Popular searches
Articles
Series
Topics
Shop
Recipes
The MeatEater Podcast
Ep. 046: Saratoga, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with guests Ronny Boehme and Ed Arnett, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew.
Play Episode
1h39m
Subjects discussed: Dirt Myth humor vs. Twin Lake humor; Steve's bet after the first date with his now wife; obligate species; lekking birds; tweety birds; the relocation of sage grouse; why some states still allow grouse hunting; sage grouse management; thrash and trash; sage grouse singles bars; brood rearing habitats; and more.
Shop MeatEater Merch
00:00:08
Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening don't eat podcast. You can't predict anything, all right, So recently, uh this has nothing new what we were talking about. But recently we've identified, we've been we've been trying hard to identify a style of humor that is used by uh our man dirt myth who who who's his parents know him as Garrett Smith, whom we love dearly. We're trying to get him a quick tobacco Everybody, please send your emails to get Jared to get Garrett to quit. Uh yeah, yeah, Durt Smith's the chronic tobacco user and wor thinking about implementing a tobacco free work space, and it's gonna be like very hard on dirt myth. But dirtmouth humor is explained dirtmouth humor. There actually is no humor involved. There's yeah, there's it's an attempt. It's an attempt at humor, and it's like when the person themselves thinks that what they're gonna do or say, it's gonna be funny. But in essence is if some if you if someone asks you a question like, hey, uh, can you grab me the milk either refrigerator and you open the fridge door and you go, no milk in here, but you actually just looked at a gallon of milk and then you giggle to yourself, Yeah, you don't know, just kidding or it's just it's just kidding humor. That might be the way he'd be like, yeah, I saw a bear and you're in an area with a lot of bears. He'd be like, oh, no, ship, No, I'm just kidding, and its being but it's not funny and it is totally plausible. Anyways. It's a spin on twin light humor, which my old girlfriend identified when we were standing on my the lake I was brought up on and someone said to her, Hey, do you see that sign across the lake? And she said no, and they go, dah, you couldn't see a sign across that lake and she just it's like and she's like, this is a The people in this community use the style of humor that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Are we tying this into anything? No? Okay, but right before we turned the podcast machine and we're talking about dirt, myth humor had dirt Myth just attempted some humor, Dirt, did you just try to say something money to go over? No, Ron made sort of just a low brow kind of us. Yeah, no, one more thing has nothing to do with anything Yanni. You were just finishing up a couple of odds and ends we were discussing before we turned up the podcast machine. On Yanni, you were a moment ago saying it's actually a recording machine that that you can't tell if a and speaking of in speaking about selecting a mate and selecting a wife, you were telling Dirt Myth that a fella can't identify someone who's gonna be a good mom wife. No, mom, you're actually putting these words in my mouth. No, I just heard you saying this. You're talking about No, I'm not last night right now, Okay, go ahead. You were saying that you you were saying that it somehow is like, uh like when you get married to someone and then you have a child with them, that it's a complete unknown whether or not they're gonna be a good mom or not. There's no way to anticipate paid their mom nous. No, that wasn't me, Yes, it was dude. Well, you're embarrassing me. Now, someone someone else here in the group might have been saying that it was you, and I thought how odd it was, because that does not jibe with the normal kind of things you say about these issues. I was the one that made the point. We were talking about marriage because there this because there's no there's no don't talk about this because you're gonna because there's no nothing. Nothing's good because coming it No. We were giving marriage advice and I was just saying, she didn't want how I feel like that. I think he did that the commitment, the trust in the commitment is more important than being swept off your feet and the whole love thing that was this morning. That was was not what you just said a minute ago. But that was a different conversation that we had the last night. This morning this morning, kids was just discussing basically the same thing. Okay, but like I'm saying, I do not I'm sorry. I mean, I could be just high from stage brush, but I don't remember saying this thing about the mom knowing if someone could be a good mom. Yeah, I do. I have come to think and I don't want to talk. Don't you know this isn't a I don't want to talk about love advice, um, but I have come to I have come to realized that, you know, now, I've been alive so long and married so long that I've been to a lot of weddings, and I've been a lot of weddings where I hear all about uh, people who are like, oh, we're just so in love or more in love than anyone else has ever been in love. And you wouldn't understand this is like such a special love we have. You know, we're so in love. We need a special Yeah, preacher, because because this is so you wouldn't get it right. I'm always like, dude, come talk to me when there's a couple of babies. I'm talking to some youngsters running around the house, and I would love to hear how special it is, because at some point, and it's not all it is, but there are days and times and weeks when it's just a bunch of work. Steve, could I segue into one thing before we talk about sage grouse and hunting? Oh? Yeah, why not? Now? I mean we're okay. What you're talking about are those guys who postings on Facebook and said, you know, they state their anniversary, and I married my best friend and it drives me crazy because if it's your best friend, you can tell them how good looking that chick at the mall you saw was earlier today. And if you can't tell your wife that she's not your best friend, Ronnie and kind, I remind you of one of your another quote of years that's always been a favorite of mine. What's that it was? I don't even know. I don't even believe this. I just liked it a lot. You said one time you were talking about this is not meant this is not meant to a fend anybody out there. You were somehow on a tirade about people who have their dad be their best and Brownie said, if your dad your best friend, and you don't have any fucking friends unless you less you and your dad used to go in to absolutely great. But yeah, if if your dad your best friend, you don't have one birds because I mean, my dad didn't camp in the backyard a pup tent, you know, scared Bookerman and stuff on. No, he was sleeping with mom. Your best friend is you know, you like, but to an adult level of it, your best friend, you could tell him anything. Your wife can be the best partner in old but you can't tell her everything. Yeah, you cannot say, wow, look at the figure on that woman. You can tell you you can tell your best friend that in all relationships, out of respect you have you practice some like you practice some restraint. I'll know and say things to my wife and she won't be annoyed, she said, she will just be like disinterested, and she'll say that. I think that's like that sort of thing is I think best left for the you know, the guys you work with, And I think that's a perfect I need to hear that. Yeah, you know, it's a perfect segue into hunting, social hunting. You hunt with your friends. You know that. Let's let's work. Let's can we We gotta come back around real quick, because I feel like you left it off saying that I somehow said that you can't judge your girlfriend or fiance. Somehow you have an idea of what sort of mom and I'd like to clarify that. I sure do believe that there's a lot of things I think that you can see from a from a person and judge their character, and like being a good mother is definitely one of those things. When I had my first date with my wife. Now, it was a four day long date. So it wasn't like going out to dinner or something. Right, Like, I was living in Alaska and she was living she was living in New York. Right, So when we agreed to go on a date, we went and cruised up and down that we went up like by San Bernardino, Santa Monica, and California, cruised round for a few days. So it was a date, but it was like a whole bunch of dates stacked end to end. But I go back up to Anchorage after my first date and I said to uh, you know, we're sitting in my brother's uh drinking beer and my brother's kitchen, and I said to uh, the guys there, I said, I'll tell you what. I'm gonna marry her. And my friend Matt Carlson called bullshit me. He's like, you are not you don't what we're talking about. So I said, I'll make a bat with you, man, and we I said I'll pick a date, and I can't remember what it was. It was like, I'll be married. I'll be engaged to her a year from today, and I'll be married to her two years from today, and we bet a hundred dollars and we drew up a contract. I signed it, he signed it, My brother signed it as a witness. Two years later, I get a hundred dollar bill in the mail along with the contract. Because I knew, I knew, And part of that was I knew she'd be a I knew she'd be like a very good mom. And wouldn't you know you be I'd be able to trust me with my children, not just with him, but to have him. Yeah, Yanni's so engaged by this, he said, like Morse cold and Flash, here's a segway for you, and you describe. You didn't introduce everybody, Steve, you forgot all right, because I'm because it's gonna be talking a whole bunch. I'm gonna do some introductions. Uh, there is the Levy and the Eagle. Yeah, he was all put back together again. I recently when when Yannie messes knee up, I wrote him off. I heard that. Yeah, but they fixed his knee and he's back to normal now. Now you can't keep up. It's still good. Um Ron Bam. Lifelong friend hales from Twin Lake, Twin Lake Mission, but also kind of lives in Virginia. I do Shannondoah Valley, Right, would you say that lives on a hilltop that he actually named Beer Mountain? Lives on Beer Mountain. If you send the mail and it says Beer Mountain, Virginia, you look at to me. Just use the right postal code, though I don't actually have my own postal code, Like, oh yeah, I know what he's got to be talking about it because the beer kids go all the way down the driveway to the mailbox. Brodi Henderson, Brodie say you wanna say any much? So you haven't the word yet. I know, I'm just listening. I've been married. You have a good wife, right, I actually my tenth anniversary was about four days ago. Two children, two children, two little boys, five and one and a half? Is your mom? Is your wife? Like? Could you feel that she's doing a good job as a mom? D Yeah, he had a good feeling, so he wasn't like what Yanni was saying. Then there's uh ed ed Arnett from the biologists with Theodore Roosevelt. Conservation partnership is how you like to put it in? Sure that works for me? TRC Peak explained the explained the biome that we're in right now. Am I using that word right? Yeah? Explain where we are right now. So we are in southern Wyoming, and what many know is the sage brush. See it's um a landscape that is mostly dominated by sage brush. There's smatterings of aspen draws