00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Media Doors World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's We Can Review with Ryan kel Kell and now Here's Kel if you're call a couple of episodes back. We talked about a reversal of a Trump era rule that exempted companies from penalties resulting from migratory bird deaths outlined in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. We used the example of the Gulf bp oil spill and how the fines that came out of that ecological disaster were used to restore marine and coastal habitats well. One of those birds from the Gulf oil spill, a brown pelican, made news the other day. This bird was originally found covered in oil in Louisiana. After it was cleaned up, it was shipped to a rehab facility in Georgia and banded with the tag thirty three Z. Eventually it was released in that state. In two thousand ten, the state of Louisiana just reported that thirty three Z was just spotted back in the Sportsman's Paradise State, which is a flight of seven hundred miles, and boy are its wings tired? Just kidding? Seven hundred miles is a day's work for an eight pound bird that has a seven and a half foot wingspan. What's really impressive is a brown pelican can swim three miles per hour underwater before it's even old enough to be fully feathered, and it can hold over three gallons of water in its bill. That's a triple threat type of bird if you're counting. I'm not saying that taking a single brown pelican from Louisiana to Georgia is the premier example of how Migratory Bird Act mitigation dollars have been spent and estimated eight hundred thousand to one million birds were killed across one hundred and two species due to direct exposure during the BP oil spill. So focusing on singular individuals is good. Landscape and ecosystem type focus is better. Do what's best for the flock, not just the fledgling. You could say, even if that fledgling can swim three miles per hour almost out of the egg. This week we've got the war on wolves and grizzlies. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week and my week as well as This podcast is hosted by Steel Power Equipment. Look up a steel dealer near you by going to steal usa dot com. I don't have all that much going on. Got a new fancy, awesome pellet grill for barbecue season, which is year round for me, if I'm being honest, got the camp chef would win two thing rips, smoke some fish, grilled some mule dear the usual. We just got back from a week of turkey hunting. About forty five minut us are so outside of the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we hosted. Austin, Jake, and Kevin were Team Oklahoma for the first ever TRCP Meat Eater turkey hunt. Austin won the raffle that raised a ton of money for conservation, and he brought his brother and childhood friend along. Isn't that sweet? It was a great trip. First timers got birds. You can't beat that. Well. Stephen myself got blanked. No birds for us, However, Old the honest Patelis was kind enough to cook up a big batch of turkey schnitzel on the very last night we were there. We stayed up too late and ate well. It was fantastic. Now in Michigan, I decided to climb a tree stand as there were plenty around and like almost all of my tree stands sits. Had I stayed long enough, I would have killed something, in this case a turkey. But I don't sit well. I didn't make a post on the old cal four oh six instagram handle in guards to legislation that will undoubtedly be law in the State of Idaho by the time of this recording, and that is or was rather State Bill one to one one. This bill legislatively manages wildlife, which I am not a fan of. The State of Idaho is supposed to have an independent fish and game This bill says, no, you're not. For instance, wolves are a big game animal in the state of Idaho, which was part of the agreement when wolves became managed by the State of Idaho. A big game designation basically means that there are seasons, legal means of take, as in how you can catch or kill one, and you have to have a tag to legally kill a wolf, and that there's going to be a mandatory big game harvest report. According to this bill twelve eleven, the wolf will still be considered a big game animal, so you will still need a tag and you will still need to report your harvest, but it will now be legal to take that animal by any means that you would use to legally kill a coyote, which coyotes are considered a vironmint in the state of Idaho. Vironmints can be killed year round. They can be legally taken in a variety of different ways, including several non big game ways, which would include like the use of night vision scopes, which you know you use at night. If I'm being honest, this doesn't really bother me, with the exception of the fact that all of this could have been accomplished through regulation as in a change to the big game hunting rags, not legislation as in law. In fact, most of what's in this bill, if an individual wanted to go through the proper channels, could