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The MeatEater Podcast
Ep. 266: Crying Wolf
Play Episode
2h11m
Steven Rinella talks with Jon Mooallem, Gaspar Perricone, Brody Henderson, Ryan Callaghan, Phil Taylor, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.
Topics discussed: Papa Jani's wish to have guests introduced at the beginning of the show; how Ronny B. got Steve in trouble, and a correction about raccoons duking it out with dogs inside barrels; moss balls and zebra mussels; Tonka trucks and tularemia; "Wild Ones," "This Is Chance!" and the great Alaska earthquake of 1964; Richter as a nudist; the sociology of disaster; Cal's look alikes; wolves traveling very far distances; The Great Chill, or The 2020 Die Off; wolves coming to Colorado, like it or not; how many elk will they really kill?; social legislation and wildlife as a vehicle for vendetta; where to watch "Cal In The Field"; and more.
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00:00:08
Speaker 1: This is me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case underwear. Listening to Hunt podcast, you can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators are the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. Nor where you stand with on X. All right, everybody, joannest there's a note from your honest in the notes says a note, can we please introduce all guests at the beginning of the podcast? This is Ben Janni's for years, for years. All that man wants Yanni. I like to have the suspense. I don't introduce him because I like to create a suspense because I think a lot of people just listen because they're like one of Brody's there, right, Okay, Well, I just want you to know that, uh, there's another man sort of sitting on my shoulders that's talking to my ear all the time as you're not introducing the guests, and you can probably guess who that is. It's the same man that thinks you should not heat birthing tubs with su vied devices. Correct your father? Correct? Do you like in movies? Do you like if if you're watching the movie, do you want to know right when the movie starts, what's gonna happen? No, yeah, I can tell you who would though. It would be my kids. We've recently started to introduce them to uh The Star Wars, and so we watched four or five six over the last two weeks. And they cannot take it if they get that feeling of anticipation, just a little teeny teeny bit. They cannot stand it that they know something is about to happen and they don't know what it is. When you know, after we met, you know, the after we met. I don't know if he talks about this though. Anyways. I was watching the Where the Red Fern Grows and then uh Old Yeller with my kids, and before we got into it, I told him, listen, these dogs. You know, the dog dies in the end, right. I just want you to know this up top, so because I knew that'd be upsetting to him. So watching the movie, they're just enthralled. They love those movies. They get to the end and I'm thinking, well, now that they're sucked into the plot, they will, you know, stick it out now that they know because they're sold you know, engrossed in the story, but it gets up where you kind of smell what's gonna happen, that the dog is gonna die, and they just they want to turn it off and walk out of the room. That I thought for sure they would be like, wow, what the hell, it's tough it out, But now they're like, oh, really he's gonna die now, Okay, click done. I don't think they want to deal with the emotional trauma. I'll tell you right now, I'm right there with him. Now. When when when my kid senses something coming up on a movie he doesn't want to watch, He plugs his ears and runs out of the room. No, he doesn't want you to want to hear it, see it nothing. He's like, my god, Luke Skywalker is gonna keep his arm in my mind. And the old yellow dog. Uh okay, Yanni introduced everybody. Then since since you know the give us this one goes out with Yanni's dad. Oh jeez, all right, who all do we have here? Brody Anderson? Years ago in old Colorado, it's maybe twenty years ago, dude, it's twenty I got news for you, Halen from the Great State of Pennsylvania, Brodie. Understand, all right, you know I'm dealing cards. I'm just gonna pretend like John is uh right here on my right hand side, so I'm gonna continue to deal cards. They're Stephen Ronnella at the head of the table, Ryan Callahan's yellow, Karin Snyder Schneider, Schneider, I am a Schneider, you like the al right, uh Phil or lovely podcast engineer. And then the esteemed author John MoU Allen, who we had on I guess three years ago or so to discuss his book The Wild Ones. Yes, nailed it was Bay. We're gonna discuss Oh no, let's not tell him what which book we're gonna discuss. Do like a little suspense a little bit. It just Yanni's dad wants to know who's there, but he doesn't want to know. Why are we leaving out the mystery guests for now? Yeah, all right, just to keep yann his dad at the edge and see, just just keep him irritated so there is a little surprise for people coming later on. I just got home last night from Mexico. We went down for spring break. We go every year we go to Yeah, I guess I could say every year now because for a lot of years we've done this. We go down to East Cape, so southern Baja Peninsula and fish and just sit on the beach and stuff. It was fun. But I almost got I'm almost not here. The reason I bring this up because you now, right, you have to show that you haven't had COVID to get on a plane. And they got this big testing facility set up at the airport Baha. It's like a big tent. You get results in thirty minutes. Uh. The tricky part is, you know there's false positives and stuff from the thing. So it's little unnerving. If you have a family of five, like you're, you feel like you're rolling the damn dice. Yeah, and you and you've had it, Well, that's the trouble. So I had my my paperwork from the health department, the county Health department, and I had my paper all I had a official stamp on it, official signature on it, and it said like what day you know, whatever, what day you had it, and this and that, and it says you can resume normal activities. In my case, you can resume more normal activities January. Um. But Delta, who I'm normally a fan of uh won't accept it, And they said, or you need a letter saying that you're cleared for travel, And I'm like, but it says right here, I can resume normal activities in January. Nowhere can you find point to me a website that says that spells out that requirement that leveling isn't normal activity. I'm not putting this on you, Brody. I just mean, like, no one could point. So it's Sunday, I can't get hold of me. You call, you call your doctor's office, and it'll be like, you know, if it's an emergency, call whatever, and in the fight's gonna leave. My whole family now has their tests. So I go down, I go to the tent and and you know, it's my faults. I don't speak Spanish, so I'm not I'm not blaming anybody. It's like, I'm not blaming anyone but myself. But it's very hard to convey my concerns. And I'm going to do the rapid test. And the thing is once you've had it, like you can get these residual positives. So I take the test and be like, I'm either going to be in Mexico for a couple of weeks fishing, yeah, minus my family or and thankfully it came back negative and I was able to get on the damn plane. So you were trying to say, like, listen, I need a test, but here's my unique situation, and they're like, you need a test or you don't need I was like, what do you think? What like, what's your take on this situation? You know, can you like barely swab my nose? You know? And they man, they were just it was very binary, oh for sure, but just gets hilarious because you could suck out the language part. Put you on any place in the planet in that situation, and I guarantee that person is gonna be like, bro, I'm not here to think about your situation. I'm here to swab you or not. I want to know if it was the family upset or were they just ready to leave you there? Uh yeah, I don't know. It wasn't like that. What the kids were that they get they get a little uh, they get a little anxious about stuff like that. You know, I'll be like whenever see each other again. They they were getting anxious, especially the oldest one. He kind of he was tracking what was he was tracking what was going on and was not liking what he's hearing. He's not quite old enough to be like, listen, I have a boarding routine, and I just need to get into my routine. You deal with you, Yanni. Remember how I was telling you about all about um this thing in Germany that that I I was that I didn't really know what I was talking about, but I had heard. I had heard that in Germany you put your dog in a barrel with a raccoon and they du get out. Are you remembering this? That's right? Okay, well the guy and I said, and I got around equating this to NAVDA, which is the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association of which my friend Ronnie is you know, he's always been very involved there. Um and and the president. I remember, I just want to sing clear my name. I remembering. I remember being a little incredulous, little skeptical of your statement. Well, oh, i'd heard this German thing a bunch for me. No, not from you. I don't want to get into how I know about it, but I know about it, and I know what's here's listen, typically associated with drop stars. Yeah, and it's like, I don't know what that is. It's one of those dogs. It's like a shade of a hair of a difference between a German short haired pointer Navidad. This is Ryan Callahan. You can come on after me for this statement, my apology, and then you come with him. You guys got to back up about why you put your dog in a barrel with it, Pam. It's called the sharpness like a barrel better a sharpness test here. I don't want to get into it like I didn't make this up. I don't wake up one day and make up there's such a thing to fight. I believe it's something people would do to Why would they do it though? That's why I'm saying. They call it like that. He's got them these that he's blood. He got sharpness, sharpness which is like a which is a which is a soft term for having a lot of gird. Yeah, you don't want spirit, you want your coon dog running away from a raccoon. It's just a way to test like that. That dog is the high test fighter. Yeah, Okay, I did not Ronnie. Ronnie had explained to us that historically when they hunted farms game farms in Europe, they wanted their upland bird dogs if they came upon a vermin to kill it. Well, he's coming on the show pretty soon. Can you remember that Ranny could talk about this whole thing, because he's got me all in trump, possums, raccoons, skunks, egg eaten things, feral cats, anyhow, he were it in. He's fired up, very friendly. David Trehan Tryan Treyhan, President, President, North American Versaal Hunting Dog Association, wants us to know that this sort of thing, he said, I made what sounded like a vague, factually incorrect reference to the sharpness test used in some German testing systems that are unrelated in NAVDA, And he doesn't know where I'm getting this whole barrels with the raccoon thing anyway. So he's like, you got that wrong, and then you got the fact that this has something to do with NAVEDA wrong. Says it's neither condoned by NAVDA, nor, to the best of my knowledge, practiced by any of our members. We're concerned that listeners who are unfamiliar with NAVDA, our goals and our mission might come away from that discussion thinking that has done at all, or worse, thinking that it's common practice and that would be truly unfortunate. And he goes on to say they have eighty five chapters, ten thousand men, birds, US and Canada. And although some aspects of our testing system are based loosely on those used in Germany, NAVI does not evaluate dogs performance related the hunting mammals of any species. Rather, we focus exclusively on upland and waterfowl hunting. And they are dedicated to treating all animals, including dogs and game, with respect and dignity. So remember and remember that show Happy Days. Fonzie was he was he wasn't able to say wrong. He'd be like, I was ru Yeah, I mean I was wrong, Like I was wrong. Hey, you corrected it, but you know that was wrong. I should still a little bit. It's not fair. I was wrong. Okayky, I'll tell them about the moss balls. Oh boy, m okay. So apparently if you're an aquarium enthusiast, you buy these moss balls to drop in your aquarium tank. Um. And this is something that's distributed through like all these national pet store chains. And it was found that there are some zebra muscles inside moss balls. Zebra muscles proliferate at a high higher rate. They are are bad for native ecosystems. Is a non native species like like transforming, like what zebra muscles in the Great Lakes. If if, if you're worried about wolves in Colorado, you should be worried about zebra muscles in your neck of the woods. But there are Great Lates zebra muscles sympathizers. Yeah, Okay, here's one scenario. With all to respect, there are, yeah, but the Great Lakes. So they're like an experimental aquarium anyway, It's like it's already all made. Never mind, go ahead, I'm staying out. I'm done. I'm done. I'm gonna talk about this rabbit fever. Deal with this little girl. That's it. Um muscles, Right, they filter feed. They eat zo plankton and phytoplankton. So in systems where we see maybe just dirty water, that can oftentimes be a shipload of food that all of our fish, including game fish, when they're at a very young age, they depend on that zo plankton phytoplankton to get large enough to where they can then start being more fun fish to catch. If you're just worried about game species, right, um what zebra muscles can do is they proliferate so heavily. They can clean a system so much to where that water is crystal clear and you're like, oh my god, how pretty the lake is. Must be must be good, must be good talking, but it can be very very scarce on life. And um, then you can get in all this other stuff that like the sun, sun's rays are penetrating way deeper in the water calling than they used to be, and then other things that can proliferate and the oxygen can go way down in the lake and then everything dies. Okay, vegetation, You get aquatic vegetation in places you never had it before. Yes, and then it's only suitable for what always lives, which is carp um. Anyway, your aquarium moth balls, moss balls, okay, old moss balls. Don't I would think, don't just pitch them out in the yard. I was calling them zebra balls on the podcast. I thought that was cute. Um, don't pitch them out in the yard or just throw them away. If you have purchased some of these things, I'm sure is there a brand name? Like, what is there? I didn't see a brand name, but these are apparently like ubiquitous amongst