and and uh and meadows that that are scattered throughout the buy and large this landscape is dominated by sage brush. And we're at about seven thousand feet above sea level. In uh Mark Twain, uh described sage brush as a monarch of the forest. I didn't know that still tonight, but I was telling me A monarch of the forest, an exquisite miniature, that's it. How how old can a sagebrush plant be? Oh, they can be well over a hundred and some of the stuff you were probably walking in today and I was walking in today was over a hundred years old. But we can still be um. They can still be yanked out pretty easy. Yeah, it's pretty shallow soils. I mean, you know that's the the shallows. The soils are pretty shallow. And that's what caused question, not a silly one, is is there an altitude like we're sage brush existing, quits existing? Or is it always up high like like we are, Like if you get down to the Great Plains? Is it so it fades out in the Great Plains? For sure? Is it? Is? It probably an elevational issue, but I can think of a lot of stage brush below three thousand feet. Kind of depends on where you're at, for example, it's not necessarily an altitude thing. Yeah. Stage brushes makes up a large part of southeast Oregon, and it's not seven thousand okay, And explained like its role in the in the in the in the natural systems out here like what all? What all sort of uses the sage brush seat. And before you do, I'll say that at times you can walk through the sage brush Sea and it can feel um, really empty. Yeah, And it's been referred to as the Big empty too, which is a false impression exactly, but it can seem that way. There's like it seems like low and kind of monotonous, and you sort of missed the details because of the expansiveness. I think that's exactly right. When you spend time in the sage rush see, and especially when you were hunters who spend time looking and watching for lots of things. It's teeming with life. There are three hundred and fifty different species of plants and animals that depend on this particular ecosystem in one way, shape or form. Summer plants and animals, but sage sage grouse are what we call obligates, so they have to have sage brush. Mule deer and other species don't necessarily have to have at their associates, but they strongly dependent on it. I mean, you find it plenty of plenty of mule deer and sage brush. Some call the sage brush see the big empty because as you said, we can walk. You can walk for miles and not see anything. But it's so vast that if you're not paying attention, you know, you'll miss what's out there. And there are three d D plus species of plants and animals that are dependent on this ecosystem. Some of them are obligates, and an obligate is something that has to have that particular plant community. In sage grouse or a good example of that, others like mule deer, which use all kinds of different you know, plant communities, they associate with sage brush, and they associate very closely with and it's very important for mule deer. But they're they're not what we would consider I'm true, obligates. Elk too, there's elk out in this system right now, but they're not obligates. Not obligates. Why like, why does the sage grouse? Why is the obligate the sage brush. That's how they evolved. They evolved in this particular but like in his daily like in its daily life. Is it just that in its absence they go away? Does he does he rely on in some absolute they rely on it. They eat exclusively sage grouse in the winter Jesus back that up and edited cannibalistic. No, theyclusively sage brush in the wintertime. Yeah, and in this you know, this time of year, they're still picking on insects and forbes, but they're starting to shift into sage brush. But they have evolved and they don't have a gizzard. I think you knew that. And so they you know, they question for death quick definition. Thank you. I was I was reading one time that No, a guy a biologists tell me one time a fella you probably know you probably, I'm sure in your in your wanderings you've run into Robert Abernathy, Robert, he was telling me one time that a turkey and the turkey polt, so you know, when a turkey comes out of the egg is eating. It needs a lot of protein, and they're eating se animal matter, plant matter, and then with an adult Robert, if you're listening and I'm messing us up, I'm sorry, but I feel like I feel like this the proportion and in in in their adulthood. It's inverse yea, about seventy five percent plant insect matter. That's you know, And I didn't look up the you know, the proportions for sage grouse before were sitting out and talk, but definitely the chicks are eating eating a high proportion of insects and forbes for material. But that's that's basically what they eat is forbes, sage brush and insects in a nutshell. And that's what you know. They use this for nesting cover, they use it for wintering habitat. It's food, So they are truly obligates of the sage brush ecosystem. And when it goes away, and even small proportions, the sage grouse numbers decline precipitously and it's very well documented the science. Now you know you hear like that. I think the two little fact the ways people hear about sage grouse all time. It has no gizzard, and it's the biggest grouse. Ye second largest game bird of second only to the turkey. It's the biggest grouse. It's second only to the turkey. Yep, turkeys, if you people do consider them the game bird. So yeah, for sure, the second largest game bird. But it is definitely the largest grouse in North America. I'm not sure if there's a bigger one in Europe or not. Is Lly Kelly's Is it a gross? I don't know. I thought they were anyway. It's a big damn bird. It's the biggest one in North America. You know, in South America, I hunted um with with indigenous peoples in South America, I hunted uh curis house you sent with that bird from your show, Curisaw, crassless curisaw. And those things sit up in a tree in their roost and who like a turkey, And you're sneaking underneath them while they're hooting. And those boys don't wait from to come down out of the tree. They get under the tree and they try to skylight it. It's not that different from the sudi grass. No, not at all, you know what, it's more close to that. So Yanny cool up to know. I do have a question. I had some groundwork. Yeah, what would be another I'll but get of the stage rush community another stage rush, I'll get species. Um the sage thrasher and pig me rabbits or probably it's with the sagebrush couple. What's the thrasher snake? It's no, it's a it's a song what I referred to earlier today and it was reprimanded for sparrow. Actually, actually thrash and trash are not far off. You should when we reprimmated you, you should have said, oh no, you missed me. Thrash bird not a to trash bird. We had, we had Bravo went on point. We were many hours in the hunting and it was a solid point and I finally I got all excited, cameras going in and everything's cool, and these little birds fly out at the stage and I said, trash birds. Yeah, my old man, My old man had the same thing. My old man believed that there was you had all the game birds, which you damn sure knew what their name was. And then blue jays, which he despised because he loved the other bird he knew, which was Robbin's and he knew that blue jays were going to kill a robin, So you didn't have any use for those. All other birds were classified as tweetie birds. I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, And I gotta who was I got a friend of the waterfowl biologist, and he was talking about some of the guys he grew up around, who in their mind there were two species of ducks. There were mallards and scrap ducks. There was an alcohol was it you? No? No, the body minds bud. Yeah, he said, there's mallards and scrap dunts. You know, we always said, Louisiana, there's two kinds of wildlife. There's game and potential game. So all right, so sage grouse, I want to just like set the mood here. How many sage grouse? I'm sure there's an't even be more applicant species of sage brush. Sketch out their range, their historic range historically, what all sorts of areas, like, what kind of collections of states would you live in Arizona? All the way into three provinces of Canada, the Great Plains there basically the Great Plains, and into the Inner Mountain west and to the Great Basin, so California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada. UM used to be in Arizona, but not anymore. Nebraska was the furthest east extent. They're they're gone from two states, Nebraska and Arizona gone gone, not there anymore. North Dakotas getting close. They're they're pretty tight, pretty small numbers. Um. They actually close their hunting season and we'll probably talk more about that later about hunting and such. But not to go to May. Every institute of there's this year. I didn't check it before it came, but I think they were talking about it. I talked to the director. But so that's kind of the eastern edge right up to the Great Plains and then all the way into or into the stage step into the Great Base. So they go into it. So they're outside of the Great Plains, the Great Basin. Yeah, yeah, plains. The Great Planes begin roughly at like the Hunter the Meridian and go westward to the Rockies. It's kind of like a thumbshaped thing actually in uh, Texas panhandled up into Canada. There's no state that's entirely great planes. Some people define it by rainfall, so like like like fourteen inches fourteen or less presentation thing. Yeah, there's no state entirely in the Great Plains. But then these birds jump over and going to the Great Basin. So very actually there's very population there an iconic Western purpose at the time of European contact, or however you want to define it. How many were there? Those estimates are like Buffalo sixty Do you know where the sixty million estimate came from? I don't remember. I've heard this, Yeah, okay. Colonel Dodge of Dodd's City Fame, once I saw a large herd of buffalo. He estimated the width of the herd and the time it took, how much time it took the pass, which took correspondence with other individuals to figure out. Then he took a look at a map. I figured out how many there must have been there. Took a look at a map, and he's like, hey, you know, I know the range of where they are, and that was probably all the ones that lived in that area. So by my calculations, there were sixty millions, and that became the fashionable estimate for over a century. And we've heard sixteen million for and I can't remember where it comes from, but we've heard sixteen million, you know, well before the turn of the center stage grouse. Say, okay, because the nowadays the fashionable estimate. Yeah, the fashionable estimate for buffalo now is thirty two million. Somebody perfected it to get it to thirty two. Yeah, so it was sage grouse. It's what, uh, sixteen million before European settlement. But no, but it was millions of birds. I mean, think about the range of buffalo. I mean they ranged much further eastn sage grouse too, so it's a range issue. But you know, there were a ship ton of sage grouse and it has to be just the wild as absolutely so now but now it's it's still hard to estimate them because we based the counts basically on the number of males that have ten lecks, and then the scientists you can't just say that you're right, I can't, Okay, it's uh, it's based on the number of males that attend their breeding