend.

23:02

Doug's friend you.

23:04

Doug's friend is very annoyed about something I said about

23:06

c w D. And I've said this, and I've said it

23:09

before. I don't love if I'll say it again. But there's

23:11

a there's a point I often make, and

23:13

and all it always irritates

23:16

some people, but I just I say

23:18

it because it's just it's a true feeling that I

23:20

have in discussing chronic

23:22

waste and disease in deer, I

23:25

often say the thing most

23:27

scary. This is not what I say, but I'm trying

23:29

to say it in cleaner terms.

23:33

What's horrifying to me is that some

23:37

hunter out there. It

23:41

horrifies me that some hunter out there would contract CWD

23:44

from a deer and it would jump the species

23:46

barrier. And so because it because

23:49

it's so alarming to me, it's so scary to me, I'll

23:52

often say that that I'll put some

23:55

statistic around it where I'll try to say, you

23:57

know, I might say something to the effect of ninety

24:00

percent of my concern about chronic waste

24:02

and diseases, it's going to pass to some that

24:05

some hunter is gonna get it. And if it were to jump the

24:07

species barrier, just it would just change deer

24:10

hunting. It would change deer management,

24:13

it would change deer hunting, it would change the perception

24:15

of deer, like we put a huge cultural

24:17

value on deer if they were this

24:19

thing that was causing you

24:23

know, like like these sort of like horrible

24:25

prolonged deaths from like prion

24:28

diseases and humans. I mean, it's it's just disgusting

24:30

to even think about. So when I track see

24:33

when I when I follow news about CWD

24:35

and try to advocate on behalf of research

24:37

around CWD and trying to stop the spread of

24:39

CWD. A huge part of my

24:41

motivation is that, like, it just makes

24:43

me sick to think about anyone,

24:48

my kids, whatever, somehow doing this

24:50

and the implication how it would affect my diet. That's

24:52

kind of like the main thing I'd like to eat. Dear

24:54

me, Uh,

24:56

this does not go over well with some people,

24:59

and don't Ug's friend who's

25:01

a landowner farmer in the state

25:03

of Washington. She

25:06

says, if Steve's biggest concern with CWD

25:08

is the potential risk to humans, it

25:11

feels contradictory to the values

25:13

he often expresses as a conservationist.

25:19

You could be a humanist and a conservation at

25:21

the same time. But back to

25:23

the letter, it gives the impression

25:25

that he values animal welfare less

25:27

than he claims, which

25:29

stands in contrast to his usual corn

25:32

arguments against vegans that he likely

25:34

cares more for animals and understands

25:36

them better than they do. It's

25:38

frustrating to hear him repeatedly say

25:40

that his greatest worry is the disease

25:43

jumping to humans when animal

25:45

welfare is at stake right now, it's

25:48

not just Doug who's upset about this, me too.

25:52

And she goes on as well to

25:55

counter my observation that if

25:58

another thing I've said about CWD, then we'renna leave.

26:00

I'm gonna leave the subject behind for a minute. Another thing I

26:02

will frequently say about CWD is

26:05

how can it be? Or why is it that

26:07

I'm so afraid of it jumping the species

26:10

barrier to humans. I

26:12

would feel that livestock

26:15

producers would

26:18

be more afraid than I am,

26:20

because, as I said, a

26:24

cow in

26:26

a sheep look

26:28

a hell of a lot more like a deer than I do.

26:31

All you gotta look at is like what happened with mad

26:33

cow disease written right, they can

26:35

imagine that across the entire United

26:37

States.

26:38

Correct what it would do to the cattle

26:40

ustry. And this person is

26:43

countering. She's

26:45

saying, I don't think they're not

26:47

worried about this. I

26:53

can't really do a tit for tat on that issue. I understand

26:55

what you're saying about animal welfare. I'm just

26:57

telling you a thing that like, like, for instance,

27:00

when my kids out playing in the road, okay,

27:05

and I get nervous that they're chasing

27:07

there, that they're that they go to chase their baseball

27:10

across the highway without

27:12

looking. And I'm like, man, the

27:14

main thing that worries me about my kid

27:17

chasing the ball across the highway

27:19

is that my kid will get hit by a car. Someone

27:21

would say like, well, that doesn't go with

27:24

your view as a conservationist, because why

27:26

are you not so worried about the deer that get hit

27:28

on the road. Aren't you worried about animal

27:30

welfare? I'm like, yes, not as worried any

27:32

about my kid get hit on the road.

27:34

Yeah.

27:34

I mean I read

27:36

this as like the only thing you're concerned

27:39

about is humans. But what I said, I

27:41

know, but that's what it kind

27:43

of sounds like she's saying here, like you can be

27:45

concerned about humans and worry about the

27:47

deer herds too.

27:48

Yeah. When I see a deer run across the room, I was like the

27:52

driver I freaked out on. I was in the

27:54

pastor's seat and I freaked out on. The guy'd be like, slow down,

27:57

dude, how do you know there's not more.

27:58

I think that she's just I think it's a she.

28:01

I don't know why it is because.

28:05

And the fact that he says she.

28:06

But I think she's pointing out that maybe

28:09

there's a constant O middle when

28:12

you talk about CWD, about that

28:14

part, I always qualify that part.

28:16

I also think it's hard to I

28:18

mean, the CWD

28:21

is going to be a lot worse for deer if

28:23

people get it from deer, Like, if

28:25

you're concerned about deer as a whole, if

28:28

it jumps the species barrier, CWD

28:30

is going to be a much worse outcome

28:32

for our white tail populations

28:35

as a whole.

28:35

And if it jumps the species, yeah,

28:37

if it jumps the species barrier into cattle,

28:40

and all of a sudden, we have to have the same conversations

28:43

about deer and CWD as

28:45

we do about free ranging buffalo

28:48

and cattle because of brucellosis. And

28:50

people are like, hey, man, if the

28:52

state owns the deer, keep those deer away

28:54

from my place.

28:56

Yeah, it's a it's

28:58

a much darker picture for not

29:00

only people, but the health of deer

29:02

as a whole if that were to happen.

29:04

And I don't omit. The other thing I don't

29:06

omit the other thing the same way. When I'm driving,

29:09

or I'm right in the car and I see a deer

29:11

cross and I see that the driver that I'm

29:13

with isn't thinking about how there's probably

29:15

some following it, and I'm like, dude, so now come

29:17

on. But

29:21

if I saw a kid run across the road, my reaction

29:24

is going to be even stronger. I'm

29:26

gonna get out and yelled the kid.

29:27

Yeah.

29:27

I think it's perfectly normal to be more worried about

29:29

your kids than deer.

29:33

Then you are worried about like the welfare

29:35

of a deer, or deer is

29:37

a population.

29:38

I do worry.

29:39

Yeah, let me ask you this.

29:40

I think it's pretty valid.

29:41

If I could guarantee you that it

29:44

would not jump the species barrier, but you

29:46

could get rid of it by snapping your fingers, would

29:48

you still get rid of CWD?

29:51

Oh? Yeah, I mean that's the course.

29:52

And let's say it's like you can you can be worried about

29:55

one thing more than the other, but still have

29:57

concern for cw

30:00

D as a problem for deer.

30:02

If we could spend money and get rid of EHD

30:05

in blue tongue, I'd be like, oh, let's go spend

30:07

the money and get rid of HD. In blue tongue, Yeah,

30:09

it's like it upsets any It upsets equilibrium

30:12

and causes a lot of trouble for deer hunters when their

30:14

area gets wiped out. It's like rags the

30:16

riches on deer populations, where you get a lot of deer and

30:18

all of a sudden you're like, well, we got a lot now, but now

30:21

that we got this many, just wait for EHD to come through

30:23

and then they'll be laying dead on the side of some pond. I

30:27

would still think we should spend much money, and like, here's

30:29

the thing too, from their perspective,

30:32

that's the reason I'm always advocating on research,

30:36

Like, knowing that there's that risk out there, study

30:38

the hell out of it. I think they should be.

30:41

I think there should be a lot of money getting pumped into studying

30:43

it. It's not like that perspective is not adversarial

30:46

to want to control what's

30:49

going on. Who

30:51

else to talk about?

30:52

Wolves?

30:53

Me?

30:58

Where do we start? Let

31:01

me ask you this question. Can I remind

31:04

you of something you told me the last time?

31:05

Oh?

31:05

Yeah, sure, the

31:08

last time you were on the show. And I

31:10

want to pick this up and have you extend that logic.

31:13

I want to see if you still feel that way, and if you

31:15

would extend it to Colorado and just

31:17

just run with this. You

31:20

said something that surprised me when you were on the show before.

31:23

You had said, had

31:28

we never did we

31:30

humans America's Americans? Whatever?

31:33

Had we never conducted had we decided

31:35

to not do a reintroduction

31:38

of wolves in Yellowstone

31:41

National Park in the frank Church Wilderness area,

31:43

meaning have we not gone and live

31:46

captured wolves elsewhere and

31:48

brought them to turn them loose? We

31:52

probably would have. I can't remember the exact way

31:54

you put it. We probably would have eventually

31:58

landed in the same spot we're at right

32:00

now. From natural migration.

32:03

Yes, I still feel that way. And

32:06

the only so wolves are expanding

32:09

globally in Canada. They're

32:11

all over the Midwest here in

32:13

our west Europe, and the

32:15

only place where wolves have been reintroduced

32:18

was Yellowstone and the frank

32:20

Church Mexican

32:22

wolves, red wolves. But wolves have globally

32:25

expanded without any reintroduction.

32:27

There's wolves in the Netherlands. Now, there's wolves

32:29

in Denmark. Nobody put them there.

32:31

Wolves have been getting there on their own

32:34

and the wolves did get to Colorado. They've

32:36

had the first reproduction I think it was twenty

32:38

twenty or twenty twenty one from Wyoming wolves,

32:41

and those wolves ended up boot them being killed,

32:43

but they were getting there on their own. And

32:46

I feel very strongly that where

32:48

Colorado is at since twenty

32:51

twenty is about where we were at in Montana

32:54

in nineteen seventy nine eighty when a

32:56

few wolves started walking

32:58

down on their own power from Canada and

33:01

slowly got a toe hold, so to speak,

33:04

and repopulated on their own.

33:08

Can you mentioned the Great Lakes? Can you move over?

33:10

Can we move over real quick to the Great Lakes? And you can touch

33:12

on that real quick? Talk

33:16

about that for a men like no reintroduction?

33:18

Right, if

33:20

we look at in the

33:23

northern Great Lakes, we have Minnesota,

33:27

Wisconsin, Michigan, anyone

33:29

else have a stable

33:31

viable population.

33:32

No Ile Royal. There was a recent

33:34

reintroduction to Ile Royal because

33:37

the wolves are dying out other than that

33:39

Michigan waters.