be accomplished prior to the bill becoming law. Currently in the state of Idaho, a hunter can get fifteen over the counter wolf tags, a trapper can get fifteen over the counter wolf tags, and a hunter trapper can get a total of thirty wolf tags. Additional tags are available in depredation circumstances. Interestingly enough, under depredation circumstances, a person could be permitted to kill wolves at night with a night vision optic. Additionally, in the entire state of Idaho, the wolf season is almost year round at either eleven or twelve months, if not on all lands on private lands. Bill twelve eleven mandates that trapping be open year round on private lands in all units, which is important because I d f G Idaho Fishing Game currently has some closures in place in areas that year round trapping, specifically with snares, could cause unnecessary conflict. We'll get to why that is in a minute. The current length of the wolf season and the liberal tags are a reflection of the fact that wolf numbers are growing and trappers and hunters aren't that good at trapping or hunting them. Now, that's a gen realization right through hunter harvest reports, which again is a benefit of the big game designation. In two thousand nineteen, one trapper in the state actually managed to fill all of his twenty tags that were available at the time. Kids, So I just said thirty tags. Now it's twenty tags. The two thousand nineteen season, it was ten hunting tags ten trapping tags. So this person is the first person in Idaho state history to fill all available wolf tags, which if you're listening, is a hell of an accomplishment right in, and I'll get you something a s k C. A l ask cal at the meat eater dot Com. A handful of trappers outside of that person, maybe we'll call him the big two. Oh, consistently break into the low teens. But we're talking about less than ten individuals. And quick side note here, if you were a savvy wolf trapper, which is statistically the most effective way of killing wolves, your wolf hunting tags are valid to be placed on trapped wolves as long as there is a wolf hunting season open in that game management unit, and you are, of course carrying your trappers license, and you've completed your wolf trapper education course. If you've done that, then you can use a wolf hunting tag on a trapped wolf. That's what I'm saying. As for wolf hunters, here's a four instance for you. I myself was one of those folks who was that kind of like the tail end of high school and wolf reintroductions were being discussed. I thought, I would, you know, naturally, become a modern day wolfer have another animal to hunt, and this one in the heart of the cold winter when there was nothing else going on big game wise, despite always having tags in my pocket, I have yet to kill a wolf. I've seen them, I've called a few in, but I have never gotten a shot. Technically a wolf hunter I am, but in practice a bad one, and I represent the majority of wolf hunter, not the minority. To get another wolf hunder's perspective, someone who's much more serious than I am called the Buddy Mine up in the Panhandle, who is a self proclaimed wolf hater and hunter who has decided to dedicate fifteen days of each year specifically to wolf hunting. In three years, forty five days of hunting and the purchase of a snowmobile for the specific use of wolf hunting, he has killed two wolves. And this dude can hunt, and he can shoot very accurately a long long way. He's a skilled marksman. The Fishing Game Commission testified through the Director of Idaho Fishing Game Ed Shreever, as to why they cannot support twelve eleven. It would limit fishing games ability to manage wildlife. Ed gave this example in some units that have a heavy presence of hounds and hound hunters running bears, they limit the use of snares in those units during that part of the season, a classic user conflict situation. Under the wording of Bill twelve eleven, fishing game can only limit the season, not the means of take, as the means of take are set by law now not regulation. Snares are a means of take that pertained to trapping. Leg hold traps are still in use during prime hound season, but snares are not in those game management units. Typically, an animal such as a domestic dog, can be released unharmed from a leg hold trap, whereas with a snare, especially once set for a canine of similar size, being caught could mean death to a hound dog, which if we're talking about having to lose a couple of working dogs to get the wolf numbers down, that's what's got to happen, right Well, some do agree with that and some do not. Look at what just happened in New Mexico, Roxy's law, I believe is what it was called A hikers dog was killed in an legally set snare. A well funded anti trapping campaign followed, and there is no more trapping for the vast majority of New Mexicans on all public lands, all public lands, not just in the area around Santa Fe where Roxy was killed, And if you were thinking yeah, but not Idaho, I bet there