#2213 - Diane K. Boyd

24:13If you're not around any people and then all of a sudden you feel a person, I bet. That kind of person, like any person that you run into in the woods is scary. It's weird. Like if you... I always said that everything in the woods is scary. Like if you saw a naked baby in the woods, you'd be like, what's that baby doing here? Exactly. You'd be like, what's that? Baby just standing there looking at you. You'd be like, what the fuck? Yeah. There's something weird about the woods in general. And if you were walking through a mall and a man was walking your way, it's just another person. Like, hello.

24:45Hi. You know, you're at the park. See you guys. Normal. But if you're in the middle of nowhere in the woods and you see another person, there's this moment where you're like, what's this guy up to? Who is he? What's he doing? Is he dangerous? Yeah, and I think that's because we're all raised in an urban environment more or less nowadays. And so having lots of people around is normal, but to have one person in a pretty remote area, we don't experience that very often anyway. Well, there's also no one that's going to help you there. Like if you're at the mall, it's very difficult for someone to get away with attacking you.

25:17Right. If you're alone in the woods, there is this weird, like if you're some crazy serial killer guys out there, like, and you, you know, your backpack and you're like, uh -oh. Like, now I'm at the mercy of this person. If they're crazy. I have a chapter in my book early in the book where I describe an event that I'm basically been a real private person on my life until this book came out. And once I wrote this book, I had to bring up stories that are very personal to me. And I had an event one night that was terrifying, probably the most terrifying thing that's ever happened in my life and involved humans.

25:52So yeah, I totally get that. People in places where they should be. Do you want to read it? Do you want me to spoil it? You want me to do the spoiler thing? No, we're talking about it. Okay, I'll just give you the elevators beach part of it. Okay. So I was in my cabinet night and the dogs started growling. I had very big dogs. I always have dogs. And I looked out my window and it was winter and it was cold and I could see a couple of guys out there lurking around. And I was in the middle of nowhere. And then it kind of digressed from there. So I am... I for the only first and only time in my life, I pulled a gun on these guys.

26:36Really? Yeah, I was in danger. What were they doing out there? Well, they came to pay me a visit. They knew who you were. They called me by name, which was really freaky. So you think somebody in the woods walking around scary, wait till you see somebody who you don't know who it is and they call you by your first name. That's freaky. And what did they want? I didn't find out because I pulled a gun on them. Wow. I drove them off. And it was terrifying to me that it was not terrifying at the moment because I was absolutely focused. Like predator focused calm. But after they left, I started to shake and yeah, kind of after the adrenaline surge happened.

27:19Were they menacing? Were they... Yeah. To me? But the way they were communicating with you. They were drunk? Oh. Yeah, it wasn't good. And so how did they know who you were? Do you know? Oh, it's a long story. But I was working up there. I was kind of a novelty, a young blonde woman. I was only about 25. I'm living alone, studying wolves in a time there are other people coming and going, studying wolves. But at that winter, I was alone. And I had been working, so long story. I was working behind the custom station right on the Canadian border and they were hauling logs down out of Canada, bringing in the custom station.

28:04They would have to transfer the logs to an American truck and then the Canadian trucks would go back. And I temporarily took a job as the not bumper at the logdan deck landing, which means my job was to run a chainsaw, trim off the branches, trim the length of the logs to exactly fit the log bed. Anyway, so I was around. So these loggers knew who I was and I was, you know, I was cordial enough. But it was two of those guys. Oh. Yeah. And I never told the story till I wrote this book. And I just thought it's a part of me that's very personal. It's a part of me that I learned from. It's never happened again.

28:44And I had one old logger, old Bob. He saw me on the road the next day. I was pretty shook up. And he stopped. We chatted often. And he had seen a wolf. He'd taken a picture of it. So anyway, we chatted. And he says, so I hear he had some visitors last night. And I looked it up because he's up in his log truck. I said, yeah, he says, you don't have to worry. That won't happen again. He's kind of like watching out for me. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, because we had kind of be friend of each other. Because he'd spotted this wolf and he'd taken pictures of it anyway. Yeah. So how did he find out that you had had visitors?

29:19The logger network, the CB radio. I don't know. I didn't tell anybody. Oh, wow. But he knew right away. That's humans that you have to be scared of. Totally. Yeah. So anyway, you asked that. There's no serial killer mountain lions. Right? They just have a purpose in nature. Yeah. They just kill because they kill because they eat. Well, that's what their job is. People are weird. They're creepy. You know, saying about they're being weird. I love that. Yeah. Especially men. Men in the woods are scary. So when you were living out there, how many years did you live out there by yourself? Well, often on.

29:55So when I arrived there, I joined a team of young researchers. We were studying wolves in grizzly bears. And we helped each other with their work. So we started all that. And then when we ran out of funding, then I was up there alone for about three years. But other than that, there were people coming. I was out for three years. Well, I had two dogs. I wasn't totally alone. And people were coming and going seasonally at summer help. And I had winter help. Certainly there wasn't people there on the shoulder season. So is that kid lonely? You know, it's interesting because it didn't. Really. Back when I was younger, I was a bit of a miss and throw up.

30:33And I liked being alone. And when I was alone, being alone is different than being lonely. It just is. Now as an older person, I feel different about people. I'm more engaged with people. I enjoy people. So yeah, I get lonely now. But I didn't back then. I mean, how could you be lonely? You're living in the majestic mountains and wilderness of Glacier National Park. And everything is new. And there's tracks to find. And on and on and on. Well, it's all amazing stuff. But I would be lonely. I like to be around people. Well, that's why you're really good at what you do. Because you're a social person.

31:06You like to engage in conversation. But I didn't use to be that way. You went to one of them interviewed me 30 years ago. Let's put it that way. Really? I bet we would have worked out. It had been all right. But I would have worked out. I'm more conversational now. I mean, it's just, I would have been fascinated by who you were then. Because I'd be fascinated by a person who doesn't want to talk to people. Like if I could just peel back the layers of the onions to find out what that's like. Like, because I would imagine there's a very different relationship with nature. When it's just you and nature alone by yourself for prolonged periods of time.

31:45It's very different than taking a jaunt, taking a weekend excursion, hiking, you know, even camping for a week. It's there's a big difference between that and living that for years. This episode is brought to you by Life Lock. Tax season is already stressful. You shouldn't have to worry about identity theft on top of everything else. And trust me, it's a big worry. Especially since during tax season your sensitive info does a lot of traveling to places you can't control. It goes through payroll, your accountant, your tax consultant, and countless other data centers on its way to the IRS. Any of them can expose you to identity theft because they all have the info on your W2.

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33:18Terms apply. Yes. It's like when I go up to my cabin for a visit. I'm no longer living there for a full time. But I live there a couple of months a year, maybe three, maybe. Usually two. When I go up, it takes me three to four days to decompress and get back into the mode of, oh, I can't call. Oh, I can't go on the internet. Do I want to hook up the Starlink? No. Go out and just sit outside and have a cup of tea and listen to the crack. And then think about what you're going to do for the go on a hike. But it takes me a few days now to get to that frame of mind. It doesn't. It's not instant anymore.

33:56So I've changed to I am. And then once you get to that frame of mind, then you can just like today we're going to go on a hike. Is bring the dogs. Just go walk around and enjoy yourself. Go fly for yourself. Whatever. Wow. Yeah. And were you living off the land? Were you catching fish for food and hunting for food? Like how are you getting your supplies? I did that, but I bought stuff in town and I would buy a lot in November while I could still drive in. Because sometimes the winter you couldn't drive in anymore. So I would stock up and buy, you know, three, four hundred pounds of dog food and bulk supplies of flour and oats.

34:31And I can back then I actually did some canning. I don't know. I don't have time. I don't care about it. I can buy canned peaches or whatever. But I, and I never grew a food garden because of the bears. Oh, yeah. See, I didn't want to attract grizzlies. Right. So I didn't grow food except lettuce. How often did you run into them up there? They're always there. But you don't see them very often. So it's sort of like all the wild things that are up there are pretty wild. And there weren't a lot of people up there. And now everybody's discovered Montana and there's people everywhere. Right? It's so interesting because our senses are so dull compared to theirs.

35:12We move so slow and we're so loud. And we're so clunky. They see us a mile away. They smell us a mile away. Yeah. They know exactly who you are. And most of the time they just avoid us. Totally true. And I mean, I've just come back from bird hunting. I just was 31 days on the road. And I just got home three days ago and I'm here. And I was out bird hunting with friends. And I said, I told them I said, so when I'm with my pointers, I get a griffon in the wire here. I said, don't talk. Don't call the dogs name. Don't holler about it. Just watch and enjoy and smell and feel what goes on. And trust the dogs.

35:49If you see them getting birdy, get ready. Because so many times you hunt with people and they're hacking their dog. They're calling their hollering and they're talking to you about something going on over here. And hey, did you watch the Vikings game? Well, nobody watches the Vikings game. Anyway, did you watch this? It's like, we're out there seeking a smart bird that has ears. Watch the dogs. So I feel that way when I'm out living in the wild too with out hiking. I'm not going to see elk or bears or even fox if you're yammering away. That's why I like being alone. Yeah, that is part of the problem with people.

36:27We do like to talk just to just be reassured. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and it's fun to interact. I mean, but even when I go to Yellowstone, I go to Yellowstone, at least a couple times a year to watch wolves. I love the wolf watchers. They're so enthusiastic. But something's going on and you can't take a video because everybody's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, even if the wolves are hollering, you have to go, shh. I went to Yellowstone a few years back with my family and I felt like it was very weird. I felt like I'm enjoying, my daughters are really young at the time. I'm enjoying that they're seeing bears and they're seeing.

37:07Well, we didn't see bears. We did see they had there is this place in Montana that has this grizzly bear preserve. It's like a place where they take care of bears so they would like feed them frozen watermelons. Yeah. Which is crazy to watch a bear chew through a frozen watermelon like it's a grape. Wow. They just go right through it. It's a frozen watermelon. Wow. And they just come. Like it's nothing. Yeah. But we did see a lot of elk and a bunch of bison. And the elk was strange because I'm sure you know this but for the people at home, elk understand that wolves don't come to these community centers, these areas where you know, there's vending machines and buildings.

37:48So the elk are all over the place out there. Yeah, I'm the lawns. Yeah, so I don't know if I put it on the Instagram. I think I did. I took a selfie with a cow elk that was like 40 feet from me just lying there. And she wasn't worried about me at all. And I was trying to tell my kids I was like this never happens. This is weird. Yeah. It's weird that they've become so habitualized to being around cars and people. Yeah. They just know the people it's safe when you're around these people. Yeah. So they just hang out there. That's probably at mammoth gardener area that happens all the time up there.

38:22Well, it happens in Colorado too. Like in Evergreen. Oh. You know, you see them. There's like these huge herds of elk that walk down the middle of the street in Evergreen. Because they know there's no mountain lines in the middle of the street. Right. And so they just like in the rut, they're walking down the street and there's like 30, 40 elk and they stop traffic. And they're sitting on people's lawns and it's wild. Sounds like bamf. Well, the same things happened to the wolves in Yellowstone because they were taken from Canada where they don't see people. And they had never exposed you to livestock.

38:54They're very wild at first. And then they can't get away from humans. So after a while, they just start disregarding people. And like if they have to cross the road, there's a wolf jam and everybody's crowding with their cars and they're trying to bring their pups across the road to a better spot. And they can't even get through because of everybody. So they get kind of lousy fare about it and they get used to people, conditioned or habituated. And that's passed on to the next generation next. And then when they leave the park, and they go outside the park and they walk down some open public landspot where there's a hunter with a rifle, they don't think anything about it.

39:32So they're pretty easy targets. That's unfortunate. And the habitualization is unfortunate because you just want to see them in the wild. You don't want to see them in an intersection. I know. And yeah, it's tough. And the unfortunate thing is a couple of years ago, there were 25 Yellowstone wolves killed just outside of the park because they were used to people and they wander around. Anyway, that's a like out of 100. So it's about a quarter of the population. And there were a couple of particular individual wolves that were very well recognized and loved by the wolf masses and photographed and they got killed.

40:11And this just went viral and these huge hatred for these people who shot these wolves because they were so special. And I make the point one. I give talks and stuff. I said, you know, if you really feel that strongly, you should really be concerned because every year there's about 300 wolves shot that way in Montana. But you don't know them. They're not famous. They have just as important of lives. They live, die, eat, breathe, get injured, heal up. The same as these movie star wolves in Yellowstone. And you should feel that way about, oh, it's in my mind. Oh, yeah. Well, that was the case with Cecil Deliant.

40:49Right. Yeah, yeah, the dentist. You died in a dentist killed. Yeah, they named him. Yeah. And so when they named, and I remember after Cecil got killed, another lion got killed and they thought it was Jericho, who was Cecil's brother. And there was a story like, oh my God, they killed Jericho, Cecil's brother. And then they realized that Jericho was not dead. So that, oh, it's fine. Jericho is still okay. But that lion is just a lion. You didn't name him. But that's still another lion. But because it's not this named lion's brother who also has a name, no one cared. Exactly. That's so bizarre.

41:28It is bizarre. So I thank you for understanding that. I forgot about Cecil. But like when we were first monitoring the wolves and glacier, there was just a handful. And we would catch them. And we would give them names because it's easier. Like Phyllis was Wolf 8550 and Mojave was Wolf 8963. They had both names and numbers. And so when we did our scientific papers and reports, we used a number. Because we were told by the officials that we don't want you to name the animals, because what happens when Phyllis kills a cow? If that happens, then you can't manage Phyllis. So we went along with it, but we used the names and we did the scientific stuff with numbers.

42:06But then when you go into the park, people would want to know what's going on. You need to talk about these different wolf numbers 8654. And they said, well, who is that? Oh, that's Aspen. Oh, yeah. They would know by the name. So whatever works. Well, then also they become like a pet. Or even more like a majestic wild pet. Like it's a different thing. It's a pet that's this iconic North American, you know, Apex predator. Yes. And I know the wolves in Yellowstone. They don't have names. They have numbers. But they're so identifiable by 907 or whatever that. They become like a name. Right. Even though it's still a number.

42:40But if you shoot 907, it's not as rude as if you shoot Jake. Right. Jake the wolf. Right. It's like, oh, yeah, Michael. Michael. You know, you name a wolf. You name a name and also you shouldn't shoot it anymore. I know. Which is just a weird anthropomorphization thing, right? You know, it's been interesting to me because I, for my career, I've done everything. My first year, my first job, I worked up in Northern Minnesota in a little tiny 300 person farming community. And I was hired, US Fish and Wildlife Service to go in and help prevent livestock depredition and when wolves killed cattle or sheep to go in and remove, which meant trap and the hollow way in their youth and ice.

43:23And when there weren't depredations to go out and research trap and put collars on the other wolves. And it was, I mean, this is big, big stuff for a girl from Minneapolis, Dariaid, and pretty naive to go up and save the folks of North home from the wolves, you know? Yeah. Oh my God. It was such an important summer for me to learn professionally and personally. And I read about that. But I learned a lot and it was interesting work, but I realized, yeah, wolves can cause conflicts for people. And it was a new concept for me. So when they captured the wolves and they removed them, why did they euthanize them?

44:03Why didn't they just relocate them? Well, they would be me because I was the one catching and trapping them. Well, obviously, someone's telling you what to do though, right? Right. So I had to bring them to the main office in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where they were euthanized. So prior to that, in 1978, you couldn't euthanize wolves. They changed the status from endangered to threatened. And so when they were threatened, then under endangered species, you could actually euthanize them. And they didn't translocate them. This is a really good question because they found over the years with studies in Minnesota and eventually in Montana too, that when you translocate or move a wolf who's causing a problem, that wolf very, very rarely survives to reproduce.

44:50Because it gets killed by other wolves, it comes back to depredate again. It moves on to another farmer ranch and does it again. They don't generally survive. And so it was determined that it makes officials feel good to move them. And it's a good facade for the public to believe in. But sometimes it results in a pretty prolonged and inhumane existence for a few months or a year till they die anyway. So yeah, it's... Is it because they're habitualized to start praying on cattle? It's tough once they learn to take cattle or sheep. It's tough to break that pattern. Let's put it that way. Because it's so easy.

