Missoula, MT- Steven Rinella talks with Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore, the author and poet Chris Dombrowski, and Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew. Subjects Discussed: open season on pine squirrels in Idaho; Steve's Mexican roadkill bonefish encounter; managing deer for opportunity versus quality; the unfortunate reality of why Idaho's winter steelhead season has been closed; the ongoing fight around grizzly bear delisting; multi-state game and fish agencies working together; caribou flirting with the U.S. border and conservation triage; the surprising issues attached to public apathy; counting wildlife; legitimate and illegitimate gripes about fish and game agencies; preference points as a pyramid scheme; and more.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
me gas company you surely severely vote my gaze underwear can predict anything i've heard which start out have you just get right endured introduce yourself a great off forty but even says he the interesting thanks d
i'm virgil morn directorate idaho fish and game its greatest job normal
that's a top bears the top dog individual
well i have you i asked but in our age and see the director oversees the operations of the entire agency in you
in the crowning achievement of your career right as its past
of the new pines girls these well i want to say it's a crowning achievement
ro corbeille yak couple years ago one of our commissioners just ass the question can we
pine squirrels and all they are commonly known as red squirrels and be
the answer was there
hector wildlife
he does why we're
oh it's always been that way yeah this came up because we are talking about how
last night we re in some pine squirrels forget
and i was saying how everywhere
that i've ever lived list
pine girl a red squirrel
a non protected non game species may know close season in right now
bag limit and i would have never have guessed the idaho was an exception to that
billy people are really get after me other common household past because if a scroll gets new attic is probably a pine squirrel
in the northern to your states they pray
of a surprising thing is they pray
snowshoe hair lefferts genoa now
albert they did immortality story and snowshoe hairs in
so the ones that went missing were found in pines grow mittens
i got a body the watchman kill a bird one time with other predators yeah they like to kill they like to kill snowshoe hare leverage the like the debate
birds out an s but also the pines
there there stash is their mittens what everyone a column become unemployed
food source in the winter for some
birds and other wildlife cause they get into those stashes then you see grizzlies in the spring will come out and excavate them you'll pull them all out so you guys realize there's no season form and
what kind of magic needs to happen you know it is not as easy as just waving want insane the seasons open
we had to go through a rulemaking to make them non protected first
and then we had to go through the process of proposing a season getting public comment and then the commission approving it they just finally approved that
at their last commission meeting so we will have a pine squirrel season it a bag limit and a ban on as you go of more extreme the other its eight per day twenty foreign possession and it's got an open season that'll be from august thirty a through march thirty first so now there's a closed period and that conforms with our open season for other
rabbits and other small gained so so just for consistency reasons we kept all of that the uranium like small game
what you guys have any regulations round and i don't imagine you have thriving populations of fox and gray squirrels
we do have thriving populations of fox and gray squirrels mostly in urban areas
there is no protection on those une cones many of those that you will not get us there
because there are not native the caterer non native non protected wildlife
because most of them are in urban areas where discharge of firearms is prohibited and that we don't see much use of them although there are a few folks ah that that
utilise not mean imo missouri native i was raised probably
the first thing i killed was either a rabbit or a squirrel so one of the two had to be what i was shooting at exactly
next virgil chris
the christmas hanging out chris the old friend of mine who should you should come out of the show a lot more i
two year my friends not a big podcast listener i want to show the mediator show all the time but my friend
listen to it all the time i told them when i was doing today this seriously are you kidding me are you an anti podcast listener no i'm not
but it is still an old favourite rays of yours that you stole from frazier you know hushing or fishing is something i'd rather do than talk about so i'm not answer podcast i just
i write a lot and i need
when i'm done writing i need to get
the word world you know
had listened to silence right for sure you i memory and somewhere that we were saying you can appreciate music without appreciating silence is music is an interruption of silence share i bet
john cage would love that right
who's that allow us to act like i said ok
i remember and all the squirrel house and favour meal that you made you remember that yeah man yeah we used to get after him right here in town here but
lot you live
abducent squirrels always at higher get no
in other ways before we go on that we out of state squirrel vineyard estates one aids we go home around plug your book
ok well my last book is called body of water it's nonfiction book from
greed additions about
really that centres around a man in david pender was the first bahamian bone fishing guide he went to
a grip on a small island called deep water key and nineteen fifty eight
flurry in man named guilder
a rich what may floridians man named gill drake actually bought an item
from the crown the english ground called the boy
a key and higher david tendered to excavate
the mangroves from the island in overtime hired pender to be his first fishing
goldfish guide in the bahamas so tender made about five dollars
a day at the time and
over the last
dear so years the bone
fishing industry has become the crux of the eco term tourism industry in the bahamas so hundred fifty
million dollars a year basically this little fish that we used to throw
in two purina food by
eggs has become the crooks
of an eye the entire island economy really
goldfish i ever saw in his way after balloonfish became what bone fish are
the first one aerosols lie and dead inside the road
mexico re donors either on him
with the weird thing other guy
sny was the first bone flow and the r day a body mind from hawaii send me a picture of just a classic grip and grin with a whole bunch of dead bonefish laner cause they make fish patties out they call oil they don't they catch
wendy was a huge bone for my brother caught a big bonefish in one hundred feet of water hawaii right yeah so they don't look like they're like a flatfish there they act like there was a fish eat a bony ass fish
right i remember you
discussion in and mediator the book
about your first experience
releasing these fish doesn't know farm offers dead one on the side of the road lay roadkill bone fish aha
caught my first one's let him go meanwhile we like
killed every other fish really didn't order was right right like fuel our journey to let bone fisco categories
golden right we pull fish out but was at all eat it
other let all old couple joanna been about fish you having boulders what was it like you said the boy
in vine white flesh totally fine yet a pickup
to quote you frazier again who i think by stole this from john mc feebly tomboy each row shed write me says catholic fixing a watch
