The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 047: Laramie, Wyoming. Steven Rinella talks with Wyoming policy advisers David Willms and Nephi Cole, Ronny Boheme, along with Brody Henderson and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew.

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

Subjects discussed: mountain man Jacques Laramie; the ecology of the post-apocalypse and the best caliber for post-apocalyptic firearms; ’Waters of the United States (WOTUS)’ vs. ‘navigable waters’; Justice Kennedy’s ‘significant nexus’; the delisting of wolves in Wyoming; Mexican gray wolves; Yellowstone Syndrome; hunting luddites; dynamite fishing for trout; using old hunting gear and disposable culture; Steve’s theory on discomfort; John Denver; what swayed Steve to go to grad school in Montana; losing dogs to wolves; the division of western and eastern hunters; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The highest stadium. The highest college football stadium in the United States of America. Yeah, so if you've ever wondered, if you've ever been laying in bed at night wondering what the highest altitude college football stadium is in America, which I was talking about that with my wife last night, it's this one. 7,220 feet. War Memorial Stadium. And we're actually in a, if there was a game going on, we would look out the window and see it. We're in like a, I want to call it a press box.

It's the athletic director's box. The VIP suite. It's his luxury box, yep. His luxury box. Yep. I'm here with, introduce yourselves. How much can you guys say like what you do for a living? I mean, are you like, I don't know.

I could talk for hours. Are you here, but I mean, are you here in your, like, can you talk to us in your official capacity? Both. Well, probably, you know, as long as it doesn't. Is this like your work account or your Gmail account? This is my work account. Yeah.

This is the. It's my Gmail account. It's your Gmail. See, I'm. That's my qualifier. Yeah, I'm Nephi Combe. I'm a policy advisor. Okay, that's what I meant.

All right. For the governor, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead. I've worked for him for about four years, and I do natural resource policy. I came on his team doing energy work, and right now my main deal is water. But interestingly enough, I also do water. I do firearms, refugees, international trade. I think I'm missing something. How do firearms. Refugees, international trade. I think I'm missing something. How do refugees land on your plate?

That's a really long story. Because it's like dealt it out like poker cards? Two of them showed up last week. Well, just short stories. Why we do not have a refugee resettlement program, so we'll just leave it at that. And so there's not a whole lot of workload there. Dave? Yeah, David Welms. I'm a policy advisor as well for the governor. I'm basically, if it's got

hooves or claws or paws, I'm working on it for him. Wildlife, other natural resource issues for the governor. And been doing that for about a year. And you went to regular college and law school here. I did. This is my alma mater. I did undergrad in wildlife management and environment natural resources and got my law degree here as well.

And then you worked for Fish and Wildlife. I always want to call it Fish and Game, but you worked for the department here too, right? Yeah, sort of. I was their attorney call it Fish and Game, but you worked for the department here too, right? Yeah, sort of. I mean, I was their attorney for several years. Oh, I see. I was with the Attorney General's Office assigned to represent the Game and Fish Department. So yeah. Got involved in a lot of that.

Yeah, so did a lot of their work. I don't know why. I've talked about this many times. I've even talked about it on this here podcast. The name, you guys are down with who Laramie was. Jacques de Laramie rumy yeah the guy that yeah yeah spelled his name though la like la and then rummy and got a lot of stuff named after him for like in eight he was a trapper out here in 1820 he went off to go trap the headwaters of the laramie 1821 doesn't show up

at the rendezvous never find his body there's all kinds of rumors about what happened to him and winds up with half the state named after him it's pretty impressive yeah laramie peak laramie river town of laramie this is radically changed the spelling on He's got his own geologic episode. He's got the Laramite orogeny. Dude, I mean, this guy's done it. If he would have lived, he would have had like, he could have taken, you know, people out and been like in this. But for a dude, they don't even know what happened to him. He didn't even know he had a river named after him. No.

If he lived, nothing would have been named after him. It's like being an artist, right? It might be. It could be true. You got to die to become famous. Before we get into what we're talking about, I want to talk about something that just struck me as so funny, man. I was reading up on collapsible 22s.

And yesterday, I took my daughter to her ballet class. And it wasn't long enough that you'd go and actually get something done, you know? So I just kind of waited for it. And while doing it, I fell into one of those internet traps where I was just reading up on collapsible 22s and then I wound up on a survivalist website. And what's interesting is this guy gets into what I now think of as the ecology of apocalypse. And what he's talking about was he's arguing what's the best caliber for a post-apocalyptic firearm.

And he's like, you got your commando guys, you got your ninja guys, but I'm going to give you the straight dope on what's up with the post-apocalyptic situation. He's like, 22 because you're going to have a lot of flooding and whatnot, he's saying. And when that happens, it tends to drive vermin out this guy's so wrong so he's like you're gonna be dealing a lot of rats and wild dogs and the 22 you see is a economical way to deal with all that and he goes in the deer population is only gonna last a year at which point we're just gonna be eating muskrats and whatnot so you're not even gonna need a big big gun. This guy's out of his mind. He had the whole deal.

And I realize that there's a good field of inquiry would be the ecology of the post-apocalypse. You could carry a lot of that stuff. You know, you can't carry a lot of 30-06s. You're in the wrong state talking to the wrong guys on that argument. Because I got to tell you, in Wyoming, we just get up and go to work. Yeah. We're just going to get up and go to work. Yeah. We're just going to get up and go to work. That was going to be my brilliant segue.

Yeah, there's the ecology and the wildlife of the hypothetical post-apocalyptic future. And then there's the actual wildlife that's here right now that we deal with. And you guys already pointed out you work for the governor. I'll point out, you guys' governor, as far as approval ratings go, has a pretty good, like an admirable approval rating.

Yeah, that's right. Where he's often putting the top tier of governors. Like usually 50% of the people like you're doing really good. But I don't know, I was looking, 67%? Yeah, he's one of the, I mean, doing really good but six i don't know i was looking 67 percent yeah he's one of the i mean they have different people publish top tens and he's always in the

top five he's uh he is of course number one you know if there's if it's messed up somewhere and they put somebody else first i'm sure that's a clerical arrow they can take care of because our guy is number one is number one no but he's an he's an amazing governor he's a he he's smart he's pragmatic he's uh intelligent he's a really easy guy to's smart. He's pragmatic. He's intelligent. He's a really easy guy to work for. And I know Dave's just like me. He tapped me from the industry I was in and asked me to come join his team. And I got to think about it for a long time.

And I got to look at him and how he does business. And he's just a really easy guy to work for. And it truly is a privilege. I mean, he's a fantastic individual. One of the things I think is enviable about being in the position you guys are in in a state like this is you have, like I mentioned this to you on email, you have sort of an intact suite of megafauna. Like you guys, you're one of the few states really anywhere that has its

um that has specimens of all of your large animals pretty much everything that's here before all the pre-contact large males maybe not in the abundances but very few states are able to really say that because you i mean you have a dozen like if you count a coyote and bigger as a large mammal, you guys got about a dozen large mammals? At least, yeah. So a big part of your job is that you got people who actually sit around thinking about wildlife on a state level. And I think a lot of states, I mean, it always comes up. I mean, it's like a huge part of the work here.

Yeah, I mean, trying to keep the people happy while also doing a responsible job of managing a menagerie of wildlife has a lot of complications this is a diagram i do want to get back to i do want to talk about what we're going to talk about we're talking about wildlife management issues um but do you want do you want to have do you want to um take to task the the you we talked about stream access on a previous episode you did you and you felt that we were playing a little fast and loose with a couple definitions do you care do you does it matter enough that you'd want to say like here's where i think you were wrong no you bet i'd be happy to so you know i don't know if you want to go there now and no i mean if you can do it in a quick way if you can say

let me just let me break it down let me just refresh everyone's memory so in case you didn't listen to this we did an episode about stream access law and and the the and and doing that basically that comes down to um whether you and your state or where you hang out, whether you're allowed to float down a river. So in some states, you're allowed to stay below high water mark in your river. And that means as long as you can get in the water to fish, you can wade up and down the river and you're cool. A stream gets small enough to where you're not allowed to do that anymore. You'd never go wading up into private property in a drainage ditch for instance like just the fact that it's water doesn't mean it's public access so there's

all these definitions that govern what is what's known as a navigable stretch of water and there's some of these and some of the definitions are so difficult in dealing with it for the last hundred years people have been arguing about it in courts like um does said river warrant public access you know like i should you be allowed to float it should you be allowed to wade in it even though you don't have permission from landowners who are on the riverbanks the whole thing about that and afterward nephi very respectfully said that uh pointed out some errors in yeah just yeah i mean it's a tricky issue because i mean and i and i think what i mentioned is you know the way you guys are using it you're probably fine because you know when you're talking

about navigable waters as you know if you're saying navigable water something i can put a boat in and quote on and really navigate then you know you're fine but the challenge is you know since you know 1970s there's's been the term navigable waters is used almost interchangeably with the term waters of the United States or waters of the U.S. Now people are saying WOTUS. If you haven't heard that before...

I saw you use it. I'm familiar with POTUS, but not WOTUS. POTUS is largely responsible for where we're at with WOTUS right now. So, waters of the United States, when the Clean Water Act, you know, 1972, there's a suite of just seminal, you know, foundational, important, you know, environmental legislation that came out all around the same, you know, 10, 20-year period

when our nation really had an awakening. And that includes the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the protections that are so, you know, we talked about Land and Water Conservation Fund. And all these acts, there's, you know, what you had is this bipartisan effort where everybody came together and said, you know what? These things are bigger than me. They're bigger than my issue.