45:29Well, yeah. I mean, if it was me out there walking around and I had a choice between a deer that's going to kick me. Right. In the teeth or take in the cow, I'd pick the slow dumb groceries every time. Yeah. Of course. Of course. And if they know the groceries are all penned up. Exactly. Yeah. So it's a difficult challenge and wolves are continuing to expend everywhere in the West, the Midwest, Europe. And so there's more and more challenges than a lot of the early excitement about wolves has changed into a bitter battle. Yeah. It's a really interesting complex battle because there's a lot of hunters that do not like the reintroduction of wolves.

46:11Yes. And they'll say that the elk populations are down and they're down dramatically in Montana because the reintroduction... Which was the 1996? What did they... 95, 96, and then 96, 97. Those winters. So... But the reality is, it's not natural to not have those predators there and you're going to get an overpopulation of elk and that's going to lead to starvation and disease. Yes. And so, kind of the die was cast when those wolves were removed and basically by the 1930s, there really weren't viable populations in the West anymore. There were wolves here, there in a pack here, there but there weren't thousands.

46:54And they went into... Inside the National Park. They have a picture in many books of Rangers with cute little wolf pups that are like seven, eight weeks old and they took the pictures. This was in 1926 and then they killed them all. So they even removed all the predators with the National Parks. So people, historic memory, you know, we have really short memories. Historic memory of, say for example, the Northern Range, Northern hered range of elk out of Gardener. It was about 20 ,000 before the wolves were introduced. Way overcarrying capacity. Elk were starving. The browse lines is high up as they could reach the eight, everything they could eat.

47:32They're paying people... People being paid to come in and kill deer and elk and then they started the late hunting seasons out of Gardener, which I went in because my boyfriend had a time, had a tag. And they just have a shooting line in February and kill all these elk because they aren't going to make it anyway. So you shoot a starving Carl in February. Wow. Because it wasn't predators. Right. So then when the wolves came back, two things happen. Number one, it was a new predator. But number two in the winter of 96, 97, we had some of the deepest snows ever recorded in the mountains, ever. And so many of the herd died from snowfall.

48:11And I've had hunters tell me, yeah, the population elk went from 20 ,000 to 10 ,000 in two years to dab in those wolves and say, do you think 35 wolves killed 10 ,000 elk? Come on. Let's just do the math a minute. Yeah, that is the problem with people that don't have a nuanced perspective on what's happening because they have a vested interest in it being a problem that the wolves are keeping them from being able to be successful on an elk hunt. Right. And I'm a hunter. I get it. Yeah. But the die offs are huge. Like the place that I was just telling you about before the podcast, I was in a new talk.

48:44Yeah. They lost 80 % of their meal deer population a year ago. From what? Yeah. And so we're... It's real bad winter. Yeah, yeah. And then winter die offs are a big thing. It's a big thing. I would say the best my knowledge is a biologist that winter die off is the limiting factor for ungulate herds. It's not lions and bears and wolves and humans and cars. Every so often, every 20 years or whatever, you get a massive winter die off. And it takes quite a while for those populations to build back on. Predators can keep that at a lower rate. They cannot affect it. You know, I have to think back to the people say about wolves killing all the deer now.

49:24I think if you look to statistics in Montana and Wyoming, which you both have had a lot of wolves for a couple decades, they're giving away more elk permits. I've just was reading. They proposed unlimited elk permits in Wyoming. And Montana's got basically in most of its management units, more elk than ever. I just say there's more going on than wolves. And to point your finger at wolves all the time, you need to look at habitat. You need to look at access issues. You know, there's a lot of places where hunters want to go shoot these elk. Right. But they're on large private ranches and you can't get on them.

49:56Including landlocked public land where there is public land where you're allowed to hunt there, but you can't get there. Right. You'd have to fly in in a helicopter in a lot of places. That's illegal. Right. And so there's all this talk of for people that don't know. There's what one of the things that happens is a thing called corner crossing. So there might be a piece of public land that you're allowed to hike into. And then there's a small area. It could be a very small area, just a few yards even. Of private land that you are going to have to cross in order to get into the next piece of public land.

50:34But people block access to that because these people that have these ranches and most of them probably don't even live there in a bunch of wealthy people, they're terrified that someone's going to go through that and then go into their private land. They don't want to give people the access at all to their private land. So they stop these corner crossings and it's a giant disaster because then you have these areas that are public land that should be available to all of us and no one can get in there. Right. I mean, if the viewers can think of imagining a checker board and you're trying to get from one black square to the next black square, but you have to step over a tiny piece of white square to get that, right?

51:13It's being battled in court right now. Yeah. It's a disaster. If I owned the land, I would carve out a big pathway and give it to the public. Yeah. If you have 50 ,000 acres out there, whatever the hell you have, why is it so hard to take a few acres and just make a path? But you're not most landowners. It seems so simple. I know. It's like the simplest of, you just make some sort of an easement. Well, that would be good. And some ranchers do, but many people in this business, four or five generations on their family ranch, and they've had a bad experience as a hunter's a committed, cut their fences, shoot their cows, leave their gates open, and they just say, I'm done.

51:58I'm closed. And they get really angry. I just hunted on a guy's ranch about a week ago up in North Central, Central, Montana. And he owned 60 sections. That's 60 square miles of land, which may not be a big place in Texas, but for most of the rest of the world. That's huge. It's huge. And he gave us permission, but he had to tell us all the challenges he's had and why he had a big sign. Don't even ask, basically. Right. But I know that he, I know from, I know he was going to let us because some other friends of mine had hunted there. So he, but he had all these heartburns over things that had happened to him.

52:35Hunters gave him a really bad taste in their mouth. And I, I as a single individual person can't do a lot about it. And I'd like to see, you know, hunting organizations, many, really good ones, help promote better hunter behavior and better hunter landowner relationships. You, you would be very generous to do that. Most people will not give an easement. Well, I would understand that if you've been burned a few times, people have poached on your land. And there's this attitude that people who don't have anything, and they see someone who has so much, and like screw this guy. I'm just going to go on his property.

53:06Look, the Alka right there over the ridge, 400 yards away. Yeah. Let's just go over there, shoot those elk. He won't even know. Yeah. We'll pack it out. That happens. Yeah. And then they get caught. And then this guy's like, God damn it. They're poaching on my land and then he hates hunters. Hunters are like everybody else. Yeah. There's people that are amazing plumbers, and they're real honest, and they work hard, and they're sweet hearts, and you're happy to hire them and call them. And then there's people that are just liars, and they're crooks. It's just like any other group of people. Like anything else.

53:35Exactly. Exactly. And I know in my business with wolves, I've always tried to be very transparent. I'm very honest, and if somebody asks me a question, I'll give them the best information I have. If I don't own answer, I'll say, I don't know, but you know, you could call someone, so who's maybe had the experience with that. Right. I get nothing to hide by being dishonest or trying to sell somebody. It's like hunting impacts of wolves on hunting. You look at populations, and they go like this all the time, and sometimes wolves causes sometimes not sometimes it's winter, sometimes it's accumulation of lions and bears and wolves.

54:11But it's like the stock market. People want to see it do this. Well, it's like the climate. Exactly. Nobody wants to admit to that either. They hate looking at long -term data. I know. When people want to talk about the sky is falling. Well, it's actually not. Look at it over a long period of time. You see, this trend has always existed, and in fact, this is one of the cooler times in history. We're facing interesting times. It's bizarrely ideological. I think the hardest thing is so much social media, everything goes on instantly, and whether it's duernot. Everything goes on instantly, and everything is ideologically connected.

54:52There's people that just don't want any animals ever killed ever, and there's people that want no predators, and the easiest hunts possible. They don't have a nuanced perspective of the ecosystem, of what biology is, and what these animals, there's a whole world that they live in. This world is interdependent. There's so many things going on. People like, I remember there was a documentary that came out how wolves changed rivers in Yellowstone. They made this incredibly rosy picture of wolves coming in, and it brought in beavers, and they changed the rivers and the lakes, and everything was better.

55:36No, not really. There's a lot going on all the time, and to single out this one aspect of this ecosystem and say, this is the cause of this, there's a lot of different causes. There's a lot going on. Yes, and that film or the video ran viral big time, but there's no one species that's going to make or break the world except maybe people. But in terms of the impacts, no, and it's been shown since that video came out, the movie that might be true in a short time period in small places, but it's not the global picture for Yellowstone Park wolves have not saved the planet. They just haven't. It's just not that simple.

56:20What they have done though, it was brought some balance. I think yes, they brought so that you can go either way, and I think people who are out on either extreme can actually make people in the middle more involved with conservation efforts. Like that guy with the movie. Well, it's a rosy story, and pieces of it may be true in certain places for a temporal or spatial time period. But then there's the guy, and where was it? Daniels Wyoming who roared over that wolf in the snowmobile and crippled it. You heard about this, didn't you? That's a terrible thing. And then he brought it back crippled to the bar and had it in the bar so people could be entertained for an hour before they took it out back and shot it.

57:03No, that's a pretty horrific thing, whether it's a deer or a motliner now. Well, any animal. Any animal. But that horrific act got a lot of people in the middle fired up to become more strong conservationists. So I'm sorry that that happened, but on the other hand, it brings a lot of awareness to people who are not aware of the level of capacity of people to be stupid. And evil. And that's evil. When I saw the photos of the wolf, I'm like, that is an evil act. That thing is incredible. That's an incredible animal. And you have no right to do that. And if you crippled it, if you crippled it with a snowmobile, the right thing to do is to call someone or have it euthanized.

57:42Shoot it or call someone ever to you, but to drag it to a bar is just sick. Well, I mean, he ran it over intensely and he had a gun. Oh, he did. And he had a gun. No, he was all fershaw. But the level of vitriol that people have towards wolves is very strange. And I think it goes back to like a little red riding hood and, you know, the big bad wolf. And there's just like this thing that we have in our mind that we don't have for other predators. We don't have it for bears. We don't have it for cats. No, it's weird, right? I thought about this a lot. So why wolves? What's the deal with wolves? Why does it create that if you look at the facts, I mean, elk, coyotes, lions, bears, all coke machines, whatever, kill people, lightning every year, lots of people.

58:35Wolves, it would be a very rare experience. It occasionally happens, but it's so much rarer than everything else. And yet people don't hate lions or grizzly bears. I have a theory. Okay, let's hear it. I think it's a historical thing. I think wolves are not a problem when you deal with civilization. When you deal with agriculture and people have guns and people have land and they have property. But I think at one point in time it was a much bigger deal when there were a larger populations of them. And they would hunt people. They would attack people. You were the World War I story? About a meeting corpses?

59:08Well, not just that, about the Germans and the Russians having a ceasefire. Because so many people were getting eaten by wolves. They actually, I talked to Steve Rinal about it once. And he wasn't even sure if it was true. So they actually researched it and found out it was true. And they wrote an article on meat eater about it. No way. So I haven't seen it. So the story, I don't remember where I heard it from. But the story was, you know, the thing about war, especially trench warfare, the horrific nature of it is that you don't necessarily always kill people. You shoot them and hurt them and wound them.

59:41And these wolves were aware that these people were living in these trenches and that they were wounded. And so they smelled blood and they came in. And there were so many instances of people getting dragged out of the trenches by packs of wolves. And there were so many instances of parties going out like two or three men. And then they just find a boot with a foot in it and they realize like, oh boy, an animal's gotten them. And so they decided to have a ceasefire, between the Russians and the Germans to just get together and kill the wolves before they go back to killing each other. I'll have to look that up because I haven't actually heard it.

1:00:16See if we can find that article. I believe it's on meat eater .com. I like to know where the references are, thanks. Was there a ceasefire during World War I to hunt wolves? But I want to know what the references for the story were. I think it's the New York Times. Okay. Multiple newspapers in 1917 report this story, including the El Paso Herald, Oklahoma City Times, New York Times. Since then, it's become a favorite bit of bar room banter among amateur historians. Oh, like me. Joe Rogan. February 19th. It says it there. February 1917. A dispatch from Berlin noted large packs of wolves moving into populated areas of the German Empire and the force of Lithuania.

1:00:50And I don't know how to say that. That went Volhynia. Volhynia? I would just say that word. Close enough. Locals hypothesized the war effort displaced the wolves. So the canine started seeking out new hunting grounds, the hungry wolves infiltrated rural villages, attacking calves. They also showed up in the front lines feeding on the fallen and sometimes taking advantage of incapacitated fighters. Parties of Russians and German scouts met recently and were hotly engaged in a skirmish when a large pack of wolves dashed on the scene and attacked the wounded. Reported in 1917, Oklahoma City Times article.

1:01:24Hostilities where it once suspended in Germans and Russians instinctively attacked the pack, killing about 50 wolves. So these are one of the things that happens in Russia. So you get these super packs. I'm sure you've heard about those where they've had problems with them descending on whether it's cattle ranch or horses. They've taken out horses. Poison, rifle, fire, hand grenades, and even machine guns were successfully tried and attempts to eradicate the nuisance according to 1917. New York Times article. But all to no avail. The wolves nowhere to be found quite so large and powerful as in Russia were desperate in their hunger and regardless of danger.

1:02:01Yeah, I'm reading it too. I just would say... You'll skeptical? I'm very skeptical. Hmm. Number one, there weren't. It says those seemingly far -fetched turns out these claims are mostly accurate. Historians estimate that soldiers killed hundreds of wolves during the war and that the surviving wolves fled to escape a carnage, the like of which they had never encountered. Click on that link. What is that? We're looking at news stories from 110 years ago. I know. Look at that 1917. Wild. I'm just saying. A little skeptical? No, I'm not a little skeptical. I'm very skeptical. They will lie in the news now.

1:02:37I know. But it seems like something happened. I don't think they made up the fact that they all got together and shot wolves. And have you read about Russian super packs of wolves? No. No, I read the literature. But... But this is recently. Okay. Within a few years ago, there was a problem with these super packs where they... I don't remember what the theory was as to why they had formed such large packs. But there was large packs of up to 100 wolves that were going into farms. So my question about this story, and I'm not... I'm just saying I'm skeptical. 2010, 2011, a super pack of wolves numbering up to 400 reportedly terrorized the Russian town of...

1:03:23Boy, good luck with that one. Sounds like a vodka. Vercoy... Voicoyansk. So what's the source? Guinness Book of World Records. Northern... It's like Wikipedia. Yeah. Oh, they're a little better than that. What... Wikipedia's sketch. One of the remotest inhabited areas of the northern heavens here, more than 30 horses were killed in just four days. And I remember reading about this in 2010. It said, according to local officials, teams of hunters were established to patrol neighborhoods and shoot the wolves on site. Animal experts suspiciously said the claims say that wolves usually form packs of no more than 10 to 15 animals.

1:04:03Although the particularly harsh winters may have killed off the wolves' usual prey, forcing them to attack larger animals. This is multiple sources had this story. And I remember it about a decade or so ago. Well, I'd love to look up more in detail, but I can tell you about the news source. And I'm not not familiar with that, and I don't read that kind of stuff usually. But if it's true, it's true. I don't happen to believe it's true. But what I can tell you about the true about wolf biology is wolves live in packs that are generally a family group. They have a genetic investment in their pack members.

1:04:37There's oftentimes one or two that aren't related. And they defend that territory to the death, whether there's five of them or 25 of them. And that would be a large pack. The largest pack I've ever heard of, and was in Yellowstone, I think, was 34 because three female set pops. So to have 400 wolves move together is what? Why would they do that? What's the benefit to them? They're gathering, collaborating with animals that aren't related to them that have no genetic benefit to see them each survive. And normally packs that are not related kill each other. It's the biggest cause of mortality in Yellowstone Park is wolves killing non -pack members.

1:05:12Wolves are very, very intelligent. Oh, I know. Extremely intelligent. And could you imagine a scenario where resources were so diminished that wolves recognized that killing each other had no benefit and that moving together as a group, they could do something to these farms. So like if you are a pack of 400 wolves and you choose to attack horses, that seems to me a lot more success than three wolves or five wolves trying to do that. I get you saying, but you ask, would I believe it? And I have to tell you, no, I wouldn't believe it. Well, this is based on your real life lived experience. But things do vary according to very unusual circumstances in terms of the environment, right?