like picking me how should shit call the boundaries of the future you like this mainly want to get into part b i went down there
could i love was kind of fish
it's cool book
which maybe some something to dedicate a whole conversation about the book that tells the story about a fish that no one cares about becoming a fish that's like a billion dollar industry
yet we should i'll come back any time
i'm glad you're living in bozeman now i remember when you used to speaking of picking fish remember fishing for whitefish
making does not wise talk not just oh yeah tedious but great recipe
downward
oh yes we have headsets up we're dead
monitoring their does
virgil bringing with them entourage
yeah let's go had never a dive into where they were dive and all things fish
these wild i've management yours but tell us
the mediator crew virgil
can you start out that i
a thousand things to ask you one of the questions i want to ask you later once we get going is when you hear hunters
anglers tommy
bad about fish and game what
the most legitimate complaints of what are the least legitimate complaints by the want
but that yeah but has noted that's common so dear
deep to try to give a thing like what is the most legitimate complaint the
found in your career and lifetime of service bank first
it would be interesting to talk about where
your department sort of ends
a general you like the idaho right is your area of expertise but pray of enough exposure
from all the other agencies to look like what where does
the game commission in war
its relationship to your department
how do you move from london
this is the sum is not well understood and it might be
the basis for the conversation here
there really is my certainly our game commission idle fish and game commission is integral to our agency
they are the policy and regulatory setting body for the department efficient game as director i set
as the director of the idle department of fish and game
also on non voting member of the eu
of fish and game
commission my other title is secretary of
fish game and the
in interfaces the department
through the director and the commission
idaho the
act or serves at the pleasure of the commission said
person board appointed by the governor
a four staggered for your terms bacon be appointed the two terms confirm
by the summit as
if from other states in our committee
nor shall as a director
appointed by a commission i do not have to go through that part of that
political process with the legislature they do that and so that
the firewall or the buffer
there
but the governor selects those commissioners in the committee
the governments like the commissioners the commissioner's likes you
direct and you have a term limb of two terms for the commissioners so they can serve to for your terms and then they term out the door
act or has no turn on weekends that you keep going to go out o incapable and without a lifetime of point but now it's you serve at the pleasure
and so at any time
commissioners decide they want somebody new you ve got your walking pay
how many commissioners either seven
and that varies ok but they
at the rules yes so for instance we talked about it and i don't want to put too much into this because it's pretty small issue pine squirrel season right
that has to go through the commission right correct but the commission
draws so much of their information from the department apps
because the commission's out do not game surveys now so
that's where the department commission are linked
in nineteen thirty eight the
solution initiative in the state of idaho was approved by voters in the state that created
the commission prior
nineteen thirty eight we reform is an agency in eighteen ninety nine
apartment efficient gaining prior to that the director
appointed by the governor it was completely partisan
and most of the standard of the spoils of war right and it was in many of the staff or non professional and it was very partisan structure
decline of trying to recover l kurds trying to get hunting back and going in twenties and thirty's
failed miserably because we didn't have that professional
force out there doing the survey work
the initiative formed the commission and put
commission in its possession of hiring the director and
very specific role
ass to each body and
department access staff
and managers of that public trust that's out there
the commission is the
the trust holder
along with the legislature they are the ones that are responsible for how to howdah
deal with that trust we just make recommendations and manage it per their direction so
up until the time pine squirrels were protected that
the direction
they decided there's the
the trust manager they wanted to do something different
we said there's not a problem biologically they went on with the rules and so we in
act very closely with our commission who
how often does the commission but has with the department like meaning presume
these people in the commission who have an axe to grind right like
because from different walks of life is
it happens we don't see it a lot generally the commission tries to work as a team together but they are
appointed to represent geographic areas at the state of israel
they're pretty much they have a district and those that districts is very similar to our administrative regions so we can get seven of those and
every so often you see a difference in the way that
the commissioners themselves wanna go as
after i manage the agency to make recommendations
where we have a disconnect is if
for some reason through public input somebody
once a season change
but let me say here is that of sea and fewer and fewer dear right and then you look in your eye he actually is probably seen fewer and fewer dear i say this legitimate
and as an individual i suspect that that's the case they are saying but our survey work we
can we go now
we killed more dear last year and that unit then we ve never killed before our survey information says that the buck though ratios in there are above policy
and so you have that disconnect between
you see on the spot you hunt
what we see when we try to manage a large piece of real estate and so
that goes to the commission they get
we can put all the time like that we're in the middle of it right now was some dear setting stuff that's gone on get lately
white tailed deer were were adopting a new white tailed your plan and in
process the question of do we know what we're talking about in this particular piece of real estate verses what the daddy is for game management units on a larger peaks and
so the commission is in a situation where the biological information would suggest one thing
what individual set are motivated
to get involved in the decision making process show up at a public meeting safe bet it right and you know what
there are probably not wrong about where their hunting what are they see their specific spot but what does that mean that that's the way it is everywhere and that's the kind of
ah wisdom and balancing that the commission has to go through to sort through here
the science as we're trying to present to you and here's the
black input
has some very input we can tell you all about this but i can
say that what joe hunter overhear seas is incorrect and so
ap is where the beauty of the commission processes there there
to balance out perhaps the scientific information that we provide them with somebody
input from the public of what they desire as trust
a users there the they're the ones who get the benefit of that public trust of wildlife
we manage it the commission is a trusty for that and and so we go back and forth through that process
constantly work with our commission ma
the time ninety nine and ninety percent of what is out
for public input we get good public input we get agreement with biological information it goes through
