The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 199: Big Pieces of the Brain Pie

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

Steven Rinella talks with Director of Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, Martha Williams, Greg Lemon, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: A fancy playdate that includes some deer stalking; different names for your fish and game agency; death to blue laws; hunting with an atlatl; regular science vs. social science; what does it mean to love a resource to death?; when science is weaponized; rainbow v. walleye; inflatable swans; will GYE grizzlies ever be delisted?; 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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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. Okay, Yanni, tell me about this big fancy play date your kid's on. I just got some pictures. Jennifer had to go to Helena. It was funny. These guys came down from Helena and Jennifer had to go to Helena today. So we had to... Mabel doesn't

go to school on Mondays, so we had to get her play date. She got to go to a very fancy play date. Some friends of ours own a boarding facility, I think is what you'd call it. So quite a big property, bunch of big barns, bunch of horses. Only board horses. Some are theirs.

And, but most of them I think are just clients. So we were like, you might not get to go ride horses because that's a whole thing and whatever. Hopefully, you just get to go and shovel some poop. That's what I'm always hoping that my buddy Nate makes him do is when they go over there and be like, no, before you get to ride, you got to shovel some shit. But I started getting pictures. And it's like, yeah, check this out. They went horseback riding.

They went, it took a spin on the ATV then we went and stalked a buck with my father-in-law and killed it and Your daughter's got amazing stalking skills must be in the jeans. Are you serious? Yeah, just like I'm like great man Like can I come over tomorrow and have a playdate too? She's not gonna want to go home. Yeah, that'll happen today? That's all today. That's hilarious. Now they're going to Costco, which they love to go and snack on all the appetizers. Yeah, and then I got a giant pretzel.

So I kind of grew up like that actually. That was just everyday life? Yeah. That's good, man. That's a solid play date. Right? Oh, quick things. You know, Martha, introduce yourself. Our know, Martha, introduce yourself. Our very special guest, Martha Williams.

Martha Williams? Tell everybody what you do. Martha Williams, and I'm the director of Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. Yeah, so every people listening to this show should by now have figured this out um wildlife in in uh america is owned by the people and it's held in trust uh by your states some exceptions like stuff that has federal oversight because of endangered species and migratory things but generally wildlife is run at the state level. All 50 states have, what we just generally call a state fish and game agency. Yeah.

Even though yours is. Fish, wildlife, and parks. Fish, wildlife, and parks. Colorado's used to be fish and game, but they felt it was too hunt centric, which is something we'll be talking about today. And they revamped it to fish and wildlife so that the hunting people

wouldn't have so much sense of entitlement and ownership i guess no it's cpw so it's parks and wildlife oh yeah that's right and they roll no no sorry california i'm thinking i'm mixing it up colorado became parks like parks got yeah parks got rolled in which is already true in montana yes fish wildlife and parks. So you're in charge of three things. Only three. Yeah, only three. Yeah, Colorado got combined with the parks department and became what?

Parks and wildlife? Parks actually separated in Colorado and then joined back up. Oh, really? Yep. It's like people that get married a bunch of times to each other. Unfortunately, people talk about it that way. Yeah. Really?

They were together and split up and got back together again? Divorced, stepchildren, et cetera. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then it was California that had to stop being fish and game because they felt it was like there's a connotation of like there's a connotation of shooting and killing and whatnot. So they changed it to wildlife.

Which is fine because Montana's always been wildlife. But it's changed. Oh, it hasn't. No. Some people still call us fish and game. This is the voice of Martha's minder. That's a tough job. Greg Lemon.

Yeah, Greg Lemon. It was in the 70s when we switched to Fish and Wildlife. So we were early on on the switch, but we are still- In the 70s, Montana went from Fish and Game to Fish and Wildlife? Yeah, but- I would have been like back then i've been like yeah what's the world coming to well you can walk you can uh predict who's gonna call us fishing game you know by the folks in the in the who are standing in our

lobby i mean they'll old-timers still call us fishing game oh yeah we'll always be fishing game where i grew up it was um everyone knew that it was the dnr yeah dnr department of natural resource point being how to get on this oh yeah uh i was just intro why was i talking about how states manage that wildlife manage at the state level just to intro you public trust yeah well yeah, we'll get into that hardcore. But Martha, you oversee, run one of these. Right. In the fourth largest state. Not by population, but by landmass.

Well, and more importantly, the best wildlife resources. No, man, I don't think so. You're number three. After Alaska? You're number three. What? Okay. Yeah, I feel like Alaska.

Wait, did I just concede that? Tell me, what are the other two? Yanni and I have a running debate about this, but I feel like Wyoming's got a little bit of a toe, like a little bit of a... No way. A little bit of a... Why do you say that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I think you mostly just say that because there's less people. Yeah. And I'm just one of those kinds of people that always feels like I should be somewhere else. Quick thing. All right. We'll get back to that one, won't we? Yeah. I got some things I want to talk about.

These are like little... We do some little newsy items up top. But some of these newsy items are actually good because you'd be able to give your perspective on them. One of the newsy items is, I wish Brody was here. Pennsylvania is now celebrating having overcome the, the decades long battle against their blue laws and blue laws are where you're not allowed to go hunting on Sunday.

People have all kinds of reasons why you can't go hunting on sunday it seems like the good money is on the idea that people felt that you were it was competing with with church um so you weren't supposed to hunt on sunday and then over the years uh you know people become sort of in you know embattled and and they kind of lost track of what they're trying to solve in the first place and then you had people who hated sunday hunting bands the national shooting sports foundation along with others has been petitioning successfully against sunday hunting bands or blue laws in a bunch of different states and finally now like pennsylvanians are going to be allowed to hunt a handful of sundays six or something like that which brody is here to be allowed to hunt a handful of Sundays.

Six or something like that. I wish Brody was here to give the details. Oh boy. No, I don't even think it's, I think it's half that. I think they added three. So like every year. I think there was one during archery. There's a couple Sundays where it's okay to hunt.

One during archery, one during rifle. And then they were, they still hadn't come up with the third day yet. I believe that's what I read. You know, and thinking about laws like this is always funny imagine like there's always laws that are around right and everybody's success they're around but i think a good test of a law would be like imagine that you tried to roll it out today instead of just having laws because we've always had them, right? Constantly ask yourself, what would happen today if you came to a state? So someone comes to you, Martha, here in Montana, and they say, I got an idea. I think that you should not be able to hunt on a Sunday, right?

It would be a very, very hard law to enact. Right. But states that just have it, they just got to suck it up and have it, even though everyone's like, what? But you can't get rid of it. Well, but I think also of all the laws that we have that I don't think you could get through now,

like some of the good ones. Do you, for instance? Well, I think stream access in Montana. Yeah, you're right. People think you were insane. Right, right. So I think it goes both ways. Yeah. If you said, I got an idea.

Everyone can just, once they're in the river, they just go where they want. Drive boats up and down. Go paddling every which way. People would be like, you're crazy. Not through my property. The other great examples, we've talked about it a bunch as an example of this, is the Pittman-Robertson. You came up with that right now.

Like we're like, some people are throwing around the idea of taxing the backpack tax and it's not very welcome. Yeah. I was bringing this up the other day. I think Yanni and I were driving around and we were talking about how, uh, everybody,

I feel like there's like this new awareness around Pittman Robertson. I think so too. Like it's been marketed well lately. Right. Yeah. And so more people are aware of it. And I always too. Like it's been marketed well lately, right? Yeah. And so more people are aware of it. And I always hear, and I'll hear people, and I'll hear people throwing around like how proud they are of the

contributions that gun owners and shooters, hunters and shooters, how proud they are of the contributions they make to conservation. And oftentimes I'll be hearing this from someone and I'll try to imagine that same individual, what their response would be if it didn't exist and you propose to them that we make a rule. They're like, I got an idea. How about the federal government comes in and they say that there's a 13% tax on all guns and ammunition that goes to help animals people would people would like there would be revolts in the streets over this

yeah or whole organizations would be founded to fight. It would be organizations founded to fight it. It would be like, you know, it would lead to, I can't even imagine the upheaval. But now people are like, hell yeah, bro. Pittman Roberts. I wonder what it was like back, you know, when it passed. Like what a box of shells. Overwhelming. Was it? It was overwhelming.

Overwhelming support. No, not just the support, but I wonder what it was overwhelming overwhelming support no not this the support but i wonder what it was like on the street like the guy that owned the sporting goods store you know that sold like a 50 cent box of 22 shells and all of a sudden it was you know 58 cents yeah i don't know you know i don't know like on the public end but i know i had widespread support and came from hunters at the time i just think hunters must have been a lot different. Well, back then they were. And conservationists both. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe that because they know it. Not that they're different. I had someone point out that it was from the depths of despair. Meaning it was at a time when there was nothing. Yeah. Wildlife was gone. And so that drastic. Yeah.

Drastic situations lead to drastic measures. It was brilliant, though. I mean, it was brilliant also. I think of this all the time. When we go to the legislature, most people don't realize we have to get permission from the legislature to get the federal money, Pittman, Robertson, Dingell, Johnson, we have to have had our own statute, assent language. The states had to pass statutes to say we will only spend license money in a certain way, and Pittman, Robertson, and Dingell,Johnson in a certain way, or we don't get

that federal money. And so when we go ask for permission, the legislature will say, well, how about you do this? And we have to say, we can't. We can't do that because it's not in the assent language or it's the Pittman, Roberts Dingle Johnson doesn't let us do that that's really hard to explain a scent how you're using it on behold it sucks I still want to do a couple I got to do a couple more quick things I got to take care of okay but can we enter with that we'll enter with that part of the conversation sure the um the money thing but a couple things we we have a you don't have to have an opinion are you married Martha i'm sorry can i ask you a personal question i oh that's a hard one i'm not married i was married my husband passed away oh i'm sorry i have a um an awesome boyfriend but i'm not married we're gonna talk about wedding rings for a minute

oh oh interesting you have experience with these yes um we've had a lot of you guys are you i'm not wearing them today because i was oh yeah Oh, yeah. Where are your rings? I usually have two on, but I was hanging out of one of those tethered tree saddle deals. Yeah. The one I borrowed from you all weekend. Did you like it? I was surprised how comfortable and easy it was. It takes a little bit of trust because you're not standing on a platform.

Yeah, you got to trust your gear. There's no on a platform yeah you're just dangling around um and that's not quite true anyways but without getting too into that because i was climbing trees and climb you know going up those ladders i decided to take the rings off because it'd be really good opportunity to get sleeved you know yeah as a as a sort of martha as a sort of public service we've been talking about the perils of rings. I got a fake one. One of the new fangled. Rubber ones.

Yeah. But you know what? I was cold one morning, got an antelope and it fell off. It's out in a field in Wyoming somewhere. So now I'm running no ring. But a guy rode in. We were talking about accidents that have happened to people. This guy rode in.

His buddy's a commercial fisherman. And he had a bunch of crabs and like he gets to the docks and you keep your crabs these aerated tanks and he got to worrying about the crabs he had an aerated tank that he's going to sell and he wanted to go back in and check on them and you either have to take a real long walk around a restaurant and through the wharf or you just jump this big fence and his buddy climbs up to jump this big fence there's a chain link or cyclone fence yeah after he jumped down and slipped and whatnot not only was his ring on the fence the whole finger on the fence oh yeah the whole thing hanging there from a ring on the fence. He says he uses this missing ring finger as a reason to not remarry.

So apparently he's married at one point in time, and now he tells people he can't because of that. Another guy wrote in that we're talking about when people steal your spot. This guy took his pastor hunting ducks, then later catches the pastor hunting the same spot. Yeah. Catches his pastor hunting the same spot with two other guys, and he switched churches. Yeah. Switch churches. I'm surprised he didn't switch religions.

Morally compromising. Yeah. He wants to know, did I overreact? No. No. Dude, that's hardcore. Here's a good one. Yeah, it'd be hard to pay attention to the sermon at that point, right?

Yeah. Heck yeah. What would you be thinking? Just bad negative thoughts. Yeah, when the pastor hard to pay attention to the sermon at that point, right? Yeah. Heck yeah. What would you be thinking? Just bad negative thoughts. Yeah, when the pastor's up there, honesty. Right. The hypocrisy of the Christian world. You guys are going, boom.

Can I throw in on the ring? Oh, sure. Then I got one last little news thing. It's not even news. It doesn't even count as news. But go ahead. I've got a, so I, when I got married 12 years ago, I got a titanium ring specifically. Why would you do that?

Well, at the time I, some, I had some friends that had them. They were cool. And they were like, they're indestructible. Yeah.

Who's, who's destroyed their ring? So what I, have you ever had anybody wear out a wedding ring? Well, let me tell you what I do with it. So I never carry around bottle openers. I never do.

But you can open a bottle with the titanium ring. It doesn't even mark it up. Just put the cap and pop it off. No, yeah, I can do it with my teeth. Is that titanium? But you can't do that with a silicone. And I've been thinking about it, you know, tossing it around like that. You know how they got to get those off when people come in, they break their finger.

They get it off by crushing it with a vice grip. I never, I never cease to keep, because it's my fear that I'm going to get some sort of, you know, water retention, you know, sickness. And then all of a sudden my hand's going to swell, I'm not going to be able to get... Yeah, because we had an emergency room doctor write in and say, do not wear the titanium ones because we cannot grind through them.

He said when they got to get a titanium ring off someone who's got a hand injury, they need to crush it with a vice or a pair of locking pliers. You can only break it off. You can't cut it off with the equipment they have. So the benefit of being able to open a beer bottle with your ring doesn't offset the risk. Yeah. See this little thing I have on my key chain? I'm showing Greg now. Some folks call that a bottle opener.