1:05:55So if there were, if there were 400 wolves that were starving, they would starve. I mean, they would pack. The last they do that there are horses. You're giving them some human reasoning skills. I know. They don't think like humans do. They just don't. And I'm sorry, I'm not, don't be if I'm not calling you liar. No, it's on me. I'm just saying, I don't know. I'd have to investigate that. But I'm 100 % skeptical on it. Just because of everything that I'm familiar with, but it doesn't, you know, it stuff happens. I have no pun intended, no dog in the race. I don't know how to fight. But my, my thought is that in perhaps unusual circumstances like Siberia, where it's so incredibly harsh, that if you do find a population that had been surviving because there was a sufficient amount of wildlife for them to kill, and then also there wasn't, but there was farms.

1:06:49They all might kind of like descend on these farms and perhaps not even fight for resources, because they realized there was no benefit in that. You asked me, I just said, I don't believe it. So I hear you. But I don't know anything to contribute further on that. I guess you're just a science denier. That's okay, Diane. I'm a science denier. There you go. I like that. That's a fun thing to call people. That's great. It's such a horrible thing to say to people. What are you saying? When you, so what is the largest that you've observed, the largest packed the observed? I have only observed probably 15, but that's not Yellowstone.

1:07:22That's in my history. And I know in Yellowstone, like I said, I know one year to get up to 34, and I think that probably the largest I've ever heard of being recorded that I know is fact, so it might be 40, but that's extremely unusual. Is that Yellowstone as well? It might be Canada. I'm trying to remember my source. I can't remember. But 34 in Yellowstone. That's unusual. The large number in Yellowstone was because of the unusual circumstances of the reintroduction and a bunch of animals that weren't used to having wolves around. Yes. I think, well, three things happen. Three different females had pups.

1:07:54On average, they have six pups, seven pups. So there's recruiting right there, 18, 20 pups. Right there. In addition to the adults that were there, they had a good year. They had lots of prey. And so all of those pups presumably made it to their first year. So for one winter, they were a huge pack, and then mortality happens. That wolves are not designed to live in packs of 34. I mean, packs in the Midwest were the prey smaller, and the wolves are smaller. They live in smaller packs. In Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, average pack might be somewhere between 10 and 15. And every year, you can remember, every year, they have six to seven pups, and by the next spring, they're back down.

1:08:37That six or seven through mortality or dispersal or whatever happens, hunting. Yeah. So, stuff happens. Yeah. It's a hard life. It is a hard life. And I've heard lots of people, well, I've heard several people, and people I know quite well tell me stories about they encountered a wolf, or they encountered a wolf pack. And they were really frightened because they were, they had their dog with them and the wolves are interested in the dog, like little carol there, or something. And the wolves were circling around, and these people were terrified. And when they told me to start two people, they told me the story, and they said, yeah, they could have killed me.

1:09:17And my result, my response is, yeah, easily. But you're here telling me this story. Right. So, it's not very common for wolves to attack people. That's just what I'm saying. Not anymore. Not anymore. And I don't know how good the reporting was way back when. But way back when, if you think about people that were living in a time where there was no guns, or the very least muskets, and you're dealing with people that are completely isolated, and you're dealing with harsh climates where... Like the homesteaders. Yeah. And there might be a time where the food source for the wolves is diminished. The homesteaders didn't really have a problem with wolves though attacking people, right?

1:10:00That's what I'm saying. Right. When we had time, they had guns. They had guns, they had poisons, they had traps, they had livestock, they had children. That's just what I'm saying. In this country, with probably a... I don't mean to be offensive, but a better base of information, with all the opportunity in the world for all those things you just set up, remote living, no protection, harsh winners like the winner of Charlie Russell paintings or all the cattle or starving. You didn't have packs of 400 wolves coming in and killing it. I'm just saying. Right, but this isn't not a different environment than Siberia.

1:10:33Siberia is a completely different world. Oh, you asked those homesteaders. Have you ever seen Word and Heresog's documentary, Happy People, Life and the Tiger? Yeah. Isn't it amazing? It's beautiful. Incredible. It's beautiful. I just actually watched it within the last year. I thought about that when I was thinking about you living alone by yourself. Like, that's how those people did. They would go out there, and they would just go with a dog, and they would go live by themselves in these cabins that they had fortified for the entire winter. Mm -hmm. And just live out there amongst a lot, and they loved it.

1:11:04They all loved it. They all couldn't wait to get out there. How many were killed by wolves? None. None. But again, tigers. Tigers are awesome predators on people. Oh, yeah. Well, Siberian tigers, they didn't like known to kill people. I know that. Yeah. Turned out the name of the book. I read, it might just be called Tiger. I'm turned out the name, but it's a story of a predatory tiger. And these guys, a story of the tiger's life and how they go to finally try and kill it. It's terrifying. It's Siberian. It's true story. Yeah. And it's modern times. There's some super scary about a tiger and snow.

1:11:38A cat that's 600 pounds stalking you. In the snow. I know. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, no. Yeah. It's just a matter of whether or not you zig when you should have zacked and you're in the wrong spot of land where he's at. Yes. And I think that tiger had an injury that was caused by humans. And that's often the case. Oh. There was, it was enabled to hunt real proficiently or in the courting, I mean, when you're reading the book, you get the, the get the drift that it, it had a vengeance against humans because it was injured. And so I would imagine that's probably the case too. It could be.

1:12:10I mean, just as they're scared if they survive a situation. The same thing. The story of Vladimir Markov, a poacher who met a grizzly end in the winter of 1997 after he shot and wound the tiger and then stole a part of the tiger's kill. The injured tiger hunted Markov down in a way that appears to be chilling, be chillingly premeditated. The tiger stalked out Markov's cabin, systematically destroyed anything that had Markov sent on it and then waited by the front door for Markov to come home. Wow. Yeah. There's no doubt that animal, according to the story here, definitely had vengeance on its mind.

1:12:44Wow. It's wasn't impulsive response of valiant says the tiger was able to hold this idea over a period of time. The animal waited for 12 to 48 hours before attacking. When Markov finally appeared, the tiger killed him, dragged him to the bush and ate him. The eating may have been secondary. Valiant explained, I think he killed him just because he had a bone to pick. It's the book is called the Tigers. Yeah, I had the title right. Wow. It's a fascinating story. Wow. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting because with, with the footprint, oh my god. The size of the guy's hand next to the footprint.

1:13:16Oh my god. It's amazing. Oh, that's the author with the size of a female's paw. So that's a small one. That's a small one. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Wow. Fascinating story. And then there's the tiger is just trying to be a tiger. Is that a photograph of those guys? It looks like a drawing. It looks like a drawing. It's a different time era. Is that a photo though? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Shitty photo. I wouldn't buy it. If somebody says that's a photo, I'll get out of here. It's a 140 years old. You drew that, bro. But some of the interesting things looking at that is like in Glacier Park or anywhere, where wolves overlap with, with mount lions, which we call lions, mount lions and grizzly bears and coyotes and whatever.

1:14:00When they, they kill one of their other competing predators just like that tiger, they don't usually eat it. It's secondary. It's to kill off a competitor. So wolves don't get eaten by mount lions? They do get killed by mount lions occasionally, right? Occasionally, matter of fact, one of the Colorado wolves that was just introduced was killed by mount lion. Really? Yeah. One of the 10 that was just introduced. So they kill them because they are a competitor? And one on one, 120 pound cat and 100 pound wolf, 101, the cat's going to win. But when you have a pack of wolves, I mean, we've watched them treat the cat and they'll wait till they can get it.

1:14:39No way. But 101, the cat doesn't have a chance. But no one, I mean, we don't, Well, the wolf doesn't have a chance one on one, you mean? Right. I mean, when the cat won and you got a pack of eight weight. Right, right, right. But we, we documented a case where the wolves treat a cat and when it couldn't stay up to the training longer, it was on a skinny lodge pole and it was sliding down. And since it got to ground, they killed it and they just ripped it apart and they didn't eat any of it. Wow. It's strictly to vanquish a competitor just like the tiger. It's interesting because wouldn't you think that food is scarce and that meat is precious and that if they did kill the mountain line, they'd realize, why don't we eat this thing?

1:15:18Well, they had better options. Have you ever eaten mountain line? I have. It's good. Yeah. I had it once in a while. That's why it's weird. I don't actually, you know what, we do it. Did I eat it? I don't know all I have. Why do I feel like someone gave me something? I don't think I ate it. I think it's in my freezer. I think somebody might have served it to me somewhere like the backstack of a lion. Yeah, the loin. Yeah, looks like it parked under a lion and you can't. It's very light colored and I will eat it once it's... Well, Steve killed one and cooked it and he said it was tremendous. It is.

1:15:49He called it superb. He said it was like a superior pork without the fat. Yeah, it said it was really good, which is like most people would not think you even eat mountain line. Well, apparently either, huh? Well, that was when I was reading about one of the trappers, one of the original people that was traveling across the country in the 1700s. His favorite meal was wolf. Oh, you're kidding me. No, it was guy was eating like wolf meat. I don't think it'd be very good. They're skinny and stringy and sinewy. Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, I don't know why that would be anyone's favorite. Then maybe that's like a cool thing to tell people.

1:16:26I like eating wolves. You know, like you find some guys. Like you're, you know, he wants you to be scared of them. What do you, what do you eat? He's up there alone. He's eating wolves. And that's his favorite. He lives by himself. He just eats wolves. Right. Doesn't that sound like something a man would say? Or worse yet, wolverines. All right. Imagine eating wolverines. No. Anyway, no, it's, it's, I'm glad you showed me that stuff because it's nice to know the stuff is still out there in alignment well. I hear it all the time. I hear about the Canadian super wolves and... Well, we're the Canadian, when there is a thing about mammals, right?

1:17:01That mammals as they get into a colder range, they are larger mammals. Like if you see, like, let's say, northern Alberta, white tail deer versus an Arizona white tail deer. To a certain point, and then when you get to where it's so cold and arctic that the resources, the availability to get food is diminished. Right. Like arctic wolves, anelismeer island are pretty small and they're white. And that... Because they're tiny. You don't have any food. They're smaller. Right. The, the piris caribou up there are smaller than say the caribou in Alaska. There's like, because there should, it's hard to make a living.

1:17:35Right. But yeah, northern climate, like the wolves from Canada, most of them are pretty big. And same with the dollar, everything. Yeah. What's the resource issue, right? This is the reason why most people think, when they think of grizzly bears, grizzly bears have a very similar size, but then you get to coastal brown bears. Right. They're much larger. And it's really just access to protein, right? Salmon. Yeah. Yeah, you got, I've been up to the McNeil to watch the bears and yeah, my God, they're just enormously fat. They're almost obscene waddling around with a roll. You know, because they live in sick.

1:18:09Hello, good old time hibernating. Yeah, and they're, they're so content because they have endless food resources. That's why you can have tourists go out and sit and watch grizzly bears feeding within 100 yards of you sometimes eating salmon and you're under no danger. Why would they bother you when they have thousands of balls of salmon in the river? There's a fantastic video. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there's a photographer and he's got like a little lawn chair set up and he's photographing all these enormous brown bears that are feeding off salmon. And this one walks up and gets as close to him as where Jamie is to us.

1:18:47Oh, wow. And it's huge. And it just sits next to him. Oh my God. It sits next to him and looks down. Watch it. This is it. Oh, that's a big bear. Look at, look at that little folding chair. Oh my God. I mean, just imagine that that is literally where Jamie is. Oh my God. And it doesn't care at all about these people. It's not thinking of them as a food source. No, my question is why did the bear bother? Because he's looking at the river. He doesn't even care that the people are there. He's just like looking at the river going, hmm, let me take a nap here. So he just chills out. Oh my God. I mean, any other time.

1:19:23So if you were in the middle of the forest, and you saw that, first of all, they wouldn't be that big in the middle of the forest. But if you saw a bear like that in the middle of the forest, it would be absolutely terrifying. He would be scared of you. You'd be scared of him. You'd have your bear spray out. Yeah. You'd be scared of him. Look at this guy. He's so close. Yeah. And the bear just sort of walks off like, see ya. Bye. Because he's got so much food. I kind of had a similar experience, McNeal. Not that close. Unclose enough that I was uncomfortable. I live with bears because I'm used to bears that have skinny resources.

1:19:55And they're voracious. And they're pretty aggressive in the fall, because they can be, because they're getting in hyperfagia, where they got in a good enough calories to hybridate. And if you keep them from getting their calories, it's you or the Huckleberry badge, or maybe or you or the elk that you just hung on the woods the night before and you went back to get. That happens. People hang their game on the woods and then go back to the next day and a greasy bear's found it. Have you ever heard Steve's story of that? No, no, tell me. He never sure. Oh my God. They were on a Fogneck Island. Where's that?

1:20:24It's in Alaska. It's connected to, it's like one of the island chains that's right near, what is the big one where they find all the big brown bears? Codiac? Yeah. So it's right off of Codiac. So they were elk hunting. And they shot an elk. And you're talking about. Elk hunting on that island? Yes. Elk hunting on a Fogneck. It's a very hard hunt. Wow. Incredibly difficult hunt because of the terrain. It's almost impossible to traverse. So to get a few miles takes hours and hours and hours. So they go through this, you know, they're basically bushwhacking through this incredibly dense terrain. They find an elk.

1:21:03They shoot the elk. And then they're very far from camp. So they take some of the meat and then they hang the meat in the trees and, you know, they set up. They didn't know that when they came back the next day that a bear had claimed that elk. So there's a gut pile. There's all sorts of stuff there for the bear. Obviously the smell of the meat. And so they took a long time to get where the bear was. And they all sat down. There's a large group with them because they were filming for this television show. My friend, Remi Warren, my friend, Yannis Poutellis. And then Steve and a few other people working on the crew.

1:21:41And they sit down to have lunch. And little do they know that there is an enormous, like 11 foot bear that had claimed that. And he comes running through the camp. Oh my gosh. And one guy, our friend Dirtmith, was actually on his back. The bear plowed through the camp and through the people. And just I don't think it recognized how many people were there. So it didn't know exactly what to do. So he wound up literally on the back of a bear for like 10 to 15 yards before he fell off of it. So then the bear goes in the woods and starts woofing. None of them had their guns out. None of them were ready.

1:22:19They were just eating lunch. They really fucked up. They made a huge tactical error. They also ignored scat, which they weren't sure, like whether or not that was a bear that had recently been. So they were there for quite a while. Guns drawn, like trying to fend off this bear until they eventually got out of there. But both Steve Rinella and Remy Warren have told the story on my podcast. And it's bone chilling. Oh yeah. I hadn't heard that when he said that. Steve said that this thing was literally feet from his head, gnashing its teeth as it's running through the camp. And it's enormous. Just the, he said, you have all these thoughts in your mind of what you would do and how you would feel.

1:23:05And he said, it's just reptilian. Like your brain goes to the most base survival. There's a recognition of this enormous predator, unbelievably sobering experience. Yes. And what I would point out with that is that that bear had every chance in the world to kill everyone of those guys who didn't hurt any of them. Well, it was just trying to protect its kill. It thought was it's. But his theory was that the bear didn't realize how many people were there. In matter they were. And then as it ran through the group, it didn't know like who to hit. Like, you know what I mean? Hit it in the face with trekking poles.

1:23:43Hit the bear in the face? Yannis, oh my god. In the face with trekking poles. Like that close to him. Right. Imagine a head that big, that close. And you hit it with trekking poles. Right. And it just ran past them, probably not knowing which one to target or what to do. Right. And then they got their guns out. And then I don't know exactly how they eventually got to a point where they felt confident enough that they could walk. Right. And then walk with meat on their back. Right. So they went there to pack out. And they have all these guys so they can make the pack out a little bit easier. Terrifying.

1:24:19So now you're walking even slower because you've got 50 pounds in your back. Maybe they left a little behind. They should. Yeah, I think they moved. I mean, yeah, I probably would have to leave the shoulders and the neck. Yeah, at least something. Yeah, at least something to fill them up. My point is that bear could have run through and killed one of them or all of them in a moment of anger. It didn't. It did a bluff charge. It turned around a wolfed in Nash's teeth. And yeah, and it could have killed them. Seriously. Sure. Even if they had their guns, it would have killed one or two of them. Right.