just approved fishing regulations for three years
fish management plan for six years at this last commission meeting two weeks ago took fifteen minutes
no descending anything it took a year more people powder there's a year of public and put to get to that point
by the time we got to that point
we didn't have any issues that's not
through with our dear elk and other
wildlife management issues we had no dissenting votes on pine squirrels so that one went pretty easy paper cool abides rural so far brings people together so ross bring people together but but white tailed there are a big thing right now tell me what cause there's a lot of them not a lot of em we're saying
because away hunting occurs in idaho with the ability to move around we have a white tailed tag
the late season why tail hot there
that you have to decide what you're going to hunt during the early mule dear and general dear season or whether you want to hunt white tail and you get that
wait till tag
people prefer white i didn't
and and consequently they all go to these really neat spots and sold their seeing a lot more hunters so you're out their driving around or you go by and you see six camps in this
you didn't see but one camp
four or five years ago then you go out hunting and you don't see the deer
immediately there is a problem and this
is occurring in the clear water and several other units around that cup
with loss of access on price
lands crew
it's this perception that
hunting for me
as good as it used to be and that perception is correct for that person if people are attributing this to forcing people to make this decision about what they want to hunt that's part of it they are also saying there's too many non residents and non residents can be both people from out of state as well as people like myself from boise common
up into their area to hunt and it's it's that social tension that comes with using
a resource out there and as users you ve probably all seen them i know i do
you see it whether your fishing or hunting i
get away from it by
think later in the season
so i don't have to deal with it or i fear
later in the season or during the the shoulder periods montana as an example has their shoulder hunting seasons that they use right now to try to distribute some of that
we try to use our regulations to do that but it
at some point we still have the the
people saying something different then
what our biological data
so some of the the and all jump to your question what are the legitimate complaints cofre is that as something sure one of the writers
rights for us i website pat durban did a piece for us about compare
success rates hunter
success rates with
surveys about hunter satisfies satisfaction is that
basic oh just a really take something long and complex and make short as people just jelly not happy happy like
you take a relative picture year to year by what was good hunting
bad hunting and ask people to put a personal spin on the generally viewed as being more negative than it was
one totally agree with totally ruined i dont our survey that we recently did on your lawyer and wait hunters ever is happy
nah nah anonymously everybody's happy about it but
most people are satisfied or very satisfying their based on the survey work we did
it varies depending on the geography it varies on what thereafter
one of the things that we are in idaho by commission direction we're an opportunity state were all
being able to hunt every year were all
giving people the chance to get out there and to us
conflict that we
have to have the ability to hunt every year
you're gonna have fewer older
growth animals then you word if if you didn't
well for that opportunity answer that is minutes on that article is on an opportunity state versus a on a quality state yeah like grab grab a huge feel ok and this is based on their public input down there and a large number of hunters there and different productivity chose years ago to go with a quality system
produced
a larger proportion of the herd as four point animals
idaho has already don't get me wrong it's just
we manage the productivity of that heard so that we can utilise that productivity for as many hunters as possible whilst
producing
a pretty good number of four point animals whether their mule dear or white take without
this too has been like some states are kind of split right
the colorado's quality on the mule deer opportunity an elk re correct and and part of it has to do with the number of animals that are there in general are mule deer haven't been doing as well as our elk
although in idaho with with some of the work we ve been doing as well as the easy winners we had in the better survival on funds
army older are really up but has arrived here harvest is white tailing idaho the other
phyllis those do up in the pay and handle and its cause we go out of an and people are turning onto uncas it tastes better now
my dad's that's my buyers i'll put it this way when
my wife is not hunter but she is
consumer
and when i go hunting i generally get orders
to what she prefers that i bring home and and
a white tail are much higher on the list dennis
thank you my dear she puts now i find them
very flavorful i like
flavoured they're both distinct indifferent and enjoy eating bobo would she puts it to take it she was away
just keep tone i just get your own ticket and come out hunting with me but to all yes
late lately i wanna get in your bio from belay a good piece of marriage vice on us listen to your spouse
really bring home a white daughter they can ask question about
so when you guys are prioritizing
you know initiative or or in you know the sat
squirrel listing i mean
are you thinking well that's gonna be an economic boom for
stay i mean is the squirrel thing or i'm getting a little bit but
how much are you prioritizing
like revenue
potential revenue over the resource or is it so
i wish i had a whole
gets no general funds ok
our revenue is generated by predominantly licence sales
as well as contract money and the excise tax on hunting and fishing equipment pitman robinson and any chance of what the contract woody kind
that money is mitigation money like from bonneville power cooperate
batteries for the mitigation of dams idaho power of
after i gashed you name it we get contract money to work with a b p a as an example we've got contract money to do sage grouse work for the fish and wildlife service but a lot of it most of it's mitigation money to operate hatcheries for hydropower advil
the hydro power development impede
if the fish movements and they gotta make up for that by running correct it's it's an interstate runs the hatcheries for we operate the hatcheries that they built for those facilities and and so that's a huh
piece of our budget but as far as
the discretionary funds that we get
it's almost all licence money
tiny bit often non game license plate cells we have a license plate system and that generates
together about two million dollars that runs that non game
program
but we have in the state so
your question about what do we do
do we take economics into consideration if it
as a conservation issue where you should hunt or not hunt the answer is no
but when you are looking at the way you conductor hump the way use you set seasons how you
allocate those tags residents and non residents deaf
only revenue is on the table was it as an item to take a look at
by and large the commission isn't is concerned
revenue as they are the social aspect
of how this affects hunters in the field
i give you an example in dive into this i mean the commission just recently
steel had fishing in the state of israel and the economic effects