33:40

Yes, can you give

33:43

a little crash course on how were

33:46

they ever gone gone?

33:47

No?

33:48

Good question.

33:49

So when I left Minnesota in nineteen seventy

33:51

nine working with wolves, there was just

33:53

under a thousand wolves, nine hundred to one thousand wolves

33:55

in Minnesota. There was a handful

33:58

in Wisconsin, probably less than a dozen.

34:01

There was maybe twenty five in Isle Royal

34:03

that had gotten their late forties early fifties

34:05

by crossing the frozen Lake Superior ice

34:08

and that was it. And now there's

34:11

I'm trying to think of the numbers of wolves in the Midwest.

34:13

It's over a thousand, might be a couple thousand,

34:15

three thousand. I'm trying to think, have.

34:17

They been extirpated from Michigan.

34:20

Yes, they're extirpated from Michigan and Wisconsin.

34:23

They were never extirpated from Minnesota

34:25

because the northern fourth or third of the state

34:27

is too remote roadless, so there

34:30

always was a stronghold. And I'm trying to think.

34:32

You're not calling me a liar when I say that I saw

34:34

a wolf track in the eastern up

34:36

in nineteen ninety four.

34:37

Are no, no what I saw?

34:39

I fight you?

34:40

No.

34:40

Absolutely, I'm saying viable populations

34:43

breading reproducing established packs.

34:45

No.

34:45

Because my friend Dick Theo was documenting wolves

34:47

recovering to Wisconsin starting and I think I

34:50

think he saw his first wolf track in like seventy

34:52

two or seventy three, they were trying

34:54

and Michigan same thing. And actually

34:57

there was a reintroduction into Michigan

35:00

in the up. It's nineteen

35:03

seventy, seventy four to seventy

35:05

eight, somewhere in there. Seventy four you can read

35:07

about. It's in my book. And they took

35:10

four wolves from Minnesota and

35:12

they transplanted them, reintroduced

35:14

them to northern Michigan. It was during just

35:17

before deer seasons, were they really and they eventually

35:19

all four were killed pretty quickly, So

35:21

that.

35:22

What people guns, animal

35:24

rights people.

35:26

Failing sorry for him in the Michigan winters.

35:30

So that was actually the very first

35:32

wolf for introduction that I'm aware of, and people

35:34

don't.

35:35

Often who did that reinduction.

35:37

It was like the state was it

35:39

real hot politically at the time.

35:41

You you didn't know about it. I'd say, no, it wasn't

35:43

right.

35:43

It's no internet, right, no.

35:45

Internet, no Facebook and on social

35:48

media. So it was done. They

35:50

were held a little while in a pen

35:53

and then they were let go, and that was the model

35:55

for how they were going to reintroduce to wolf seat

35:57

to Yellowstone. So Yellowstone wasn't Yellowstone,

35:59

Ido. Wasn't the first reintroduction

36:02

Michigan.

36:03

Was they took them from Minnesota and put them in Michigan. Yes,

36:05

I'm from Michigan. I didn't know that.

36:07

Google it.

36:08

Try it Michigan wolf for introduction

36:10

if you're so,

36:13

and look in the seventies, I think seventy

36:15

four. So yeah, but none of them

36:17

made it. And it wasn't that they didn't know

36:19

how to hunter, didn't know how to find their

36:21

way around because they're wild wolves, just

36:23

that too many people with guns. So

36:26

anyway, that was you asked. That was the first. And

36:29

then of course our wolves were coming down into

36:32

Montana from the North Country

36:34

from Canada on their own.

36:35

What year were they so

36:40

in the Rockies? So let's leave the Upper

36:42

Midwest out of it. Yeah, so we'll go from

36:44

like the hundredths of Meridian west

36:46

or whatever. Kay, in

36:50

what year can

36:52

you say with some certainty there were no wolves

36:56

south of the Canadian border in

36:59

the whole west in the Yeah, in the whole West?

37:01

Well the statement so wolves

37:03

have always trickled down, So I can't

37:05

say there was never a wolf. But

37:07

in terms of a viable breeding surviving.

37:10

Oh no, no, I want to hear about that a little bit.

37:11

Okay, So by they say generally by the nineteen

37:14

thirties wolves were extirpated as

37:16

a viable population in the West. But

37:18

I know of individual people like

37:20

what you just said, who saw wolves, wolf

37:23

tracks a wolf. There

37:25

was a wolf shot in Glacier Park

37:27

in nineteen fifty three. There was another wolf

37:30

shot outside of Bulbridge in nineteen seventy.

37:32

There's individual shot, they get run over, they

37:34

show up. But in terms of

37:37

a viable, reproducing population, nineteen

37:39

thirties is pretty well the date that they've chosen.

37:42

Okay, But

37:44

since from nineteen thirty

37:48

up until they will come to focus on

37:51

when a vible population came Yeah, at any

37:53

time along that there could

37:55

have been singles that

37:57

would come down from camp.

37:58

Yeah, and I hearing from people

38:00

who live over on the on the Rocky Mountain

38:03

Front, the Blackfoot

38:05

Indian Reservation, Glacier Park, it's

38:07

pretty remote, inaccessible, badger

38:09

to med and people have seen

38:12

wolves there more

38:14

commonly than other parts of Montana. And then

38:16

of course they don't survive in eastern Montana because.

38:18

They got nowhere to hide.

38:19

They show up, boom, they're dead.

38:20

Got it.

38:21

So there's been a little bit, but not reproduction.

38:25

Okay, And then when

38:29

did they start coming down and getting a foothold? And how did

38:31

that? How did that work? They keep using

38:33

toll holding foothold, which.

38:34

Is which is there's They don't forget legholds

38:38

anyway, one of my better

38:40

tools. Sorry, did you

38:42

find it?

38:43

Yeah?

38:43

Go ahead.

38:44

A failed attempt by Northern Michigan University

38:46

and the Michigan DNR to reintroduce four

38:49

wolves to the Upper Peninsula occurred in nineteen

38:51

seventy four. See Eventually

38:55

wolves move from Wisconsin to Upper Michigan

38:57

following strong prey

39:00

populations in the early nineties. When'd

39:02

you see that wolf track?

39:03

I saw a wolf track in nineteen ninety four?

39:05

Eastern up that that corroborates

39:08

your your story, Try

39:12

and trap right again.

39:16

That's not far from the final resting place

39:18

of my dog, Duchess.

39:20

Wolves got her?

39:21

Huh Nope, two

39:23

guys named Ben and Matt got her. Oh man,

39:26

yep, well they were supposed

39:28

to. Oh oh, I gotch she was crippled

39:30

up. Oh god, sorry god,

39:32

HER's not the right word.

39:35

Thank you for the back job,

39:38

Brody.

39:38

Thanks.

39:41

So the question was oh

39:44

from nineteen so nineteen thirty there's around

39:47

nineteen thirty, there's no viable population

39:49

of wolves left in the lower in

39:52

the American West.

39:53

Yeah.

39:53

They even went in the parks with poisons and traps

39:55

and rifles and killed all the wolves inside

39:58

Yellowstone and Glacier and

40:00

all the parks. Yeah, they were pretty well gone. Coyotes

40:03

didn't disappear, but wolves did.

40:05

Why is that white

40:07

coyotes stick around?

40:09

I think because they're smaller, they

40:12

have a higher reproductive capacity, they breed

40:14

more often, they're breeding in smaller

40:16

units, and people weren't so focused

40:19

on eradicating coyotes. You

40:21

know, you see a wolf, by god, we've got to

40:23

kill every last one coyote like well whatever,

40:26

it just not doesn't it generate the emotional

40:28

impact of hatred?

40:30

Gotcha?

40:31

What about Mexican gray wolves?

40:32

Were they always?

40:33

Were there always some north of the border or had

40:35

they been eliminated?

40:38

Also?

40:38

It's interesting, so the Mexican wolves

40:41

were basically eliminated except

40:43

in Mexico, and there were a few into

40:46

the southwest, Arizona and New

40:49

Mexico right at the border area. They

40:51

captured every last one. Then they could fund

40:53

find out of the wild. Roy McBride

40:56

went there and I think the last wild capture

40:58

was about nineteen seventy early

41:00

ninety seventies, and they

41:02

moved them into captive breeding facilities

41:05

to help build up the species,

41:07

but their founding population was

41:10

seven. There's

41:12

a lot of genetic concerns obviously

41:14

with a bottleneck of seven. So

41:17

they're always managing and manipulating them

41:19

to try and maximize genetic diversity,

41:21

including taking pups from captivity

41:24

at a young age and then

41:26

finding a den in the wild

41:28

where the mothers got wild pups, and they'll

41:30

go sneak a couple of the captive

41:32

pups like ten days old. However, really

41:34

and with a while once because that has

41:36

the desirable genetics.

41:38

Yeah, I mean, what's that bird? Does that?

41:41

A coward?

41:41

Right?

41:43

They call them a parasite though, instead of an improvement.

41:45

Okay, so

41:49

yeah, So.

41:49

The Mexican wolf, they were pretty well

41:52

gone. And interestingly, one of my first years

41:54

in the Northwark I think it was nineteen eighty, Chuck Johnkle

41:56

brought up a Mexican carnivore

41:59

biologist, Pepe Trevino, and

42:01

he showed me a polar eight you know, photograph

42:04

he brought up of a wolf. It was like in

42:06

a barn or a shed, and he said,

42:08

is that a wolf? Well, yeah, he says, and

42:11

I know it's a wild one because this

42:13

is a Mexican wolf from the Chiuaua area

42:16

of Mexico and it was coming

42:18

to a ranch and it was a

42:20

male wolf and it was bringing deer

42:22

legs and meat to the ranch

42:25

dog, who was a female on spade

42:27

because it was the last mate choice out

42:29

there, and they ended up the rancher

42:32

could have just killed it, everybody did, but he didn't.

42:34

He called some authority said if you don't come take this wolf

42:36

away, we're going to kill it. So they went and captured

42:39

it and held it in his barn until they moved it to

42:41

the zoo. But it's kind of a sad story,

42:44

yeah, the very last one.

42:46

Yeah. But we played

42:48

this on this podcast

42:51

some time ago and it was

42:54

some bird from was I think of some bird

42:56

from Hawaii and

42:59

it was the I

43:01

can't remember some bird species and it was just

43:03

down to one. It was down to a male or a female

43:06

and this bird species with duet

43:10

I heard it. Yeah, And so they

43:12

have this recording of the last

43:15

bird. Let's say it was a male, the

43:18

last male of the species doing the

43:20

duet without his without accompaniment,

43:23

because he like does his part and you wait and

43:25

the female supposed to Yeah,

43:27

and it was gone.

43:28

I heard that.