They're bigger than just one state. Let's work together on these issues. And, you know, that's, so you had this passage of all these acts. And over time, there's been some significant mission creep in some of these. And the Clean Water Act's definition of waters in the U.S. definitely falls into that, you know, ground where it started out, you know, protecting the chemical, physical, biological integrity of the waters of the United States. And, you know, it was largely at the beginning navigable waters, you know, and few people are going to argue that. And that's because a navigable water, the Clean Water Act, it's all, it's hitched up to the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. So that, so what lets it work? what gives it its authority to go into an area that,

you know, some would argue federalism should keep the federal government out of, it should be states' rights, is that those streams, you can use them for commerce because you can get your boat in that stream and go across the line and you're, you know, doing that. Interstate commerce. You bet. And so what happened is, over time, you had things, you know, you had some things like in, that before 2001, it had gone as far as having a rule called the migratory bird rule,

right? Which said if a migratory bird flies across state lines and can land in that puddle, no matter where that puddle is at, well, now that's part of interstate commerce, therefore regulated by the federal government. Is that right? You bet. And the Supreme Court struck that down in 2001, and I've got to be really careful about Counselor Dave here.

The attorney is going to, you know, when he's, you know. Hold up. You mean to say, so back up, because I find this real hard to believe. You're saying that someone proposed, and from a purely altruistic. Regulated. Yeah, I wish they would have won from a purely altruistic way because that'd be real good for me as a duck hunter. But you're saying this, but I would have a real hard time justifying that to a lot of people. You're saying that it was an idea that if a duck can land in it, it's federal property.

Not federal property. They can't do that. But it's regulated by them. so it's not like it's their pond yeah but it falls under their jurisdiction you want to do something with that pond you're going to ask them for a permit you're going to come and say mother may i and if you don't you're going to get a thirty thousand dollar a day fine you know just a fat fine on and that's you know so that was challenged and uh and the court sent it back and said, I don't think so. That's your overreaching.

And then there were a couple more decisions that occurred around 2006 that I'm not going to go into details. I'm boring you with Swank and Rapanos. But those decisions, the same basic thing happened. You had people challenging it and said, you've gone too far. And this is, you've taken too much authority. You know, you've gone past the limits of what the Commerce Clause should be allowing you to do within the Clean Water Act. And the agencies were instructed to go back and kind of fix this issue and define what the waters of the United States are, to get a definition of waters of the U.S.

And the famous decision that kind of pushed everybody back that way, the opinion that everything hinges on, was Justice Kennedy, who used the term significant nexus. And he said, basically, look, if you want this to attach to the Clean Water Act, basically, there has to be a connection it has to be significant you can't just have you know these grab things from wherever has to be connection has to be significant and the reason he's pivotal is because

four members of the court said we give you know army corps and epa can have jurisdiction of any waters they want four members of the court said these guys are way out of bounds if If it's not right on navigable water, they shouldn't have it. So Kennedy said, well, if it's a significant nexus, but now define significant nexus. And so we've been in this kind of gray area, defining what is a water of the U.S., which again, people use interchangeably with navigable waters, where there's been a lot of discretion. People have been trying to figure out, well, what is it really? Yeah, but when we were, the discussion we had was we never even talked about what the

feds say. We talked about how the different states define it. And honestly, that's a different challenge. Yeah, because in Montana, which is one of the states we discussed, they define it as was it used for commerce? Yep. And again, that's where I say where you guys are using it the way you're using it, you're probably fine.

But, you know, for a lot of the people who are out there, when they hear navigable waters and they think that that's a settled question, on the national scale, you know, especially with the correlation, it's really not a settled question. And so right now, it's actually in the courts right now, you know, trying to, trying to you know the agencies basically what happened is epa and army corps they rolled out a proposal where they said anything with a bed bank and an ordinary high watermark waters of the u.s anything with a bed bank and an ordinary high water because you sent me a picture of something i wouldn't even call a stream and then that's the issue it doesn't even have to have water in it it's anything with a bed bank and ordinary hair watermark. So anything that shows soaring, anything that

you know, so basically, you know, pick a draw, you know, and if there's potential to have a storm event and it's going to have water going down that draw, you know, going into a navigable water, they think that that should be water in the U.S. That's a national, you're saying that's a national policy? Yeah, and it's not being implemented now because the courts, so there were multiple efforts, 32 states challenged this thing and said, you've overstepped your bounds. And so there's two stays on, one of them within a district court,

which includes 13 states, including Wyoming, and then one of them at a federal level, it's the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where it's also a stay. And what the stay means is that the states came in to judges and argued and said, these guys overstepped, and then they looked at the evidence in front of them right now, and they said, you can't let them implement this now because it's going to harm us. And the courts said that there's a preponderance of likelihood that the states are going to win on the merits. And so this still has to play out.

It's going to play out in the circuit court. It's going to probably go to the Supreme Court. From my perspective, you know, and it's dicey. It's a challenging issue. And the unfortunate part about it, kind of trying to come back around to all these environmental laws that are so foundational important, is because we didn't have to be there. You know, there were some proposals for how you could define, you know, because there's a, the state of Wyoming protects all waters to a degree higher than what the Clean Water Act does. You know, if there's water on the ground in the state of Wyoming, we protect that water. And, you know, dump your cup over. You know, we're going to protect that water. We have water quality standards

for that. But the challenge is when, from my perspective, that when you have that influence coming in there, that, that, that federal influence, it makes it really hard to be champions of, of, of doing the right thing when somebody comes in and tries to take it all away from you, from a, you know, from that level. And really that's what we feel happened with the Clean Water Act. You know, we can take care of these waters. We know how to do that. Montana can take care of theirs.

They know how to do that. You know, these small streams, these other areas, you know, we're good at, you know, come to Wyoming, come see our state. You're going to agree. We're pretty pristine. we do a good job so do you guys feel this is something we emailed about earlier we're talking about this and i want to allow you to give voice to this but you feel that uh that that is a general in the American West, in the U.S.? Kind of this, yeah, you know. I mean, as far as when it comes to natural resources management and wildlife,

do you feel that there is a tug of war going on between states and the federal government? Oh, absolutely. Where do you do it? Do you feel that that's particularly true in the West or around the whole country so i i mean i think it's more western based and part of it's because you have all your public lands in the west so you have you have your federal land ownership uh federal land management decisions then you have wildlife and the and the states claim ownership of the wildlife right aren't trying to manage the wildlife and so you have inherent conflicts between the states and the federal government in the west um i'm sure it's a i'm

sure they have issues in the east as well uh but it's i think it's probably more pronounced uh in the west at least on the wildlife issues because of those the public land interface with uh wildlife management yeah because it gives them something to have jurisdiction absolutely yeah yeah um okay but because i think water's esoteric. It might be even a hard thing to discuss. Now, he is going to go to law school now after that. It was good? Yeah, I thought it was good.

I make a mean pizza. As long as you keep the cheese on top, it's way easier than law school. I want to do that same thing, but tell me the story explain in terms of wolves because people love wolves oh yeah explain like the state federal dispute all right in terms of wolves i'm going to talk wolves that's all i'm going to am i talk bears a little bit but for sure wolf talk. But for sure, wolves.

Okay. I'd love to hear in terms of wolves and bears. Yeah, all right. So wolves. 1994. I might do some devil's advocacy on you. No, do it. Just to make sure we get the whole point out.

That's fine. It's a complicated thing. It is, for sure. So history of wolves in Wyoming. 1994, zero. There were zero wolves in the state of Wyoming in 1994. 1995, wolves are introduced or reintroduced, depending on who you talk to. I think it's safe to say reintroduced.

Depends on who you talk to. We can say reintroduced. Back up, back up. Is someone proposing that wolves had migrated down from Canada? Look, know what you have is you have two trains of thought, and you have some folks that said, well, the wolves that they brought in from Canada are different than the wolves that were in Wyoming before. Oh, you're saying they're debating introduced or reintroduced.

Exactly. Anyway, so that's a different topic. I've heard all that. All right. All right. That's a great story, a great debate. They brought down super wolves. Yeah. That's for another day.

And we've even met a guy. We met a guy who told, we met a guy in BC who was like, oh, yeah. I knew one of the guys that was catching them. I knew the trapper. And he said he'd go in there and pick out the meanest, nastiest ones and send them down to Wyoming. But anyway. They've been efficient. Yeah, they've been effective wolves.

So, I was messing up reintroduction or introduction. Let's just say reintroduced. It's all the same species in Linnaean terms. It's all the same species. Reintroduced in 1995

and 1996. Something like 32 or 34 total wolves yeah now but just to get the full story sure where was the state of wyoming on that that's an interesting one because obviously for the years leading up to that uh wyoming didn't want to see wolves come back into the state but it it got to a point where we saw the writing on the wall. This was going to happen. So we negotiated what's called a 10-J rule, which under the Endangered Species Act, 10-J is an experimental but non-essential population.

So theoretically, you can put them in there. The overall population, if you take those wolves out that you put in there, it's not going to have an effect on the overall population. And so it's experimental non-essential. And by getting that designation, we said, okay, as long as they're experimental non-essential, you know, we'll take these wolves. Because it gives you some more latitude. It gives you some more latitude with like lethal control and things.

Right, right. So it gives you more regulatory flexibility. I'm going to interrupt you. No, I'm not going to finish this. i just want to make sure people are following all this yeah this is complicated yeah i'm gonna try i'm gonna limit my interruptions but i just want to paint one quick picture for you now there was a period of time when in the bid roots the bid root range people were like they were talking about reintroducing some Grizzlies in the Bitterroot range. And it would have carried, the reintroduction would have carried with it

that 10J status. Or you could have waited for the inevitable, which is one was going to show up there on its own. If it did, it would have a whole different status. That's right. Because it wandered in there on its own and i remember thinking that the people who were uneasy with grizzlies i think you ought to

make a deal with the devil and go with the 10j go with the inter go with the ones that were put in there mechanically because you're going to have a little more leeway because eventually they're going to get in there anyway and then you're going to not have any leeway that's right and the flip side is if if they leave the 10j area uh they take on the threatened status oh they do yeah so so you have a designated area so it works both ways you have this designated i see 10j population and boundaries for the 10j area so wyoming said okay uncle do it right so we have them uh 95 uh 96 they're reintroduced we We have wolves. Since that time, over the course of the last 20 years or so, we have managed that population to the point that, oh, it was 12, 13 years ago

that we met all of the recovery criteria. So the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, for purposes of delisting, you need to meet X, Y, and Z. And they set these when? At the time of the reintroduction. Yeah, and they worked with the states on that. So set up this framework for, okay, if you get to this point, we'll start the delisting process.

