00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming in. You shirtless, severely vote bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't make even podcast. You can't predict anything, all right. Our guest is Frank Temple. Tell us your last name Van Mannon or von Banning, whatever you prefer. So, No, but you're not. I was surprised you walked in. You know you're not. You weren't born in the US. I wasn't born in the U s No, I am a US became a bear bile, a grizzly bear biologist or a bear biologists here. I came to the US in Do you remember how old you when you saw your first bear? When I saw my first bear? Uh, that was about probably. Yeah. So you at what age did you get into wildlife biology? Did you get that back home? Yeah? So I did a master's in biology at the university and in the Netherlands at the Agricultural University and studying what like what we're looking at their um well and again it was actually a combined bachelor's master so in the beginning was kind of undetermined and and towards the end UM I got really interested in in doing an internship on a large carnivore because there weren't any in the Netherlands. You know, there's no wolves, there's there were no bears or anything like. The largest carnival we had there was was red not that they had been extra paid, but they weren't there in the first place. Uh No, they were extrapated. So brown bears were excapated there probably more than a thousand years ago. Um. And wolves, I don't know exactly, but that that that have been quite a while as well. And interestingly wolves and now gradually returning to Western Europe. There's have been a few sightings of wolves now in the Netherlands. Um, how are they received their open arms not as a controversial there as well, not not yet, but I think it's because it's it's just been a sighting or two. You know, they haven't dusted off someone's landing exactly, and that once stop that starts happening, that might change, but but so far it's mostly excitement. Actually, that's it's amazing that in a place like the Netherlands. You know, it's sixteen million people in in the in the country to size that's one ninth of the state of Montana, you know, so you do the do the math. It's pretty amazing that you' still find rules there. So you started looking at large carnivores in what but not in the Netherlands. Yeah, so that there were people were working on on brown bears and what at the time was still Yugoslavia and in Spain, and so I was trying to get in on some of those projects and the timing just didn't work out, but I didn't. Through through those contacts that I made with those projects, I was able to get an internship at the University of Tennessee with Dr Mike Pelton, who was a well known black bear biologists UM in the Eastern US, and so that's that's really where I got started with What were you guys looking at with black bears? Well, a lot of different things, primarily population dynamics, so population changes and trend over time. UM looking at denning behavior, which was really interesting over there because most of the black bears there then in in high up in hollow trees, and so that did a lot of lead tree climbing in those days, and that was in a tree. Well, UM, the highest one that we ever measured was about hundred and ten feet up in a tree. So also not in hollow trees. Yeah, the canopy. No, in hollow trees. So the hell's he got a hollow big enough to hold the black bear hunter feet in the air? Well, there's in the smoke case. You know, you still have some areas with with old growth. And what kind of tree was it? Well, I think that was actually a remember it might have been a tool of poplar um. And there was climbing tool of poplars. Some white oaks, um, chestnut oaks. Those were the most common trees. And so are they up there because are they up there but to avoid predation? Or they up there for some other reason? Um to not not so much to avoid predation, I think, but certainly to avoid disturbance. And you know, no better place to beat and high up in the tree to avoid the stones across the heck no, And so you know, we we would climb up, we set up a climbing rope and which was pretty tricky most of the time, and then we get up to the to the entrance of the den and and most of the time was just a hollow. So it's a cavity into a hollow part of the tree. That's uh, that was established your years ago from a big branch breaking off, So a wind break or a lightning strike something like that would over to time, you know, for a fifty to a hundred years, could create this this big hollow compartment where bears we just uh basically hibernate for the reach in there and touch him, right, I mean, yes, that's in some cases they were that close. In other cases, we you know, especially with chestnut oaks, you would go up, you know, ft up in the tree and you look down in bear was all the way down at the bottom. It was hollowed out all the way to the bottom, and the bear would actually be resting basically at the bottom of the tree. Um. But the only way to get there is to climb up in the tree first, you know. So uh, some really amazing experiences to see where those bears end up. Now, how is it that you grew up using the metric system and you still use it in your discipline, but you don't mind conversing too Americans and standard. Yeah, I got to learn that. It's like a professional skills, that's right. It took a while because when you published work, you published it's all metric, So just do standard Just to talk to people. They know what you're talking abo try to Yeah, I mean, that's appreciate, that's important. And you know, I don't have all the stats from uh necessarily in the in in the English system, but but yeah, you know that's something you Yeah. Um, you also told me once and someone told me it's not true. Would you find that those cavities that they would take a year off between using those cavities, that the cavities would sit empty a year and then the bear would come back? Is that not true? Um, they wouldn't necessarily come back to the same cavity. That was actually pretty rare. We only saw about five to reuse of of the same cavities. The hell they find in the cavities, well, you know, they spent a lot of time in trees, you know, so they're they're up in trees eating grapes or or acorns even before they drop on the ground. Um, so they're up and eating out of fruits. So they're up in the trees a lot. And and my guess is that as they they spend a lot of time in trees, they will they will remember places where there's a cavity, so they know them. Their habitat like like we know our house, you know. It's it's something that I think that that we underestimate the capability of these animals, the spatial awareness total. They know every every square range of their home range. And then the females they would they would drop their litters up in the cavities exactly. Yeah. So for for those cubs, it's an incredibly safe place to be born. Do they lose Uh that coke could probably would stay in a little bit of fall, but it's gotta be dangerous getting them back down out of there. Yeah. And and so we've seen them come out and uh, and it's it's pretty amazing. I mean sometimes, um, you know in April or so, when they came out, you would seem climb down this huge tree and you know, these tiny little cubs, but their their claws are amazing, you know. When so when we would do these dent visits, we if if we had an opportunity to do it safely, we would nobalize the female and examine that give us give us a chance to examine the cubs and all that. And uh. And when you take those cubs out, I mean it's their their closet, like fell crow, they just stick to you, Yeah, like a little kitten or something. So so it gave him enough attraction on on the bark of the tree to to to get down the tree. And it's it's pretty amazing to see that how how well equipped they are right from from that age, you know, when they when they first come out of the den to to spend a lot of time and trees, that's that's there their safety place. Yeah. So is there a for a bear guy? Like you're a bear guy right like you you focus on barriers totally? Is there a journal you guys used? Like, is there like a journal called like Ursus or something? The World's Bearers? That's why I thought, I thought, I've never seen something like that. So what other what other species of bears around the world did you look at before you got focused on one grizzlies? Um so between my you know, so when I first started on black bears, I spent quite a bit of number of years working on black bears and eventually got involved with some international work, um with researchers in other countries. So in Sri Lanka, for example, I worked with with the researcher there who was working on the sloth bears. That was a really interesting project worked with two doing population work on those as well. Population work also a lot of habitat work, habitat analysis, you know, home range sizes and things like that, because there was so little known about there's nothing known really about sloth bears in Sri Lankan, and they stable or they decline. Well, they they're still holding on pretty well right now. Interestingly enough, you know, there used to be a civil war there and in a way that was good for for sloth bears because the rebel um the Tamil Tigers is is the group that that that basically had a conflict with the national government and so um the t Aimalt Tigers controlled a lot of the area where slot bears still existed, and and they would not allow people to go into those areas with guns and such. So it's actually sadly enough that the war actually created in some ways of protection for pho those populations. Is there a bush meat market there or voting for parts for the asiastic like trade and affordesiacs or what it's um most of like what happens a lot is there's people going out sometimes illegally into national parks, going out for for honey, but they in the in the process, sometimes they are attacked by by slot bears because they slot bears tend to be relatively aggressive, and so when that happens, you know a lot of times those bears end up and getting killed. So it's not necessarily for for meat or anything. There's there's really no boaching problem per se. It's just conflict that that leads to mortalities of those bears and and now probably illegal loggings that tie into the habitat loss and stuff. Is that not an issue for them? Not so much. The bigger issue right now is now that there is a peace agreement, people are moving back into those areas, uh, you know, because they avoided the areas of conflict. Of course, now they're moving back and moving into slought bear habitats. So that is um that is probably going to have a potentially lasting effect on populations there. So we will have to see how that how that pans out in the future. And then have you done work with the bears in South America? Yes, so I've I've called sun bears right those are Indian bears or in what's this where's the sun bear? From sun bears? Mostly in the Southeast Asia, so Malaysia, Indonesian, Indian bear. Yes, the South American bear, that's the only South American bearing. I'm kind of a relatively primitive bear species if you look at it evolutionarily. Um, they're they're quite old. Same with with giant panda. Is also an old bear species of the current you know, the currently the eight species that that we have in the world. Um. And it's uh when you say old, meaning that like the animal hasn't changed much in a over a long period of time. Well, um, old in the sense that that it stems from a yeah, an older evolutionary lineage. So you know, brown bears and polar bears are the most modern bears so to speak in that sense, so that these are the exactly yeah and uh, and so the giant panda and and Andian bear are the older bear lineages so to speak. And so yeah, and Engiine bears was a really interesting species to work on. Um. They occur in some of the really high elevation areas in the Indian mountains. Um, Like they're like an alpine species. Yeah, they they had they covered quite an elevational range. Actually, some of the work is in in in these areas called paramou, which which basically means no no trees. Um. So these open areas in elevations um, you know, over fourteen thousand feet or so and uh. And they feed primarily on bromeliads. So they they consume the the tissue that's at the bottom of the leaves. There is that tissue that has a lot of sugars in it. And then so they will rip open these these big bromeliads and and eat the base of those leaves. It's really really neat. And how how they've adapted to them and do they mix it up with people or as they are they pretty docile? Um, they they they're fairly you know, for for in terms of calling any bear species docile, you know, it's yeah, they're they're pretty Uh, they're they're pretty easy going. They're they're not very aggressive species. Um. They they occasionally killed cattle. But there's really not a not a large number of of comps links between people and engine bears necessarily. But if panda bears ever kill people, has that is that knowing to happen? To my knowledge? I I'm not sure they have no reason to kill livestock or anything. No, no, no, um. You know panda bears are you know right? Yeah, I mean they almost all of their diet is is bamboo, so um yeah, of course, very unique. So they can still can they move fast or not? Then fast? They can? Um, but but their home ranges tend to be relatively small. Their movement still and tend to be relatively small today. They kind of you know, basically set up shopping in in a good bamboo patch and basically wear it out and move onto patch. So that's that's their their typical mode of operations. So they like the porcupine uses his landscape, you know, uh yeah, move on when when the resources are you know, getting to the point where you're just not efficient anymore? Um So then did all that? Now, how did it come to be that you were Okay, I guess not at this point? Explain your job now you're titled now, Um so I'm currently um my official title is with the U s GS is I'm a supervisory wildlife No what is it research bottle if biologists? Um with the inter agency. Yeah. So and that's so I'm the team leader of the inter Agency Grizzly Best Study Team. And by inter agency that means a Geological Service. So where you work for U s G S. U s G S so eight different entities altogether, So the U