It's with me most times. One last news item. There's a guy, I don't really get it. It's kind of a long email. He's in the PhD program in archaeology at the University of Colorado Boulder. And he's petitioning his state right now to allow him. He doesn't think he's going to get anywhere with this. But he's petitioning the state of Colorado to allow at atlatl hunting what's your take on that martha i think we've gotten one

of those before too how do you how do you handle it oh it was like you know you know how do you break that one down yeah well let me uh okay uh let's just do this let me i'll try to put in a fair way like um what would be in your, as a state director of a wildlife agency, what are some of the things that roll around in your head the minute someone says, I ought to be able to, right, kill a deer with an atlatl? Oh, I mean, the first thing that comes up is fair chase. I mean, you know what, I think of what are traditional hunting methods. And I think now, rather than going, we typically think forward and what technologies are pushing hunting, where it goes beyond fair chase and has society, you know society caught up to that method or not.

I don't often think of going backward. Why wouldn't we? I guess my first question would be, why wouldn't we, rather than starting with, nuh-uh. Yeah. I guess it would, you know, I don't know. Because some states states have some states it's not that they allow you to do it some states when you look at the rules it doesn't prohibit it but i would imagine the big argument against it would be one of efficacy yeah and like the risk of

uh maiming stuff and you remember some ago, there was a huge brouhaha where a guy, uh, made a big production out of killing a bear with a spear. Oh, it was like a whole, it was in Canada,

right? I believe so. Killed a bear with a spear in Canada. The blow up was so bad. Yeah. The social upheaval, like, what's the word I'm looking for?

Everybody being pissed? So pissed that the province then made it illegal. To spear a bear. To hunt with a spear. They went from having that it wasn't clarified. Yeah. A guy did it. People were so, it was so offensive to people that you'd kill.

I think people look at it like it's a stunt yeah like you're stunting right and man they were pissed and then made it that clarified that one cannot hunt with a spear well didn't we talk about this in the car on the way here in a way greg we weren't talking about spearing a bear, but we were talking about in Montana, you know, bow hunting versus rifle. And is it the experience that we're allowing people to get out and have? Or is it just really, is it the efficacy? Is it that you obviously, you want to kill an animal with one shot and you should be good and proficient but um if we were worried just about the efficacy would would we then limit the

opportunity we have and the and the um method of take yeah it's i mean there's a balance there. It is. It's like, yeah, it's hard to, it's when you, you can go through life having it all make sense, like what you can and can't do. And then someone throws out a question like the atlatl question. Tell me really what is an atlatl? It's a throwing board for a spear. Okay. It's a. What's the thing you swing? A bolo.

Okay. Yeah. An atlatl is, it's a spear's a spear but just a mechanism by which people can throw spears so they they archaeologists feel that 15 000 years ago when this when the western hemisphere was colonized it was colonized by people who hunted with atlatls so it's like it's a spear but then there's a board that you hold on to and it's like you know those things you know a good way to think about it you know those things when you go to a dog park things people use to throw tennis balls oh yeah that whippy little

tennis ball hucker an atlatl is one of those that throws a spear what's the name of that game that those things came from jarts no lawn darts no no no it's like in a room and you have all the players have those crescent curved come on phil i don't think dog throwing dog ball huckers cricket no you throw it against the wall it's racquetball oh the track ball the, they had the big. Oh, that was a good game, man. Is that what it's called? I don't know.

That little, it looks like a little sickle. Yeah. Yeah. And it hawks a ball. Yeah. A wiffle ball. I think that was called a trackball. Did you see that?

Did you see the Jackass where they were, movie where they were throwing oranges at each other with those things? Uh-oh. I did. Good, good wallop. Very entertaining. So the Adelaide thing, I don't know. I'd be curious to see what happens with it, but it does.

Everything makes sense. Oh, you can hump the gun. You can hump the bow. But you don't think about it too much. And then someone proposes, like, well, why can't I do X? And it puts you in this position where you're trying to like articulate something that you hadn't thought to articulate like uh i don't know why can't you so i don't think you should be able to but why don't i think you should be able to i think we do that all the time too things come up

that you gotta break it down how would we answer that on this question uh the statute governs some of what we can take use for take in Montana and there was a bill a few sessions ago. Why did not? Well there was an Adel Adel bill proposed in Montana that died in the legislature. So someone advanced it.

It got its due course. It got considered in a serious way and didn't make it. Didn't make it. Does the state record the rationale of things or do they not record the rationale? Like when it didn't make it, does someone record sort of, is it recorded like the arguments against it and for it

are recorded or not recorded? They're recorded in like the public records of the hearing. So there was a public hearing on it. And those who came forward in favor and those who came forward against, it's all. And the gist of what they had to say would be available. Yeah, it's legislative history. I would love to go see what the guy or gal who had to say, why not? And I don't remember.

We should remember. It wasn't that long ago. No, but it was when I was still in journalism and it wasn't. But we could track it down. So you could look up the bill number. And the sponsor. Because the sponsor, what I do remember of is the sponsor, sometimes sponsors are not real invested in the bill. They just happen to have a constituent that wants something carried.

He's got a bee in his bonnet. Yeah, but the sponsor on this one- Really cared. I would think was really interested in it. Really? He got shot down. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks. Now we'll see another proposal next session. That's it for newsy stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, method of take. That's the thing I find when I'm talking to people who aren't familiar with the hunting and rules of hunting. They're often interested to hear about all the method of take restrictions, such as like in this state, you can shoot a variety of, like you can shoot a mountain grouse. So what they call it here, it'd be like Franklin's blues.

Dusky. Yeah. Well, now, yeah, you're right. You're way ahead of me. Dusky grouse, roughed grouse, spruce grouse can be killed with a rifle. But you can shoot with a.22. You cannot shoot with a.22. Sharptail grouse, pheasants, right?

Turkeys, you cannot shoot them with a rifle in the spring. You can shoot them with a rifle in the fall. There's a ton of method-of-take stuff out there. Yeah, regulations get complicated. Yeah, people like wrestling over it. All right, I want to get back to the money thing. I'm trying to think of entering this in the

most instructive way possible. You're probably good at doing this. Lay out for me, like, what, lay out for folks. Lay out for folks, like, what is, like, what it is a state fishing game agency does. Like, what are the things you're responsible

for looking at? And then, how does that get paid for? Easy question. Oh, it is? Thanks. No. Oh. Well, I think we're responsible for more than people realize, and we're responsible for more than what we always get direct funding for.

I mean, so I think Fish and Game, Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, DNRs are charged with more than people realize. In Montana, Fish, Wildlife, and Parks' mission is to steward the fish, wildlife, recreational, and parks resources of Montana. And we do that with the Citizen Commission, and we do it with a board, you know, so we don't do it alone. Can you explain the citizen commission? Sure. Somewhere within your answer. So in some states it's different. So the director, I'm appointed by the governor.

In some states, the director of all of the agencies and the governor also appoints the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Parks and Recreation Board. So the citizen commission, it's the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Parks and Recreation Board. And they really are the ones that set policy and help with allocation issues. And then you have the legislature in Montana passes statutes that get into specific numbers and percentage of resident versus non-resident licenses, issues like that. So the department brings proposals forward to the commission. And this is what people often call a game commission. Yep.

Yep. And those game commissions were the early getting to the origin of the Pittman-Robertson Act and the restoration of wildlife and why we fund it the way we did was early on when wildlife populations were depleted at best. You know, bison were decimated, birds, migratory birds were, populations were decimated for feathers, deer, a number of wildlife populations and fisheries, commercial fisheries, were plummeting. And so states created the Fish and Game Commissions to try to restore those species. So in the United States, the states have always been the entity that stepped up to manage what we think of as the public trust, the wildlife resources in the country. And it started with those fish and game commissions.

And then they realized, you know, that you needed that scientific underpinning. You needed to understand what species needed or what habitat you needed. And then the departments developed around giving that expertise in the scientific research to know how to manage. I didn't realize that the idea of game commissions predated the idea of a state agency. Yep. Isn't that interesting? So it would just be like someone would appoint a bunch of people that had a vested interest or expertise, and they'd be like, hey, you all get together. Yeah. And you figure out if there should be a deer season or not.

Yeah. Well, they stepped up because they felt like they needed to be recovering these species. Yeah. They weren't dealing with the plethora of riches that we're dealing with today, luckily. Yeah. I mean, it was a totally different scenario. So there's still this interplay between a state fishing game agency and a state's commission. Yes, definitely. Is it tense at times? And so instead of arguing or being tense, I think we just realize we have different roles to play.

The department puts forward proposals and the commission, you know, sometimes they're put in the hardest position where they've got to vote on these proposals. How do you get a job on that commission, man? I want to be on that commission so bad. You do? You should apply. How many people are on it? There are five. So I just wanted to just be me. And they're paid positions? No, they are not paid positions. I many people are on it? There are five. I just want it to just be me.

And they're paid positions? No, they are not paid positions. I would love to do it. I would want no one else to be on it. I want to be the only commissioner. You could be the chairman. Yeah, that's all I'm going to shoot for. Are there any states where it's an elected position that you hold?

Commissioners are always appointed. It's always. I that you hold? A commissioner is always appointed. It's always. I've never heard of non-commissioners. I don't know of any that are elected, but certainly I haven't looked at all the other states. They have to run for game commission. Be sweet. Ooh. So you're in Montana.

They're appointed on different- Staggering terms. Staggering terms. So when a new governor is elected, there's some overlap in terms. So there's continuity between one administration to the next. And then they also represent regional areas. So there's not like five commissioners from the most populated areas of the state. They're spread out.

So we have got like a commissioner from Glasgow, for instance, that represents that region of the state. Gotcha. And there's a mix of expectations. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just saying we got you way off your answer. Oh, Pittman-Roberton? No.

Or Howard-Riefenbach? Yeah, like what your mandate is, like what you do, and how it all gets paid for. Yeah, so at least in Montana, Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, I believe the, well, Montana Constitution, I could go off forever on that. It's just a really cool document. It goes back to the conversation of could we get a constitution through now that looks like the one we have? I think it would be hard. So the constitution and the statutes set up what the department does. And that is that we steward fish, wildlife, parks, recreational resources.

And then you add a layer to that. Our funding primarily comes from selling licenses. And then – What percentage of it? That's – let's see. It's about $53 million. It's almost half. Almost half of the –

Of our budget comes from license sales which is pretty high not all states are that high um and then the then the rest of it we don't get well we used to not get any general fund um we we fund ourselves really through license sales and then the pitman robertson dingle johnson land and Conservation Fund, all the different federal sources of match that we get. That's how we operate. But a lot of agencies do not have hard funding. Explain that. And you do get hard funding.

Yeah, right. So when the Pittman-Robertson, Dingell-Johnson, I think it started as Federal Aid and Wildlife Restoration Act. So the concept started where it put excise taxes on certain equipment, you know, hunting, fishing equipment, when both Dingell-Johnson and PR were passed. And the states could get that money, a certain apportionment to the state, if the state had its own statute that said the state can use license money only for restoration of fish and wildlife and for these, you know, to help game species too. Yeah, like the state can't rob Yeah, like the state can't rob. The state can't rob. It can't be like, oh, your department has a bunch of money. I'm going to take all that and spend it on something that has nothing to do with. Yeah, that's right.

We have to. It's what it's called control. The Fish and Game Agency has to retain control over the money, the license money and any of that federal matching money that comes in. So we have to retain control of it. That's one buzzword. And then also we can't divert it to another, someone else can't spend it and it can't be diverted to what's called an ineligible use. So if you were to do that, then you become ineligible for the federal money. That's right. And no state wants this.

No, you couldn't. Most states wouldn't want to, they wouldn't want to screw themselves like that. So they don't steal your money and do an airport renovation with it or something. Exactly. That's part of the brilliance of the, it's the Wildlife Sport Fish Restoration Program, WUSFR, that combines all these different federal pots of money. And what's the hard funding? You mean like just like general,

like when someone pays just their regular taxes, like a person lives in a state, Montana, elsewhere. That doesn't come to Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. None of that money comes. No. A little bit now for our aquatic invasive species program. Okay. I think that's it and not very much of it.

And that's dedicated. Yep. So you don't just get like a general chunk, like the same way the Department of Transportation gets like just general state money. No. We're one of the few agencies that does that. Yeah. I think that, you know, in preparing to have this conversation, it was one of the things

we talked about. One of the things that really like initiated the conversation was, was talking about this, this sort of this, this whole package of things that we're discussing, meaning like who owns wildlife, who manages it, how does it get paid for?

All this is sort of captured in this kind of hard to understand concept of the North American model of wildlife conservation yeah phil what's the north american model what is that let's ask phil he don't hunt what's the north american model of wildlife conservation phil real quick i could not give you a good definition no see there you go how many every man this is just every man off the street he doesn't know um he doesn't he doesn't need to know i'm not even mad at him about not knowing. Awesome. But yeah, so North American model of wildlife conservation, meaning here's a helpful way to look at it.

Look at places that don't have it, right? It's helpful to explain what it is by look at a place that doesn't have it. For instance, you go to a place like Scotland. We talked about this before. In Scotland, they have right to roam. You can go wherever you want. Like people can't kick you off their property. You can roam around wherever you want to go. But can you fish everywhere?

Nope. Can you hunt everywhere? Nope. And in Scotland here, like here in the U.S., and let's take again because we're here talking to the state director, Montana, you might own property and there might be elk on that property, but you do not own those elk. They belong to the state director in Montana, you might own property, and there might be elk on that property, but you do not own those elk. They belong to the state. They belong to the people. So you hold the ground they sit on,

but you have no more right to them than anybody else has to them. You control access to them, but you don't control the things themselves. You can't box them up. You can't give them away. You can't just shoot them when you feel like it. You got to go through all the rules everybody else has to go through. And then that's

like a big part of the North American model of wildlife conservation. And the other part of it is that there's public input on management and public input on how we pay for it all. You bet. So, go ahead. Well, I think of that too. I don't want to get too wonky, but I actually think of what you've just explained, that wildlife, the public holds wildlife in trust. Well, the state holds wildlife in trust. We manage that asset.