uh you know, national pet store chains and things like that. So uh, take them, throw them all in the freezer for a good twenty four hours, or like most people do, we'll just forget about them for several months, and then then by the next time you come across him, then you're cool to throw them away. Um. Or you know, you can like soak them in bleach um and then throw them away. But the the worst thing you can do is like don't flush them down the drain or throw them out in the storm drain or something like that. One of the broody was talking about zebra muscle sympathizers. I'll tell you who's not is industry in general, because like filtration systems and stuff like that. Uh uh yeah, they clog them up. You're water power plants, stuff like that. I don't know what the actual number is, but it's like a billion dollars a year just managing of the things, yeah, cleaning cleaning them off. Yeah. So like Montana, you know there's water, there's watercraft check stations all over the place, uh in the summer months, and one of the things they're looking for are zebra mussels inside. Um. The the building area of your watercraft. And then if you look at this stuff online, you'll always see like these, um kind of stereotypical pictures of zebra muscles being stuck all over old boat props and the bottoms of boats and and uh and then like in the Great Lakes especially, you get like on the lock systems. Uh. Just yeah, somebody's making good money cleaning off zebra muscles. So if you got moss balls, bleach them, bleach, bleach your balls. Uh. Okay, this is for Easter. Tu Larima story for Easter. A guy a listener wrote in Um, he says he's got a public service announcement, so he's apparently a Tonka truck enthusiast. That's how this starts. Correct, He's a Tika truck enthusiast and wakes up and checks on Craigslist and sees that there's a kid selling a bunch of Tonka trucks. Sow him being a Tonka enthusiast. Um, it's funny. I we have a lot of Tika trucks, and I as a kid, and I imagined my mother's attic being sort of this repository of amazing vintage perfect Tonka trucks. It must just be up there, and I got my kids pretty excited for a trip to Grandma's. Went up There's just not what I remember. Did you get rid of them? Are? They just was like by a bunch of tiker trucks. I mean, there's one that's not a tiger truck. It's got three tires. I'm not sure what happened over the last thirty years. It's not the attic I imagined it being. Uh, he's a time enthusiasts. So he goes to the guy. He goes by. He goes to this kid's house by the time of trucks, makes his purchase, and the kids mentions like, hey, I also raise rabbits, So meat rabbits. The guy raises the meat rabbits. So he buys a meat rabbit and the trucks and brings the rabbit and the trucks home. But the meat rabbit he gets to a seven year old and the meat rabbit scratches. The seven year old barely drew blood. Everyone goes about their business. Now imagine this now so we know where this is going. But but picture that he gets a rabbit rabbit scratch as a kid twenty days goes by. Her lift notes swell up. She gets a high fee. Her go to the hospital in Oregon. They keep focusing on has she been scratched by a cat? Cat scratched? Fever? Damn furs? Time man, I got it, so keep asking about cats. Um. They give her some antibiotics, do nothing. Lymph nodes grow to the size of an egg. They do a surgery on the poor girl. They remove her tonsils, They remove her lymph nodes. They leave a three inch scar on her neck. A month goes by, the fever returns, the lymph nodes swell again. They go to you see Davis again, you've been scratched by a cat again? They say, No, I forgot to mention this in Oregon where you scratched by a cat? No, but she was scratched by a rabbit. You see Davis where you scratched by a cat? No, but she was scratched by a rabbit. All of a sudden to realize that this poor girl has had to lurma and it was not diagnosed. So they do more surgery. Relieved, removed two more lymph nodes. A cluster of necrotic dead lymph nodes deep inside her neck, some dead tissue and skin around the area put around the right by right antibiotic savor life. They nick a nerve that controls or smiles, and now her smiles off. It's crooked. She's got a six inch scar below the three inch scar. The guy's father in law goes and kills the rabbit. Later, someone from the Center for Disease Control and Sacramento calls to interview the family. They thought she maybe had plague, doesn't and then expresses disappointment in the family for having killed the rabbit, and they hung up on the person. Yeah, horrible, guy says. With Easter coming up soon, I know people be buying rabbits for their kids, and they should be informed of this disease. Now, we talked about to Lorimi extensively in the Wilderness Skills book, all the different ways you can get it. You know, there was a guy, I don't know if we mentioned this. Have you mentioned this in the book? A guy that hit a desiccated rabbit, a dead desiccated rabbit with a lawnmower and contracted a airborne to lorimi and his lungs. Yeah, I think we may have. And there's actually I think we mentioned that there there has been talk of weaponizing because you can arisolize it scary. This guy says, um, this will give you. He says, this will give you something besides c w D to talk about. Then he goes on to say, if you have any health issues, he says, you know, call your local trapper before seeking medical. I wonder if they wipe out the uh the other if they went to the kid's Yeah, I would think so. He probably went back and he was probably selling Tonka trucks with a rabbit the bag. Oh man, that's all that story is. Man, watch out for tik trucks. But in your long and illustrious cotton tail hunting career, how many have you come across that you suspected of having to know? I don't check them, but you know what, I used to hunt cotton tails with a guy. They had gotten to Loremia from cleaning cotton tails. I make a point of looking at the liver. I've never seen what I haven't checked. It was a bad one. This guy's name was Ken. He was a hay farmer and he had gotten to Loremi and his old man got to Loremia. And he's still hunted rabbits. What's the lever supposed to look like? Like yellow or white spots? I believe. I used to make rabbit tempera with for ken, make rice, cook a bunch of vegetables, make a sweet and sour sauce. Cut the rabbit little strips. Make a little temper rabbit strips. Put it on there. Don't sweet and sour sauce all over it sounds good. He liked it. Yeah, something fried with a bunch of sugar on it. Yeah, most people are gonna dig that one. There's also that rabbit hammorrhagic disease. It's still going around right now, which which is nasty. But um, that's just another observation thing. You know, call your local department and Natural Resources or fishing game and let them. Yeah, there's a lot of good county by county maps where you can see, like if all of you've seen all kinds of dead rabbits, it will show this new hammorrhagic thing cruising around. Yeah, we should talk about that more extensively sometimes. All right, John Wellmi ready, Yeah, okay, last time, tell about briefly recap the book we had you on about last time. Last time I was here talking about a book called Old Ones, which was about endangered species conservation. That's the most boring way to put it, um, and the more interesting way to put it is, it's sort of about how America has treated and thought about its wildlife throughout its history. So, you know, why, why are we a country that at the beginning of one century we want to kill all the bears and at the end of another century when we want to make sure that the bears don't go extinct? Um. So there was a lot of on the ground reporting about the kind of byzantine efforts to save the last you know, Lang's metal mark butterfly at an industrial site in California and things like that, and then a lot of history about uh sort of you know, different eccentric characters throughout American history have had, you know, very unique ideas and and sometimes progressive ideas about are sort of obligations to UH to wildlife. And in that conversation you hinted at because I think you were working on this back then, you were in this book. You're working on your book that became This Is Chance. Yeah, I've been working on that. That book, This Has Chance took me about six years of work Um. So I've been just amassing, you know, historical research for years and years, so it was very much always on my mind, and I probably you know, took any opportunity I could just start downloading the things I was I was finding out at that point. Yeah, when you started working on tell people what this is. This is Chances. And then when you tell, like, explain what you were, what you were getting at when you started working on it, and and and how it kind of became different than what you thought. Yeah, well this is Chances, a book about the Great Alaska earthquake in nine four sometimes it was the Good Friday earthquake. Um. It happened on Good Friday evening, right as the sun was going down. Um. And the book basically tells the story in in pretty intimate detail. Um, just the narrative of these first three days in the city of Anchorage. So this was a time, this is just a few years after Alaska statehood, when Anchorage was uh kind of you know, beginning to feel like a real metropolis in Alaska. I sort of saw itself as as fulfilling the promise of of what Alaska was gonna be. And suddenly you have this nine point two magnitude earthquake that shook the city for four and a half minutes and you know, just causing all kinds of destruction, but also really upending people's you know, sense of of their of their community. That that's the part that that's one of these that blows my mind about the the earthquake, one of the biggest earthquake in US history, right, Yeah, that's correct, the second most powerful one ever measured, and the and the most powerful one in the US. But the fact that I felt one once, that was like it was over before you could tell what you were feeling. But the fact that that lasted longer than a rock song, you'd almost like settle into it. It is kind of it's hard to imagine. Makes four and a half minutes seemed very long, very long. Yeah, that was definitely the first thing that grabbed me about it, one of the first, maybe the first thing I found about the earthquake, which I had never heard of. You know, I grew up on the East Coast. It's you know, happened fifteen years before I was born, or fourteen years before I was born. It just it just kind of went over my head that there had been this this disaster. So one of the first things I found was just this big report, you know, four hundred page report um of individual people's uh, you know, recollections of this is what was happening to me during those four and a half minutes. And you see a lot of like mental gymnastics of you know, first not like you're saying, not knowing what the hell is happening, And that can go on for a minute. You know, thirty people think it's it's the Cold War, people think it's a nuclear attack or whatever it is Judgment day, and then there's a kind of bargaining phase. You know, they're coming up with different different explanations, and some people, you know, just it seemed like they just kind of gave up hope that that they were ever gonna kind of make sense of this thing. You know, there was enough time that you could kind of go through you know, certainty and fatalism and all these kinds of emotions and and just lock onto these these different bizarre images, uh that as your mind's trying to to make sense of them, trying to make some kind of story about what's happening to you. John, I have a question, Yeah, did anybody anyone of those reports ever say that, oh, at minute three, I just settled in. Uh, you know, they're they're definitely I don't think anyone put it so explicitly, but you definitely you could. There were There were definitely accounts where it was like, you know, I tried to hold on to this and that didn't work. So and they would go through four or five different things, you know, and uh or you know, at first I was trying to keep my car from jerking into the opposite lane, but then the steering wheel was wrenching my wrists and that seemed dangerous. So then I decided to you know, hunker down here. So yeah, there was It's it's amazing, you know. I mean if I recommend you actually just sit with a stop watch for four and a half minutes and see what that feels like, because you can go crazy when the earth's not shaking, you know. Um. So yeah, it's the that psychological part of it, the surreality of it and the disorientation. Um. I still can't really get my head around, you know. When you you mentioned growing up not knowing about that earthquake. Um, it's still lived. You know, my brother lives an anchorage has been there for a very long time. Now, Um, it's still almost like, I don't want to say it's a daily part of life, but it's it's just like it's the earthquake. And you know, we used to go hunt ducks in a place that used to be agricultural fields but it fell whatever eight ft and became a marsh. And there's still pieces of equipment and stuff sticking out of the water. You know. It's like people just like talk about it as as this thing, and there's still all the trees from the areas that slumped into the ocean, trees sticking up. Yeah. Yeah, there were a lot of you're probably talking about Portage. There was this whole, yeah, a whole a whole little community that just exactly just sunk and got inundated by by the salt water. But yeah, I think that's that's what struck me to when I went to Anchorage. There's there's places that you know, they just couldn't really rebuild in the way they wanted to, you know. So the there's an earthquake park Um, which was basically the luxury neighborhood of Anchorage at the time, that just sloughed off this ridge onto the shore line and now now it's a park you can hike through. They've got little interpretive signs and things. Um. Yeah, it's very much a part of the identity of the city. I think. Um, it's a city that is really proud of its history, and it doesn't have you know, as long or you know, as crowded of a history as some other uh you know, cities on the in America. So yeah, it's a real touchstone for people. One of the things I liked about the book is explains a little bit about I know, it's like it's hard, we'll get to what the book narrows in on, but uh, Richter, like you you always here. You know the Richter scale. And I remember in early college I had to take geology one O, one or something and they explain how that scale is exponential. So a nine is ten times worse than a than an eight. Um. But I guess you thought you thought I was worth putting in your book talk about what Richter, like, the guy Richter, what he was doing, and how this earthquake