S G S Fishing, Wild La Service, UM National Park Service for Service, and then the three state agencies for Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. And then we also work with the tribal agencies of the Northern Arapaho and the Eastern show Shownee tribes. And the only thing under your purview then is the is the grizzly bears and the Greater yell Stone area. That's correct. Yeah, yeah, so we this team was established back in nineteen seventy three, so it's it's we've got a long history, more than four decades. So well, yere did they get listed two years? And uh? And so we were actually in existence before the the official listing of grizzly bears in the lower forty aid Son and A Danger Species Act. I read the Inner Agency Group. No, I guess we should explain too. So you're not involved in policy, in pure research, correct giving information, providing accurate, non presumably non biased information to policymakers to inform their decision making. And you guys got started the right If I think I feel like I read this, you guys got started with involved just like closing dumps like that was sort of a strange somewhat uh, you know, like a not very hot button topic. I'm mad at the time, it was like the closing of dumps for attracting bears in the park or something. Right, Yeah, so that you know that there were open pin garbage dumps in and throughout the Yelstone existence and including Yelstone National Park, which is where people used to do their bear viewing. That's right, Yeah, I mean they literally had what they call bear counters, you know, where where bears would just be fed the garbage from the hotels and then people would that they would have basically a gallery for people to sit and watch these bears feet on their lunch counter. And and so after you know, the National Park Service had done some had asked two for some reports and this this famous Leopold report that that determined that that they made a recommendation that the parkser was moved to a more natural management of wildlife in general. No Starker, Yeah, and after his time, well after but made a report that that that that change policies in in the National Parks in terms of their their management and and taking a more um natural management approach to to all all wildlife management, including bears and and so I think Yellstone has been on the forefront of that right from the beginning. And uh, and so I don't think enough people realize some of the things about Yellowstones, like people like people who don't have a who don't have a deep background and wildlife and wildlife management, wildlife politics always like they kind of like to think of Yellowstone as this sort of thing that's always existed in this static form. Yeah, when they don't realize that like all the buffalo or all the bis and that are in Yellowstone used to be in defense and we're fed hay and straw exactly. You know that the bear viewing was, like you said, fed bears basically you watch you would observe bait stations. Yeah, you know what people have this image of it is like this is like the Steen area where we all we get to watch everything play out in its natural form, you know, without realizing what a sort of conscious like that there, that there was a conscious act to create this exactly. You know what I mean, it doesn't exist because it doesn't exist just because it's been hands off. It exists because people have pursued a sort of vision there. Yeah. And and you know, management in the parks has always been pretty heavy and in some cases there there's really no way around that. And you know, I think um man just will have to be pretty heavy handed. And in some instances, in some small parks for example, and um in this way management has kind of come down to almost non management, but like making decisions to do these things. Yeah exactly, Yeah, because yeah, there's still even if if you decide not to do something that's that's you could still call that a management decision. Um. So they got rid of the bait stations, open bit garbage dumps. Yeah. So they got resistance to that from from park visitors who wanted to see bears right now. Yeah. That so there was resistance from from visitors that uh that that we're worried that they wouldn't be able to see bears anymore. And there was resistance at that time from the two prominent researchers on on grizzly bears and Yelstone and they have John and Frank Craighead and of course that the pioneers of well what was their bearers, They wouldn't be able to find their bears very easily, know they Their concern was that that, so the parks are was proposed to to close the dumps basically all you know, at once, not not phase it out. And so that was the major disagree displacement exactly, they'd like strike off across the country and have no idea what there and and that did happen, um. But the parts of his argument at the time was that if we phase it out, there's gonna be generations and generations of bears that still know how to use that resource, and it's better to just wean them off right off, you know, right away, and and deal with the consequences. And I think you know, cold Turkey basically, yeah, yeah, we got a friend. Uh. I don't think he's downstairs right now, but he's trying to quit you and he needs to do like they do with the party bears, just shut it turkey. Yeah, he needs to shut it down. Yeah. So the you know that there was a major disagreement, um, And and the consequence of it was that that the was high mortality of grizzly bears after that. Indeed, just like just like you said, that's that's exactly what happened. Bears started moving all over the place looking for foods. Then you know, previously they got on all these easy hand nowns and now they had to kind of fetch for themselves and people's yards and roadways, camgrounds. So a large number had to be removed because of problem issues of conflicts and so dead probably put it dent in population at the time. And the closing those open dumps happened in the park and out of the part. Yeah, so they're the ones out of the park where a little bit later, but but by the early seventies, the ones in the park had been closed. Now how many grizzlies were there in the you know like this, I know this isn't something you can you can you can't. You could probably have no comment to this, but I think it was like a strategic it's just me talking. I think it's a strategic miscalculation to call the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem the greater Yellostone ecosystem because because the name is built around the park and people have a hard like message that can't separate and they think of it as the park. I would call it something totally different, like I don't know name you So, I don't know the Rocky Mountain, try state areas, the like the something, I don't know, the area, the area with a lot of animals, because the greater area, greater area. Because you do that, there's like we have I think that you know, again it's just me talking personally, but I think we uh collectively in the West, there's like a thing we suffer from Yellowstone syndrome. And it's really hard for people to like sort out the differences of the park and the not park, you know, and what the challenges are within the park, how those how challenges in the park affect people surrounding the park, and it just becomes And so when they call it the Greater Yelostone ecosystem, I think people, you know, have a hard time realize that that's like a little piece of something that's the size of Indiana. Yeah, well people here, yell, they're they're gonna the Yellowstone bears when we're talking about it, but a fairly large region. But at that time they go, so go back to the inception of your inter agency group, how many how many grizzlies were there? So in the g y e or in the actual Yellowstone or whatever. Yeah, so that the area of occupancy at the time was much smaller than it is now. Probably, so it was like Yellows basically National Park and a little bit of of area around it. Um. But they would it be fair to say back then most bears would probably coming in and out of the park. Yes, so at some point in your life. Yeah, And so after all those bears have been removed from from a system in the early seventies because of conflicts. Um. You know, there's really no good estimates, and and there's some numbers out there that that people you know, have a number of like one thirty six. Well, I don't think we can get it that exactly. And you're specialty is dynamics looking at population down so you're probably extra cautious. I am extra cautious. So it's possible that there that there might have been you know, around two hundred, maybe a little fewer than that. That's the probably, um at that time. So let let's go back, you know, let' let's do this. Let's go to the year of the year of listing. Now when when people say listing just for listeners. When people say listening, what we're talking about is that the that they got protection as a threatened species, not as an endangered species. But the grizzly bears in the lower forty eight we're afforded protection under the Endangered Species Act, listed as threatened, so not listened as in endangered, but listening as threatened, like possible for them to become endangered. Exact way to think about it. That happened in nineteen So at that point, how many we're in what's now the Greater Elstone ecosystem and how many lower forty eight in total? So in the great els in the ecosystem that probably would have been around two hundred is our best estimate, our best and it's it's pretty much a guess. But even uh, you know, based some of the earlier work, um, there were just no really really solid numbers. But that's that's a that's a pretty reasonable assumption. Um, you know, estimates for any of the other ecosystems were pretty poor too at the time. So it's it's basically, you know, some big guesswork here and I'm just throwing out a number. It's it was probably fewer than a thousand at the time, So how were they counting him then? Like one six were using models. Know that a lot of it was just based on observational work identify know, so that the Craik has had done some works, you know, starting in the in the you know, through the fifties and sixties and and so based on the animals that day had marked and observations from from those studies, you know, there were there were some indications of of what population size might be. But but they didn't study all bears, you know, they studied primarily around the dump sides, so there were probably a lot of outer bears that were never observed. So that's why some of the low numbers that that I've heard, you know, we kind of wonder whether that's really whether the population really was at low or whether a lot of bears were actually missed in those um kind of assessments. And and that's those were I would call them, you know, kind of qualitative population assessments. At the time. Let's say we just knew, for whatever reason, we knew the two D was accurate. There was two. Let's just say there was two. Can there be two hundre for a long time or is that like a number that just doesn't work? Oh, that that can be two hundred for a long time, you know, And I don't think it was actually necessarily that long anyway, because we'll probably talk about this getting at like they said with passenger pigeons, right, there had to be millions. If you don't have millions, you wouldn't have any I mean, they really like just their whole system relied on there being many. Yeah, and that's that's not really the case with bare populations, you know. I'm there's some bare populations in Europe, for example, that that for decades and now existed in the in the range of a dozen or so in the Pyrenees for example. Really it just like how they mean, there are amazing animals. You know, they can just hang on for for a long time, and as long as you have a couple of females that's still reproduce every now and then, it can actually you know, stay at that level unless there's additional threats. But they can stay at that level for a long time. It's it's of course not those those are not by any means sustainable viable population levels in the long run, of course. Um. But there's there's populations in northern Italy and central Italy, um in in western Spain and the Pyrenees that are all around that that size of somewhere between a dozen for some populations to forty for others, to up to maybe eighty or so for other populations. And and they have been like that for probably decades, and and with no foreseeable change in the future that that those populations would get a whole lot bigger. So variations in those populations, um, that's been one concern for especially for the Pyrenees. So they actually the cold quality, if I was just gonna ask you any questions, so far, very good. So they actually augmented the population and the Pyrenees with some bears from Slovenia where there are very healthy populations. So and it doesn't that's the other thing about genetics, and and this is um I hope we get to talk about that a little bit later on as well, But just about the genetics of the Yelson population. There's a lot of discussion about the genetics issues and and it it is it is a potential concern for these really small populations, like if you only have a dozen animals or so. Yeah, Yet genetics is obviously a concern, but it doesn't take much to to reverse the effects of that. You know, so an augmentation of of moving some animals from with another genetic background into a new area um is incredibly effective. Yeah, did you follow the debate. I don't want to get this too off topic, but did you follow the debate about the Florida panther? Yeah? Well I did some work, you know, like we're talking about dozens of animals in Florida and they're being a debate of of Okay, well let's bring in something from the west, where we got plenty of from Texas. Yeah, and then and people like, yeah, but this is the Florida p out there. We're gonna sort of destroy, you know, genetic line. But then like, okay, sure, but you're just gonna lose the whole damn deal if you don't mean I mean, like the choice to me, uh, seemed pretty pretty clear. You know, either you're bringing in a risk the population that the only population you have in the East, or you bring in eight Texas cougars and introducing new genetics. And that's what they ended up doing, of course, and that population