there are huge email i got emails from guys who are pissed off though hell i got alot it yeah but here you go more we had a public meeting last week and riggins now riggins is on the salmon river
a very small community that has mostly natural resource based economy used to be timber that's gone now
its hunting and fishing
i mean and white motor rafting on the main salmon river
the closure of a winner steel had fishery
millions of dollars
a community that is problem
we're getting a third of their financial revenue
from steel head fishing another third from chinook
and the rest of it from other outdoor based recreation activities and so it
it's a community like that hard over christmas gonna
whose grinch here
and i get it talked
the number humbly ask why the budget attire about what precipitated the closure
none the people decided me and cannot now we we
served with a notice of intent to be sued
in about
forty five days ago whose bringing the two hour was a group of five a fish advocacy groups and river groups
that i felt like that the what we call me
stock fishery one we fish on the hatchery fish these mitigation fish and there are wild listed steel head in the river with em felt that are
fishery was harming those wild fish technically the price
one as we don't have a permit
to have that mixed stock fishery it expired in two thousand and ten
federal agency responsible for that permit
national marine fishery service
failed to issue that permit to us since two thousand ten we have submitted at every year we
have complied with the terms of the permit
but they have been working on other areas that were very important for permitting
and i can get into the technicalities of that but the point is we are
guilty of not having a permit so
here we getting a notice noah or nationally fishery services go ahead and fish without the permit comply
with the terms you submitted we don't
have time to go through the process to give you that permit but we're not
prosecuted under the endangered species hat
dangerous species acts has a citizen's lawsuit feature in it that allows
private citizens to sue somebody violating it that way
i mean this has been going on for eight years
and then we get this notice of intent to sue if you
go to court and
found to be guilty i guess she would say or not in compliance then the stay
has to pay all the legal fees of the plants
and knowing
we knew we felt
it was not useful
to go through a legal defence when
we really didn't have the from trying to convince a judge and in all likelihood the plain of sort of ass the judge for an emergency closure while
while while i sorted and in the end result would be we would
he pang legal fees and we would have a close to your heads by
closing the season we proposed
from taking us to court so
well the decision to open it back up is still with the commission the permit will
done in march next spring
we we did i tell you gotta get a black eye rise again i am and deservedly so now you there's over there we are
probably could have been a little more aggressive where
seeing that this could happen but frankly i knew for
well i've been director for eight years in the whole time i knew we ve been plan doing this and i felt because
promoting fishery service wasn't gonna prosecutors we were ok i never thought about our conservation friends in these other entities taking us to court
these fishing of these angler based groups
we are a couple of them are angler based are groups a couple of them are river based groups the angler groups desiring more wild fish in that
yeah they ve got a different agenda and i'll be honest with you part of the agenda they were willing to not suit us if we
ready to go to know bait
single barbarous hooks
fly fishing only
ban the usual votes so
they were trying to say this was a conservation issue but then they had this string of things that would have precluded most
steel head anguish from going fishing just so that group could get out there
the catch and release group basically
the people of regions and that whole kind of
valley there they upset most
you guys were there are upset that we allowed this to get to where it is but at the public meeting we had last week going in the town
there was a sign in all public meaning so and so play such and such a time and they had the name of one of these groups just
a stronger said not welcome
so yeah they're they're they're doing i have a meeting tomorrow with the board of one of these groups
the season doesn't take affair
until december the seventh i think is when it closes so harbor man i know the symbolic a terrible date and about and we've got a little bit of time in here we're still negotiating we had a negotiated settlement two weeks ago and then when all of the plaintiffs left they they came back a day later and said no we're gonna back away from our agreement so i got a couple of quick questions first for chris
you're here your fish guide yeah stray over to that country at all i do not know i had therefore downright now i grew up still having in michigan so we have these problems now we learn from but now i am i still lie in the bank or them down there i i've been those most of the winter right and so since i'm off the river in late october i'm hanging up the rise in the waiters and that jason the bird dog around but
but you hear guys graven about all i didn't i didn't even know about it will tell you how much have been in the woods and last month
so what are you know most of the mozilla
single mozilla fishing guides had over therefore for a good month and you know that
a trailer overrun part right for sure
its fascinating to me in and surprising to know
likewise view virgil on this issue
the average letter writer who writes in with a complaint
was it you take all those people make a pool of them so forget the average
take a pool of all the people who have written a letter of complaint handling
of those individuals of if you had to guess what percentage those individuals would be able to articulate the issue to the extent that uses articulated it to me right now is it well
understood or do you find
and are you baffled by how not well understood it is i'm baffled by how not well
there said it is we are pushing the envelope this closure
only occurred lesson two weeks ago that it'll be
two weeks ago wednesday this coming wednesday
and so were we're trying to get the word out there the four
letters that i've been inundated with simply aren't accurate
the misunderstanding that there is a conservation benefit to this closure
is wrong
there is a catch and release mortality on these listed steel head but that
less than three percent of her
billing maps of worst case that's what number there i know that's what we use in our permit and
predict that three out of a hundred fish handled may die as a result
that the and release fishery and that's the impact
we will have on these wild fish why were catching and keeping hatchery fish
and it's something all the states do humming washington has their permit in hand they got a couple years ago they got there first
the washington part of the snake river will stay open
even though our will close because it's it's
border water
organ doesnt have their permit for this fishery
but there can continue to fish because they didn't get sued
and i saw it it's a very selective legal action was really could do to fish
instead of oregon welcomed
new fish outswell washington on the snake river portion
our salmon river and clearwater rivers would be the ones that are predominantly affected by this as well as idaho licensed anglers who fish hells canyon the snake river portion
but you could continue to fish by buying a washington licence that's the absurdity of some of this but
the bottom line is the catching released fishery is not the issue here
is partially a social issue this is