And the legislature is in a way the trustee. They set the laws. We manage it. And the beneficiary, the people who benefit from that, and we need to manage the wildlife for everybody. And that, I think, more derives from the public trust. And I think of the North American model as the statutes and the funding mechanisms that this country put into place that helps fund that model that allows us to have the public trust. So it's kind of, it's twofold, but I'm following you. Yeah, well, the reason I was getting to that, and you can color this any way you want to color it, but I think that one of the ways it gets important, it gets down to some of the things we wanted to discuss today,

is the wildlife is for everyone, right? Let's just say, so here in a state like this, wildlife's for everyone. You're supposed to manage wildlife for everyone. Everyone has different ideas. This is going to be too big of a question. I see where you're going. Everyone has different ideas.

Everyone's an expert. About, well, like, okay, if you're managing it for me, here's what I would like to see happen. Right? I would like every bear that comes near my house to die. And your job is to manage wildlife for me because I own it and that's what I want to do. And then someone else, the next person down the road is like, since you're managing wildlife for me, I want no bears to ever die. And so that's what I want because it's my wildlife and you're just here to manage it for me. And there's a lot of reconciling that needs to happen. And what throws a little bit of a wrench into this whole thing

is that you just pointed out that people that buy hunting and fishing licenses are paying over half of the budget for your agency. And then another huge chunk of your budget is coming from people who buy firearms and ammunition and fishing equipment and some designated sporting goods like bows and arrows and whatnot. So they're all footing the bill. Talk about or share with us your thoughts about how one sort of does triage on this. Like whose opinion matters the most?

The one that's paying? I would. Is this why you do this? You just got right to the heart of it. Oh, no. Yeah. And there's a lot there, but like, right. You don't even need to give your own personal opinion.

You don't need to even talk about what happens here. But like, what happens when you start wrestling all this out? Well, okay. so awesome question. I don't even know what the question was. Whose opinion matters, the people that pay or the people that don't pay? Or is it all the same? Do you get a bonus because you paid? No.

You get two votes? Well, I'm sure you'd like to. You get a vote, although not a specific vote. You get to engage. You get input for sure. So, I mean, it goes to the other piece of what you started with in that we have to do our work through public engagement. So my opinion actually really doesn't matter. My opinion on the decision-making process and guiding it to make sure it's as fair and transparent as possible matters, but it's the public input that should guide

kind of where we go, but it's not a vote. And obviously, there's always going to, it's a balancing act. I mean, we were talking about that on the way down. There's very little we do that doesn't require balance. I mean, most decisions that come to a fish and wildlife, fish, wildlife, and parks agency, parks sometimes is less controversial. But fish and wildlife, I can hardly think of many decisions that don't require some balance. Oh, you mean to tell me that everybody in this whole state doesn't all just agree on everything? Oh, yeah, they agree always.

And letters flood in. I can't even imagine. Excellent job. Excellent job. Yeah, you're hired. No, of course they don't. Of course they don't. And, I mean, think about it. You know, you've got walleye fishermen or a walleye fishery and a top fishery or, you know, bears.

Do we protect bears and never kill a bear? Or do we make sure bears don't get around shelter belts, you know, on the Rocky Mountain Front? So I don't know that there's ever going to be the perfect answer. We get all these competing interests. I mean, that's just the nature of what we do, period. I think there's tremendous beauty in that because people are passionate. So yeah, they might be crazy passionate sometimes, but they care.

And we've talked internally, what would it feel like if people didn't care what we did? I think that would be worse. Or get what you're saying in theory. Yeah. It has to be in theory. We have to embrace it or it would kill us. There's two things you said that I appreciate. One, you said that what you think... Doesn't matter.

That's interesting. Do you feel like you're pretty successful at pushing down your personal take on it? You should ask Greg that. Where you're like, personally, I would never hunt with an atlatl. Therefore, no one should. Like, that wouldn't be something that's going to roll through your head. No, it wouldn't roll through my head.

But then that gets to another topic maybe. I mean, that's just my style of leadership. It's a team effort. There's no way I could be director without really great people around me. And so for them to be good, I feel like it's better to push it down. But, Greg, do I really do that or do I just hope I do? No, you're good at it. And I think the other thing that this piece, the opinion piece, the other thing that comes into this is our science work.

Absolutely. Back to sort of our core role as these trust managers. Well, hold that thought for a minute. We'll get into that. Good. Because that is also a hard word. Yeah. Which one?

Science or managers? Who's got science on their side? Oh, yeah. Everybody's got science on their side? Oh, yeah. Everybody's got science on their side. Yeah. Well, and both sides of whatever. When you're talking about passion, people coming to us with a passionate opinion, both sides have – they come with science too. Yeah.

Because they know that we are in the realm of science. And so the conversation is not just about, I like this or I like that. It's, I want this to happen based on this science. Yeah. But I think what's, we'll get into this a little bit in a minute, but what's scientific is incredibly unscientific. And is social science a science? Oh, yeah. There you go. There's a lot of social science tied up into science. But when you said that you like that everyone's engaged. Yeah. Really? So when there's a hot button issue.

I mean, I have to. There's a hot button issue and you have a hearing, right? Or like a public comment period. Yeah. And you come in and there's, right? Everyone's in there ready to kill each other over this thing. Yeah. You have people that take wolves.

That incites a lot of passion. You have people who are like, kill them all, let God sort them out. You have people who are like, wolves are higher than unicorns on the list of what's sacred. And you're like, oh, great. Everybody showed up. I'm so happy they have opinions. I am. I mean, like, oh, great. Everybody showed up. I'm so happy they have opinions. I am. I mean, think about, okay.

Just think about that. What if we showed up to talk about wolves and there were three people in the room? I would turn to Greg and say, we did something wrong. Oh, really? We missed the boat here. We missed reaching out to people if only three people show up talking about wolves. Yeah. Wouldn't that be scarier?

I mean, seriously, would that mean that people just, meh, we don't really care. Do you get overall good participation? Like if it's not something like a wolf or a, you know, buffalo or something big and charismatic, you know know like when there's a meeting on i don't know give me an example yeah what would be an example of something that doesn't get a lot of public excitement uh well it doesn't happen every two years so we set our uh regulations every two years our our hunting regulations and so that we go through all like the quotas and everything else we go through. It's all the regulation booklets.

I mean, it's all that information is done every two years in our season setting process. And there's portions of that that are always controversial, but there are some pieces of that. You can hear a pin drop. That we'll hold a meeting where we'll outnumber the public participants at the meeting. There'll be five FWP people and two hunters.

Yeah, so no, that is a bad sign when we outnumber the public. Gosh, you think we'd all show up for regulations meeting? I haven't shown up. Me neither. No, I'm sorry. I feel guilty. But to be fair, too, I mean, we are, like other agencies, we're trying to think of, are there other ways to engage the public? If people stop showing up at public hearings, should we be reaching out to them in different ways?

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Alright, I want to move back a little bit because there's something Welcome to the onX club, y'all. All right. I want to move back a little bit because there's something I want to hit on more precisely. The funding question. Yeah. Like, seriously, how does an agency view the fact? How does an agency view the idea that all people's opinions

matter right everyone should have an opinion at the table but then only some of the people are funding the structure what's your like how do you view that do you is that viewed as a problem is it viewed just like a fact of life do you feel that people within a state fish and wildlife agency, do they sort of over-serve the payers? Is there an idea that, like, those are the ones we should keep happy because they're paying for it all? How do you wrestle that? I'm not saying, you know, I know what I'd like to see happen. Where are you going with that? No, I don't know.

I'm asking you. It's got to be something that comes up. Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, I think it is. I'm asking you. It's got to be something that comes up. Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, that's a fair question. So, yes, it's a fact of life because it is what it is. It's what we've had in place. Yes, I think we pay, you know, in all fairness, we pay close attention to what's our traditional base. So the people who pay, yes, we have to

pay attention to them. And I believe we always will. With that said, they can't be the only voice. If other people comment, I sometimes get people asking me like, how could you meet with such and such? And my answer is, because I'm a public servant, I meet with who asks me to meet with them. You know, I can't cut a voice out because it's not popular. So I believe we have to listen to all voices. But I mean, yeah, there is a certain skew toward our traditional base because that's who we're used to working with. Yeah. And I would say we don't want to lose them. I mean, we are in the business of perpetuating, of encouraging getting outside, that experience outside.

We want people to hunt. We want people to fish. That's not the only thing we want them to do. But we do want that heritage and that tradition to continue. So is it tricky? Sometimes, yes. I mean, you know, we're perpetuating a tradition. At the same time, we use science and we try to listen to all perspectives to come up with the best solution we can. Best proposal. In a state like this, hunting is a big economic driver, right? So there's a lot of economic activity that occurs around hunting.

Yeah. So you could – one can go and make this argument. They can look at deer, chronic wasting disease, right? Like chronic wasting disease could come and have a big impact on public perception of hunting and participation and could cost communities. Like if there's a community and they have high CWD prevalence, people are going to go hunt somewhere else. And that is bad for business for people that have hotels, right? So all this stuff goes on around it. And you look and you'd be like, man, we need to protect this thing.

The thing I look at, the thing I envy about Alaska, for instance, is how jealously they guard their salmon resources. Because commercial, huge commercial business huge recreational business like don't go to alaska and mess with salmon like it's not going to go well for you yeah but what about uh like when you want to kill hummingbirds that leaves the golden egg yeah so then you take like oh there's a big problem with hummingbirds. Is that tough? Is it like hard to get like the agency momentum and the money and the support to go do something where no one can come and argue to you about the economic impact of hummingbirds? Do hummingbirds tend to get like forgotten? Not them specifically, but you know what I'm saying? If people are like, okay, hunters pay for this, elk is economic driver, all this stuff,

how do you begin to think about and address issues of people like, I'm not calling you up to bug you about it. I guess that people aren't, I'm guessing that people don't every day call you to make sure hummingbirds are okay. Yeah. Well, I think of that a bunch of ways. One, I mean, that's the whole point of the Recovering America's Wildlife Act and all the precursors to that, you know, teaming with Wildlife CARA, Blue Ribbon Panel, whatever. Or the states that have a mechanism to help pay for – to add to the funding of a wildlife agency so they can get to hummingbirds and our species you hadn't even heard of.

So that would be helpful. And I think it's needed. Absolutely. The challenge I have- You say what's needed is like an outside additional, yeah. Well, I think so. So that we can get to those other species that we haven't. I mean, what, in Montana, we have, how many species do we have, Greg?

A lot of wildlife. Oh, I'd like to know that. You got like nine big game animals. We got 524, I just happened to have this at my fingertips. Fish and wildlife species in the state. And how many of those are game? 80. More than you realized.

We have 80 game animals? Hit that to me again. 524 total fish and wildlife species and 80 game species. That includes fish. But here's the thing. What about ones that are like, now I'm just curious. Take like the short-tailed weasel.

Now he's non-game, but take is permissible. So is he in the 80 or the five? So I would assume that he would be in the 80 if we have a permissible take. Okay. And we have 17 species that are federally protected. Really? Or warranted.

Federally protected or warranted. So we have responsibility over all 500 species. And if we had better funding, not as many, you maybe wouldn't have 17, although that's not that high, that are federally protected. I mean, the point is, I think if we had more capacity and resources to get to the other species of, you know, to the 500, then I would hope fewer need that federal protection. Well, and so another twist in this is 80% of our budget goes to 20% of the wildlife species, management of the wildlife species. 80% of the budget goes to 20%.

And I'm guessing that 20% are fish and game that people pursue. The game species plus the ones that either require state, I think they get a pretty good return. Yeah, that's interesting, man. But I'm thankful for them too. Oh, yeah, they're not doing anything wrong. No. They're just buying their license. Yeah.

We want them. There's a lot of, you know, in our world, we hear all these different ideas people throw out about other ways to get, other ways to, other people should pay too, right? Yeah. And I don't even know if I like that idea or not, because- I don't know if we've played that all the way out. Should we? Oh, that would take more than two hours. Yeah, okay. So I'll give a commonly held perception about it.

There'd be that right now all this money comes in and 80% goes to either like the listed stuff or it goes to game, right? Research on game, enforcement, all this kind of stuff. So some people, it often comes up, this idea, and Yanis brought it up earlier, that there should be some, there's this kind of like this nascent concept of a backpack tax, meaning that other people should be paying money. When you buy a backpack, it should be taxed. The same way if you buy a rifle, it's taxed. And that tax from your backpack should go to help pay for... Or binoculars.

They're not rolled in. No, they're not, are they? Rifle scopes, I think, are. But I don't think binoculars. It doesn't catch binoculars. But when I say backpack tax, I don't mean like, let's just say... I don't mean like specifically backpacks. But like taxes on other stuff to help flood money.

But I think people bring up as people who have a strong voice that already have a seat at the table. And if you like hunt and fish, you typically, some states, I wouldn't say this is true, but generally, if you hunt and fish, you have a big seat at the table. Your needs are being heard. That by bringing in other payers, that people think that these other payers are going to come with expectations. So those people think of it as a pie, and there are only so many slices. And so they're not going to want more people there because then their slice gets a little thinner.

The pie being how much attention can be paid to your needs. Yeah. But I don't think of it as a pie. I mean, you can look at it that way, and I get it. And I think we have to pay attention to that. So fish and wildlife agencies, I think we need to do everything we can to provide the best service we can to the people who pay. Absolutely. And if we could grow capacity, then we could pay better attention to some of the other species. And that funding could help there. So I don't, you know, I can, I appreciate the worry of losing some power or influence on the decisions.