kind of played into his work and life. Yeah, I love that you asked about that. I mean, I know that as a writer, you know, you probably read that. I knew exactly what what was going on, which was, you know, there's not a lot of science in the book. But I started reading about Richter and I was like, I gotta get this guy in here somehow. I was like, yeah, you're like doing a book. You sometimes you're like, I don't care how I'm jamming this in. Yeah, I don't care where I put it. That was definitely it. I was like, you know, if it's okay, I'll give him two pages. Okay, oh you don't like that, editor, have at one page? Al right, how about half a page? But yeah, but I got him in there, and then you of course zeroed right in on it. And that's the first first thing we're gonna talk about. But yeah, Charles Richter. Um. I didn't know anything about the guy. But he wasn't He was an odd duck. Um he was he he um. You know, I sort of uh, I sort of had this image of him as this kind of like, uh, someone who's exceptionally good at the science he's doing and kind of exceptionally bad at every other facet of of social existence, you know. And uh he he was in a kind of polyamorous relationship for a while and wrote a lot. You know, was seemed not so sensitive about it and have the great greatest sensitivities about he was dappled in nudism, I believe. Um. In any case, he wasn't we all yeah, well when you know every time. Yeah, he he wrote some really really bad poetry which I had the pleasure of of reading. Um explained the polyamorous relationship. Uh, you know, I don't actually know that I can go too too much into death and that at the moment rabbit hole. No, I just don't remember all the details, remember that there there was a lot of there was a lot of consternation from his wife that he lived with. In my memory that you know, he he wasn't really good at at juggling everything as far as I remember. Um. But yeah, but the thing that I the thing that I loved was that he enters the story. This is why I could justify putting him in the book there. Yeah, when you're that he enters the story in this very kind of representative moment where he's you know, he works down in southern California running his lab, and he's sitting at home about he and his wife have cocktails poured and they're turning on the radio to listen to a broadcast of a concert, and he's got this giant dude that I'm sorry, but that just doesn't happen anymore. No, No, it doesn't. I mean it kind of I feel like it's kind of happened this last this last year a little bit. We're kind of all our grandparents sitting in our chairs side by side. You know what's on the list tonight? Hunt um. But yeah, that's that's the kind of the kind of a mood that they were setting that. It was a really mid century, you know, elegant living room. I've seen pictures of it and kind of this uh, you know, a gorgeous southern California home. And he has um been pissing off his wife by um installing a bunch of scientific instruments in his living room, um, right in the middle of the living room so that he can, you know, measure earthquakes and stuff. And she does not like this, although he in his telling she's she's grown accustomed to it and is fine with it now, but you kind of have to question that. And they're setting them down with their their concert, and all of a sudden, the needle starts starts jumping, measuring the great Alaska earthquake, you know, without out a couple thousand miles away, and uh he uh. He turns to his his his wife, and he says, oh, that's a that's a great earthquake, you know, and and she and she doesn't really she doesn't respond, you know, so because because he's talking over the concert. Um so, but I like that moment, I guess. And the reason why I felt justified to cram it into the book is because I tell that that little anecdote just as a kind of end note to a kind of panorama of all of the destruction and chaos that's happening in Alaska, and then reverberating out, you know, until it's getting smaller, you know, these actual the shaking is getting smaller and smaller, and people registering is getting smaller and smaller, until finally you come all the way down the coast, uh, and you've kind of just got this dweeb in his living room just kind of, you know, pausing between SIPs of his cocktail, saying, oh, look at that. You know, something's a shaking, you know, So that's somewhere exactly. It seemed to me to reveal something, um, you know, kind of profound about suffering. I guess something that happened during the concert, right, remember that concert? Because why did so few people die? Yeah? That's a really good because it seemed like you know, and reading i'm it plays out when you're reading it, it plays out. Yanni wouldn't like it because you don't really know what's gonna you know, what's gonna happen. The daughters will be irritated, but you're thinking that, uh, that out like thousands of dead people. Well, yeah, like the whole luxury neighborhood ends up on the beach. That is like like literally like someone cleared a table and said, all the houses down off the edge of the table. Yeah, yeah, it's um. I mean that's the key point for me was that it took days to realize that fewer people had died than anyone imagined. That to me was the real drama of this. This story was like calling their way back from this complete disorientation to just figure out the most basic information about what just had happened. Right, you know, how many of us are dead? That seems like a pretty fundamental thing to get your head around after something like this. But yeah, there's a couple of different reasons. I mean, first of all, the there there were you know, there was just just over hundred deaths of numbers kind of up in the air still, but UM, and a lot of these deaths were the majority of them were actually in um Native Alaskan villages that just had a tsunami from tsunamis resulting tsunamis UM. You know, the entire villages were just kind of a race by those waves. UM. And so you had UM you know, sadly that was where a lion's share of of the deaths were in Anchorage itself. The story is a lot more complicated because on the one hand, it's you know, it was Alaska's you know, greatest metropolis. It was also not a very densely populated place, right and there weren't a lot of tall buildings at all. There's a lot of you know, small, single family wooden structures, which which fared you know, not exactly well, but you didn't have complete you know, pancaking all over the place. UM. And then the other the other reason, which I found most fascinating was a lot of people survived because there was this great burst of energy um, all around the city right after the shaking stopped to go find people in the package. So, um, you know this search and rescue, you know, I mean to even call it, that makes it sound way more organized and methodical than it was. At first. It was just this scramble to peel people out. You know, you had people just passer by outside the J. C. Penny Building working in teams bringing in tow trucks and other equipment, cutting torches to get people out of cars that had been buried in the rubble of the collapsing facade. So whereas in a lot you know, a lot of disasters, you know, a lot of the debts are people that you know, they're not killed immediately by the disaster itself, but you know they're they're killed by some you know, they're they're trapped or something like that. A lot of these people are being peeled out right away and taking to get medical care. Um. So it's it's a much more complicated story than that. But those are some of the reasons that I that I really latched onto as being kind of illustrated with what was happening in the city. You know, John, I don't know, it kind of surprised me too. I'm trying to think of out why I'm trying to say it surprised me. It surprised me a little bit because in a lot of ways the books seem to have this It had almost the um libertarian ethos, where it would be that all these um like structures we put together, you know, like like organizational things and official dumb and bureaucracy, right, so that we're all set when ship hits the fan. But in this case, you're going you almost make this kind of like, you know, it almost seems like you're enthusiastic about the fact that that stuff doesn't work, and what does work is just people like doing what needs to be done. And it kind of seems strange to see you. You know, this is like prepay when you wrote it was pre pandemic. You know, I wonder if you'd look at it differently now when you see that that you know, like how we've responded to the last year in terms of our reliance on bureaucracy and government and following the guidelines in this book being like, dude, guidelines don't work, man, at least here, And then you know, I mean, that's that's something that I've been I've been thinking about a lot, obviously, and and to be honest, it's not it's not as easy to resolve for me as it as it might seem. It kind of reminds me of So there's a there's a big portion of the book that's about sort of sociology, sociologist who studied disasters, and and there's a great book by Rebecca soln It called The Paradise Built in Hill. I don't know if any of you guys have read that, but it's it's explicitly about that. It's just about this field of sociology. That's that's showing what you're talking about that you know, it's people banded together and do right. And I remember I know Rebecca and she she had started working on that book. She published a piece, uh, sort of about that premise in Harper's I think, and it came out the week of Hurricane Katrina. And I remember talking with her then and and she's she's putting forward the thesis, you know, people are are good, they band together, and on the TV, you know you're seeing just you know, kind of chaos and full and I think she had the presence of mind to know that um, you know, she's looking at it in a on a different time scale, and that also a lot of that media stuff is uh is incorrect when it first comes out, and it took her years to piece together the story the kind of true reporting the show that that her initial insect is true. I don't know why I'm I'm going on about her, except for just I think she's an amazing writer. Uh. You know, my book owes a debt to her, to her book, But in any case, UM, yeah, I think you're right absolutely that what's happening in the book is you have a lot of Cold war bureaucratic structures in Anchorage and elsewhere that are set up to handle disasters, but what they're really set up to handle is like nuclear war, and no one set up to handle nuclear war, you know. So, so you have UM in the place of these um kind of official agencies kind of unraveling or being slow to adapt to the situation, you have endo visual people UM, including Genie Chance, who's sort of the main character of the book, who are who are kind of rising up and meeting the problem in front of them. And then not only are they meeting the problem in front of them, but then they're banding together in forming kind of ad hoc organizations to solve even bigger problems. And it just keeps going like that all weekend. And I think that is absolutely true, and that's absolutely characteristic of what tends to happen in disasters. Um. You see that when people have studied the responses you know, in all kinds of different kinds of natural disasters all around the world. Um, what we saw this year, I think is, um, you know a lot of that, you know, and we can we can talk about that too, because um, I've actually been involved with a group like that, um where I live. But UM, but I think what you're referring to is we've we've also seen, uh, you know this, there's some elements of a disaster that only government can address. Right those people are gonna kick in. The ordinary people are gonna kick in right away and start digging someone out of rubble, or organizing search and rescue or getting food to people, things like that. But there's also things happening on a grand scale that only government is going to be able to solve. And because my books only dealing with those first three days, I'm not talking necessarily about a lot of those things. I'm not talking about rebuilding a city, making sure the water system is safe, um, things like that. And so I think the thing about I mean, we we kind of got to see it in real time at the beginning of the pandemic or even through the middle of the pandemic, where you had people doing as much as they could, you know, staying staying home, sewing masks, doing three D printing face shields, you know, all sorts of things. But when you have a government response that's just not kicking in on a problem of this scale. If those people are only going to get you so far. UM. So I could have told a lot more of the story of how the government, especially the military, being that there was, you know, this huge military presence in Alaska. Um, they had a lot to do with making things run smoothly after the quake. Uh. But to me, for those three days, the most interesting story to me, and and the most surprising story, was the story of these people who were in many cases surprising themselves and really managing to get ship done in ways that they wouldn't have been able to predict beforehand. Explain how did I slap that one way? Did I defend my thesis successfully. Yeah, I think I think that you you tackled it well. I do not view this as an anti government manifesto. It was good though, to see because you know, at the beginning of you can only you can only equate a pandemic and an earthquake, like the comparisons. You kind of run out of comparisons pretty quickly. But right early in the pandemic, I did see a lot of folks, including some people who I like, Uh, their initial thing was I'm gonna get ready to start killing my neighbors when they come for my food. Right, Like, there's there's some folks that that's where they're That's just where they go. It's it's sad that that's where they go, but that's where they go. And other people are like, I wonder how I could help my neighbors, you know? Um, And you really see in the three Days that that you describe, you see overwhelmingly is what can I do to help my neighbors? Not um, how can I get ready to kill them all when they run out of water? Uh? But talk about how how how Genie Chance enters the thing? And like you know the books called This is Chance, which is named after which you wouldn't guess from looking at the cover necessarily, but named after a particular person who really emerges as this star player in this in this drama. Why did you choose not to introduce Genie Chance on the cover when when her name is so clearly on the cover? Children I like to I like to torment children who can't stand suspend and uh, I need to plug their ears when scary things happened in movies. Um, yeah, I mean Genie Chance. For