I'm convinced that's that was the saving grace for that population. Absolutely about the Texas cougars. There there were super cougars. Oh yeah, yeah, like yeah, the Livestock Interest in Florida they super coargar. No, at the time of Texas cougar. I don't think there was a real concern at the time because because the cattle depredations weren't real big deal at the time. They've in recent years they've become somewhat of an issue. But um, it is amazing how how well that works. You know, a lot of the genetic defects um that that we're obvious in the resident population, you know, kink tails and something called crypt organism. We're only one test these the sends in the in the mail, which is you know, definitely a sign that that these are not vigorous animals. Um, all that really was reversed and just the introduction of eight Texas cougars did did the jobs they bring males or females are both? I don't know what boats as I recall, but I don't know exactly what what the sex ratio was. And did they pull them from a area? Now we're seeing we're getting way off topic, but the one last question, did they pull them from a wet area? No, not that I remember, um, a tough situation if you're getting about a West Texas right, and also you're like, welcome to the Eppglades, buddy. Well true, but but I think, um, we we underestimate how well animals can five. You know, Um, it's the same we've we've seen that with with bears to you know, you you reintroduce bears to new areas and they tend to do very well, incredibly adaptable. I got a friend who's working on a project where they're looking at taking coyotes that live like let's say there's a cod lives in an alpine environment, and when you move them, where does he set up shop? Does he travel long ways to find what he recognizes as you know homecus you just go, well, I'm here now and now I'm gonna figure this out, you know, displacement issues Sorright, So back to the main subject. Now, they got yes, a protection Right now we've got in your area, the area under your under your review, under you know, where you do your research. We've now got four times as many. Okay, let's talk about that number first, because a lot of people like to say probably many more, or they like to say probably less. Why is it hard to tell. Why is it hard to tell us how many there are? And how accurate do you think whatever the fashionable number is right now? How accurate is the number? Yeah? So that the estimates for two thousand and sixteen is six d ninety bears. That's down a little bit from from last year and from the year before that, but the population has been pretty stable at pretty much the same level since the early two thousand's. Now that number we know is a likely and underestimate likely and under us Yes, And that's because the method that we use UM basically has an underestimation bias building because you'd rather be wrong that way than wrong. Well, it wasn't necessarily by design, it it just so happened, UM because of the type of methodology that we use is based on looking at unique females with cups of the year and and separating sightings of those individuals out from UH from one family group to another, and and some of the criteria they were established early on. We're a distance criteria to separate them out. So if they were if if you have two observations of a female with two cups, you know you don't know, um that whether they're the same animal or not. And so to separate them out, they in the beginning they use the distance rule that when they established this this technique, they use the distance rule of thirty kilometers. And so if they were more than thirty kilometers apart, they had to be different females well as the not even yeah not not even then yeah, um yeah, no, more like one point seven kilometers per mile, so say roughly, you know, twenty miles or so. And and so what's what happened As the population grew in densities be came higher. Um, that that rule set wasn't necessarily as applicable anymore as as it was in the beginning. So and so as the population grew, that bias became stronger than underestimation bias. And so we may be underestimating by as much as as forty right now based on you want to know what I think you're off because this spring we glassed up seven in a couple of days. And I'm like, how can we have seen such a significant percentage of the bears just yeah, one drainage? No, absolutely, And of course, but it is like it's I can imagine, it's difficult. Yeah, we it is, And and so historically, you know, and when they started developing this technique, Um, it was at a time when when the population was in its first stages of recovery. So there was a lot of reasons to be conservative. Now that's that, you know, from a biological standpoint, we've reached recovery. Um, we can it makes sense to move to two a technique that that it's just accurate, um, and doesn't have that built in underestimation. But when you check, so let's say you take the number, will tell me the number at six fifty six six ninety four two six. But when you look at so you got your method to use. Now when you when you look at like hair trapping and genetics, does that wind up giving you some other wildly off number or does it sort of back up the figure under like multiple ways to look at it, and if they sort of line up and correlate. Well, so, um, yeah, a couple of points there that so we we we have not done a DNA sampling study for the entire ecosystem. Um why is it expensive? And heart's you know we calculated at the time. So what what what? Um? What Kate Candle did in the in the northern continental divide ecosystem. Was it was it sampling that that really covered the entire ecosystem with DNA sampling. That was a hugely expensive. It was a valuable information, but there was only one estimate, you know. It's it's an estimate for the population size that's very reliable, very refined the understanding in that area. It's it refined the understanding of that area for two thou four and that's what the estimate was for we we decided in Stone not to do that. But I got a question for you, what was the estimate before that work, Kate Kendall, What was the estimate before that work? And and and did that did that work make it go up or down? You know, I'm not sure that there was a truly a reliable estimate prior to that. It was a question that was really kind of a benchmark number. And so that number has now been used by by Montana, fish wild and parks too based on the information they have. They can make population projections on what what level of population growth that population has experienced, and you can lose the two thousand four number to kind of extrapolate into the future, you know, where where the population might be now, So people liked that work and generally accepted that work. Yes, that number, yeah, we uh, and that I wasn't in Jailstone at the time, but but at the time that the study team made the decision or discussed whether they should be pursuing something like that. And can you can you explain the process real quick what we're talking about. Yeah, So, what what that involves is basically setting up what we call hair snare correl. So it's basically barbed wire. Um. That's that basically a single or two strands of barbed wire that stretched around four corner trees. Um, it's a it's a pretty small area. And you know by a little fifteen by let's see, now I'm getting my metric and english messed up because I'm trying to be So it's about five five by five and and so I wait with the lure in the middle, and the idea is that the bear will be attracted to lure. It goes typically under the barbed wire to to get to the lure, so that the height of the barbed wire is pretty critical. But it goes under the barbed wire, leaves a tuft of hair on the barbed wire. You can collect that and if anyone who's ever walked along barbed wire fence looking at the bottom strand or top strand knows that there's a hell of a lot of hair exactly. And so it's it's really it's a great technique. You know, it's non invasive, it doesn't affect They don't even know what happened, They don't even know who do you use to bring them in? Blood lure typically mix and in some cases people have mixed it up with fish remains and and and stuff like that. So it's it's a pretty stinky, stinking mess. And that's that's the whole point of course. So it attracts uh, just by stand it attracts grusy bears from you catch some of his hair, Yeah, so we get the hair, the roots of the hairs have DNA in him, and that's that's sufficient. If if you get you know, five the ten hairs, typically that's sufficient to actually get a DNA DNA sample and and get a basically a DNA fingerprint of that individual. And then the ideas that that you don't can calculate not only the the number of unique individuals that have visited, but you can also do what we call capture recapture analysis where you catch that individual visual ones and then how many times do you catch it in in in future sampling periods, and that will tell you how how effective you are at detecting them. Yeah, Like if you catch every bear's hair twenty times, you'd probably get the feeling that you're catching most bears. But if you have a lot of bears you only caught your hair wants, the assumption is probably you're missing some exactly. Yeah, And that's and and the techniques are the statistical techniques are based on estimating the proportion you're not you're you're you're not sampling essentially. Yeah, that's that's the that's the hard part, that's right. And so um, the DNA sampling is has really been great for a lot of wildlife populations and that that was actually invented by by some of my colleagues in Canada working on brown Bear. So that's really there. The the original idea came from for this DNA sampling, and they decided against wildlife management. So why decide against it? I mean, well, I don't care. I mean I'm not saying like that, like I think it was the wrong decision, but like what was the argument. That's uh, you know, there was a lot of discussion within the study team on that, and we calculated to do something similar to what was done in the Northern Contental Divide. It would cost probably close to eleven million dollars um and would own a lot that's at Yeah, I mean that's that's for your agency. That way, beyond any any budgets that that we could deal with. It would require something like, um, you know, some sort of congressional um funding source to to really make that happen. And that's that's like like what they did in the Northern Condental Divide, And uh, that's I just don't see that as a as a reasonable way to move forward. Um. So the costs was was a major issue. The logistics of covering such a large ecosystem were a major Asian because the area here, No, just as we talked about this, so any part of this, I'm wrong, Grizzly Bears and the Lower Ford the are divided into six distinct population segments, Yeah, of which five half bears one exactly. Yeah, yeah, one of these distinct populations. So you have Northern Cascades. Yeah, we got Northern Cascades has some small number bears or not, who knows how many, probably fewer than maybe fewer than six. But that's that's they're flirting with the border in BC exactly. And then you have um east central Idaho. Sel Kirk's referring to is that No, I guess are you talking about half? What's the one that the Bitter Selway is not does not have the correct but it's regarded as a potential location. Yeah, and there were um uh reintroduction plans back in the early to late nineties, early two thousands that eventually we're not implemented, um, but they're gonna wind up there. Well, things are, I mean, things are looking as good now as as they have in a long time for for bears to actually get there, um, but the reality is that it's it's gonna take quite a bit of time. Uh. And the first bears that would get there are probably gonna be males only, and so for for females to actually, you know, actually make it down there, that's it's it's still probably gonna need some uh management and that so that means translocating animals. And then that's for the so seeable future. I don't see that happened in the ecosystem. So there's one distinct populations segment in Washington when we're just talking about that does not have bears is Idaho Montana Northern Continental Divide yep IS, which is by all means a healthy population. Bob, that's Bob Marshall scapegoat Glacier National Park is really kind of the core for for that area. And then the Greater yelso On ecosystem Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. And then we have Cabinet Jack ecosystem which also has bears, which also has bears. About forty is the best. That's extreme Northwest Montana and Idaho, Idaho pay Ana, Extreme Northwest Montana. Yeah, and you know there's reachers, fishing models. Sers are doing a lot of research there and they have a good handle on on the population UM and some recent DNA work there confirmed that that that population is around forty or so animals. So when you were looking at doing the hair trapping count, was it just that your area was so much bigger than the north Is it bigger than the Northern Continental to wide area? Um? You know, it's that currently the distribution is is a little bit more I think UM it's it's also I think parts of it are are more inaccessible. There's there's probably I mean, I know we have the Bob Marshall Wilderness in northern Continental the Vibe, but we've there's a lot of wilderness areas on the eastern portion of of Yellowstone, So, uh cossibility. The logistics is a big part of it. Um. The The other issue that that led the team to decide against it was that that it only gives you a single estimate, you know, it just gives you an estimate for one year. And the feeling was is that what the team was already doing was was actually sufficient to keep track off of the population. What do they call the system you do use? Well, the so that the one method that we rely on primarily is something that we referred to as the chowd To method. It's it's basically it's bay on those sides, chow too. It's a it's the the chow refers to the researchers, the statistication that who's who, whose techniques are behind some of these the statistical techniques that we use, And so that technique is based on on identifying unique females with cubs UM. Then we have another one that's that we developed UM to