43:28

It's kind of terrors at you a little bit.

43:30

Yeah.

43:30

Yeah.

43:33

Have you ever heard a guy named Frank Glazer.

43:36

Old Pilot, different guy

43:38

Don, that was Don Glazier, No, I haven't.

43:40

He has a book

43:42

called Alaska's Well, there's a book about him called

43:44

Alaska's Wolfman, huh.

43:46

And he had gone up to He

43:49

gone out to Alaska very early and was a market

43:51

hunter for people building roads and people

43:53

building railroads and whatever, and eventually

43:56

just became this very accomplished

43:59

hunter. And at the time they were

44:01

trying to get they were

44:03

trying to do economic improvement for

44:06

Eskimo groups in northwest

44:09

Alaska, and part of this economic

44:11

improvement plan was to introduce reindeer

44:14

herding, which never never

44:16

really took so

44:19

as they were trying to go into

44:21

Eskimo communities and the fads

44:24

are trying to get Eskimo

44:26

communities establish

44:29

raindeer populations, but they're having the hell of the time

44:31

with wolves, and so Frank

44:34

Glazer, in addition to

44:36

a lot of aerial gunning, was

44:39

doing bait operations

44:43

and he would go into an area

44:45

and get them poison bait yep, strict

44:48

nine. He'd be able to go get them

44:50

all.

44:51

Yes.

44:51

In his book he talks a lot about all the other stuff that would

44:53

turn up at the bait pile,

44:56

a lot of stuff, but it was so affect that he doesn't

44:58

talk about its effectiveness with pois in this

45:00

way, but it was so effective.

45:03

He has some anecdotes in there where he gets them all

45:06

and then someone will say,

45:08

there's this part of it where an Eskimo tells him

45:10

that he saw it's like seven come across

45:13

the ice and it was like six

45:15

white wolves and a black wolf. And

45:17

a couple days later he goes to his bait pile. There's

45:21

six white wolves and a black wolf at the bait

45:23

pile. Just very effective, yes, yeah,

45:26

And even talked about you want to set it on a

45:28

high knob like he's got like he

45:30

took like a real approach to it, you

45:33

know, like he was good at

45:35

poison and wolves.

45:36

He's a good predator, good at poison

45:39

wolf.

45:39

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean poisonous.

45:41

How they wiped the wolves out of the West. It wasn't

45:43

so much traps and guns it was poison. How

45:46

else are you going to get every last one? That's

45:49

it?

45:49

Yeah, when

45:52

they started coming down, what eventually

45:54

what factors eventually led them to you

45:58

know what, what factors led them to kind of get

46:00

a toe hold? Was it ESA protection

46:02

where you were where people were more

46:05

afraid to shoot them because they'd get in a bunch of trouble.

46:08

Yeah, I think I mean Rachel Carson

46:10

and you know, the whole wave of ecology

46:13

and being environmentally a where it started in the late

46:15

sixties, and then the ESA came about, the

46:17

Act came out seventy three, I think

46:19

the final version. Wolves were protected in seventy

46:22

four, and there was just a little

46:24

change of mindset. And the interesting thing

46:26

was that they would find the north

46:28

Fork of the Flathead, you know, right along glacier.

46:30

Because back in the seventies, people

46:33

like myself and other people, they just wanted

46:35

to move to a quiet place where there were a few people

46:38

and could enjoy wildlife and have a simpler life. They

46:40

weren't laggers or hunters

46:42

or ranchers. Well, there were some, there were some, but

46:44

mostly just sort of go back to earthers

46:46

and have a better quality life. So they didn't

46:49

mind wolves, and these wolves happened to find

46:51

that valley, that corridor of

46:53

tolerance, and they that's how

46:55

they found their way. They didn't work on the Rocky

46:57

mount Front, it didn't work in eastern montann

47:00

it didn't work.

47:00

And I know because of cattle, yes.

47:03

And so they found this little zone and they

47:05

were able to one came, and then

47:08

two years later her male came

47:10

and they made it. And then more wolves come

47:12

down. But it was the tolerance of

47:14

the local community that found wolves interesting

47:17

and novel versus dangerous

47:19

and threatening.

47:20

Where were you? Then?

47:21

I came to that valley in nineteen seventy

47:24

nine, the first wolf that survived

47:26

that we got a radio collar on Kishnina. She

47:29

arrived in nineteen the

47:31

fall of seventy eight. We put

47:33

a radio collar in April fourth, nineteen seventy

47:35

nine, and I trapped there for

47:38

forever, just trying to catch more wolves. And there

47:40

weren't other wolves until about two

47:42

years later when this male came down

47:44

and joined her. But the meantime, you

47:46

know, she wanted her out looking for a female

47:49

like that poor bird in the wale. Yeah, looking

47:51

for a male, right, And eventually

47:53

found one and they made it and had

47:56

the pops and so forth. So that process

47:58

just they filtered on

48:01

their own four paws without any

48:03

assistance whatsoever, and no fanfare and

48:05

no people from Washington,

48:07

d C. Carrying crates and they just they

48:09

just walk down. And I think that's why they

48:11

made it there was just socially

48:13

acceptable and tolerant because it wasn't

48:16

forced on anybody.

48:18

You tell that story in your book. Yeah, how

48:20

did you get a collar on that? Or was it collers

48:22

at the time or so.

48:23

The British Columbia Barry

48:26

researcher Bruce McLellan's been up

48:28

doing embarrassed. He's now retired, but he

48:30

saw the wolves and wolf tracks and he contacted

48:32

Bob Riem at the university and Bob

48:36

hired a wolf trapper from Minnesota, Joe

48:38

Smith. Uncommon name, but it was Joe Smith.

48:41

And he came out and set

48:43

traps and caught that wolf. And then I

48:45

came out in September to replace

48:49

the crew that was there and follow her, and I

48:51

was a trapper and to try and catch more wolves.

48:54

And that's kind of how it started. So she

48:56

was already collared, although I know some there

48:58

had one neighbor who didn't really

49:01

like wolves and said that I brought the wolf with me,

49:03

which you know, or

49:05

that a sled dog got loose but

49:08

slid. You know, you don't see sled dogs that are

49:10

three feet off the shoulder with yellow eyes.

49:11

I mean, it's just all the stuff.

49:13

But that was how they got there.

49:15

They walked and she had to come along ways because

49:17

they poisoned off wolves in southern

49:19

BC and Alberta in the

49:22

rockies, just like they did in the States,

49:24

because they were afraid of rabies. And they started poisoning

49:26

wolves in the sixties, late sixties, and

49:28

so.

49:28

There was a zone they were at it late.

49:30

Yeah, there was a.

49:31

Zone when there weren't wolves along the border. There

49:33

weren't wolves in Waterton and vanmf. So this first

49:35

wolf, Chrishtina, may have come from as far as

49:38

Josper, but she came quite a ways. We

49:40

didn't have genetic resources

49:42

back then to determine where she came from.

49:44

Of course now we could if we'd had a sample, but we

49:46

don't have a sample.

49:50

Did you when you say

49:52

you were a wolf trapper, then were you

49:54

trapping problem

49:56

wolves too?

49:59

Yes? No,

50:01

I don't mind at all when I.

50:03

So or whatever word you want to.

50:05

Do well, you'll enjoy the chapter north

50:07

Holm in the book, but did you like the North Holme chapter?

50:10

So I started working with

50:12

wolves as a sty eyed, waistlink

50:14

blonde haired hippie wolf hugging lady

50:17

and I.

50:18

Came from Niver want me through that descriptor

50:20

now story.

50:24

I was a bit enamored

50:26

with wolves. I was a university college student

50:29

Dave Meach, who's like the wolf god. He's

50:31

still working full time at eighty six studying

50:33

wolves. He's published more scientific

50:36

papers than anybody I know. Anyway, I got

50:38

to work on his captive project and

50:40

then I got to go to northern Minnesota and work, and

50:42

I learned how to catch and collar wolves and track

50:44

them. And then I was hired

50:46

as a year after this, so I'm pretty early

50:49

in my career. In nineteen seventy nine, I was hired

50:51

as a livestock depredation

50:53

control trapper and research trapper.

50:56

So when there weren't wolves

50:58

killing livestock, I went out and form and

51:00

collared wolves that were just wild and added to

51:02

the database for stie Fritz was post

51:04

docking PhD stuff. So my job

51:08

picture you live in North Holme. Picture, you're

51:10

a conservative guy from Michigan with

51:12

a few cows and you have a few acres and

51:14

some young blonde galoy's going

51:16

to come up and save you from.

51:18

The wolves, right.

51:19

I mean it was a hard roto. So

51:23

that was my job and I

51:26

learned so much that summer. It was so

51:28

important to my career development

51:30

and having me be in the middle finger as you described,

51:33

of behavior of

51:36

public wolves reaction

51:38

on my part. So there were truly

51:41

farmers, they don't call them Rochester farmers

51:43

that had chronic depredation problems and there were some

51:45

farmers that had none. I worked with both,

51:48

but getting into that community was

51:51

real challenging, and I

51:54

could tell stories forever about that.

51:57

How would you generally handle those situations?

52:00

Okay, example, I try to use

52:02

there's no point in feeding them a lot

52:04

of scientific data.

52:07

They don't care. You just have to work with

52:09

them and develop a relationship. I use my

52:11

sense of humor. There was like, for example,

52:13

I was working in there and I

52:15

kind of stayed on my own and I tried to stay

52:17

away from people, just do my job because

52:20

I was young in inexperience and I kind of didn't

52:22

want them to know that.

52:23

Right.

52:24

Well, one day I'm at the gas station that a

52:26

guy pumping gas. They've actually pumped your

52:28

gas back. Then says, you know, you got to pick

52:31

up the local paper and see what Bing wrote

52:33

about you. I said, well, who's Bing girl.

52:36

He's what he's like close to

52:38

God. He writes our local news column

52:40

and the weekly paper, and he knows all the goings

52:42

on. So I go buy the paper

52:44

and I open it up and there's

52:47

being being Elhard's column

52:49

and he talks about who visited who and what they

52:51

were having the church bazaar at and then he says,

52:53

and by the way, we have a

52:56

new community member. There's

52:58

an attractive, young blonde lady

53:00

wolf Trapper. And

53:03

next exact quote and next

53:05

to his words, he had

53:08

a photograph of a six foot

53:10

tall cardboard cut out wolf

53:12

and he's got his arm around it and is sitting outside

53:15

at his house and he says, Lady wolf

53:17

Trapper, I have a problem. Wolf's

53:21

like, what do you do?

53:22

Right?

53:22

I'm twenty four years old. I'm like, oh my God,

53:25

and knowing that how I deal with this

53:27

guy is going to make or break my summer.