1:24:48And then we have this happen a lot in Montana every year. At least one person is killed by a bear. Or many are can be injured. And the thing that's common is they say the bear charged them and before that it was woofing. And a lot of times they do what's called a bluff charge. But people don't want to wait until a bear is 15 view to wait to figure out if it's a bluff charge or not. So they shoot them. And I bear sprays is very, very effective because you can do a longer distance. And it's accurate. But I personally don't. The science shows and many listeners won't believe this. The science shows that average hunter is better off with the bear spray than a firearm.

1:25:30But in a moment of panic, you can't say what you would do. Better off to survive. To survive with less injury or at least fatal. And people have sprayed a bear that's in attacking somebody and the bear breaks off and leaves. Of course you got to deal with the after. Have you ever been around bear spray, pepper spray? Yeah, I have. Oh my god. Maybe we did it in the... We pepper sprayed a bunch of people on fear factor once. Oh, it's... It's awful. How did you get everybody off camera and get... Yeah, you run away because the breed... Yeah, I actually was... Can't breed. It was tear gas. Oh, okay.

1:26:03Now that I'm remembering. Okay, so what we did, we put these people in this cement structure. And it was like, how long can you tolerate it? I forget exactly what the stunt was. But the wind took a lot of it and blew it through the crew. And we were all running away and it was in your eyes. And I'm sure tear gas is probably pretty similar to the effects that you get from pepper spray. I think pepper spray... Yeah, it might even be worse. Otherwise they'd have tear gas for bear repellent. They don't have pepper spray. I'm sure. It's bad. But I'm just saying, and people can argue this and it all depends on the situation.

1:26:37But in general, bear spray is a more effective tool because you can spray it three times pass -re -sitting. Mm -hmm. And the bear hits that spray and they run away. And I guess I've heard the bear biologist say to me, try shooting a rolling tire at 40 miles an hour and see how accurate your shots are. Because that's what you're shooting at if a bear is charging you. Right. And it's difficult to keep your eye together. That's the big problem. Right. There's panic. Right. It's not necessarily the killing pactors just that you're not gonna hit for it. Or if you have bear spray, it's just this cloud you're spraying out.

1:27:12It's more effective. So... It's like you had a flame thrower. I always carry bear spray when I'm hiking. You don't carry gun? No. Really? Unless I'm bird hunting. Do you ever, does bear spray work on cats? I've heard it and I have never heard about it being used on wolves because generally wolves aren't sneaking around. But I find a cat stalking me lying. I'm boy, you better have my bear spray out. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You've never been a situation where you had a cat stalking or close to you? Not that I saw. Ooh, that's what's scary, right? Exactly. Have you? No, not really. No. I had one kill my dog in Colorado.

1:27:49Aww. Little dog. Well, tiny. Sorry. Yeah, it was a bummer. But there's a big difference, I think, between what you see and what's there. Oh, yeah. I think if you had infrared vision for heat detector and you could see what's out in the woods, you'd never go outside to take a leak when you're at your dad. That's what I would. Probably wouldn't. No. Cause they're so aware of you. And everything's out there. We're basically almost blind. Yes. And especially at nighttime, we're almost blind. And they have senses that are beyond our wildest imagination. Mm -hmm. Like we were talking earlier today, where someone brought up that stuff that hunters used to spray on them to kill their scent.

1:28:30I go listen to me. That shit is nonsense. First of all, whatever that stuff is, they're gonna smell that stuff. Exactly. And it's not gonna hide your scent. You look, I don't know the science behind it. I don't want to kill anybody's business. But as you were with the wolf thing, I'm super skeptical that a deer or an elk is not gonna smell you. If you spray some junk that you bought from Cabela's on you. I know I'm a killing body's business either, but I can tell you from traps, too, I do the same thing. I'm incredibly careful about scent. But they can still smell it. It just be more careful as you can be.

1:29:05But yeah. I just don't think we can even imagine the kind of sense that they have. The kind of ability to smell and hear with those enormous ears and those noses and those eyes that can see at night. I think we're just guessing. And we're trying, it's almost like when you try to imagine the size of the universe and someone says, oh, it was 13 .7 billion years old. It's like light years and like, okay, how big is that? You know, your head just, someone tried to explain it to me in a way that they actually resonated that it's similar to how you can smell scunk, except much more directional. You know, like a scunk can die a mile away and you can smell it, which is really weird.

1:29:49Because there's no other scent like that in the nature. No, that you can pick up at one animal, sprays one thing a mile away and you're driving in your car. You're right. And you're like, oh, you smell it? Right, right? A scunk around here, which is crazy. But now what this guy was saying to me is that now imagine that, but directional and better. And that's like what a bear can do. Or well, yeah, I've read studies and if the wind is right, I've read several miles so you can smell something. Unbelievable. It is unbelievable. And yeah, incredible. Yeah, I think, yeah, the whole scent thing. We just, it's way beyond our ability to detect.

1:30:29And when I've been burying these traps after being so careful with everything and it's kind of voodoo and science mix. It's art and science and you bury everything, you bury the trap, the hook, the grapple cable. I mean, just everything. And then you cover it up and it's been in the ground two weeks, nothing's disturbed it. And then one day, you see where a wolf has come by, taken its paw and dug it the backside of the trap and lifted it out by the spring and pulled it up onto the trail, not snapped. And then there'll be a scat too featually. Wow, it's a fuck you. Yeah. Wow. Why do they do that?

1:31:09Well, maybe because they know it's there and they probably have had some experience in their life with traps. But why mess with it at all? If they know it's dangerous. Right. I mean, yeah. What do you think it's, they're trying to like tell people, I'm not that stupid. My, my imagination and my theory is that maybe this is a wolf that's already caught, it's been caught and it's got other pack members that are naive. And it stops because it smells, it's like, oh man, I know what this is. I'm, maybe it's time to show junior what's going on here and maybe they pull it up. I don't know. Have you ever seen the video of, they caught a rat and the rat takes a stick and blows the mouse trap so it can get the food.

1:31:51No kidding. The rat actually brought over a tool to spring the trap and purposely springs it. I haven't seen the video, but I watched it from the cruise. The problem I have with the videos, I don't know the source. So I don't know if they train this rat. I don't know if this, they may have. Right. So they may be done that just to make a viral video, but it's still pretty extraordinary that this rat figures how it could take a stick and it like moves it and puts the stick on the rat trap, the rat trap springs and then it goes over to, and by the way, it doesn't even flinch when the rat trap springs, which is, no, let's see if we can find it, Jamie.

1:32:25So it's really weird because, yeah, this is it. So he smells it, he smells it. It's a big rat trap. Yeah, so he goes away and I'll check this. Now the thing about him not flinching is the craziest. So he gets the stick, he's heading to the end. He lifts it up and drops it. He didn't flinch. He didn't flinch at all. Isn't that insane? I mean imagine you get a wild animal. It seems like something, something, maybe he's done it before. But there was something weird about it where he must have known that that's going to happen. And the camera with the full eye reflection sitting indoors in the room, that doesn't, that doesn't smack a wildness to me.

1:33:04That's something that's not really wild, right? They're domesticated in some sort of a way. Well, you know, there's as close to as many rats as there are people in New York City by weird estimations, which I'm sure they don't have a good accurate account of how many rats there are, but there's so many of them. And there's an amazing documentary called Rats that's on Netflix and it's really good. And it shows you how intelligent they are. And one of the things that they do is they take the young, brash rats and they let them go try the food out first to see if it's poison, because they've been poisoned so many times.

1:33:35So they look at this young dummy. It's like, oh, you did it, right? Send Sam. Sam's a dumbass. So Sam, the rat runs over and eats the poison and he gets sick and they're like, let's get out of here. And they take off, but they have some very bizarre survival instincts that's highly tuned to this recognition that they're being at least tried, not preyed upon necessarily, but sometimes they're trying to kill them. They're not eating them, but some weird situation where it's poison. So they've figured out what poison is. So they're like, they're really smart. Crazy. So they'll send a dummy to go out a young guy to go out and eat the poison.

1:34:15Give it to Mikey. Mikey likes everything. Is that it? I mean, like, what kind of natural adaptation is that? And like, what is that from? Is this like, I'm sure you're aware of this, but there's a very bizarre study that they've done where there's a thing, there's a concept called morphic resonance and the idea is that once one animal learns this, the other animals will learn it easier and that this is scientifically proven and that the idea is that there's some sort of a sharing of information that is not local and that we don't totally understand. So the concept is the way it's been proven is that rats on one side of the country, if they go through a maze, the rats on the other side of the country will go through the maze quicker.

1:35:01The exact same maze. See if you can find that. So they don't know what this is. Like, you know, I think we have a very naive belief that the senses that we have recognized, all of them, whether they're sight, sound, touch, taste, whatever they are, this is it. This is all it's available. And that the concept might, the idea is that there might be something that we're missing or something that we really, we as dumb blind human beings in terms of our ability to see things. We don't have the ability to tune in to what these animals can tune into. I think there's a huge portion of our brain that we never, never touch and I think animals are more tuned in.

1:35:43I think in many ways, many species are smarter than us just because they can sense the environment more acutely. Yeah, maybe smarter than the right one. Maybe not. But there's something, rat learning and morphic resonance. Yeah. So according to hypothesis, a formative causation, there's no difference in common between innate and learned behavior, both depend on motor fields given by morphic resonance. The hypothesis, therefore, it mits a possible transmission of learned behavior from one animal to another and leads to a testable prediction, which differs to testable predictions, which differ not only from those of the Orthodox theory of inheritance, but also from those of the Lamarkey and theory and from inheritance through epigenetic modifications of gene expression.

1:36:31So animals of an in -bred strain are placed under conditions in which they learn to respond to a given stimulus in a characteristic way. They are then made to repeat this pattern of behavior many times. X -hypothaside, the new behavioral field, which will be reinforced by morphic resonance, will not only cause the behavior of the trained animals to become increasingly habitual, but will also affect, though less specifically, any similar animal exposed to a similar stimulus. The larger the number of animals in the past that have learned the task, the easier it should be for the subsequent similar animals to learn it.

1:37:06Therefore, in an experiment of this type, it should be possible to observe a progressive increase in the rate of learning, not only in the animals descended from trained ancestors, but also in genetically similar animals descended from untrained ancestors. This is pretty wild stuff. It's pretty wild, yeah. So it just speaks to this, I think we naively look at our senses as being the only ones that are available. There's obviously some kind of communication that transpires between animals that allows them to hunt in packs, particularly wolves. Like they have strategies. They do things, like they know how to corner animals, they know how to funnel them into like pinch points.

1:37:49They do it on purpose, and they seem to be aware of what they're doing through, whether it's gestures or pheromones or something that we're just guessing on, but they're accomplished at it. It's not like a singular individual event that you can point to, like maybe that was just dumb luck. They ran the deer through this area and the other wolves just happened to be there. No, no, they have specific tasks where they have wolves that will get on the top of the ridge and let themselves be known so they get these animals running, and then the other wolves are ahead of them, and then they have wolves that follow behind them.

1:38:23The Yellowstone's been a great place to observe hunting. I mean, when I was working up Northwars Montana, it's heavily forested. We never almost never got the watch wolves chasing prey unless we're in the airplane. But in the Lamar, you got scopes and everybody's watching it, and I've seen some pretty incredible chases, and there's certain, in some packs, certain individuals are the chasers, the younger animals, and some of the individuals are the kuda grá. They go in for the kill after the animals been tired, and I guess there was some older animals that are too valuable, potentially, to risk being injured early on, but they join in the chase and they know how to kill an animal.

1:39:02So one thing I've always wondered, I don't know if this is with the morphic resonance, but that's something different maybe, but I've always wondered when wolves were first walking down from Canada and dispersing from glacier before wolves were reintroduced, and there was a very thin population of wolves out there. How do they know where to go? For example, there is a wolf pack in the nine mile, it's a drainage outside of Missoula, and this pair of wolves had formed a mating system and they had a litter of pups. The female was poached on Memorial Day, which is, those pups are born in middle April.

1:39:41So they were pretty young. They were five, six weeks old. They were still dependent on mom, and the concern was that the dad wouldn't be able to raise those pups because he's got to go out and hunt, and they may be just being wind and blah, blah, blah. Well, two weeks, two weeks, after the female was dead, my colleague, Mike, who was working down there, and says, hey, Diane, are you missing any colored wolves from glacier? I said, yeah, I'm missing several, that I don't know where they went. He says, because I just had a colored wolf show up here and joined the nine mile mail. I said, really, I said, well, here's my list of frequencies in the missing wolves that had been missing, and he put ran through the receiver and listened, and one of those wolves was one that I'd caught in glacier and disappeared six, seven months earlier.

1:40:26So like, so she wandered around in that cyber space, but mountain space, trying to look for a place to fit in, and all of a sudden, when this female gets shot, boom. She's there to fill in the slot. Wow. How does that happen? And that happens in Yellowstone, too, or one of the reading animals will be killed and very soon after, a wolf of unknown, well, there they know a lot of the wolves, but a wolf would just show up the rate gender, the rate age, and potentially bond and start a new pack. How do they know? And I guess all I can say is, with that, there's scent, the wolves smelling the air and the scat can detect all kinds of things, harmonally, and the dominance of an animal.

1:41:07If the female went missing, almost said they won't smell it anymore, and maybe it's a female coming in, and she knows it. But geographically, how do they know it am I great? 200 miles and show up exactly when the other wolf disappears. Well, they've been trying to figure out forever what's going on with birds, and how birds, like San Hillcranes, for example. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Canadian geese. Like, what's going on? Like, how are these birds figuring out these incredible migration paths? Right. It's amazing to me. So have you ever heard of the book called World on the Wing by Paul, I think last name is Weed and How is Something?

1:41:43It's about the world of migration. It is mind -boggling. If you like to read nature, stuff, and science, it's written so anybody can enjoy. You don't have to be a scientist. But it's fascinating and full of facts about the world of bird migration, and how they get places, and like a particular, important flat in China that was critical habitat for a group of birds suddenly gets developed, and it's like the wentry and ground for half a million of these birds, or whatever it was, and certainly where do they go? Right. I don't know. Migratory birds are very fascinating. Oh, I know. Like, what are they following?

1:42:20And what GPS do they have in a little tiny brains? They have a little tiny brain. I know. But yet, they're able to use something. There's a theory that it's the magnetic poles. Right. Or the stars or whatever. The stars, really? I've never heard that one. I just heard a lot of stuff. I've had, I remember, yeah. One winter night, I was at my little remote cabin, and it was at Moosity, and it was stormy, and it was like no vanmering. It was stormy, and I went outside to use the outhouse, and I heard this calling, and it was dark, and stormy, and I was calling and calling and got closer and closer, and I put my bright flashlights straight up, and there was a flock of snow geese.

1:43:01I never seen snow geese up there. Never. And they were circling around, and they were lost in the storm. And there's no lights up there, except for my house light and my flashlight, and they were circling around the meadow. And I, I listened to that haunting call, and I thought, how are they going to survive it? This is the valley bottom. Are they going to try and go up over the mountain tops? In the storm? Are they going to crash land in the meadow for the night? Anyway, I got to thinking about them. I thought, why, how did they get here? They got blown off course. I just shut my light off, and I don't know what happened to them, never saw them again.

1:43:37Wow. But I think about these birds, a lot of them die migrating. Yeah. They don't have a good ending. You know, there's birds that fly across the entire ocean. It's mind -boggling. Mind -boggling. They sleep while they're flying. I know. I wish I could do that when I was driving. I try sometimes. There's one of them. One of them was a very big bird. Albatross. That's right. Albatross. And they literally sleep while they're soaring across the sky. Yeah, they just put out those big old wings. Just ride the wave. Yeah, for months or years. Yeah. I mean, it's crazy, right? Like what? Are you doing?

1:44:07So why are you doing that? There you go. Yeah. Albatross can fly nonstop for over 16 ,000 kilometers. Wow. That is so crazy. For example, a gray -headed Albatross flew 13 ,670 miles around the world in 46 days in 2005. Oh my god. That's crazy. Lace and Albatross can travel 1 ,600 miles on foraging trips to feed their chicks. Large Albatross species can spend up to five years at sea. Albatross can go up to six years before returning to the island where they were born to mate and lay eggs. Unbelievable. Yeah. I got to see Albatross one time when I was down. I think I was down. I think it was New Zealand, but they were amazing.