address the issue with an underestimation bias, and that's what we call a mark Reside technique where we're actually doing aerial basically systematic aerial surveys twice a year for all the areas in the ecosystem and and try to observe females with cubs. Again, is still based on females with cubs. What's a good time a year to do that? That's basically summer UM meant to mintilate summers when when we do those surveys that got hit and miss and it is and so that technique is bay based on observing females with with radio colors and and it is a little bit mitten hidden miss and so that the problem is that on an annual basis, are sample sizes are not really large and so the estimate is more accurate UM, so it's it's more on target, but it's not very precise, so you can have a confidence interval it's way bigger than than any manager would want to use. So it makes it really difficult to look at a trend detection over time. And that's that's what that child to estimator that does a better job. And so for the time being, we're sticking with that child to estimated, but we're still exploring ways to No one would say that you potentially know about every female with cups, Like if I went out and saw a female with cups, someone, oh no, Okay, So no one's gonna say like, oh, yeah, we know about a lot of them because they're very you know, they people reporting to us. You know, we have a lot of agency people out there. We observe from our from our aerial surveys, so we do get sightings off of the vast majority, I think, but we we do use a statistical estimator to again estimate how many we have not observed, but that that proportion is is relatively small. We do observe a lot of them, but we miss We miss a lot too. So what is the guess, like, what's the percentage that you guys think you're missing? Well, if yeah, and that's that actually matches with when we do that mark recite techniques again that's still based on females with cubs um, the total number would actually almost double from from what we typically have with that that out technique that the child to estimators so um, not not quite double, but but it would put us in the range of of ninety two uh females with cubs for this past year, for example. And if you extrapolate that out, you you easily come come at a total population estimate well over a thousand over over eleven under that actually, and so the real estimate for the population is is certainly much higher than what what our official estimate of six. So if you absolutely had to say right under like this is the imagine the most catastrophic thing that could happen to you if you got the number wrong, okay, involving death and injury and all every bad thing in the world, and you had to say a number, what would you say or just are you not comfortable saying because you just don't know? Well, yeah, and we I would have to still say that stick with the six nine and and and with the caveat that that we know that that is a suddenly by all means uh going to be an underestimate. I'm not trying to be leading here, but you know, you know it's not less could you be could is there a way you're wrong? And you have too many there there's always uncertainty with with any of these these type of data. Um, there is always yes, I think it's it's fair to say that there is always a statistical probability that that is below six. But that's not as strong as that it's above six exactly so, because everything else is is pointing at that. And and this is the this is the difficult situation that we're in, you know, with with our science. We we have a technique that that the managers still want to use and and is being used in how we move forward with the de listing, how the how the agencies move forward with the de listing that is now UH language in what it's called the conservation strategy, which will be the guiding document after UH delisting if if that goes through. And and so the managers have chosen to to stick with this conservative estimator. Um that does not keep us, of course from trying to them up with with a better estimator in the future. And uh and and for me, you know, that's as a scientist, I we have to we have to have that desire to do better than what we have now. You can always read a journalist. You can always tell where a journalist stands on the issues because if the journalists fails to fails to mention the caveat that there's likely more, you know that they have a vested interest in there being not that many. If the journalists mentions likely more, then you know where they stand politically. Which is a funny. It's a trick you can use sure now. And so the one thing that's important with that too, you know, you know we we we have that that number of six ninety, right, and then we have a confidence in all around that that's a statistical estimate of how confident we are in those numbers. So that number is is plus or minus seventy five bears and some so some people will will take that number and then say, so it's it's really not six ninety, but it's six ninety minus seventy five, and that's that's not right. You know that that all these estimates that it's the central tendency of the data would lead us to to six ninety more than it would lead us to the lower end of that or the higher end. Now, the only added thing here is that we know, we've demonstrated in the past with simulation studies that that that six ninety is an underestimate, that that most likely it's it's much closer to two, probably over a thousand individuals, and and so I'm totally confident saying that. But but it also makes it very confusing to the public, of course, you know, because we we have an official estimate of six ninety, but we we at the same time we keep saying, well, we know that's that's an underestimate and that kind of stuff. Yeah, they want to know how many bears. Yeah, and it's like, like, that's the first thing I ask you. And so it's science is messy, you know, and uh and that that's uh, that that's frustrating for us as well. You know, we we would like to have the perfect estimator, but you know that just doesn't exist. What was your question, Um, I was just wondering you'd have to know some populations, like the park populations a lot better than I don't know. This is just my guess as someone who doesn't know, But would you know those park populations a lot better than like the Madison populations and the centennial populations and the Absorka No, not necessarily. Actually, that's that's one thing that that I really like about how we've structured our our research and our sampling. Um, there's really the effort is pretty equal throughout the entire ecosystem. So it's pretty well distributed. And it's not like that. We have a much better handle on bare numbers for Yellstone National Park. And in fact, we when we're asked, you know, we were often are asking you what is their actual population estimate for Yellowstone or for Dish National Fourth. So we we don't provide those because we actually don't have those. We have them truly as as a as an ecosystem number. And uh, and that's because these these animals, you know, they cross boundaries all the time, and so you can't there there is really no such thing as as strictly Yellstone National Park population. You know, they a lot of those bears do cross the boundaries. You mentioned earlier that the drop you've seen in the last couple of years is that just part of a normal rise and fall or is that is that linked to some occurrence or yeah, So for you know, and and and you know, additional years of data will will will tell us. But um, you know, so some people have have argued that since um, you know two years ago was seven fifty seven, last last year was seven seventeen and now it's six ninety. And some people would argue that we're in the decline, but we don't look at at at trends and grizzly bear populations over short time periods like that. You really have to look at it over a long the time piece. I mean, they can live up to thirty years. You know, their generation time is um close to fourteen years now, So to look at it on a on a three year time frame is potentially dangerous because you can kind of overreact. So you have to really look at a longer time frame. If you look at at the variation of that estimate since the early two thousand's um, this still fits within that that that realm of variation that we have observed in the past, and by all means, all the all the data are are indicating that that the population has has basically remained pretty constant since the early two thousand's after after several decades of increase. What were the what factors this is the north You can't answer in a definitive way, but what factors allowed there in nineties that have two nine to having you know the six nine? Like, what factors are are are most Is it most safe to say like thanks to blank measure, the bears were able to increase or do you think that would have happened outside of federal influence or did it have to do with ESA protections or or if you can't answer in that way, how would you answer that question? Well, I think, um, I think E s A protections have helped a lot. Yeah, um it led to UM. Well, so there's a number of factors. I think the fact that there was an independent study team that collected all the data and had all the information to to give managers that you know, good scientific data to make decisions on the then like that in and of itself is helpful, is very helpful. I think. Yeah. Then the establishment of the inter Agency Greasy to be a committee, which is a policy group that is informed by our science. They make decisions based on our science UM that was established in the early nineteen eighties and they these were this committee still exists, UM deals with all the local forty eight populations. But they exist of high lanking, high ranking officials and they are the type of people that can make changes on the ground. You know, they can direct a national force or a national park to do this and that to help gristly bear conservation. And that's actually exactly what happened. Would be an example of something they would ask, Yeah, good example. So that the one thing that the study team identified at the time was that that adult female survival, which is the driving engine of of any bear population um was too low. How did you define an adult female breeding age? Yes, like there's actually viable and sexually mature um typically at starting at four or five years. And really yeah, so you know, they have relatively low reproduction because of first of all, that there's a three year reproductive cycle, and and they don't produce their first leader of cubs typically on average around age five point eight. Actually, so meanwhile, wait till deer were cranked out eight Yeah, so that that's that that's there's a big difference there when black bears are only two years, right, that's correct. Yeah, yeah, so that's why black bear populations can when their numbers are down, they can recover from from that quicker than than grizzly bear population. That's that's just pure demographic differences. So you identify the importance of those breeding age females, right, and and because the mortality of those was was really um too high for for sustainable levels. So what was causing the mortality? Well, um, in those early days, some of it was poaching um that that was in conflicts with with live stock. So one of the things that the Interagent Greasy Bear Committee did was to start closing down livestock allotments within the recovery zone and uh and start to deal with bears accessing garbage you know, so bear proof dumpsters, baarproof garbage cans. All that started in in those early days. The limit conflict, to limit conflict, and and I think those are the type of actions forcers. UM. You know, put a lot of effort into closing roads because we know that that road access typically means lower survival of of grizzly bears. Um. That's that's that's just a given like road creates a higher likelihood that that bear is gonna wind up mixing it up exactly the person and the bear is gonna be the one that ends up dead. Yeah, and so it's not necessarily a road kill situation, but it's it's just access into grizzly bear habitat by humans tends to reduce survival because of poaching. Higher likelihood of poaching or conflicts and things like that. So UM, closing down roads, UM and reducing road densities was was another big aspect of this. So all those actions combined, UM, you know, there's no hard data to show a direct cause and effect here, but there's no doubt in my mind that all those actions really made a difference. And that's what helped start to recovery of the population, which interestingly, after after listing in, the population still kept declining because some of those actions had not implemented been implemented at that time, didn't really start until the early eighties, mid eighties that they started to implement those and sure enough, you know, we saw the populations started to pick back up in the mid eighties, late eighties, and then started increasing through the very rigorous growth through the nineties, and then started leveling off in the early two thousand's, And some of our research recent research has indicated that that might simply be UM a result of of bears kind of reach, reaching social carrying capacity within their own population. I don't want to ask about, but just for a little background for people, So at the time of listening, they didn't sketch out what recovery would look like, if I understand right, Well, other than setting some recovery criterion like a minimum of five hundred crazy as for example, within the Yellstone ecosystem, or that at the time, I thought it only came later once the distinct population segments came into existence. Well, um, the numbers have changed over time. Um, but what recovery might look like has changed over time a little bit, you know. And the the the initial numbers um in the eighties, and we're a little bit different than the lay. The one was a revision and the supplement to the recovery plan, and that's where some of the the recovery criterion were ultimately based on. So one was related to population size, one was related to sustainable motelity limits, and one was one recovery criterion was related to occupancy of reproductive females, so not just females with cups and also females with dealings or two year olds. And they've met