grounds, which are called lex so they l E K and so all the prairie grouse, sharp tailed grouse, lesser and greater prairie chickens, sage grouse. They all go to what are called blacks and they're very high fidelity to that. They go to those year after year after year and like a little dance. It's it's where the boys go to pick up the girls. It's it's a sage grouse singles bar. So they dance and they puff and they do all their things in the spring to to attract females and just describe, describe the topography of a leck, like what make it's actually very flat. It's different. It's it's quite different than the say, you know what you're used to walking around for sage grouse or sagebrush hunting for grouse. It's usually a flat area where they can get out and display. They're quite vulnerable to predators when they're doing this. Predators they're waiting for the stage grouse hold out every yeah, oh yeah, I don't think they haven't figured this out. And the raptors figured it out pretty fast. They kind of key in on it to get to elect um. These birds use big landscapes and they are quite capable of traveling long distances to aleck um. I'm not sure on the statistics on that, but between seasonal ranges they're well documented at least six thirty miles plus from winter to summer range. Those kinds of things, they can travel a long way, and I they're actually further distances. I just haven't verified it. I talked to a friend of mine in Montana, so they were moving sixty plus miles um so seasonally, which really makes it complicated for some of the conservation stuff we're working on if you don't know where they're going all the time. Back to the numbers, so biologists really are dependent on counting those males at these breeding grounds, these breeding sites, and then and they're just not all of them. You don't you don't always find all of them, so there's a detection bias, and they move sometimes they may move quite a distance sometimes you know, quarter a half mile or more to a different site and for whatever reason. But you know, if a biologist doesn't know to go look, or they're not doing aerial services, they may miss. So there's kind of a detection factor that's really fine. You can find lecking birds from there, yeah, yeah, you can see him from there. So um, but most most people county they either you know, they do the aerial surveys, but then they'll also send in people the ground truth to make sure they're getting the right count. But what what they do basically, uh, when they go on the left. April is really the peak. Early April is a peak, So late March through you know, probably about the second week April or so. Bidden by by late April, they're pretty much done. But you know, like if you wanted to come back out not very far from here, there's quite a number of les all around here. You come out here in early April and you'd see males and emails. But it's really quite a spectacle to to see the boys doing their thing. But basically the calculation is pretty rudimentary. It's pretty simple. Uh, it's really the best we've got right now. There's some people that are working on some pretty fancy modeling. But you take the number of males counted on lex and you take the proportion of females in the population. That's just based on like you know, when you guys kill your sage grouse, and you will, you're gonna deposit a wing and the wing barrel somewhere down the road, and the biologists use those wings to tell males from females. That plus capture data that they have uh, nesting data, all these kinds of things with chicks and and the ones that radio marking. All of this data is used to figure out proportions of males to females and the population. That's a basic calculation. You take the number of males and multiply it by the estimated number of females and there's are are. Multiply it by the proportion and and uh you figure out your total little populations. But so does do of every male that comes out of egg in the spring at one year of age. The next April. All those males are gonna lack. They're all gonna go lack. They're gonna try. But Jason Jackson, gobblers, they exactly the gobblers get in there and doing the dominant males are the words. They're going to breed. But but you're counting them. If not, you'd have the factor in how many of those are out there? And there are there there's a bias there as well. You're not counting them all. There's an observer bias. So you and I might see things very differently when we go to counterlack um. I mean we try to reduce that obviously with the same observer, same lack that kind of you to make sure they had a good game. I I know, some people you put out there and need come back and tell you anything exactly and whether to you know, whether and those kinds of things really affected. So they leave for the actual breeding, they'll breed, they'll breed in the vicinity and on the lack and then and then the females leave and they how far did they go? Well, it depends on this. You know, some of the states document like Wyoming here a friend of mine has documented at roughly nine of the females nest within four miles of elect but that varies. It can be further. So they're going long distances. And you know, part of the reason, you know, we have to manage and conserve large landscapes is because they use big landscapes. We're talking townships, not sections. You know, you know, you know the word for what it is where. But let's say a turkey, let's say a hand turkey's gonna drop, you know, ten eggs, twelve eggs. There was the eight eggs on the average in the vicinity right somewhere between eight and twelve. Are you familiar with there's a term maybe you know, maybe maybe there is no term for it, you know, like a female turkey, a female turkey, let's she's gonna lay eight to twelve eggs. She needs a breed with that male. She like breathes the mail right, then drops an egg, breathes the mail, drops the egg, breathe the mail, drops the egg. I mean she doesn't you know, so she's only dropping one egg every day. She don't believe that's the way it is with sage grounds and flies off. Yeah, so she's got enough in her to do that. And I can't remember the term, but wants her does she do that? Like one? Because what a turkey? She'll lay an egg every day and then synchronize the eggs because she won't incubate them until they're all down right, so they don't hatch over the span of eight to ten days. She heats sinks them. You know. Now, I think all game birds practice that because it wouldn't make sense to leave four eggs in the in the nest and have four chicks. You got to take care of them. Absolutely not all right, So there we are. We gotta let felicals out there counts them up, extrapolate from there based on some informed to some assumptions, and you got what how many how many of these grouse have we got? Well, a couple of years ago when running I were out here hunting, we figured there were somewhere between two and two hundred thousand and four hundred thousand at that particular time. Now it's upwards of four hundred plus thousand, because the numbers are up. Um, we've seen a couple of increases in the last few years. They really started coordinating back in the mid fifties the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which is the professional association of the state wildlife agencies. All the biologist get together and and um they have working groups and and um. You know, the Prairie Grouse group was you know, coordinating this work for a long long time. But the formal number starting point for LEC counts is in nixt and we've got a long term trend between nineteen sixty five and now. Obviously we've increased effort with the whole issue of the bird being potentially listed, petitioned and considered for listing under the ESSA. That increased the research effort means listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. But the Endangered Species Act, just just when you're listened under the s A doesn't necessarily mean you have endangered status, because you can be listed under the ESA with threats, vulnerable, threatened, or what order it threatened, endangered, endangered, extinct. So threatened is the UM is the classification that it has a high likelihood because of all the threats surrounding it of becoming endangered. Endangered is they actually have a high likelihood of becoming extinct. That's the difference. Gone, gone, gone, Sorry, I've lost my podcast, Daddy, God, I forget. I can't throw all these terms around. Yeah, so but I'll get you very word. Because you were saying that, uh, people started counting in. So it's been increased interest as we realize that something's happening with these birds. So we've increased the amount of effort and the monitoring. But the numbers go up and down. Game bird populations fluctuate dramatically. I mean they can fluctuate in some years just because of drought conditions or other factors, and naturally, naturally so that's you know, that's what makes a population estimate so hard because they do this, you know, I mean, they're very short lived and well sage grouse are a little longer lived than some other grouse, and we should talk about that a little bit as it relates to hunting. But they're not like quail and and pheasant. They're a little hardier, but they, like the majority, don't die within the first year. A chunk of them certainly do, no question, But once they hit that first year of age, they have a They have a good likelihood of living to two to four years, and I think some males can live up you know, I don't remember what the oldest is, but it's not It wouldn't be uncommon to find a five year old. So they're a lot hardier. They have good hoever winter survive pivol. So you know, when we start talking about, you know, the juvenile survival after you know, a hard winter, you know, your prairie grouse are oftentimes a little hardier, particularly safe grouse, compared to like quail and pheasants and some of the other exotics that have been introduced, huns and shuckers and those kinds of critters. They're a lot hardier, like you look at the pheasant funny to die exactly. Now. I've seen spots running in the woods hunting, not hunting duskies, but I've been hunting elk or something you find like a fir tree and underneath it it's just literal with dusky grouse scat, right, I mean just piles on top of piles, on top of piles where it seems like that bird said the whole winter in that tree, probably roost right, which they kind of do, That's what I've been told at least right, they'll literally like pick a spot when the snow gets deep, and they kind of hang out in one little zone in one tree. Yeah, so do these bird because we today hunting saw a couple of areas where it was definitely like the poop was very concentrated. Do they do the same thing, kind of have their little zone of stage and just they do. They use these big landscapes, but they used specific parts of that landscape. And of course if we could figure that out every time, we wouldn't we wouldn't be skunked sometimes when we go on. But we don't know a lot about winning habitat, you know, not that we're focused on winter here, but but they're just starting to understand some things about wintering habitat. But once those there's there's you know, they're they're gonna have the nest, they're gonna they're gonna go away from the lack at some distance away from that and nest in that landscape. And then when the bird hatches, they're going to take them to you know, birdering what