00:00:05 Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, they got me off to the side that first evening said, Man, don't know how you know this guy, but be careful. You seem like a pretty good guy. Just gonna let you know. Don't know how you know this guy, but you need to be careful. 00:00:19 Speaker 2: And I like you're telling you. On this episode, we will again join United States Forest Service Special Agent Russ Arthur as he works a very unique case involving illegal elk outfitting in Montana. On our last episode, Russ told us about the early part of his career in North Carolina and the wild string of circumstances involving him being run over which led to the imprisonment of a bad, bad dude. This story is just as Wild Boys, but in a different way, and at the risk of foreshadowing too much, I'm just gonna say, I really doubt that you're gonna want to miss the one, and don't forget that. You can watch The Bear Grease Render our every other week podcast on Meet Eater's new YouTube channel just dedicated to podcasts. You can see old Brenton is overalls. 00:01:14 Speaker 1: As fate would have it, We're walking around this ridgetop and we run across this sign and it says you are entering the Allstone National Park, no guns. And there's an elk bugling about one hundred yards other side of that sign. And I said, wait a minut Wait minute, wait minute. I said, I got a video of this sign. And he said hold on, hold on, and he gets in front of the sign and I said, hey, O man, look at this. And I video him as he reads the sign, and then he says, and where do you think we're going to go? Come on? 00:01:56 Speaker 2: My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear Grease podcas Cast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land, presented by f HF gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. 00:02:31 Speaker 1: Back in ninety six, ninety seven, I was a special agent, you know, again with a forest service, and I was here in Tennessee and I got a call from an agent friend of mine from Montana, and he had had an unusual encounter with an informant and he began to tell me this story to see if I could help him with a case. 00:03:01 Speaker 2: This story took place in the early nineteen nineties. Email was hardly a thing, no cell phones and text messages. And I like it when a story starts with a landline phone ringing with somebody asking for help. 00:03:16 Speaker 3: I've got my attention, Russ. 00:03:20 Speaker 1: It's kind of funny how this case came about. So you got an agent sitting in Montana that had a young lady come and knock on the door and said, I need to turn my ex husband in. By the way, those are usually pretty good informants. 00:03:36 Speaker 2: This was about to say, that's somebody you probably listened to, isn't it. 00:03:39 Speaker 1: Yes, And evidently he and her had property together in Montana, but they lived in North Carolina and he had a scam going where he was taking hunters into the Absorba Mountain Range help cunting, and he didn't have a permit, and which that's not a big deal if you're setting out Montana and you have somebody come in and say, hey, I know somebody that's hunting and guiding people without a permit. I mean that's not the worst, you know, most egregious case you know in the world. But it's not good because it takes away other opportunities from forest users and legal good outfitters and guides. But she began to tell more. He picks his own clients. He don't advertise. He charges minimum of five thousand ahead and he'll do seven r eight clients a year and it's cash money only, So you do the math. You know, thirty five forty thousand dollars cash over a month for two period of time. And he also is he's into trading stolen guns. So now then you're an agent sitting there, listen to this. Now, then this may be a case worthy of opening. Of course, the first thing that the agent did was he pulled the records. He found out exactly with a map where this guy hunted, and she knew exactly or he hunted, and it was right on the edge of the Yellowstone National Park. And she told him it's not uncommon for him to take people into the park. So now you're you got a little more heightened. 00:05:28 Speaker 2: Either this woman is vindictive and creative in her story about her ex husband, or she's the perfect informant. Illegal guiding is one thing, but illegal guiding in Yellowstone National Park is something completely different. Russ I'm all ears well. 00:05:49 Speaker 1: Found out that there was a couple of really good, reputable guides you know, that already had permits in that area, and that as a matter of fact, they had been turning down people applying for permits from that are because he just didn't need anymore. Now, whether or not that had anything to do with him, he had never applied for a permit first of all, so it wasn't like he had tried the process and couldn't get in. So we with that agent's helped from Montana, we laid an investigative plan and set up a time for me to talk to this ex wife. So at the time, we had one of the best agents in North Carolina that I've ever worked with, is a female, top notch, best you've ever better had. I mean, she is the best at surveillance, best at the interview, and she was good. So we meet her and we interview her and she basically told us exactly how to catch her ex husband. She said, he sets up there is a huge expo in Raleigh, North Carolina called the Dixie Deer Classic. But she said, he will go the Dixie Deer Classic and he set up this big, huge, display of old Winchester guns. But he's not selling Winchester's. He's looking for clients and he'll pick you. And so you need to go to the Dixie Deer Classic and devise away for him to engage you in a conversation on this illegal hunt. So we immediately knew what to do. 00:07:31 Speaker 2: This this ex wife. When you're interviewing her, how could you tell that she was telling the truth and not just vindictive? 