me, discovering Genie Chance and discovering the earthquake happened simultaneously. That report that I mentioned, you know, just collecting individual people's accounts of those four and a half minutes, that was something Genie did. Um. So. Genie was a part time radio reporter, working mother and anchorage at the time, which was a pretty rare thing on on its own. Um And she was just, you know, completely tenacious person. And she ended up by sort of a quirk of luck, but also like her own persistence, winding up in the heart of everything, you know, immediately after the quake, right at the police station where information was starting to come in, the the official city response was starting starting to take shape, and she had this mobile radio unit in her car that she used to report UM as a kind of roving reporter around Anchorage normally, and so she was able to get on the radio in once the station was up and running and relay a lot of that information. And at first that was a very simple job, and over the course of these three days it becomes um a much more important job and a much more elaborate job where she just kind of, you know, stumbled into being a really integral part of of the whole community response and also like a voice that was guiding a lot of people in town through it. So even you know, saying like we need a diesel fuel over here, or we need a doctor and here, you know, that was her giving that information. And then also people who couldn't were separated from their family members, just you know, hours of just reciting people's names and saying, you know, your mother is looking for you. Uh, you know, give us, we'll come here, we'll get a message back, and relaying those those back and forth over the air. UM. But that report that I mentioned, uh, that was that was all her doing. That was after the quake, she went back and interviewed all these people to just kind of collect in oral history like that. And I found that report and in the very beginning, there's a little author's note that says, you know, the author is a our time radio reporter who was on the air for fifty nine hours after the quake, and her family recorded a lot of those broadcasts, and uh, you know I saw that and and my my, you know, journalists spiky scent started tingling, and I just thought, I got to find these these tapes, um, which which I did. Ultimately I found found a lot of hours of broadcasts from the radio station Katie and I and that that was kind of the backbone of this book. It allowed me to to really tell it in a minute by minute kind of way. Uh. You could times have mentioned how the book focuses in a few days, but when towards the end it doesn't, because I mean it's very much about like the day of the quake and the immediate aftermath. But it we don't need to go into this and to go high level of detail because people need to go read it and find out. But for her, um, it never ends, you know. I mean it's like there's these handful of people that that this becomes sort of the defining thing in their life and then and then shapes and and kind of in unhappy ways. Uh yeah, that being like this pinnacle moment you never eventually I guess you kind of stranded on the the pinnacle, you know. For her, Yeah, I don't know that I put it exactly that way. I mean I think that she, you know, when you think about what it would have been like to be like a working mother in nine four, I mean, she was dealing with a kind of um sexism that it's it's just almost funny to see it now, like you you feel like it's a satire, you know, the way people would talk to her. And so during the quake for her to just ascend to this position of of you know where she's just so obviously competent and getting stuff done and being so valuable to the community without question, I think that really, um it kind of freed her to to just accept her own you know, awesomeness. I guess, you know, like it was just sort of like the last the last thing she needed to feel like why am I wasting my time? You know with other people's expectations. So in that way, it was a kind of door that that opened for her, and she went on to have this career in the legislature and and did a lot of really um, you know, important work there. But yeah, there is there is a moment in the book where when you kind of just fast forward through the rest of her life and you do realize that that it, you know, it was a very sad, you know, last phase of her life for a variety of reasons. And that was something that I just really tried to keep and keep my eye on as I was going through the whole process of researching this book. Was it's a very weird thing to write about three days that happened fifty plus years ago, because you're your head so in the minute by minute drama of that time, and then you look up from that and you say, I wonder what happened to this guy? And nine times out of tend you hit an obituary, you know, and you realize that these three days were just a sliver of time in these people's lives, and uh, And that really shaped the whole feeling of the book for me, was to to think that there's this kind of intensity that kicks in in these moments, but a lot of the feelings that that come up in those times, and a lot of the possibilities that come up in those times are things that kind of haunt you or or carry you carry on for the rest of your life, so that you could have someone at the you know, top of their game, you know, like Genie, you know, in this moment, and then you you sort of you wanted to last. You want it to stay as of her life, and and it, you know, it keeps going higher for a while. But you know, eventually kind of all our stories and in the same way, um and somehow that just made the whole story of the quake more poignant to me. This this idea that your life can be disrupted, you know that violently at at any minute. Well, you know, in the end, it's kind of what we all kind of get get the earth, you know, stripped out from under us. I guess okay, tell folks, you know the title subtitles, Okay, can I get? Can I get? In? A one more questions? Didn't go? Man? John? What did it put you in any sort of like a like a different space to spend six years in three days? Yeah, yeah, it really did. I don't even really know how to how to talk about that. I mean, it was it was insane, Like it's just an insane thing to do in retrospect, you know, like like I remember one night somewhere in the middle of like we were having you know, having dinner with the family, and we're doing that. You know, who would you living or dead? Who would you like to have to dinner? You know, as Gennie Chance, you know, like question, you know, and you know it's like it's not only it's not only Genie Chance. It's like it's like, you know, the uh, the second in command at the National Guard. Because I really wanted to know, like where where were you standing when you said this? You know, like it's not they were not normal concerns, you know. Um, but yeah, I think that it's Uh, it definitely made me think about my own life differently in the sense that I think anytime you have the luxury of really trying to to zoom out and realized that you know, this, this moment that we're in is is just going to be this little narrow, um, you know, speck of a much longer line, Um, it really starts to mess with your head because I just don't think we normally have the tools to like integrate all that information. But definitely I feel like I mean, even the other day I was I was just like standing on my on my front lawn looking at this this maple tree, and I was thinking like, oh, yeah, it's starting to look a little unhealthy, like yeah, maybe maybe twenty years from now it'll it'll keel over. And and also this used to be a tree farm, so I wonder if this was you know, this came up after they cleared all the furs or what, you know. Just suddenly seeing these moments on a much huger time scale, Um, I think is something that I may never stop doing, just kind of instinctually, um, because I spent so much time kind of stuck in you know, stuck in the past. I don't know if that makes any sense. It's it's something I'm still trying to unpack for myself. Honestly, are you doing a new book now? I wish? Um. No. I mean, this year has been just completely strange professionally, so I've been kind of dabbling on a couple of things. But um, I'm one of those people that kind of just had to pump the brakes a little bit and deal with you know, kids and and keeping my my family life working. So um So, No, just in the since the new year, I've been I've been really starting to look for what my next project is going to be. But there were a few months there where I was like just a whole part of myself was was deactivated. You know, do you have to restrain yourself from turning to the kids on like all their events, right and being like, well, if you think about it, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, yeah, I think I think I do. I mean I have to do that to myself too. But yeah, around the time, right right after I finished this book, I did um before it had come out, but after I was done with it, I did a story about the um the campfire in northern California in two thousand nineteen. Um So, I did a big magazine story about that. And that was another similar situation where I basically just told the story of like six hours and was you know, had videos of multiple angles of different things and was just you know, just like even more compressed than three days of an earthquake, was the six hour you know, evacuation of this one this one car. And I definitely started like looking around at you know, the trees on my property and noticing which ones are gonna fall in the driveway and all that stuff. And I made the mistake of kind of like talking about that a little too much with my daughters. And I think it's you know, I really it was not good parenting, you know. I sort of loaded them up with a kind of awareness of peril that I don't think was was recommended. Um, But yeah, you gotta you gotta put up some walls sometimes, and I'm not necessarily very good at it. I made the mistake one time, um of explaining to my kids how the sun will burn out, you know. And I was telling them that the Earth kind of in a midlife crisis, like you know, for a billion year old planet, and the sun is gonna peter her out and maybe about that long. And they just can't comprehend the time. So in their mind is still like any moment are they look at? I told, well, you won't know until eight minutes after it happened, So but no, they feel like at any moment is just gonna go blue. Yah. Well, I remember, I'm gonna blame you a little bit, Steve, because I remember I think maybe I heard you on a interviewed. I think it was an I don't think it was a conversation we were having where you were talking about your son and just loving your truck and knowing that everything that you need to survive is in your truck and uh and uh and I feel like that's what That's what I was aiming for, you know, I was aiming for that kind of like we got this kind of vibe that I don't think I carry it off, and I didn't carry it off the same way. I gotta work on my tone or something. You know. What's messing with me on this is I A huge part of me is like, don't be in a city center, don't be in a in a place where the infrastructure is so built up when these disasters occur. And it's it's really boning me out that the uh, you know, the superstructure less native villages on the coastline were the ones that had the highest mortality rates. That's it was just like not it was lack of not the narrative you want to hear, it's not it's not yeah, well there, yeah, I mean there is a school of thought that the you know, if you stop thinking of people as problems during disasters right as as chaos that needs to be controlled or avoided, and you start seeing them as parts of the solution, then that suggests you want to be around as many people as possible, right because mutual aid and all that stuff, it's just you've got more to work with and uh and then again, you know, so this is I live on Bambridge Island, which is next to Seattle, so it's a I think it's twenty seven thousand people community, you know, and I've been, um, I've been really blown away by a lot of the things that volunteers in this community have been able to do during the pandemics. I've been working volunteering at the vaccination clinic they're running. They just did their ten thousand DOCE yesterday, which is insane for a community this size, and they're doing, you know, people from all over this part of the state. And I think that maybe there's also a sweet spot where you have a community where you know, it's small enough that people feel a part of it and feel like the problems are manageable and that they can step up and actually make a difference with that, but it's not quite too small where you know, you don't have that kind of critical mass of of human energy to get things done. But yeah, I agree, I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't that people in those villages weren't weren't taking care of each other. They were. I mean, they were really heroic in terms of, you know, trying to get everyone, you know, clambering up these hill sides, keeping kids warm overnight, things like that. But they were just up against that was more geography, I think than sociology. They were just up against a giant wave that was that was coming on their on their coastline. So you can I'm I'm trying trying to reassure you. Go, you're doing a good job. You're doing a good job. Okay, I'm practicing for my kids, all right, John hit us with all the all the detailed information, all right. The book is called This Is Chance, The Shaking of an All American City and a voice that held it together. And it just came out in paperback from find people at Random House Books and you can buy it with your money. Um was a good pitch. Tell everybody where. I mean, you can find it anywhere you can find I want to I want to see if I want to see how you walk this delicate line. Where should people find the book, John You can buy it from from Eagle Harvard Book Company on Bambridge Island, Washington. Go on there, go on their website and tell Johnson that was very that was that was very diplomatic, and anywhere else books are sold. Yeah, all right, man, Uh, we'll talk to you in six years when you got another one. Thank you. Appreciate that. You gotta find something that happened in one day, because then maybe he'll take you just two years to do it. Yeah, or like a couple of minutes. Maybe I'll just I'll do a book about this podcast. I'll just retrace, I'll interview, I'll find out what was your interior monologue is going on as we as we supposed all look forward to reading. Thanks man, Uh, come back anytime you got something you gotta plug you. If it's just a magazine article, cool, I'll do that. Thank you very