So we met that 12, 13 years ago. And you'll ask me what were those numbers, and I can't remember the specific numbers, but it was somewhere around 100. It was maybe even less than that, 100 wolves outside of, I think it was less, outside of Yellowstone National Park. Outside of the park. Outside of the park.

So they cut 32 loose inside the park. They did. And then we had a requirement for what the management had to be outside of the park. And the Wind River Indian Reservation is up there, and so those wolves don't count towards our obligations as a state to meet these recovery criteria. So this 100 wolves was like gradual spillover

from the population that was introduced in Yellowstone. I would not call it gradual. I would call it almost instantaneous. Instantaneous spillover. So now today, we have almost 400 wolves in Wyoming, not just outside. That's counting the park and everything. But you've hit four times recovery objective. We're way over recovery objective.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to delist wolves in Wyoming at least a couple of times. We've been in five different lawsuits. And I'll point out, that's the feds, the people that ran the introduction. That's right. It's not the state. The state's been pushing for delisting, but the federal government, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, actually wrote two rules to

delist wolves in Wyoming. And other states too. Montana. Like them saying, hey, the wolves we put in there have got to the point where we wanted them to get. We will now turn them back to the state to manage. Can you explain why people can hunt them in idaho oh that's way down the road well you're hearing the voice of brody brody

give your give your little bio real quick fishing guide fishing guide meat eater production assistant general pain in the ass you know general guy all. Yeah. I want to get to that real bad. I have a question I think that's relevant right now. The goal all along was to get them off of the list. That's right. Right? Right. And when it's time to get them off the list, why would Wyoming be pushing for it? And why would the feds be pushing for it if they even were pushing for it?

What do they get out of it if they say, please do this, let's do this, and it does happen? So the states get something, the feds get something. So the states get ownership and get management of their wildlife back, the ability to make management decisions and deal with, you know, they can have hunting seasons, they can deal with damage problems, wolves killing livestock, you know, that sort of thing. So it's mostly just like the ownership then of the regulation. It's their wildlife, right? It's our wildlife all the time.

Yeah, the state already manages all the wildlife anyways. Right, right. And so from the federal government standpoint, it's an opportunity to say, here's an example where the Endangered Species Act worked. We had a listed species. We recovered that species. We got them off the list we can move to the next thing and do it see the endangered species act works so that's what the federal

government gets out of it plus they get out of the management i mean they get the they can move on to other things and their money doesn't have to go free up those dollars free up those dollars that personnel you know all that stuff because uh the nixon signed the endangeredangered Species Act into law in 1970. 73, yeah. They've listed about 2,000 species. Over that, yeah, about 2,300 now. And I think they've...

Now, species get off the list in a handful of ways that they don't want to get off, where they realize they're extinct. Yeah, that's 10. Or they realize that they messed up the count and found populations that they didn't're extinct. Yeah, that's 10. Or they realize that they messed up the count and found populations that they didn't know about. Yeah, 19.

Like thought, oh, they're not endangered. You got the numbers good. Yeah. Or you actually recover them. And how many recovered out of 2,000, 2,300? Roughly 34, maybe 36. Have been recovered. Yeah.

So there's a lot of work to be done. Although I'd argue you know 34 to 36 that have come off the list due to recovery there are other species on that list that have recovered wolves in wyoming grizzly bears are another example we just talked to a guy that works on caribou in the lower 48 there's about 15 right so here we are you got 400 wolves in wyoming i don't you know at the point we left off, you wound up with 400. Right, right. I mean, that's where we are today.

And so I was telling you, we've now had, I think, five different lawsuits since 2004 challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service's attempts at delisting wolves in Wyoming. And we've been through, so we've been through multiple rounds. And in one of them, and this will get to your question about, uh, about Idaho and Montana. So in one of them we have, and this is a big controversy, but in Wyoming, we put together a wolf management plan, you know, and all the States had to put together before there was delisting. All the States, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. Right. Had to put together a wolf management plan that said, once wolves are delisted, here's what we will do. And it needed to be endorsed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for the service to be able to move forward. And we had some lawsuits over our plan.

The service wasn't liking our plan. But ultimately, we had a court say it was fine. What was the basic argument? The biggest hang-up in our plan was we created a dual classification for wolves. So in Northwest Wyoming, where most of the wolves, well, where all of our wolves are, we called them trophy game, which in Wyoming is limited to things like grizzly bears, wolves, black bears, mountain lions. They have a certain, there's certain thresholds to be able to hunt them. Scared game.

Yeah, if it's a carnivore. Big horns are in there, right? No, big horns are just a game animal. Oh, okay. Just a big game animal. So trophy game is treated a little different, and they have different quotas that they've set up, and they manage them a little different.

So it's more heavily regulated. And so that's how they were classified there. In the rest of the state outside of this trophy game area we classified wolves as predators and in wyoming coyotes like coyotes in wyoming predators you don't need a license it's open season um you know no license no season you go out and shoot as many wolves as you see in the predator zone and that was and that didn't fly with the feds they didn't like it but we did have a federal judge say look the the objective here is to recover wolves the plan that wyoming's written still meets the requirements for having a recovered wolf population and they just have a different way of doing business than idaho and montana um so so they move forward with a delisting rule with that management plan. Well, a different federal judge didn't much care for a management plan. And so what ended up

happening, I guess, is that the service wound up moving forward with trying to delist just in Idaho and Montana because there were problems with our plan. And in Idaho and Montana, that went to litigation as well. And the court there said, you cannot delist in just those two states. They tried to create what was called a distinct population segment uh which is another provision under the endangered species act to delist these wolves uh that didn't include wyoming and they said you cannot write you cannot draw the judge said you cannot draw a dps distinct population segment on political boundaries yeah it has to be biological boundaries these wolves are moving across state lines. And so that's when Congress got involved. So they struck down, the judge struck down the rule to delist in Montana and Idaho,

and Congress got involved and reinstated that rule and made it litigation proof. So put the rule back in place, litigation proof. That rule then meant those wolves in Montana and Idaho were delisted. The ones in Wyoming stayed on. We got another rule to delist in Wyoming in 2012. The service put forward another rule to delist in 2012. We actually had management authority for two years at that point. And you guys ran two wolf seasons. We did.

And actually, at least in our first wolf season we never actually met our quota turns out wolves get really smart after being shot at for a day or two and they get real hard to find what was the quota oh i think the total quota i'm gonna i'm just gonna throw a number out there because i'm not gonna get it spot on but around 50 uh and i think we missed that by 10 or so or 15 uh in that first year second year i don't think we hit the quota either and then the court came out and uh vacated that rule and they went back on the list again and actually last friday we have the the fish and wildlife service appealed that decision uh and last friday we had arguments on that in dc and it was kind of funny the the judge in that

not funny in a haha way but the the judge the judge in that district court case in DC didn't argue that wolves had actually recovered. Said, I'm not going to dispute the services decision or determination that wolves in Wyoming have recovered. Her biggest problem was that our wolf management plan wasn't adopted in regulation or statute. And so it didn't have, we made all these promises that she felt like we could just break to maintain our wolf populations. Of course, in Wyoming, we say, we don't want to go through the last 20 years again. Like relisting. Yeah, yeah. So we, I mean, we're going to be pretty conservative, and we're going to manage these wolves, and we're going to have wolves well into the future because we don't want to go through what we've had to go through the past 20 years. And it's possible that it could happen. Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, it's like, there's nothing preventing relisting from happening. Well, except having enough wolves. No, I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, in a legal way. If all of a sudden they were all gone, they'd just get relisted, right? Oh, yeah. Or not, like in a legal way if all of a sudden no they were all gone they just get relisted right oh yeah now they were all gone if they hit if they got below a threshold well if the population started cratering yeah there's two ways i mean the the service could look at it themselves and say you know wyoming you're not doing a good job

the population's cratered we're we're gonna have to do it ourselves and uh relist ourselves or uh you know somebody anybody could file a petition uh with the fish and wildlife service and say you relist these wolves they're struggling um we don't think that that's going to happen i mean we we think we proved in the two years we managed wolf the wolf population wyoming remains strong and way over objective so so who has made like what's going on in montana and idaho right now they hit montana and idaho they're managing wolves they it's the states of their state animals now they're the state wolves but you guys have not gotten it back we have not gotten why but why won't you stubborn but why not

capitulate what's the argument for just saying like okay what is the plan they have how did they get management why don't we mirror that plan and get management? Every state's different. We have our own priorities, our own political realities. Your approach is that we're right. Oh, go ahead. I have the answer. Okay.

If it's a goofy answer, don't tell me. Okay, I'll tell you later then. Okay. Does it have anything to do with Montana and Idaho managing them as game animals that you've got to buy tags for and Wyoming calling them predators and it's just a free-for-all? That was ultimately the reason why Montana and Idaho got theirs and we didn't.

So if Wyoming got control back, would they handle it more like Montana where you've got to buy a tag and it's a game animal and no we i mean we have we have a management plan i mean this dual classification system has been signed off on by a judge you know right now the problem is do we have it you know are are the commitments we've made to maintain a certain population are they sufficient that yeah yeah that also that's where it still is at now. Whether it's been adopted into the sort of rigid enough sense of the law. Can the states be trusted?

Can the states be trusted to maintain this population? This is coming right back around to the overarching issue. You started with wolves, but when you look at these environmental laws, we just talked about wolves. In my opinion, the same groups that sued Wyoming, they were going to sue Wyoming no matter what. They needed a reason to do that. Those guys, they don't want anybody hunting wolves. They don't want Montana and Idaho hunting wolves. They don't want anybody hunting bears. That's not the priority. They don't want them hunting bears. They don't want, you know, it's just, that's not the priority.