partially an issue of these advocacy groups trying to make a point
that idaho isn't doing enough as
state
down river issues
and so they're hitting us at home with a legal action on our sport fisheries and it really doesn't hurt the department it hurt
the local communities read you mean you you gave that's what the airlines but
some percentages but what's the what's the deal
i wish the european union all the town of regions we ve done the economic evaluation
and i'm gonna say the town of regions for this week
fishery
is a million and a half dollars of my numbers now that doesn't sound like a lot of money how about you will either not i mean there's less than a thousand people therein the where time there's probably have that someone has been so as to be a big joke jean valjean popular right it is a big deal clearwater or fino that area there get
hit hard and the outfitters and guides that rely on that and catered that i mean i got a heartfelt letter from a guide upon the clear water
and he said cash couldn't come at worst time he goes
make a lot of money during this period time but it's gonna cost me
five thousand dollars in the next six weeks since gonna run my christmas with my kids
i just almost give in to tears over something like that em it's like well dang should we have not closed it let it go to court for
try to keep it open as long as possible we're
still having that active discussion right now but the
actions that appear to be just about the department and its management really are about people
when the people who use the resource and the communities that benefit from those resources
walk me through how you how you wound up where you are now
like were you aiming through your career in fish and wildlife to wind up in this position or does it never just kind of did what made sense i'm i'm by training i'm a fishery scientist i was worked
fisheries biology undergraduate degrees and education i thought high school
came to idaho worked on fish on steel
it is a matter of fact that michelangelo backgrounds and our work on steel hadn't cut throat
got on with the department to over forty years ago
and worked on the south fork snake river
am idaho on one cut throat trout in
seventies and early eighties
on a problem we were having there with declining numbers and size of fish
got an opportunity to manage that fishery for
seven years and that included that area that i was manager over included the henry's fork and the south
work of snakes some of that greatest fishing country in
well in the world maybe maybe montana
as close but we'll we'll give a sense while you're in montana i'll give them a little credit for having good fisheries and you can have the prize in hand as yours but
the bottom line is then i just work my way up when i had an opportunity and various positions as state fish manager fishery research manager i was bureau chief over our communications programme for awhile fisheries chief i did
don't morgan has director for a year
went over there and learned a lot i consider it a now as a one year sabbatical to a different state and had
opportunity come back
tied a horse deputy director and turned into a directors jobs
it's a really short bio when you get down to it is just a lot of different opportunities and jobs but it's all doing the same thing it's working with people
manage their resources to provide
what they want while having that foundation in arms
statement which has preserved protect perpetuate and manage for
the benefit of the people that recent
can only be used when its preserved protected and perpetuated
and when it is used its primary uses hunting fishing and trapping that
in code that form
or agency that was given to us in nineteen thirty eight by the people of the state it was
proved by seventy three percent of the people in the state in nineteen thirty eight
lots of people said while agitated you and allows trash
that was eighty some odd years i guess i was eighty years ago
and it's no longer valid well
two thousand twelve
we had an initiative and thus
we had a constitutional amendment the right to fish trap
and in that amendment had the right codfish trap is held
to be a right for the people as a whole not individuals as much and
the primary method of managing wildlife and the state of idaho was hunting fishing and traffic
so if you gonna manage while my population should do it went hunting fishing and traffic
approved by seventy five percent of fishing to public grandmother measurements bonds rioting right they want the public to do it that way
by seventy five percent of the people in two thousand twelve now that isn't an endorsement of the nineteen thirty eight initiative move it forward so what
we in idaho have is the benefit
of knowing from up
dissipation
an election what it
is the really big goals are and that may
my job easy if you flip the card over i gave you on the back
there is our mission statement that's in code that's the
thing written out there and
it's three sentences though the back of everybody's card now it's on the back of mine i first but that's that's something i do so that i can cause whenever i doubt what's going on i just flip that over and read through it again it's like okay it's like everything i need to know is right there
in idaho
such views your limit
in idaho when you get when you get an email and sobbed in the subject line is still had
or the subject line is grizzly bears which will need more like how now exists like
but a lot of time on these two great laying in
inter species as a whole and those to adapt sage grouse and
yeah that's occupied a fair amount of our time i will
take the steel had one any day week over currently bear that was the last person i am out of that we have have more biological we have
it's less
ah value laden relet
to managing
fish
a wild steelhead is a phenomenal creature
they are there's nothin nothin like i'm on the end of a fly rod in any kind of tackle they're just
yeah they be cruising around out of the ocean over here that are from the one hand and a hatchery steelhead isn't far below that but this certainly to have had that creature in your hand but they're still
generally not thought of as individuals
thought of as a population as a run
as a school that type as a good point man like up their part of a ride and consequently the emotional attachment to them doesn't go in the individual level with me
a foreigner birth big animals out bears wolves
cougars
dear and elk large lesser degree than the other ones you name rightly i guess you're doing it in order lying europeans our allowing parliament charismatic megaphone
big charismatic critters
and they come with a whole different set of values were people trade
humanize those animals and their behaviour in council
what like having a discussion about biology with folks who
have that becomes way more difficult can use
get out they go
as far as you want you can go all the way back to nineteen seventy four whatever the hell it was or you can go back the last two or three years but sketch out where idaho sits
where things stand right now do the grizzly one
personalized that guy editorializing rwanda but it's like tell them there we should be celebrating the
cover a grisly sent the greater yellowstone ecosystem yes
we should be ready to celebrate
the de listing a grizzly bears her in the northern rocking in northern continental via just north of where we're out here and mozilla right now
i know in love in the tri state area there we have an action
grizzly bear population is properly managed we ve got
exceeded the management goals with ants
every scientific questions legal arena
and two still have those bears on the list because
of legal issues
judicial issues to me
undermines the whole benefit of the endangered species
we always were that with the agency that's in charge of