we call birdering habitat, and quite often that's brood rearing habitat body and that's where the moms are taking them to to get that high protein content. A lot, a lot of these wet meadows that are around here very very important and that's why a lot of private lands are important. Goes. Quite often, you know, the wet meadows are concentrated on private land because that's what was settled first. So um, these these wet stringer meadows are vital to brood ring habitat. Winter habitat is a little different. Obviously, these are going to be covered with snow and lots of snow, so that's totally different. It's gonna be more on higher ridges and and um, but it's still gonna have safe wind swept exactly all right, So let me let me let me back you up, min Brod, Are you cool right now? Nothing? Everything you wonder both been taken care of. I have a question, Yeah, that sounds interesting. Sage grew in Colorado. We kind of talk about Wyoming. Is it just that chunk of Wyoming it is close to Wyoming? Or is Colorado? I mean, is it chunk of Colorado that's right on the border. There's two different areas of Colorado that holds stage gross northwestern Colorado from just west of Steamboats brings out towards craig As as a big chunk habitat. It looked like this kind of like yeah, very real similar. Yeah. And then there's a smaller chunk of sage house habitat in north Park near Walden, Colorado, which only has a two day hunting season, smaller populations. Job Brody, thank you just talked way back there. All of a sudden just rolls out some good info. YEA man, get anything else right now? I want to see a shoot one. Well, I'm just gonna back end up to something. If every just want make sure you're gonna back him up to the ford or you're gonna just back him up, back them up in time from back him up in time in two ways in time. This is a segue kind of here's here's what I didn't get. They the numbers are like like every not like everything, but like a lot of things. The numbers are way down from our suppositions about what the situation might have been like at the time of European contact. Right, okay, but between you said when there became a concerted effort to sort of tally up stage gross in nineteen sixty five, breakdown for me, like, what's kind of happened since nineteen sixty five? Like what are the trends? And I know what you're saying. It's hard because they go up and down by fifty percentage points, so, um, the long term trend let me let me just say that. And a lot of people hang up on these numbers and they misinterpret them, and you know, the trends are very interesting, but when you see these wild fluctuations, you know, right now, we're sixty three percent higher this past year. Wait a minute, last year was sixty three percent higher counts than relative to the counts, but the counts were the second lowest in history of the nineteen for since nineteen sixty first lowest, I can't remember way ago or it was like I think or something like that year the earth is set a new record for the hottest year. It's not like that. It was like it was like ninety five, I think something like that in mid nineties and in fact, a little bit of pi Let me finish this up with a little bit of history. It all kind of really started in ninety five when people really got concerned because that was mid nineties. That was one of the lowest points in record. But a lot of people have been saying, well, gosh, you know, we've got six more birds this year. That's proved positive that things are on the mend, well sixty three as well, within the range of what a bird can do a game bird population can do naturally. And it has a good spring exactly, and we've been having rain, you know, we've been getting rain since and we did pretty good this year. It's been dry lately, but we had a pretty good spring and so the bird numbers are doing pretty well. Plus we've been you know, putting out all this conservation on the ground, you know, for stage grouse and trying to protect them, and so it's all manifested into higher numbers. But if we get a drought again, they're gonna drop regardless of The key is is keeping them dropping so dramatically low and try and reduce the amplitude of that drop. That would be the goal of conservation. They're gonna fluctuate, but the deal is trying not to have them dropped so freaking much dangerously low. Exactly inasmuch as I have followed this, I understand that that, uh, when you look at sort of the decline of sage grouse. I'm gonna I'm gonna correct me where I'm wrong. I'm gonna rattle off some things you hear. I do have one more statistic throughout you because I meant to tell you, Uh, you talked about the long term trend, the long term trend from even with all these ups and downs, that's where I was going with the crescendo here. The long term overall trend is point eight percent decline every year. So the so what that means is we're still on a negative trend over that point every year. That's the that's what the current over the course of fifty years since. So yeah, damn near so, so basically it results in an annual decline of about point eight percent per year, and it's still on the decline, so we need to stabilize that as well. That's what I'm getting at. Why is that? And I'll tell you with the things I always he No, I'm not gonna why. There's no point for me telling what I always here? Why is that? And I know you don't know absolutely, but why? Well? Have it that loss? Primarily? Yeah, we've lost fifty We started out a while back talking about the range. We've lost them in a couple of states. They're dramatically reduced in others. You know, they're in eleven states and a couple of provinces now, but they're dangerously low numbers in Alberta and and and an other parts of Canada and some of the states, like we kind of have to be right now, Wyoming as the largest population. I believe Idaho is is next, the Nevada, then Oregon. So Colorado actually only has four percent of the birds, but they've got spectacular habitat and Northwest Colorado has broody said and and North Park is still pretty good too, but it's been habitat loss. We've lost fifty of the range. And I remember when the calculation started, but somewhere in around two thousand or so people started looking at this stuff real serious, and they figure about fifty of the of the range is going. We're, you know, fifty of our uninterrupted sage brush half correct. As a downward trend of mule deer populations, it makes that it tracts it interestingly close at times. Yeah, because mule deer are again not truely obligates, but they are really dependent. Yeah. Interesting. I heard one time, and I think you probably draw a parallel here. Someone was talking about, um the notion of of predators swamping. When you have a population of any kind of population that when they when they synchronize, there reproduction so that all the young are born synchronized, that it puts so much food on the ground all at once that you're gonna have some of those animals wind up getting out of infancy safely because there's just not enough predators to get them all at one time. If you staggered it out over the course of a month, it might be a different story. But it's like bam, they're they all. You can't get them, And then what they're talking. What they're pointing to a certain species of birds that we'll form these big nesting conglomerations and the predators just work on the edges like snow and they never get to the core. And what this thing was once you start to break those groups up, you increase the edges and you end up seeing like strange things happen because and what this, what this kind of alludes to is how you know, all the passenger pigeons we used to have, how they went so precipitously into extinction when it wasn't like why was there a long evening period when there was just some Why did it have to be there's millions and then none or none? And it was like because somehow having any, like having any, relied on there being millions, and maybe you like broke that something like seriously, like something fractured and there's no there was no middle ground for the species. Market hunting was a good example for her. You get them to a point and it's just like they just systematically collapse. But but sage cross have had to have an autumn. Oh, I don't know I was gonna get at with that is it doesn't mean necessarily that we've lost fifty of our sage brush plants. We've lost our like big open expanses of stage bush that aren't interrupted by development, right right, Yeah, of the original range has been completely lost to either cropland development, urbanization, other energy type development whatever. It's been just fire, but it's been just lost. So it's gone. After fire will come back, but it takes it takes decades for some of these fires to restore. It's amazing how long it takes a sage of rush to come back. Well, you know, Steve, when you forest like we talked, when you talked about the passenger pigeon, you know they nested in the hardwood forests in northern Michigan so predominantly, And I mean, you wonder if the stage grouse is that's a bird that's just I don't want to say doomed, but like it's gonna no matter what we do. Could it just eventually go away? You know what I mean. It's like it depends, like you say, big country, big area, and when that reduces it sounds like it could almost be like a passenger pigeon thing without market hunting. I think, with you know, the conservation efforts that are underway now, and we probably need to talk a little bit about that, you know, because things have changed dramatically since the mid two thousands or so. I'm optimistic, however, we're still still chunking away and it remains to be seen. It's kind of a big test right now after whether all these conservation efforts are gonna work over time. But I think the conservation efforts trying to address but basically in the eastern part of the range of the Greater stage Grouse, energy development, which would be the Inner Mountain West and where we're sitting right now. You know, energy development, infrastructure development, when you know wind energy, oil and gas development, UM, urbanization, all of those kinds of things are major threats. We've also had West Nile virus issues in this area. But in the West, UM, you know, in the Great Basin, Idaho, Nevada, Southern Oregon. Fire and cheat grass are real bad combination. You get these massive fires that burned really hot and then it takes decades for that stuff to come back so exactly, and that cheat grass is a real flashy fuel. It's an annual it's a real problem. UM. And also conifer encroachment with with juniper encroachment on sage brush habitats, and there's a a big effort underway, particularly in a Great Basin, but other parts of the country as well, Utah and other other other states as well, where they're really going after eradicating juniper, which is good for it's good for deer, it's good for livestock production, it's good for it's good for sage house and one ranger in Idaho or not Idaho and Oregon coined the phrase what's good for the bird is good for the herd, because basically, you cut these trees out, maybe even change your grazing practice a little bit. It's good for the livestock, it's good for the goods for sage grouse, very compatible. But those are kind of the major threats um Okay. Now explain how it came to be that a year ago everyone was on the edge of their seats about us, included about whether or not the they were going to