much to talk to y'all. Cal Are you hip to the whole deal about how you look like the guy from ram Jam? Nope, you're not hip to that. No, no one showed you this. I mean, who's looked into ram Jam deeper than the song Black? Betty right. Well, that's that's how we know about it. You haven't seen this, cran, do you mind? You don't know about this? Holy shit, that guy looks like you, but you don't look this like poo. This is no that brought up. We actually found Callahan. Callahan is a collaborator in lyricist for The Grateful Dead named Robert Hunter, who weirdly died at seventy eight. Even though you're sitting here right now, if you show that is cal, it's unbelievable, dude, can you can you cal? Can you fold your hands and rest your head? I have advice for men. This is my advice for men in photographs. Keep your hands away from your face. But for me, if you don't mind, can you rest your chin on your hands? Okay? Right here, right here? Were we need to play? Like? Yeah? Where can we putting on the other direction? Can get other direction for me real quick? And then look at me, look at me? No, no, you gotta have your yeah hold here for the for the audience out there. We are looking at a front from if you go to Rolling Stones magazine, I think it's Rolling Stone, Rolling Stones, sorry, Rolling Stones, Rolling Stones magazine. And I turned up the picture. It's a Robert Hunter, grateful dead collaborator and lyricist. A at we ain't getting richer because we can't get a picture that it's unbelievable anyhow, what gets me to thinking about wolves? Yanni? Janni's got Does this qualify as a book? Can we do this qualify as a book report? We play a book report? Jingle? Yeah? What the hell? Yeah? But first before my book report, you got to introduce our guests. That's joined us. Now, that's real port and Joann, you do it that all the time. Go ahead, Johnny, No, I asked you to do it. Oh, bro do you do it? Wow? That just went to hell real quick because because because Brody, you're mainly you're mainly friends with our guests. Yeah, Kell knows him to. Our mystery guest is gas Bar Para Cone joining us in Colorado, gas Bar, introduce yourself. Thanks, guys, Yeah, I guess our paracone. Uh appreciate the opportunity to join you guys. Have been in the hunting team and angling space for most of my professional career and UH happy to join the conversation today and your your neck deep and wildlife politics for reasons passing all understanding. Yeah, I worked for a group called Freestone Strategies, and we're a full spectrum public affairs firm and a large portion of my portfolio is involving, uh, you know, the greater realm of wildlife politics. Yeah, alright. I think it's important to note also that you you formerly served on Colorado's Wildlife Commission. Yeah. I was. Actually I started my tenure when it was the former Division of Wildlife. Obviously, Parks and Wildlife merged under the Hick and Loop administration, and I continued to serve under the newly formed Colorado Parks and Wildlife for four years after that. So, um my, my work continued kind of in that space when I became the legislative director for the Department of Natural Resources under Governor Hick and Loopers. So uh like, like you indicated, I've been necked deep in this stuff for the better part of a decade here in Colorado. Good you like that? That was one of Okay, now ya, he's gonna do his Yanni's book report book report. Who um, who's verbiage? Who's verbiage? Crin is is Escaped about a wolf that escaped the island. The articles huh, go ahead, Yanni real curious about that that word. Yeah, this is Canadian broadcasting. They use the word escape. It's interesting. Well anyways, Yeah, there was a radio colored female wolf on i'le Royale that she was brought there from Minnesota. And uh, if everybody remembers, I can't go into too much details. I'm not gonna remember properly, but I believe there was like too many moves on i'le Royale and they brought in some wolves to take care of the wolf problem or the moose problem and so on and so forth. I'm guessing this is probably part of that. Yeah, hey, do you when you because you grew up in Michigan Unity, did you grow up saying Isle Royale or we do? We would always call it Isle Royal, Isle Royal, probably Royale, I guess after maybe I maybe never said it until I was thirty years old and had long been gone from Michigan. Yeah, you know that that you don't want to get too much detail. But like a long time ago, that island which is out Lake Superior but sits between Michigan Peninsula Canada. It was like a Lynx Caribou eco system. And then because it freezes now and then new stuff shows up and leaves, and moose got out there. There's like some speculation that I don't think people who know there's some some people think he says it freezes. He means the lake freezes, sorry, which is how a wildlife got out to the island and occasionally leaves the island. Yeah, so I had which kind of hard to believe that there's like a boo out there at one point in time, like not like a long I mean, in modern times, there was caribou um and then everybody, you know, everybody's always dying off, and someone new walks out there, and then most recently became like tons of moose um. They don't want anybody to hunt out there, which and so they're trying to control That's actually a whole other story we're gonna get into at some point here. Uh. And we've talked about a little bit trying to like open up the pressure of the park Service to allow hunting to bring the moose numbers back down to a more manageable thing. But right now, what they're trying to do is truck wolves out there. And you think that the wolf would be the happiest wolf on the planet. Going back to your escape thing, I think it's it's the notion that it was collared, captured, brought there. So the idea is that like, that's where it's supposed to be because it was biologists intentions to remain and then it escaped. Different sort of feeling of escape because it was put on an island surrounded by, you know, hundreds of miles of water, and you would think that there'd be no way that this wolf would ever leave that island. But in twenty nineteen came the Polar Vortex, which when I read this, it got me thinking, how come the crazy storm that we had like a month ago that killed probably thousands of birds in Arkansas and south and all kinds of crazy animals in Texas, it never got a big crazy name like the Polar Vortex. M Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you guys that didn't that didn't crossed. I think they should have dubbed the Great chill Off. You have something or another. So she leaves uh Ile Royale or Royal, depending on what part of Michigan you're from, and travels all around, crosses the U. S. Canada border a few times. All in all, travels thousands of kilometers until at some point her radio collar dies and from what the people that were watching her can tell you that she kept on cruising around and uh, last time they had her was near Thunder Bay, which is like north west part of Lake superior Um. So yeah, a lot lots of traveling. Pretty kind because she went back home more or less. But then it was like something got the wires got crossed. Man, it just became a wanderer, right, but as this next story will show you, they like to wander this. Uh, next stories about two year old wolf that was collared in bamf and uh he traveled all the way from uh Alberta to Montana in five days, three hundred miles. Yeah, pretty amazing. It's like you're not even stopping to eat, man, or like if you're eating, you're eating on the oh yes, scavenging. I'd imagine. I don't imagine he like followed it, heard it. I don't know. Maybe you run into a pack of deer and get lucky and be cool to see his line of travel, Like was he just straight line in it for Montana or you know, yeah, because I mean that whole like Cootney Country is not flat right country. It's mountainous, heavily timbered. Uh and uh some big water in there too, three miles. Yeah, the hunt, the wolf was killed by a hunter legally here in Montana, and uh, that got a lot of people's attention. But what a chief scientists for a nonprofit called Yellowstone to Yukon says, what you should focus on is how cool it is that that wolf was able to do that. And then it shows this amazing like corridor and connectivity for wildlife that it can still happen. And if a wolf can do that, then ley bears can connect between uh, you know, the wilderness of Canada and the Yellowstone ecosystem as well, which is really neat and it's a hard thing to figure out unless you have a dead wolf in this circumstances. That's the thing I always think about this is how many animals are actually running around with the collar. Like when we were caribou hunting this year and I took my boy cariboo hunt, we saw hundreds of caribou go by. Okay, I saw one with a collar. And that's an intensely studied herd where they it's that they have a ton of collars and now have people that in the winter full time track them. So you watch hundreds of things and one goes by the collar in an area where it's like they're doing a collaring study. Um, how many things go unnoticed because no one has a collar on. But then every week there's some crazy story about something wearing a collar doing well, you know, like the same journey. So all the all the unsung. There's a lot of unsung heroes out there. Man, what's going on we don't know about. But there's that aree tutors that theory that the collar scrambles their brain exactly. There's this lady in Wyoming, her dog brought outside of Wyoming, her her dog brought her a recently deceased blackfooted ferret. Right, this is like the rediscovery of the of living black footed fair That's that's that, I mean a while ago. Oh yeah, this this was a while ago. But it's like that discovery served a huge purpose that just kind of came back to light recently. Um, and it it was because of a dead faret that a dog picked up problem. It's like, it's just funny how things work. You gotta start with something dad Sometimes Yeah, and they cannot and that's like the problem. That's like the real Bigfoot problem, right, no dead ones. We got a collar one, then we'll know. You put a collar on one of those suns of bitches, all of sudd he's gonna wind up. You know, You're gonna call him up wherever, like in Washington where they all live, and he's gonna wind up dead on a road in Connecticut with that breaking collar around his neck the back of a van. He'll just be like, I don't know, dude, they put that collar around me. That has went for it. They started walking. But wolves moving and us moving wolves around is why we've got gas bar on. Jeez, that's good, Brodie, see that? Yannie, Oh, Yanni. Um, here's a question for you about your book report. I've always been familiar with the group the Yellowstone to Yukon or is it Yukon to Yellowstone Yellowstone Yukon, Which is this, you know, maintaining this travel trying to imagine that you're maintaining a wildlife travel corridor. They would connect the greater Yellowstone ecosystem with the you know, the Canadian wilderness and then the vast boreal forest. Uh. But the wolf didn't make it to Yellowstone, And isn't a big problem with the Yellowstone to Yukon core or how do you connect sort of the glacier ecosystem, like the connectivity between the Glacier Flathead ecosystem, Northern Continental Divide ecosystem and Yellowstone. Like, now, if some guy had shot him down by Yellowstone, then I think he'd be like, oh, the corridor works. But he had it was hundreds of miles. He didn't make it to Yellowstone. He made it like halfway. It's probably at least three dred miles to go, you know. Yeah, he still had to cross I ninety, which is proving not as a difficult right, Like, yeah, it's a barrier. Um, A couple of wildlife overpasses on would would do some serious wonders. But you know that wolf sniffing distance from running all the way down the bitarets um, and you know, not having too much of a gap between a cross and I fifteen into the y E can see it. Yeah, then the wolves made across Interstate eighty from Wyoming into Colorado. Yeh, they did the impossible already. Yeah, alright, Brody Jimny bears have done that too, right, let's not go there yet. You have run run the bitter yeah down, no, no, no, I have gone from southern Wyoming into Colorado. Oh by government helicopter. Well and catapult, Oh yeah, government catapult that we don't know making fun, but we do know about the wolf. Okay, Brody and Yanni run this whole program here. Um so last year, gas Bar, when did that go through? This year? November? So there there is a ballot initiative that passed in Colorado to reintroduce wolves. Not not really though you already messed up. I don't think that that's true. What's not true about it? I thought it was like, it's not that level of specificity. Well I can let gas Bar, you know, talk about it. But anyway, we'll clear that out. But at the same time, there is a pat now a breeding pack of wolves established in Colorado, which is caught. You know, it was too late for that to have any impact on the measure that passed. But we've got these two things happening concurrently, and we're past the point of like the reintroduction is happening. But gas Bar, do you want to explain to Steve what what happened? Look? Yeah, like, uh, Okay, the initiation, what was the damn initiative proposition? There you go, look at this. Now he's got the number. Yeah, so you know you're you're both right here. Um. Following this continuous trend of ballot box biology that we've seen throughout the West, Uh, Colorado voters narrowly past Proposition one fourteen that requires the state to reintroduce the northern gray wolf into Colorado. Uh. Well yeah, there's some caveats to this though, of course. UM. You know, it isn't as simple as to say, you know, we we passed the proposition, Now we go buy a bunch of wolves and drop them off in the state. Um. This gets a little bit complicated on it on account of a couple of different timing things that happened. Uh, most predominantly the ruling that came out of Secretary Bernhardt last year delisting the wolf in the lower forty eight. That happened also concurrently, of course, while the ballot major was in place. So there's a really unique convergence of events that um is unfolding for the first time, and not a lot of precedents on on how to navigate this. And we can get into that in detail if you guys would like, But effectively, what Proposition one fourteen acquired UM was for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to create a plan to reintroduce the wolves, and what they need to consider is, uh, the details for restoration, including specific selection of donor population, the place, manner and schedule of reintroduction, actions necessary or beneficial from maintaining a self sustaining population, and details for management, including distribution of state funds to compensate for livestock losses. So, uh, you know, the Commission has some lateral and how they go about developing this management plan. They recently just approved about a month ago a broad scope outline that puts some booke ins on the process, and that requires the formation of three things, the first of which is the hiring of a third party facilitator, the second of which is the creation of a working group, which is kind of the social amen of all of this, and then a scientific technical group, all of which will advise the Commission and the development of that final plan. Hey, gas bar can before we get too deep into the that policy stuff, do you want to talk about kind of the the wrenches that we're getting thrown into the process. Like just recently in regards to what Polus government Polis said as well as how it was going to be, there was some speculation that hunters and anglers were going to fund this thing and like that. These are the reasons why a lot of people were upset. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Um, and I share that sense of frustration. Um. The language in the ballot was relatively arbitrary, associated with who was responsible from a fiduciary and financial perspective, UH, to pay for the implementation of prop One fourteen and why it does allow for um donations and contributions from third parties as well as the opportunity for an appropriation for from the General Assembly to the Division to pay for all of this. Absent any of that action, the plan has to be implemented on the backs of dollars generated through the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. And you know that's a frustration dust, not only because I think it flies in the face of this general underlying sentiment of Pittman, Robertson and Dingle Johnson. Um. You know it's worth noting, of course, the sportsmen of a long history of being willing to underwrite wildlife and conservation programs, so long as as those revenues go back to the perpetuation of the sport. That doesn't seem to be the case in this instance. And so um. Last year, during the legislative session, shortly after the passage of Prop One fourteen, we went to a couple of members um in the Colorado General Assembly and had asked them to draft and pass legislation that would have required the General Assembly, via taxpayer dollars, to come up with the revenue sources for the implementation of Proper one fourteen. Unfortunately, COVID does what COVID does and gotten the way of it and destroyed the whole process. Um. So here we are again this year, back at the legislature with a similar bill requesting that no general or I'm sorry, that no sportsman dollars be made available for the implementation or the restoration of wolves. Want to be clear, though, you know, this is not an effort to effectively relitigate or overturn Proposition one fourteen. It is is merely a way to identify an alternative revenue source. Let me let me hear with a couple of questions here, just so I can understand this better. Why did the arrival of wolves walking in on their own four ft into the state, Why did that not sort of gait and undo this whole conversation, Like, if the goal was to reintroduce wolves, why would you not be just ecstatic that it happened? You know, I'll say naturally. I mean it happened on the back of the Yellowstone reintroduction, but that was a long time ago. It's accepted now you had a natural reintroduction. Why why why is that not just viewed as a victory and that it puts to end the conversation. I think from our perspective, it is kind of viewed as a victory. Um. You know that discovery occurred after Proposition one fourteen was on the ballot. What simultaneously happened, as I mentioned, was Secretary Bernhardt issued a rule delisting the wolves in the lower forty. And so where we stand now is the Commission has got this obligation by the people of Colorado to move forward with a plan. Um, because we are in a scenario where the wolf is not listed. Uh. And back to the point that you had raised, Brody, the Governor had made a request of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to expedite the timeline for the reintroduction effort of Prop. One fourteen. The reason in the thinking behind that, I can assume is that I don't think there's anybody who is of the opinion that the wolf is not likely to find itself back on the list in the near future. And so there's this narrow window of opportunity where you aren't subject to the endangered species laws and rules that governed reintroduction like took place in in Idaho and Wyoming, UM, And so you know, hypothetically there's nothing legally that would preclude them from just going and purchasing wolves and dropping them on the landscape. UM. Fortunately, the Commission, I think so good wisdom and pursuing what they're calling it a preliminary tin J, which is a section of the the s A. But it effectively, UM would establish a plan that in the occasion the wolves were to get relisted again, it would give some give the state some flexibility on the management prescriptions, particularly with respect to lethal take. So yeah, you know, there's a question as to you know, what a determination from US Fish and Wildlife Service UM would mean, because these reintroduced populations traditionally have been UM non essential separate populations. But now that we have an established population in the state, there's a question as to what does that mean UM for a reintroduction effort, and we're an uncharted territory here, it's relatively unclear what US Fish and Wildlife Service might say about that. Is So you guys think that the Biden administration is going to turn around and UH is going to turn around and and re like relist wolves. They did include it on their Rural review UM coming out of this every year and incoming administration has the opportunity to take a look at the rules that were issued under a previous administration, and they do have the authority to overturn those. I think what's more likely to happen is that a judicial determination will result in them going back on the list. Man. As far as the it's not just as far as like the FEDS to use the broad term, but like the s A in regards to reintroduction, right, it's not just the presence of wolves in the state, but it's the health of that population. Right. So isn't there a lingering question of like we're gonna do some uh uh some some damn studies this spring and and see if we can't howl up a bunch of wolf puppies in the Stata why or in the state of Colorado. Yeah, I think those are still slightly separate discussions though, right, because the statutory mandate that came from the voters, uh is a question that's disconnected from the evaluation of es A. Right, there's not necessarily a scenario where a Fish and Wildlife or a FED decision in this case, would have the effect of circumventing the responsibility that the Parks and Wildlife Commission is tasked with right now, So I think they, you know, exist independently, and how they come together and ultimately approving a reintroduction effort is the question. And it's anyone's guess how those two will be evaluated, uh, concurrently by the FEDS. Gasbar just recently correct me if I'm wrong. Um, we found out that it's not going to be a situation where they just start cutting wolves loose this year, that they that, like Governor polls suggested, like, they have to follow the planning and procedure process that was outlined in the initiative. Yeah. The thinking is that this will occur over a three year timeline, and there's a there's a huge social element to this, as you might imagine, just given the politics that surround reintroduction efforts, particularly with respect to wolves, of course. But um, yeah, so the Science and Technical Committee presumably will dedicate a lot of time to identifying what is suitable habitat how the interplay between the existing wolf population in the state and this wholly separate introduced population might exist. Um. And you know collectively that that social element and the science and technical element um will help script the ultimate management plan. And the thinking is that that will be that will take place over roughly a three year timeline. UM. The statue, the language, and the proposition says that they need to take the steps necessary to introduce wolves by the end of That doesn't necessarily imply that wolves need to be on the ground at that date, but that the process for the reintroduction needs to be concluded and the effort needs to commence quickly thereafter. You know, I'm gonna get to a rumor I heard as beyond rumor, but um an idea about different strains. Um, well, some people call subspecies of wolves. But before I said that, I'll point out the historically wolves existed in a continuous band. Um. You know there there there weren't gaps and populations, right, So you had these large, you know, these large gray wolves in the north, and then you had what we've come to call the you know, much smaller Mexican gray wolf from the south, and and you had these variations, but there weren't hard edges between the populations. Isn't there some issue in Colorado where it seems that the people that are really driving for the reintroduction would have been angling towards having it be Mexican gray wolves in the south, but the ones that showed up on their own, are you know, a larger, different northern animal. Is there is there some friction there on that because I know the proposition doesn't get into that. But wasn't that the intention would be there would be Mexican gray wolves. There's been a lot of discussion around that. Um. It's interesting because the all of Colorado is in the historic range of the northern gray wolf. That is not true for for the Mexican wolf. And so I think from a um you know, e s a standard perspective, the recovery of the northern gray wolves is a is a more likely scenario in Colorado. But you know, there has there has been a lot of conversation and about you know, what it might mean in the occasion that they were to cross pollenate. Um. You know, if if northern gray wolves were to migrate to the southern part of the state, would there be conflict between the Mexican wolf population, and so you know, there have been even comments from some of the members of the Commission seeking to shift this thinking from the Northern gray wolf to to the Mexican wolf. As it stands currently, I think it's more likely that the pursuit for reintroduction will likely fall with the Northern gray And there there's another level of conflict, right because the Mexican wolf is listed and the recovery efforts are like there there's a legal conundrum there, right, It's like, well, no, you're legally bound by the s A to recover this wolf in these areas. And like how it's written and what happens when gene pools start getting mad, Well, that's what I understanding, Like all the all the hassle they put in over the years, um, And you know, I don't it doesn't bother me all all the work we put in over the years to identify range, get source population animals, and re established the Mexican wolf two, then it ain't It's not far from the San Juan Mountains to you know, so it seems like it's it seems like you'd probably you know, I guess some people might point out and be like, they don't really care about those level of details. If it's wolves as wolves, and then you gotta stop calling them Mexican wolves, right. You need the old high school dance biological chaperones out there? Whoa you too? If you if you had uh here, I'll save my crystal. I'd like to say my crystal ball question for later. Go ahead, Brodie. Oh, I mean, I think we've we've hit it pretty good as far as what's going on. I mean, why did you Colorado people decided to put this up to I'm a registered Montana voter jack um, But yeah, I spent a lot of time there, and I was happy to live in a state where I didn't have to compete with wolves to kill an elk, you know, But then up here it's like, you know, there's plenty of elk getting killed. I know, I know, I'm gonna get crucified for saying that that. Here. Here, here, Here's how I always explain to people. Um Alaska has wolves across nineties some of their historic range. They have grizzlies across the entirety of the historic range. Why does everybody want to go honey in Alaska? I don't know. I always tell people you wouldn't like and you would like this. Wolves a load of plays things with teeth everything. There's wolves everywhere, so there must not be any animals there. But I do have the wolf. But everybody wants to go there and hunt. So it's like it is a hard thing for people to explain it. You'd be like, wolves will be the end of hunting in Colorado and and for a while, it'll see if they come on hard because because it there's a learning curve. There's a learning curve on the elk, like when when they brought him into the when they brought him into the Greater Yellowstone area, I mean you saw two thirds drop offs and elk populations. I mean, they they do not understand, like hey look at that dog and and all of a sudden, Yeah, So my my concerns in Colorado are they have. There are these large elk herds that right now they can't figure out what the hell is going on, Like the kaff recruitment is very poor, and these elk herds are their numbers are going down, and those elk herds are in areas where wolves are gonna end up. For sure it is gonna Yeah, it will. It's like, no more things piss out of them. But I don't. I think it's it'll knock the piss out of them, but it won't be the end. No, no, Yanni, you moved. Yeah, I we've got top are we are furnace is getting fixed. Finally we've been out of Hea for like two weeks and the dudes coming over. So he's gonna be in the basement where I was at. Congratulations. And what else do we need to point out? Though? About your Yellowstone? Uh? You know Northern heard of Yellowstone that dropped by two thirds. Uh, there was other factors, they think now there was like a perfect storm of habitat a super high, unhealthy population and then the wolves coming in that produced that precipitous drop. And then it's you can't just say because the wolves showed up that that's what did it. It was there was some coincidence there. Well, there's it's never one thing. But when you throw one more thing on top of those herds that are hurting in Colorado, I mean, the end results not gonna be good. I wouldn't imagine. Well, and you honestly touched on an interesting point there, right. A lot of the proponents of this have been using this trophic cascade as the baseline for why this makes sense. And you know, I think by all accounts, some of the trophic cascade argument has been overblown. Um. You know we've learned since the introductions. Can you explain trophic cascade? Please? Yeah, the trophis cascade is effectively