00:07:39 Speaker 1: She knew too much about the area, She do too many details. You could tell that she was put out, and you just knew. 00:07:47 Speaker 2: She just seemed credible, right, seemed very credible. 00:07:51 Speaker 1: And you've got a good point. You've got to watch out for that because you could be a setup. And you've also got to be careful because let's say you set up this and then two months later they get back together, right, so you got to you gotta stay in contact with her this whole time. So basically the plan was simple, Me and the female agent from Asheville. We loaded up and we went to the Dixie Deer Classic. Obviously just covert. It wasn't a large undercover, but nobody knew who we were. We're just dressed like hunters. And we walked around that whole it's huge arena. We walked around that whole place and we and there was a lot of outfitters set up from whitetail hunts to hunts in Canada. Very few gun dealers there, but he was one there. Well, you know, I've got a passion with Old Winchester's. So I see his booth and she and I put forth the plan that we had talked about. We go up as a couple. We're looking I'm looking at the guns. She's saying, where are you from? And he's saying Montana? And you know, what do you do out there? And you know, he's talking to her and I'm looking at the guns and talking about this model in that model, and I just looked at her and said, Hey, when you finish up here, I'm gonna go over here at this outfitter and check them out. Well, immediately when I went out, he approached her and said what's he interested in? And she tells him, well, we're kind of on our anniversary and I promised him an elk hunt next year. 00:09:34 Speaker 2: He took it the hook line and say. 00:09:37 Speaker 1: I mean it was it was a gut hook And I looked over there, and within thirty seconds or a minute after I'd walked away, she's behind the booth with him looking at a photo album, you know, big l. So I come back over there and the guy tells me, look, I've got you set up twenty five hundred down right now. Cash is all I'll take. But the only stipulation we're gonna be hunting public land. I don't like to advertise a lot. If we run into anybody while we're hunting, you just tell them that many you are good friends. I said, you got it. I said, I think I understand. 00:10:19 Speaker 3: I think I understand. 00:10:21 Speaker 2: They're planned to get invited to be guided by this guy was perfect and it sounds like it took all of five minutes. It turns out the Dixie Deer Classic is the nation's oldest white tail expo and it's held in Raleigh, North Carolina. 00:10:36 Speaker 3: This ex wife was on point, so we got the hunt plan. 00:10:47 Speaker 1: So we go out to this place, Montana for the hunt. 00:10:50 Speaker 2: Now, this is this app Dixie Deer Classics in the summer, So you got a couple of months going out there in September US I suspected. 00:10:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, it was whenever the gun season opening of the gun season whenever it was. I think it was end of September one October, and he had not even told me yet where we'd be hunting. He just said we had a long horseback ride. The agent out there coordinated with you know, the Game and Fish told me how to get my permit and back then you could get over the counter stuff. So the agent out there coordinated the end with Game and Fish from Montana, you know, so they knew, you know, what was going on, and evidently they'd been after this guy for quite some time. So we go out there, he does horseback and you know, I've been studying maps of that area because I'm a I'm a map freak. Anyway, I've been studying maps the potential areas, and we actually laid a plan because, contrary to proper belief, these are not comfortable hunts. There is usually not good eating, it's usually not good sleeping, it's usually not people knowledgeable of the resources. These are just not comfortable hunts. 00:12:05 Speaker 2: Like when when you're going with somebody that's doing something wrong, right. 00:12:08 Speaker 1: You know, I have a lot of friends that claim, man, you got it made, you got to go hunting free. No, you don't understand. These conditions are not they're not ideal, and you have to be on edge the whole time. And you know it's just you know, you're not with friends as you can discuss things openly. You got to watch everything you do, say and act. So we I always would lay a plan if I went on a back country undercover to get out early, whether the conditions were just unbearable or whether you've got enough evidence that it's time to leave. Well, my plan on this one was we made up a story that my dad was sick, and I even asked the guide, I said, who could we leave a message with that if something happens? Then he said, we'll stop by the forig Service office. So on the way in, we stopped by the forest Service office and I told these people didn't know me. They just thought I was legit. And I told the person that they directed me to. I said, I'm getting ready to go into the absorbers, and this is the parking lot we're going