get listed as a threatened species, as a federally as a federally protected species under the Endangered Species That so, as quick as I can give you the timeline, so I said, in the mid nineties, biologists now other people think, you know, the like the serial litigant. Environmental groups were the ones that originally thought about this issue of sage grouse populations. It was the biologist with in this Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies group that became deeply concerned in about because that was again one of the lowest I think that was the lowest. Uh. That was the lowest number of accounts in the history since they've been counting them. They actually considered petitioning to list. They decided at that point in time fishing fishing, game agencies, and they decided it didn't meet all the criteria for listing at that time. A few years go along, we're still chunking away habitat um. You know, there was some litigation, UH, basically the petition. Another petition was filed and UM the UH there was a petition to list the bird in two thousand and five, and again because of habitat loss and declining populations. In two thousand five, it was considered not warranted for listing. However, there was more litigation UM. Seemingly UH. The judge was convinced that there are issues with the science and and more data were coming in during these lawsuits and they said, and the court said, basically, you have to go back and revisit that two thousand five decision. That decision had to be rendered in two thousand and ten, And in two thousand and ten the bird was in fact considered warranted for protections under the essay, but precluded. And what that means is, basically, they do warrant protections under the Endangered Species Act. But but the Fish wife Service has, you know, hundreds of species they're dealing with. There were others that had higher priority. So there was another bit of litigation, and basically the court ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to make a decision by September two thousand fifteen. That's how that all manifested. And in the interim between two thousand five and and the two thousand fifteen decision, an awful lot of decision would be continually informed by whatever is going on. The decision was going to be based upon two thousand five stuff. No, not at all new stuff coming in. And between two thousand you know, in the tooth of air of two thousand to two thousand ten, there was a lot of oil and gas development, There were a lot of big fires, there were a lot of things that were threatened there West Nile virus outbreaks. There was new science coming out showing that crop conversion in Montana, for example, if you just converted a small percentage into crop land, you saw big drops in sage grouse. So we're starting to really understand the landscape relationships and the loss of the habitat. So that was all informing this. And then and you know, the service was ordered by the court in indeed, they were ordered to make a decision by But that kind of had to happen because nothing was happening. I mean, I wouldn't say nothing was happening. I apologized to my friends that have been working on this forever killed me for saying that. But a lot of things had been happening, but not enough was happening to thwart off a listing. And when that listing decision was set in stone in twenty fifteen, people started scrambling trying to figure out what to do. The states that hadn't put plans together, all of a sudden, we're starting to try to figure out how they're gonna put their planning. And they had strategies that we're dealing with sage grounds. All these states have been working with sage grounds for for decades, but it puts emergency into actually getting meaningful, strong conservation plans and measures, and a bunch of private land efforts that were on that started happening in about two thousand ten. All of that really started because of that two thousand ten warranted but precluded and then the listing deadline, and you know, the Natural Resource Conservation Services Sage Grounse initiative was spawned in two thousand and ten and they put almost a half a billion dollars into that. I mean, we don't see a half a billion dollars floating into very many conservation issues on private lands. So it's been historic and the states put all their plans together. Wyoming led the way they started in two thousand and eight. They saw the writing on the wall and Governor Dave Freedenthal, then Governor Dave Freedenhall, and now Governor Mead, who you've spoken with a number of times on this issue. You know, they they took the took the bull by the horns and leadership from the state's perspective and put a pretty good plan together. Other states have put their plans together, but some are they're all varied. Some are better than others. But the federal plans are now in place, and these are land and resource management plans developed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for the sage brush ecosystem driven by sage grouse. But it's really a new way of doing business in this ecosystem. It doesn't shut off oil and gas, it doesn't shut off grazing and all of these kinds of things that people are saying. In some areas, it does, but it tries to reduce that disturbance which is so detrimental to grouse. But how do they know. So if in two thousand and fifteen they came out and said, Okay, he's got a good plan, listing is not warranted. But you're also telling me that the point eight percent decline is still happening annually, and and the plans haven't all been implemented. So it was it was speculative. It's speculative, and it's it's a policy that came in um. I believe in the mid two thousand's. Colleague of mine, Steve Williams, was was the architect of this and and he was then director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and it's called the Peace policy. It's a policy for evaluation of conservation efforts, and basically it gives the Fish and Wildlife Service the ability to consider things that will happen, but they have to have assurances that they will be implemented, and they have to have some level of appreciation and understanding that they'll be effective. So if when, if, when Wyoming put a plan together and you and you hear often that Wyoming put a good plan together, it was aggressive about is that is that a fair? Yeah? What? What what was the plan like? If? I mean, if you had to like just very quickly give us the opposite of what the plan would be. Yeah. So the main nuts and bolts of it is it basically allows us a maximum amount of disturbance in a landscape surrounding Lex, which is about four miles around Lex, because of the data showing that the vast majority of females nest within you know, four mile radius of a LEX. So basically buffering those um and allowing a certain amount of disturbance that's backed by at least for now, we think it's backed by this at the time was backed by the best science available. So it allows a certain amount of disturbance, which equates to uh, basically one well pad and an associated road and infrastructure per section of land. So imagine thinking about a section and having one well pad and a road going into it. That's it across the landscape. That's the max And and Wyoming has done a pretty good job of like enhanced drilling techniques to get and that's the other ticket, Steve, because it's a very good point because you know, at the time when cold bed methane was being developed in northeast Wyoming, UM and you know, out in the Jonah Field and some of the country where you did the beaver trapping work in the episode. There in the Jonah Field that was downhill drilling, and I mean you could look over at the truck and there'd be another from here to the thirty yards away, and there'd be a wellpad space. The spacing was ridiculously close. But now you know, the spacing is much much further. The horizontal drilling you can put multiple you know, well you know, wells on one pad and go out in different directions and get the resource without the disturbance. So it's changed dramatically. And I don't remember the exact statistics, but I want to say that it basically downhill drilling has been virtually eliminated with the horizontal drilling, so it's really helped technology helped reduce the footprint. Certainly, certainly has Can you say, are you comfortable saying, like, name a state that has a bad plan, who doesn't want to play ball. Are you not comfortable doing that? Well, I'll just say that the state plans fall on a gradient, and some of them are based on voluntary mitigation programs and that's kind of it um And others are like Wyoming where they have you know, pretty strong statutorial assurances and you know they have um the executive orders from the governor, those kinds of things that really and they're committing to do it and they're doing it um. So they fall along a range of gradients. Most of them, you know, there's a couple of pretty good ones and some in the middle and some that are are dependent I would say on the federal plans being in place. And that's kind of a big argument right now because some in Congress are trying to basically say that the federal government should use state plans on federal ownership. And there's there's all kinds of problems with that, uh, starting with you know, you know, hundreds of years of statues you know of public lands and having states managed public lands. But again, some of those state plans just simply could not with they couldn't address all of the threats. I mean fires a really good example, because you know, firefighting costs are astronomical as most of us know, and you know, a given state couldn't probably deal with handling those threats on on their own, you know, they're they're dependent on federal partners and private partners too. So so one of the things the Bartment of Interior did was, you know, with the states was developed as coordinated firefighting and an invasive weed plan as well. But the firefighting plan seems to be working, um, and there's just more coordination now between counties, states, federal agencies, and private you know, landowners on firefighting than there ever was in the history of life conservation. And quite frankly, you know, in my history as as a biologist, in my career, I've never seen anything quite like this. I mean, we've never really seen anything like this since Theodore Roosevelt's days, and when we had to do something or we're gonna lose buffalo, elk, mule deer, pronghorn, all these species that were just that close to becoming extinct because of market hunting and habitat loss. Do you think that we were like were we did we come it's close to losing elk? We damned here came as close to losing big horns as we are right now. But did we come as close to losing elk as we are right now? Of stage growth? No, I don't think so close. We came closer to losing turkeys. That probably closer with turkeys, But yeah, I mean stage grouse were on the verge, and I think that I think the urgency, Well, it's like you said earlier. You know some of these populations there's a tipping point. Every population has a tipping point, and they just viral out of control. And I've heard one grouse by I'll just say, once they get below a hundred thousand, they just spiral. At Water's prairie chicken is a really good example. There's a handful hanging on in Texas, but they're never going to come back. Probably. Can you talk about the Gunnison subspecies a little