is it like the agency that oversees the population right now they're saying it should be delisted correct fish and wildlife service themselves believes it should be listed they're the ones who delisted it they
and told to release them until
time is an answer these legal questions now we will
get them delisted ok what
it was last year whether it
next year or three years out because
population is secure nothing
about answering these legal questions but this
about whether
population is secure not it is
the fact that folks do not believe that the management tool
of choice again going back to our constitutional amendment is hunting
so when we have more barriers or problem bears
choice is to have a hundred go out
the care that versus having
staff go out trap the bear and get rid of
now we're going to have to do a combination but i would
i prefer to use
hunter who buys a licence and a tag to go out on his own time too
an animal and keep the population and check for the social needs of the community's around there then
send one of my staff out there today
the baron euthanize unceremoniously
i believe that we have a lot more respect
for that wildlife we interact with in that manner
then we do with wildlife
that we just euthanize
in a manner to connect to cure that nuisance
do you right now feel as though do
as though the fight round grizzly bear dealers thing will want to being worse than what happened around walls or do you feel like it to follow that same pattern of you had like some stops and start yet some law suits but eventually wound up
last least a idaho montana wyoming you wound up with
dealers and wars and regulated hunting
it is fundamentally different and will play out in a different way it's
i think it's fundamentally the same and i do think it'll play out in a similar manner but the
can't hunting aspects of it
is even larger if they so
grizzly bears and it is with walls although its very large with with walls
it's it's a very strong
community of people out there who believe in their values and at the same time its
it's part of where the frustration is because delisted wildlife
normal while my four under the sovereign trust
responsibilities of each individual state
there are a lot of people that don't believe they're being heard
their needs are being addressed by our commission and
i can tell you there being hurt what what what
did you mean like what what what groups of people give you an example one of the things that we were told they wanted was a buffer around yellowstone park yeah so we wouldn't have
a celebrity bear going outside of the boundary and getting shot and then running back into the park
and so i get
i get that has all the parts that big enough already needs to become and so the park we and
they're saying will you ignored us when
ask for that
we didn't ignoring we
took it into serious consideration and looked at it and said it was unmanageable today
because grizzly bears can rome as much as sixteen
twenty five miles outside the park and a wounded animal could go right back and whether it is
a hundred yards from the border at the border
or five miles out and it just was
a terrible thing for us to address relative to that but they were heard
was discussed
the decision to go the way they wanted it so
they want a federal lies management of these species and under the endangered species act that sufficient while my service or its national marine fishery service for fission and penalties
as for rum seals and see lions
and they want to turn to
when a federal as many species is possible so the state doesn't have the final say
i believe a core that's a lot of what's going on here when
when the dealers thing happened in bears were what
i was proud to be temporarily delisted yet three states that were looking
assuming management guy yet montana
roaming and i don't want you might have had like three what would appear to me to be three very different responses
this in the hunting question guy
we're montana
fixing the sort of sit out the hunting season
and i felt that that was kind of a lame move this is just me personally target and not virgil i'm not speaking for virgil in or the idaho fish and game or anyone just personally
i thought was a lame move
because our sowerby like i don't want the black i i don't want to be caught the controversy and see how a plays out with idaho
now while we has kind of hosts more of that little
of the population the bears
those more anyone else there are pretty aggressive their time out twenty like your heart
twenty four killed twenty four grizzly bears
i do in a curious way
came in where they're going to issue a tag that symbolic right it's
balikh but that was are allocation so that
i state plan that we all three of agreed to allocates
the available mortality to this
eight based on the size of the geography
i don't want my has sixteen percent of that grizzly bear
and so we get a smaller portion of that available mortality
to utilize also it wasn't just a symbolic no no no it wasn't like we want to do it but we don't really want to do it so we'll do our allocation was like one point four or one point five bears okay and
you wanted to come in oh yeah how to i would have liked to our oda half a bear from montana why arming so that what too intent is occasionally
i don't worry about it was like seven or eight and i think i may have been in the teens i dont remember but its inner media wyoming being largest
montana the next and i hope the smallest almost
those guys a lot
we really invites now we really
i will tell you that the the tri state
working relations between montana wyoming arming and idaho are top notch we form that during the wolf
listing things and we
continually have constant
routine interactions but
the other thing have to understand is was states is we dont all manage exactly the same to get the same output the way eyes
structure our hunting seasons under though the ability may be done
and then the way why arming or montana does it but it's
under the same state sovereignty trying to provide for the needs of the people that they have
and as long as it is about
of the bounds of conservation theirs
really nothing wrong with that it's the way you talk does trophy theirs
nothing wrong with what you talk is doing with their trophy mule older job that's what they are
to do there
nothing wrong with idaho doing our management as opportunity
that's what we chose to do
the differences are actually great to have
because
estate is an experiment in wildlife management above that conservation threshold that we can learn from each other or imagine if you have the sheriff ratio we share information all the time we have a group we call the western association of fish and wildlife agencies and that group
we come together twice a year and interact with each other
well i have a meeting coming up in early january and that's where i meet with montana and wyoming again to discuss grizzly bear issues and how to move forward where you
i am a grizzly bear thing did you did you issue the tag we did issue the tag to educate the person anonymous i guess we all in the name is available about any other information about them and not by state law
that at any rate they dare to call him up and i guess you saw the commission took action at the last commission meeting to rain check that
opportunity to that individual for next year because it was suspended by the u s fish and all my service once they were re listed they camp have directed sport
mortality under usa does i dont have salvage requirements for bloggers meets elves requirements
i meet the commission changed the meat retrieval portion of that war
decade or so ago there are now and as i was guessing they weren't going to do a meet salvage requirement and grizzly bears no that is not part of the requirement and again that's some of the variation you get from among