the bears in the Greater Yellstone have been at what's been defined as recovery levels. They've been at that for a number of years, right, yes, how long has that been? Basically since the early two thousand's they had early two thousands. They have been at at they've met all those criteria. And what was the first attempt that the US Fish and Wildlife Service made were they first proposed the listing was two thousand seven, That's that's correct. Yes, So that time, um, when they did their findings, when people sort of reviewed all the available data, some some suggested that they had not accounted for I think it was two things at the time. One was cut throat trout and then the white park pine. Academic hadn't happened yet, right or was it going on? It was going on going on. Yeah, so that was actually the bigger one, the white buck pine. They change, you know, changing the food resources in general, but especially white buck pine. Let's touch on the trout thing, because that always, to me has felt a little bit like bs it like that cannot have been enough of a rest source to be what was what was propping up grizzly bears and the lower forty eight was eating spawning cut throats. I'll never accept that that could have been. I don't disagree. I think you're here at an actually point. People love that story so much, but it's like it's just it's not if you look not like salmon runs on the Pacific Coast. No, it's it's not at all, um, I mean it's and and so in two thousand and thirteen we did we did this big comprehensive project. We called it the Food Synthesis Report. And that was in in response to the Ninth Circuit cord ruling, which is a pellet cord um that that indeed brought up that argument that the fish and wild lust servers had not adequately considered the effects of climate change and especially white back pine as as a food source, and and and and and and the effects of other changes are out of food resources as well. So we we had a very comprehensive look at that. And and I would agree with you because uh, it's it's one of many good resources that bears have access to. And and as we as we found out, um it sure, it's it's it's a resources that is high calorie, it's available to some bear, that is available to some bears at the time. The estimate was that might have been around ten of the population at the time might have actually been fewer if if you know, depending on actually had access to the fish, that actually had access to the fish. That's right. So it's one thing to keep in mind. It is we we refer to it as a kind of a provincial resource. You know, it's only those bears residing near Yellstone Lake that that historically took advantage of that resource. And it was a month or so long every yeah, um and and sure for those bears that had access to it, it's it's a great source of calories. People fall in love with that story. I think it's because part of the things like it's part of this uh, it's like this thinking like this, Malcolm Gladwell I and thinking where it's like you can always find these little surprise elements that actually explain the whole planet, you know, like, oh, if you want to understand that, all and you do is understand you know, these are trout and as we we see with anything in nature, um and and certainly with grizzly bears, it's not that simple. And and for a species that you know, we've documented more than two hundred and sixty different types of food that that grizzly bears consume in in this ecosystem. I mean that's so that's an astonishing number of rattle. Rattle if you are Nay, you name some of the more interesting Well, I mean, so did you know the certainly do you have the high calorie ones like cuts, road trout, white bug, pine, army, crust, wore, mods, and ungulus. Right, that those are by all means, you know, those are valuable resources. But but they I think somehow in in in the minds of some folks state they've been constructed as essential resources that every bear has to have access to those, and that's that's not true by any means. Um, not all bears have access to those four resources in every part of the ecosystem. It's it varies depending on where you are. So what people forget is that we have things like biscuit, rooten yampa um uh, while caraway. You know, it's an exotic species that bears are consuming in tom minor basin. That's that's that's where they're congregating. I mean, you see a hell of a lot of them digging for various species of ground squirrels and markets and whatnot. Yeah, so you've you've got that, um, you know, small mammals. Um, they're they're eating algae. In some cases they're eating mud. You know. That's uh, that is kind of a totally unique situation, but like a mineral, like a mineral rich motor. Yeah, like in some of the thermal areas they've the past week documented them eating, you know, consuming. This is just called geophagi um and it's it's probably yeah, for searching for particular minerals. Is this I was just wondering if it's true that the tom minor basin um, like I've heard that it's the largest uh like grouping of bears when they're going for the wildcare away in the lower forty eight UM. Actually, I would say that army cutform moths is probably the larger um grouping because some of those sites you know, can can have like twenty five bears at at one time. I've seen them tom minor a tom minor. It is pretty amazing. I mean, that's that's a vegetative resource that they're after, um, the roots of a wildcare away. And then they're they're digging for some out of stuff while Loretta too, but but that that seems to be the driving food source they were looking for. And yeah, you can you can see sometimes up to a dozen and more bears there and in the evening, which is pretty remarkable. And you know that that's pretty small basin, and for that many bears to show up in that one place, um, that leads you to believe that, yeah, there's there's maybe a lot more bears in the system than we think of the white The White Bark Pine issue did strike just from personal observation, did strike me as a legitimate concern when you because if you've spent any amount of time on those ridge tops that are colde in White Bark Pine, it's like you've never seen anything like it when it comes to how many animals are when you go from black bears, pine squirrels, grizzly bears. You know, Clark's not you know, Clark's not hatches. Uh, Stellar's grays, right, yeah, Clark's snot crackers. I mean, it's just kind of amazing who shows up in those places it is. I mean, yeah, when those trees started to die off. And also I hunted, I bow hunted elk a lot in White Bark pines, So I want up having like a view of it as the same way if if you spend a lot of time along the stream and you see bears eat sam and you start to think that all bears eat salmon. I had in my head like, man, if this collapses, um, it was like, it's the death of these bears, but against this very personal anecdotal thing. But and as it turns out, it's it isn't. Um. So what are they all like? So all those bears, like, what are they doing instead? And that's the one of the questions that we address with with that research back in two thousand and thirteen, in in response to the and and by the request of of the inter Agency Creasy Bear Committee. So one, you know a couple of things we looked at that. First of all, white back pine did decline. You know, there's there's there's in some of our transsex that we've been monitoring since the early two thousand's, we've we've seen seventy of the adult mature trees dying. So that's that's pretty substantial. That's pretty good. Nuts. You ever eat that nut? Um? You know it's the collective and rollsome it's a pain and he asked, but they're good man. Yeah, you can use them. I mean the humans can consumer. There's not a real market for it or anything. Yeah, it's yeah, And it's it's funny you see on the when we capture grizzy bears during that time period. You know, they have their their hair on their paws, it's kind of matted down and sticky from the from eating eating the white buck pine. UM. So, one thing we found was that that bears did respond and and use white buck pine habitat last over the over the last decade, so basically the decade from the early two thousands to the early you know, two thousand tens and uh so there was a response um where initially they were really selecting for those habitats that that selection just gradually went down and now they're basically using it in proportion to availability. But they're still using it, and so it's still in in in good white buck pine years, they're still taking advantage of that resource. And even even though you know, have such we've had such high mortality of white buck pine, there's still a large number of viable, healthy trees out there that that do produce for whatever reason, we're resistance. We don't know if they're if the resistance um. You know, there's a couple of factors. You know that the mortality of white black pine was really primarily mountain pine beetle. There's a little bit of blister rust um and and some trees may have natural resistance to that, um and some may may not. But it's really mount pine bal and also wildfire and have have something to do with it. So um, with mountain pine beetle I think some stands eventually just weren't weren't reached by mountain pine deals. So um, not necessarily that they were resistant to it. They got they got lucky basically, yeah, and so um. You know bears, we're used to assist them of you know, even before this, this this whole mount pine bal at pandemic, it was still a annually very unpredictable resource. So in some years it's you had a bumper crops. It's a masting species, which which means that the tree puts out throughout the ecosystem, just massive amounts of seeds in one year and almost nothing the next year. I think it's got an oak tree in their yard. It's like some users to yeah, yeah, and it's the strategy of the of the trees of course, to to to kind of uh make sure that they reproduce. And if you if you produce just a little bit every year, all the squirrels and everybody else is gonna eat all the seeds and you're not gonna not gonna be able to reproduce. So the strategy of the tree is too in one year just produce nothing and the next year overproduced, so that you have small populations of rodents that cannot hammered all the all the seeds. You know. It's it's pretty smart strategy, of course. But bears were used to that, and that's that system has been in existence for a long time. Of course. Um, you know, where you get a good crop maybe about every two to three years, So a thirty year old bear has seen a hell of a lot of years exactly. Yeah, we didn't start death. And so what we found was that by by looking at um at body condition and and and i'm body fat and and also consumption of of animal resources. Um, what we found was in year of poor white buck pine crops, they would simply eat more animal matter. And and what what we're seeing is that as the white bug pine as declined, they have switched because it's a fall resource, you know, it's it's the period of what we call hyper fagia where they're just consuming calories. You know, something like twenty tho calories a day, UM, and and so they just switching to other alternative resources. And and ungulates are one of them ungulates and that includes um, you know, ungulates left from from hunter kills, piles and things like that, at which they are incredibly efficient to locating those. Are they good at um, like in the fall months when you don't have you don't have young on the ground. Are they very adept at killing adult ungulates in the fall months when they're not depleted by bad weather? They're not there's no young around during the ruts primarily, Yeah, so during the bison rut and during the elk rut that bears do take advantage of of um. You know, the injuries that some of these animals I'm going to sustain during the rut and so UM, that's when we kind of see an uptick in the in in in the ungula use. So you're right though, and you know that what we see in in in the spring, of course, is that the cal elk having season that's black black bears and and and grizzy bears will take advantage of that. UM. They're really pretty efficient predators on on elk casts. But it's a pretty short season. You know, it's it's it only last you know, it's really only the first ten days of an elk calf that that a grizzly bear has a reasonable chance of obtaining this around Memorial Day into early June. It's good pick. Yeah, how many do you have an idea of, like how many elk calves one grizzly will eat in a season? Um? In a season? UM, I don't have any numbers right off, but I mean it's you know, it could it's possible for a grizzly bear or even a black bear population too, to affect population growth of of elk populations based on you know, predation on on elk casts. It's it's um, there can be an influence of that, and sometimes if it maybe is an in combination with having other predators there. So I'm glad you asked that question because what's really interesting if if you look at the word range, you know, the elk population in Yellstone's northern Range has has changed dramatically from I think at the peak it was somewhere around seventeen twenty thousand and and that number has dropped. Uh, And of course there were a lot more wolves out there. A number of years ago. Then there right now, I think um Yelstone Park now has has about about a hundred bulls now, so it looks like we might be reaching kind of some some sort of stable system where um, where you know, there's there's there was also maybe some over harvests in terms of hunting of that population, so a lot of cow hunts. Yeah, so that that number has dropped. The wolf population and reintroduction wolves have certainly have had something to do with that. Um. And then as the grizzly bear population grew and and and especially how they affected elk casts, you know, that probably has has added to to that mix as well. And that's that's probably what what let the elk population to do what what it's done, and and drop in numbers and and you know, maybe stabilizing a little bit now. And imagine there's also the two large beers just them learning how to deal with that predator. Yes, I mean like right now, you haven't been you know, people haven't been allowed to hunt Yellowstone for a hundred years. Right. If you all of a stud open hunting and Yellowstone, you