bit. I haven't worked on him as much but it's a subspecies of stage grouse and they are endangered. Correct. Yeah, so they're managed differently than these birds that correct, They now are are managed by the federal government basically. But they're working on that. They're gonna they're gonna work on um. I think, UM what led to that decision is now being addressed and the services working very hard to work with states called the state of Colorado and and you taught to uh to get that decision to bring that population to a point where they can they can take it off the list. Um. There there's one core population in Gunnison County with with a solid number of birds, and then there's a bunch of satellite populations. And the satellite populations became an issue for the service and they some of them were pretty close to blinking out. And it's a hundred birds. And you know, when I talked to my state colleagues, they you know a lot of a lot of them felt that some of those that just there was nothing more that could be done. I mean, they've got easements, they've got all the protections that could possibly do so, but they're working together, they're reproducing. It's just UM, at that particular juncture. The Service felt like they had to they had to go ahead and list the bird um can I questioning about the SAD Is there any is there any relocation of sagre ell is being done? A little bit, you know, of a little bit um that's that's fairly controversial plation. Well, I think some and it's not biologists necessarily, that are stirring up the controversy. I think some state legislators wonder why we're moving our birds to somewhere else when we when we have to, you know, have impacts on oil and gas industry and the wind industry and others, And now we're shipping our birds to Canada or somewhere else. That's that's a little bit of the controversy. But it's been done. And you know, I had a comment on the blog post I just had recently on captive rearing. Now I can assure you captive rearing is the only reason we still have blackfooted ferrets. I guarantee. I went to grad school with the guys that went out and caught some of those original ones and worked on some of the ferret work. We would not have blackfooted ferrets in this country or condoors for that matter, without a captive break. It didn't work with turkeys. Yeah, and I don't think it would work with sage grouse. That's kind of what I wrote the individual was we weren't at that point. But even if we got to that point, I'm not convinced it would work. I've never been done with with game birds like that. So although you could probably argue, you know, with the exotics that are here, there's some some precedent for that, but they essentially do it with pheasants, but it doesn't actually work exactly like you established population tenually stock pheasants, you wouldn't I have them exactly. It's like basically like it's basically like a farm animal that you hunt for exactly, So I don't I don't think it would work for sage grouse. So so okay, So where we're at now is the US fishing While their service says okay, sounds like everybody's ready to play ball. You guys have some good plans put together. We trust that you're going to pursue these plans. If you had to rate um the adoption and enforcement of the plan on a one to ten national average, where are we as far as people being like, I'm doing the plan. Look, I already started. It's kicking ass. I'm gonna put my professor head on because I never get perfect scores by any stretch. But I'm not gonna give an average either. I'm gonna give it a seven. And the reason I give it that is it was an exper not very often, um, but but I wanted, but I wanted to get to a ten. I want implementation seven. Well, I think right now just nines in some states. Two. Yeah, I think so, And I think, yeah, you said overall, so I gave you this, but I think, you know, some are just getting started, and the BLM is really just getting started. They've been they just released instruction memorandums to the field offices and all that is for everybody out there is guidance to the field offices on what they're supposed to be doing, on implementing stage grouse conservation and these plans. And so they've been implementing some things, but they're just kitting started. And I think, you know, and we've got um a little bit of a hammer. The s a kind of hanging over everyone's head. And it's called the five year Review. So they're going to review this in That was my next question, and what the service is looking for. You know that there's a short document I'll send you. You'll find it intriguing because they are looking for exactly what we've been talking about. Implementation. Have you did you implement the plans the way you said you would? Did you care about anything but where the numbers are? Well? Okay, okay, like they're they're concerned about the numbers too. I mean, they definitely are gonna look at the numbers. If everyone implements their plans and it has no effect, well at that point they might be what are we gonna do if we list them? Yeah, well that'll be an interesting challenge for us. If all this actually gets implemented and the numbers still continue to decline, then we're gonna have to readjust. It's gonna get We're gonna have to readjust. And we're talking passenger pigeon, so or you know, you're probably talk in es A. They may they may list the bird if if if the numbers are not responding again, keeping in mind they fluctuate, you know, within you know, a wide range, as game bird populations do. But I'm pretty optimistic. I see what you're saying, because you could have a five years stretch of just like per perfect weather conditions, but then the core problems have never been addressed. You might still be like, yeah, we've got some good birds because it's been wet, but meanwhile, we've seen sage, sage brush habitat, sage grouse habitat continue to plumb it. Once we get a five year drought, the birds are cooked. And that's exactly it. Because when we have that drought, and I guarantee you we will, and oil prices are gonna go back up and there's gonna be more demands for resources on these public lands, then we're gonna really test conservation. Then we're really gonna see how it works. Because we got in my opinion, Steve, we got lucky because the rains came back. If we had stayed in drought, That's part of the reason the birds plumbent died like they did, prairie chickens plummeted. I mean, Ronnie, we had I mean, you know, across our bird hunting range and all the birds that we hunt was phenomenally. Quail really took it hard in those droughty years as they always do, and had those rains come back. I'm convinced that the Service probably would have listed the bird because the numbers would have been even lower and kept going down. Fifteen we got we got lucky in there on an uptick. It gave us a breather to finish the plans and now get him implemented. So yeah, exactly to your point. Now we've got to deal with the core of the issues, and that's what the plans are gonna hopefully address. One thing I found interesting looking at what kills sage growth that they fly low and they're crashing defenses. Yeah, occasionally they do. How significant is that? Um, you know, there's a lot of talk and going to marking fences, lowering fence heights. Yeah, they definitely kill some birds, but it's not a major threat. Neither is hunting. I mean, you know, hunting has never been identified as a major threat by the Fish and Wildlife Service or any of the state agencies. But certainly the individuals they a shot or hit a wire, they're they're they're out of the population. The list of major threats, well, you know, again it's mostly about habitat loss and disturbance, So you know, it's it's pretty short. I mean, it's a long list of things that kill sage grouse and cause problems, but the major major threats are really pretty short. Why has Why do some states continue to allow sage growth hunting? Well in part because and I just preface that by saying, the state Wildlife Agency has really done a very good job of managing hundred hundred UM hunters and in bag limits and seasons. I mean, sportsmen have have sacrificed, I'll say, and maybe that's not the right word, but we have certainly contributed by loss of opportunity UM. And that's that's exactly what the states should do. When populations are low, they should manage hunter numbers and or UM season and bag limits. In Oregon, it's been a two bird permit system for long as I can remember I moved there in it's still like it's a trophy tag. You get two birds a year and that's it. And it's been that way forever, regardless of whether the numbers are upper down. It's just the way they do it. But they may issue more permits SA in the years when they're up. The states feel that they're gaining Okay, they're losing some number of birds that are being mechanically removed, Like there's no, there's not a habitat destruction. There's not a significant disturbance. Right, They're not affecting um chick survival and mortality. Like but so I see that. But like when when a state weighs out, Okay, we're gonna lose some birds, but we're gonna gain some what by having a hunting season, they gained advocates and they gained support, and they provide opportunity for the sports and which are their customers basically and again in Montana, recent article I read in Montana of I think undred birds have been radio marked over over about a sixteen year period. Nine of them were hunter harvested birds. So they use those statistics to determine that, you know, hunting mortality is like a market recapture. Well, it's just radio marked birds that were turned in and cause of mortality determined. Nine of those were hunter harvest How many they have three birds, it's just a fraction and nine got killed by hunters. So that's one study. Now it's going to vary from area to area. Obviously this area that you know, well depends on how much how long the hunts exactly. So Wyoming used to have I think when I was going to grad school here in the eighties, it was a thirty day hunting season, three day bag limit, and I shot any number of stage groups and in that that month AIOD and I may have been longer. Montana I think was at least two months, and it might have been a little longer. But again, the states have responded, so they have contracted season lengths. We've been at two weeks, uh two birds a day here in Wyoming for a while. I think in thirteen it might are In twelve it was one week and two birds foreign possession. So they've adjusted those harvest rates accordingly, and they've actually closed seasons. You know, the northeast part of UH. Wyoming used to have strong populations of sage closed now. And are you saying you can hunt two days? That's North Park so near a wall than just a few game management units around Walden in Colorado? Do you ever go hit the two days season? I did last year, Spinny birds did. Uh. It's the thing I've got. It's the thing I've been curious about for a long time and I think about all the time. Is this idea of um gain an advocacy. I was, I was recently had occasion to have a conversation with a professor who teaches animal ethics and he's an animal rights advocate. Um, he's pretty true to form. I mean, he does a very strict vegan lifestyle. You can't point to this dude and there's not a lot of hypocrisies right Like he he has a set of beliefs, he can defend them and he lives them. You know, he's not you're like anti hunter