to be at. We were doing two things here. We're also letting game and fish know exactly where we were two and we're going to be there ten days. I don't know if y'all got any way, or any contact with radio with people. But if I lack a phone number for this ranger station, something were to happen to my dad while I'm in there. Well they were very nice. So now then we're going in the back country, no sell service, no phone, no radio. How am I going to communicate out? 00:13:45 Speaker 2: You're by yourself too, Yeah, Well. 00:13:47 Speaker 1: The agent out there had set it up. There's a remote guard station out there, and there were going to be two wild life officers that knew my situation. So if I needed out, all I had to do was somehow get a message to hell Roin Creek. Well, there was another client that was in camp with us, so I knew where hell Roying Creek was. We passed it on the way to our camp, so I had that in my mind I can get back there, and it wasn't two three miles if I needed to. 00:14:25 Speaker 2: The plan is set and things are about to get real. I want to add two. Something that Russ commented on. It might be easy to think that this would be an enjoyable thing, like in the same way that a legal hunt would be. After all, he is in a beautiful place, and in a way he is hunting, though he's hoping not to kill one, but to pretend like he wants to kill one, but he can if it's absolutely necessary to not blow his cover. The level of stress would be almost hard to comprehend. The potential of being found out and the repercussions of that, coupled with a lifetime of reverence for wildlife and the law, like we know, Russ has made this a cringe worthy, difficult situation. 00:15:20 Speaker 1: So the hunt started off terrible. First of all, we camped right next to two guys from Colorado that were what I would consider very good hunters, very respectable hunters. This guy knew those two guys, and you could tell those two guys didn't like my guide. As a matter of fact, they got me off to the side that first evening said, man, don't know how you know this guy, but be careful. You seem like a pretty good guy. Just gonna let you know. Don't know how you know this. 00:15:54 Speaker 3: Guy, but you need to be careful and telling you. 00:15:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. So that night that when we first got there, I know it was going to be a bad, bad trip. When he walked over up into the trees and he had some bags that he had hung up in the in the trees, with ropes, and he started letting them down, and it was food that he had stashed from the year before, and he started going through it. And he'd open a jar of peanut butter and smell it. I think that'll be okay. He'd open up something, Oh, this is still good, and I'm thinking this is gonna be terrible. I'll never forget. He had a bunch of tang. Remember that the drink orange dry tang. Well, I'm wondering, what's he doing all that? Well that was for his vodka. So that night I had to sit there by that fire and watch him and the other client that he had there with him just just get drunk. And of course I'm not drinking and uh, and I'm thinking, man, this is going to be terrible. And I'm trying to talk hunting. Hey, where are we going tomorrow morning? You know? Have you been in here scouting? You know? And it was just yeah, yeah, you know it just like I was with a drunk and I was. So I sat there that night and I do it. The next morning's opening morning. So I wake up and I'm out there drinking coffee and it's breaking daylight and I literally hear five or six different elk bugling, and I watched the guys and come up the trail that had camped right below us, come back and start leading or pack up up towards the bugling elk. And I'm wondering, when are we going now? I need to back up and clarify something. You do not have to kill an elk on an illegal outfitting and guide to prove illegal outfitting, and God got to prove the intent. So being so close to the park, we had met with obviously park officials and we met with prosecutors on where do you draw the line? You know, because you never want to be accused of you being the one that's depleting the resources. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: Right, like as like as an undercover guy, right if you killed an elk being criticized for right. 00:18:07 Speaker 1: So you want to minimize that as best you can. And in the perfect world you don't kill one. I mean, in the perfect world, you don't kill one. So you got to have that in the back of your mind all this time. So these guys, this guy gets up, you know, he's hung over, and he's stumbling around there and we're hear an elk bugle, and we hear a gunshot and then it's probably not three hundred yards from our camp. And he says, well, that's a probably, that's probably so and so and that's the guys with the camp right blow us. And he said, let's go see what they got. So we got a couple of stock and we went up there and they had a nice five by five down and uh. And he actually helped him get it caped out and spent half the day helping those guys. And I'm thinking, is you know, is he going to take me hunting or not? You know? 00:19:06 Speaker 2: And what do you need gathering evidence? Like just your word, Like you could just come out and just say he took me hunting, we did this, or you do you have recording devices on you? 00:19:17 Speaker 1: What I did on this case is I took a video camera and I prepped him and it worked that I'm wanting to video this hunt. My dad has