53:29

So I thought about it really hard. I

53:33

went home. I mate took out a bunch of cardboard

53:35

and tools, and I built a

53:37

perfect replica of a nun

53:40

fourteen new house wolf trap,

53:42

complete with double long springs made out

53:44

of cardboard and a fake chain made like your kids

53:47

make the Christmas loop chains. And I wrapped

53:49

it in black electric tape so it looked like it had been

53:51

dyed black like a real trap. And I got

53:53

a jar of my stinkiest wolf bait and I crammed

53:55

it full of cardboard. I drive to

53:57

his house the next day and I pulled up

54:00

in the government truck and he comes out in

54:02

his porch and he kind of stands there it smirks,

54:04

and he crosses his arm and says,

54:06

well, you must be the lady wolf trapper.

54:09

And I said, yes, sir, I am. Please meet

54:11

you. I'm Diane Boyd. And he says, say

54:13

you get to take care of my problem wolf. I

54:16

said, I am. And I walk around the back of my truck

54:18

and I pull out this cardboard trap

54:21

and the corrugated cardboard stinky goo.

54:23

And I walk over and I say, so

54:25

this this trap, in this bait,

54:28

will I guarantee we will catch

54:30

yours particular subspecies of wolf

54:32

that's causing you your problem. And I reach

54:34

out with it like this, and he stands

54:37

there and he looks at me like for Mediani

54:39

five feet away, and

54:41

he just kind of stands there, and then finally he

54:43

breaks. Soon his granny comes over and he puts

54:46

his hand on my shoulder, says, come on in. The

54:48

wife just took a pie out of the oven, and

54:51

I sat there and had blueberry pie

54:54

with him and tea and coffee,

54:56

and we chatted quite a bit. And the next

54:58

week in his column put a photograph

55:01

of my trap and he said, the

55:03

lady Trapper come paid me a visit, and

55:05

my problems taken care of. And you know what, he

55:07

actually said some nice things about me in his

55:09

column. With the rest of the summer, when I'd catch a wolf, he'd

55:12

put it in the column. And so it's

55:14

like, that's how I work in the community. You can't

55:16

fight it. Just put

55:18

your head down, think hard, and move forward

55:21

and try and do something a little creative. Just

55:23

you asked. That's just one of the stories.

55:25

But yeah, that's good career advice

55:27

for everybody.

55:29

Just be a pain in the neck.

55:33

When that was happening and the wolves were coming

55:36

down, Let's talk about that scenario

55:38

that you said. You know, we might have

55:40

eventually landed where we landed.

55:42

There's no way it would have been the same timeline.

55:44

Right, Probably not, But you

55:46

know, once so once

55:48

we had our first wolf in seventy nine. By

55:51

nineteen ninety five without any reintroductions,

55:54

just simply not trapping, poisoning and shooting

55:56

them. By nineteen ninety five,

55:59

just before the post wolves in the Yellowstone

56:01

in central Idol, we had seventy seventy

56:03

five wolves in eight packs with nobody

56:05

reintroducing them. Doc northwest

56:08

Montana Marion nine

56:10

mile callous spell all through

56:12

northwestern and western Montana.

56:15

The Marian wolves became famous because they started

56:18

killing livestock in the It

56:20

was about late late eighties, so they

56:23

were there and because nobody

56:26

forced them out, they were just kind of existing.

56:28

In those wolves that cause problems, you know,

56:30

shoot shovels shot up, and the other ones kind

56:32

of left to be. So in

56:34

the nineties there were wolves dispersing.

56:37

One of my telling those numbers again, so

56:39

the number of wolves, yeah, pre reintroduction.

56:42

So by nineteen ninety five there

56:44

were about seventy to seventy five wolves in Montana

56:47

in eight packs. And if you go back to the old

56:49

US fish and Wilife Service website.

56:51

You can find the data there. It's published. I'm not making

56:53

this up. I mean I don't. I only

56:56

talk truth and my book is Stories

56:58

of Truth. So they were there.

57:00

They had collars on. Sometimes this

57:02

one pack was giving a guy at livestock

57:05

producer problems, but mostly they were

57:07

just making a living. There were wolves on the Rocky Mountain

57:09

front. They were moving down

57:12

and they were as far as Missoula, the Nine Mile

57:14

Wolves, I'm sure you heard of them. So

57:16

the wolves before they were introduced

57:18

them to Yellowstone, there were two wolves

57:21

that had gotten there already pre nineteen

57:23

ninety five. One was shot

57:25

just south of Fox.

57:27

Creek fire you had gotten a Yellowstone.

57:29

Yeah, and one was filmed, yes, So that was

57:31

like nineteen ninety one ninety two. So

57:34

it's just like Colorado. Those wolves

57:36

came from Wyoming and Colorado

57:38

now and they found their way down

57:41

and they began reproducing, and

57:43

then the reintroduction happed on top of it, which

57:45

is what happened with Wyoming. With a

57:48

Yellowstone in central Idahole. So the wolves

57:50

were starting to get down and the reintroduction

57:52

happened on top of them. But the two that were seeing

57:56

didn't survive long enough to reproduce. They weren't

57:58

viable, they didn't have packs. They were just sort

58:00

of passing through, just like we saw in Montana

58:03

a lot prior to Kishnina

58:05

and the successful breeding.

58:09

Uh, it's gonna sound like a

58:11

dumb question because I know it's probably

58:13

not too challenging, but uh,

58:16

when they kill Kyle's what when they kill Kyle's

58:18

how do they generally approach it?

58:21

You mean domestic cattle, not Kyle.

58:23

Sorry, yeah, kill cattle.

58:25

It depends on how many wolves are, depends

58:27

on the experience of the wolves. But in every kill

58:29

is different. I just remember in Minnesota I had to go skin

58:32

a lot of really disgusting, maggotty carcasses

58:34

of cows and haffers. If it's a calf,

58:36

they basically eat at all, so there's not much

58:38

to fined. You might find an ear tag

58:40

in a pile of scat or something, it's

58:43

hard to prove they were there. But

58:45

the big cole, you find bites. They're

58:48

pretty effective predators. It again,

58:51

the hind, the belly,

58:54

the neck. Sometimes they're not.

58:57

They're not efficient killers

58:59

like lions. I mean lions live

59:01

alone because they can kill an Alkalholm. A wolf

59:03

pack needs other members because they don't have

59:06

fit sabers on four pods to help them

59:08

hold and contain their prey. They just have teeth.

59:11

Do they key in on calving

59:14

season for cattle?

59:15

I have always wondered why they don't more? I

59:17

mean they can, yeah,

59:20

because.

59:20

It seemed like those wolves that were reintroduced

59:22

in Colorado. Yeah, just this past

59:25

Calvia, they really that's when they really

59:27

started to get in some trouble.

59:29

Yes, and those wolves

59:32

before they were transplanted,

59:34

they were livestock killers. So yeah,

59:37

if there's calves around and cattle

59:40

wolves, you will know there are wolves

59:42

there. If you know, if you're gonna have problems, you have

59:44

them. But not every wolf is a livestock

59:47

killer. And sometimes they might

59:49

kill a calf or two and never have a problem.

59:51

Sometimes they might come in and kill repeatedly

59:53

until you remove the wolves. It really depends

59:55

on the situation, and it kind of depends on

59:57

how their ranchers managing

1:00:00

their livestock herd. Do they ever heard or out there?

1:00:02

Do they have guard dogs? Are they turned out

1:00:04

in a national forest and a grazing lease in

1:00:06

May and then they're not picked up till October nobody

1:00:09

looks at them. I mean, you know, it really

1:00:11

depends on the management of the stock a lot.

1:00:15

Uh. You just said something

1:00:17

that I can't

1:00:19

remember with the hell you're talking about,

1:00:23

but it caught my attention. Oh,

1:00:25

I know, can can one

1:00:28

I guess what I was kind of getting at. Can

1:00:30

one do it effectively?

1:00:33

Depends and if you're talking or can they kill it one

1:00:35

adult? Coll effect?

1:00:36

Can one wolf kill one adult kyle? Do you ever see?

1:00:38

That'd be tough. The kyle would probably have to

1:00:40

have something wrong with it, but it's

1:00:42

usually more than one.

1:00:44

And then you just get a hold of it and hang on to it.

1:00:46

Basically.

1:00:47

Yeah.

1:00:48

Yeah, When did.

1:00:50

You say that Colorado put in known livestock

1:00:52

killers. Yeah, explain

1:00:56

what that means. And if that's like you're not in

1:00:58

your head that is that behavior?

1:01:00

Do you feel like it's

1:01:02

hard to unlearn that?

1:01:03

What I would say is, if I wanted to reintroduce

1:01:05

wolves with minimal problems, I would see

1:01:09

wolves that have only had wild meat.

1:01:11

It's like the wolves that were introduced to Yellowstone

1:01:14

and Central Idaho were taken from Canada where

1:01:16

they had never been exposed to livestock,

1:01:18

but they had never been exposed to buffalo either.

1:01:21

I mean, they're pretty good at killing bison now they

1:01:23

had to learn it because they're very formidable.

1:01:25

I wouldn't want to try and kill a bison with my teeth.

1:01:28

But so I think

1:01:31

I don't know all the background and why they

1:01:33

chose those wolves. They probably had a shortage

1:01:35

supplies and a shortage of time

1:01:38

to get the job done, and they had this opportunity

1:01:40

to get those wolves. They weren't all livestock

1:01:43

killers, but the ones that are causing the

1:01:45

problem now had a history before

1:01:47

they were put there.

1:01:50

What is the I'm a little I

1:01:52

haven't followed it as closely. What

1:01:55

is going on with the ones they put in Colorado?

1:01:57

Like, how has that gone? How many and what are they

1:01:59

doing?

1:01:59

Oh boy, it's a big exact numbers. I

1:02:01

couldn't tell you. I'm not that involved. But there's

1:02:03

a male I forgot

1:02:06

his number. They put him in and he's paired

1:02:08

with a female. They had at least one pup,

1:02:10

and I saw on my news fees this morning they've seen

1:02:12

three, now three pups

1:02:14

in this particular pack, but they had only documented

1:02:17

one up until yesterday or whatever. And

1:02:19

they were put in at the end of the year,

1:02:22

like December or so, and they

1:02:24

started killing livestock in April.

1:02:26

I believe it was when the pups were born. And

1:02:29

they're now

1:02:31

debating how are they going to manage the situation.

1:02:34

They no matter what CPW

1:02:36

does, they aren't be a happy,

1:02:38

winning outcome, because if they remove

1:02:40

all the wolves and kill them all, you're gonna have the

1:02:43

wolf protectionists screaming

1:02:45

at him. If they don't do anything, they're gonna

1:02:47

have the livestock growers scream at him if they take

1:02:50

I actually had this conversation with the journalist yesterday.