who like buys chickens and ship at the store, who I just can't even have that have a conversation there. But this guy was fascinating and very bright, and um, we're got this conversation and I was trying to explain to him hunting conservation like hunter conservationists, and I was just you know, as a as a case in point, I just brought up, Uh, I believe I I believe that the situation I sketched out for him was. I was mentioning work done by Rocky Mountain ELK Foundation. Okay, with how many you know, the the hundreds of thousands of acres they've helped protect and set aside, right, all the work they've done in habitat improvements, all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, the money comes from dudes who like to hunt elk. And these dudes who like to hunt elk like hunting elk so much that they go to these banquets and whatnot and start giving have a couple of drinks or whatever and start giving giving away money or to sit at home, and just like right checks, They're like, I like to hunt elk, Therefore I will spend a bunch of money to not only help elk, but I'll spend a bunch of money to help elk habitat and increase elk habitat. And he was saying, matisar rip and shooting star over there. He was saying, it's a shame that it takes that. And I'm like, yeah, but you just have to open you have to be a pragmatic individual. He's like, why can't they give all that money and not go hunting. I'm like, because they if they didn't go hunting, they wouldn't have even been aware of the problem. And when and gave the money, Yeah, you don't give the money first. It's like, you know, like it took me until I was in my mid thirties to get serious about conservation right, and like spending a conversation because it's like, you go hunt ducks first, then you say I want more ducks and better conservation. But no one who's ever seen a duck or an elk or a sage grouse. It's just like, I'm sorry, but generally those people are not gonna be like, man, we need to do something about stage brush. And it was like he's like, well, it's just too bad that that's the case. I'm like, you know what, it's too bad that all kinds of ship is all kinds of ways. But at the point you just have to kind of open up your mind to the fact that that's that's frankly, that's how it works. Well, the next series of questions is do you like open natural spaces? Yeah? Sure, I love the open natural space. Well, what do you pay? You know what, what do you pay into wildlife conservation? A lot of those folks don't want to give money. Like I always tell people, buy a duck stamper, buy a hunting license. You don't have to go, just buy it. It goes to the game and fish and they use that for habitat conservation all kinds. Of a matter of fact, it's a fit for all you folks that don't hunt at all and then don't spend deadly on wildlif conservation. Go buy a duck stamper, goes to wetlands habitat exactly which is going to run out by a duck stamp. Well, part of their philosophy there is that, well, no, it goes to hunting. It goes toward hunting and hunter management. So philosophically they struggle with that. But we have been trying to crack that damn nut for since I've been in the profession and forever. How do you tax the non consumptive user and get them excited about things? We can't get people excited about sage grouse. Most sportsmen you say, hey, you know, we gotta we gotta work on the sage grouse thing. It doesn't resonate. What resonates is the sagebrush ecosystem. The fact that this is home to the kinds of critters that you like, pronghorn, elk, mule deer, those kinds oft the and sage grass. That gets them excited. Then you start putting the big picture together, and I think, really, you know, people they don't see the big picture. They can't see the forest for the trees. And there was there was a time with stage grass were exactly viewed as a premier game bird, you know, several decades ago. Right, I've heard so many people say, oh you oh, they're terrible to eat. You know, it's crazy, but you know people didn't even chase them hardly back in the day. Yeah, but I mean that kind of thing that people said about everything. Yeah, everything, they say it about anything to eat stage So all right, look into crystal ball. Matter of fact, we should do a time castle. He has to shovel in his truck. We'll make a time castle, will bury it right here, and we'll come dig it up in uh in five years. What are they? What? What's the what's the service? Gonna say? The federal you know, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, it's gonna take a gander. And don't give me something like optimistic bs or don't give me pessimistic bs. Give me the straight dope, the straight dope, like if you actually had to get it right, you had your your time capsule had to be right. We're gonna get it right on stage grouse. And I want you to be telling me the truth, but I don't want to be doing like your job right now. I can't help but be optimistic. But no, I I I I think they'll come to not warranton in five years and not Yeah, they'll continue with the not warranted decision. I um for the true tes of these conservation plans, you know, And again it's all predicated on them getting implemented right now. You know, the the work of putting all of this planning together and the science is done now, they just got to get it on the ground. They do the work, and the private landowners are way ahead of the game. They are doing the work. They are they're doing the work. Man, They're putting a lot of money into it, and a lot of good, very proactive conservation ranchers just just good ranchers, just good people. They know they know how to manage their land. Not everybody does, but the good ones are doing it right just right over the hill. Here's my friend that it was in that article. Great guy doing good things, And um, I think we'll get there in But um, there's not a lot of room to screw up. There's not a lot of room. Just grew up because I don't know when oil is gonna hit again. I don't know when the next boom for something on our you know, extractive resources in our public lands are gonna hit hard. There doesn't ground to a stop, but it's slowed weight and slowed wede and it gave us a breather. You know. Again, if we'd had eighty dollar barrel oil and a drought, I don't know how the service wouldn't have have I give you, I'll give you a comparison. Lesser prairie chickens were listed in May. They were contemplated in petition for listing. So this isn't just stage grounds. This has been happening around the around the country, you know, with various game bird population Lesser prairie chickens were really declining, and finally in two thousand fourteen they decided to list them. In the previous two years, now, mind you, there were I think an estimated hundred and twenty thousand lesser prairie chickens. I think at ninety five when they were contemplating this in two thousand and twelve, I believe it was you know, below a hundred thousand, and the population had twice based on leccounts and these crude population estimates they have in the two years they were trying to make the decision. How do you not list the bird? They're estimated at seventeen thousand birds? Where are they know? They're on the uptick because the rain and conservation, so they're on the uptick. I don't know where they're sitting right now. But the range wide population goal is now sixty thousand. I thought the number was too low. I mean, it's half of what they were when they originally were petitioned. But it's you know, it's still double what what the birds were a couple of years ago. So they've they've come up, but you know, drought will hit that region again too. So my point is is the true test of these conservation plans is is in the making. And I'll tell you the wild card in our crystal ball jumping ahead in our time machine is fire. You can have a two thousand acre fire and nothing flat in some of this country, and if it's not taken care of, it'll it'll taken care of me. And if it's not put out, you can burn a lot acres pretty fast. That's a whole other conversation now, and a half because you're and that's you're perpetuating a problem. You've already created. This stuff used to burn all the time in not severe way, so now we've prolonged it where we have tinder boxes and now we're in a situation where we have to like keep doing the screw up to make up for the bigger screw up. It's not a bad point, it's a good point. I mean, the cheat grass is really perpetuated in a great basin, you know. That's that's really really created an untenable situation for those guys, and it's hard. They're they're making some advances on how to address cheat grass, but man, that's a big problem. My brother, one of my both my brothers are a collegists um. One of them has always worked on these plant ecosystems, aired land, you know, range land ecosystems, and has done a lot of work on cheat grass. And right now he's focused almost exclusively on uh shrub regeneration, getting sage brush and other shrubs to come back on degraded landscapes or disturb landscapes. That he does. He does work all over the West, but yeah, he's in he's based in Montana and allows to us like coal mine, Like when you do open you know, open surface coal mines part of the remediation process. You know, at the time you could get away with just being like, oh, you know, we put it up in grass. Now you're like, no, it needs to be you know, it's the more of the mind frame of no needs to be kind of back to like what it was. But it's very difficult to do. And um, he spends a lot of time working on that, and he's and he talks about he talks about the sage grouse issue has had a has had an impact on his work because it's effective where money flows. Yeah. Absolutely, they're pumping tons of money into it. Is he getting some of that? Yeah? I mean, you know I always hesitate to because the things he works on are you know that there's you know, it's nuanced and sensitive. And I don't what does he say he was here, What does he say about reclamation time? It takes decades in a lot of cases, but you have to But I'm just curious. Yeah, I'm not a restoration ecologist. He had some sort of he had the most, he had the most groundbreaking. Uh. He was telling me that he had the what he felt was gonna be the most impactful thing of his career, something he found out about regenerating shrubs. What do you got, You got a little marriage advice? Can we talk about today's hunt? Was that too early? Just not a lot to say? It was a big hunt, not a lot of harvesting. Yeah, we covered a lot of ground, man, But I just feel like we're um, you know, I feel like, like, you know, my my sage grouse, my lifelong sage grouse harvest today is one because I've never focused on hunting them. I run into them, uh, because I like to, you know, being like generally a big game hunter. I run into him hunting antelope. I run into them out messing around. Um. We used to run into a lot of them when we did a lot of late season rabbit hunting on the planes. Um, but you know, the seasons are short, never lined up, and I'm just not This the first time I've ever like devoted This is the first time I've ever devoted a day to finding some and like any kind of thing, you know, you can cold roll well, as I know very well from this spring, we cold rolled into a new turkey hunting spot and there's no one talking about listing turkeys right now we've got turkeys and then far more stage than we had them at the time of European