never seen this part of the country. He's getting up an age and I don't know if he'll ever get out here. I'd lock to document all this country with a video camera. And he welcomed that. He was these guys have a big ego, and if you play on their ego and say I'm getting ready to make you a movie star back to somebody in another state. You know. He ate it up, he said, he said, that's fine. So I would continually video stuff. I really didn't even want need the video, but getting him used to my video, and I'd always talk in it. Everybody called my dad the old man, and I'd always hey, old man, take a look at this, you know, like I was talking to my dad. So a lot of that to help with intent. So finally the next morning he said, we're gonna go right back up past with guy Kim. There's more elk bungling, and we're gonna we're gonna get them. It's okay, Well, same thing night before. Stayed out and drunk by the fire and I laid in the tent just uncomfortable, you know, just want this to be over. He takes me out the next morning, right out of the box an elk bugling. I would consider him probably a mediocre caller, and he calls up this. It was a pretty good probably a probably a five by five. I couldn't it never got close, but it would have been close enough to shoot, and I threw the gun up. I was shooting the pre sixty four model seventy Winchester. He uh, he stepped out two or three times, got to cross arizonh and I purposely let him go, and he was like, man, what is wrong? I said, Man, I just there's too much brush in a way, you know. So about an hour later, we're walking and he's calling every now and then another one. 00:21:19 Speaker 2: Do you think at this point you've got what you need or. 00:21:22 Speaker 1: Not all the way? 00:21:23 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:21:24 Speaker 2: Not all the way, and he's filming you. 00:21:26 Speaker 1: Well I didn't feel that, Okay, I didn't feel that. Ok So the next stap he calls in. It's like a it's a raghorn. And so that was my excuse. Too small, too small, so too thick, too small. I'm thinking, man, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna have to maybe have to kill one because I've given two excuses, and I don't want it to say, hey, what's wrong with you buddy? 00:21:51 Speaker 3: You know. 00:21:51 Speaker 1: So, as fate would have it, we're walking around this ridge top and we run across this sign and I stopped and I'm reading it and it says you are entering they Allstone National Park, No guns, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Loud mental violators will be prosecuted, you know, siting lego law. And there's an elk bugling about one hundred yards other side of that sign, and I said, wait a minute, wait minut, wait minute. I said, I got a video of this sign. And he said hold on, hold on, And he gets in front of the sign and I video him and I said, hey, o, man, look at this. And I video him as he reads the sign, and then he says, and where do you think we're going to go? Come on. So we get in there and he calls us up and it's a it's a good five by five and it's about twenty five yards from us, and he says, man, take him, take him down. Well, it stomped all around us for five minutes, it seems line. And so finally, you know, I shot it. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: Wow, things just escalated a lot. I was not expecting that. With two other fake bumbles on elk encounters and Russ not shooting, he felt that he had no choice but to take the elk. In these situations, it takes a ton of confidence and quick in the field decisions that will impact the case when it goes to court, but also the personal safety of the agent and Also, Russ's team at the National Forest Service had been in communication with the National Park Service and the Montana Fish and Wildlife people and some lawyers, and all of them knew that it was a possibility that he would actually have to take an elk on this hunt, and potentially even in the park. The cost of one elk was worth putting this bad guy out of business for good. But do not think for a second that Russ was happy about or enjoyed it. 00:23:56 Speaker 3: It just wasn't like that. 00:23:58 Speaker 2: And it's not lost on me that in some cases authorities have taken flak for being participants, even to the point of pulling the trigger into illegal hunting. But I've personally never heard a situation where this power was abused. I'm sure it has been. 00:24:14 Speaker 1: We we get to elp down, he processes it, We get it back to camp. Of course we don't. You know, we're not talking to anybody else, you know, we just we killed it up on up on the mountain up there was. 00:24:26 Speaker 2: He was he nervous about it being down there? 00:24:28 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a little bit, but not bad. 00:24:30 Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, hey, we gotta we gotta get this thing across the line. 00:24:33 Speaker 1: Right, yep. So we get it out of there and get it back to camp, and I'm thinking, how can I get out of here? So the next day he's going to take the client from Kentucky. He's got a client from Kentucky with him. So the next morning, when they go hunting, I beat feet back to hell Roaring Guard station to where the wildlife officers were supposed to be at. Well, they were out on patrol and weren't there. Well, all I did was I put them a note under the door, and I kind of wrote it in code. I said, hey, guys, this is and I use my undercover name, just want to let you know this has been a great hunt and we have gotten what I came here for. Thank you. That's in case somebody else found the note. Yeah, and I'm wondering, I hope they read that and crier. 