1:02:53

He says, well, how about if we just take one,

1:02:56

say we know the male has been a livestock

1:02:58

killer, can the female survive

1:03:01

long and protect and feed those

1:03:03

pups without help? And

1:03:06

I said, well, I can give you two examples. In

1:03:08

nineteen eighty two, when Kishnina

1:03:10

had her first litter of pups in the Flathead in

1:03:12

fifty years, her

1:03:15

mate was killed in June and those pups were

1:03:18

seven eight weeks old, and he

1:03:21

was killed accidentally by the Grizzly bear

1:03:24

trap people. She was caught in a Grizzly

1:03:26

bersonaire and he subsequently

1:03:28

died accidental

1:03:31

death and still just as dead

1:03:33

though, so the female had Yeah, so

1:03:36

doesn't him. It's kind of like got

1:03:38

your dog right. Anyway, the

1:03:40

female had seven pups to deal with,

1:03:42

and he raised kids, and you raised

1:03:46

dogs. You know how much food they start to

1:03:48

consume as they become teenagers. Oh my god,

1:03:50

talk about a full time job trying to feed seven

1:03:53

growing pups that are fifty sixty pounds by

1:03:55

fall, and I thought they're not can never make

1:03:57

it. They all made it through winter. We

1:04:00

were seeing tracks of eight wolves

1:04:02

in the snow. So there's one example.

1:04:04

The other example was so that was keeping

1:04:07

the female remaining. And then in the nine Mile

1:04:09

in the early recolonization, those

1:04:11

wolves got to nine Mile, Montana on their own

1:04:14

near Missoula. The male and female

1:04:16

had pups. The mother was poached

1:04:18

over Memorial Day, which is pretty early. So

1:04:20

those little guys were maybe

1:04:23

four maybe five weeks old. They

1:04:25

were probably still drinking milk from mom, but

1:04:27

they already had getting regurgitated food certainly,

1:04:30

so it only had the male to raise the whole litter of

1:04:32

pops. And Mike and Mannis

1:04:35

who was studying him at that time, and Barto,

1:04:37

Gary University, do you know, bloody bart

1:04:39

Barto Gary.

1:04:41

He's passed now, but he was the

1:04:43

most vary, the most voracious

1:04:46

hunter right now.

1:04:46

We loved him. He's a university exactly.

1:04:48

We call him Bloody Bart.

1:04:50

I can tell you stories.

1:04:51

He whatever he shot, he would kill. So he had

1:04:53

the had permission to go shoot

1:04:55

deer or pick up roadkill to supplemently

1:04:58

feed those pups because they were fully

1:05:00

in danger. This would be like nineteen eighty eight

1:05:02

or so to do anything fishing.

1:05:04

Walley Service was mandated under

1:05:07

the essay to do what they could to keep

1:05:09

them alive as an endangered species. So they got

1:05:11

these permits to go do that. That

1:05:13

male raise those pups without a female,

1:05:15

and they all survived. So yes, the wolves

1:05:18

are incredibly resilient. So then

1:05:20

this journalist asked me yesterday, so should

1:05:22

they take the male or the female? I'm like, oh

1:05:24

my god, you're asking me a Sophie's choice

1:05:27

question.

1:05:27

I can't tell you.

1:05:30

And you know, we talked about it at

1:05:32

length. And starting with two

1:05:35

wolves adults that have both been killing

1:05:37

livestock, and then you're going to take one

1:05:39

wolf away to try

1:05:41

and hopefully minimize it, you might be

1:05:43

causing more of a problem because the remaining

1:05:46

parent now has the burden

1:05:48

solely of feeding hungry pops,

1:05:50

and maybe it's going to kill more livestock

1:05:52

because of that.

1:05:53

And those pups are going to learn to do it too.

1:05:55

Yeah, this is the problem. So it's I

1:05:58

just think maybe thinking

1:06:01

ahead a little bit ahead

1:06:03

of time may have headed

1:06:06

this problem off. But it's amazing to me that

1:06:08

all those wolves they put out, they only had one

1:06:10

reproducing pack. You think they would have had

1:06:12

more. But this is a problem.

1:06:14

How many did they put down?

1:06:15

Ten total? I think?

1:06:17

And then are all ten still alive?

1:06:19

One of them got killed by a mountain lion, which is

1:06:21

kind of ironic. It's usually the.

1:06:23

Other way around.

1:06:24

Yeah, yeah, but I'm not there

1:06:26

may have been another one that died

1:06:28

somehow.

1:06:29

The mountain lion got one. I think I knew that.

1:06:31

Maybe I forgot it, but I think most of them are

1:06:34

still.

1:06:34

There, and they formed one reproducing pack.

1:06:36

Yeah, it's surprising to me because they did it

1:06:39

before breeding season and then they'll be reintroducing

1:06:41

more wolves. And of course you heard Washington State

1:06:44

is now refusing to give them more wolves. It's becoming

1:06:46

this huge political.

1:06:48

But they got I thought they got him from the nets person there.

1:06:50

They got him from Oregon originally

1:06:53

and one of the well not the state, might have been

1:06:55

the nests person that originally said yes,

1:06:57

we'll contribute to but that just got

1:07:00

They just said we're not doing it

1:07:02

right.

1:07:04

One they had from Oregon, I

1:07:06

think state in the state, but

1:07:09

I wasn't the new ones. Weren't they going to get

1:07:11

the next batch from Washington? Wasn't it was?

1:07:14

I think it was it was a tribe

1:07:17

where that whoever it was, just

1:07:19

said Nope, we're out.

1:07:21

We're not doing What is the argument to not

1:07:23

let them have them?

1:07:25

Politics?

1:07:25

I'm sure explain the politics. You

1:07:32

know it's politics, but you don't know what.

1:07:35

She doesn't study politics.

1:07:38

So I'm just saying every decision made about

1:07:40

wolves is based on politics. It's not

1:07:43

based on biology.

1:07:44

So why of

1:07:46

course, because biology is

1:07:49

largely politics. When

1:07:51

people say like I don't want to be political or everything's.

1:07:54

Political, everything is political.

1:07:56

There's nothing that's not political, right,

1:07:59

I mean every decision is political. I know,

1:08:01

creating national Force was intensely political.

1:08:04

Yeah, Like, what's not political?

1:08:08

I mean most actions are taken by elected

1:08:10

representatives in this country or

1:08:12

appointed appointed

1:08:14

by elected.

1:08:16

Everything is I know, we

1:08:18

don't have to go there.

1:08:20

No I mean, but it's like I don't like earlier, I had

1:08:22

a headache and I took two ivy profen that

1:08:24

are like two hundred and fifty milligram ibuprofene.

1:08:26

The fact that you can go by two hundred fifty

1:08:28

gram milligram ivy profen

1:08:30

is I don't know the history on it. That's probably

1:08:32

political, Oh, no, doubt.

1:08:36

So I would guess because there's I would

1:08:38

guess that because the Colorado

1:08:40

reintroduction has had a lot

1:08:42

of problems.

1:08:43

The Native Americans say yeah, I'm

1:08:45

sorry, and.

1:08:45

The Native Americans are probably saying, you know, we just

1:08:48

don't want to deal with it. So I wrote

1:08:50

A I was telling you honest. I wrote A was

1:08:52

asked to write a document for the National Walley

1:08:54

Federation about

1:08:57

Wolve's returning to Colorado. And it's basically

1:08:59

called less and is learned from everywhere else for

1:09:02

the Colorado can use as a base

1:09:04

as a template for reintroductions, and

1:09:07

sixty pages long. It's on It's

1:09:09

on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website.

1:09:11

Is that in a in your book?

1:09:13

No, No, it's not.

1:09:16

It's stabled into the end of your book.

1:09:17

No.

1:09:18

Maybe you can read the audio version of that when.

1:09:22

God anyway, it

1:09:24

laid out all of the problems that challenges

1:09:27

people have had elsewhere where the wolves are

1:09:29

coming back on their own or reintroduced,

1:09:31

How agencies federal and state dealt

1:09:33

with them, how local communities dealt with them,

1:09:36

how conservation groups and

1:09:38

and uh a DC or

1:09:40

animal it's no longer that. Now it's wildlife

1:09:42

services work together sometimes

1:09:45

or not. Just all these things. There's

1:09:47

a template. There's nothing that needs to be

1:09:49

reinvented about wolves being on the landscape.

1:09:52

It's it's old hat.

1:09:54

So this is pretty interesting. The Colorado

1:09:56

things, Yeah, the

1:09:58

they were going to get them from the Colville Nation fifteen

1:10:01

of the moment, that's Washington, Washington. The

1:10:03

Colville Nation said no because

1:10:06

Colorado Parks and Wildlife wouldn't

1:10:08

agree to give the Southern You Tribe

1:10:12

like management over wolves

1:10:14

on the Southern You tribes.

1:10:16

Oh, political

1:10:18

out of tribal solid area.

1:10:21

That that's an interesting point. Thank you for

1:10:23

clear that clarification. I knew it had something to

1:10:25

do with people, and I knew it wasn't.

1:10:27

Yeah, I bet it had

1:10:29

something to do always.

1:10:34

I want to get back into some of this. I want to ask you another

1:10:36

question that that Karin highlighted, it's

1:10:39

a good one. Uh, you're

1:10:42

familiar with the like with

1:10:44

grizzly bears, you're from with the distinct population

1:10:47

segments. Okay, that there's so they

1:10:49

it's kind of like looking at part

1:10:52

of this whole idea is with grizzly

1:10:54

bears is being like, Okay, when we're talking about grizzly

1:10:56

bears being on the landscape,

1:10:59

where could they actually be?

1:11:02

Like what areas could actually support bears?

1:11:04

Right?

1:11:05

I mean ecologically?

1:11:06

Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a handful of everythings. But

1:11:08

I was gonna bring up that there's a there's a distinct population

1:11:11

segment that doesn't have bears, but it

1:11:13

could where

1:11:15

it's.

1:11:16

The bitter Well

1:11:18

they've taken getting there.

1:11:20

Yeah, they're getting there.

1:11:22

And there was at a time there's talk of putting them there.

1:11:24

Yes, Okay, so if

1:11:28

you were gonna

1:11:33

maybe I set that up the wrong way. Let me just let me skip

1:11:35

all that crap about the DPS.

1:11:36

Okay, if if

1:11:38

you were going to make a map, if you were going to

1:11:40

make a map of

1:11:44

the United States, all

1:11:47

of it, Okay, and

1:11:50

and I said, uh, Diane, go in

1:11:52

and and and color

1:11:55

in the areas where

1:11:57

you think there's

1:11:59

a chance of having

1:12:02

viable wolf populations,

1:12:04

meaning there's enough habitat,

1:12:09

enough wild food, low

1:12:11

enough chance of intense friction.