were a lot of New Mexicans thinking the same thing. If forced into this situation, there could be a scenario in which the wolf trapping season would need to be shut down entirely in those game management units, and fewer wolves would be trapped, not more. You can see this would put I d f G in a hard place. Now, if you think a couple of hound dogs are working dogs, wouldn't elicit such a response from the public that fishing game would have to shut down a unit. What about the year round use of snares in areas where something even more controversial than hound dogs or cattle dogs room. When I asked a local trapper how plausible it would be to catch a juvenile grizzly bear and a snare set for a wolf, he responded, entirely plausible, But the seasons don't match up well. Under this new legislation, they will in Idaho, and the only response I d f G will have is to close the season down in that area entirely. Through changes in trapping regulations, Idaho increase the wolf take by in the two thousand nineteen two thousand twenty season. Over the two thousand eighteen two thousand nineteen season, about five eight three wolves were killed in total in the two thousand nineteen, two thousand twenty season. That number includes take from hunters, trappers, wildlife services, and there's a category that says other, which I'm assuming is some other sort of depredation or you know, known death. If Idaho has one thousand, five hundred fifty six wolves, which is the current math, a take of five eighty three wolves would represent roughly decrease in total population, which is huge. And that again was done through regulation, not legislation. Now, this isn't gonna be an apples to apples comparison to anybody who just wants to see wolves die. But if you compare big game numbers, right, there's a big game animal. If we reduced the deer population or the elk population, the big horn sheep population by thirty percent, that would make everybody stopping their tracks. Through the history of the wolf in Idaho, you can see how regulations have changed to mirror the growth of the wolf population. First, limited units were open to the take of wolves only through firearms, only through hunting. There were no trapping seasons open. Those units had a quota or a cap on how many could be taken. Now, any hunter can buy more tags than they are ever likely to fill and use them almost throughout the calendar year in any part of Idaho. With Bill twelve eleven, hunters and trappers would have the ability to purchase an unlimited amount of tags. But what would that accomplish? And again, that is something that could have been done through regulation. If you look at the trajectory of wolf tag availability where it started to where it is now, unlimited tags could very well be in something that was coming in the near future anyway. And then two thousand twenty season, over forty thousand wolf tags were sold. Again, five and eighty three wolves were taken total. Some of those were not taken with tags, meaning there are some U. S d A numbers in there. The difference between forty thousand tags sold and five and eighty three tags punched to me suggests that this is not a getting tags in the hands of people problem. So I'm gonna circle back to issue with this legislation. Wildlife management takes time. It's not a perfect science. Our state wildlife agencies have the best data available to them, and they are at times a bit behind the curve. If we were to set legislation every session that determined our wildlife management, we would inevitably end up years, maybe decades behind that curve. Think of the COVID years, for instance, or some other natural disaster. Our lawmaker is going to focus on passing legislation for wildlife every session or are they going to focus on economic stimulus packages, infrastructure and schools. This wolf legislation versus regulation is something I hope is limited to a singular event and not the start of a trend. I am all four killing more wolves. I am all for having wolves on the landscape, but I do not agree that regulating wildlife through legislation is the way. I do not believe that this legislation and there is a lot more to it than I have mentioned here, such as increasing the amount of funding the Wolf Control Board has and increasing the amount of opportunities they have to spend it. And when it comes to spending that money, this bill includes a very ill defined group of people they can spend it on. But I do not believe we are going to see some giant reduction in wolf numbers. And keep in mind. The reduction that we're looking for is a magical number that is just an acceptable number of wolves, which is a moving target. My buddy up in North Idaho, that number for him is zero zero wolves. The Panhandle, by the way, as a region that has seen declines and elk numbers absolutely without a doubt, in part by predation wolves, black bears, mountain lions, the occasional grizzly. There's a lot of critters that eat meat in the Panhandle, but as always with