00:25:20 Speaker 2: They know you're looking for a way out, right, and they have an excuse right right, your dad's sick there to say that, we're going to communicate that to your camp, right, so they should read this note and be like, right, we're going to get We got to get him out of there, right. 00:25:34 Speaker 1: So I go back to camp and I'm wondering, I'm hoping that resonated, because I really don't want to stay eight more days in here under these conditions. The very next day, almost at dark, a park ranger come riding in on a horse. Not a Forest Service but a park ranger. And what those guys did, they eate took it a step further. They facilitated a phone call the agent out there. The agent called the district for the Forest Service and said, hey, you've got a guy out there hunting. We've been contacted by his family that he needs to come home. So the wildlife officers didn't deliver the message. 00:26:14 Speaker 2: So this guy that's coming in really thinks it's yeah. 00:26:16 Speaker 1: And it was a girl. It's a female park ranger, and so she really thinking this is real. And she did a great job. She pulled me off to the side and said, you know, I need to let you know there's been a term for your worst on your dad. You know, the word came into the Force Service office. They knew I was going to be in patrol over here today and I'm the one delivering it, and so I had to act like I was, you know, a little distraught over that. But before she broke the news, she was talking about, hey, it looks like you've had some luck. And it was one of my favorite photos. I got my picture with her in the elk, you know. And so they over the message and after she left. 00:27:02 Speaker 2: So would the outfitter would have seen this. 00:27:04 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he saw the whole scenario. 00:27:06 Speaker 2: So he sees this lady right up. Yes, oh yeah, so legit. Yeah, she doesn't know, so she's not acting right. 00:27:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, she's really there for her and that's why how we had it set up that way. Yeah, So soon as she leaves, I says, well, you know, I hate it, but I need to be out here tomorrow. And he says, well, you know we can't do that. I said, yeah we can. And he said, well, I've got another client I need to finish with and maybe we'll get up tomorrow then we can leave. I said no. I said, here's the deal. I said, I'm leaving five to walk out here. And he said, well, he said, I guess I could. We could go out through the park because his wife had somehow shuttled a vehicle over to a parking lot that was a shorter distance. It wasn't the twenty miles. 00:27:53 Speaker 2: It was like six or eight miles. 00:27:56 Speaker 1: But it was through the park, and you can't trans can't do any guide him, can't transport any gun or any meat across the park. He said, we could go through the park, but if we get caught, we've be in trouble. And I said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. You keep the meat, You keep the horns. I'll come back out here next summer go fishing, and I'll get them. And he said, okay, I'll keep your gun too. I said, no, I'll keep my gun. He said, no, if they if they catch us with that gun. I knew what he wanted to do with that gun. He had already had his eye on that old model seventy. And I said, no, I'll take it. I said, tell you what, I'm taking the gun. If we get caught, I'll put it on my horse. He said, okay, he said, but I'd rather just you pick that up. 00:28:40 Speaker 2: When is this actually your gun? 00:28:41 Speaker 1: Yes, it's actually my gun. 00:28:46 Speaker 2: You weren't about to let him steal it from No. 00:28:48 Speaker 1: No, And he he had been known of doing people that way, and then when they had contact him, he would make up lies, like one of the cases was somebody broke into my house and stole all those guns, and uh, you know, but he was selling them. So this guy was bad all the way around. So that's what we did. We packed out across the park, left the meat. 00:29:12 Speaker 2: No get Now, what would you have done if you'd have got caught back there? Would you just had to kind of gone through the system for a lot to go one through the system. I mean they probably would have. Would they have arrested you, probably arrested me and you just had to kind of. 00:29:26 Speaker 1: Go through the process. But the park superintendent knew, so once it reached. 00:29:30 Speaker 2: The search lace at some point they would have been like, Okay, this guy's so they. 00:29:34 Speaker 1: Get me out and I come home. So time passes. Of course, I send all the evidence, the video, your video camera, Yeah, I sent it there, and I had an undercover phone at my house. And uh, two days before they served the search warrant, I was notified by State of Montana and the Forest Service. It was a federal search warrant. They seize all his records, you know, any evidence associated legal outfitting, and try to find out other clients. So I knew the day that the search forant was getting ready to happen, So I stayed around undercover phone that day. Of course, he. 00:30:10 Speaker 2: Still didn't know, so he left on good terms. 