They don't want them hunting their favorite animals. No. And when you look at, so when you look at, you know, it wasn't an issue of how many wolves there were. You know, it's an issue of hunting wolves. Yeah. And when you look at, you know, again, foundational pieces of environmental law, these laws that came together where everybody's like, hey, let's work together as a big team to protect this stuff endangered species act honestly the clean water act is so similar to it and how it kind of came about and works that it's i mean they're really all these laws are very similar but when

you have every when you have a big group coming together saying let's keep water clean let's work as a team let's save alums let's work as a team. Let's save alms. Let's work as a team. And you have, you know, there are some folks that that's, you know, they don't have the same. I mean, I think that these laws, I mean, we see people pushing against these laws and saying they don't work anymore. It's not that the laws don't work anymore. It's that, you know, we have to find a way to get back to the original intent of the laws, to get back to when Congress built them what congress had in mind because that's how you get everybody on board rather than having the law become a tool for uh a minority viewpoint if that makes sense yeah that that's a point i've made a handful of times when having this

discussion is that people i feel have taken well-meaning laws like the Endangered Species Act and sort of weaponize them, where you use it as a tool where you're not talking about what the intent of it is, you're talking about how you can use it as a way to pursue some goal. And I feel as though, I've said this many times, I feel as though you wind up uh delegitimizing the act like if you say it just pains me to think that someone would would kill a grizzly bear so in order to save grizzly bears i will take something like the the esa and sue on grounds of how you're interpreting the esa when you're not really talking about the endangered species you're not talking about the function of the endangered species act

you're talking about that you don't want someone to kill bears, which would be, I would suggest in that case, you should pursue some whole other thing like My Favorite Animal Act or America's Most Cuddly Seeming Animals Act, by which you could just pursue your goals in a way that you're actually articulating what it is you're after, rather than using it, you know, as a way it's not intended to. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. You know, these are really challenging issues. But the reality is, and I think that this is where we have a great opportunity right now, I think people are tired of divisiveness. I think we've all seen issues out there where we've seen how it doesn't work to just get on opposite sides of a table, put a problem in between us, and then just argue about whose fault it is. And I think, I honestly believe the majority of people now, you know, the pragmatic problem solvers, I think most of us are that. I think most people are that.

I think we have a unique opportunity with these, at this point in time, to get people who are like all these people sitting around this table now, who just say, hey, you know what? Let's make everything work. Because these things are too important to fail at. They're too important to fail at. And you see, I'm a fan. I listen to a lot of your stuff. And I think pick the environmental law. Pick the issue. You're always going to be able to find, whether it's on this side over here on the left side or that side over there on the right side, you're going to be able to find voices who are out there that are on those far opposite sides of an issue. And unfortunately, I think it's too easy right now to get on Facebook and become friends with people that only believe exactly what we believe, and then to believe that that's exactly what you should be doing, when in reality, I think if we could all back away and look

and not demonize everybody's opinions or their point of view based on the outliers that are within their community, we'd find that we all actually do want the same thing still. We all want healthy wildlife populations. In Wyoming, we believe we have the local knowledge, and we've proven it to know how to manage those things correctly to keep them there. We all want clean water. We all want fish in that clean water.

But you have to at some point step back and trust the people who are on the ground that have the local expertise and trust them with the ability to manage and ultimately get their buy-in, whether it's the private landowner buy-in or the local government buy-in, because it is the buy-in of those people living in those ecosystems with those issues. That's what ensures the success of that species. That's what ensures that that stream gets fixed. It's not a law. It's not a regulation. It's not people who write a check from someplace far away. It's people who want to come and fix the issues on the ground today and live

with those issues and make sure that their kids, like my kids, you know, I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Man, I'm going into the wilderness to hunt elk on Thursday. Yeah, where exactly are you going? Yeah, well, you know. I'll tell you. The exact coordinates. It's right next to Colorado, right, Dave?

Okay, maybe I won't tell you. Now, how much do you guys follow the wolf issue in other states? Are you talking, you're going Western Great Lakes on me? I want to talk, well, I'm going to talk about Western Great Lakes, which is where I'm from. Or, when you say Northern Great Lakes, or the Mexican Gray Wolf. Mexican Gray Wolf. Man, you listen you say Northern Great Lakes, or the Mexican gray wolf. Mexican gray wolf. Man, you listen. Dave can answer this, man.

No, because this brings up a point you're talking about with state and federal stuff. So the Mexican gray wolf, smaller than a Northern gray wolf. They used to range in New Mexico, Arizona, Western Texas, Northern Mexico. They got listed around the same time? Yeah, early 70s, mid-70s. Okay. Then you wound up having, I would say that in a national sense, you had overwhelming public support for reintroduction of the gray wolf and

under the idea that if you had a species we have a species of wildlife that went extinct due to human causes so we brought it to extinction a lot of people feel that would mean you have a moral obligation to correct, to right your wrong, if assuming that the God-given animals that live on the planet should be present. That's like a basic assumption. People said, if we accept that that's true, that we don't have the right to drive things to extinction, we needed to right the wrong. Overwhelming public support. Now, I would say generally, when it comes to the Mexican gray wolf, you've had generally the states kind of

dragging their heels about this. There's a recent fight going on where not too long ago, they had some animals in there and the feds had been doing reintroductions using uh with state permits so they would do reintroductions they would get state permits they weren't able to secure some state permits and went and dumped in a couple more wolves just on their own without state approval got Got a slap on the wrist about it. All right. But in a case like that, wouldn't you say that the feds are sort of pursuing a national interest on federal property, almost in conflict with people who have a local interest.

But if you ask them, if you had the people acting on that behalf, they would say that, well, our mandate is to the people of the nation so but but how do you feel like how do you rectify those two things because on one hand we like people generally want to accept like a local person right a local person has sort of a you know should be allowed like a reasonable amount of say in issues that affect his backyard. But we also have the bigger picture, meaning if I pollute a stream in my yard and I just say, but it's my stream, it's my property. Someone might say, but where does the water go? Right. It goes down into my place. So you're not just acting on your place. You're acting on everyone's place. Like in a case like that,

when you look at it, and personally, I support the idea that I think states do a good job of managing wildlife that's on the, in the here and now, states do a phenomenal job of managing wildlife on the ground

that's right here. But what about these cases where overwhelmingly people want grizzly bears they want wolves and you have a state that kind of is as up front in the beginning of the process not into the idea then all of a sudden they get there against that state's will you can see how the the feds would then say i'm a little reluctant to hand this over to you because you guys didn't want this to happen. Do you remember?

Like, how do you feel about that? Like that situation? Where does the switch occur? Where the state says, you're right, I didn't, but they're here now and I promise. So that's where the, I think, the Endangered Species Act comes into play, right? Yeah, so, I mean, that brings us back to wolves in Wyoming. I think that's where you think the Endangered Species Act comes into play. Right, yeah. So, I mean, that brings us back to wolves in Wyoming.

I think that's where you're going, right? Anything. Wolves in New Mexico, you know, Arizona. I probably won't talk about that too much. No, no, no. I'm very comfortable with the microcosm. Yeah, but it's an analogy, right? And so in Wyoming, yeah, we very clearly didn't want them.

Because of what reasons? Just be frank. I mean, because you guys have, what percentage of your industry is livestock? Well, it's our third largest industry in the state behind energy and tourism and then agriculture. And so, yeah, there are a lot of grazing allotments up in the National Forest in northwest Wyoming. It's also uh the impacts to sportsmen you know especially you want large ungulates so elk moose deer hunters that's a primary food source for wolves and so there was a lot of fear and it turns out some rightful fear

in what what bringing wolves back into northwest wyoming might do to some of those ungulate populations yeah man they i, how many you got? 400 outside the park? They eat seven pounds of meat a day. Well, 400 counting the park. That counts the park. Yeah, but they eat seven pounds of meat a day. So, I mean, that stuff adds up.

You've seen this, right? You hunt Montana. Yeah. The elk herd, I moved to Montana in 1997. The elk herd, my brother still hunts the same elk elk herd he's hunting one-third the number of elk that he was hunting in 1997 it's been real interesting living in northern colorado watching what's happened up there because pretty much everyone in northern colorado has a wolf story who knows if they're there or not. But, yeah. You guys want us to have creditors on.

But it's been interesting to watch because Colorado just wrote a preemptive wolf management plan based on the Mexican gray wolf and based on what's happened up here. And the gist of the plan was we will absolutely not put up with any kind of reintroduction program. If they make it here naturally, so be it. But we do not want wolves reintroduced in Colorado. And that, and that wolf management program, as far as I know, was approved. And it's so, it's, a lot of it, lot of i think was politically driven just seeing kind of the shit storm that revolves around wolves but you know because they're worried about the economy are they down are they down are they there have been confirmed sightings i know

they're in colorado yeah yeah no they've there have been wolves in colorado are they have they set up packs i don't know the answer to that. So the reluctance, livestock, what it's going to do to large ungulates. And then I think, just to be frank, having the federal government force something on you. It's a trust issue. I mean, at the heart of it, it's a trust issue where I've got a great friend who's got a big ranch up, you know, right outside the Thoroughfare in Wyoming. And just beautiful place. Go hunt there, everyone.

Actually, don't go hunt there. Go hunt someplace else. Because Nephi will be there next week. Beautiful, beautiful view, Larry. But, I mean, you talk to this guy, and, you know, he lives with these predators in his backyard every day. And his number one goal, you know what it is? Make sure that ranch gets passed down to his kids. It's to keep his lifestyle going.