this idea, and as far as I understand it, um, it originated out of this this concept that predators and the relationship that they have with prey can improve the ecological conditions of a select environment. Um. It was reading the other day a study about some of the early thinking about this, and they were talking about the relationship between spiders who scared grasshoppers improving grass conditions in a unique area. And of course, you know when wolves were introduced into Yellowstone that that scientific theory was quickly overlaid and a lot of the ecological improvement in the Yellowstone area has been attributable alone to the reintroduction of wolves. There's been a subsequent series of these that have indicated that well, yeah, they certainly have contributed to a degree of the improvement. Um, it seems a bit overstated to claim that a soul species is accountable for all of the improvement that we have seen. Um at our Net, who's the chief scientist for t RCP, was explaining to me that, you know, wolves very seldomly changed their eating behabits, habits or their their food preference um, specifically with relation to aspen and willows, which a lot of the trophic cascade argument has been based on on account of wolves being present. And so you know, undeniably there there could be circumstances where wolves dispersing um wildlife populations to other areas and disrupting the concentration that we see in winter grounds might be beneficial to the health. The other piece too, that the proponents have been talking about is the potential benefit of the introduction of wolves to the c w D problem that we have in Colorado. And again, um, you know, very likely maybe the case you know, I think it's relatively fair to say that the wolves have this innate sense of ability to to peel off the weaker prey in a population. Um, as far as I'm aware, and I need to state that I'm not a biologist, but it seems a little bit far fetched to me as well to think that, you know, the introduction of wolves in Colorado would result in in the stop of the spread or wholesale turnaround in the c w D conditions that we have. So yeah, could could there be some benefits? Sure, Um, I just don't find those to be the baseline, uh scientific explanation for the reintroduction that others have claimed. Oh that the scene that d thing is a joke, man, We've talked about that before too. Is like the animals are the animals are infected for sometimes years before their symptomatic It's such a joke. And then the thing that they you know, and I'm about an have wolf person, but let's let's let's at least talk with a little bit of like, you know, have it be slightly reality tinged when we talk about it. This idea that they you know, this this Farley Moat oversimplification that came from the movie Um, you know the never cry wolf thing that they like trimm disease from the herd. They prey on calves and pregnant females of pregnant females, your most valuable animal. It's like, I understand, like it's fine to like wolves, but why can't we just can't just like them as what they are and not act like there's like these magical creatures. Well, the trophic cascade argument is does have a very strong correlation to systems in which people have been removed. So this that's not a joke, right. It's like, if you can the trophic cascade argument in in a vacuum in which human beings don't exist, works great. You apply that onto a system that's highly highly managed for wildlife over human use interaction, like a national park. Um, you can see it like applied there and see how yep, these dots can connect. But it doesn't do us all that much good in working situations where you know, human beings are active on the landscape. Yeah, it's like that that quote we talked about before describing Yellowstone is blank um square miles of paradise surrounded by reality. Brody kind of hit on an interesting point. Where Brody talked about not wanting to compete with wolves, and I think it's funny that how it's funny how much people tiptoe around that. Sure, I mean, but I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that, UM. I don't think there's anything wrong was saying that that I value um having a resource to be available to people, at least the knowledge I'm saying, like, yes, I think that I like having elk, and like I'm fine having elk and deer on the landscape because people want them and we have like regulated legal hunting for them, and so I'm fine having to be that we acknowledge that. But people act like it's like it's it's a taboo perspective. I like eating milk, And I think that there's a lot of people in the wolf reintroduction world that don't mind that are in the back of their head. They'll never admit it. In the back of the head. They do kind of like to stick it to hunters a little bit like this is one guy like that one of the chief marketing officers, like the CMO of the wolf world, even what he called he talks about the recreational big game killing industry. Like that's his viewpoint on hunting. And I think he's like he used to hunt, but then he quit. Um, and that's like how he typifies the hunting world to say, like, oh, the only people that that don't want a bunch of wolves is the recreational big game killing industry. Um, as though it's like naughty to go hunting. But I can say this because at one point I did hunt so peasant or something. Oh I don't know, man, tell me why, Like, give me your perspective on it, Like can you talk like as a person or you gotta stay all official gas bar? Oh no, hit me, what's your question? Sell me? I'm not liking wolves in Colorado unless you don't even care to sell me on that. Yeah. I think the discussion we're having here really is whether or not a reintroduction is appropriate. Right. Look, I mean wolves are coming down, Um, they've migrated in. It's not going to be long before we have an established pack in Colorado and they're going to coexist. I think that question is a foregone conclusion at this point. Um. You know I'm sympathetic to what you said. Look, you know I'm a big game hunter. I spend a month in the field during archery season, chasing elk every year, and it's my passion and it's what I like to do. And I would be lying if I said anything other than I'm worried about the impact it will have on the big game populations. But I don't think you can evaluate all of this in a vacuum either, right, Brody touched on it. We've got I live in northwest Colorado and we've got tremendous problems with both our deer and our elk herd up there. At the moment um, you know, it's accountable to changes in habitat loss um. Drought conditions were incredibly severe last year, our caffe recruitments somewhere in like the low thirty percent at the moment the expanding outdoor recreation is having devastating impacts on that piece as well, And so to layer one additional UM component that will add strain to the herd seems to me like we're getting pretty close to the to the tipping point. And UM, I I come from the vantage point that we need to take a holistic perspective of all of this. UM. Wildlife management doesn't exist in a vacuum, and Uh, you know, my experience has been that the proponents of the wolf reintroduction are interested in exclusively that peace. Um, I don't think they have given honest assessment to the impacts across the board. And you know, I'm relatively agnostic as to whether or not there's a population of wolves in the state. I would prefer that they come in naturally and that the state maintains management authority. Um. You know, call me a skeptic, but I am skeptical of of the reintroduction process. I mean, when you look through the timeline of the listing and d listing decisions that occurred with the introduced populations in Idaho and Wyoming, in some cases they were taken off and put back on the list, um, you know, upwards of six different times. And we have far far exceeded the recovery objectives in all of those cases. So it's you know, to think that the plan that we come up with as a state is going to have some long lasting effect and won't be uh, you know, affected by the long history of litigation efforts that we've seen. I think is is a foolish perspective and so yeah, I'm skeptical of the reintroduction effort on that account. You know. By way of example, um, I think there was like thirty one wolves that were introduced in total um in Idaho. That was like the state didn't get uh the ability to hunt them until two thousand and nine. Their their recovery objective, if I remember correctly, was tin wolves or tin populate or tin packs are tin packs or a hundred plus wolves, And by two thousand and nine, when the state finally got the management prescription and the ability to harvest them via hunter, there was something like eight hundred and fifty wolves and so um. Yeah, to think that once our recovery objective in the state is achieved in the state, at that point will is assume full management authority and we will be able to keep the population in check. From an eco ecosystem perspective, I just I don't have much faith in that outcome. No, dude, they'll they'll dick you. They'll they'll dick you around so bad you'll never see the end of it. It's like they it's kind of the playbook. And you know, I would play dirty too if I was trying to get what I wanted around wildlife. But they'll it's a playbook that they're like, oh no, no no, no, no, it's just gonna go like this. Then we'll hand it over to the state and it'll be like this number and there won't be these kind of restrictions, and then you get it, it goes way longer, and then they will legally block you in the courts from ever getting what the concessions that were supposed to be made in terms of the reintroduction. Yeah, and you're talking about an initiative that what was it, gas bar, Like fifty four out of sixty four counties voted against. Uh, yeah, so it passed in only twelve of the sixty four counties statewide. And you know, remember that the the initiatives said that introduction could only occur west of the Continental Divide, so you know, effectively the western half of the state and only four of the counties west of the Continental Divide supported it. Um. But you know, look, Boulder County supported it with a margin of sixty to thirty two, and Boulder Counties kind of our our our liberal hot spot in the state, whereas Rio Blanco County, UM, a location that's very likely to be picked as a reintroduction location, denied it. To twelve, the average no voting counties in the area that would be affected was sixty. This is a trend that we've seen in all of the ballot majors, you know, dating back to to the the constitutional ban on trapping as well as the uh, the bear hunting restrictions that we saw in the state. And so yeah, yeah, it's very much an urban rural divide. Huh. All right, So that that was time for the crystal ball question. Do you think that, I don't know why you wouldn't think this, but do you think that whatever, three years whatever, they will be opening up crates and cutting loose new wolves or do you think that somehow the existing population that's got there on its own, would you know, it would develop expand become healthy and self sustaining and they would somehow magically be like, oh, never mind, We're just gonna stick with what we got. Or do you think that this is like happening, man, this is going to go down. I think the latter part of what you said is going to be true. Under either circumstance. The population that's here is going to continue to breed. I do think that the Parks and Wildlife Commission will develop a plan for reintroduction of wolves. They are pursuing what's called this preliminary ten j uh. It's never been done. Colorado will be the first state that has actively, from a state initiated perspective pursuit of reintroduction of of a wolf population um on the assumption that the wolf goes back on the list in the next three years. And I think that's a high likelihood. I think there are serious questions that remain as to whether or not US Fish and Wildlife Service will ultimately approve a reintroduction plan in light of the existing wolf population in the state. Man, the wolves are almost screwing themselves. The wolves that we're going to get dropped off probably the wolves that we're going to get dropped off into the happy hunting grounds. They're like, man, we're probably piste about the wolves that walked down there. But the wolves walked down they're gonna be tough. They're forged by fire man m hm. Disney. But you know, the gas bar brought up a good point to me, which is like it's all over, but the crime right there commings. So hunters should they just need to accept it, right, Like you've got to like accept it and kind of be part of the process. At this man, the worst thing you can do is the smoke pack of day philosophy. You know, tell you what, be a part of the conversation in a meaningful way. Yeah, there will be a lot of people that will get like, you know, there's some people that that it's to say, it's the crowd that quit waterfowl hunting when they had to stop using lead. There will be people. There will be people that that, uh, don't have a lot of gur and we'll like up it over. I'll be like I quit hunting by God when the wolves. And then there'll be people who are just who get after it and figure stuff out and they'll keep doing well. But I'm telling you, man, it'll be yeah, a shock to the system. Right. They eat seven pounds of meat a day, so just get a calculator out right, it's just a reality what hey, what is the uh? Is there an initial number that they've got a goal for? Well? No, and you know this is really where the meat and the potatoes if this plan comes together, and why sportsmen need to continuously engage themselves in this process, right, because there are questions about how many wolves will constitute a recovery objective where they will be reintroduced um. You know, all of these questions are going to be crafted um by the Commission over the course of the next three years. And my hope is that we as a sportsman community can engage in this rather than just throwing our suckers in the dirt and being upset about the fact that we lost at the ballot, and engage in the process to develop what could be the most thoughtful and well thought out planned. But we broke this discussion last year and the legislation we were trying to craft, and I've heard numbers as high as two hundred and fifty UM. I think from our perspective, we're looking at a closer a number closer to around fifty UM. The precedents in other states, of course, was ten packs or a hundred wolves. UM. Now when you over the lay the landscapes of Idaho in Montana versus you know, the western half of Colorado, I think it lends itself to a lower number. Something I got way more habitat here man, Yeah, exactly. And so but it doesn't matter because they'll