1:12:15

Right, how would you start to color that

1:12:17

map?

1:12:18

Well, the last qualifier just put on is

1:12:20

the deciding factor for everything. I mean there's oh

1:12:23

god, yeah, I mean so historically

1:12:27

wolves had the widest distribution of any

1:12:29

mammal in the world except for humans. I

1:12:31

mean they live from the Arctic to

1:12:33

the desert. They live in every biome,

1:12:35

every habitat. They can eat anything

1:12:38

their habitat. Journalists, they're

1:12:40

food generalists. They're like a you

1:12:42

know, one hundred pound kayah that way. So

1:12:45

they can live anywhere, I mean they did. I mean

1:12:47

they covered the entire United States, so where

1:12:49

could they live. They would live anywhere

1:12:51

where us humans will tolerate them. And they're trying

1:12:54

to get back. I mean wolves are showing up

1:12:56

in Illinois and Missouri and you

1:12:58

know they just get shot, and

1:13:01

but they would be there. I mean they

1:13:04

would. They would find a way to live

1:13:06

in Central Park if we didn't kill them.

1:13:09

They'd be eating poodles and whatever out there.

1:13:11

But there's not who knows, so squirrels

1:13:13

RFK.

1:13:14

You have to lay it dead one of those, yeah,

1:13:18

on the trail.

1:13:20

So that's a hard question because

1:13:22

they would live everywhere, So we don't

1:13:24

have to color in a map because they just color and everything.

1:13:27

I mean, I get to that last qualifier.

1:13:29

Yeah, then then you have to constrict it. So the wolves

1:13:32

has shown us now in

1:13:34

Montana. Anyway, Let's pick Montana because

1:13:36

they're all sitting here and thinking about Montana. So

1:13:38

wolves basically live in the western one third

1:13:41

or one quarter, and they've been

1:13:43

doing this for decades now

1:13:45

because that's where we tolerate them. But

1:13:48

they keep showing up at Miles City

1:13:50

and I Galaca and they get

1:13:52

shot and they don't make it.

1:13:55

That's not an ecological issue at

1:13:57

all. They would live there. They did, so

1:14:00

I don't know.

1:14:01

Well they did under

1:14:04

different circumstances. Okay, let me let me requalify.

1:14:06

Okay, let me requalify, because it's going to throw

1:14:08

out. Did you say Cleveland earlier? Did I make that up?

1:14:11

I didn't hear Cleveland.

1:14:13

You said something Missouri, she

1:14:15

said, Let me let me

1:14:17

read. Let me read you my qualification and

1:14:20

not live on that. Somehow

1:14:23

we make this deal. Humans

1:14:25

can't kill them, but

1:14:28

they can't eat any human generated

1:14:30

food sources. Cool, now.

1:14:34

Hit me, there

1:14:37

would be nowhere. No,

1:14:39

I'm serious, because the only pack

1:14:41

that I'm aware in Montana

1:14:45

that has never come into contact

1:14:47

with livestock is the

1:14:49

one up in northwest corner Glacia National

1:14:51

Park. And there is livestock in

1:14:53

his southern portion of the Norfolk

1:14:55

or there was Ladenburg sold this stuff. But

1:14:59

other than that, the can always come into contact

1:15:01

with people who are raising sled dugs,

1:15:03

people of lama farms, people of livestock,

1:15:06

chickens, whatever. Just because

1:15:08

we've taken over all the while life.

1:15:10

Happened at could they make a go

1:15:12

of it without causing too much trouble? And like

1:15:14

Maine New Hamps, like the

1:15:16

Upper.

1:15:17

Yeah, I'm not going to give up on this map idea.

1:15:20

I can.

1:15:20

It seems like main they

1:15:23

could. There's certainly plenty of white.

1:15:24

Tails there, right, they'd have to get there.

1:15:27

Yeah, Okay,

1:15:29

stop being so obstructionist. Somebody

1:15:35

you understand what I'm trying to ask.

1:15:37

No, I don't. Actually, I'm not.

1:15:39

Steve coming semi full of wolves

1:15:42

loose and Maine where

1:15:44

can moose?

1:15:44

Okay, let me let me say this. Okay,

1:15:47

I'm not trying to I'm trying to color

1:15:50

in the country of where however you

1:15:52

want to put it? Man, where could you visualize?

1:15:55

Where do you think when the dust

1:15:57

is settled in a hundred years,

1:16:00

And don't don't hit me with like, well, you

1:16:02

know, is there a zombie apocalypse or in

1:16:05

a hundred years? Where are wolves?

1:16:08

If they lived where there weren't human conflicts?

1:16:11

No, no, no, forget all those, OK, meaning

1:16:14

new direction? Yeah, meaning

1:16:16

it appears that it

1:16:18

wound up being that northwest

1:16:21

Montana was a suitable

1:16:23

place for wolves.

1:16:24

Yeah, it is right.

1:16:25

It wound up being that

1:16:27

the northern Great Lakes, Yeah, the

1:16:30

northern third of Minnesota, the northern

1:16:32

third of Wisconsin, the northern

1:16:35

third of Michigan wound up being like a

1:16:37

pretty good like it is from the wolves

1:16:39

perspective, a good place for wolves.

1:16:40

Yeah.

1:16:41

What are the chunks that are probably

1:16:43

like that that don't

1:16:46

yet but could.

1:16:49

It's it's hard to answer because I'm

1:16:52

not Anvoidum. I'm just saying they go everywhere, and

1:16:54

they get shot, they go

1:16:56

to eastern Montana, So I would color in eastern

1:16:58

Montana. They don't make one hundred years

1:17:01

from out, They're not going to make it either.

1:17:02

So I met him.

1:17:03

I'm at a lost kind. I'm not trying to avoid. I'm at

1:17:05

a loss how to answer. They would live in Illinois,

1:17:08

they would live in Missouri because there's plenty of

1:17:10

places where there's enough habitat

1:17:13

for them. They just for habitat all. They needed someplace

1:17:16

where they find large hooftungulates,

1:17:18

they don't get shot by people, and

1:17:21

they have a secure place to raise pups. There's plenty

1:17:23

of places throughout the country

1:17:25

like that.

1:17:26

Do you think we've reached, like

1:17:29

we've filled in the areas that people well,

1:17:32

that people are going to tolerate, Like they're

1:17:34

where they are now, and they're probably not going to

1:17:36

be in a lot of new places.

1:17:38

I disagree.

1:17:39

No, I'm asking like,

1:17:41

like will there like are

1:17:44

they where they are now? And that's probably

1:17:46

all the space.

1:17:47

I think there would be more wolves expanding

1:17:49

across Montana, certainly. I mean they're showing up

1:17:51

in the Snowy's and they're showing up all over

1:17:54

and if they can get a foothold and have a pack,

1:17:56

then at some point, if you're hunting and trapping

1:17:58

them, there always be a few remaining. But

1:18:01

this stronghold is the western portion because

1:18:03

it's mountainous, because they're not seen because there's

1:18:05

less road access, because there's the Bob, the

1:18:07

Glacier Park, to scapegoat wilderness. Those

1:18:10

are all those things that these wolves

1:18:12

need to live. I don't see that. There's

1:18:16

a lot of places that are very wild across

1:18:18

the eastern Montana bird hunt, an lo hunt. But

1:18:21

there's always a conflict there. There

1:18:23

just always is with livestock, with

1:18:26

hunters, with whatever goes on. And

1:18:28

I'd love to hear what you think. So in terms

1:18:30

of mapping, right now, wolves are all the way through

1:18:32

Minnesota. You got wolves around the Twin Cities. Now

1:18:34

you don't know maybe you don't know that, but they're

1:18:37

filling into southern Wisconsin. They are moving

1:18:39

south. It's a really slow wave. Nobody's

1:18:42

reintroducing them. I got to point that out. It's

1:18:44

on their own and they have been making

1:18:46

it to the other states but get killed. So what

1:18:49

because I don't kind of totally maybe get

1:18:51

your question, or maybe I'm less optimistic

1:18:54

than you, where do you see them going

1:18:56

where they aren't? Oh,

1:18:58

Utah would be a place about it.

1:19:00

It's funny you say that. It's funny you say Utah

1:19:02

because I was at an event. I

1:19:06

was at an event this winter and

1:19:08

Utah's governor spoke at the event, and

1:19:11

Utah's governor made a pledge to the audience

1:19:15

that there would be no wolves

1:19:18

in Utah. And I remember

1:19:20

thinking, I don't know that that's your call.

1:19:24

What he mean that

1:19:27

he means.

1:19:30

He was saying and

1:19:32

addressing the audience, which was an

1:19:34

audience of of uh

1:19:38

people that do a lot of work for big game

1:19:40

habitat improvement, right, big

1:19:43

horns, sheet mule deer or whatever, putting

1:19:45

it, putting ungulates on the ground, putting

1:19:47

game animals on the ground. He made

1:19:49

a pledge that there will be no wolves in Utah,

1:19:51

and I remember thinking.

1:19:53

Like, don't worry hunters.

1:19:54

Yeah, but I remember thinking, well, the way it sits

1:19:56

now with federal protection, that's

1:19:59

not really your call. And I don't know what. I appreciate

1:20:02

the sentiment, but I don't know what tools you have at

1:20:04

your disposal.

1:20:05

So I get that what you're saying,

1:20:07

but that agrees with what I say, because

1:20:10

wolves have made it to Utah. And

1:20:12

we had a wolf go from Yellowstone, go

1:20:15

all the way to the Grand Canyon and

1:20:17

started on its way back, a colored wolf from

1:20:19

Wyoming from Yellowstone and they got

1:20:21

shot on the way home. They get shot.

1:20:23

I don't know how to better tell you,

1:20:26

but they just get So maybe.

1:20:27

He said that he was just saying if

1:20:29

they come, we can. Wasn't that he's going to do

1:20:31

something, that's just someone's going to

1:20:33

shoot.

1:20:34

But I think that's what he's writing.

1:20:36

Yeah, people will kill them.

1:20:37

I think what you're saying too, though, is that I

1:20:40

mean there are areas of the country that have

1:20:43

other than Northwest Montana, that have sufficient

1:20:47

habitat security, like

1:20:49

you in a hundred years, you

1:20:52

know, I would imagine all the way

1:20:54

down the spine of.

1:20:55

The Rockies right.

1:20:59

Over maybe the Cascades down

1:21:02

I don't know that they go down the Sierras, you know,

1:21:04

like they have Like that's what.

1:21:05

I question is California. Yeah,

1:21:08

California would be maybe a little more

1:21:10

tolerant. They have they

1:21:12

have six

1:21:14

packs or something.