1:44:52I like the time. It's crazy here. We're talking about how they can fly over vast areas without flapping their wings. Did you choose the wind, expending almost none of their own? Wow. So it would be interesting to me. I would hope the day would come with wolves and other large carnivores where people learned about the science. And they get just as excited as this instead of the wolves have killed all the deer now. Well, I think there's a narrative in this country, right? Yeah. I think the narrative is, first of all, they were killed off a long time ago by poise and by ranchers and by settlers. And because of that, we grew up with this narrative that they had to kill off the wolves.

1:45:35So then these damn hippies come and vote and I wanted to ask you about that too. What you're feeling is on biology that's done by vote, which is how informed are these people that are catching this vote? How emotional is this and how much of this, these decisions that people are making. Like one of them being that I think was particularly egregious was the delisting of grizzly bears in PC because I have a good friend who lives up there and he's like, there's a lot of grizzly bears up there. They still allow black bear hunting but they're not controlling the grizzly bear population because the people in Vancouver, or that's the large population, they have the most votes.

1:46:15They decided to got an outlaw, what they call trophy hunting. And so biology by vote by people that probably don't know anything about what's going on and they don't have to other than have this emotional response. But I think going back to what we're talking about is that we have this narrative that the wolves are bad, the wolves are killed off for a good reason. We don't want wolves. Oh my God, people are bringing back wolves. What are they doing? We want to kill those damn wolves. And so there's a good percentage of the population that lacks this nuanced perspective of the complexity of the ecosystem and how amazing it is to be able to see wolves.

1:46:56Like if you're a per, I've never seen them in the wild. I saw one once in Alberta, but it was so brief. It was dusk. It was like, it was actually after last light. So it was running across this dirt road. And I was like, a wolf? There were a lot of wolves up there. Yeah, yeah. I think a camera trap, photos of these wolves. So that's most likely what it was. And they give out wolf tags. You can get as many wolf tags you want up there. But good luck finding one. You know, they're a lot smarter than you know, or a lot better at living the woods than you are. But we have these ideas that are ingrained in us that the wolves were killed off for a good reason.

1:47:30And they're only being brought back because of morons. We've summed that up pretty well. Isn't that how people feel about it? Yeah, so a couple of things. I as a wolf conservationist, I guess, I'd say, and researcher. And a wolf lover. And manage it well. Don't you love them? I love wolves. I love dogs. I love foxes. I love white tailed. I love wildlife. That's better. And I'm kind of in the middle, but obviously I'm passionate about wolves. And I lean towards whatever we need to do to ensure that they continue as a species. I'm not saying they're going to live in Iowa and Texas. I'm just saying there's places that they can live where they more likely belong.

1:48:12I'm just going to put it that way. But I am not in favor of reintroductions. And I was not in favor of the Yellowstone in the Central Idaho reintroductions, which usually surprises people because I promote wolf conservation. But I felt that wolves were coming down on their own from Canada. And before those wolves were ever introduced by 1995, where like eight packs of wolves in the state of Montana, 70, 75 wolves. And you can go go out with the US Fish and Wildlife Service really reports. They were making it. And I feel like some of these places were reintroductions are happening because of ballot box initiatives, like Colorado, wolves were already starting to get to Colorado.

1:48:53And the people who are wolf proponents say we want them are introduced because they'll never make the great desert across Wyoming. They'll all be killed to count, make it. Well, a few of them have. And they even made pups in 19, I think it was 20, 20, or 20, 21. And then this wolf was, did I do it about the wolf from Michigan? Yeah, the wolf that was killed, trapped in Colorado this year that came from the Great Lakes. My God, how did it get there? But it did. So I feel sort of that Colorado is on the cusp of natural recovery. If it's going to be one year or 10 years or 50 years, it's a time issue.

1:49:28And I think the same was true for Yellowstone in Central Idaho. They were already getting to those places. Wolves had already been seen, two of them confirmed. In and around Yellowstone Park in 1991 or two before they were reintroduced. And my wolf's going to be all to Idaho. It's just a slower wave. And people want to jumpstart this with reintroducing wolves. Well, in my humble opinion, I'm not a psychologist, but I think the social tolerance of humans for anything is better when it isn't forced on them. I don't like having things forced on me. Of course. Yeah. So when you force wolves on somebody, it's going to meet with human resistance.

1:50:09If they walk there on their own, I believe they will get there. Our science has shown that they do. It just takes longer. The other thing of interest about the reintroductions is that people think the wolf loving hippies pushed to have the wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone in Idaho. I'll just say Yellowstone, but it's the same. And to some point, it is that faction, but the reason it happened was because two conservative and a senator is one from Idaho, McClure, one from Wyoming, Simpson, very conservative, ranching, supporting base promoted to Congress to pass laws to get those wolves reintroduced.

1:50:54Because they could see the writing on the wall that the wolves are coming anyway. And if they walked on there on their own, they're going to be fully endangered. Well, if we were to do some, they get a different classification called non -essential experimental population. Meaning because humans put them there, you can manipulate them and kill them if they're taking livestock. It's just more flexible management. So the senators thought we were getting there. Anyway, let's just put them in there. Realists. Yeah, that's a little bit of the interesting background that people aren't aware of with the reintroductions that it was really people way on the right and way on the left coming towards a common goal for different reasons.

1:51:34Wanna see a crazy video of a wolf that was in Bakersfield? Yeah, in California. Yeah, my friend filmed this. So this wolf, he was driving down the freeway in Bakersfield, California. And they looked off and there was this wolf. I've sent you this, right, Jamie? I have a video with Playable Club County. Yeah, do you think you still have it? I know Cody sent it to me. I can find it. So my friend who was out there filmed this wolf off the highway and this is like five miles from an in -and -out burger. Sorry. Yeah, and it's in California. I mean, we're talking about an hour 40 from Los Angeles. Oh my gosh.

1:52:18Yeah, and he was speculating that perhaps this wolf was brought there by someone, damn, it might be on my other phone. Did I send it to you, Jamie? I know I saved it. I can find it, but this might be a little bit of a pain in the ass. Maybe it's here. So this wolf was very cool looking, like this very big black wolf. And he's like wandering around these cows. And then someone comes and shoes him away and he runs off. Huh? Damn it. Does he have a collar on? No, he does not. I think I read about this wolf. There's a wolf that went down through the central California valley and ended up going down through the vineyard country.

1:52:59And I think it was probably that wolf that it was seen. Oh, probably. I mean, there's not that many wolves there. And a lot of people are super skeptical, like how would a wolf wind up there? But if you do, what you're saying in terms of the amount of land that they can travel on is saying hundreds and hundreds of miles historically back at Aons of Time. Wolves had the largest global distribution of any man on the world except people. I mean, wolves live from the Arctic to the prairies to the temperate forest to the Gaza Strip still. And they live there's wolves in the Gaza Strip. There's wolves in the Netherlands right now.

1:53:37Wolves have expanded. They will live anywhere that we don't kill them off because they did historically. I mean, there were wolves on Staten Island. I'm sure it's not. Now we have different wolves there. There are cows. But I'm thinking, yeah, anyway, stock market. Wolves are wall street. Yeah, exactly. That's where I'm going. So, but they live anywhere because they can eat anything. But mostly what they need is four -legged hoofed mammals, usually deer out, caribou, most whatever, occasionally livestock. They need a place where they can secure that they can well up and raise pups. And then they need a freedom of persecution from humans, being at traps, poison, shooting, whatever.

1:54:17If you have enough of those three factors, they will be there. They mean they've been showing up in Iowa and Missouri and the Dakota's for years and years now, but they don't make it because they get killed. But they're trying. Yeah, I think I might have saved it under wolf. If I look, there's like videos. Ooh, I'd love to see that video. The thing that you can do now with your iPhone, we can just search for wolves. Really? Search for stuff. Show me the werewolf in the lobby. It's showing me all the pictures I have of carol at Marshall. Is not showing you that one wolf now. Showing me. But you saw one or your friend did.

1:54:52No, a friend did. He filmed it. I know I had the video. So if you get a chance, Joe, if you're really interested in seeing wolves, just take a trip to Yellowstone and go, I would suggest not in the summer, because it's just crazy. I'd go in the winter. You can hire a wolf tour guide or you can go on your own, just stay at hotel, but you got to get up before dark. What was that, Jamie? This is those mountain lions crying. Oh, wow. And you got to go out, dawn and dusk. In a winter time, they're easier to see because of the snow. And it's really fun, depending on the season, if you go in the fall, they got bigger pack because the pups are still alive.

1:55:25You go in the winter, they get breeding behavior and stuff going on. And there's always something to see. I go there myself, but I know a lot of the wolf waters. I just drive the roads until I see people pull over and I get out and watch. And they might be a mile away. They might be 400 yards away. But bring a scope. And I suggest you just hire a guide. You'll see wolves carrying two. Just be able to hear them and be cool. Yes, I mean, it's amazing to hear them howling. One thing we did come across when I was hunting in BC, we were moose hunting about 10 years ago or so. And we found a calf that had been killed.

1:55:58And it was really interesting because they stripped it down to the bone and what was wild was all the hair. It was hair everywhere. And I'm like, I didn't even think of that. I didn't think there'd be hair everywhere for some stupid reason. How long ago did they kill? That was anything left? Oh, it's pretty recent. It was real recent, like within the day. Really? You sure? I know that's on my Instagram. Wasn't it a bear killer? Oh no, it was wolf kill. Yeah, okay. My friend who was up there. I just asked his bearer and lions both plucked and stray hair off. Well, that area had a lot of wolves.

1:56:34Okay. And he was very accustomed to finding calves that were killed by wolves. We found it because of birds. Sure. The birds were circling. It's like, let's go see what's over there. Yeah, Meg Pies and Ravens are my best friends. We had them all look at her kills. Yeah, and then interesting. Like that's how you find things. Yeah, I find it. It is. Yeah, and how do they find it? Like what? You know? So there's been stories written. And there's a guy who does a lot of Raven studies. Oh, his name escapes me right now. There's so smart. Yeah, he's done some really interesting studies with Ravens. And if you ever watched the videos of crows solving puzzles and Ravens, oh my god.

1:57:10Incredible, right? Next life I want to come back as a Raven. Not only do they solve puzzles, but they figure out how to raise water levels so they can get the food in a jar. Think about that. They drop rocks into the jar until the water level raises so they can get the food that's floating. The Raven guy's name is Bernt Heinz. He's German. Bernt is in burning with burnt. Bernt and Heinz. Yeah, anyway, it's cool stuff. I mean, this is, I mean, you and I are both obviously very interested in animals, hunt our own food. But just when I'm out hunting, I feel a little bit like a predator, not a lot because I got a gun.

1:57:44But I watch the dogs who are basically predators. Yeah. And I watch animals on the landscape and you see so much when you're out hunting. I'm sure, I mean, what's the coolest animal you've ever seen when you've been out on the landscape, hiking or hunting or anything? That mountain line that we saw might've been the coolest. That was the coolest, but I saw a Badger once. I got a film of that. I actually got out of the truck and got close to him. Then he started coming towards me and I ran. I was like, what am I going to do? What it's wrong with me? Like, what am I stupid? They're blonde Wolverines.

1:58:15That's really what they are. He looked fucking terrifying and not very big, but like, for rocious. I've caught a couple of wolf traps. That's a cool looking animal. They're so cool looking. I just couldn't imagine that I was seeing one. Like, it was in Utah. I've seen one in the wild. I've seen, I saw one grizzly. And it looked at me so much different than any bear I've ever looked at. I've hunted black bear before and I've been around black bear many, many times and this is the first grizzly and it was so different the way it looked at me. Where was it? This is in BC. No, excuse me, this is in Alberta.

1:58:49And this one was not a big one. He was about six feet tall, but he looked through me. It looked different. Like a black bear looks like, who are you? What's this? What are you doing over there? Are you food? Are you gonna kill me? What are we doing? They're a little sketched out because they're not the top of the food chain the grizzlies are. And so the grizzly looked at me like this. Like right at me. We had shotguns. We screamed at them and you know. He wasn't scared. Yeah, and my friend Jen, she slammed a stick against the tree. Like, get out of here bear and cock the shotgun and the bear took off, but it was the difference in looking in their face.

1:59:26They just have a totally different look. They look at you like this. Like, am I gonna get you right now? It's just a grizzly has a hard life. It's not like that brown bear that has all those salmon that's sitting by the river. Those grizzlies are out there like trying to survive. Yeah, I grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains are quite small compared to the coastal brown bears and the same species. Yeah. But they're very different and they have to make a living. I mean, if you had to make your living picking hawkberries needing gut piles in the fall, it'd be skinny and they have to put on a lot of weight.

1:59:59Well, that to me is so fascinating how animals change. They change their behavior based on the amount of resources that are available. And whether or not they're safe. Like the Yellowstone elk that are habitualized that are just around people hanging out with them. And Bant, you ever been to Bant from the fall? No, I haven't, but I've seen photos. They're virgling and mating on the post office line. Literally. It's smart for them though. Absolutely. No hunters. Right. And people just pull over to pull their phones out and film them. Yeah, I think the wolves, I think I've heard of occasionally wolves find out and they sneak into town at night.

2:00:32Well, were you telling a story on Steve Rinales's podcast about a very nice neighborhood of like these nice homes and these wolves have decided to set up shop? Yes, it was a closed gated community between Whitefish and Calispell. And they had their pups in this closed gated community because there's no hunting. It's unlimited green space and undeveloped forest because people have mick mansions and they have you, Jacob, and it's just quiet time. There's not a safer place and the people there like them because they don't have livestock. They're using non -honors. They, it's great except then they grow up and they have to leave the wolves.

2:01:08Right. So then they go out in the real world and then they get their asses kicked. Yeah, right. That's a problem because then you're like a wolf growing up in a gated community literally. Right. And you've learned that people are okay. You learn that people are okay and you're deer everywhere. Right. Because the deer know that people are okay and the deer are not used to wolves being there. Right. It's really interesting. Yeah, that pack didn't make it. I'm not surprised. Right. But it was just so interesting to me how adaptable wolves are. You know, when I first started this business that come from Minnesota and the wolves lived only in the northern third or quarter of the state where it was boundary water canoe area and really wild because any place else they got killed up.

2:01:47So I always thought these wolves were denizens of the wilderness and they would only live where it was incredibly wild. And they come to show us that's not true. They will live wherever we'll tolerate them. And that could be, I mean, there were wolves in Texas not that long ago, red wolves. So they were here, but you know, they're just not tolerated. How much of a problem is it where they kill pets? It's a giant mountain lion issue, especially in northern California. One place outside of San Francisco, they did an analysis of the diet of mountain lions that they had captured and it was 50 % pets.

2:02:25But of course it's a bias survey because it's by San Francisco. So it's not. Yeah. But it's just fascinating that they had actively chosen to hunt pets. If I was a mountain lion living near San Francisco, I'd be in poodles and chihuahua and cats. Absolutely. Easy prey. They're a lot of them. Nobody's gonna shoot you in California, it's a legal. It's a term life until you get run over in the freeway. Well, it's probably one of the reasons why you don't hear about that in Texas because in Texas they're like vermin. Yeah, you can shoot as many mountain lions as you want. If you see a mountain lion, you shoot them just like a coyote.

2:02:57It's just, that's interesting. I didn't know that in Texas. So you don't need a tag, you don't need anything. Really? Yep. It's amazing. They're still hanging on. There's the wolf. Oh, it's, yeah. How'd you find it, Jamie? Wow. I found out that it was on the Adam Green Tree episode 259. You see the white triangle? Thank you, Jamie, you're the best. You see the white triangle in the chest? Yes. That indicates to me it's a younger wolf because the pups can be born. Yeah, can you wind that back again? Yeah, thanks. So this is my friend Cody filmed this off the highway. Awesome. So he had a scope, you know, like a spotting scope.