But I think that looks at it as a pie instead of realizing actually that it's more than that. It's not a finite resource. It's something that if we had more money, we could build capacity and address other things as well and not let go of our traditional constituency. We still need to pay attention to them. The point isn't to move away from what we've always done. It's to build more. I think where that question becomes interesting is probably the last word you like to hear. It's wolves, right? Wolves.

Okay. So let's just say, let's say that. Do you have a howl? Do you add noises in it? No. Yanni can do an elk bugle in really far away, though. You ever heard this? He'll do it.

Can I hear it? Way off in the wind. That's good, isn't it? Sounds like he's like five miles away. It's sort of amazing. I can see the steam in the air. To hear it in real life is just remarkable. Sends chills up your spine. Oh, yeah. The hairs on the back of your neck.

But I don't think he can do it. Can you do a wolf way off, Yanni? No. Phil? Good job, Phil. Okay, take wolves. Now, let's just say. Thanks for picking an easy one.

Yeah. Take wolves. Let's say that there's a thing you have to buy. There's some enforceable way to do this, some hypothetical weird way in which you need a license to see a wolf. Okay? I don't know how you do this, but it just winds up being the same way you need a license to fish, you need a license to see a wolf. I don't know if I like where you're going. Hear me out.

Okay. So, and you say this license is 20 bucks, right? And all of a sudden you're selling hundreds of thousands of these Wolfsian licenses. Okay. And it becomes a big thing. And a big part of your budget comes from people buying Wolfsian licenses. At that point, at some point, there's going to to be this like i use the word reckoning earlier at some point there's going to be like this reckoning between big game like big game hunters who want

to see wolf i'm just speaking very generally i mean there are many folds within this but i would think it's it's safe to say that in general, big game hunters harbor some apprehensions about having two, what they would qualify as, too many wolves on the landscape because it can be detrimental to deer and elk hunting because it can lead to declines in deer and elk. That's an argument they would make. Other people would argue that it doesn't really matter, let nature play its course, blah, blah, blah, and we shouldn't have any harvest of wolves and there should just be as many wolves out there as possible. Now, the minute that if you have a wolf viewing license, all of a sudden you're going to have,

you'd have like this paying constituency of people and you would probably feel a pressure to maximize wolf sightings. Because the same way people feel pressure now to have a lot of deer and elk out to satisfy guys like me. Like, can you imagine a situation like this where having more payers come in with more opinions that you would, where it winds up being that there is a battle? It's not like the pie gets bigger and bigger and bigger? Well, we already get those opinions now.

I mean, they may not be paying, but we get all those opinions anyway. Yeah, yeah. And most species are managed now. I mean, a lot of species are conservation dependent or require some kind of – Explain that term. That's an interesting term. Well, just that we as humans have intervened on behalf't spent so much time and money trying to recover them. Yeah, that's a really good point. That's an interesting point because I think that some people fail to see that.

They feel that those are there in the absence of action. Right. No. I'm really aware of – I like that, conservation dependent. It's there because someone's paying to have them of. Yeah, that's a good point. I like that, conservation dependent. Is there because someone's paying to have them there? Well, yeah, we've managed, we have, you know, we've touched them in some way. And wolves, right? You know, I mean, we reintroduce them, not we, not Fish, Wildlife, and Parks,

because I've had somebody point their finger in my chest, furious about me reintroducing wolves. And I think, yeah, yeah, to take, I can't take credit for that. I'm not quite that old, but anyway. I think real quick, I just want to tell you, that was an idea that was initiated at the federal level. Yes. And to varying degrees, the impacted states were – Responded.

Yeah, were brought in and it all happened. It was something that came from the federal level. Did not come from a state. Yeah. And states either had to, like, figure out how to work with it or there was no option to not figure out how to work with it. Right. It was happening. So you have species that we've helped recover. And then, you know, obviously the species that we have seasons on are allowed to take. There's some management there. So we just have had a hand

in so many species across the landscape. Think of fish and think of water and returning, you know, in-stream flows or habitat, you know, the whole point of habitat conservation. We've just had a hand in a lot of that. So where am I going with that? Just it's complicated, first of all. And the science is complicated and the social pieces are complicated. I don't see the ability, you know, were you to have a wildlife viewing license, which I question that because it's a public resource. But there are some. Yeah, there's a license you got to get.

There's like the McNeil bear viewing area up in, I can't remember, up in Katmai or somewhere. You got to like buy, you got to like apply for a tag to look at bears. To go in and see them. Yeah, to go into the area. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So. But that's more of a, it's an access thing.

Yeah. It's not like you're buying a license to look at it. It's access to, yeah. You're getting a permit to go, let's say, just like you got to get a permit to float to Grand Canyon, right? Yeah. So it's not a rock viewing license. It's a permit – You're getting a permit to go – just like you got to get a permit to float to Grand Canyon, right? Yeah. So it's not a rock viewing license. It's a permit to float to Grand Canyon.

Right. I mean, you know, if we were to play this out too, when we get so much pressure in certain places, that might happen. You know, how many people do you want to – when you love a resource to death, can that happen. So say you even have that kind of input, you're still, I can't imagine a day when state fish and wildlife agencies don't need hunters to help manage a species. I don't want, I wouldn't want to make our staff, our employees go out and be the – I mean, I remember the days of the firing squad of bison coming out of Yellowstone versus having hunters do it. So I don't see – just playing it out, I don't see hunting going away for a number of reasons, but one is that management aspect. And I think it'd be ugly to have firing squads instead of having that opportunity to be outside. And also the sustainability point.

What's in your freezer? I have elk in my freezer, and I don't typically buy meat. And I think many people who hunt and live in Montana, they hunt in part for that. They hunt for the experience, but they also want the food. Do you guys then always strongly advocate like pro hunting or, or I guess not so much that you'd be advocating pro hunting, but when it seems like lately, every time we have a, uh, an opportunity, there's like an anti-trapping bill that seems to come up, right? Yeah.

So they're probably not a huge part of that $50 million that comes in, but there's some. Yeah. And some people look at it like that's just the edge. And if that goes, then the next thing is bow hunting or whatever. Yeah. So does FWP always stand at that front line and try to protect that? Yeah, that depends who you ask. I would say many trappers would argue we don't enough.

The anti-trapping people would say we do too much. I think it's a balance that's not easy. We support trapping as a harvest heritage. We support trapping, and I don't think we don't want it to go away as a part of our heritage. At the same time, I don't think we should be too far out on the front line there because we're not set up to be an advocacy organization. An example is when there's like a trapping initiative, it's against the law for our agency to take a stance on an initiative. We don't step into that political fray.

But I remember when they were, a few years ago, there was a public vote out of a referendum, and it was to ban trapping on public land. Right. And I feel like it was someone within Fish and Game who was talking about, we don't have the money to deal with all of the beaver complaints that would happen if people couldn't trap beavers? So that was before I was director. Yeah. But I think we got challenged actually on a piece of, I think it was like a trailer or something. We got challenged on going too far in advocacy toward trapping.

Is that right? So someone pointed out like, that's not your job, stay out of it. Not you specifically, but someone within the agency. Yeah. So we have a furbearer trailer that we loan to trapping groups to help do education education on trapping and the circumstance was this trailer was being used by a trapping group that was also at the time where they were using the trailer they were also have they were also uh advocating in opposition to this uh ballot initiative and so the we were we were challenged because we because they looked at us as having- Playing politics. Right.

And so as soon as the specifics of that, as soon as we found out that we were in that sort of area of conflict, we just took the trailer back. But that wasn't enough to ward off a lawsuit. So we could provide facts. Yeah, but in that situation, you can't. So let's say there's a trapping ban situation. You can't come out and say, you can't come out to voters and be like, I can tell you one thing, fish, wildlife, and parks don't like it.

That's really. Not if it's an initiative. And that's a statute. So I don't know if that's different in other states, but that's the way it is in Montana. You just got to roll with it. But at the moment, we do say we think trapping is an important part of our harvest heritage, and the harvest heritage comes from the Constitution. That's why we say it that way. Gotcha.

Because it sounds like a very buzzy word thatzy word, but it would be like cool to say these days, but you're saying that it's been, that's been written in there. Yeah. So, but what you raise though, is a really good question on what's the department's role when, um, we see societal changes and when, you know, perceived ethics of trapping or a certain method of take or when there's a shift, what is our role and how do we play into that? And I don't have a good answer to that, but I think you've hit something that we totally have to pay attention to. We know our educational programs are really important, trapping education, hunter education. Aquatic ed. Aquatic ed. All the parks, we do a lot of education in our parks.

So, I mean, you know, there's a role for education and continuing this sort of heritage piece. And education doesn't count as direct advocacy. Well, and it doesn't matter. It's the statutes specific to like ballot initiatives or something like i mean so we we do we provide the so this trailer this trapping trail for bear trailer we talked about that we we loan that out all the time and we provide grant money to um i think it's the montana trappers association as a group to help with some of their educational programming so we do on that in that, we are supportive of that on all sorts of different fronts. It's the, when there's a ballot initiative specific, and it's just come up in the last

few years with the trapping initiatives, that's where we don't take a stance. We're prohibited by law to take a stance. And I think that's, to your point, I think that's what raises some people's frustrations. They say, well, you're the agency that licenses this activity. You should be advocating for it. Right. But then you're, say, an issue can hit a certain point where it hits whatever in its process of enactment where you're like, at that point, you got to be like, my opinion is now stepping away.

And you know what? I feel like that happens all the time, too, when someone doesn't like something we've done or they don't like what we haven't done, where we're quiet. It's really hard to explain to people what our sideboards are to say, we can't do that. And I'm thinking like with bear management now, I'm thinking of when we say when a legislator says I'd like you to spend Pittman-Robertson. It's really hard to describe those things. That's where the engaged public, they're passionate. That's awesome. But sometimes they don't believe us when we say, well, we can't do that under the Endangered Species Act

or we can't do that under Pittman-Robertson. But we can do this. So that's just, you know, the nature of our work. Yeah. You know, seldom does someone come up to me and say something like, you know who does a hell of a job? Oh, Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. I mean, when I put gas in my car at the gas station I get lots of comments

often people are like tearing it up great job I find myself in a situation where I do try to I do try to talk not just you guys specifically but everyone I try to say like all in all when I step back and sort of look at the country

all in all I feel like fishing game agencies are like, that system works. I mean, there's some wrinkles here and there, but I mean, generally, everybody can go hunting and fishing, you know, like in very like broad general points. Like something's functioning well. And there's mechanisms where you can come and file your complaints. But in terms of like no one does anything right, do you guys feel like you should be able to take a victory lap about wolves now? Because like none of the –

Well, I think it's working. By and large, it's working pretty well. They're not all gone. They didn't go back extinct. Right. People aren't super frustrated because when they got to like stand helplessly by and watch them slaughter all their cows out by the haystack. It's like, do you get to go like, ha, told you.

No. No. No, we never get to do that. No, I mean, I think we should celebrate recovery when they're, yeah, you can celebrate it. But no, I don't think it's ever, that's a mistake people make, I believe, with the Endangered Species Act. Where certain species, they view it as a switch. Like they're not enough and then all of a sudden we're okay and you can walk away. I don't think wildlife listens to a power switch, you know, that it's okay one day and not okay the other day and then okay again.

It's part of a continuum. So is it a success that we're celebrating? Yes. But has our work ever done? No, because there are plenty of people who would like to have fewer wolves in Northwest Montana, and yet there are people around Yellowstone who use wolfwatching as an important economic driver. I would like to see more. So we're not naive enough to think that our work is done. You're never like, got it. Permanent. Yeah.

Got it. We can learn from good things. I'll promise not to bring up wolves anymore. Oh, it's okay. I only say that because not that you have a problem with me bringing them up, but I imagine it's just like, it's one of those things that probably, if you imagine how many, like Matt, we talked earlier about how big a piece of pie is. Yeah. If I imagine

your brain as a chunk of pie, the wolf slice is probably big. Well, the elk slice is big. Oh, what's bigger, the wolf slice or the elk slice? Well, it depends on the year. Depends on the year, but I feel like when I go talk to landowners, like I can go talk to landowners about wolves or bears, and they'll pull me aside and they'll say, listen, what I really want to talk to you about is elk.

So if you imagine like where your sort of thoughts, like if you imagine there's this pie and it's your head and there's the wedges represent different animals. Yeah. And I'm not saying this is what you wish you could think about, but it's like when it all said and done and all the things you got to look at and consider. Grizzlies, wolves, elk are big, huge pieces of pie. They are. And they're like the whole pie. Budget, personnel, fish. No, it's only animal pie.

Climate change, aquatic invasive species, disease, chronic wasting disease. So you're not willing to just have it be an animal pie. I'm not. There's all these other things in there. Listen, I wish it was only an animal pie. The harder things sometimes are the human pieces of the pie. There was a commission meeting just six weeks ago where a chunk of the meeting was on, a good chunk, was on kind of a trout versus walleye debate. Oh, and it was as animated as our meetings can get. People are getting riled up. Okay, give me the...

They're getting riled up. Give me real quick. What are the... Thanks, Chris. Lay it out for me. What are the... Are we talking cutthroats or are we talking other...

So, are we talking introduced rainbows versus introduced walleyes? What are we talking about? Well, so it was the Upper Missouri River Reservoir Plan where we have a multi-species system that includes a very healthy walleye fishery and a very healthy rainbow trout fishery. Oh, so it's rainbow V walleye.

Well, it wouldn't be- How would you balance them or not? Oh, walleye. Yeah. The wouldn't be... How would you balance them or not? Oh, walleye. Yeah. The rainbows aren't from here anyways. It's just one introduced species versus another. At least one's better to eat. I don't know.

These are native. So do you... Oh, no. Or is walleye... Well, so the people who showed up think that walleye is native. Sure. Yeah, there's no way that one didn't come up that river high enough. So are you on the side of the debate that walleye are a Montana native?