can see a hellbot of elk get shot real quick. And then in about ten years, you're gonna find it becomes real hard to shoot Elk and Yellowstone. Yeah, I mean, and then so elkaf also responded to to the presence of wolves and bears everyway. Yeah, they just get used to Yeah in the area days you know, they might drop a calf out in the open, and now they're gonna they're gonna be more enforce it areas and they're gonna be hidden a little bit more because of the pressures of of bears for example, and the bowls as well. So uh yeah, elk behaviors is changing because of that. Well, they how do you know how long they have actively because they have haze bears, don't they every spring, like in order to essentially get them to change their behavior around people, because I mean, animals in the park are still habituated, whether like people are walking up to them or not. Yeah, but the typical unless bear is really causing problems, that the typical response to that is not hazing. Um, that's really kind of used and as a last resort um. So in terms of the hazing, what you know, the management agencies will will use that in some instances, but but it's effectiveness is really kind of limited. And and so what's what yells On Park, for example, has the policy that they have adopted with with grizzy bears near roadsides, is that as long as as they're showing natural behavior and they're they're not keying in on on human foods, they just let it be. And I think, um, there was another really good management decision, I think is to to to let that habituation just take place. And you can do that in the National Park. Now that's that's different in areas outside the National Park. You know, you may not necessarily want want that type of habituation. So we we make a distinct difference between food conditioning and habituation. And so if we're talking about habituated bears, typically hazing is not an uh is not a tool that's needed now for for food condition bears. It might be, and eventually if that doesn't work, then then removal of that individual is just really your only last choice. Over the last twenty years, say how many, um, how many people have been mauled killed by grizzly bears? Average is about one or two a year, right, yeah, and in recent years, but you know, we we went a long time without without any at all. Yeah. Um, well Malling's so let's just say death fatalities. Um yeah, in recent years we've we've average close to at least one a year. Yeah. Um. But like I said that, there was a time period where there really weren't any, um much at all. So it's kind of you know, you you you're dealing with such small sample size. It's always kind of hard to to put a specific number on it. Butily acute psychological feel it is. It's like everyone talking about it always likes to point out, um, oh you know they do. They always go to like what they compared to you dying by falling off a ladder. They compared it to dying by getting stung by a bee. You just like go to the same way you want to make something seems small in Land Mass you compared to Rhode Island. Yeah, right, or like if you want to seem big like Texas, it's like two Texas is um. But but I think that the other thing that plays into it, and I thought about in the past, it's like it's a psychological fear, and it's like when people look at what are the odds it's gonna happen to you? They're sort of looking at the human population in the g y e or wherever, most of whom don't engage in high risk activities. But when you get down to the individuals who engage in very high risk activities such as it winds up being that you know someone or your buddy knows someone who got scratched up by a bear, and it starts to feel very different. So in one hand, people are telling you like, oh, you've got more chance of getting killed by a cat, a house cat, you know, but they're hare like, well, you know, I have to know a lot of people who have been who mixed, who've been scratched up or run over by bears, because I belong to the high risk segments, like talking about verneural diseases with people who are who go who hang out in brothels all the time, like they have a very different view of careneerally uses the people in the monastery. Yeah, you know. So it's like it really is like I don't like the t That's an interesting analogy, but yeah, well I don't like the tribualized I find myself and sometimes I'm pointing out, you're not gonna get maulled by a bear. Then sometimes I'm want to point out, like man I should do you know a lot of people who have been charged by bears or run over by absolutely a lot of people. Yeah, the context is everything there, you know. No, you yourself, I mean, have you had some run ins? Uh? No? No, but you know, as I indicated in the in the in the bear spray and we had the discussion about you know, use of bear spray versus firearms. Uh. In our work, we try to do everything we can to to avoid encounters, and we can do things that hunt hunter doesn't have the luxury you're doing, you know, like shouting and and and and things like that as a prophylactic really like preventative preventative measure. Yeah, like shouting before it's before you're actually shouting at the making our presence known basically, and you know, as as a as a hunt or you don't have those options, you know, that's it's just hard to exercise it. Well yeah, but strategically no, yeah, So have you have you have you you've cut loose on with pepper sprouted bear though, right? Or no? No, I have people on our team have yeah around for you know, for example, when sometimes in trapping situations you're you're working up a bear and out of bears are you know, inevitably hanging around might be attracted to that and come in, what do you mean hand around like, because we're you know, in in our traps we use we use baits, and so there is that attracting. There's there's also any time, you know, I think there's there's a lot more social interactions among bears than we realize, and and so just having a bear in a trap and and and being handled might actually attract out of animals as well. So, um so we've had situations where where I field pushing all have had to use empty a number of of bear spray cans on on bears that were getting too close. Now, my brother is a researcher in Alaska and he works for a federal agency in Alaska, and they he used to work for university and there the policy there was, I believe you had to have you could you had the option between leath and lethal or non lethal. Because he spends a lot of time in aircraft, um he tended to carry lethal because dealing with the pepper sprays when you're flying on when you're flying on scheduled flights, so scheduled flights you can't have it, and then you often land in a place where you're not gonna go down to Walmart or whoever the hell sells bear spray, so you're on or if you're in a helicopter or in your airplane and that thing cuts, lose your debt. So they taped to the outside that they taped to the struts. Anyways, various complications has made it that he would generally carry the lethal means, and what he carried was that's probably the standards that he carried at eight seventy with slugs. Now where he works, he's at a federal agency now and it's they carry lethal and non lethal. Yes, we do too, So everything he does, he's got to have that. Yeah, you gotta go whatever you gotta go through to get that spray there. It's funny because him live in Alaska. He has boxes of spray. Because everyone comes to Alaska to visit, they buy spray they can't bring there, and so he it's like it looks like this area is garage, you know, bear spray. So that's what they do now is lethal and non lethal. And you're obviously encouraged to exercise the non lethal first, even though they're in the area where there's no serious talk about there being any kind of shortage of bears. I mean, they occupy nineties percent of their historic range in the state of Alaska, and here they occupy what five or six percent of their historic Yeah, so it's pretty low. But yeah, we we carry boats too, and uh and and like you said, you know, first lethal option, what's the lethal thing? You guys carry handguns or uh carry handguns? Um, but we also, um, you know, carry shotguns and seventies. How do you tote your spray? Like? Are you really good about just keeping it right handy? Yes? Yeah, you like to do personally where well, um, you know it's I have if you're asking about like like like, actually, how do you handle your bear spray? Um? I typically have it just on my belt. Yeah, but um, you know, when I'm hunting, I actually prefer to have the chests the chest halter, you know, where it's on your chest. You won't actually have to take it out. You're just shooting straight, which which I prefer that you can. You can get them at any place, you know that it's just espasically, you know, the the same system. But but it's just a chest holding well maybe his holster couldn't fit, you know, like on the so you but you attach it to your backpack strapping. No, I just I haven't. I put that on first and then I put my backpack over it. So you you always have it on you, not from the hip. Even if you check your back off, you still have the bear spray on you. And that's that's one thing what I like about. Have you been injured by bear spray? No, I've seen to, like not not serious, pretty, but we're getting ready to go bear hunting. One hunting black bears, and my brother had his pack laid out and he stepped down the bust of the nozzle holds everything down with bear spray that I got. I got pickpocketed going through a thicket and BC and holds myself down. It's not awful, but it's not good. Your pack is done. Yeah, you gotta replace your pack. I got a friend up in Alaska that had it cut loose in her car and it total her car. There's nothing you can do. It just got punctured every Yeah, everything in the car. There's no we've had I know that that. There's been instances with without a federal agencies where people left it on the front dash, you know, and the sun burst and the heat. Do you is it true. There's a rumor that floats around and maybe you know, is it true that a woman, a tourist, I think it was a Yellowstone, bought some spray and sprayed it on her kid as those mosquito repelling I have not heard that one. I've heard people. You have heard people spraying it around their tent. Yeah a repellent, Yeah, as a repellent. You know, that's a rough night sleep. So if you, let's say the goal, let's say you weren't dealing with a with a population that um let's say grizzly bears are white tailed deer. Okay, No one's talking about there not being enough of them. There's just no question about their stability. And your thing was that you were just going to protect yourself from bears, and you could pick the lethal or not leath. You could pick shotguns with slugs or hang on, or you can pick pepper spray, and nothing to do with the preserving the animal or helping the animal out, just had to do with your personal safety. Based on the people you've conversed with in your own personal experiences, what what would you pick? I would pick bear spray, Yeah, because I think you know that the the key thing about bear spray is you can be really poor at aiming and still have a good chance of of deterring a bear. And whereas with with a firearm, you really have to keep your composure and and hit that animal because if if you don't, you know, it's it's too late. And so with with bear spray, you you increase those chances. And and and the research you know that has shown that well, I think I think it's shown in a pretty in a pretty convincing way when you look at when they do it. But then again, you're dealing with such small sample sizes that it's hard to get real excited about it. And then people like to point out like you'll hear a guy's sprayed a bear with bear spray and it's still scratched them up. But there's a help about of people that shot guns at grizzlies and shot their body. Yeah, and people don't talk about that nearly as much as they talk about the speller spraying a bear is still getting scratched. It's like people like one story more than the other story. Yeah, I think there's a thing that there's like a thing like if you're a badass a gun, you know what I mean. It's just sort of this feeling there's there's a maybe a bit of a macho thing there, you know, when when in reality, um, I would I would feel a lot safer with bear spray alone. You know. For for me, I think just because that's so much time I spent outdoors. That spen so much time I spending grizzly hunt. I'm actually hunting. I'm actively hunting. I'm quite often carrying both anyway, you know, not counting bow I mean bo is you know, I mean if you got if you have time to shoot a bear with a bow, he wasn't a threat, that's right, Yeah, or you're war in the hell of a Yeah, are you're real good? Yeah, you're a long bow hunter. Maybe get have time to get a shot off. So what do you think, like, what what's the future hold? I mean, do you think we're there? Like do you think that this is about the proud number of bears we could hope to have and you know, barring some huge change, some huge societal shift that welcome bears into areas where they had a high risk of conflict. Exactly, we're probably about where we're gonna be. Yeah, I think, um, you know, all the all the data that we have, and and we actually, you know, we talked about two ways of estimating population. We have several lot of ways of of doing that. We look at a lot of other things, and we never look at one single data data set um to to to draw our conclusions. You know, all our conclusions are based on looking at a number of data sets and a number of different types of of indicators and you put all that together, Uh that the indication is that this population is at a level where you know, within the core of the area. We we we we just can't have much higher numbers than what we have. We're seeing these what we're called density dependent effects where uh, this kind of this internal population regulations starting to take place. So the only potential for this population to grow would be to expand, to keep expanding, and for people to allow that. And and that's that's so that gets exactly what you were mentioning. As as long as people were tolerant and and and able to accommodate, then uh, there could still be growth. But then you have to deal with the realities of bear showing