And so we kind of demonize these folks, and the reality is, honestly, these guys, it doesn't matter whether they're raising cows or whether they're raising horses or whether they're raising bears. The fact is, if you let them keep their lifestyle going, you let them keep that place economically viable, I mean, that's what's important to them. You know, it's not, they're not out there, you know, trying to make biological

decisions for everybody. They just don't want somebody to come in and honestly ruin their life. And I've got a good friend who said, hey, look, I love fish. I love, you know, wildlife and, you know, between water and fish, I'm going to put some water from, some water in my ditch so we always have fish, but don't make it between my life and the fish. You know, there's another value to that too. And it's for wildlife habitat. Northwest Wyoming is a pretty popular place for people to move, Jackson Hole, so forth. Having these landowners that are able to continue their livelihood and pass their ranches down to future generations allows a buffer between you know the

federal land the wilderness areas and your you know highly fragmented you know ranchette type of developments and communities so you create this buffer habitat so it's pretty important and and i think we recognize that and you know the other thing we've done for wolves to help these landowners and to help this happen is you know know, by state law, if they can, if we can send somebody from our game and fish out and confirm that their livestock has been killed by a wolf, we'll pay for it. Sportsmen are paying for it. Even though you don't have management. Even though we don't have management, we still compensate our landowners. You guys foot the bill for that? We foot the bill, not the federal government, it's the states. We do it

for grizzly bears, We do it for wolves. And then we do it for other species too. Elk, get into a haystack. We'll compensate the landowner for that. But when it's a wolf, why don't you guys just say, hey, it's not my problem? You know what? Because it is our problem still. The federal government is not going to come in and do it.

It's admirable that they're doing it, but I can't believe that it winds up being your financial responsibility. The federal government is not going to come in and do it. They don't have the money to run a wolf management program anyway. They definitely don't have the money to pay landowners for the type of damage. We're talking about million dollar numbers a year in damage that we're paying. That's a huge misconception. I think that somehow because these laws exist that the federal government's come with a checkbook and taking care of all these issues, whether it's on impaired streams, whether it's a impaired streams, whether it's, you know, wolf or bear. Honestly, private landowners and states are the ones, they're paying to fix these issues. You know, that's where the majority

of the money's coming from. I think that shows a commitment from Wyoming, too, to having the wolves on the landscape, is the fact that, you know, we're doing everything we can to make our landowners whole, which in turn builds some goodwill and support, at least some support for having wolves there from landowners if they know they're at least being made whole for their losses. We've been doing this for years. Grizzly bears last year, I think we spent $1.2 million on damage claims, on compensating landowners for losses to livestock from grizzly bears. We don't have management authority at all over grizzly bears, but we're still paying for it.

So, but I want to get back to one point. Yeah. Ron, what do you think about all this so far? Oh, hi Steve. Nothing.

I just, it drives me crazy. What does? The whole fact that the federal government tells the states what they could do. How could that be true? It's true because it's in my head it's true.

It's a state. It's the state of Wyoming. How does a federal government even mandate... Because we're It's a state of Wyoming. How does a federal government even mandate? Because we're in the United States of America. I know, but they put the wolves up in Yellowstone. Didn't they ever think about the fact that they were going to just migrate out of there? Yeah, I'm sure they knew what they were going to do. No, somebody with a dream catcher in their rearview mirror thought it was a good idea.

I hate wolves. I'm sorry. I'm a dog guy. But wolves are dogs. I know, but a good idea. I hate wolves. I'm sorry. I'm a dog guy. But wolves are dogs. I know, but they kill dogs. Oh, come on. They kill a lot of dogs. Okay, yeah, they'll kill some dogs.

No, I'm saying come on about, I still think it's fair. That's fine. I still love you. I still love you. I just think that's a wrong statement. Okay, I just wish we wouldn't have meddled with it in the first place. Wherever they'd be, they'd be. I don't hate them.

There's a lot of them around me. They would have probably... Okay. They came into northern Montana. They would probably be down there anyway. I live in Michigan. Yeah. They came into Michigan.

They didn't get reintroduced into your home state. Your home state's Illinois. Okay. There was no reintroduction in Michigan. There was no reintroduction in Minnesota. There was no reintroduction in Michigan. There was no reintroduction in Minnesota. There was no reintroduction in Wisconsin. They came in on their own. Why are they only picking areas

where the sportsmen use more ground and they're putting wolves out there? Because those are areas that are suitable for wolves. Because one of the things that makes them suitable for wolves is they don't get in trouble every five minutes. So we're going to put something into this. No one put it in there. They came in on their own.

They were there. They were there. If you looked at the time of Columbus's arrival in the West Indies, wolves were everywhere. Right. They were in all the places we're discussing. They were extirpated for good reason. I don't want to put a value judgment on it. At at the time for what seemed like a very good reason yeah at the time it seemed like

a great reason but i mean people's mentalities shift over time but yeah at a time it was like here's a thing that competes for my interests and we like all species are a selfish species so now i think that the argument is focused on most places you know i made this point grizzly bears grizzly bears were native from the missouri very roughly from the missouri river to the pacific coast no one's talking about that we need grizzlies in in golden gate park okay well yeah but there's if you're gonna pull americans or if you're gonna like get a bunch of ecologists together they would say that the argument has has found its way into talking about ways where you have what might be defined by some as suitable habitat when they can come in and get

a toehold on their own, which is what we're seeing with mountain lions that are pushing east. No one's doing mountain lion reintroductions. They're doing it on their own. Very effectively right now. Wolves in the northern Great Lakes did it on their own. Just crossing the ice and came down from Ontario. Northern Montana the same way here they they some people came in and maybe they now regret it but they came in and sort of made a

little jump yeah and put them on a on a little island of land not an island but an island of land that people in the u.s tend to there's a thing i've identified recently is yellowstone syndrome it's what happens when the only thing you know about wildlife comes from yellowstone park when you went to yellowstone your mom and dad or shit you watched it was filmed in yellowstone and that's your entire idea of wilderness and wildlife you know the governor you know is one of his statements he always says it's not that we don't like these things, but we are not as, we live here. Yeah. And I think that for

us, you know, I mean, it comes back, there's a misconception that, again, that states somehow, if you hand these animals over to states, it's all going to happen all over again. They're going to be gone. That's just not true. It's not true because you would be, because the hammer is over

your head you know i think i know you probably don't like that and that's not the i don't really like the way i put it but that's a factor right it is no no the i mean the endangered species act does some good things i mean i'm not going to sit here and argue that it's not maybe the most impactful federal law from a species protection standpoint out there. No, I think there's a really strong case to be made that it's not working that well. Right. No, it's not. I always like to tell people, I think the Endangered Species Act is, think of this nice new car that you bought in 1973, and you loved and you treated it treated it well for a little while and then you started neglecting it and then it went through this horrible hail storm so all the

parts are the same but it's it's been kind of messed up and it and it needs a little bit of work because i mean frankly the the hammer's not it's not necessarily a bad thing to have at least. I don't want to use the word hammer, but you have the ESA out there. So it's a motivator. ESA is kind of a motivator. You want to do the right thing anyway. The ESA is a motivator to make sure you do the right thing because from a state's rights standpoint,

you don't want them to go back on the list. And frankly, right now, with the way the ESA works, when things go on the list, they just don't want them to go back on the list um and frankly right now but the with the way the esa works when things go on the list they just don't come off and so that's a pretty good that's a pretty good motivator to not want anything that you don't have on the list right now to get there which is why we were so proactive with sage grouse for example and why the midwestern states were so proactive with lesser prairie chicken um and you're seeing a lot more proactive voluntary conservation efforts all over the country and particularly in the West for species that aren't even listed yet to keep them from getting there. But we still have the problem of how do we get

things like wolves and bears off the list when they've so obviously met these recovery criteria? You know, how do we get them off the list? How do we get them back to state control? And I think one of the biggest hurdles right now is you have, instead of the ESA being interpreted biologically, it's being interpreted socially. Yeah. Emotionally. And emotionally. Yeah, that's right. And you have a lot of judges now that pull those social impacts or social thoughts into their decision-making on what really should be biological questions. Biologically, wolves have recovered in Wyoming. Biologically, grizzly bears have recovered in Wyoming. Socially, taking those off the list is frankly very unpopular outside of the

inner Rocky Mountain West. Is it? Oh yeah, especially with grizzly bears. Outside of the West, there is not a lot of support for delisting grizzly bears because of exactly what you said, this Yellowstone syndrome. People think of grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area as the grizzly bears of Yellowstone. Exactly. Gold Gate Bridge. I mean, people, that's, you know, when you don't, again,

it's respecting the knowledge problem. Somebody who doesn't live in those, you know, in close proximity or immerse themselves frequently in that, I mean, they really don't have a real idea of what it looks like. No, I don't know if they know they're in grizzly bear country.

If they're in proper grizzly bear country. But it makes them feel good. And I respect this. Somebody who lives in New York, they want to feel like there's wild places that have bears someplace. And so hearing that somebody might take away a bear, I mean, you look outside, I can imagine

if I lived in D.C., there's nothing I'd want to do except escape every weekend to Wyoming so I could be in the mountains. You know, and people want to know that's there. And so they want that protected. But there's not a lot of, you know, I think we all need to, I think we'd all agree there needs to be respect for the knowledge problem, which is that when you are removed from that thing, you're not right there with it, you've got to respect that the people who are on the ground, who are managing that every day, probably have a better idea than you, the best way to manage it. So if you give them guidance, and that's what the ESA is,

that's what the Clean Wires Act is, it's strong guidance, you've got to step back and let them work with it. You've got to trust them to do that. And the challenge now, I think, is that people aren't trusting states to make the final calls on those things. They're not trusting them to do the work that these acts allow them to do and put them in the position to be able to do. Instead,

people who live 1500 miles away who don't open their window and see that stream every day or see that bear, they want to make the calls on what's occurring with those things at the end of the day, even though they don't really know. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

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to the on x club y'all the the way kind of my overall view on it a couple things like i'm a firm believer in the scientific process so i get a little bit uneasy when um things like what is a recovered species what is an endangered species becomes the falls under the purview of uh just emotional decision making about what's my favorite animal or what animal do i like to look at the most because i think that we have had if you look at the u.s in terms of our total population our gnp everything it's um it's kind of miraculous that we have the wildlife that we do like no one's no no other countries managed to even come close to what we've managed and the way we've done it is by managing through

scientific like scientific pursuits okay we use biologists very well we have systems in place by which we ascertain population levels make decisions about what sort of harvest can be pulled from that in order to take into account everyone's needs from wildlife viewing, the people who rely on wild meats for food, to having genetically viable populations. We've done a pretty fantastic job. I'm not saying when you compare it to what your dream scenario is, but when you compare it to actual countries that are on the actual earth,

no one comes close now a big part of that recipe of success recipe for success has been state management of wildlife one could always go look and look and say like oh yeah but wolves went um wolves went extinct so or wolves were extirpated from some of these states, so they haven't done a good job. But that problem was occurring before these places became a state. L.O. Leopold has his famous epiphany that he gives in the Sand County Almanac, which occurs when he was down in, I believe, New Mexico doing some wolf depredation.