say, here's the thing. It doesn't matter because they'll you'll agree on let's say you agree on a hundred hunter hunters, good number, everybody can live with a hundred. And then you'll get to hundred fifty two and someone will be like, Okay, we're gonna deal list and go to state management. And then you'll fight lawsuits for twenty years and then it just doesn't matter. That's the word. Yeah, it does not matter. It will never You'll never get it undone. It'll just be. It'll become like a thing that gets litigated to the point where it'll just it'll find its number. I mean, it took forever here, and it's so tenuous here. The history has indicated that. And unfortunately, whatever plan we come up with won't supersede. Uh. You know, federal statutes under es a right and so our our plan will continuously play second fiddle to the ongoing national es a discussion around listing and delisting. And it's an unfortunate reality because, as you mentioned, Steve, they're on their way here. We're gonna have a population of wolves in Colorado in the next couple of years before any of this is implemented. You know what cracks me about the like the winey ass, the wolf protection crowd is that you know, like you look at Wisconsin right where they hit recovery objective, you know eons ago they get way over recovery objective. But then they have a hunt and they set a quota and they go over to quota and everybody's all up stem like home, when did you people start caring about quotas? You never cared about the recovery objective number? That like became like a completely like you never cared about surpassing that. But all of a sudden they go over a hunt quote and everybody acts like they're married to these numbers. So you don't care about the numbers? Yeah, like what just unfolded? It was it Wisconsin where they but I'm like, they went way over. But you guys have we've been over the quota that you liked for twenty years, right, and like, so don't act like all of a sudden, like you really care about all the numbers being right becase you don't give a about they only care about certain numbers. It's it's indefensible too, because you also have to be like, you know, you guys really screwed up because all the other times wildlife science, wildlife management, Uh, deals in perfect scenarios, there are normal mistakes when it's done right, you know, when you're dealing with wild animals and social science at the same time. Kills me. Which is why all these discussions need to take place within the state game and phish agencies. Right, We've seen an onslaught of legislation all throughout the Rocky Mountain West this year trying to address specific pieces not just you know, well outside of the scope of wolf free introduction, but trying to to manage hunting and angling as a sport wildlife populations in general through through legislation. And I just do not find it to be a proper venue for wildlife management discussions that you know, those discussions need to be led by wildlife professionals, founded on the best available science at the time. Sure, a social element needs to be incorporated in it. And I don't mean to undermine or or discredit the importance of that, but uh, it's been my experience that the legislature has not always yielded the the best wildlife management strategies or policies. Oh, it's the same thing. The State of Montana is just like makes you want to throw up right now. It's like very clear that wildlife is a vehicle for vendetta, Like you're telling me you can look me in the eye and say that this legislation is for animals somehow or is this for who you're talking to, Like it's it's a people thing, not an animal thing. And you know, look, there there are some scenarios where it's been beneficial to write, particularly on funding. We've seen it be advantageous in Pennsylvania and some of the Eastern states on Sunday hunting and blue laws. And so I don't mean to demonize it across the board, um, because there have been occasions where it's been beneficially, but those are like those are those are social that's like social legislation, it's not like wildlife management. That's good point. Uh, this is a tangent to this. But I was looking at, you know, lawsuits to undo the Bernhardt's deal liisting. I'm gonna wind up missing that guy enough and and and more than a handful of ways, but lawsuits looking to undo the the delisting. Now that we've hit recovery objectives and how you always see humane society pop up. It's funny that because they do the nice stuff for dogs. People never realize that it's one of the most powerful anti hunting, anti anti trapping groups out there, like far and away there. Day I was at Murdocks, like Murdock's Ranch supply, you know what, you're like doing the thing and they ask you if you want to donate something. At Murdocks, they ask if you want to donate the Humane Society. Man we're driving, which is like a weird like you're talking to like a ranch community, whether they want to donate to the leading animal rights like the leading animal rights organization of the country. I thought, like, I think, like someone that kind of slipped by someone, we're not about bringing it up with the cashier. We're driving south to town and there's of those anti trapping billboards out that way, and my kids are like, what what is that. I'm like, you know, some people don't like it. Yeah, they masquerade as dog helpers. Hey, Steve, I did bring it up at Murdochs. And you know, it's interesting because she said, yeah, it's like a very hot topic because everybody in there is like, what this doesn't make any sense, and um, it's like the local Humane Society, which is like a different thing than the H S U S. Is that right? Yeah, like they're not connected. I think I think that there is a connection. Man. Well no, because I don't think that the owners of Murdocks and all the employees there would allow that. You need to get your little producer cap on it, colonel sniff it out. Alright, gas Bar, Um, you were born in the US? I was Yeah, were you? I'm asking? Were you? Yeah? Yeah, gas Bar, Para Cone. I just feel like, uh, you know, I don't know Silian namesake? Is it Sicilian? Yeah? That's my people. I know, I know we're good people. Um, we're your are you were your were your folks from Sicily? Are you guys been in the US for a long time? Yeah, third generation American and it's a little throwback name. Man, gas Bar, you're the only gas Bar I know. Well, easy to remember, I said of my grandfather. I am as well. Okay, thanks for coming out and explain this wolf deal man. You'll have to come back a whole bunch and keep us up to speed on it. Be happy to thanks for the time, guys. I'm not totally happy. I mean, you did a great job. I just like, I just man, stuff kind of you got some lingering questions. No, no questions, I just just something about it. I don't like it. I don't like I wish they would have done it. I wish they would have done it like this around as everybody what their opinion about it is. You know what's interesting that, uh, you guys can pull off culling all those geese out of the parks in Denver and feeding them to the food shelters. Uh huh without putting that up for a public vote. Yeah, there's a bit of duplicity in some of the rags on the books. I would be denying if I said otherwise. Yeah, the voting, the voting on this stuff. I know this will never happen. I mean, just to be ridiculous, to demonstrate ridiculousness. Will it be like some day they'll be like, we're gonna have a vote, and we're gonna ask you everyone in the state. Should the pheasant limit be two or three? That's the way it's going. I mean, well, and you know, we have allocation questions before the legislature here. Now there's a bill out there trying to limit the nonresident tags available. And uh, you know, again, we periodically as a wildlife Commission have gone back and taken a look at season structures and and license allocation distribution between residents and nonresidents, and you know, those take a couple of years there among the more contentious conversations that occur in the state. And you know, here we have kind of just a blanket, one size fits all approach um that would uh set in statute, uh that distribution requirement, and it's drawn uh confrontation on on every side of the discussion, right, which I think just underscores that the venue is not suitable for those type of conversations. That we got one for extending wolf season here in Montana, right, And it's like you talked to a public a vote. Well, no, this was some legislation, and it's just just funny, right because they're like, uh, these folks who introduced this legislation, they don't understand how bad hunters are at killing wolves, and it's like, yeah, we can, we can make wolf hunting season year round. The people who kill wolves are trappers, but they only want to do it when furs good. It's like, you know, the the biological basis is not there, it's the social basis that is the point. Right. Well, and like when they opened up Idaho's wolf harvest for the first time. You know, I think they gave out something like your listeners may tell me I'm way off on this number, but you know it was several thousand tags, right, and they ended up killing like a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty of them, which was like the best hunting season I think Idaho had right right, Like when she dropped off the table after that once the wolves were like, oh, getting shot at now, trying to move off the road. But with just under a thousand wolves on the landscape, you would expect that hunter harvest uh percentage to be a bit higher than that. Yeah, it's a testament to the difficulty of the hunter harvest approach and management. All right, man, thanks a lot, Thank you. I'm back looking at this picture of Cal. Now, my god, take it easy, buddy, I appreciate it. To wrap up, Cal, plug your deal. Oh so, I guess the day after this podcast will be the Louisiana episode of Cal in the Field. Cal's we can reviewed my my podcast, but something you can see visually on our meat eat or YouTube channel. So the first episode was Trapping Live Trapping grizzly bears with Idaho Fishing game. If you want to see some if you want to see some amazing grizzly bear footage that it's good. It is good, big grizzly in a trap and they work it up and process it and and eventually let it go. And yeah, it's like that. It's incredible good example, like the internal frustrations of being out on something like that. There's just like an overwhelming amount of cool stuff happening and an endless amount of things we could talk about, and it's like, but here's like the most concise version that we could get out to you. That was episode number one, which is tearing it up on YouTube. Are been sitting there? And episode two is Idaho Fisheries. We're talking about getting rewarded for catching rainbow trout, which is is a goofy deal but like bonny hunting rainbows. Hunting rainbows yea yeah, on the South Fork of the Snakes. Another fun one. And then Louisiana, Uh, we do all or we fish for this really cool species called Atlantic triple tale, which is a giant perch and super tasty fish, and you learn about the citizens science going on with a fish that people have been catching in the Gulf of Mexico forever but only got on regulations on gold fisheries regulations within like the last five years. That really surprised me because it's such a highly esteemed eating fish, yes, and such a prized sport fish, but people who like to catch it. It surprised me there's just one of those fish like oh yeah, they're always there, yeah, never never mind those things. I think it's because there's no like specific commercial task, like they only show up as bycatch right bycatch, some folks target them, but you really got to target them with with hooking line, so you know, it's like is it worth people's time to go after him in a in a market sense. And I think it's just kind of an interesting thing that even now, it's like there's so much life in the ocean that we're still getting around to like properly identifying, doing some real I mean, I talked to the one person who's really researched Triple Tale. It's got Jim Frank's He's awesome. Um, there's two fish in this world that I want to catch that I've never caught in Triple Tales. One of them the other one I came. I never it's like a weird mental problem. I can't remember, but I always have to ask Ghanni, Ny, what was the other fish? I want to catch real bad? Oh, there's three fish I want to catch real bad. You're gonna have to give me just a little bit of a hint. It looks like a little shark, but it's not kobia. Yeah they're good man, a triple tail and a kobia and then a she fish. Oh yeah, I'm must fish want to be too? Yeah yeah, and then we yeah, go all over Louisiana, hunt hogs, hunt gallon yule, which is uh a marsh hand and just look at the effects of salt water intrusion and and erosion in Louisiana. And yeah, super wild, fun trip to Louisiana. So when you're shooting at the pig, it looks sounds like you're raiding a m you're raiding a target, Like you're raiding a target out of them, like pretty tight work with a shotgun and thick brush. Oh yeah, you know. The idea is to go in without any judgment and experience things the way people experience them in their places. And yeah, I felt a little down. It's a little odd being like so loaded shotgun bow, the boat boats under underpower, which is storm in there and you're just gonna plow me into a bunch of bushes. And that's how we're hunting hogs. But yeah, it looks like it's like that. It's like apocalypse now when the tiger comes. Yeah, just like firing into some grass. I mean you can see what you were doing. I'm not trying to make it like it was unsafe, but it's just it's it's a it's a good clip. Uh but yeah, you know, trying to take a look at some different conservation issues. See how folks you know, are exploring their spaces as they change over time and different parts of the world. And it's been super fun and and always very interesting. So good work everybody check it out now. How I feel like if you wanted to find it, like how people actually find stuff, you'd go cal in the field into your YouTube search engine. Would be real easy, call in the field, yep. Start with. A smart thing to do would be go to YouTube search meat meat eater and hit that subscribe button. Who fill out Phil, Thanks, thank you all right, buddy. Thanks tuning in. We got man, do you a lot of tid landing things we didn't talk about but we'll talk about him later, including yeah, I'm gonna do it like how they do it in real shows man, like when you do a teaser next week on I don't know about it'll be next week, but including um, same sex relationships and critters. I was waiting for Korean's like musical outra. Thanks everybody,
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