contact. We rolled into a new turkey spot this spring and had our asses handed to us for about three days in a row. So it's like any kind of like real hunting, um, any kind of real hunting, there's a learning curve, man, And it's like, you know, if you just if you just think you're gonna cold roll into a new spot and start knocking the hell out of everything, you either don't know where you're tom bar or you've had some really unusual hunts in your life. So we were last weekend and didn't find them in my honey holes either. And they move around. Yeah, So it's like, I mean, it's like it's really it's I'm really reluctant to have to have a bad day and talk about how it was a bad hunt. We had something to happen to night. Those interesting as we got to uh, we messed with the badger for a while and um and uh you know him, not not messing him like you know, just observed him to the point where he got frustrated with us and gave us a couple of hisses. But uh, you know it was we had a fun day. But um no, it's it's interesting, you know, it's like you're trying to learn something new. Anything you stood up? Yeah? Any what's going on? Hes tired? I'm getting smoked out. I've been getting smoked out, so I'm trying to get out of there. You mean you know your body makes it, Eddie. Yeah, it's not from the fire. Oh, because you're really sensitive to Ron cigarette smoking. Yeah, cigar, small cigar, place than run smoke some run. Ron's only I've ever met my entire life the chain smoke, swish or sweets. Oh, you got to give it a try. Sometimes I'm like, that's all you got, Yanni. You're getting sick of that smoke. Yeah, Ron, I would like to say, as a lifelong bird hunter, how frustrating it is to try to do I feel like the guy I used to take guys to South Dakota after I had my learning curve, and I take friends of South Dakota, you know a couple of them, Steve m And within sometimes a half a day they start going, well, you know what we ought to try, you know, And I found myself, like talking to Garrett today while we're walking overthinking the hell out of it, you know, like, Okay, you know what we should say, No, you know what we should I'll bet you it's this. It was so frustrating because everything else I've hunted, it's kind of like I've never hunted I've never hunted an applicant species, and it just kind of today it just drove me a little mad, crazy thinking, Okay, this looks like really good cover, because I think birds that need really good cover. And then we talked to somebody like no, no, don't go into waist high cover, going the knee high cover, and like we have, but there's less cover here. Why wouldn't the bird want more cover? And it was just it's a very frustrating day. I'm I'm ready to go at it again tomorrow. Already, my knees are dad ib profits kicked in. I feel good. I've had a beer. But I've never hunted a species. Was that aggravating before? Yeah, I think that It's the part of the problem is you look out there, like normally when you're hunting a game bird, you pretty quickly learn to sort of identify where you can rule out you know, of the area. Don't go into the hardwoods after grouse. Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll find focusing on things and you you sort of look at and you just start seeing it in the way of like that's where they're going to go. It could be really simple like the sunflower patch for morning does or could be just like you know, you just look into uh an alder standard poplar stand and you're like, you see the parts where the grouse that hang out, like just some undergrowth, see a thorn apple tree and there, Yeah, there all food. The whole valley is food. It's yeah, it's it's very tough. When they're concentrating in the meadows, you can hit those, you know, but they've scattered, They've they've moved around. Like I said, we were out here last weekend hunting where I thought they would be pretty predictive where I thought it to be and I've shot him before and not to be had and they hadn't been harassed by hunters and moved around. Yeah, so they were moving around the landscape. Broody. What do you got, oh? I. I just think it's pretty important to reiterate how especially for a lot of guys that are big game hunters, how linked stage gross are too so much more popular game animals like mule deer and antelope, Like, if you like shooting giant mule deer bucks, you should be worried about sage grass also, I think, so, don't you. I mean, wherever sage grass live, a good chance it's mule deer winter range. And you know we've been looking at nice antelope bucks the whole time we've been here too. So Michael Cling thought, I don't know accounts accounts of the thought, it's never very complete, has a question mark on the end of it. It's like, I hope that I want to believe in the idea that industry and wildlife can continue to find a way to work together. When I was young, before I got I developed the pragmatism that comes with age. When it comes with age, I had, like I you know, I was acutely aware of environmental issues, and you know, in my twenties, and my solution was that you would just destroy every road and and revert everything back into like a pure wilderness. Over time you started to be like, you know what, And I still love you know, I I love the idea of that, But you go like that's not gonna work because people, um, including myself, we you fossil fuels, we have families, we have jobs, we have income we need to support. Yeah, it's like it's like, you know, it's just we rely on minerals, we rely on fossil fuels. Our economic health depends on those things. And when you become if you become a student of the world, you realize that one of the worst things that can happen to wildlife is societal impoverishment. Impoverished societies, Impoverished societies who have, you know, sustain endemic levels of unemployment, failed states. Okay, impoverished societies do not do well with wildlife. Africa. Now, I remember going to like, you know, I remember going to the Philippines bringing my and being like, holy smokes, is this gonna be good fishing? Right the Philippines coral reefs, seven thousand islands. Dude, you can't find a fish. It's like, impoverished cultures that don't have strong leadership wildlife suffers immensely. So I'm like, yes, there is a great benefit to wildlife, to having an economically strong society of people who earn a livable wage. It just is like It's hard to explain, but there's a correlation there. Wealthy wildlife is luxury that can be supported by wealthy societies. So I've come to overtime, really root for our ability to be an advanced, wealthy society that can attack things like poverty and can attack unemployment and still find a way to coexist with sustainable amounts of wildlife. And I think that watching right now, you can watch a handful of things play out. What's happening in with with fisheries, redfish or red snapper, like various fisheries in the Gulf States. You look and you you you see that struggle um looking at wolves, grizzly bears, sage grouse in the West, you see the struggle where it's You might take a superficial look and be like, oh, it's industry against wildlife and their diametrically opposed. But then as you get a little more like if you get a little more nuanced, a little more complex look at it, you realize that the struggle is finding the technologies in the intelligence and the restraint to allow those two things to function together. It's not that one is going to defeat the other. It's that you're gonna find a way two allow them to come together. I heard a guy talking about climate change and he was saying that the answer isn't gonna be personal restraints. The solution will wind up being technological. It won't be because some people canceled their vacation because they didn't want to fly on a plane because they didn't want to increase their carbon footprint. It'll be because like technology, something fixes it. Yeah, that we think of, you know, and you just it's like I just want and like we're saying, like, you know, very like drilling technologies. If you want to get interested in wild life, it's like you might also kind of become interested in drilling technologies and in all these other things that make it so uh just make it frustrating. And what you wind up not having is and it's and it's really refreshing to have him. It feels great is having bad guys and like the world, you know, there's just not a lot of there are some there are not a ton of real bad guys. I agree, there's a lot of people who are focused on some aspect and they might weigh things differently, and you're trying to talk to them, be like, yeah, I agree what you're talking about is important, but can you just tip it a little bit towards what I'm talking about. I'm not asking you to ignore what you're talking about, but just listen a little it's what I'm saying too. That's where the extremes on both ends of this particular issue, to me, have been mildly marginalized because a lot of people came together to seek that balance, because without the public support of any of this, we don't have conservation in this country. I mean, if you asked a basic question of the population, would you be willing to pay ten cents a gallon more for sage grouse? What do you think the answer would be? I would say absolutely absolutely, They would know I would say that I would, Yeah, you and I would. But I think the majority of the public would say, now in the context that question, and but I think when you put that bigger picture perspective and that balanced ideal out there about what these ecosystems really provide, then they may they would understand general public what you're saying. Would you pay it ten cents more for stage grouse? Probably not. Would you pay ten cents more for three hundred and sixty species that rely on a certain system. Can we do nine? I'm up for nine? Uh yeah. Final thoughts has been marriage advice anything like that. No marriage advice. I've been married ten years now, so good for you. Yeah, Ed Coker sand Hill crane. That's a bird at uh that's a bird that won't menu around. And now they're doing pretty good. Yep, doing good. Just uh, we do appreciate you having with you guys. I uh appreciate what you do. The I'm glad you got out to experience this eCos to him because it's something else and so far, so far, our party hasn't reduced stage gross population one bit at all. See, it's a fraction of the mortality. That's where they get that hunter. Hunter has not much impact on the space. These hunters, Steve and I have not had zero impact. Like we looked into it and they don't do Steve wrote me an email. I got a last conclusion with Steve wrote me, you know, you know when we get out there, maybe we should social restraint and came up with like maybe we should just shoot just get one. We're gonna get one, And I wrote you back, let's find one first, and that's what we're still doing we're still trying to find a better day. Wise words, all right, thanks for listening.
Presented By
Featured Gear
While you're listening
Public Lands & Waters
MeatEater Founder Steven Rinella Addresses R3 Op-Ed
I recently caused quite a stir among our audience with an op-ed published to our website. The piece, titled “The Case Against Hunter Recruitment,” was written by my brother Matt Rinella. It focuses on Matt’s distrust with what is known in the hunting industry as R3. While it sounds like a droid from...
Steven Rinella
Mar 31, 2021
Read More
Play Now
Save this episode
Conversation