1:21:16

And if I asked you my question twenty years

1:21:18

ago that you're trying to like dodge and obfuscate,

1:21:20

I'm not if I had asked that question twenty

1:21:22

years ago, would you have said, would you have said Lake

1:21:24

Tahoe.

1:21:27

I think wolves have a good chance of being in

1:21:29

Utah except people kill them. So I don't know if that's

1:21:31

a yes or no, that's a yes, okay, And

1:21:35

I'm really trying to it's not I'm

1:21:37

not squirming, I'm not uncomfortable. I'm just saying

1:21:40

I have lived with wolf killing for

1:21:42

so long, and where they're going to be tolerated

1:21:45

is where they're at. And wolves getting

1:21:47

in California's great, but they're going to start killing

1:21:49

people's pets and they're

1:21:51

going to be not tolerated as

1:21:53

well.

1:21:53

What about like the wolves? If the Colorado

1:21:56

plan goes, is they some people

1:21:58

would like it to go. They're they're gonna

1:22:01

push into New Mexico, Arizonah.

1:22:04

Yeah, So my question is what happens to

1:22:06

those Mexican wolves then?

1:22:07

So I love this question and half

1:22:09

a finger and I will disagree on this.

1:22:11

So okay, can you guys, can one of you make

1:22:13

the question really clear for people? Because I think a lot of people

1:22:15

aren't to understand.

1:22:16

What they're I think she's probably the better.

1:22:18

Yeah, do you mind, like why we're even asking

1:22:20

that? Like what we're talking about.

1:22:21

As I explained about the Mexican wolves there, they

1:22:24

are a unique subspecies. It's the only

1:22:26

population really that's got its separate subspecies

1:22:28

classification for protection other than the

1:22:30

red wolves, which are a different animal. So they

1:22:33

come from a very unique gene

1:22:36

pool of seven founding members.

1:22:38

They're trying to protect that gene pool. So

1:22:40

if you read I mean every time a Mexican wolf

1:22:43

starts to go north, it disperses like

1:22:46

a wolf is gonna do. They live by their

1:22:48

feet and they go north, they go and

1:22:50

catch them and bring them back. They don't allow them.

1:22:53

Oh yeah, they don't allow them

1:22:55

to travel out of the recovery area. What

1:22:58

you could google the on, but they don't

1:23:01

allow it because that

1:23:03

if.

1:23:03

One of the Mexican wolves out of Mexican

1:23:06

Wolf area, they fetch it and bring it home.

1:23:08

Yes, it's a defined zone and

1:23:10

so and so because number

1:23:13

one, that was the promise early on with the plan. But

1:23:15

they've expanded the Mexican Wolf Recovery area

1:23:17

slightly, but they don't want those

1:23:19

wolves to mix with other gene pools.

1:23:22

And those Colorado wolves

1:23:24

will eventually make it down to

1:23:26

four corners and come down and they

1:23:28

will approach and get in. I would soon

1:23:31

get to the Mexican wolf population. And

1:23:33

then what are people going to do. They're going to start killing

1:23:35

one wolf species subspecies to protect

1:23:38

the other one. I think

1:23:40

I mean, you've had some really good genetic

1:23:42

people on your programs. I've so enjoyed their discussions.

1:23:45

If you were trying to preserve a

1:23:47

rare species with a unique genetic

1:23:49

pool that was highly inbred,

1:23:52

like the iroil ones were, and then they

1:23:54

all went to extinction because they were two in bread, wouldn't

1:23:57

you want to have some gene flow from

1:23:59

the most similar population adjoining and bringing

1:24:01

new genes.

1:24:02

Because historically the.

1:24:05

Right but it was it.

1:24:07

But even though there was all connected

1:24:09

all the way to Mexico to Central Mexico, they

1:24:12

were still had unique genetic

1:24:14

markers because they have a different

1:24:16

habitat than the rest of the wolves. It's a different

1:24:18

habitat, so they're been isolated

1:24:21

on their own way. But that's my humble opinion.

1:24:23

I'm a lumper, not a splitter, and I think

1:24:25

it would behoove Mexican wolves

1:24:27

to have some new gene flow. And I am not in

1:24:30

a maybe a majority opinion, but I

1:24:32

think people who have genetics background would

1:24:35

agree it's

1:24:38

going to happen. They won't be able to stop.

1:24:39

It, well, sounds like they will maybe

1:24:42

try.

1:24:42

They will try, They're already trying. They

1:24:44

do move all these wolves back every time

1:24:46

they go out of the.

1:24:47

Rescoveries are they getting them?

1:24:49

They catch them everyone, everyone of them collared.

1:24:51

Just about so they have

1:24:53

no idea.

1:24:54

And also when a wolf is in an area,

1:24:56

you do.

1:24:57

A little baby and like you put the baby in the mill

1:24:59

of room the while it crawls away and you go get

1:25:01

it and set it back. And they thought about it.

1:25:05

Get an invisible.

1:25:06

Fence, right, I mean, that's how we deal with

1:25:08

dogs wondering.

1:25:09

I don't think that would work for them, but anyway,

1:25:12

And when wolves go to an area, they leave

1:25:14

scatt they kill things. People

1:25:16

see them. Everybody's got trail gameras everybody

1:25:18

and the brothers all looking for the biggest delcor water.

1:25:21

You see them, You see him, right, you

1:25:24

know they're there. They're not small and sneaky

1:25:26

like lions. They're just not. They instead

1:25:28

of sneaking around and hiding in a rock crevices,

1:25:30

they come into town in Harley's I mean wolves

1:25:33

animals.

1:25:36

That's a T shirt. That's a T shirt.

1:25:39

There's two I want to talk about, just to give

1:25:41

you a little taste of what's common. I want to

1:25:43

talk about mountain lions, Okay, difference mountains

1:25:45

and wolves. Yep, I

1:25:49

want to talk about why wolves don't kill people.

1:25:52

That's a good one, But

1:25:55

first I.

1:25:55

Want to talk a little bit more about Colorado. Okay,

1:25:58

crystal Ball for me, and you're totally excused,

1:26:01

like like this is just crystal Ball land. This

1:26:03

is if you had to make a guess. Yeah,

1:26:06

what is Give

1:26:09

me a timeframe. What's

1:26:11

going on in twenty years in Colorado? Just take a wild

1:26:14

stab. I'm gonna known. Diane

1:26:16

Boyd is taking a wild

1:26:18

stab. This is not an academic

1:26:21

exercise. She's taking a wild

1:26:23

stab. Twenty years

1:26:25

what's the wolf land? What's the landscape in Colorado?

1:26:28

What's going on?

1:26:29

People will still be fighting where their wolves should

1:26:32

be or should not be there, And despite our human

1:26:34

intentions, they will continue to expand their populations

1:26:37

and fill up appropriate habitat in Colorado,

1:26:39

and they will have to kill some for killing livestock,

1:26:42

and the other ones that aren't killing livestock

1:26:44

will continue to find habitat and reproduce.

1:26:46

And I think there'll be more wolves.

1:26:48

So it'll be Montana twenty years after

1:26:50

nineteen ninety six.

1:26:51

What about the hunting season? You see that happen eventually

1:26:54

hunting for wolves?

1:26:55

Yeah, I think that when you get enough

1:26:57

wolves to create social tolerance. Season

1:27:00

is a good idea. It's probably not

1:27:02

such a good idea for individual wolves,

1:27:04

but in terms of creating tolerance on the

1:27:07

landscape, and I think you have to give

1:27:09

the tools to livestock

1:27:11

producers that they can take

1:27:13

care problems themselves. I mean, that's what they did in Montana

1:27:15

early on. I just say follow the model that

1:27:17

worked in Montana. It's worked pretty

1:27:20

well. I mean we went from one wolf

1:27:22

to you know, thousand wolves pretty quickly.

1:27:24

And then in your crystal Ball can you extend

1:27:26

that crystal Ball scenario to the

1:27:30

Mexican gray wolf. They're all making

1:27:32

love and they're just mixed in together.

1:27:37

Should have hefelfinger here too?

1:27:38

So well, yeah, but this isn't what you

1:27:41

want to have. Yeah,

1:27:43

this is just your guess work.

1:27:44

People will still be fighting over Mexican

1:27:46

wolves, and Mexican wolves

1:27:49

may hit I'm just trying to think, they

1:27:52

may hit a critical mass where

1:27:54

they're not all colored, and then some of them will

1:27:56

escape beyond the the geo

1:27:58

fencing of their their loud

1:28:01

recovery zone and began going elsewhere.

1:28:03

But if they continue to heavily,

1:28:06

heavily handle and manage the wolves

1:28:08

and collar everyone that well,

1:28:10

they're not all collared, but manage its a

1:28:12

significant portion population. It's going to be really

1:28:15

hard for those wolves to sneak through, but that's

1:28:18

going to be And I just think the wolves from the north will

1:28:20

come down and start integrating. I'm

1:28:22

hoping they will. And

1:28:24

I think Mike Phillips would disagree with that too. But

1:28:26

the other people I know, biologists, we talk about this.

1:28:29

It's like, yeah, let them, let them blend,

1:28:31

Let's see what happens. It's sort of like this

1:28:33

this animal of the northeast, the Koi

1:28:36

wolf dog thing. Nobody

1:28:38

really knows what it is, but that animal

1:28:40

has made a really successful living. It's

1:28:42

found a niche that was partially

1:28:45

formed but what we tolerate and how we modified

1:28:47

the landscape, so this animal that lives there now

1:28:49

is doing really well well. Mexican

1:28:52

wolf gray wolf mix probably

1:28:55

be the same way. At least they'll have more genetic variation.

1:28:57

They probably won't go extinct due to inbreeding. Who

1:29:01

knows, but you asked my crystal ball. I

1:29:03

think there would be more wolves. I

1:29:05

think they will fill in more places and

1:29:07

there will always be the battles to

1:29:10

have them on the landscape always.

1:29:12

I feel like, you know how there's sports betting. I

1:29:15

think there should be a way that you could like that we could

1:29:17

run like a bookie thing and

1:29:19

have uh Colorado wolf

1:29:22

betting. H I

1:29:25

mean you got them.

1:29:26

You can bet on anything though, Yeah, I mean I

1:29:29

wouldn't be surprised if you could get odds on

1:29:32

Colorado's wolf population in ten years.

1:29:34

Yeah, and people could make like bets and

1:29:36

you could win money and lose money.

1:29:39

I think to the more the more radical

1:29:42

people get, I think

1:29:45

it will cause more people to feel

1:29:47

sort of moved towards the metal. Like this fellow

1:29:50

over in where was it Daniel Wyoming

1:29:52

who ran over the wolf with the snowmobile

1:29:54

this winter? You must have And he crippled

1:29:56

it so couldn't get away, and then he ties it up and

1:29:59

brings it into a b All of this is

1:30:01

illegal, which is a minor thing, but it's

1:30:03

really immoral. And he brings into a

1:30:05

bar and people are laughing with it and getting their pictures

1:30:07

taken in and finally hauls it out back and shoots it.