2:03:31Yeah, yeah. And he put awesome. Look at that. That's amazing. So the white chevron, pups, younger wolves have that and as they get older, like the rest of us, they get gray and that doesn't stand out so much. So it would probably be a yearling, maybe a two year old wolf. Interesting. So what their speculation is, you know, he works on a ranch. Their speculation is that someone released that and they think these rogue wildlife lovers are really, look at cows right there. That these rogue wildlife lovers are releasing wolves to try to force some sort of a reintroduction into central California. I know for fact that there was a wild wolf that was tracked going down to central and to Baker'sfield.

2:04:15I don't know if it's black or gray, but I know there was one. So it's not unprecedented? No, it's not. My friend, Kent Loudon, does the wolf work in California. He's a biologist, used to being Montana and I know. And no, they're making a comeback. I think there's six packs now and they're doing really well. Mostly northern California. No, northern California. And yeah, and there's lots of conflict because they can't, they can't. I'm pretty darn sure. They cannot kill the wolves that are killing livestock. So it's set up for a conflict, kind of like in California. They're having some management in Flexibil in California.

2:04:47I mean, in Colorado. But so far, I mean, they just now, so a pair of wolves that they reintroduced found each other and made a pack and they had the only litter of pups known to be in Colorado this year. I believe both of those wolves came from Oregon and they both had livestock killing experience before they chose them to release, which is really unfortunate. So the dilemma was, okay, they did okay until people started calving. And now there's little calves on the ground and now the wolves are coming in and they're starting to kill calves and then they might kill a heifer or something. And anyway, they're killing livestock.

2:05:30So what do you do? You got a male and a female and a litter of pups and they have started a history of killing livestock. What do you do with them? The slight majority of people in Colorado, the ballot box initiative stuff, want to see all the wolves protected and a slight minority, it's like 49 and a half to 50 and a half or something, want them removed. And the people in the middle are trying to figure out to do so they went and captured them and put them in a holding facility for a while and they're gonna release them later. Well, you still have a problem. Because they still are habitualized.

2:06:06They will probably likely to continue killing livestock. It's hard to find. Are there other ranchers reimbursed? Like, is there a fun for that? In Montana, there is, I presume, yeah, there is in Colorado, yeah. They're reimbursed, but as I've worked with ranchers and they said, I didn't raise my cows for your damn wolves to kill them. Well, you know, I don't care. I don't want the money. I just don't want the wolves here. And sometimes when you're working with a rancher community, that's the only common denominator you have is you're out there because you don't want their cows killed because then wolves have to get killed.

2:06:39They don't want their cows killed because they didn't, they raised them for all these generations. They have a genetic, a good pool genetically, they are invested. So you have the same, that's the same common goal and you might have different reasons to come to that goal, but that's how you work with people. You know how it is, yeah. There's always a common denominator always. I was watching a documentary about this guy who lived with wolves, like lived with wolves in some contained environment and he would like set up a fake kill where he would eat the liver so he could be like the dominant male and he would growl at them.

2:07:10It was really stupid. Yeah, you're right. Thanks. I'm with you. Anyway, this gentleman who is a wolf expert was then recruited to try to help a sheep herder with wolves that had moved in to take over his flock. And one of the strategies they used is giant speakers. So they took speakers and they played sounds of wolves to scare off these other wolves. And so then he goes back to the pack and tries to be the alpha again and they corner him, snarl at him and he had him whimper and he had a, it's a very weird documentary because this is some sort of a strange, fenced -in environment that they've created where these wolves are living.

2:07:48Sounds a bit like Timothy Treadwell, the grocery similiar. Very similar. Very, very, very similar. Yeah. Well, I think that's from the movie, The Warner Hurts Law, another Warner Hurts Law from Grizzly Man. Oh, that was amazing. Amazing movie. And an unintentional comedy. Maybe intentional. I think it was a little bit intentional because there's a few cuts in there where you're like, he had to know that was funny. And I think that was suicide by bear. Yeah. That's what I think. And the girlfriend. Yeah, I think that guy and the girlfriend unfortunately. But I think that guy wanted to die and I think he wanted to die that way.

2:08:24He had to know. What I'll say is captive wolf facilities and I'm gonna have many people who love their captive wolves, but captive animal behavior and wild wolf behavior have some parallels, but they're not the same. Yeah. And that guy doing this thing would never happen with wild wolves. Right. Impossible. No. There was never tolerate that. Yeah. No, it's a weird bastardization of reality. Yeah. And many people, I did part of my career earlier helping to try and keep wolves out of livestock. And we put out, we put out sirens and we put out blinking lights and bought raw cow hide patches and raw hamburger and laced it with lithium chloride, which is a toxin that makes you violently ill right away.

2:09:13It's not gonna kill you. The idea being that these wolves would eat the spates wrapped with string and taste all this wonderful beef burger and taste the hide and then associate that bad experience of vomiting, your gut's out for 24 hours or whatever, to the animal on the hoof out there. That's a great idea for how your human brain works. They just ate every bait we put out and their paws were puking. They don't think like we think. Right. Of course not. And one guy ran sure I was working with, we were putting out the baits, whatever. I had, they did the sirens and they did what's called fladdery and fladdery and they used it in Europe in places like Poland to hunt wolves where you hang streamers down from fences and you start out with a really wide funnel in the woods and the hunters used to drive the wolves through the forest with people at the end with guns and they would see the fladdery and it would be quite a ways apart like a mile or two or something and they wouldn't cross the fladder because it scared them and they get to the end and it's like shooting fessons at the end of a cornfield.

2:10:12Wow. So people have taken that idea to try and keep wolves out of like cabbing pans in specific areas where the livestock are confined. It doesn't work well when they're out in free range and it works pretty well. So I was out working with this past year a guy in northern Minnesota and he had a long skinny pasture and I had out got highway blinking lights that came on at night and the fladdery and he was so kind he let me this is a lot of years ago it's just this young starry eyed thing. So I stopped into visiting him and I said, well I know you had a lot, you had a lot, you had a lot. I said got a calf.

2:10:44I said have any, the wolf's been back and he looked at me and he's just, well no, they haven't been back. He says, I said do you think the blinking lights are working on your pastures? He says, well, I don't know, but I damn knew how to plane land here last night. It's just, I broke up laughing. He broke up laughing. It was just like, yeah, this is a tough job. Let's just have some fun here. That's hilarious. But again, he didn't like wolves. I didn't want him killing us cows and that was a common factor to try and keep them apart. What are the cons when there's pros and cons for reintroduction of wolves?

2:11:21What do you think the cons are? Of. The reintroduction Colorado, the reintroduction, the yelstown. I believe potentially a decreased human tolerance. And the wolves don't have a learning curve. They're taken from one place and then, boop, they're popped their versus if they kind of migrate, they were down, they run this gauntlet. They kind of have to learn on the way to be successful to get there. They have to learn to avoid livestock pans or whatever they have to learn and stay a little more secret tip. So that's just my belief that when they're making it on their own, they've been smart enough to get there.

2:11:58Whereas when you just put them there, you're going to forever have people believing they don't belong, they're not native. So the problem is in the perceptions of the people that are encountering the wolves or they're impacted by the wolves being there. I believe so, yeah. And so for example, now we've got wolves in the, they were put into a, a total of 66 wolves were put into Idaho and Wyoming and then other 10 were added to Wyoming for Montana. But it's very small number of wolves. But now wolves have taken over Washington, Oregon, California. They've made a few of made it to Colorado. They're trying to get in Utah.

2:12:32If you've been shot there. And all those wolves came from this introduced population, some from Montana, but they'll never be considered native. Which is crazy because they used to be native. And the wolves that were taken for the sources, like I explained earlier, they're taken from an area that wolves from Glacier Park walked to. They are one population, but there's a relief socially. Because they were put there. They're not native. They're Canadian super wolves. And I've heard the crazy stories like these wolves weigh 175 pounds and they were selected out of all the wolves captured. They took the ones that were the most aggressive so that when they put them on the ground, they would survive everything.

2:13:12It's like, oh my god, no. Well, that sounds ridiculous, but it is kind of crazy to me that if you wanted a wolf reintroduction to be successful, why would you take animals that have a history predation on cattle and livestock and use those as the reintroduction wolves? I think that kind of mindset or that ignorance, whether it's willful ignorance or whether it's on purpose, whether it's a fuck you to the ranchers, whatever it is, that is why people have this negative perception I think you're alluding to, right? And I don't think it was enough you to the ranchers. I think what happened was because of the ballot box initiative, the state of Colorado was required by law by December 31st of 2023 to get 10 wolves or so on the ground.

2:13:58And it took them... But what if they weren't successful? Well, if they're required by law, does someone go to jail if you're not successful in capturing the wolves to put there? I don't know, but what I'm saying is they had a pretty limited time, they spent a lot of time trying to prep people and doing committees and working with people to get them prepared. And by the time they were able to get everything in place, they were running against a wall, they were introducing wolves very late in the year, I think it was December. And the only place it could get source wolves, they got them from Oregon and that point, Oregon game 10 wolves, half of them, roughly half of them, happen to have some livestock experience if they...

2:14:33So this time right now, they're already gearing up for the next introduction, to swim or probably, they're working with British Columbia, I believe, and they're gonna take wolves, presumably that have not had livestock experience, and let them go. Like they did with the original introductions in the Yellowstone, I know, and I really believe, because of the political pressure, just squeezed this into a short timeline, that the people who were really pro -wolf, it was forced that they were had to take the wolves that they got. That's what I believe. I don't think it was an FU, I think it was unintentional, but it's like, these are the wolves, these are the wolves you're gonna get, and they took them.

2:15:09That sounds so short -sighted. Well, I know, but I'm not there, and I'm not trying to badmouth their efforts, they're under a lot of pressure, half the state wants wolves, half doesn't, they're under a short timeline. Oregon was the only state that offered up their wolves. Wyoming said no, Montana said no, everybody said no. Oregon says you can have 10 of ours, here's the 10 you're gonna get. Yeah, I could see why they did it that way, but boy, that seems like you're just adding to the problems. It really does. In hindsight, it does, yeah, and it, yeah. So what are the positives about the reintroduction of wolves?

2:15:48So, because it has been successful. In Colorado or in general. In general, because the Colorado one is just this year, right? It's time frame. See, all of a sudden it has to do with the time frame, the mistakes and the rewards. So the positive, most positive pros of reintroductions is you speed up the time frame. So like if we had let wolves slowly wander down from Canada and eventually get to Yellowstone, it may have taken 10 years, it may have taken 50. I mean, it happened in Montana pretty quickly once they hit critical mass, but it took them a few years to get there and then they just started the curve.

2:16:22But people didn't want the time window and we had a presidential administration that was in favor and we had conservative congressman that were in favor of it, you had the wolf groupies in favor of it and it, it's just like all came together in the time frame and the window of opportunity opened about four inches and they shoved them through. In Colorado, mandated by citizen spell initiatives, which is not a really great way to, I don't think to do business on any bill. I mean, we have bills in Montana coming up now for voting, but the timeline was short and I think if they had more options, they would have taken wolves.

2:16:57They would have taken wolves from my home in Montana for sure because they're more wild, whatever. We do have depredating wolves, but they kind of got down to the wire and everybody denied them, except for Oregon. So that's what happened. Well, the problem with that, of course, is what we're talking about with epidemiology that like these animals do have a learned behavior pattern that's gonna be imparted on their offspring as well and the surrounding community, they're gonna favor that because it's a very simple way to get food. Pretty simple. On the other hand, they can learn new behavior like the wolves that were taken for their introduction to Yellowstone, they had never seen a bison, all of them.

2:17:34And they've learned now on Yellowstone, a lot of the animals that kill their bison. They've been kidding. Yeah, yeah, it's really mind -boggling to meet and see I heard surround a bison and eventually were it down or kill it or find one that's injured. There's an amazing painting that I'm pretty sure Ranela told me about. He might have even had a copy of it or was it Remi? Might have been Remi. No, it was Remi because Remi actually, he reproduced this on his television show. He had a show called Apex Predator and the show Apex Predator was all like examining the behavior characteristics of Apex Predators and seeing what they did.

2:18:08And one of the things that some of the Native American tribes used to do, they would take a wolf skin and they would wear it put it on their head and they would crawl on two legs or on four legs, hands and knees up into bison. Yep, that one. So that one. Have you set my own slide show? It's too big. Isn't that amazing, that painting? Yeah, it's incredible. And so they would wander up towards bison because bison, full grown bison and not afraid of a couple of wolves. And they would use that as a way to get close enough like a decoy and sneak up and arrow these bison and kill them. Yep. Oh, there's a lot of paintings of that.

2:18:47That's cool. So that must have been a very common thing. Well, so Remi actually reproduced this on his television show. Oh, nice. He actually wore a wolf skin and crawled up to these bison. He did. Yeah, he did. Wild bison, not that. Yeah, wild bison. Yeah. Where? I don't know. I don't know where he was. I'm not sure. See if you can find Remi Warren, Apex Predator, bison episode. There's bison in Utah too. Sure, yeah. Wow, I didn't know that. How did he do? He shot one. Yeah. With an arrow? Yeah, with an arrow. Really? Yeah. Wow. Well, do you imagine, especially if you have a compound bow? Sure.

2:19:24I was just shooting today. Very accurate. I just got a new Hoyt bow. It's amazing. I don't know how they do it, but they keep making these compound bows better every year. But there's new ones incredible. And we're shooting super accurate up to 60 yards. Oh my god. So if you're a guy as good as Remi is, who's literally a professional hunter and you crawl close enough to bison to get him. Yeah. So he shot a bison and harvests it. Wow. Yeah. But I mean, Indians did that all the time. I shouldn't say Indians, Native Americans. Well, there's, yeah. Some of them prefer to be called Indian. I know. In Montana.

2:19:59Yeah, it's tricky. Yeah. You got to kind of like ask them, what are your pronouns, sir? Right, right, right. Yeah. So I know that there's wild bison that live in Mexico. And I know that from Steve. Steve Rinal actually hunted them in Mexico. And yeah, in this traditional ranch, they have this incredible way of taking care of it, because they've never had electricity in this area. And it's like this, oh, there's long history of hundreds of years of hunting in this way. So they do all these different things to dry out the meat. And they make these like thin cuts of meat and hang them from sticks and dry them in the sun.

2:20:39And smoke them and do all kinds of different things to the meat. Really interesting. But this was one of the last when they were all wiped out from, or almost wiped out from North America, a few of them survived in Mexico. So here, Remi's bison on the sun. It's North -Designor. Oh, so he did it in Mexico. It's his coyote. Oh, interesting. Oh, it was a coyote. Okay. So, but it was in Mexico. So he put the pelton and did the whole deal. Making him a cost. Yeah. Soated into his camo. Huh. Yeah. It's a big coyote. It's definitely a coyote. Isn't that interesting, though? Oh, yeah. Wow. It's crazy that it worked.

2:21:19Yeah, well, the Native Americans knew it for a - I mean, they were going to be scared of a coyote. No. Yeah, not at all. So if they see that, they're like, oh, no. And wolves, too, for that matter. I mean, there were millions of bison on the plur - parries with tens of thousands of wolves. Right. If you were healthy, or you protect your calf, you're fine. Yes. Yeah. Have you ever read coyote America? No. Dan Flores, who was - Oh, great a story. Yeah. And he was one of Vernel's professors. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's how he met him. Oh, wow. But Dan has a very interesting theory about the population of bison and why there were so many.

2:22:00And he thinks it's tied into the plague. And to when Europeans came across the country, and 90 % of Native Americans were wiped out because of disease. Yeah. And he thinks that's why there was millions of bison in the field. This overpopulation of bison, because the predators had gone away. Really? Yeah, I think the paper is called bison diplomacy, bison ecology. Is that what it's called? I'm going to look to have to look that up. Dan Flores is awesome. He is. Yeah. So, so interesting. Yes. And the book, coyote America, is crazy. I'm going to have to go to it. It's so good. Yeah, there it is. Okay.

2:22:37It's bison ecology and bison diplomacy. The Southern plains from 1800 to 1850. So his theory, which I think is a very valid one, and it should be researched. It should be at least considered that the reason why the early native settlers, excuse me, the early European settlers did not see enormous, the herds of bison, is because the bison weren't enormous herds back then, because bisons have a long gestation period. They're fairly easy to hunt because they're very large animals in, you know, if you're specially around. And not afraid. Yeah. And if you have horseback, you can get pretty close to them, shoot them with arrows, and they were very effective at hunting them.