00:30:13 Speaker 1: Well, I left on good terms, and I was gonna come back out and get my horns and get my meat and do some fishing next summer. Yeah about let's see that. That would have probably been February or March when they served the warrant. They waited, you know, a good while. They let the season right on, and my phone rings and it was him and he begins to tell me. He said, manam I got bad news. What is it? I don't know how this happened. You know, my house just got raided and they took your horns, They took your meat, they took everything. And I acted mad and I said, but how why you know this isn't right? He said, well they got some other people's meat and their horns too, And he said, took all my records. And he said they may be able to look you up, because I'd written some records down in some notebooks of mine. But if they look you up, you need to do me a favor. And I said, what's that? He said, you remember that video that you took. I said, oh yeah. He said, make sure you get rid of that I'll never forget. I told him, I said that video is in a safe place. 00:31:22 Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. 00:31:24 Speaker 1: So he was really hammered. The courts really hammered him good. And I don't remember the exact but it was ten thousand dollars fine and lost a hunt license for like five years. So it turned out to be a pretty good case in that area. I was so glad to get him removed because we have so few areas that are prestine and they need to be protected. Those legal outfitters have the right to take people and have a good experience with that the interference of somebody like that. I didn't enjoy the hunt, but I enjoyed the outcome. 00:32:06 Speaker 2: Yeah. So did you take any flag for killing an elk? 00:32:09 Speaker 1: No? 00:32:11 Speaker 2: None, none. They just just you just had to do. 00:32:15 Speaker 1: It, yep, And I'd stand by it today. 00:32:26 Speaker 3: That was a wild story. 00:32:29 Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine the complexity of being in a situation like Russ was, in the added stress of no modern communication aids. These two stories of him getting run over in this Yellowstone case were just two that stood out to him in all these years, and we know that there were many many more. As a little foreshadowing there will actually be one more story that'll be dropped on this feed as an extra bear grease drop, which we've never done before, so be looking out for that. Russ would retire as the Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Southern Region of the US for the Forest Service, which encompassed all the national forests in thirteen states. 00:33:19 Speaker 3: He had thirty years of. 00:33:20 Speaker 2: Service from nineteen eighty five to twenty fifteen. But that wouldn't be the end, and unexpectedly things seemed to get even more complex. Here's the final chapter of Russ's career. In overtime, you might say. 00:33:40 Speaker 1: So, I had a great career, had a tough last year. In twenty fourteen, I lost my dad. It's my best friend. Part of me was kind of lost then because I always loved sharing my stories and that was a bond I had with my dad that a lot of people don't understand that and he loved here in the glories of all these things that we've talked about. And retired in two thousand and fifteen, and you know, I had plans to just kind of you know, I've got a little farm down in North Georgia on the Conasauga river, and I had plans of fulfilling building a wood shop down there. I love piddling woodworking. You know, I've made a few turkey calls I wanted to get back into that. I hadn't had time, and so I was kind of working on cleaning the farm up and getting ready to start this project when I got a got a call from my old boss and he said, Russ Man, would you be interested in doing some international travel? And he said, the international programs within the Forest Services starting up a program on training some of these Southeast Asian countries on conservation law enforcement. 00:35:00 Speaker 2: I'm not sure how all this went down, but I envision a hardened team of gray haired men in a small dark room looking at a map of the world, discussing the various and sundry wildlife problems a form of plan of action that. 00:35:15 Speaker 3: They need a man for the job. 00:35:18 Speaker 2: Many names are thrown out, but all of them disqualified until a man seated in the back who hadn't spoken up yet, says, I may know a guy and his name is Russ Arthur, but by now he's probably huddled around a woodstove making turkey calls, drinking coffee in the hills of East Tennessee. 00:35:39 Speaker 3: There's no way he'll take the job. 00:35:42 Speaker 2: But will you call him, they say, and he says, yeah, I'll call Russ. That is probably not the way that it happened. And Russ is probably going to be mad at me and embarrassed that I'm trying to make him look like a hero, because I think that he is. That was never his intent with telling these stories. I had to pride these stories out of him, but we did. And Russ was the man for this job. Here's what the mission entailed. 00:36:12 Speaker 1: Well, tell me more about it. And he explained to me that it's kind of a new program. You know, the international programs with the Forest Service has been around for a long time, very well respected arm of the agency. Some of these other countries had been depleted, just like our country had been depleted from the timber industry back in the twenties, thirties, and forties. These countries have gone through it in more recent times, so it was kind of a natural fit. Some of the things that we experienced that were during negatives we learned from and our agency worked with these other countries to help mitigate some of their losses and get their resources back manageable and once they got their resources back manageable and they started establishing areas or parks or whatever the respective country called that, then they they looked and said, well, you know now, then we need to train a workforce. 