state someone told me how
they were at a meeting and it was like a it was a public comment period and in some hunters were saying well you know we should do a
were proposes idea of a meat salvage required right
in some of the people who are opposing the heart were sort of saying like i was term of looking for when you say don't
like not in fact lies the word indulge now i've got it
i'm looking for i don't know say like don't you know don't talk to me and calhoun was telling me this story and i can't remember the word they used for it
but their colleagues don't do this phony symbolic thing to greenwash this correct theirs but that camera
words he said that was you
but they were so
rather than this rather than of the opposition figures sing
yes i oppose the hunt but there is gonna be one i agree that there should be a meat savage lukewarm they want to make sure it looked as bad as possible agreed
i dunno cause that's going to confuse things too much i'd rather there wasn't because it's easier for us to bash it all right you know
certainly one of the things that we need
as wildlife managers for you and as hunters on your behalf is that support for hunting
that is for traditional consumptive purposes
in the united states is very high
survey that i saw presented that was present
this last spring showed
over seventy percent of the american public is supportive of traditional regulated hunting activities where consumption is part of it
depending then on and that's it
pretty stable we don't
the wind support as huh
if we just have to keep it part of what you're talking to
steve is
how do we regulate our own behaviour
so we maintain support for that traditional hunting based
activity that we so value
i believe that the use of a red squirrel where you described the meal you got off of it is in keeping
was that traditional active
that we know gives us a lot of support whether people hunt or not
we do know from other surveys that when you label this trophy hunting
all your out therefore is the trophy without
consequently very confusing too it is very concerned but support from the public
surveyed across the united states draw
under the mid twenties and so the
try hunters are trying to portray
grizzly bear hunting as a trophy activity
not a population management activity not in
thing else am six
as for them they turned the tables
we have two as hunters take a look at how we interact with the while mice that we take the
almost spiritual aspect of both take
life as well as the consumption weather
it's the use of the fur or the meat or the bone
in whatever manner we've got to take her and keep that front and center as we propose changes in hunting seasons and how we interact with our wildlife and fish for that matter so
to wrap up on grizzlies
if you look at a crystal ball it be dead on
don't tell me what you want to be dead ass words are gonna wind up
don't be delisted it'll take another year or two
through the legal system will persist on that
simply because the population itself is so
strong i mean
habitats occupied its actual
i've told out
and are and as long as we are able to de listed based on that distinct
population segment that it was listed under four
a yellowstone ecosystem
the same will be true for the northern continental divide takes in glacier national park that will get tee listed at some point as well other popular
nations that we ve got like in the cell kirk's
these little populations that are reliant on canada we
don't believe will ever achieve the pie
populations that are called for in the recovery plans because they're so small a nice yeah it's hard to picture it's hard to play the northern cascades which might might or might not have wanted it like at this very second right good example of that and so i'll
i the greater yellowstone in the northern continental divide where
maybe eight hundred maybe a thousand the other way yeah i mean i don't know what's in the northern continental divide but i think the fashionable guess is around one thousand and so the answer is yeah yeah there
nothing to be gained by not deed listing and there is a lot to be gained by doing that its success will be essay
financial and human resources going and the eu s a process go away and we can put our efforts on some mouse it's more important
and and get on with it and
been my mike
point about how you say has been used is it's it's being used to achieve other need
it's just like this lawsuit over our steel head permit they're not soon us
conservation purposes steel had their suing us to get other things that they haven't don't
they ve been heard
and am and that's a misuse of of
hundred species that saddens me about seeing how the endangered species act is used often times in these big public battles becomes
well something very different than what is supposed to be talking about
the conversations we're having around grizzlies right now we're not heavy conversation that was the populations were covered it's just that
i know what i want
people can look at it i know what i want
really interested in the main question that governs that like pop population stability programme
use component
of the years as a tool to get what i want crack
what i want is ideas you don't want
some redneck shootin aggressively
certainly their perspective on that i understand that
we ve seen that social
angst over large predator
where a wildlife
goes down tremendously when they have a ticket in their pocket a permit to kill that because
the control shifted from
if my life service to the hunter himself or herself as the case may be we sought with wolves
oh my gosh the annexed over wolves and
the predation they were having on both livestock as well as wildlife was huge
the number of letters we got from sportsmen was unbelievable
soon as we opened the season and people can buy a permit
one way down the walls were back extinct again right yet
no now a naughty uncoil assuming we drop their numbers by a few hundred work
wiping them off but it changed behavior lost it did change their behavior but we have reduced lived on livestock depredations and weave weave shifted their behaviour around they now understand what humans are and
stay away we still have hotspot problems with wolf predation but most of it's on on our ungulates on our deer and elk it's not as much on livestock we we've really used hunting as well as directed a kill
bye
our agency and its staff and a u s while my services to reduce that tremendously and
we are making some inroads on elk management as well we're killing enough of them that all populations have jumped back up back up in some eric panting it'll get devastated it it did and it still has some holes i mean we've got twenty seven alkene alex's homes in the state
and of that seven of march meeting objectives five of those
are almost certainly the result of probation
two of them a combination of that and other factors
so we ve
you ve changed that originally we were out i think eleven zones want meeting objectives and so we ve push that
back down
to a lower number
and those are mostly back country on we can't
enough hunters in there we don't have livestock in there so we don't have
while my services in their directly killing animals that are our request
we're trying that in a low
on just over the hill here where we sent by my services and there is an experiment to kill
was to try to reduce their numbers to appoint wing see our populations combats gotten used while their services like the dalia it doesn't have to be egg does
now now we we use them in fact i prefer to use their their cheaper and better rather than our staff are because
got the right equipment and training to get in and get that take care of her to handle ban and we