Let's just say, okay, do I think that historically walleye were coming up the Missouri far enough to hit Montana? I mean, of course, come on. Fish do wild stuff, right? Fish turn up. I mean, you have a wolf from the UPM Michigan that winds up down in Missouri. So did like a wolf wind up there? I mean, did a walleye wind up there? How about the upper Missouri watershed, though?

I don't know how high up. Well, they couldn't. One got lost and went way the hell up there? Sure. Well, so historically, from what our research has, or not ours, but I mean the research we've collected and looked at, the Great Falls was a barrier. So above Great Falls was a cutthroat, West Slope cutthroat fishery, which is kind of cool. But, you know, with dams and everything else, I mean, there's no doubt that we have some spectacular walleye fishing in the upper Missouri reservoirs. But so the multi- And, not but.

Can I talk more about what I want to clarify what I think ought to happen. If it's walleye v. cutthroat, cutthroat win. Because they're a native fish. Super native fish and imperiled. And to some extent. Walleye v. rainbow, I'm just going to go with walleye because I like them better.

Yeah. Well, so the, so the, so the balance that we do is we manage for both of them. Mm-hmm. So in this one, we try not- Trying to keep everybody happy. We're trying not to pick winners and losers and throw in the mix the perch fishery, which is really important to the, to the, both the walleye and the rainbow fishery. Okay. And so we, so there's a lot of going, there's a lot of moving parts in that upper Missouri reservoir plan, but right downstream of the last dam is the fabled

Missouri blue ribbon trout fishery, the tailwater fishery where know where uh up until this this meeting we were it was a unlimited take on walleye because there was just no we didn't want any walleye in that and that's where the the heat got into the room was trying to you know the passion on both sides of the fishery debate. Man, that's an interesting point because there's a thing where you can use set lines in the

lower Yellowstone. It's a great way to catch catfish. I've heard that now, you talk about all the different people getting mad at each other. I heard now there's catfish guys who are gunning for set lines because the set liners catch all the catfish so it's not even walleye guys v rainbow guys it's like catfish guys v catfish guys everybody's so everybody's duking it out right martha they all write you letters. Fan mail. So, there's a little piece of that that I find funny, odd, that we're fighting.

It's a, another way to put it would be – that's not – I probably shouldn't say that. No, no. Go ahead. American model, the Pittman-Robertson Act, where they're depleted resources. Now we have a lot of resources and we're fighting over them. And I just sometimes think we miss the big picture of we should all – we have more in common than we're willing to let on. You know what day my kids fight? And we're picking at the little things. My kids fight the worst on? Yeah. About 10 a.m. Christmas morning.

Yeah. The riches inspire. There you go. There you go. Then they got something to fight over. Who got what? And I'm not discounting it. The living room's drowned in toys and they turn on each other.

The witching hour. Yeah. Loving it to death okay talk about what what do you mean what does that mean well what does it mean to you loving it to death what would mean to me would be what happens in uh what would mean right now would be like what happens during archery elk season in Colorado. Pretty much every season in Colorado is love to death. Because so many people want to go, and they want to go and have the experience, and the state's like, hell, come on out. And it makes it that it just creates what a over it creates what i would feel like an

overwhelmingly negative thing and by trying to participate in something that's supposed to be great all of those people participating in it diminishes and cheapens it and makes it not special um i think that that colorado elk are... But they're being loved to death by other user groups as well. Yeah, I know. Big time. Maybe even more than too many archery hunters. I feel like a lot of archery hunters

certainly worsens your experience out there. But when we talked with Bill bill andre from the colorado parks and wildlife you know he's talking about um just hikers and backpackers and mountain bikers that are in the mountains 24 7 365 days a year there is no off season there is no shoulder season there anymore um i lived there 10 years ago and just now I was back this year and just, you know, trailheads that would have a car or two or maybe none at certain days of the week. Now, every single day of the week, all the time, there's overflow parking for every single trailhead and those animals just do not get a break anymore. Yeah. Um, so that's a form of love and death.

Yeah, I'd say so and then the love and the death of i think just like the like the amazing number of non-resident uh hunters of the state lets in i'm saying that from a non-resident so so that'd be loving it or here let me give you another love and to death because here's what i want to talk about like a river for instance when i go down there's a river near here the madison oh i've never heard of it um in the old days when i was a young man um i don't know some people around the river but now you go down there on a saturday in the summertime and it's like it's like a parade and you're talking even like inflatable swans i mean it's like a parade have you you taken your kids down and done that? No, hell no.

I wouldn't take them to do that. You can rent those inflatable swans. I've even seen inflatable mattresses. I remember one time seeing those metal watering troughs. I've seen a metal watering trough in Missouri Missouri on a 4th of July weekend. Yeah. Not to be crude, but at a certain point, is the amount of urine in the water that's produced by all those floaters, does it start to hurt the fish? Does it? It depends on if there's an offset with beer.

Can beer offset the impact of urine? So we got this situation where you have this river and everyone wants to go there and they want to float down the river. And someone might look and say, what was special about this, right? That it was like a way to, it's this naturally scenic, it's beautiful. You can drift down this river and kind of visualize yourself getting lost in time it's this landscape that just from a cursory look um carved yeah it could be like i don't know i'm here 500 years ago like if i was here 500 years ago it'd probably kind of be like this you know

and it's special and people go there but then one day so many people go there that now it doesn't do what it did. Now it's just a circus. So like, like whose responsibility is it to police this? Is it anyone's who's supposed to say like, Hey, now some of you can't go because because we're just going to let a couple people go and it'll be special to them and everyone else stay home. Well, let me ask that back. Who do you think ought to have a say in who should police it and what that would look like? I mean, I would just look to, that's a good question. The constituents.

Yeah. What are the constituents? You're even talking about different land, like different land ownership stuff. Yeah. Well, let me back up. So when I talked about fish, wildlife, and parks, you know, what is our job? Our mission is to steward fish, wildlife, parks, recreational resources for today and for future generations. And then as we've gone around the state and talked to a number of people and went through a whole process internally to figure out, like, what does that really mean? And that our charge is to protect the integrity of the Montana experience outside. So we're not Colorado right now. We're not Utah. We're not other states. What is the Montana experience and how would we protect the integrity of that experience? So that's what our charge is.

So I would argue it is our job to look at that, whether it's the experience of hunting, it's the experience of trails on lands we manage, and it is the experience on the Madison. So I believe we do have a role in it. And there's a statute that directs us to address social conflicts on rivers. Now- Oh, is that right? Yeah. Like a specific thing to like fight out social conflicts on rivers.

Yeah. And I remember on rivers, I remember seeing- Man, they didn't forget anything, did they? You could go back to the legislative history on that. I was sitting in the legislative hearing the day that language got added into that statute. And I remember I was like this fresh lawyer. I didn't, you know, I was somewhat new to the process. You came out of a law background.

Yeah, and I thought that day, you know, I was somewhat new to the process. You came out of a law background. Yeah. And I was, I thought that day, I thought, whoa, what is that going to mean? That's a good thing or it's hard? So we do have that responsibility. Now, how we apply it is super tricky. And I would argue the best way to apply it is to go through some sort of robust public process where we do hear from everyone. You hear from, you know, if we're talking about the Madison, you hear from the people who live in Annis, you business owners, the people who live there and don't own a business, Virginia City, Nevada City, people who live in Bozeman, non-residents. I mean, think of all the different people who use the Madison. And I don't believe that we can turn back the clock on what's happening there. I think that's tough.

But we can certainly think about what's happening now and look to the future. It's not easy, but I mean, I look at the Smith River. I look at other rivers that are permitted. Do we want to do that? Greg and I were talking about it. Do we want the same experience on all of the rivers? Like, should the Boulder River or the Yellowstone be the same as the Madison? Yeah. I think we have to listen to the public and go through, and we have here, but go through a really public process and sort through that collectively without us stepping in and dictating it. My opinion here doesn't matter. It's what collectively we do. But at some point, because right now we're just talking

about all the user experiences, at some point when you had to step in and say, yeah, well, we have to be the voice for the habitat and all the things that live in it and on it. Yes. And to date, and I mean, this is all part of what's going on. I think the people who don't want to see Fish, Wildlife, and Parks or the commission to step into this, the issue on the Madison, because to date there has not been a biological impact. There hasn't been an impact on the fisheries. I think we're seeing that. We're starting to see that. And in the next year or so, I'll be really curious. I do think it's our job to get that data and understand that better. So-

I want to just clarify this for folks. No, you're doing a bang up job and I'm probably going to, I'll be accused of like, someone will say like, oh, you're telling the obvious. So, we're looking at, we're talking about two different things where you have a river. Yes. Okay. And the river has too much boating traffic. You could be invited in to police the experience. And that's one thing. So you talk about, you have the ability to monitor like social stuff, meaning like in the absence of it being fish habitat or whatever.

Right. Just like that you can monitor like what kind of experience, is it crowded or not crowded? But then there's another avenue of approach into this question where you could be in a situation where no one has any problem with the crowding. Everyone loves the crowding. They wish there was more crowding. But it turns out the fish don't dig it. And at that point, you also have legal authority on. So that's that mix of the biological science and social science. I would argue, you know, biological science is critical. It should be the underpinning. We also have learned we need to pay attention to social science too. There are very few things I

think we deal with that doesn't have some social impact. Sure. That's good. I'm glad we're so linked to the natural world. Yeah, that's a good thing. You mentioned the Smith River. So there's a river. There's a very isolated, very wild river called the Smith River. Quintessential Montana.

Yeah. People do multi-day floats on it. And you got to draw a permit to go float the river. It's not like you don't go down there for an hour. It's like you get a permit, you do a float. It's a commitment. Yeah, you do a river trip. Could you imagine, is there a way to have a version of a permit system that you need to get a permit to go float in a tube for an hour?

I mean, I'm all for it, but I mean, like, is there a way to do that? I don't know. First come, first serve? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what could it look like? I guess I don't know yet. I mean, this is somewhat new territory for us, and we've not had – I sound bureaucratic here, but it's the truth. We haven't had the capacity and the money to put the work into getting – studying this better and setting up a good system to address.

It just hasn't come up yet. Well, it's come up, but it's not popular, and we haven't had the support to really plan it out. But if you think about the Smith River, the precursor to – and I'm not saying that we want to permit all rivers. I'm not at all going there. A lot of them don't need it. Right, right. And we wouldn't want that. I mean, you know, because then people aren't getting outside and experiencing it and then loving something else too because they got to grow up going on the river or whatever.

But the Smith River, first there was a study of the resources. There was a study of use and resources on the Smith River that led to permitting there. And so what I'm saying, I think, is we're getting pushed river by river to address conflict, whether it's on the West Fork of the Bitterroot or on the Madison. You know, people are coming to the agency to say, we want you to address this. I am saying I would love down the road to be able to look at it across the state holistically so that we realize that if we do something on the Madison, how might that impact the Yellowstone? Or when we had regulations on the Beaverhead and Big Hole, how did that impact the Madison? And making sure we have all sorts of different kinds of opportunity. So we're not saying every opportunity, every river

has to be the same. I'm not arguing that. Well, and I think on the Madison is a really unique spot sort of because that lower river is so, the experience during the summer months is so much geared toward that sort of non-consumptive crowd. Not that they don't consume, because they do, but we don't permit people. You mean like the bird watchers and the riparians? No, the partiers, man. The partiers. They're consumptive in a different way. But they, but we.

Yeah, they use up years of my life. The ones in the inflatable swans. The ones in the inflatable swans. But on a given summer weekend, summer Saturday, there may be thousands of people on that lower stretch of river. And there's businesses in Bozeman that serve that crowd. That value, that use isn't the primary debate that comes to us. The primary debate that comes to us is on the upper river.

And it's on the commercial outfitting versus the weight angler versus the non-commercial outfitted user or the non-guided user. And so that's where right now that the debate is the hottest. Hold on. You're saying that on a river, on on this river there's more of a debate around people arguing between who's got a guide and who's waiting from the beach and who's in a boat but not with a guide like they're duking it out more than who's here to party and who's here to fish well think of if you think about it first for like kind of how it gets to us like there there isn't the constituent that that buys a six-pack of pbr and and a black inner tube and hops in and floats

down the river and his cutoffs he doesn't show up at the public meeting yeah they don't have like a he's not like in the montana tubers. Right. That's right. And truthfully, this comes to the commission in a formal petition. So that already weeds people out. Who's going to bring a petition for the commission? But if you think about it. Yeah, I like to drink beer and float and I'm starting a group. Right. Now you haven't shown up yet. But if you want that sort of solitude experience, wade fishing like up at $3 Bridge, you know, that the salmon fly hatch is on.

You've hiked down the river two miles. You've got this couple of holes you're going to fish. You want that solitude. You've earned it. You've put in the time. You've done everything everything right and then you have a whole bunch of people floating by you're you might your dissatisfaction with your experience that that is where that opinion is what's coming to us now also the you know and

chamber of commerce the you know the outfitters Chamber of Commerce, the, you know, the Outfitters and Guides Association. We're hearing from those groups saying, you know, hey, you can't, if you're going to, you got to be really thoughtful if you're going to limit how many outfitters. Because we like selling stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know what, you know what, you know what group you're going to regret you ever heard of? Who? When we get, we're going gonna start the Rocky Mountain squirrel foundation

and you want to talk about having to be in your bonnet man more squirrels you guys don't they don't manage squirrels well the isn't I mean I believe I'm stepping out but aren't those foxtail squirrels? They're invasive. Foxtail? Foxsquirrels. Foxsquirrels? No, I don't think so. I think they came up. You think they came up?