up in people's backyards. Um. You know generally most of us, um would would not find that acceptable. And yes, the thing I brought up and something I wrote once where um, you know, these bear is historically occupied a range you might think of from where the Missouri River hooks south that westward to the Pacific coast. And when when the question of delisting in the Greater Yellostone ecosystem comes up, people will point out like, well, they're not recovered across their entire range, and I point out, well, Golden Gate Park is in a very different situation than ye also the National Park, so when we're talking about range wide recovery, that would include San Francisco and Los Angeles exactly. Yeah. So it's a it's tricky. It's like you wind up getting stuck in these um I think a lot of people get stuck in these these utopian views, and it's these ideologies of of you know, you know, we need to have grizzly bears everywhere there's suitable habitat well there maybe pockets of suitable habitat that and then elsewhere in the West, but they're not large enough. I mean, look at you can look at Yellstone. It's a huge area. Now it's we now have bears occupying more than fifty eight thousand square kilometers. But very personally, I would like to see, very personally, I would probably draw like if you if you mapped, if you were able to put people's perceptions of suitable habitat on like a number line or some sort, I would probably put it. I would probably declare more areas suitable than than you're average American because generally like wanting more bears mount Like I look at the Northern Cascades thing, and and I know there's varying views. And I look at the Northern Cascades area in the state where I live, and I'm like, yeah, like I get it. There's there's conflict. But in my mind, if if I was like king of the world, right, I'd be like, let's go for it. And I would There's a handful of places where I would say let's go for it. But I think that in other places really hard like Wyoming holds more of the bears than anybody else of the g y E. And I think that when the powers to be in Wyoming look at the map. I think they politically feel like they're kind of filled up. You know, they've got them where they can have them. Anywhere else is just gonna lead It's gonna lead to a lot of conflict. Yeah. And then we're seeing that, you know, the range expansion that we've seen, and we've seen continued range expansion even with the population level in the core kind of leveling out. Um. But we're seeing more conflicts specifically in those areas. So we're getting more lifestyle conflicts there. Like this year, we we had a number of bears um. You know that we're just killed through accidental in accidental type situations like um in one area misidentification with black bear hunters mean no in um in in in uh where they're encountering new dangerous situations. So in this case it was irrigation canal. We had three bears drowned in the irrigation canal that um. It's some of these canals and this is in the in Wyoming, so east of Cody, so well outside what we would call you know, typical suitable habitat um and and these irrigation canals are pretty large, really heavy high flow to it, and like sea walls, so steep concrete banks, and so bears got into it, probably because they were on auto. Animals in there that that they were, you know, ungulus or cattle that they were trying to go after made it in there and then got sucked by the current and couldn't you know, because the walls are are concrete, couldn't get out three of them and three of them. And I think it's an indication of the type of situations that we can expect more as their range keeps expanding. And it's also an example of of of that we should expect higher mortality rays in those areas. And that's that's why we make a distinction between this this central area, the core area where where we have a suitable habitat which we refer to as the demographic monitoring area, and areas outside, you know, more we can expect a lot more mortalities outside of that core area of habitat um simply because there's more situations where bears can get into trouble, even accidental deaths like that, or cattle predations and things like that. So, do you think it's possible that in fifty years, is it plausible or possible? I guess I mean mostly the same thing that in fifty years we could have a situation much like we have now that we have six grizzly bears that live in this area, and it just kind of bend that way. Yeah, I think that's I think that's that's very doesn't have to be moving in these wild oscillations. No, No, I mean there will be some oscillations, you know, as you as you can expect that for a population that's that's kind of you know, occupied most of the suitable habitat. Um. There will be years that that the population will kind of dip down. It will be years that it will it will be hired and where we are now, um, but with proper management, you know, scientifically based informed management, I'm convinced that that this population can be maintained at this level for the foreseeable future. Do you feel that, um, Do you feel that we're culturally doing a good job of of scientific management management from your perspective, or do you feel that there's a lot of pressure, um, political and social pressure to sort of tell people certain things that they want to hear, or do you feel like there's freedom to do your work in the way that you guys see fit In terms of our our work, I feel like we we are allowed to be completely independent and and I've strongly feel that two managers take what we say seriously. Um. They they do not question our our findings. Stay. I think we we have a lot of credibility with two managers and and the public at large about our data. And there's certainly individuals and groups that's that that are critical of our work. Um, that's gonna happen with with anything, uh you're doing with dealing with an iconic species as as greasy bears and yellstone. But you don't feel that someone says, you tell me what I need to hear. I'll find some of those that I would that would not I would not be in this position if if if that were the case, that would Yeah, that that would not be acceptable for me because as as a scientist, I need to be able to be completely independent of of any sort of political influence, and I would I would I would not accept that at all, um, and I would certainly let that be known. So Yeah, it's it's it's nice to be working in a situation where you are working with with the with the managers and the management agencies, but not UM. But we're not getting directors as other than hey investigate this particular thing because we we need more information on this to make decisions UH. And then and when we come back with with that information, that that information is seriously considered. And that's that's actually the for me as a researcher, the gratification of of working here. You know, a lot of times as researchers, we we kind of we work in isolation from from managers and UM. And that's certainly I would be the first to admit that was the case when I was working with Black Bears and so working with with this study team and working with with with the inter agency Greasy Beer Committee and the managers on that committee and the subcommittees of that UM, it's been really satisfying because for the first time in my career, I actually feel like the people that that can make changes on the ground in terms of management and managing the population are actually listening to the scientific findings, which I think that's ideal set up for for doing good management. And you've been at this how long I've been at this UH for over twenty five years now. It's almost almost just in the last deck or when did you start? Basically the last five years five years you feel like it's finally happening this yeah, yeah, where where because of the because of the system that it was set up, you know, with with the study team doing independent research, that research being um formative for the decision makers on the interagency greasy Beer committee who are able to implement it in in in the real world. You know, that system was set up for for that reason. And uh, you know, there's really not many species or populations where I can think of where where it's so structured. You know, it's by design, it was, it was done that way. And in most other cases, you know, research is kind of like I said, they you know, we kind of tend to work in isolation from from a lot of managers. Not always, but this, the way it was set up was was really ideal situation. What's the next bear you're gonna work on? This will be the last bear? I'll probably know what are you do? Just stick around? Oh yeah, absolutely, So you're into it now? Oh yeah, yeah, you know this, I mean if you look at as far as sort of what has the what sort of captured the popular imagination, you're there? Yeah, it's got man. You know, there's not a lot of bear jobs in the world, and for the bear scientists like mock me to work, um, you know, grizzly bears and yels, and that's kind of the epitome of of what what I could have ever hoped for. So uh, there's every reason for me to stay here until every time. That's my intention. Anything you want to add, well, yeah, it's like we're always like all you guys do, all of the biologists and scientists that we talk with, you guys do such a good job of saying that, like, you know, I'm in it for the research, but obviously, like you love the bears, right, oh, absolutely love them. So but I know that your goal is the first and foremost to get good research and not let the emotions, you know, muddy the waters. Um, So, like, is it a success now where it is? And if in fifty years were at the same level, would you consider a success or do you not even like rate what you do that way because you just you can't look at it in success and failure from a personal staying a point. Um, No, I think I I still look at it from a biological standpoint, And so uh, regardless of of what the legal satus of the population is now versus the future, in your fifty years from now, if we're if we are still at this at this level fifty years from now, I would still I would say that that is a total success. That would that would be an incredible success, if, if, if that can be done. Um, because really, we we have reached biological recovery in my opinion, and that's that's just based on scientific data and and nothing else. So regardless of of whether um, you know, the listing happens or not, it's it's the The biological fact is that every everything indicates that we have biologically recovered population of gristly bears in Yelstone. I guess that's kind of follow up. It might take too much time, but what's just can you hear us like the latest on delisting and like where it's well probably let me let me quick point out what that means. So, um, the US Wish and Wildife Service has for the second time proposed that grizzly bears be delisted, that they that their federal protection under the Endangered Species Act um, that that end and they returned to what's called state management. Now but the states, however, in the process of states, so we have to come up with management plans that are acceptable to the FEDS, and that that's part of the de listing process. So when someone says de listing, what they mean is that would be one of very few, would be one of about two percent. I think of the species that make it onto the Endangered Species List that are then taken off because of recovery. Animals get taken off in various ways. Some have been removed from the s A protection because they simply went extinct. Some have been removed from s A protection because they figured out that didn't they didn't belong there in the first place. Um, it is just they were operating off poor data. Some have been removed due to taxonomic lumping and splitting, where they had listed a thing thinking it was, you know, its own subspecies, and then realized that it's part of a of a different population, or that they went and found other unknown populations and realized that in fact the animals were not as hard up. And then some number uh bald eagels being one of them, have been removed just simply from recovery regators. So so yeah, there's a proposal now to do with grizzlies, what we do with alligators, what we do with bald eagles, and say the e s a worked. It functioned as the way it was meant to function. It's a two way street. Recovered species are meant to be removed from listing and we're facing it now, but that will be litigated by UM. That would be litigated for I don't know a decade or more unless they'll propose the listing and someone's gonna see Yeah, so that, Yeah, the the d listing has been proposed UM to line it up the presumably and uh, you know, the agencies at this point have are ready to sign what it's called the Conservation Strategy and so that will be the the post delisting uh management guidance basically and uh and and so most of the pieces are are in place at this point. Now because of the administration change, there might be some delay. So you know, we might be looking at at the middle of next year before the final rule to D list would come out and then will that go through its own comment period? Uh No, that will be the final one soon next year might be the final. Yeah, So the common periods have already occurred. Um and uh, and so that that the for a moils Service is still working on addressing those those comments because every every substantive comments has to be addressed. That's that's quite a task. And and and you know they tried it in the past and it was deferred, you know, in two thousand and seven, I guess he got deferred for eight or nine years while they looked into the answering some more questions. Yeah, well, the eventually, I think the Ninth Circuit Court decision came out in two thousand and eleven, So yeah, it was it's I expect any litigation on this if if a new delisting rule final rule does come out, UM, litigation will likely happen, and that we might be looking at a similar time period for four or five years before any any final decision comes out of that. I asked someone what one of the legal strategies might be and they pointed out that, um, you know, there's some technical strategies you can take where the um, the crew creation of distinct population segments happened after the listing, and so