2:23:17And particularly the Comanche lived entirely off of bison, and they were right here. So right here in this area, they're just nothing but bison, eating bison constantly. And so they probably did a really good job of keeping the population in check. Then along come Europeans and their dirty diseases. And you know, this is what the primary theory is, what wiped out the Maya, wiped out the Aztec, wiped out the people that lived in the Amazon jungle. It's all European settlers and their dirty diseases. And so that when that happened, then you have what's similar to no wolves in Montana, and you have 20 ,000 elk in a place that really has a carrying capacity for like what six or what do you think was like the correct number when there was 20 ,000 elk there?

2:23:59What's the correct number of elk? Well, it would be like a healthy population. Well, the food sources could some. I would say right now there's about 6 ,500 I think elk in the northern herd. We're not talking all of y 'all stories. This is her that's been studied where the wolves are. That's where it's at now. It's stabilized. There's lions and people outside the park and wolves and bears. All these things and that's where it's at. And that's with everything and it hasn't changed because the number of wolves, two, went from zero to thirty five, thirty one to 160, 165. In the last 10 years, it's been right about 100 wolves every year because they contain themselves by killing each other and defending the resource.

2:24:41So they're stable right now. The wolves are not increasing anymore. Is that one of the main reasons how they die or the main ways they die? They're killing each other. Killing each other and trespassing people go, oh, that's awful. I said, not really. I mean, if you had somebody coming into your home to steal your goods, wouldn't you shoot them if you had the chance or wouldn't you defend your home? Like those loggers, you almost had a shoot. Did you defend your home, right? Yourself, your family. The wolves do the same thing. It's sort of like what's going on with the wars and everywhere in the world.

2:25:07The wolves do the same. And they don't always kill the trespassers. If they can catch them, they beat them up pretty bad. Sometimes they kill them. Sometimes you may have a benevolent pack leader that just kind of has the wolves chase it off. But wolf mortality, the greatest rate, I think it's like 70 plus percent, 75 is wolves killing other wolves in Yellowstone Park, not pack members. Is there action dependent upon the amount of resources that are available? Like would they be more reluctant to kill a wolf if there was plenty of food for everybody, just get out of here. Whereas if they were struggling, this is a real problem having this wolf around.

2:25:40So you'd have to go to the Yellowstone researchers to look at it. But I would say genetic relations, if it's closely related, they're more likely to not kill it. And if there's abundant food, they'd be more likely to probably not kill it. I think it's a combination of the two. One of the things that Dan Florets talks about in coyote America is the expansion of coyotes. And the reason this took place is that coyotes were targeted by gray wolves. Yes. So they had developed this ability to recognize when one of the pack had been killed, they would expand their territory, and the females would have more pups.

2:26:16The coyotes are the wolves. The coyotes. Okay. Because the wolves were killing the coyotes. Yes. So this is why there's coyotes in literally every state and every city in North America now, where there wasn't a hundred years ago. Is that right? Right. Because they have this history of being persecuted by the wolves. Because they don't breed with wolves. But they do breed with rev wolves. So where you get your coy wolf, your coy wolf is a coyote and a red wolf on the east coast, right? To animal up. To animal up. To animal up. To animal up in the north east and part of the west is called a coy wolf.

2:26:47And it's a coyote mixed with wolf of unknown origin mixed with dogs. And there's lots of theories out there. And I'm not up on the most current theory. The original wolf up there was more like the red wolf. Right. Then you get down here in down Louisiana, Texas, Florida. There's truly there were red wolves. And now they're just at the alligator refuge in North Carolina. But those are being bred out of almost out of existence because they're hybridizing with coyotes. Right. Interesting. Yeah, different story. But the gray wolves do not hybridize with coyotes was his point. And that this, yeah, not hardly ever.

2:27:20Sometimes they do. Well, up in the Great Lakes, if you look at those wolves, that's where he started doing wolves have, they look a little bit like coyote. And the mitochondrial DNA shows some traces of coyote. But it's very uncommon. When a wolf encounters a coyote, they kill it. Yeah. It was interesting you were talking about a renel to show that they don't kill foxes. So they were, I mean, so you get a fox. It's like 10 pounds. You get a coyote. It's like 30 pounds. You get a wolf. It's 90 to 100 pounds. It's about three times between each step. Right. And so the ones that are closest, so for coyotes, the foxes are a threat.

2:27:54They kill them. For the wolves, the coyotes are a threat and they kill them. But a hundred pounds of wolf and a time -pull fox, it might be a nuisance in you and let it scavenge. But it's not a threat to you. Right. It's not going to compete with you. Exactly. It's not going to take out a bison. Exactly. So when wolves come back on the landscape, it happened up where we are, happened in Yellowstone, where it's just been a coyote economy for, since the wolves were taken out. On coyotes rule, right? I love coyotes too, but they shouldn't say love. I really respect them. But when you have the wolves coming back and they start displacing and killing and hammering on the coyotes, wow, surprise.

2:28:30I was sitting red foxer coming back. And like, were I working in the north fork? Oh, those early winters. We had people all winter on skis, tracking wolves. We never saw fox tracks. Never. And I never caught one in a wolf trap. And then as time went on and the wolves took a foothold, so to speak, a told in the country, and they started hammering the coyotes. I was sitting there as a fox, I got fox dening on my property now. So what coyotes target foxes? Oh, yeah. Big time. I don't know. Big time. I don't know. So they considered them competitors. Sure. I mean, in places. What did they eat them?

2:29:05I don't, you know what? I haven't followed that. I don't track that that closely. But I would guess most of the time not, unless they're incredibly hungry. I would guess it's a strict eliminating competitor situation. I've seen, I mean, you can look at the data in Yellowstone. They have witnessed tons of times of wolves going up to coyote dens and digging out on killing all the pups and trying to kill the parents. Wow. I don't think they usually eat them. I could be wrong in that, but I don't think so. It's interesting because that's one of the theories about why coy, it was originally one of the theories why coyotes killed dogs.

2:29:38And coyotes killed cats is that they're competitors. But then they started eating them. So I think maybe originally that was the case because again, the expansion into urban areas is fairly recent. Yeah. And urban, urban coyotes are not real while they'll eat whatever they get. They're bitch -lossed, right? I was like, we were talking about the total behaviors changes. Yeah. And it's really interesting to me how amazingly versatile coyotes are. Because I am starting to see wolves being the same, that they're much more generous than I would have thought. And that they can adapt to situations pretty easily.

2:30:15Like their wolf pack raisin, it's pups in the subdivision. Crazy. It is crazy. That would be so cool though. Imagine if you live there. I know. And it's like, how long do you have a poodle? Right. Because they do eat dogs. They do eat dogs. Yeah. When every time I go up to my little cabin, I am very contentious about not leaving my dogs outside without me there. Yeah. I did have a big malami that killed my malt lane about 35 years ago. It's a big dog. Yeah. They don't care. They don't care. They can get it pretty easy. Bought line. Yeah. You know what's interesting to me is the propensity that foxes have to befriend humans.

2:30:52Yes. Very strange. So this is interesting. I mean, you are a voracious reader. Obviously, have you ever heard of the study in Russia? No, this is, I mean, we're going to, I know what you're going with the fox. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Go talk, explain it. Booktie list, how did Tama Foxe and create a dog? One of the most interesting books I've ever read, but this, this is true. I'm not saying that the 400 wolves is not true, but I doubt it. But this is true science. It's supported by photos. That in the 50s or so, this Russian scientist was starting a study of foxes and he wanted to select simply for tameness.

2:31:29And by selecting the tamus male, female from these different fur farms, these are captive foxes to start with, that he would see if they're morphology or their physical appearance changed. So he went to fur farms and he was picking just for tameness. And eventually, after many years, he'd go to the fur farm and this fox would lunge in him and snarlied leave it. And they'd say, oh, this one over here in the corner, she rubs against the fence when you go to theater, you take that one. But over years, the photographs of these foxes, and they start changing. They were silver foxes, a lot of them instead of red in there.

2:32:00They're black and white. They kind of look like border collies. And they start to tip over ears. And they got pictures of the guys in the fence. One person's been over and there's a fox standing on their back while they're putting out the food bowl and the other five. I mean, crazy. Yes. And so that was in a very short time that they changed the behavior, the picture. Well, you're leaving out a little bit of it. Go ahead. One of the things that they did was whenever any of the foxes exhibit any kind of aggression, they shot them. Right. So they only allowed the very docile, submissive foxes to.

2:32:32Friendly. But then their eyes started getting larger. They're snout started getting shorter. Look like a dog. Look at that. Really quick. I'm glad you've read it because I suggested to do friends because I'm passionate about all canons, well, all things wild. And it was one of the most amazing pieces I read because if you think about humans domesticating animals, we took some kind of a primitive form of a horse and a cow in a sheep and we got our breeds now. For years, they had bears and captivity, brown bears in Europe forever, living in kings, castles and doing writing the bicycles and the circus and whatever.

2:33:05But in terms of North America, of course, we're many are not anywhere in the world. Nobody's domesticated the African wild hunting dog. Nobody's domesticated European links. Nobody has successfully taken a wild predator and bred it long enough with heavy artificial pressure by our selection like shooting them in the head of the aren't friendly. And turned it into no different animal with the exception of wolves. That is really fascinating. It's really fascinating. Because that's never been done to tigers or mountain lions. I think about how many people have tried to keep mountain lions as pets.

2:33:39I know. Or coyotes. You keep coyotes and after 15 generations, they still look like coyotes. And they still behave like coyotes. They do. And this little thing with the fur fox, it was extraordinary artificial selection pressure to see this. Yes. And they did change a bit. Well, the fox has a very strange relationship to humans where that was part of the Timothy Treadbone movie. And in the movie, he had this fox that was his friend and the fox stole his hat one day and ran into the den with his hat. He's like, give me my hat back. And he's like chasing him. But it's an adorable relationship that this fox has with people with him.

2:34:16In fact, climbing on his tent and hanging out with him and he could touch it. He could pet it's head. I'm sure he probably can, he or somebody before him had probably food conditioning to be accepting me. But you're talking about, he's up in the grizzly maze in Alaska. Maybe just never seen a human. Maybe. That's more, it seems, but there seems to be some sort of a strange history of comfort where this animal that's a 10 pound animal is comfortable around 150 pound man for no real reason. Like he's not giving it anything. Like just him being around and it would lie down in front of him and son itself and play around him.

2:34:56There was a weird relationship that humans have had with foxes. Of course, Mr. Treadwell was not really in the bell curb on the big high point in the normal range either of normal behavior. Right, but I've had friends that have had encountered with foxes. They're really unique and they're also, they really adapt well to people. They live in agricultural areas. I've got them dead. I mean, we see them all the time now. They're a different animal than a coyote or a wolf. It's just such a strange little fella. It's like wants to be your friend, you know? Very interesting. You don't see that a lot with wolves.

2:35:27No, you don't. I have a fox that visits my yard because I have chickens and we have to shoe them out every time he comes into the yard. But they make the craziest noise. They do. Like I didn't know about the noise to my friend Jim Brewer who has foxes near his house in New Jersey. They make this crazy scream and I was like, what? What does it sound like? And then this little guy that lives in my neighborhood does it in my yard. I got a video of him in my yard going, wow, that crazy. I've heard it. It's a neat. So what it's kind of interesting to think about the early relation of people with wolves.

2:36:02I talk about that in a woman among wolves. My book is there was a couple of paleontologists or sociologists that speculated. And I can't say if they're theories correct or not. But they speculated that when people were still living in caves and having spears in that ladle, they would watch. So people were living in a family group and a pack. The wolves were living in a family group or a pack. They would watch the wolves chasing through a herd of whatever animal they were at that time, depending on where they lived. And eventually getting one tired enough or maybe it was a cripple had a badling.

2:36:37They would surround it and eventually kill it. And then they speculate that the humans would learn that you know what? We can go up to that killed orcs or whatever they had just killed, primitive horse. And this drive those wolves away. And we get tools we can kill the wolves if we have to. So then it changed or maybe those wolves had come around when the animal was cornered, but not dead. And the humans would come in and do the final blows and drive the wolves away and take what meat they wanted and then leave. And the wolves could then come in and get the spoils of all the work that they had done that the humans had taken.

2:37:16And that this is their theory, that there was this relationship just because it's a brutal world, not synergy and not altruistic and not art, just like, hey people, look at those wolves got an animal, a cram, a corned over their lusical kill it, and take what we need, wolves would come in. And that that sort of began potentially the process of wolves and people beginning to interact. I hate to hesitate to use word collaborate, but this is an idea. It's an interesting idea also and the interesting idea sort of coincides with the idea of the introduction of agriculture. Yes. So you have introduction of agriculture, so you have resources that are more abundant and you have more animals.

2:37:58And so if these people lived in a resource rich environment where there was plenty of meat and they didn't have to worry, you could see how maybe they would throw some scraps at a cute little wolf that's near the fire. There's many ideas about how dogs are. Right, the ones who were least afraid hung around. Right. So what they did with the foxes over just a course of a few generations. Yes. This took a few thousand years. Yeah, and then people would grab one of those wolves or let them hang around and then, you know, around they would clean up the awful, awful around the camp and whatever. There's many ideas, of course, nobody knows.

2:38:34But what is kind of known is the dates from DNA and carbon dating. The dates at which humans were able to domesticate livestock and the dates at which humans were able to domesticate dogs from wolves. And domesticating dogs preceded livestock. livestock was like 11 ,000 years ago, roughly of all species, swine, horses, cows, whatever, and sheep. So was it possible that the initial domestication of wolves into dogs took place in a very game rich environment where they didn't have fight over resources? And no livestock. No livestock. Exactly, because it hadn't happened yet. Right. So there would be more opportunity potentially for these animals.

2:39:17Again, I'm not saying it was to help each other so much. Right. They took advantage of each other's strengths and weaknesses. The wolf strength was being well, hon, run something down. It's also tired that people didn't do that. And then people say, oh, yeah, that thing's crippled over though. Let's go kill it and we'll get our meat and the wolves can have the rest of it. Was there also a consideration that during these times, this was a hunter gathering time where they really didn't have a preservation of meat. There was no way to store it. So you had to continue to hunt and gather. So if you had an abundance, you didn't think, oh, I'll stockpile this for the next few months.

2:39:48That was never even an afterthought. Probably not, unless it was in the tundra, it was winter time they could freeze it. But the relationship of, I mean, there's many dates, it's said about one people domesticated dogs. And it varies a lot. But I think there's some consensus 30, 35 ,000 years ago. How was that long ago? Long ago. I didn't know that. And you can, you can Google it, Jamie. I thought it was like 10 ,000. No, because it happened significantly before we began domesticating livestock. So what I'm saying is there wasn't a conflict base. Resources were abundant. There wasn't protection of our livestock.

2:40:21There wasn't this in that. And eventually people took, when livestock became a thing, then eventually people would take a wolf like cane, it a dog that we domesticated. And then I find it interesting to train it to keep the wolves, their wild cousins away from the livestock. Talk about, wow. Crazy. Yeah. Humans are so creative with what they can do. And dogs are so plastic. I mean, you take a wolf and you put a lot of pressure on it. And eventually you come up with a golden achiever and a graphon and a poodle. Because they have a lot of domestic, they have a lot of plasticity, genetically, morphologically, behaviorally, that I don't think a lot of the other species have, or would show up when you try to domesticate them.

2:41:05This just my theory. Yeah, well, it seems to be uniquely adaptive. Yeah. Totally. Are you aware of the baboons that raise dogs? No. Yeah, there's baboons that take puppies and they use the puppies as guards. So they keep the puppies near them. And they keep these dogs near them, they don't kill them. And the dogs allow them to sleep so they can be alerted to any intruders. The dogs bark. Sounds no different than us. It's bizarre to watch. I mean, I haven't heard of it. It's still in footage of these, well, see if you can find it. Baboons with these dogs, like drag the dogs like, what am I doing?

2:41:43Baboons like, get over here. They don't kill it. No, they use them. I mean, I'm sure they probably kill a few of them. They kill babies. Like baboons are pretty damn ruthless. I've been to Africa and I don't like baboons. Scary animal because it seems like a dog monkey. It's got a face like a dog. It's a weird animal, right? Because unlike any other primate, they have a completely different jaw structure. Their teeth, oh my gosh. Yeah, they look like a dog. It's like an extended snout, very strange animal. Yes, I find quite... Colorful and beautiful and creepy and all of these things. All of these things.