I came up the corridor. They rode the backs of the walleye right up there. They rode on walleye. Here's the thing though, man, to be honest with you, I don't want there to be, it's counterintuitive. I don't want there to be a formal season and a formal bag limit. Cause I feel that if there was people would be tuned into it. Like the minute you make it a thing,

like you remember how like people used to just go and like, you might go fishing and maybe shoot something too. Right. And just, that's just what you did. And that could happen. Then all of a sudden something came up with the term like, Ooh,

let's do a cast and blast. And all of a sudden you like put a name to something and you turn it into something. So I think like if people open up the reg term like, ooh, let's do a cast and blast. And all of a sudden you put a name to something and you turn it into something. Right. So I think if people open up the regs and they see rules about squirrels, they're going to get all interested. I'd rather, I like it that there's just no mention of it. And then

it doesn't become like a thing. But what I'd like to see is more of them dropped off here and there. Like a lot more money into doing- Rest and rotation to give them a break. Just bucket biology on squirrels, man. I hate no bucket biology. That's just a stance we got to make.

Yeah, you just got to put your foot down. Okay. We talked about loving it to death and what like- And it's interesting to know that you were actually- There's a mandate. An agency could have a mandate to regulate people's social fighting what do you feel so this is a whole new topic i want to ask you about um earlier we talked about like who owns wildlife right we talked about it really matter of fact

like oh everybody knows that wildlife is owned by the people. What are, what do you imagine being threats to that? And I know that for you to use the word threat is going to put you in trouble because you're sort of, there's a value judgment with calling it a threat. Like what are the, like what do you see as emerging challenges to this thing that we're just accepting at face value as being like everyone agrees that wildlife is a public that wildlife is publicly owned um but as you pointed out not everyone agrees with that or they understand that it's always been that way but they would like to see that change

there's a group I'm trying remember to remember, what's the Utah group? Sportsman. They come up with... Sportsman for Wildlife. Yeah, there's a group of Sportsman for Wildlife. It's one of those, this is me talking, not like I want to save you guys any kind of... I'm talking right now. I haven't consulted.

Our guests are sitting silently. But yeah, I don't want to say that group. There are, sometimes you'll see a never mind different states handle it differently yeah so sports I couldn't even be wrong but I feel like sportsmen for wildlife I believe

that that organization would like to see would like to see individual landowners enjoy sort of a greater ownership, speaking very generally, they would like to see the landowners enjoy a greater ownership of the animals that are on their property, meaning they're not comfortable entirely with the idea that it's public. And it'd be like, if you own the land, you should be able to have more say in what goes on on it. I'll point out, we've told a story before, but this whole thing comes from a long time ago.

There was a Supreme Court decision among other things where there was a guy and he owned some land on the beach and people would pick oysters, would collect oysters off the beach. And the guy was like, Hey man, um, you can't pick those oysters up. Those are, I own the oysters cause I own the land. I own the oysters. And, um, and he traced back his ownership of these oysters to some like land grant from the king of England. So he's like, thereby, it's my land, my wildlife. And eventually goes to the Supreme Court. And it's determined that with the Declaration of Independence, those things that belong to the sovereign,

like those things that belong to the king, became the property of the people. I'm doing this like very shorthand version therefore you don't own the oysters sorry like the king gave them to you but not anymore we're done with that stuff now now we're america and we have this new idea which is public wildlife it's not like in europe where you you know the king's deer deer. How do you, cause I know you earlier you were saying you have, you're not able to advocate or you need to be more like a passive bystander as an agency.

On an initiative. On an, okay. What about something like this? Can you like, are you able to flex some muscle and stand up for public wildlife or do you just have to be like whatever way the wind blows? If that's the question, well, I mean, I think it's the law. I think it's the public trust in wildlife is embedded in the fabric of our country.

It's embedded in, you know, think of people love public lands, public wildlife. It's part of why we have some of the species diversity and abundance that we have. So it's not advocating for a certain point of view because it's a fact of life. It is what it is right now. I got you. Certainly in Montana. Now, Utah, wildlife is monetized more than in Montana where a landowner can get landowner tags or whatever.

And there are certainly people who are interested in that happening in more places in the country. I have learned in being director, I mean, there are lots of things that I've had to learn them, and I think we should make them spoken about what we think is different in Montana than, say, in Utah or Colorado and some of our neighboring states. And I say that to learn that because if our job at Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks is to protect the integrity of the Montana outdoor experience, to protect that, we need to know what might be different here than elsewhere. And I think we, as people, as citizens, whether a citizen of Montana or a citizen somewhere else,

as hunters, anglers, certainly as managers, I think we need to understand how we got to where we are, that it wasn't by happenstance. The fact that we have this equitable opportunity in Montana, the fact that wildlife is truly public, that we haven't monetized it, the fact that we have the experiences to rivers and across the state that we do, it's on purpose. It was all, you know, it's part of that North American model. It's part of our system. And if we don't understand that and we don't understand what makes it different and special

compared to somewhere else, how do we make sure that continues? So I feel like it's my job to be not necessarily advocating, although I think I'm comfortable here because there's not an initiative or something. This is what we've developed as a state, and I think that makes a state special, it's my job to pay attention to what that is and be explicit. If we're going to deviate from that and change it, we need to understand what that difference would mean. So if we were to privatize wildlife and if we were to allow, give, change what we have now, where landowners are treated like anybody else, it's an opportunity state where landowners don't have any rights to wildlife, much different than the general public or a license holder. If we were to change that, what would that mean? And we certainly could as a state, but I think we need to understand what we have in place now, what makes it special, before just saying, okay, it's all right to change that. Because I think when you, as you've said, it's hard to put a genie back in the bottle. You know, when you change something or you allow, you give somebody a right, it's a whole lot harder to take that right away than to just not give it to them to begin with or to do it incrementally. So I think in this instance, what makes the experience in Montana pretty special, we better be careful at saying, oh, it's fine to change that without really understanding what we're doing. Does that make sense?

No, it does. Without inviting people to understand. The foundation. Yeah. Someone's like, why don't we have more landowner tags? You can say, we could. We could, but we haven't. We could, but let's look at how we came to sort of the like foundational principles that led us to be that we like democratic allocation.

Right. And I also think it's really fair to realize like that people realize how important it is that we do have this public trust in wildlife, that everybody has a piece of this. 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. Whew! Our northern brothers

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the on x hunt team some of our favorites are first light schne Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. It's complicated enough where I have purchased and hunted off of landowner tags. When we talk about landowner tag, I just want to tell people what a landowner tag is. A landowner tag would be that in whatever particular game management unit or wherever you're at, they might be the people who own X number of acres deserve to get some, like, payback for them owning land that has animals on it. So if you own 4,000 acres, they're going to give you two deer tags.

Everybody else needs to try to apply for a tag and win at a drawing. And then in some cases, you can take your two deer tags and sell them. And that wasn't in Montana. No, no, no, not. Right. You can sell them to the highest bidder. They're just yours to have. And then you get them that way just by the simple fact of owning land, you get tags.

And then other people get them the good old-fashioned ways. What I'm saying is I've bought and have been given landowner tags in other states. And even with that, even having done that, I still am a little bit like not sure how I feel about them. I remember we had a podcast guest on one time

that has a place on the coast. Has a place on the California coast. And he didn't say this when we interviewed him, but he had said it elsewhere. He lives in a house on the beach. And he says, I don't even think you should be able to have a house on the beach, but I'm going to stay in mine until it's illegal. Then I will happily move out once I know that someone else's isn't going to move into it.

So like, I'm just pointing this out because like, I'm a guy. That's pretty magnanimous. Not everyone would say that. So I was like, I get them and I still get them. And I still a little bit like, I don't know, man, is this like the right thing? So what is the right way to go about that? Uh, that you are, um, that you're hunting the king's deer. Right? That's what eats at me about it.

That it's tags, and I guess I've had in my life through various ways, four landowner tags. Or the equivalent of landowner tags. Four times. And that it would be that I got those opportunities because of my connection to or my personal being like someone of means. And there was four opportunities that would have been distributed more equitably and more democratically to others so i went into the woods because of being a man of means or having relations that way

and other people stayed home because they're not right that eats at me but then you can also be like oh life ain't fair whatever like there's all kinds of ways to write it off. Hard-earned relationships. Yeah. There's like a way. You worked hard for those? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm like, I'm a good friend.

Right. So, yeah, man, it bounces around. And if I put in for a draw and like draw the tag, dude, I'm elated. Yeah. Guilt-free hunting. It's guilt-free hunting. Lucky duck. Yeah. So what I'm pointing, I'm not, you know what I'm elated. Yeah. Guilt-free hunting. It's guilt-free hunting. Lucky duck. Yeah.

So what I'm pointing, I don't even know what I'm getting at. I'm just getting at the idea that it's like, that there's these sort of ideas out there that I haven't even totally unpacked how I feel. You get us on a subject of governor's tags. Talk about some ambivalence. Right? I see both sides yeah well you know the interesting thing in Montana and not to get down on governor down the road on governor's tags but where we're at is and you know wildlife management is a is a complex situation that you know complex

field for us, obviously, but there's a lot of, but there's a lot of values at the table and there's a lot of interest at the table, including landowners. We don't get to, we don't get to just manage wildlife without sort of considering all those sorts of relationships and those partnerships. And we've talked about this a lot in, in, uh, uh, department recently is, it's critical.

Our landowner relationships are critical. I mean, there's a ton of habitat in Montana in square units of space, private land conservation is more important than public land conservation because more of the country is private land. Like if they all decided just to piss it all away, everyone's done. We're done. Like we can't have wildlife if private landowners decided that they didn't care about wildlife anymore and they're just going to destroy it all. Of course. Of course. And no one is suggesting that you should be forced

to allow access on your property like if you own land and there's animals on it you have right and no one can go no one can go right no one's questioning that what we're talking about is like do you own the wildlife by fact of you owning land, do you then get the animals too? Which is us, which would be giving something that didn't previously belong to you to you. Right? It's not like you're not riding momentum. It's a new idea. Like, that's the thing.

I feel like we often get accused of being down on – I own private land all the time, man. I have a lot of friends that – it's bad when people say that. I have a lot of friends that manage land specifically for wildlife and phenomenal stewards, and it's absolutely important. And we're really thankful to them. Yes, but – right? But do you get to own the stuff that's walking across it? So, and I think that sounds too much like one or the other. And while landowners definitely have the right to determine access on their land.

And they can determine if there's hunting at all. Oh, yeah, for sure. The piece that is often missing, and I'm going to, in my next director's message, or the one after that, talk about this more. I do think as an agency, we can do a better job of appreciating the conservation and access, the opportunities that happen on private land. Like you said, we could not manage wildlife and provide these opportunities without partnering with landowners. They're a critical piece, and we're really thankful for that. And so I think you're right. Sometimes when we talk about the public trust in wildlife, it gets too wrapped up in access and landowners letting people on

or not. And I think we need to do a better job of just saying private land is critical. They play a really important role, not only in the habitat for wildlife and specific wildlife species. They also, I think this, we've talked about this, they're facing these global economic forces where I really worry about losing long-term landowners on the landscape and losing their piece of these rural communities that are also really important for habitat and wildlife species and are important to this Montana way of life. So they're intertwined with what we do and should be. We had the writer Tom McGuane on the show, and he mentioned how when a ranch gets sold, biodiversity goes down. Yeah.

I'm totally worried about that. I think we should be doing all that we can to support these families that have been on the land for a long time. And we're seeing, right, a trend, at least in the Midwest, of family farms going under. That's going to spell trouble, I believe, for wildlife. Yeah, I feel. And water and rural community. I mean, all sorts of things. We had a conversation the other day about when a landowner enrolls in the block management program, which is a public access program. Yeah.

Where landowners get a small compensation. For the impacts. For letting people, yeah, a small, yeah, a small, I don't even know if you'd call it a payment, a small compensation for allowing public hunting access on their property. I was saying that I feel that I wouldn't want to make them uncomfortable, but one should really go up and give them a big hug. Yeah. Because it's like people would be like, oh, they're getting paid. It's like, listen, this is not.

They are not getting paid for the access. They're getting paid nominally for the impacts the public hunters make on their land. I was like, you should go up and clean their boots when you see them. And to have any sort of attitude that you have, that they're like, that you're doing them a favor or whatever by using the access program is the wrong way of looking at public access. You guys don't do this, but a lot of hunters get the landowners help them go retrieve their game. I mean, they're out there with the backhoe or they're really pretty darn helpful and encouraging.

Give them a hug and clean their boots. And send them presents if they are willing to allow public access through a state program like that. All right. What have I not asked you about that you're dying to talk about? Anything? No, I don't like to talk about myself. So let's see, what topics have we not covered? You skipped grizzly bears, but that's okay.

Yeah, we caught wolves a couple times. Okay. We rolled into that. Are you dying to talk about grizzlies? No, although I think that... Would you like to see your agency take... Would you... Oh, no, I just asked for this one.

Yeah, would you like to see your agency take over management from the feds? And the grizzlies go to state management? Sure, of course I would. Do you feel that you guys would just run them in the ground and they'd go extinct? No. No. We better not. You can't.

We can't. That's right. We can't. I think people forget that. It's our responsibility to make sure they stay recovered. Because they could go right back. No, we couldn't do that. We shouldn't.

No, I'm saying that if the states screwed it up. Could go back to the feds. They would be, right, shooting themselves in the foot. But I don't think. Whatever your motivations are, it wouldn't make any sense to have it go bad. No, no. I think it's just our responsibility. And I do think Montana's been really good at taking, I mean, wolves are an example where we've been measured in our approach.

Sometimes wish we were less measured, but it goes back to that switch. I don't think that one day they're listed and the next they're not, and you can go out and hunt them all. It's an incremental process. Do you like to do crystal ball kind of stuff? Never have. You get what you pay for. Well, I want to ask you, like you looking into a crystal ball. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

You get what you pay for there. Oh, meaning I'm not paying anything. Yes. Okay. Just to be clear, no, you're not paying me. Where are we at? Will grizzly bears fall to state? Will grizzly bears get pulled off the Endangered Species Act listing and become no longer threatened and get handed over to state management in five years?