He was down in New Mexico, and New Mexico was a U.S. territory, killing wolves for the federal government. So when we now look and want to blame states on past sins, we're oftentimes blaming. It'd be like me getting pissed at you about something your grandfather did. It's like a common thing that happens. The buffalo was driven to extinction when these were u.s territories it didn't happen under state management so the idea of sort of like

scientifically based state wildlife management agencies that came after the problems that these states are still trying to rectify when we have had the federal government come in, and I would argue, different than some of the people in this room for sure, the same as some of the people in this room and different than some of them, I would argue that we do have an obligation, that it's a moral wrong to drive animals to extinction. At times, I think that the federal government has done, this is just me talking, not Nephi and Dave. At times, I think the federal government has done the kind of things that the federal government does well, is stepping in with a lot of power and a lot of money and doing some big picture things to try to move things along. And I think that in some cases, they've done good things in terms of wildlife.

Because I am the rare middle ground where I feel that we should have grizzly bears. We should have wolves. And they should be managed as a renewable resource by the states, which are, I might point out, the state of Wyoming is right now and has been very successfully managing. Whitetail deer, mule deer, elk, moose, black bears, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, mountain goats. I said mountain lions.

Wrong horn. Said antelope,'t i okay you did we're not stage grouse we're not trying something new here people who worry about stage management act like oh my goodness what's the state gonna do but it's like they're already doing all of that so it's not outlandish to act like that that we would use this system that has served us very well in the modern age and not try to blame people on things that happened when they weren't even a state. You know who started all that? No, please tell me. States. When you were losing passenger pigeons, when you were losing bison, when you were losing deer, antelope, elk, it wasn't the federal government that came in and passed a bunch of game laws to build these populations back up.

It was states. The first white-tailed deer laws came, I think they were in New York. It was states responding to these types of activities that led to the development of the north american model you're talking about yeah and and led to the recovery of pronghorn from as few as 25 000 to now well over a million i believe uh that we have in pronghorn same thing with elk uh you just go down the list of the species or the local territorial government there was a guy trying to ban dynamite fishing for trout in Montana before the Little Bighorn Massacre.

I should point out that Custer lived to be older than Laramie. You know, I used to live right by that battleground. Custer hit 37. Laramie died at 36. Laramie may have died a better death. Oh, dude, we don't know. We know what happened to George Armstrong. But that's my take on it. died a better death oh dude so we don't know we know we know i have the george armstrong so but that's my take on it is and it's like i just feel like there's a there's a misconception

with people who live outside of wilderness state let's just say i don't know like states with a lot of wildlife wilderness states is that they want to look and be like, like you come from a state where everything's destroyed, you know, your native wildlife is not intact. It has no chance of even being attacked. No one's even having a conversation about putting wolves back into Maryland. Like, it's not even on anyone's radar. It can't even be approached conversationally. So, but you want to look and say that I wouldn't want that to happen here

because you know. But out there, those people that still have intact megafauna and have all of their species running around, and in the case of Wyoming, that has what is mathematically regarded as the most remote area in the lower 48 United States. And I'm giving a hint. Neif already named it. Just remember, if you want to hunt wilderness in Wyoming, you have to have a guide. Yeah. If you're from out of state. If you call wilderness getting far away from the road, Wyoming has the biggest piece of wilderness in the lower 48.

So why is the state villainized? In the outside perspective as being they can't, oh, they're going to mess it up. It's like, compared to what? Compared to who? Well, and one other point. So we have, you mentioned before, 2,300 species on the endangered species list. Wyoming, this most, you know, this state with all this wilderness and the most remote place, I think of those 2,300, we have 12.

And some of them are shared by other states. And some of them are plant species. And a couple of them we think are recovered that we've been talking about should come off that list. That's pretty solid. We have, what, the 10th largest state by area in the country, and we have 12. How many does New York have?

I couldn't tell you, but I can tell you Hawaii has almost 500. I can tell you California has 350, something like that. Those two states combined have something like a third of all listed species. Wyoming has 12. You go to places and then you – It's an aspect of this that boggles my mind, where you'd think that more people would look and be like, what are those boys doing?

I mean, there's a lot of economic factors. I don't want to simplify it, there's a lot of economic factors. I don't want to simplify it. There's a ton of economic factors. But I also think that as far as finding a way to balance human needs, and you guys have good spending on public schools relative to other states. I don't live in Wyoming, but I feel bad for you guys on the grizzly issue, and I feel bad for you guys on the wolf issue. We appreciate that, but that doesn't change our reality.

Thank you for your sympathy. Yeah, but no, you're right. You're right. I mean, it's a frustrating place to be where we feel like we can point to example after example of what we do right and how we do balance all of the competing needs in the state. And what happens, people come from all over the country and all over the world to view our wildlife. Tourism is our second largest industry, and they're not coming here to look at an oil rig or a coal mine. They're coming here because of our wildlife. Yet somehow we can't be trusted to manage two species of wildlife that we've shown. And for grizzly bear, for example,

we've been the boots on the ground the past 40 years. It's been the state of Wyoming that's been leading the charge on recovering grizzly bears yet we're not trusted that we can then do it once they're delisted that will continue to manage these once they're delisted it's it's a very frustrating thing to to have folks that don't live here that have never been here tell us what we are and are not capable of when they don't really understand what we do and what we've done. Yeah. Man. Nephi, you got any concluding thoughts?

I just want to talk about Dave's rifle. It's fantastic. Dave, you're a hunting Luddite. Oh, yeah. Dave was saying if you wanted to get to a 400-yard shot, you'd have to add up how many of the last elk you've shot? About probably four or five, maybe more. No, it was to get to a 100-yard shot.

You'd have to add up probably the last three elk I've killed to get to a 100-yard shot. This man, honestly, he deserves some kind of a trophy. So if people are out there, please, I don't know whether you should idolize him. But man, my goodness, this guy, his gun, he's shooting a gun he got when he was 14 years old. I won it in a raffle. Actually, my dad won it in a raffle and gave it to me. Still shooting a hand-me-down. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Shoulder strap broke. I hold it together with a zip tie. I carry extras in my pack. So is it like oh but is this like are you making a point i don't know about hunting or is it just like a general like life view you have about if it's like that you just have you have respect for things that function and yeah you know like you're not you don't want to take part in the disposable society. I don't know if he wants to go on the record. Don't fix it. I mean, I've killed a lot of animals with that gun and the other things that I use. I mean, I have a $70 scope on it. You don't need a scope when you're getting up, putting the rifle right in their side.

His shoe's got a hole in his shoulder. And I'm a little cheap. I'm a little cheap. That might factor into it. Okay, so it's the hunting thing. If you had to just pick a word. Is the hunting thing like sort of the hunting gear thing? Reverence for sort of objects that are around in your life you'd like to have continuity?

Or is it just that you hate to spend money? So it's a combination of both. My wife would tell me it's the latter. She'll tell you I'm the cheapest person she knows. Part of it is there's a sentimental attachment to some of the stuff I've got. And it takes me back to when I was a kid hunting with my dad. I still wear, my dad bought me a vest when I started hunting in Wyoming, an orange vest, reversible, so I can do camo.

How old are you? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm 37. I'm 37. I still wear that same vest. Zipper doesn't work. Oh, the zipper broke 10 years ago. It's faded.

It's like a worn traffic cone instead of bright orange. Is that legal? Probably not. Yanni got reprimanded. Yanni got reprimand. Yanni got reprimanded. Yanni got reprimanded. He got reprimanded, not fined, but reprimanded for his orange being a little too old. What state were you in? I think Brody might have actually been with you.

Just remember, in Wyoming, you just have to have a hat or vest. It was his hat. His hat. The guy was like, you know, next year. Tell him what he said, Yanni. He's like, next year it might be two babies. Something like that. We might be talking to that guy soon, right?

There's a friend of mine, Robert Abernathy. He's a big turkey hunter. And he uses really old stuff. But it's kind of, to him, it sort of became a large it's large response like disposable culture it's like a it's like a personal rebellion against this idea that that you just that you just need you know i don't have that problem man i'm like fixated i love that kind of stuff i like checking stuff out i you know i would love things so i think it's because i'm so cheap i would love if people would buy me a bunch of stuff i'd probably use it but like my backpack the the pack i've used for the past 10 years it was my computer bag in law school i just repurposed it it's now uh it's now

my hunting my day this is why oh yeah this is yes if we hunt together this is why it just doesn't work yeah i saw my why you don't hunt the part. This is why it just doesn't work. I wonder why you don't hunt with them. The part that holds the laptop, that's where I put my knives and my saw and stuff. I'm the opposite end of the spectrum. I don't have a lot of time to hunt. I'll drink a

pop can. I'll refill it when it's done with a two liter bottle. I'm the cheapest guy you'll ever meet. My interest is milk. I guess he's done with a two liter bottle oh i'm the cheapest guy you'll ever know my friend i have a i i guess he's kind of a friend i there's a there's a person i used to be friends with and she married this dude named chris and i saw a hunting picture where chris had really old old old hunting clothes on and i because of my occupation and whatnot i tend to have a lot of hunting clothes laying around and i asked her i, I said, hey, I noticed Chris's, you know, threads are looking a little thin. Would he, is he making a point or would he like me to send him over a box of duds?

And she pointed out that he's making, she's not entirely sure what it is, but he's making some sort of point. Hey, this gets worse for Dave. I mean, the sad thing about Dave, this is a guy who's the lead attorney for Game and Fish, right? I mean, for years, he's on the team for Safari Club. Where's your father-in-law work, Dave? I won't go into that. I don't want to pimp product.