conservation, there is seldom one thing to point to. For instance, the clear Water North is the same place that at the time of Lewis and Clark was darn near denuded of game, a place tribes like the nez Perst told white folks not to go to if they're looking for groceries. It wasn't until timber harvests opened up ground to sunlight blocked by old growth trees, the Big Burn of nineteen ten, in which over three and a quarter million acres of timber burned in two days, the introduction of yellowstone elk into Idaho, and nineteen more fires in the nineteen thirties. Only after all that did we really start to see fantastic elk habitat in the Panhandle. Currently, timber management is in comparison non existent, and we haven't seen a good ripping fire in a long time. Habitat will always be a piece of the puzzle. But I digress. The other number that may be acceptable is one and fifty, which is the number of wolves currently allowed for in the Idaho Wolf Management Plan. I truly believe in order to do that, to get down to a one fifty number, poison on public land and helicopters will be involved. And those two options are in my opinion, only for the professionals. And if this Wolf Control Board is going to spend money on independent contractors, they better have a helicopter. So this is happening, right, There's legislation that is happening. So how will we know if this wolf legislation works. Well, it's gonna be tough. Idaho, as discussed here previously, is also opening up more mountain lion opportunity in the state. Maybe more people will take advantage of black bear hunting in the state and be successful this spring and fall. The folks who do go out and chase lions might actually kill more of this winner instead of just chasing them around, and that winner is going to have to be just hard enough to be able to track lions well kill the winner ticks that if fact moose and then be just easy enough to where it gives a break to the undulus that we're trying to protect here. And if this cycle repeats itself for two or three seasons, then we may be able to look back and say some part of this worked, not definitively of course, could have been the more bear harvest or the more lion harvest, or it could have been the fact that we had an easy winner or an easy spring. Or maybe it was that big rip and fire that took out the pickup stick, deadfall and dark timber that all the wolves are hiding in anyway and turned into thousands of acres of feet. The scary part is this legislation is flying in the face of a steady, measured reaction from wildlife professionals, which is slowly working with the hope of instant success. So what happens if the wolf numbers are not magically lower next year? Do we see more legislation? And if you want to play the fear game, what happens if we get more severe legislation. This carries on for another two or three seasons, and we overcorrect so hard that all the camera traps, radio collars, and aerial survey has turned up less than one fifty wolves do We then have to watch our hunting rights go back out the door as they become relisted and relegated to federal control. We have to sit and watch those wolf numbers climb all the way back up before we get a hume again. Now, this has been a long opinion piece here, folks, But to bring it back home, wildlife management is not exact enough to be legislated, which is why I prefer it to be regulated. Moving on, and just for simplicity sake, we're gonna stick with the great state of Idaho. Looks like we might have a serial grizzly bear poacher in Fremont County. Fremont County sits in the eastern tip of the state near Yellowstone. Idaho Fishing Game officials recently announced that sometime between March fift and March asaw was shot multiple times near the Pole Bridge Campground around Island Park in the Targee National Forest. If you watch that Cow in the Field episode, this is exactly where we were fishing. Game officials went looking for the bear after her tracking color sent a mortality signal, and they discovered her body partially submerged in the Little Warm River. The bad news didn't end there, as the officers then located the bear's den, where they found her dead cub, who had apparently starved to death. This follows two other recent grizzly bear poaching cases in the same area. Two bore grizzlies were found shot in the vicinity last fall, one in September and one in October. Bear poaching is actually pretty rare in North America compared with other regions of the world, especially Southeast Asia, where bear claws and other trophies are highly sought after. From three to two thousand two, there were only eight verified instances of grizzly poaching across Idaho, Montana, Washington, and British Columbia, which makes this recent rash of poaching per particularly strange, especially because the motivation doesn't seem to be the desire for meat, hide, claws, or heads. Is this recent poacher angry overgrowing numbers of bears in the area and their continued protection under the Endangered Species act