Ten years? Someday. You think so? Yeah, someday. I do think so. I've asked that to the head of... Fish and Wildlife? Well, I've asked that to the

head of the Idaho Fish and Game. Oh, Virgil Moore. I asked it to the head of Wyoming's Fish and Game, and I asked it to the head of Montana's Fish and Game now. And we also asked the fellow that we had, I don't know if he's the head of the interagency.

Oh, interagency, Grizzly Bear Committee? Yeah. Matt Hogan? Yeah. I'm about to be chair of that. You're the only one I've asked publicly. You're the only one I've asked publicly. The other two I asked, I'm not going to tell you who gave what, but I got one no, one yes.

In 10 years, are grizzly bears going to be under state management? Yes. Really? Yes. Really? Yes. So I'm at two yeses and one no. Yeah, I feel like we're doing the best we can. So what I do want to talk about there is I firmly believe that the governor created this Grizzly Bear Advisory Council and it pulled – we got over 170 applications for 18 spots. And it pulled people from all over the state, different perspectives. And to me, that's how we solve issues in Montana.

That is something that where we do our best work, where it doesn't come to the department. It's not my opinion that matters or Greg's for that. It's this council where people get together and hash out some of the hard it with the science we are committed and we're getting montanans really engaged to help us figure out the best best path forward and i really do think that's the way you do it you don't have just the feds coming in and saying you do this or you don't do that. It's a collection where we try to figure out what makes the most sense in Montana. You know, I'm not going to ask you to comment on this, but it's a funny observation that all the work that went into Wolf delisting and it's going into Grizzly delisting now, there's all this work that happens. Yeah. And then people always litigate it in such a way that it winds up in the court in Missoula. Yes.

Because they know that the judge in Missoula will throw it out. It's like all this work and all this work. And you're like, yeah, but they still got the same person still sits in the federal court. And so until whatever, I don't know what happens, they retire. Oh, careful with me. I think that we can get it through him. And I say that because when I taught at the law school, the Wolverine litigation, I took my students, we read the briefs. We went to the oral argument. He issued his decision. He came to our class and explained his decision and like the good lawyering, the bad lawyering or whatever. And we got to listen and learn through the whole process.

So I still believe in the judicial system. We'll get it through. You think that that individual is actually doing their job and they don't just be like, I don't care how I do it, but I'm going to damn sure make that no one hunts a grizzly bear. I don't think that was in the decision. I think it's easy to bore his dogs. I think it was lurking around. Lurking around. But I don't want you to comment on that. I'm way off into like, you know, just hunches.

And I know you probably don't get to deal in hunches a whole bunch. I probably shouldn't. But also, doesn't it, do you feel that it largely depends too on just kind of like how, you know, we're going to have either continuation of the same administration in Washington or potentially a new administration in Washington. And these kind of like big things wind up being so much bigger than the state, right? Oh, yeah. Right? It'll kind of depend on whatever like high-level leadership. Do you think that a decision like this could wind up happening regardless of input from Washington, D.C.?

Yeah, I don't think that the change in administrations should have that much of an impact on the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision on whether to list or delist. Oh, is that right? They don't just make a call? No, they can't. They can't. You know what I always laughed about? I'm going to go back to you again to see if you got anything to add. But I always laughed about in New York, Bill de Blasio.

All the problems, like, you know, he becomes the mayor in New York. Like, everything that goes on in New York, you can imagine. All the issues, right? Not much. Yeah. Like, everything. Like, the subways, counterterrorism, and, you know, Russian oligarchs buying up real, like, whatever. All these issues.

And I remember Bill de Blasio wins, and he gets the thing. And one of his first actions as mayor is that what this city really needs is to not have carriage, horse carriage rides in central park because it's mean to the horses and i remember being like there's no way that that's something he natively thought of it was someone had said here man here's a bunch of like uh campaign money he didn't have a bad carriage ride but he's like he's like and then he wins he's like ah man i forgot now i gotta like do something about stupid carriage rides i promised someone i would do that like and so i i view that i can't help but view that when the next that that when the next presidential election happens that there's not someone planting in

someone's ear the idea that i will tell you one thing that cannot happen. We do not want to see those bears delisted. And that someone would, like, that they would apply some level of force in some weird hidden way. I don't have any doubt that someone might plant those seeds. But having worked. Yeah, I'm just a dumb ass talking. I mean, you have a legal background. I worked in the solicitor's office for the Department of the Interior on the Endangered

Species Act. Okay. So you're a subject matter expert. So put me at ease. We worked our tails off to not have – there was no political influence in our decision packages on listing or delisting. I know people don't believe that. No, no one's going to believe that. But we worked our tails off. You're looking me right straight in the eyeball telling me this.

And so – and I think you see that. There hasn't – there may have been a big shift in policy in Interior from administration to administration. But if you look at the many – the law is in play. There's think that's really the way it's set up. Other things, you bet. There's policy influence. But enlisting and delisting grizzly bears, I believe they're going to be delisted because Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, we are starting to work together. And I think a lot of people are coming together to make sure we've demonstrated for, if it goes to Judge Christensen, that everything's in place and we've adhered to what's required to delist them. I hope you're right. It's just how long, how long out? I believe it'll be done in 10 years. Done in 10 years. Yeah.

Oh, man. I'm going to go home and hug my kids. Why do you so much hope that she's right? Why do I hope that, are you asking why do I hope that grizzly bears get delisted? Yeah. Because I feel like it's an instance, it's twofold. One, I feel like it's an instance where people are weaponizing the Endangered Species Act, meaning it's beyond any conversation about what the endangered species act is supposed to be used for and what its function is and it's just being weaponized as a tool to get what you

would like to see happen and people are like they don't want there's people who do not want to see a grizzly bear and did not want to see a wolf get killed by a hunter. And they weren't debating anymore about whether or not the act had worked, whether or not we had achieved recovery objectives, whether or not the whole system did what it was supposed to do. It stopped being the debate. The debate became like, if they they delist there could be hunting so i will fight the delisting without articulating that that's why i'm doing it and they became all these proxies and so if we delist do you think it'll be less easy to weaponize and to continue i think it would

be that's why i said it's multifaceted. Because you have to take everything I just said with a grain of salt. Because I am personally biased for state management of wildlife. And I am uneasy with, this is me talking personally, personally biased towards state management and I'm generally uneasy with federal management of wildlife unless it's a case where we really need federal management to keep the species from becoming imperiled and going extinct. But in cases of just federal management, because it means that the states wouldn't be able to have a hunting season, I just think that that's a bastardization of what the whole thing's supposed to, how it's supposed to function. So my bias, I'm biased as a hunter. So I'm just pointing that out. Lest someone say everything you're saying about the Endangered

Species Act, you're just saying, cause you like to hunt. I'm like, yes, I like to hunt. And I don't like the ESA being weaponized. There's plenty of things that are not recovered that we, I would argue we should be spending tons of money and energy on saving. That's not one of them. Any way in which we spelled out what recovery would look like back in 1975, we've been there for 13 or 14 years now. Right? So, yeah. I'm going to go home and hug my kids based off of what I just heard.

I'm going to be like, children, it will be a beautiful world within a decade. Is that all fair what I said, Martha? I don't want to put you in an awkward position. No, no. I mean, I've already been on the record saying that I believe in the Endangered Species Act. I mean, I do. I also think, I personally think that grizzly bears are recovered because they've met their recovery goals. I think that the states, we actually, with grizzly bears, we are sharing in management with the Fish and

Wildlife Service and wildlife services now. I mean, no one entity is doing it alone. So we're already kind of there. We do not have a hunting season. And I think a hunting season is a red herring. I don't think that's the issue. The issue is recovery, long-term recovery of bears. You know, it is the issue. It is the issue. Did anyone sue against delisting bald eagles? Probably. I, man. I don't know, but probably. I mean, I say that in that most listing and delisting decisions get challenged by people who like them and don't like them above. Any decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist or delist a species is likely to get challenged from both sides.

I got you. Every one. I want to point, I want to go on record. It's inherent. That I love, like, love, love grizzly bears. Love, love, love them. Yeah. How come?

This is what I'm curious about. Because you know what? When I'm in places that don't have them and I'm wandering around, it feels like something's missing. Yeah. I like them. Everything about them. I like looking at them. I like being afraid of them. I'm wandering around, it feels like something's missing. Yeah. I like them. Everything about them. I like looking at them.

I like being afraid of them. I like everything. Do you like that you're no longer top dog when Chris is around? Absolutely. I love them. I'd like to see them in more places. I want to go on record saying that. I want to go on record saying I'm a staunch supporter of the Endangered Species Act.

In general, as a thing, is it always used perfectly? No. It's like, I'm in favor of having my kids live in my house. Are there parts of things I wish they would do differently? Yeah. But it's like, I want them there. I just wish they didn't- Weren't there all the time.

Yeah. I just pick up when they're done. I don't know. So it's like, yeah, I love it. It's fantastic. It'd be a worse country without it. But in this case, it's gotten a little silly. And just in my personal opinion, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. Well, yeah. And I mean, I agree with you in that I think the

Endangered Species Act is there for the species who really need it. And I'd like to be putting more time and effort into those species that really need it. And I think grizzly bears are so far in the continuum of being recovered that I would like to spend the time and money on another species, knowing just like wolves, it's not that switch. We're never done with managing grizzly bears and ensuring their long-term recovery and managing them for the people who live with them. So I think they're

biologically recovered. And yes, we're in the business of managing them for a long time to come. Okay, what else? Was there anything you're like, man, I wish this guy would ask me about? No. You said I didn't ask you about your, you don't want to be asked about your personal life. Well, it's boring. Where were you born? I was born on a farm in Maryland. Okay.

And you went to law school, obviously. In Missoula. Have you always been? Public lands law. Public lands law. That's why I went there. No kidding. Yeah.

So have you always worked in the public sector? Yep. Yep. You're never like an ambulance chaser? I probably should have been. My kids would like it maybe better. Yeah, yeah. But no.

No, I mean like you. You've always worked around land and wildlife issues. Yes. Yep. Yep. The land and being outside is just in my blood. It just was my way of giving back. What kind of farm did you grow up on?

Subsistence. We had steers, pigs, milk cow, chickens, wheat, corn, hay. I got you. Big garden. My parents are in their late 80s and are still running the farm. Is that right? Yeah. And they taught me, like we always knew when the swallows came in and left and would see the different times, you know, how that's changed over time.

My mom taught me all of the plants in the woods. We would sleep out in the rows of straw in the summer nights just out in the middle of the... I remember getting lost in a cornfield once because I was teeny and the corn was way above my head and my parents didn't know where we were. We were just running around in the cornfield. Yeah. Children of the corn, man. When you're a little kid, it's scary out in a cornfield, man. Yeah. They should have been worried. So what year did you move to Montana? I moved to Missoula to go to law school in 91, I think. And I spent my high school and college summers in Wyoming working on a ranch. Gotcha.

So it made me, I always loved the land, but was psyched to get away from the East Coast and just fell in love with public lands. And you got some kids mostly raised up. Yeah, and they're probably being friendly. Like at this point, whatever they're going to be, there's nothing you're going to do about it now. Isn't that scary? 17 and 19. But they're turning into really nice people. Congratulations.

I think. Good job. And they love outdoors. That's a good way, like, when you're all done parenting. You're never done. No, you're never done. I mean, like, a good thing would be, like, in the end, be like, how'd it go? Right?

To be like, you know, they're pretty nice people. Yeah. Because there are a lot of things that I did wrong. That should be the measure, right? Right. They're pretty nice. Let me tell you this one thing. They grew up on Adventure Points.

Have you ever heard of adventure points? No. So we had a board where if they added up their adventure points, we could get a certain trip. So like once when we were in Yellowstone on a really cold night, I mean, I think it was like minus 30 degrees. And I was like, if you – it was a New Year's. We went out cross-country skiing to ring in New Year's. And they're like, mom, it's freaking cold out. I'm like, you get 20 adventure points if we go out skiing to ring in the New Year.

They're like, yes! Oh, I'm adopting this. That was the best. And the only way they could trade them in was for the next adventure. That's great. Not for chocolate bars. No. Because that's what my girls would like to trade them in for.

You know, whatever you want. Think about the idea of being a nice person. My beloved sister-in-law was recently in a vehicle accident. Everybody's fine. She's fine. But someone else is at fault, and's in a vehicle accident. She's everybody's fine. She's fine. But someone else is at fault, you know, and they like crashed into her car and it turns out they don't have insurance. So I'm on the phone with her and, um, I'm like, why, you know, I guess you're gonna have to go

after this guy. What are you gonna do to go after him? And she's like, you know, he seems to have a lot of, um, problems right now. So that's not something I'm going to do. And she goes, in fact, I got to go because I'm supposed to give him a call and see how he's doing. Which kind of melted my heart, right? You know what I mean? Like, pretty nice person. It's okay to be a nice person, isn't it?

Not just wake up every day and be like, I'm going to make someone pay. Ouch. Maybe are we all like that because we like to be outside so much? I like to think that people like to be outside, but man, I don't know. Claude Dallas was outside all the time. We talked about him the other day. Anomaly. Outlier.

Yeah, I do. I have a lot vested. I a lot um in child raising um i've thrown down pretty hard like my whole thesis is sort of based around the idea that outdoor experiences um and all that goes with them, the people, everything, that that's a path toward parenting success. I hope I'm not wrong. Because if I'm wrong, I'm going to be real wrong. Shapes who you are.

Because I've really like pounded into them that that's important. So if that's screwed up, then I'm just going to have to rely on luck after that. Let's visit in 20 years. I hope we're all on some sort of similar path. Right, Greg? Yeah. I hope my kids are all nice. Yeah.