But you know what that suggests to me? That he's harboring a drug and alcohol and gambling problem, and that's where all his money's gone. So that's your same vest? That's my vest. Slide through a couple of pictures there. You'll see me go through time. Really?

See? You know? No, I'm on the wrong way. Go the wrong way. Go the other way. Yeah, yeah. You'll see some other pictures pop up, you know. No, I'm on the dark. You got to go the wrong way. Go the wrong way. Go the other way. Yeah, yeah. You'll see some other pictures pop up, I think. My concern is what's like, like, I have tons of respect for the man's capacity to hunt game.

But he's going to teach some new hunters going to see this and think that's what you're supposed to do. You're going to have a lot of people out there with hypothermia. You're going to have. I like it though i must yeah i can't say i'm gonna start doing that but i do appreciate it but i was hoping you were gonna hit me some some real philosophical stuff i got no i'm just i'm just but this man has a whole warrant to the bottom of the shoe yeah yeah i mean yeah it's it's true. It's true. But, I mean, there is some philosophical, more sentimentality philosophy. You know, it's a lot of the stuff that I hunt with is stuff that my dad gave me, you know, when I started hunting.

And to the extent I can still use it, that means a lot because it makes me remember, you know, those moments. Well, a gun, yeah. But a vest? I got a lot of girls. No, I have a sentimental vest. He had the same vest. I'd want one that fits me. It fits.

It fits. You still have a boyish frame. Oh, yeah. Thanks for that. I thought about this a lot. A guy we work with, one of the camera guys we work with, is working on a totally unrelated project in Africa. And he comes out and

hunts with us so he also he's like in the jungle having nothing to do with hunting at all but he's filming in africa and some shots ring out in the in the brush and he's like that's a familiar sound and out of the woods steps a fella hold in no pair of shorts, pair of flip-flops, a shotgun, no bag or backpack. I mean, forget a backpack, like nothing but a gun. And he's got a big brush buck over his shoulder. And I did look at that, and I'm like, where have we gone? This guy, he's got like a pocket full of shells and goes out and I'm just dripping with gear. Right. And I'm like stepping back in time 20 years with my gear.

But I get stuff every year. You can do it both ways. Now, you're more comfortable than I am because I've taken it upon myself that's just all relative man I feel like when people say like oh you know mountain men were so tough

I feel that this is a theory of mine a pet theory of mine I feel like they were just about as comfortable as we are I feel like their perception of comfort like at any given moment, their relative perception of comfort probably put their comfort right about where we think of our comfort. That's probably true, but I'll bet if I put on your rain gear,

I'd be more comfortable in a rainstorm than when I wear my garbage bag. You've never had, but you've only been wearing garbage, but you've only been wearing garbage bags your whole life. You don't know. Now, if you took my stuff away from me and gave me your stuff, I'd be uncomfortable because relative to my normal understanding of what I feel like, right? I think, I think that discomfort, here's what I'm trying to say. I think that discomfort is always just sort of like, what's your baseline?

Like, what are you, what, what comfort are you used to? And where are you at compared to that? You know, if every day when you woke up, the first idea was hit your hand with a hammer. Right? Over time, your idea of how uncomfortable that is is going to slowly change. No, it's not.

You're going to wake up earlier. Nephi, did I ask your concluding thought? My concluding thought was that Dave has an old gun. Every time I listen to Steve, he's talking about how he went to Montana to go to school so he could

go someplace where there's a big game. I just want you to know, reminder, we are sitting at the highest altitude college football stadium in the nation. If you want a place to go to school where you can go out and hunt elk on the weekend, you need to consider the university. Listen, it was just half a chance that I went there. Not quite, but I didn't know one thing from the other.

I had got accepted to graduate school. I still want kids to make that same mistake, Steve. I got accepted to graduate school in Colorado, and I got accepted at CSU, I had got accepted to graduate school. I still want kids to make that same mistake, Steve. I got accepted to graduate school in Colorado, and I got accepted at CSU, and I got accepted to graduate school at University of Montana. And I had a full ride at Colorado, and I had

to pay at University of Montana to take out loans. I was clearly going to go where I had a full ride. I met my friend, a late buddy of mine, Eric Kern in Bo Nicky's bar. Eric Kern had just come. He was doing his PhD program

in Montana. We went at Bo Nicky's bar. I think it was right around the time that OJ Simpson was driving his Bronco down the road with the helicopters over him and everything. It was right around then. It might have been that night. He swayed me just based on his knowledge of hunting and fishing in southwest Montana compared to the hunting and fishing he was hearing about from his buddy in Colorado.

So I'm like, you know what? That's all I needed to hear. I'm going to switch. And told him no. Turned down the thing there and went here. I now say, I used to always say like, I'll wind up back there. I now say, I will,

like, when people go like, if you can move anywhere and you didn't have to deal with the things you deal with, work, family, I've now switched it where I stay here. Well, that's the right answer. You say Wyoming? That's what I now think and say. So knowing that story and that Wyoming wasn't one of the two choices,

you made the absolute right one. It's totally arbitrary. Totally arbitrary. Oh, no. But as a University of Wyoming alumnus myself and CSU Colorado State is one of our principal rivals, I think you made the absolute right call to go to Montana. Rather than

get entangled up with your principal rival. You don't want to end up there. The better choice obviously would have been Wyoming. Brody, you're a Ram, aren't you? At least you got yourself a good education by going to Montana. I did. I'm just not feeling the Colorado love. I've never felt Colorado love from you. John Denver ruined it for me.

I feel like John Denver ruined the whole state. I'll tell you a John Denver story. I was working in Grand Teton National Park, and there's this place called Dornan's just north of Jackson on the border of Grand Teton National Park. Sounds like a great place. They used to have a hootenanny there,

and John Denver showed up one time just hammered and sang for the whole place. That's what happens when magic happens. Not long before he wrecked his plane. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a lot of Colorado love. I've never felt it.

I'll tell you where it comes from. This is one of the main things. Someone was explaining to me, like, the day that uh sort of like the day that denver and fort collins became one city became no the day that they all of a sudden constituted like 51 percent of the state's population you lost furbearer management. Well, totally. Yeah, and I've always just had, it's always just left such a bad taste in my mouth. Also the bear thing, the bear referendum.

Yeah. It's like you have the people least likely to be dealing with critters. It's a bit of a California feel. Yeah, mandating to the people most likely to be dealing with critters about how they should go about dealing with those critters. Can I just say I'm thankful for the companies like Magpul and Hive is

and Thunder Beast Arms who made the smart decision to move across the border to Wyoming. And for the rest of you who are still in Colorado, the doors are open. Really? Come on up, guys. Why don't you tell them to stay out? Oh, because you've got to work for the state. I would say that a state like Montana is in danger of the same thing.

Oh, yeah. It'll happen. In my lifetime. I'll be talking about, oh, yeah, man, when I used to hang out in Montana. I remember when. No, it'll be, yeah. I think that Bozeman will become Denver. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that your concluding thought? Yeah. I want more Colorado love from you. I'll start liking them more. Especially in like a month and a half. If I have a good hunt down there. The last time I hunted in Colorado, my goodness.

I think we can do it. That wasn't Colorado's fault. Dude, that was not Colorado's fault at all. You can have a bad hunt anywhere. I don't can do it. That wasn't Colorado's fault. Dude, that was not Colorado's fault at all. You could have a bad hunt anywhere. I don't know, man. Talk to you after this weekend. I think you're going to have a hard time here. Really?

They're all great. Dave, concluding thoughts? You know what? One thing. Maybe I have two. One, I really do want to thank the University of Wyoming for letting us use this place. Oh, this is the best location we've ever seen. It's great.

But second thing, I want to thank you, Steve, for that article you wrote in the New York Times and Grizzly Bears. We needed a voice like that to talk about how important it is to recognize that there are other people in this country that are trying to manage species and that it can be done the right way and that we're doing it the right way. And I guess my take-home message is, I mean, I really think states in the West are trying to do right by wildlife. And, you know, regardless of whether they're listed species or not. And it's a great place to be and appreciate you having us here. And thanks for taking up an interest in some of these Wyoming issues because they're becoming national issues.

Oh, yeah, man. No, I'm watching you guys. Because I like to watch the states that have the most to lose when it comes to wildlife. Rather than the states that are sitting on something where they're never, I mean, it's just where it's unfathomable that they're ever going to put it back together again. This is where the interesting stuff's taking place in my mind. Here and a handful of other places. Not Colorado. Yanni? I don't have a concluding thought. I don't have a concluding question

for you guys. Maybe you can make me feel better about it as a non-resident hunter that might want to come to Wyoming. Very good point. I won't even ask. You guys can just answer it. I know what the question is. Why? Why is it that way? What What the hell? I won't even ask. You guys can just answer it. I know what the question is. Yeah, but why?

Why is it that way? What's the question? Oh, yeah. Go on. I want to know about wilderness. Are you talking wilderness? Yeah. Break it down.

Break it down, Giannis. Well, I don't know if I can break it down, but as far as I understand, in Wyoming, to hunt wilderness as a non-resident, for big game, all game? Hunt. Hunt wilderness. Now, camp and wilderness? Even birds? You can camp.

You can't hunt. Even upland birds. You have to have a registered guide or friend. So you have to have an outfitter, a guide, or a Wyoming resident go in with you. Resident guide, yeah. That's something a lot of people don't understand. If you've got a buddy... Yeah, you're good.

If you know Dave, and you don't mind hunting dark timber with no scope... No, no, no. They have some species. Alaska has some species. You have to be a guide or a relative. Second degree kindred. Like grizzly bear or

have a relative uh bighorn sheep right but you could all sheep yeah you could take me hunting in a wilderness as long as i don't charge because i'm not i'm not a licensed guide so i can't charge you for it but yeah i could take you the license is 12 50 and he won't spend it alaska's first degree can. Second degree. Wyoming doesn't have that requirement. So you can get around the whole thing. Not get around. Get around's the wrong way to put it. If

you're with a Wyoming resident, you can hunt wilderness. Yeah, call Dave and have him go out with you. But I mean, it's all it takes. You're not kidding me or something. No, no. You gotta have a Wyoming resident. And they can't be charging you as an outfit. But they could be hunting too, though. They could be hunting too.