sort of a spotted owl type focusing of bad feelings on a particular emblematic animal, or some people's powerful drive to flout any restrictions that conservation laws put on people. That speculation is less important than the concrete here and now. If any of you out there have information that could help Idaho Fishing Game find the responsible party, contact the Upper Snake Region Office to zero eight five to five seven to nine zero, or Citizens Against Poaching at one hundred six three to five nine nine nine. You can also go online at I d f G dot Idaho dot gov Forward poacher. If your tip solves the case, you could end up with fifty grand. That's fifty thousand bucks, which would together very nicely with a clean conscience. Remember, poaching is stealing, and he's stealing from all of us, especially those of us who were living in the state Idaho when we actually got to apply for the singular grizzly bear draw tag, and I want that opportunity again. People like this are setting us back from being able to legally hunt these things. Moving on, only a couple of miles up the road to some very tough news from a couple of weeks back when wilderness guide and photographer Carl Mock was mauled to death by a four pound male grizzly bear while Mock was fishing north of West Yellowstone, Montana, near Baker's Whole Campground at the western edge of the park. Mock's instagram is chock full of the many spectacular photos he'd taken of bears, wolves, foxes, weasels, and other animals in the g y e since two thousand sixteen. In his last post from two days before the attack, Mock joked that he'd been able to get one particularly close up grizz photo because quote I smelled like I had been catching trout all day. I think most of us who spend a good amount of time in grizzly country have told similar jokes, but no one wants the irony to be quite that stark. Mock's dominant hand was quote chomped up from trying to protect his face and neck. His bear spray had been deployed, although we don't know exactly when. Amazingly, despite a punctured skull, Mok had the fortitude to distance himself from the bear and make two phone calls directing in first responders who were able to extract Mock, while the bear let his continued irritability known. It was the following day, a Friday, the investigation day, that the bear was killed and ultimately a moose carcass was found. The bear, who was a suspect at the time, didn't back down from attempts by a mixed group of seven park rangers, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials, and one dog to haze him away. After discharging eight cracker rounds, which are shotgun shells loaded with like M A D type firecrackers, the bear was eventually killed at a distance of twenty yards as it charged the group. Mock died of a stroke that resulted in brain death. On Saturday, in order to get the Baker's whole campground back open safely, the moose carcass was stuffed with explosives and blown up, which is a believe it or not, common practice. This turns a big concentrated bear attractant that will stick around for a while into a bunch of very small attractants that get gobbled up by birds, squirrels, and bugs. Not recommended to try that one at home with your trash cans. The conflict between Mock and this particular bear seems to have been fairly quote unquote natural. That is, a ravenous bear emerging from hibernation aggressively defending a moose carcass nearby, which is the kind of thing that could have happened to an unlucky fisherman five hundred years ago on the exact same spot, long before yellow Stone became what it is today. Mack was described as a serious outdoorsman, a real mountain man by his father, and fiercely loyal by his employer, Jerry Johnson of Backcountry Adventures. Interesting note out of the Buildings Gazette. Carl was an organ downer, and his heart, liver, kidneys, and pancreas were removed to help those in need of aftermarket parts. Sounds like a stand up guy. If you do a quick search, you'll find a go fund Me page to help with Carl's expenses. Guides don't typically have much in the way of insurance. Remember that the next time you go out on a snowmobile tour or a day of fishing. As we used to say, you can always tip over, but you can never over tip. That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you so much. For listening. Remember you can always get ahold of me by writing into a s K C A L that's asked Cal at the Meat Eater dot com. And most importantly, tell me what's going on in your neck of the woods. And, last, but not least, all really do want to thank the great folks at Steel for their support of Cal's week in review. Whether you need a pole saw for clearing a shooting lane or a chainsaw to cut firewood, they've got you covered. Available only it authorized dealers go to s T I H L D E A L e r S dot com that's Steel Dealers dot com to check them out and find your local dealer. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week.

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