1:30:09

Well, that's just one animal, but it had huge

1:30:12

ripples throughout the country, and

1:30:14

that's affecting wolf policy because

1:30:16

of one guy's action. And I think those

1:30:18

people that maybe didn't really care

1:30:20

about wolves or maybe dislike them somewhat

1:30:23

moderately, see that is

1:30:25

that is not fair, Chase, that is

1:30:27

not acceptable to me as a hunter or a

1:30:30

human being, and we have to put

1:30:32

brakes on that. I kind of see the more radical

1:30:35

people get. I'm hoping that people

1:30:37

come to the middle more. That's my hope.

1:30:43

Why don't wolves kill people? Because

1:30:45

they do it Romania, I've wondered that for

1:30:48

a long time.

1:30:48

Well, sometimes come on, So it's

1:30:51

not more common there, No, But

1:30:54

there's all those like crazy old stories about.

1:30:57

That's not None of that's true.

1:30:58

So in my book, I

1:31:00

could read you a little paragraph about statistics,

1:31:02

but do you want me to find

1:31:04

it. I'll have to look for it for a moment when

1:31:07

you're talking. I'll look for it. But wolves

1:31:09

have occasionally killed people in modern

1:31:11

times. Documented Kenton Carnegie

1:31:14

was killed up in northern Saskatchewan and in

1:31:16

the eighties early nineties by

1:31:19

He was at a remote camp and these

1:31:21

wolves were coming into the dump. So think of think dump

1:31:23

bear not afraid of people. And

1:31:25

he went out one evening alone with

1:31:27

his camera and he was found

1:31:30

the next morning, I believe, and he had been killed

1:31:32

and partially consumed, and it appeared to be

1:31:34

wolves. There was wolves and bears both feeding

1:31:36

on him, but it looked like the wounds were wolf

1:31:39

probably, So that's one guy. And then

1:31:42

there was a woman jogger in Alaska who

1:31:44

was jogging and she was attacked members

1:31:46

killed. I don't think she was consumed.

1:31:49

I don't remember on that, but

1:31:51

it was definitely predation they killed her. And

1:31:54

there's been a few, I

1:31:57

guess attacks encounters of

1:31:59

wolves that have been habituated,

1:32:01

especially like on some of

1:32:03

the islands off of British

1:32:05

Columbia and Washington where people kayak

1:32:08

and they're feeding wolves out on the beaches and wolves

1:32:10

get friendly and they come in and bite somebody in their sleeping

1:32:12

bag. Because they don't stuff like that Algonquin

1:32:15

Park habituated

1:32:17

wolves that becomes a problem.

1:32:20

So those are the cases that I know of.

1:32:22

And then Mark mcnae wrote a really

1:32:24

long document published you could google

1:32:26

his name, Mark McNee of all

1:32:28

the wolf encounters that he could find that were verifiable

1:32:32

olden days. A lot

1:32:34

of wolves were rabid. I

1:32:36

mean a lot. I shouldn't say that. A lot

1:32:39

of the encounters with wolves that had

1:32:41

bitten were rabbid. Okay, that happens with every

1:32:43

species, bats, foxes, it doesn't matter.

1:32:45

But if you look at what other predators

1:32:48

attack humans, people

1:32:50

are killed every year by black

1:32:52

bears, grizzly bears, some deer,

1:32:55

some elk, mountain lions, coyotes.

1:32:58

That's not true with wolves. And so you

1:33:00

say, why don't why don't people

1:33:03

kill wolves more often? Oh? My, I'm

1:33:05

sorry, I'm sorry, right.

1:33:06

That's what I mean.

1:33:07

And there I think it's an interesting question because they could.

1:33:09

Oh absolutely. I look at any of us

1:33:11

in this room. If one of us was out in

1:33:13

the woods by ourselves and a pack of eight wolves

1:33:15

came along, we'd be toast.

1:33:18

Yeah, I could handle three, but

1:33:20

eight probably.

1:33:22

Domestic dogs kill all kinds of people,

1:33:24

Yes, but they could.

1:33:26

Right, So what what is

1:33:28

your hypothesis as to why

1:33:30

not?

1:33:32

My thought about that is, well, we, first

1:33:34

of all, when we domesticated dogs, we changed

1:33:37

the gene pool. They have the dogs

1:33:39

here, but he's on my foot right

1:33:41

now, Okay, I'll make sure doesn't

1:33:43

pull any cables. Over the course of time

1:33:46

we have When we started domesticating

1:33:48

livestock about eleven thousand years

1:33:51

ago, we changed our relationship

1:33:53

with wolves. Prior to that, it

1:33:56

wasn't much. There was no reason I have conflict.

1:33:58

As a matter of fact, I talk about

1:34:00

some archaeologists,

1:34:03

some ancient people study wolves, and anciently

1:34:06

they their theory was that

1:34:10

humans in primitive times would

1:34:13

watch wolves haunt successfully. So

1:34:15

wolves and humans live in the same family structure

1:34:18

group of animals that are related. Usually they

1:34:20

would watch them hunt and they end up

1:34:22

learning that if they could follow the wolves,

1:34:26

they could steal meet from them. So

1:34:28

they would watch the wolves, and

1:34:30

when wolves picked out something, then the wolves

1:34:32

humans really humans could go over there with their adladdles

1:34:35

or spears, drive the wolves away, take

1:34:37

the meat they wanted, and then leave, and then the wolves

1:34:39

clean up the scraps. This was their hypothesis,

1:34:42

so they actually it was no way

1:34:45

a synergetic or altruistic

1:34:47

relationship. It's brutes arrival, but

1:34:50

they sort of collaborated and out

1:34:52

of that, eventually we learned

1:34:54

that we could make dogs, I guess, but I

1:34:56

think over time, once

1:34:59

we started to desticate animals, especially

1:35:01

livestock, those wolves

1:35:03

that were aggressive towards people were

1:35:06

weeded out and killed. And I think that gene

1:35:08

pool has been so heavily selected

1:35:10

against. I think the behavior

1:35:12

is still there. That's the only thing I can think of, because

1:35:15

how many people have successfully domesticated

1:35:17

allions made a different animal out of it, or bears

1:35:19

or coiotes, right, these other things that kill

1:35:22

us people haven't

1:35:24

And we've spent so much time competing

1:35:27

with wolves of their livestock and killing them that I

1:35:29

just think that aggression

1:35:31

towards people is no longer

1:35:33

there. And maybe with the crystal ball,

1:35:36

maybe three hundred yards from now and we haven't

1:35:38

been killing wolves, maybe that'll change. I

1:35:40

don't know. I don't know, but

1:35:42

it is an interesting question.

1:35:44

I was gonna just wanted to weigh. In

1:35:46

episode four sixty six Dire

1:35:48

Wolves and Ancient Hunting Dogs, we touch

1:35:51

on some of what you just mentioned Kith Angela

1:35:53

Perry and what does she say that

1:35:56

same thing we talked about that?

1:35:57

Okay, I'm gonna have to look that one up. I didn't hear it.

1:36:00

Whe do they fall? Like maybe

1:36:02

this is a weird question, but where do they fall on the intelligent

1:36:05

scale scale compared to like a bear or

1:36:07

a mountain lion or like

1:36:09

like would that play a role and they're

1:36:11

like understanding of how to

1:36:13

interact with humans, like,

1:36:15

are they smarter than.

1:36:16

A bear or Ah, the bear researchers

1:36:18

would say hell no, right, but I

1:36:22

can tell you. I mean I've trapped a lot of animals in

1:36:24

my life, everything from weasels to grizzlies,

1:36:26

and the wolves are the hardest animal to

1:36:28

catch. Bears are not hard at all

1:36:30

because they don't need to be. They're the top thing

1:36:33

and they eat everything. Wolves have had to

1:36:35

learn to sneaker on strict nine baits

1:36:38

guns, and because

1:36:40

they're a social species, they have to communicate

1:36:42

well, they have to collaborate. They're

1:36:45

different. I mean, none of these other predators

1:36:47

that we've been talking about are social and living

1:36:49

groups. And I believe that gives

1:36:51

wolves a need

1:36:54

evolutionarily to be high

1:36:56

intelligence. They have

1:36:58

to work, I do they I mean you

1:37:00

can look at your dog, which is kind of a challenged

1:37:04

version of a wolf. I mean, they're not that

1:37:06

good at anything, and they're

1:37:10

incredibly bright. I'm trying to use the right political term

1:37:12

here, but

1:37:14

they're incredibly brilliant. I mean, if you look at

1:37:16

what you can train a Melania or a border Collie

1:37:18

to do, and the wolves are much smarter

1:37:20

than that. They just are so

1:37:23

that's my humble opinion. But again the Baar researchers

1:37:26

would argue that, and case you have to. I mean, we're

1:37:28

looking at a human lens

1:37:31

to value intelligence.

1:37:33

That's really interesting, man. That's to

1:37:35

say that a wolf is smarter

1:37:37

than your pet dog.

1:37:39

Oh yeah, they don't

1:37:41

have to be smart. We feed them, we house

1:37:43

them.

1:37:44

They don't need.

1:37:45

To be smart.

1:37:46

They don't have to kill an elk every couple of

1:37:48

days, right, and yeah,

1:37:50

it's.

1:37:51

Like a wolf with a restrict plate or something.

1:37:56

Our dog is not an exceptional dog.

1:38:00

It's totally fine that everybody lif loves it, but it's

1:38:02

not exceptional anyway, used

1:38:04

to for whatever reason, would like to chew on rose

1:38:06

bushes and chew on raspberry bushes. It like the

1:38:09

for whatever reason, the thorniness of it. And

1:38:12

I have one time just took

1:38:14

my kids out and we put

1:38:17

a bunch of cayenne in the dirt

1:38:19

around a rose bush and

1:38:21

she went up to it and got a nose full of

1:38:23

that. Right, has never ever

1:38:26

gone.

1:38:27

Near same thing with you

1:38:29

know e callers and training and no dogs

1:38:31

are.

1:38:31

Sorry when you think about how getting hard to catch

1:38:35

the dog's like, dude, you

1:38:37

know, to make that connection, right, So

1:38:40

you think it's something being hard to trap, like

1:38:42

you sting its toe one time, and there's just something

1:38:44

about that situation.

1:38:46

Yeah, I mean the old timers

1:38:48

when they're read the books, the Last of the Loaners

1:38:50

and the last renegade wolves and guys

1:38:52

trying to catch them, the stuff they did to try

1:38:54

not smart these wolves. Sometimes. Well,

1:38:57