00:37:10 Speaker 3: To protect those He took the job. 00:37:13 Speaker 1: Our first trip was to Cambodia, and Cambodia was a It was an eye opener. I had never traveled that extent in my life and for a country boar from East Tennessee, just going through customs was a was an experience. And we trained eighteen rangers men the other two and it was it was called a pilot program. It was a one week training only, and the training consisted of just basic skills that we use in America for negotiating the woods, if you will, kind of field craft things, how to how to get from point A to point B with a map and a compass, how to communicate silently, how who work as a team. You'd teach a skill set in the class and then go out and practice it. The next day. You'd add another skill set on top of that, and you'd go practice both those skill sets, and by the end of the week you put all the skill sets together to where they have to go through the woods quietly, use a map and compass, locate a fake poacher's camp, surround it quietly, and take down a role player that's in the camp as a poacher. So that's kind of and they had never worked in that concept before, so that was very interesting. The guys there appreciating the training so much. It was very rewarding. They wanted more handouts, you know, they wanted more material on it, they wanted more field time, they wanted more exercises. Could we stay another week and do it again? And I get it. This was new to them. A lot of this was new to them, but it was very rewarding that that training was that appreciated. 00:39:05 Speaker 2: What kind of stuff are these guys up against? 00:39:08 Speaker 1: Well, each country has a different and I've been to five different countries now, and each country has a unique and different challenge and it's all based on, you know, the type of force they have and the type of wildlife that they have. In Sri Lanka, there's four thousand elephants over there, and Sri Lanka is a country the size of West Virginia, so that's a pretty good population and there's no honey, but they have a lot of issues and conflicts, and they have a lot of human and elephant interactions, and they have some poaching, but it's it is a completely protected species. In Sri Lanka, they have a several protected areas and parks set aside where people can go visit, but you have to stay on designated trails, you have to go with a guide. And they have species like a leopard. There's four hundred leopards in Sri Lanka. That's not many leopards if you think about it. It's a very important challenge for that country to continue to protect that species. So you know, like I said, each country has has a different set of challenges. The exportation of illegal wood in some countries is big, a lot of illegal wildlife trade. It could be it could be turtles, it could be reptiles, it could be snakes. There's there's a huge illegal you know trade and wildlife h That first class we taught really got humbled. Uh. We learned that not only do these guys have very long shifts in the jungle by themselves or with a team of five, well, this particular country they only allowed one firearm per team. That that was their policy, and they lose two to four officers a year to poachers. That's just that's just unacceptable, and it's and it's really it really hurts because when you when you leave there and you look there, there's eighteen, which one or two is going to be gone next year, and you've developed this bond with them, in this relationship, and you're thinking, gosh, these guys are just so dedicated. But it was a it's a prestigious job to have over there. It's but it's a very, very dangerous job. 00:41:55 Speaker 2: In the United States, wildlife officers killed in the line of duty isn't unheard of, but thankfully it's not common. When you consider the small number of officers over there compared with the thousands that are here, that statistic of these guys getting killed over there really hits home. 00:42:15 Speaker 1: The involvements that I've had in the overseas has been Sri Lanka, Whuzbekistan, Vietnam, Nepaul, and in every one of those countries, they they've got a huge passion for protecting resources. They have they have done a tremendous job independently of establishing protected areas. They've done a tremendous job of establishing agencies. They've done a tremendous job of education on wildlife practices and management practices, and some very good surveys and studies and population you know, densities, and so they're they're doing all of that, but it's relatively new to have these areas set aside that's being restricted now. And imagine if our national parks in America and our National forest in America were just established fifteen or twenty years ago, the problems that we would face with amount of population that's been accustomed to using that land, with those villages over there have been accustomed to using that land for their fuel, wood, using that land for their food, using that land for you know, whatever it provided. And they have a lot of unique plant species and medicinal things that can be collected out there that are sensitive, and so the agencies are now having to protect that. And they do have an advantage in most of these countries that would be a disadvantage to us. And that advantage is in most of these countries they allow honey m and if they do, it's a very specific species with a very specific amount of that can be taken and very very regulated, you know, so so it comes with a cost. They're protected areas you can't just enter. They're national parks, you can't. You have to go with a licensed guide on a trail or a road, and there's no wandering if you will into a lot of these areas. So it's very regulated and they're pretty cut and dry. Either you can't be in there, you can't be in there. 