2:42:17I agree. I'm up. So, here we go. So these are dogs that are being raised. They raise these feral dogs. They carry the dog. They're dragging the dog. Get over here. Poor dog. They're not very kind. Where is this from? That's how I was trying to read on what was going on. So some people think that they might not be... They might not be being raised. That it's some sort of play. But they're in... Oh, okay. I think this is taken from a trash pit. But did you see that other larger dog that was over there? That was apparent. It looked like a wolf. Oh, he is really wailing on that puppy. He was controlling it.

2:42:45He's trying to control it. So I don't... Sniffin is butt processing data. The processing data. Just like our dogs. Yeah, and they hold on to him by the tail. It's kind of crazy. And they drag him around. If you back it up, there was a larger dog. Yeah, it was a background. Yeah, that one. A dog's barking. So I think the theory that I remember reading was that they had figured out that if they keep these dogs around, the dogs are good watch dogs. Well, I'm going to have to Google that and look up the... See, this is my first thing. I'm a researcher. So I want to know the source. I want to know what came from the new...

2:43:15Yeah, it says there's a debate over it. Yeah, the debate dig into the... The viral video of baboons and Saudi Arabia garbage dump led to speculation baboons. Kidnap puppies and keep them as pets, however. Some say the baboons were likely just playing with the puppies. The relationship is analogous to pet owner relationships. There's a lot of weird studies on garbage dumps and baboons. Yeah. Have you ever read Sapolsky's work? No, I haven't. Robert Sapolsky did this study on a particularly vicious... Primate. What was the book he wrote like 20 years ago? Something primate. Yeah, I've read a long ago book.

2:43:48I haven't read currently. I don't remember, but the study that was fascinating was that they found that there was one contaminated pile of garbage. And of course, the most vicious alphas were the ones to eat first. So they died and they got sick. That's the one I read. It's old 2002. They said 20 years ago. Yeah, he's amazing. I have an amount of the park. That was a fascinating book. You have. I'll have to look for it. Yeah, super interesting guy. Oh yeah. Especially the toxoplasmosis, gondi discussion, like the talk about the... Right now with the lion and the war. Do you know about lions and wolves and toxoplasmosis?

2:44:22What's going on? So in Yellowstone, it's basically a dog eat cat world down there for the most part because of Paxi wolves and the lions. But they have found that because the dogs are coexisting with the lions and sometimes ingest their scatter, their gods sort of... Anyway, they eat some part of it. They get exposed. They have found, now the wolves have toxoplasmosis. And what happens is there is something like 11 times. It's a huge amount. I wish I can't... Maybe Jamie could Google it. More likely to be extra bold and leaders of a pack than a dog, than a wolf that does not have toxoplasmosis.

2:44:57And these wolves that have the parasite take extraordinary risks and are more likely to die and lead the pack to death. So in the long run, it's sort of a cat's revenge on the wolves. Well, one of the things, Sapolsky, 46 more times likely to become pack leaders. Incredible. Isn't that wild? There are 11 times more likely to leave their birthpacks and do so at a younger age. And when they do that, they're not very well set up to survive. Sapolsky found out when he was doing his residence that... There's a disproportionate amount of motorcycle victims that test positive for toxoplasmosis. So they test them and they find out this is one of the reasons why these guys are taking these crazy risks.

2:45:36Risk takers because they have toxoplasmosis. Yeah. And it's really... It's a parasite from cats. Another book you'd like to read is called Spill Over. Have you read that by David Kwaman? No, I have it. So he wrote it in, I think, 2017. It's an older book, maybe 2012. And he wrote, it's a spillover from wild animals, just QUAMM Indian, wild animals to human populations. And it starts with a horse disease and austereally that becomes some extremely viral, terrible disease in humans. And he actually traces back the origins of HIV. And all this happened before COVID. Wow. And it just was so set up because COVID is the same kind of a deal.

2:46:16But it's a fascinating book and because you got an inquisitive mind, I think you'd really enjoy it. Well, COVID is not really because COVID was a part of like a lab experiment. Some people don't know. Yeah, they're 99 % sure now at this point that it was all gain of function research that was done. There's the obscuring of the data was done purposely to try to absolve guilt from the people that funded the project because the project was funded and canceled during the Obama administration. And then when Trump came along, there was a lot of chaos apparently and they reignited it. And they did it through another equal health alliance.

2:46:52It was very sneaky about it. And when grilled, they, you know, Fauci lied about whether or not it was gain of function research. They were doing it in the first place. There's a lot of varies. And there's emails back and forth. But that's beside the point. Well, I'm not going to go there because we have good stuff. But natural spillover is clearly real. But spillover documents many, many species. And actually it's fascinating. Mad cow disease. It's the same thing. Mad cow disease is the craziest one right? CWD. They force cows to eat cows. Surprise. You dumbass. And then the pre -ons, the fact that they can exist under thousands of degrees.

2:47:28Thousands of degrees. You can't kill them. So do you have CWD here yet in Texas? I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. It's not ubiquitous. But I think there have been, see if there's been cases of CWD. And I want to get to this before I forget. So the point of the Sapolsky thing was that what Sapolsky observed when these super aggressive baboons ate all of the garbage that the garbage was contaminated, they died. So all the aggressive ones died and they turned into this utopian society. So yes. And so they started grooming each other more. The males weren't aggressive anymore. The females didn't suffer.

2:48:04The wrath of the males. And they were like hippie baboons. And it lasted for a long time. And I think they eventually reverted back to the same sort of typical aggressive alpha male behavior as being the primary leaders of the groups. But for a long time, they existed in this very strange, atypical environment where kind baboons were like taking care of each other. Well, it'll be really interesting with the resources of the Yellowstone researchers. They do amazing stuff to see what the long range outcome is from this realization that, you know, there are 46 more times, likely more times to be a leader of the path.

2:48:43And what do these risk taking behaviors and tail? I'm really excited to follow this. And how many of them, unfortunately, get hit by cars because of this? Right. Wasn't the first ever released mountain line or a wolf rather that got killed killed by a car? The first one, I'm not understanding, the first one in Yellowstone that released wolf, the first mortality of a wolf was getting hit by a UPS truck. Crazy. It's poor. I just feel kind of bad for the driver. Shouldn't laugh. I mean, there's a dead wolf that killed me. Imagine that poor driver, the first guy, what you couldn't hit that brakes.

2:49:15I know. Yeah, that's horrible. Anyway, but it's just, it's so fascinating that this toxoplasmosis, it could, I mean, can implode the population. Yeah. Who knows? They might make terrible decisions. How prevalent is it in humans? I know. Oh, it's usually prevalent. In France, at one point in time, there was 50 % of the population at toxop. Really? Yeah, in large populations of people in both Latin America, South America, places where there's a lot of feral cats. Yeah. It's a huge instance of it. Not only that, there's a disproportionate amount of people that have toxoplasmosis or in countries that have toxoplasmosis that have successful soccer teams.

2:49:55And they don't know if it's just because a lot of poor people, that's the best way out, become really good at soccer. Soccer is really common because everybody plays it. Yeah. You know, they don't know, but it might be that it makes you more aggressive. It makes you more, you're more interested in taking risks. Huh. And a little reckless. Yeah. And if you're a soccer player, I can probably help you. And to be like, you're like, ah, just go for it and get crazy. Any more aggressive and less tentative. Right, right. No, it's crazy. The whole interface between humans and wildlife is becoming a more and more popular feel.

2:50:30And if I was young and could do my career over, I wouldn't go into that because it's really crazy. The CWD, the, so that when wolves encountered, first encountered, parbovirus and distemper, from, came from people and dogs going into parks and camping and dogs pooping. And the disease came into being in the 80s. But we started documenting it in glacier. And the first year that I was catching wolves and we took blood samples, that the, the, they're off the chart and they're immune response antibodies to that particular disease. And we had most of our pups all die that year. Wow. Boom, like that.

2:51:08And people don't think about, yeah, I got my little docks on up and, you know, I'm like, don't like any pooped and you don't pick it up and the wolves get it. But the same thing happened in Yellowstone and they have certain years where they have a horrible pup. Survival is called recruitment. They don't make it into the fall. But the other thing of interest, so, they've been learning by studying coat colors of wolves in Yellowstone that genetically, the ones who carry the gene for the black coat color, they have a different disease resistance to those diseases than the gray wolves. Ah, interesting.

2:51:40And it's certain, maybe Jamie could look that up. But certain times when their disease prevalence is higher, the wolves will select a mate of a certain color because their genetics prove to be an asset to the survival of those pups. It's crazy. Do the ones with the darker coats, do they, or do they originate from denser forests? So, this is, they also been looking at that. So, when I first came to Montana, many of the wolves were black. And now it's probably 50, 50 or less. And the Minnesota, the original Midwestern wolves were gray. And now they've got black color genes, and there are changes with the population density.

2:52:16But what I learned, to my best knowledge, it's a, it's a kaleochist gene. And they think that when people domesticated dogs from wolves, and we took the wolves in captivity, we mutated their mutations that we helped survive, that gene for black color coat was from dogs, and then dogs got bred a little bit into the wolves occasionally, and that coat is from a dog. Interesting. It doesn't mean that the animals out there that are black are hybrids. I'm just saying it goes back thousands of years. So, the earliest descriptions of wolves, did they describe them? Like, what is the earliest known, like written human history of wolves?

2:52:56Did they describe them in a particular color? Oh boy, you know what I haven't gotten. If you look at Rhymulus and Rymus, those are gray wolves in the wolf. Right. I don't know. You know, I'm not a paleontologist. The thought would, I was just getting to like, if you're thinking about a place like the Pacific Northwest, for example, where you have dense rainforest, it would probably be a benefit to be darker. That's the idea, like having Arctic wolves being white. Yes, exactly. But it's the kaleochist for the black color gene, and it depends. And if they're homozygous or heterozygous, in one is, here you go.

2:53:31One of the earliest written references to black wolves occurred in the Babylonian epic, oh, it's in Gilgamesh. So that's 6 ,000 years ago. The titular character rejects the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar, reminding her that she had transformed a previous lover, a shepherd, into a wolf, thus turning him into the very animal that his flocks must be protected against. Wow. Heavy. It is heavy. I love to know what the root of that story is. Huh. Yeah. So that's so fascinating. Here you go. Yeah, this would be, uh, yeah. Disease outbreaks select for made choice and coat color and wolves. So all dogs come from wolves.

2:54:14So, yeah, wolves, wolves get domesticated into the dogs, then some dogs reintroduce their genes into interbreeding with wolves. And somehow or another, this black coat color comes into play. Yes. Wild. It is, literally. Yeah, literally. I suspect from people living in northern attitudes, the inuits in the Native Americans throughout Russia and across the North. You know, they, they kept dogs doing, and they bred them to wolves and made better sled dogs. But, um, an early reference told me that the native, the dog native to North America was brought over here. There wasn't the Native Americans didn't have dogs here, thousands and thousands of years ago.

2:54:52That's what I've been reading. Well, the one of the things that I learned from, um, proper Europeans. Yeah. That's so crazy. That's, that's one of the things, um, that, um, Dan Flores was talking about was that horses came from here. But then they were all, they all died off. Yes. Yes. And they don't know exactly why, but probably during that mass extinction event, where 65 % of all the megafauna died. Yep. And then the Europeans are going to introduce horses. And so the Native Americans initially didn't have horses, and then some were really good at it. And those are the ones that thrive like the Comanche.

2:55:26The Spaniards brought horses. Yeah. In 1500s. And that's how they got their horses. But before that, horses came from here originally, even the horses in Africa, even zebras originated, genetically originated in the North American continent. I didn't know that. It was like, what the hell? I didn't know that. No, it's crazy. Zebras too? Yeah. Zebras. Hmm. How nuts. That is nuts. Well, we also have an animal, the pronghorn antelope. Yes. That is a prehistoric animal. It's only, yeah, it's only here. It should not be here, and the only reason why it's here, and the reason why it's so fast. It's difficult to say something about the, I don't know, it just gets really deep into the headaches.

2:56:04The dark, the codes, the K -Locas and codes. Yeah. Has something to do with them having canine, distemper virus. That they are immune, more immune to respiratory infections. So, anyway, yeah. And then the other thing was. Which they probably got from dogs. Yes, probably. Distemper. Yeah. Well, I don't know how long distemper goes back. The other thing with the pronghorn, I mean, I just came from honeywaves. I mean, honey birds, we were seeing pronghorn everywhere, antelope. Yeah. I love them, but they're really prehistoric. And do you know why they run at 60 miles an hour? Because we have a North American Cheetah.

2:56:37Exactly. Yeah. The Cheetahs whittled the limbs of the antelope. Is it what's that? What? Yeah. That's why they're so fast. That's why they're fast. There's so much faster than any predator in North America. They got to be 60 miles an hour, not run at Cheetah. And that's not there. And they're still here and the Cheetahs are gone. Right. But they're one of the very few of those weird animals, like the North American lion, like all these different, like there was a North American lion that is way bigger than the African lion. I've read that. I mean, I would love to paleontologists. There's so many things I would like to do again and do over.

2:57:10There's a lot of interesting things in this world and we're still just learning. We still have to listen to people experts and do a lot of reading and think for ourselves. Well, thanks to you. We know a lot more about wolves. Well, thanks. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you. The book is A Woman Among Us Wolves, My Journey Through 40 Years of Wolf Recovery. Yep. Diane Boyd. Can I read you just a 30 -second introductory paragraph? Sure. Then I'll give you in your reader's flavor of what it's about. So it's a memoir. It's all real. It's not forward introduction. There we go. Okay. See if I can see it.

2:57:49Gene Glasses. I got glasses. Okay. Sorry. Should I have a word? No worries. No worries. Hang on. Can I ask you before you do that? Yes. Are you going to read the audiobook? No. No. There's a story there, too. Diane. We can talk about that. Okay. Let's just be 30 seconds. Okay. My pickup banged and riled along the pothold inside road in the Northwest corner of Glisha National Park. Boxes of wolf traps and jars of bait slid across the truck bed. I was in a hurry. My mind focused on the wolf caught in a trap somewhere ahead in the lodgepole pine forest. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed motion in my rearview mirror.

2:58:30I looked up to catch the glassy reflection of vivid yellow eyes framed by a wolf's black face looking over my shoulder from the back seat. How did I get here? Wow. That's the opening for my look. That's it. It's not a tiger. Yeah. It's still. So you asked me about it? What's it actually about? Oh, the audiobook. So the audiobook. So when I signed my contract, this is my debut book, A Woman Among Wolves. I've not written a book. I've published scores of scientific articles, but not a book. I signed the contract. I love working with Greystone. They're fantastic publisher. I'm just a standard contract.

2:59:06I signed away the rights for movie, audio, et cetera, et cetera. But I get a share of the royalties and stuff. So when somebody bought the bid on and bought the media rights for audiobooks months before it was produced, and I didn't hear about it for a while, and by the time I heard about it, they just started producing it. And I said, well, I'd like to read for it. I sent off an audio tape of my voice. And it looks like they would need to do a bunch of polishing, and it was almost September, and I would be recording for weeks. It takes like... What kind of polishing? A non -seation. And I don't know.

2:59:46Oh, they have to teach you how to say it differently. I mean, I think I'm a pretty fair speaker, but just anyway, it would take some training, and then it would more important. It would take up so much time. It takes like 80 hours to produce an eight hour audiobook. I know, but the thing is, it's like the authentic version of this book is going to be in your voice. Maybe when the rights expire. But I... Maybe they would just listen to this podcast and just try it. I would love that. It's not that expensive to get you in a booth for a couple of weeks. They hired a professional actress. The other thing was, this happened just before Bird Hunting season opened him on Tannins.

3:00:23Sorry. I'll get it. I'll get it. I really do. I get it. I get it. I get it. I really do. I really do. I get it.

3:00:35I really do. I appreciate you being here. I really enjoyed it. It's been a blast, Joe. Thank you so much and having me as a gaff. Just treat me royally. This has been wonderful. I'm glad you had fun. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye everybody. Bye.