Just legitimately, there's guys not doing it for profit. But if you've got a buddy that lives in Wyoming, you want to go hunt Wyoming? People do that all the time. Their friend comes over and you want to take them out. And again, that's just wilderness, right? And there are some fantastic areas here. Don't overlook, for those of you who are looking at hunting in Wyoming, Wyoming has wilderness-like locations that are not wilderness.

When you're looking at places like, I don't want to mention. When you say wilderness, it's like capital W. It has to be designated. Federally recognized. There's a lot of general hunt areas here that are absolutely phenomenal. I don't want to tell you where they are. Come find them. It is.

And can you just explain maybe, like, what's the thinking? You know, without going into too much detail, I mean, it's probably, and I can't, I don't know the whole history of it, but this is my best guess. It's a way to protect an industry. I see. To protect outfitter jobs and in all fairness the offers the other issue too is like you know let's say i am going into and i'm not going to the thoroughfare next week to hunt elk but i'm going another wilderness area so honestly those areas you know i'm, I'm going 16 miles back up into a place where I literally am going to see a couple of bears every day. And, you know, that's not a place to mess around with

just, you know, driving up and being like, Hey, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to wander up into the. Yeah. But, but that, that, that argument loses me because you could live on the Idaho side of the border and spend your whole life hunting in wilderness or in the back country in Idaho. And then the second you step in wyoming you're said you're not qualified you got to have a you got to have a guide so there's going to be exceptions and you've got people in wyoming that's an argument yeah but you'd have to give them some kind of test i always thought like in alaska the things you can't hunt without it you have to have a relative or an outfitter are the things that happen to be

the things you could get yourself in most troubling. Um, mountain goats, doll sheep, grizzly bears, like the things you like, the things people are most likely to get tore up doing.

Um, you need to have that. I don't, I don't, I don't know that that's the case. It could be to protect outfitting jobs, but there's a hell of a lot of moose outfitters and you can hunt moose without a guide. Yeah. But isn't there some, there's some, I've heard some that that's the case. It could be to protect outfitting jobs, but there's a hell of a lot of moose outfitters, and you can hunt moose without a guide. Yeah, but isn't there some, I've heard some rumors that in Alaska they're looking at that for moose.

Oh, there's some big stuff happening. Big implication speak is that as a dude with a brother that lives in Alaska, the other thing they're changing up is if I'm hunting with him on for, for the things that I need, that he needs to be there in order for me to hunt, it counts on him. My kill counts on his bag limit. So it used to be that we could go sheep hunt. We could go hunt doll sheep together. Now, if I kill one, that's his doll sheep.

So that goes into effect between now and 2018. So then if you hire a guide, it's not his, it's yours. No, it's only when you're doing the family hunt. So is that a protective law as well, industry protection law? Danny was pointing out to me that the doll sheep take, it's a finite resource, and the preponderance of doll sheep killed in Alaska are killed by non-residents.

So they're doing some things to all states, just for listeners, all states tend to, not tend to, all states are going to give priority to wildlife resources to residents it's state managed just stands the reason you're going to give preference to their own residents um you know sometimes like if you're going to hunt elk or let's say you're going to hunt white tail deer in michigan on a resident tag you know it's 12 bucks or whatever you're going to hunt deer there's a non-resident you're going to pay 250 so you generally for your people in your state um you give them a readier less expensive access to renewable resources and then people from out of state are going to pay a little more money and help bankroll the whole thing it applies lower place uh it. It starts to seem most severe in destination states.

Colorado, Montana, all the western states, Alaska, like a place where people want to dream of go hunt sometime, they often have sticker shock because they've been buying resident licenses for their whole life. My brother in Alaska, you don't pay for tags for the most part in Alaska. Residents don't pay for tags? No, you buy a hunting license. It just comes with all the tickets.

They're doubling all non-resident tag fees. I'm going to disagree with Dave on this issue just because I honestly think, you know, if most people were like Giannis or like you, Steve, and they were coming here to hunt in the wilderness, it wouldn't be an issue. You don't think so? No, but most people aren't. I mean, disagree with me on that one. Most guys who come out here for the first time and drive out from Wisconsin to go hunt elk,

I'm not sure you want those guys first time in the wilderness with nothing but a topo map. And that's just, this is all theory. I feel like they can get in the same amount of trouble, though, on some chunk of BLM. No, yeah. Yeah. A mile off the road. Let's move on. Before we move on, I want to make a point.

Federally designated wilderness is one of those cases where I feel that the feds did what was right. We'll talk about this after. You already had your last thought. I agree. This is not over steve nope we'll i would love to hear your take on it i hate to drop a big bombshell on you like that after you had your thought to be i'll just say i'll just say done correctly you're right but done correctly you're right okay well yeah that's what i'd say too now that's where we might define that differently. But yeah, I think that we're on the same page. Was that your deal?

You had a concluding question. So just to clarify, federally designated wilderness, state of Wyoming. You got to have a guide or be with a guy from Wyoming. Correct. And you guys have some serious backcountry wilderness. Yeah, we do. We've got some of the biggest in the country, at least in the lower 48. Ron, what's your concluding thought?

You have an anti-federalist rant? Have you lost a dog to a wolf? Do you have any friends that have? I have had dogs. I had acquaintances, not friends, like you and me friends. Hunting snowshoe hares or what? Beagles and coon dog guys. And bear dog guys.

So here's my concluding thought. Do you hate cars? I love you. I guarantee they lost some dogs to cars. I love you. I hate bears. I love dogs. Bears.

Wait. I'm going down the whole line. I love you. I hate bears. I love dogs. I hate bears. I love dogs. I hate wolves. I love everybody here. And this has just been a silly-ass podcast because you're all on the same side.

You need to get somebody on here from the other side. So, like, we should have been asking you more questions about wolves and bears. Because. Exactly. But you have the only viewpoint here that I think is illegitimate. Steve, I've known you since you were 18 years old. You and I have never agreed on anything except we like arguing about stuff. Forever. That's fair.

I'm going to, in the future, I'm going to invite you back on. I want you to do some preparation. I want you to come in. You know I don going to invite you back on. I want you to do some preparation. I want you to come in. You know I don't prep. And convince me. I don't even clean my truck. And convince me that we should hate bears. I shouldn't say bears.

Yeah, wolves. Oh, grizzly bears are the ones I'm scared of. I had two black bears up on my porch up at the cabin this month. They were last month with you. So I don't hate black bears. Not scared of them. Yeah, that's true. You did almost get... We left some... He walked right up on my bottom of my sleeping bag. Yeah.

But no, grizzly bears, wolves, I don't like them. Sorry. I'm a dog guy. Small game hunter. Here's my concluding thought. That wasn't it? No, I'm working it. Well, I haven't talked for an hour and a half. I take two beers. I can't smoke. Now, finally, I get an included thought.

Not in here. Now you want to cut me off. All right. I find, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts, listen to your podcast, been listening to them for years. I got my own podcast. And I feel like you talk about the dividing line between high fence hunters and wild game hunters and out east and out west.

That, to me, is the biggest dividing line ever. West and east. Western hunters versus eastern hunters. When I hear the podcast from, all I hear about is how big the rack was. What's your buddy with the podcast in, Jay, the two guys? Jay and Dar? Jay and Dar. They literally just talk numbers on antlers.

Yeah. Like, yeah, I saw a 399. I said, about a 392 or 391. Do you want to eat this thing or kill somebody with it? I think what happened when everybody moved west of the Mississippi, they lost their noodles, okay, and they got way too wrapped up in everything. We're back east.

We just do the same thing we've been doing since we've. That is such BS. Cut the trees down. It's such BS. What? The whole QDMA thing is from the southeast. I don't pay attention to deer hunter. I'm a bird hunter.

Listen, if you think that wanting to shoot something big is a Western invention. Dude, they're just bigger here. You have no idea what you're talking about. Of course not. You know that whenever you argue with me. That stuff, like the whitetail deer world. You know what? And you know I'm not a part of it at all, like zero.

You know that. All right. But it's just weird. I hear like so much like it's kind of like the people out west. Are obsessive about hunting. Yeah. Like super obsessive. Other than Dave that doesn't spend any money on his clothes.

I'm still obsessive about hunting. He's a hunting son of a gun. He's probably from Arkansas. His family is or something. Anyway, my concluding thought is that thanks for having me here, and let's go hunting tomorrow. Oh. No, we're going hunting tomorrow.

Yeah. That's a whole other story. I'm going to save it. My concluding thought is it's been, thank you, Nephi Cole and Dave Wilms. The little bit of time we've spent having an opportunity to talk about the issues we've talked about and then that we've been able to share email correspondence, it really has, it's really enhanced my understanding of wildlife issues in the U.S. I can't say in a blanket way, I can't say that we might agree on every single detail about stuff,

but I really have appreciated watching, and just the little bit i've seen in our discussions watching in a real-time way uh how decisions about wildlife get made how social perceptions are formed and kind of the complexities of being the people and around the people who actually have to make the compromises and forge the deals and have it be that you're looking out for wildlife at the same time you're mindful of a constituency who needs to live here, make a living here, raise their children here. It's been interesting to see um i really invite people to to uh delve into some of the complexities because i think that you'll find

uh as you start to look at these issues that that there's no comfort in how easy the solution is. There's a tendency to want to find ways where you look and you'd be like, oh, it's simple. They want to do this or now they're going to do that. And when you look into what actually goes on and talking about these big emblematic things, wolves and grizzly bears and other things that it's a, it's a minefield and and the fact that you guys have uh in this state i feel like been in it in a way and dealing with some things

that are impacting the rest of the country and trying to do it in a thoughtful way and from a position that i know personally comes from really admiring wildlife and wanting to be out among wildlife that you're like wildlife guys who spend your time out of doors appreciating and enjoying wildlife um it's refreshing man it's great to see and I I trust that you have you know wisdom and and good ideas going into the future. So thanks for coming on. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this.

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