that if you're trying to d list because they're only like like again for listeners, they're not trying to delist the grizzly bear in the lower forty eight. They're trying to delist one population set, so they're trying to delist a population of grizzly bears. So they're trying to delist grizzy bears in a you know, in a define herble geographic location about you know, like we said earlier, like maybe I consider like the size of Indiana. If one of the bears that lives there should take a major hike and wind up safely outside of that thing. He's covered by the e s A because the s A applies to because the distinct population segments just one little spot. Now a strategy they're saying they might use to thwart this. UM. There are a lot of people this is just me talking persons us do our guests, UM, there are a lot of people who use the ESA as something called the Favorite Animal Protection Act and people who you who like to think of the ESA has the Favorite Animal Protection Act. One of the things that they'll do is they will um question that distinct population question the sort of legality of creating distinct population segments. So it might not even come down to like are there enough bears or whatever. It might just come down to legal wrangling over definitions and and uh, procedural stuff. And thankfully none of that, none of that affects you, right, Uh no, not really. Um I'm just gonna you do a job, provide information. We provide information and will continue to do so. Um and and the Fishing Widelo Service has addressed that that distinct population segment issue within their proposed rule. Um and and you know, use all the biological information to to make that argument. And I think by all means you could argue this is a distinct population. So I think it's like it's you know, it's it is still a nice plush management. I mean we do it all the time. Months like Alaska's divided up into what third d sum or twentysome game management. You know. It's I mean like it's a thing we do as humans when talking about animals, is that we sort of try to break up landscapes in the way that makes sense. Now, we drew state lines. We drew state lines almost arbitrarily along latitudtional longitudal lines. But oftentimes we're talking about animal populations, it's a little more informed and nuanced about landscape features. But that's all. That's pretty new thinking, and correct me if I'm wrong, But I think it wasn't until like the early eighties, and so we kind of said, Okay, we don't need to manage whit until dear By County anymore. We should be managing them by these landscape chunks or areas well. I think it happens all the time. Frederick Jackson Turner. He I think it was him, the environmental historian, who proposed that we drew states all wrong. And he thought we should have drawn our states as watersheds. And he said, like state politics would have been a lot easier if we had drawn him in the instead of just like these straight lines up and down and gritting off, you know. And he said that just makes it hard for for group cohesion, you know, different different things that YouMagine, like even take us like we're sitting right now in Montana where you have the you have part of the state great Planes and part of the state at the inner Mountain west, and just in his mind, we got it. We got it wrong, right, you know, we drew it up so that Nicole anything, last thought, does the I G b ST still stick around? If the bears are delisted. Yes, that's your agency. Yeah, so that is that is our our group, our your injury and is inter agency agency or a group of eight different agencies that work together. So there's um yeah, and that's that's also kind of written into that conservation strategy. There's you'll you'll still continue to we will still continue to do basically what we do right now and at at basically the same level. Um And and to my knowledge, my my agency is committed to to keep funding this this effort because it's it's such a high priority population. Well, I think it's really cool that you guys have so much transparency. I mean when I go onto your website, like I can look at the mortality of every single bear that you guys have recovered, like figure out I had read about those bears that have been in the canal, and then you actually see like how many are human cause, how many are like maybe bear on bear like where you don't know natural causes. And I would just I would encourage if people are interested in this, you can read the whole recovery plan. And I know around the time that the Bozeman commenting was going on, we were talking about it in some groups that I volunteer in, and so I read the whole recovery plan and it gave me such a better idea of how Bears would continue to be managed and how the states could take it over, and so like if you actually just go onto their website, there's so much just incredible information there that people don't want to go learn a whole bunch of ships, like just sit in the bar and be like they don't know what they're doing. But you hear so many people around here like just say stupid things. I mean, the reason that I I don't know, you mean to tell me that people in Montanea go spouting off about Rozzy Bears about knowing the full story? Come on, I think it's come on. Well, that's you know, for for us as as researchers, that's always the challenge from we when we get our inevitable critiques from from some directions and and uh, you know what people tend to focus on this and then then what people tend to do is kind of cherry pick certain things and take it out of context. You know. But but as a team are our approach has always been we look at everything combined, We look at the big picture and we look at longer time frames and things like that that are relevant to the species that we're studying. And and if you do that, you you could come to you come to different conclusions. Then when you look at a single data point like this, this idea that that the population is declining because it's twenty seven bears fewer than last year, you know, I mean when you look at the confidence intervals, that just doesn't that inclusion doesn't make any sense and it's not supported by the data. But that's those are the type of of ideas that that you hear people throw out right now. And it's and it's it's really not based on the on the best information that we have. For the best information that we have says that is well within the the type of variation that you expect over the last fifteen years. Now, you could let that be your concluding thought, or you could add a concluding thoughts anything we haven't touched on. Well, the one thing that we haven't touched on, which um which I think is an important issue, is is this whole idea of of genetic connectivity that's that's been brought up. Man, we didn't get into that. Yeah, that's that's been brought up a lot in the comments. One of the things being that the bear that we need to have corridors, ye, but the bears in the that these bears, these different population segments are able to interchange. And so you know, we've we've done some work genetic in recent years, and then we we've we've we have a huge sample size of bears that we have genetic samples off and we know the history of those bears and and so UM. What we were able to determine from that is that even though genetic diversity is a little bit lower in Yellstone than than other populations, because it is an isolated population. You cannot get more diversity in an isolated population. Your mutation doesn't doesn't take care of that. UM. But what we found was that that it hasn't declined over the last twenty five years. There's there's there's no indication of the kline in genetic diversity. There's a strong indication that the number of individuals that genetically are contributing to the population is increasing, as in fact increased three to fourfold over the last twenty five years. So those are really good indications that genetically UM there are no major concerns right now at this population level. And and so if you would ask me do we need to have connectivity with auto ecosystems, my answer would be yes, it might be desirable for for their long term future, but it's hard to argue based on what we know right now, that it's essential before delisting or any any anything like that, because genetically things look pretty pretty good right now. You know how you're talking about how people cherry pick various part pieces of this to paint the picture they want to paint. I like the connectivity argument because it services my greater goal, right be like, oh, sure, I love the idea of establishing great wildlife corridors, but we all do the Bob Marshall Complex and the Greater Yellstone ecosystem. And if that were to happen because someone pointed out the importance of genetic exchange, I'm like, I don't care how it happens. I just want into the half of because I think it's a step in the right direction, just generally for wildlife. I agree, So that's the case where I would be guilty of cherry picking. Yeah, And if if it's that reason about great, let's still find a different one. Well, there have been sightings in the pilars, and there are two settings in the big hole the summer, and like there haven't been bear sighted there since the early young young males, right, well we we don't even note that in some cases UM, but presumably UM males and and presumably younger ones. Those are those are there the animals that are possibly a mother with cubs was seen in the pilars, which around where my family is at a cabin for a long time. So it's a I don't know, it's pretty yeah, and and so I mean that that would actually that that would be pretty amazing, you know, because that's that's the thing about UM about range expansion and and and bears eventually getting into the sailway beta route. You know, it's it's it's going to require those females and female bears just expand their range pretty slowly compared to the males. You know that, So that much of the expansion that we've seen into eastern on the eastern portion of the ecosystem, for example, it's been really driven by by meals and and what we what we see is that that females will will lag behind. It might be as as many as ten years behind um. But but it's still occurring. But the point is that that with females is just going to take a much longer time period to eventually reach a place like Selway Bitter Route, and and so having to Certainly that's why I say it's desirable if if if the habitat connectivity was search that that was actually feasible. But if you ask me, and this this is where again, you know, where some people don't want to hear my answer simply because I'm just laying as scientific fact as if if you ask me, is it essential for this population? No, right now that I can't say that. I I just based on our data, I can't say that it is absolutely essential for this popular to have that connected. I'm surprised that some enterprising young vigilante hasn't uh culvert trapped a style with some coming and under the cloak of darkness just dumped him in the bitter Root. You'd be the hell out of trouble. You would be Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not and it's probably hard to hide that sort of but you know that's you know, the the closest example I can come to that is that that links populations in Switzerland where actually reintroduced kind of clandestine really like bucket biologists. You didn't link I I don't know who actually ended up doing it, but I don't know if it was even biologist. But you know, it's a term I don't know, Ian like ab just be like guys who like the ice fish and you're like, hey, man, I like fishing northern pike. Yeah, and they put a couple of pike in a bucket and dumping into some other lake and then you know, and the major repercussions followed the for the ecology, like you know, you know that's the reintroductions in Arkansas were kind of the same. Um in the Washington Ozark Mountains. Um, those those are what animals black bears. Yeah, those are to reintroduce black bear populations doing great, um. But but those initial efforts were we're done by by the state agency at the time. But but you know, somewhat under or the go through all all the perfect process and so in those days, you know that you could you could do that and uh, you know that's that's of course not happening anymore. But but it's interesting that that some populations have benefited from basically Clantestine activities. Yeah, what's almost close to that. I guess this will be my last thing to add. What's almost close to that would be I wrote about this in my in my Buffalo book, where you know, they had they took some bison out of northwest Spontana and put him on a train and you know, hauled him out to Seattle, then put him on a boat and took him up to wait Tier, Alaska, and from way Tier put him on a train. Cut them loose in Delta Junction. Later they had too many running around Delta Junction. They put into military installation. They were causing all kinds of problems with landscaping, and they had come into rut and caused problems with people. One day they took thirteen of them and put him on a truck and drove him out to an abandoned mine, opened the door. Everyone assumed they were all dead because no one then saw him for a decade, at which point there's a hundred of a hundred of him turn up about a hundred and fifty miles from there, you know, and there was like, oh, that's what happened to him. You know that those kind of days seem to be a little bit over because if you look at when they just tried to do the wood bison reintroduction in Alaska that came on the tail end of about twenty five years of fighting and arguing and quarantines and lawsuits, you know, and used to just oh, it took us one guy with a truck, you know, and he could he could establish his own little population animals somewhere. You know. He just asked, like a guy named Bob, if it's okay, and you know, he says, yeah, then there you go. You got you gotta population. All right, Well, thanks for coming on, man, are you're welcome? Yeah, thank you? All right, Um, hopefully and the next time I shouldn't say hopefully, maybe the next time we talked, there'll be big bear news. That's right, at which point out to have you back on and talk to you about what that's gonna mean. All right, great, thank you,

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