00:44:35 Speaker 2: Well, I guess that makes for some bad criminals though. 00:44:39 Speaker 1: Oh yeah. 00:44:39 Speaker 2: I mean it's like if I can imagine, if I imagine if a Yellowstone you could not be in there, well, you'd either be legal beagle when you were in there, or you'd be an absolute outlaw. 00:44:50 Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. Wow. 00:44:52 Speaker 2: What makes you appreciate the way things are here? 00:44:54 Speaker 1: Is it after my first trip and I have this feeling and I've been over there, I think ten different countries now, I've made ten trips, and I feel the same. On my way home. I feel proud of being America, and I have an unprecedented of respect for what those guys and girls are going through right now. I mean, it's it almost saddens me because they're so passionate and they got such an upheld battle. 00:45:30 Speaker 2: Can you imagine having vast areas of wilderness? Probably some of the only wilderness in that country that the access was that tight and there was no hunting. Now I realize we can't hunt in national parks, but they are designed for access. It does make me appreciate America and our model of wildlife management, which strives to give access and incentive for stewardship to the common man. Even though there are challenges to this model. Today we still got pretty good, but we're gonna have to fight to keep it that way. 00:46:09 Speaker 3: Man. 00:46:10 Speaker 2: As we come to a close of this two part series about Russ Arthur and some of his stories, I'm grateful for guys like Russ. And he was so clear that these stories weren't about him. He had to tell him from his perspective. But he always had teams of great people around him, great supervisors and great friends that had his back. And hey, here's one last thing before you go. Here's a good squirrel and turkey story from Russ's nine year old grandson. I thought you guys might enjoy this. 00:46:50 Speaker 4: So we saw a squirrel in the front of the cabin. He kind of ran all around, couldn't get him because I shot eyed once and then he went to the back of the cabin. Who circled all around the cabin couldn't find him. Then we went to the back we found him. I shot him about three times before I actually hit him. Then I hit him twice and he fell. And then right after that we realized there was a lot bigger squirrel right in front of him, and we named him Fatty because he was huge. So we've tried to get him since, but we still haven't. We've not seen him, the. 00:47:30 Speaker 2: One that got away, big one. Yes, Now, I got a story that I want to hear. I heard about your turkey season. 00:47:45 Speaker 4: Well, we got invited to this private property that seemed a really good spot, so we went up there early in the morning sometime. We went up there, we got in our spot, we didn't hear anything much, so we moved down to below the mountain thing, and then we heard, uh we heard two of them, So I tried to call him up, like, uh yeah, pretty similar to that. We called him up. We saw him coming from the top of the mountain where we were just before we moved, so we called him down to where we were and we figured out there were two of them, and once they got close enough, I shot at them. I missed both of them, they jumped up and when they landed they gobbled. 00:48:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was That was a good morning. And I told him that if he were to be given a score on hunting, he would have got ninety eight that morning. And he wanted to of why ninety eight so high and he didn't kill anything. I said, well, we planned this hunt. We met with a landowner. There's work that went into getting ready for the hunt. He got all this stuff ready the night before. We got up two hours before daylight, and we walked up on that mount before daylight. We stayed camoflaged. So you did ninety eight percent of the things. 00:49:22 Speaker 2: Right, just right at the end. Miss, that's it. 00:49:25 Speaker 1: I asked him why he was breathing so hard. 00:49:28 Speaker 4: It was more like I was so excited. I was so excited because I've never seen a turkey up so close and never actually got a chance to shoot one. 00:49:37 Speaker 2: So your heart was beating pretty fast. 00:49:39 Speaker 4: Yeah, I was pretty nervous, felt like that before kind of. 00:49:44 Speaker 2: Maybe with that big old fat square Yeah, with a squirrell. Thanks so much for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Tree Life podcast. You can help us in three ways by sharing our podcast with your friends and your family, and by supporting our sponsors, these guys are actually meaningful to us, and you can leave us a review on iTunes, and don't forget about watching the bear grease render on Meat Eater's new podcast YouTube channel. 00:50:24 Speaker 3: See you next week.

Save this episode