Nice and happy. Yeah. Yanni, what else you got? Yeah, I'm just thinking I got a wife's out of town tonight, so I got to cook dinner for them by myself and wrangle them into bed. Doing adventure points. I hope they're nice to me tonight. Oh, you got, I'm supposed to, I owe you like a night of babysitting.

You haven't redeemed. Oh yeah, we'll get to that. Real quick, I know that in the last couple, three years, I think we've been, as Montana's been selling out of non-resident tax, elk and mule deer. Yeah. That number is pretty much capped, right? For how many?

And it's until the commission decides to change it. It's statutory. No, it's statute. Oh. I just said term. It was a ballot initiative that capped it. And I can't remember what year that was so that'll stay at whatever what is it's like 11,000 or something like there's a

couple of numbers and it's 17,000 for deer elk combos so that the non-resident deer elk combos are capped at 17,000 and we we had a time where we weren't selling out because when they capped it, then that initiative raised. There was a year of sticker shot. Right, a couple of years of sticker shot. And so now, but we've been selling out the last three years. Yeah, and now we're selling them out sooner and sooner each year. But until another ballot initiative comes, that number will stay.

Or a legislative. I mean, the legislature could change that without a ballot initiative comes, that number will stay. Or a legislative. Yeah. I mean, the legislature could change that without a ballot initiative. No. With or without. I hope they can make it that it can't be changed. It can only be lowered. Constitutional.

But my question is, what are resident tag numbers doing? So the resident tags have been pretty steady. So unlike some states where the resident tags are going down or there are fewer people participating, in Montana, we've had steady participation. And we're also seeing, or we think, is that more of our license buyers are buying more types of licenses. Oh. So that's a good, I think that's a good sign. So all you ever hear about is declining hunting participation. Not here yet, but we can't rest on our laurels, I don't think.

Well, we hear a lot about that, but I feel like we also hear about, like, the buzz is like, yeah, that's what they say, this R3 stuff. But when was the last time you went into the woods and felt like we needed more hunters out there? Because the people that hunt are more diehard and are more likely to travel and hunt multiple states, man. That's our theory. I think it's backed up by some data. Well. I don't know how our data would speak to that, but I think whenever we talk about R3, you have people that say just that, like, I don't know.

I went out to my block management area and there was, you know, 12 trucks at the. Too many. Yeah. I used to be pro R3, but I'm reconsidering. Wisconsin over the weekend, and it was the same when I was there two years ago for opening week at Rifle. Compared to when I was a kid and even maybe into my early 20s, it's a marked difference on Saturday morning the amount of shooting that you hear. A lot more. No, a lot less. Oh.

In Wisconsin. And we go and visit with all the neighbors usually at some point either before a season or you know over the weekend and There's just it's the same thing. It's like the elders aren't like they're getting old and so there's not really making it into the woods and then you go to that camp and there aren't the Younger cousins or nephews or grandkids and even in the camp that I was in this weekend, I mean, I was the youngest there by 30 years. You? Okay, maybe I'm close to it, close to 30.

I know. Yeah. That's something. Well, I think one of the things I say about R3 is it's not just the numbers. Like the percentage, even in Montana, the percentage of population that's participating is less. So our numbers are stable from a license sales standpoint, or, you know, they sort of wave like this. It speaks to a demographic shift.

Yeah. And I use this analogy that you're more apt to marry a non-hunter in 2019 than you were in 2018. Right. hunter in 2019 than you were in 2018 right and that's not maybe a big deal because maybe you marry somebody that's supportive of hunting right uh but isn't a hunter but that still that adds that that little bit of hurdle somebody that that wasn't uh he didn't grow up around guns maybe you know and he just doesn't really understand him then the kids grow up and you have this sort of this sort of plan that you have to put into place on how you're going. Then the kids grow up and you have this sort of plan that you have to put into place on how you're going to get the kids out hunting

and that sort of thing. When we were kids, I didn't have any of that. That wasn't even part of the plan. I just got a BB gun and said, get out of the house. Don't come back till dinner. But people aren't going to – like my brother kind of talked me out of being – he's in the process of talking me out of being pro R3. Was it retention, recruitment, and reactivation?

Pro more hunters. He's in the process of talking me out of being that way. And we're never going to, like, hunters aren't going to wreak the rewards of fewer hunters because people are just going to now. Lose support. Well, no, but I'm saying that's what I argue. But the thing is you're never going to be like that because you're never going to be like, oh, it's a lot. The woods are better now because people just lease it all up. People used to not lease stuff, but now people just lease properties so the day that like from his perspective he'd be

like the day someone comes to me and says i have a big beautiful ranch and by god i'm just trying to get someone to come out and hunt it full of deer and out but i can't find anyone to hunt he's like on that day i'll become like a pro recruitment dude. But that day hasn't happened. And it's, there are, you know, just like fewer places to go. And when you go, there's more people in them. And so it's really hard to get people on board with the idea that we need a bunch more people. You know, you got like, there's people I know that lease up properties. They lease up their hunting rights on properties.

They don't even hunt them. They just want to know that no one's hunting them. I mean, it's like actual, you know, they want to know that if they wanted to go there, there'd be no one there. And last year, I didn't even go. It's just, it's hard to get excited about. It's hard for people to get, a lot of people,

it's hard to get excited about a bunch more hunters out in the woods. Well, and I don't think we're talking, the goal isn't to have a bunch more hunters. think it the r3 is just part of it and access access is is another key part it's a key part of r3 but it's also a key part of just what we do you know and trying to get people people and landowners you know the shifting shifting landowners like you're talking about you you know, where the communities, people in small communities, they used to know who to call to go get on Johnson's Place or the K-Bar-L Ranch or whatever. And today they might not. I mean, it just might be a landowner that is just not as much a part of the community as it used to be. Yeah. But so it's all sort of part of the fabric of sort of what we have to face with the department. And I think primarily, and Martha's talked about this a lot internally too,

is looking to sort of figure out how to have those meaningful experiences outdoors. Because it's not just that you can only do that by hunting or you can only do that by fishing. You can trap them. Or by trapping, right? Addle, addle. But we talk about it. I mean, we can think about these meaningful episodes that we've had outdoors that have shaped who we are. And there's one after another, after another, after another.

And some people don't, and even in Montana, some people don't get that. I mean, we, you know, on the, at the, from our education programming, we've got like our aquatic ed, we're in fifth grades around the state doing, you know, education about fisheries and things like that. You'd be amazed at the number of kids that look at a fish and they don't know that's a perch. I mean, they'll usually dissect perch. Have they even touched a fish before? I mean, in Montana, even here we're becoming more urbanized. We're in a state where you think like, my gosh, this is Montana.

It couldn't possibly be true here, but it is true. And so I think beyond the R3 discussion of how do we sell more licenses, that's really not our focus when we have that conversation. It's how do we sort of build up the next generation of conservationists that are concerned about all the things that go into loving the outdoors yeah that's the that's the when i talk about this debate i have with my brother that's the one i do yeah i do that side of it i don't know you know me and yanni are uh we're running for president i heard that because i had suggested that yanni run for mayor boseman

but he said he's got another gig no because we're all tied up with being president. But all the money, when people buy our Ronello Portellus Better Hunting and Fishing for America 2020 shirts, all of our money we're putting into our access piggy bank, and we're going to use it for an access project. Ooh. Sounds good. Bumper stickers, yard signs. We don't know what.

Cal, our buddy Cal's uneasy with the lack of specificity we've had so far. But trust me. No, no, I'm serious. It's like a thing. We're like banking the money. We're going to have an access piggy bank. And we're right now currently looking at different kinds of access projects or a group we would help with an access, a land acquisition that would open up landlocked public lands. We'll figure it out.

Yeah. You have one in mind? No, but it's funny. We should talk sometime. No, we don't. I want to do a combo of that. We're going to take our piggy bank, and then I want to run a GoFundMe project

and look at some specific acquisitions and see if people would think it would be fun to throw in five bucks and buy a chunk of land and have it be for public access. That'd be cool. Then we'll go recruit a hunter or two to go on there um yeah so there's that our our gnome packing out a unicorn t-shirt yeah is now joined with a gnome who's reeling in a mermaid doing battle with a mermaid yeah is the title actually gnome tussling i think it's gnome tussling with a mermaid. Yeah. Is the title actually Gnome Tussling? I think it's Gnome Tussling with a Mermaid.

People would want to know what happened, but I don't know. It could be incidental bycatch. It could be a courtship ritual. I don't know. It's just a gnome, and he happens to have a mermaid on. Yeah. I'm not saying what's going to happen. I don't know what they got going on.

She might be messing with him. My brother thinks that she's pulling him in to kill him. Hey, wait a minute. You're assuming the mermaids is she and the gnomes that he it's very female mermaid and a very male merman no it's a bearded gnome in a very like a very yeah i wouldn't go so far it's not like an erotic mermaid but it's a female form it's a female mermaid you could use the term voluptuous yeah you could it's a female form yeah. And then we have our gnome.

We have our t-shirt out coming out with our gnome that's in a, you know those old pictures of where a mountain man's got his knife and he's in a fight with a grizzly? Our gnome's in a knife fight with a Bigfoot. Ooh. The Bigfoot's got him good, but he's also got his bowie knife out. And we've been getting a lot of ideas for gnome shirts. I think what we're going to start working on next is a gnome and a blind, and it's a big flock of dragons coming in all cupped out.

All cupped out coming into the decoys. It's going to be sweet, man. So you can find all that. You can also find our gnome packing out a unicorn shirt is back in full color. Yeah. Gnome packing out a unicorn, full color. Find it all, the whole gnome packing out a unicorn shirt is back in full color yeah gnome packing out a unicorn full color find it all the whole gnome lineup and the gnome i think this is going to turn into like a big expansion of gnome themed products man um you guys good we're good thanks for sitting through our little plug there it was a natural plug because it started out talking about our access

fund ronella propels 2020. Don't tell everybody. I know you're going to write us in when you vote, but don't tell people because I know you don't want to get partisan. Yeah, that's right. I don't even vote. No, I'm just kidding. Ronella Propels 2020.

Martha, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you. If there's ever something that comes up and you really need to come and talk to someone about it, you should come talk to us about it. All right. All right. I love how you dive into the issues. We need to do this more. Yeah.

I enjoy it. Do you? I love it. He really does. It's great. And I'll say that, too. If you guys come up with stuff. Because we listen and I hear these conversations and I think one of them was.

You're not going to say something we did that was wrong. No, no, no. It was the debate like, can you use the stream access law for big game hunting? Those sorts of things where I was listening. I was like, I don't know. I bird dogged it all down, but it was. Hard. It's interesting. Can I hit you with one dogged it all down but it was hard it's

interesting can i hit you with one that just came up the other day if it's licensing i'm not gonna know no no check this out me and my kid on saturday we're out in our uh in our jet boat messing around trying to get it dialed in and we pull up on this island and i find i found a nice buck now the back side of him been eaten out by coyotes, but he's just floating in the river. Not like a skull. Full on, fresh dead, but cloudy eyes,

clearly been laying in the river a long time. He was pissed that I didn't axe the head off it and let him bring it home. I was like, I don't know if this counts as a skull. I don't know if this counts as like a skull. Like, I don't know if this is like a dead head and it's hunting season. And I feel like we'd have a lot of explaining to do to have a furred,

severed head of a been dead for a few days, but not terribly long buck in our boat. So I made him leave it. And he's like, well, just look it up. And I'm like, there's some things that are easy to look up like, there's some things that are easy to look up and there's some things that are tricky to look up. Yeah. Do you have any feedback on that? What I would suggest is if you wanted the antlers or wanted the head is to call the game warden, tell him what you found. That's what I was telling my kid.

Tipmont, tell him what you found. And then when the game warden calls you, say, you know, hey, this is what I found. This is where it is. And, you know, when you're done looking into it, can I, is it okay if I get the antlers? I think, you know, they sort all that out. You know what I did do? I don't know. Maybe it's illegal.

I drug it out of the water and pulled it up on a little island gravel bar. So it didn't float away. Well, we were just having a debate and it was better to have the debate with it laying there than have it floating by. Yeah. Well, you could still do it. You could let the game warden know and he'd go,

next time you're on the gravel bar, you could ask him if it'd be okay just to grab him. Because at some point, I don't know that, I don't think there's anything specific in. No, it'd just be like a matter of like, what kind of conversations do you want to invite? Like, why is there a dead buck's head in your truck? Like, well, what happened was, right? I just didn't feel like, right.

I didn't feel like needing to have that chat. I found a buck on a gravel bar one time with its horns dead, horns cut off. Called a game warden, told them where it was. But I called them right from where I was standing. And then I kept hunting. And I hunted up to another gravel bar. And on that gravel bar, I found a saw all chewed up, you know, and it was open. Still had like, you know, bone stuff and flesh on it.

And I didn't even think about it. I just picked it up and put it in my pocket and kept going. But the handle was all chewed flesh on it and i didn't even think about it just picked it up and put my pocket and kept going but it the handle is all chewed up on it and i realized when i got home that had to have been the saw that was used in the crime and probably some like fox or coyote had grabbed the saw and chewed on it a little bit and then left it on the next gravel bar oh that's great man crazy i still use it still got it Phil you got any questions no I do want to say though that I was part of the party coalition on the Madison this summer and I will come to the next public comment session I'll be the lone rep he's gonna be shirtless he's gonna have some cut off blue jeans pretty

drunk he's gonna be sunburned and he's gonna have some cut off blue jeans he's gonna be pretty drunk he's gonna be sunburned and he's gonna give you guys a earful about telling him where he can't ride his inner tube i can't wait can you bring mango oh i she would love it yes all right thanks guys 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. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and

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