found that we can remove enough walls to get a response
it's a garden weeding operation i mean a very productive they come back so
i'll go back in there and what we need is to get enough hunters and trappers and there once more
the numbers down to keep the numbers
so you don't have to keep paying
a third entity or
staff to go in there and do that and
there we can get there in a place like the law or the middle fork of the salmon or the cell way and some of these really thick back country panhandle units is yet to be seen were working
the trappers and the state
to try to enhance their ability to get in there by changing some season structures bag limit
trap checking limits
like that working very closely to adjust those to try to
here too
better place with being able to use sport trapping
as a means of control as well and i'm pretty excited about them
we ve only been at this now for i guess
eight nine years and we have only been out from underneath the umbrella efficient while my service we had a five year probationary period where we could do a lot of things so it really only been at this about three years
transom new stuff and you're going to see us continue to do that what do you think
i end up happening in the northern great lakes this is like we're going like way outside of your purview but do you think that that there's light at the
there is a bill in congress to de list wolves nation wide cross
bored they're just done
whether that stands a chance of getting through an assertive would you like a little too elastic
yeah i'd all i know is in in in that particular area that's probably their best chance for deep
listing
because of the way the judicial order is is on them up there too little different but
it's it's gonna be there out they dont have a population problem there
it's again they're tied up in this legal mess that they ate they can't get out in there it's around the question of distinct populations and i don't want to get like terribly inconvenient but there it was a bit again right like nit pick but it's like nitpicking little legal things and that they're not arguing about the main question right the main question being like are there enough wolves plenty of voices within that geography there's no there's no benefit
derived of ear say that's where
i think the question
it's the it's the nuances of the endangered species act when somebody arguing over the definition of a distinct
population segment or some
the aspect of he s a there
many attorneys are very good at arguing in a court of law and it's not
what a great benefit to their pocket what probably are given that given the way their reimbursing there is there
a number of scholarly articles on now
the reimbursement of of the legal
people that are taking these suits at a cottage industry that i can i can imagine as a lawyer but at the same time it is their right to take those legal actions and
that's just the way it is an untold congress decides to change something on that it's it's what we have
oh well i don't want to blow that i don't want to be mistaken for someone who wants to blow the whole system up i just want it to all end i want to all in the way i wanted but not an adversarial to the process as long as i'm like
its van right you appreciate the rules but
this route inferiority so i d like to see it end up in a way that i want to end up
i want to in another one
until the other day when someone
they did they officially verifying that mountain caribou came down montana right i mean
and i'm still back with the grizzly that was on the golf course in stevensville if you heard about that too yeah i think you're right i think
i think they verified thinks of guys at foes up in the yeah yeah did violence on flirting with the board and i think they might have it might be lured him over
it might be verified the one step foot
contain what should be the first time since twenty or something but idaho right
add the except for that now know enough about that's no how free cosette as if it's one that is packed up and straight a hundred miles but
who has been the
the state
the law in lower forty i'll been these state
where we have had over the last decades we ve had some number of caribou flooded
with the border and if
women have a care but the u s it was presumably
who's gonna be one an idle in
a population is sovereign
it see what you're take
is this like a
big meaningful thing or is it one being that such kind of carnival of a little bit of our fleet
can you can't read too much into it that their now not there
like gimme the mile high perspective on it for my standpoint this was almost preordained given the limitations of the habitat
given the small low productivity of the of the herd and the fact that
was reliable predominantly on canada with a few animals coming in
the critical mass we needed of thirty two sixty animals we
he achieved i think the mid thirty's number years gone and we'd gone downhill slide sense so i
in a population of three or four not in fact canada has kind of come in and take those animals and remove their lives to put them in protective custody to try to preserve the genetics and use those animals to breed sumerian in a captive rearing
and then reintroduce them at some other point to bolster the remaining population
part of the problem was predation with
establishment of a wolves in that area in addition to the already existing cougar population
that was there it took them over it was
combination of factors
and one point we are actually given permission
canada for higher p
come in and kill walls and northern idaho
and they did that but that
enough
because it's not just wolves it was a combination of wolves
probably black bears on on on the young ones
well as cougar in there
because their habitat is so small
it was easy for the predators to pick on them
and so this
preordained
from my standpoint steve it's also an appropriate action
one of the things we export jack he's probably just basically saying we're done weak
do any more we're gonna a this out
this is a situation where we did not know how to overcome
limitations to that population we
but those animals and put them into a captive rearing
situation maybe
we'll figure it out but we
we decided that the use of resources for those few animals that were declining near extinction
was not a good use of resources let's
when the captive rearing game let's
try to see if we can understand this in the future as we work more get better
at managing other factors habitat predation what have you and then we
and put the resources to managing something we know how to fix for some other species and that
that idea of conservation triumph
under usa a controversy was dickens there's vote
i like myself to think it's the way you go we do it medically me that you'd put on something there are ya some of them you just say i dunno what to do
and no amount of money poured on it
gonna make any difference because we don't know what to do what would a reasonable number of population be in that
i can't tell you what the recovery plan was thank for the ita hope portion it was just around a hundred animals nerve flirt around a dozen the avenue a dozen right now and then i just went down to single digits
atlanta was a time where they were either gonna go away on their own we take the few
indeed as you by your way out of it now now
there wasn't any way and to do it effectively and so the committee
and show
too often this opportunity in them they're out so
that's that
the idea that there are did we give up on him not totally but we
recognize there was nothing more to be done right at this moment in time with our species
we damn near got there was sockeye salmon
i was on the original soccer recovery came when we got down to one may
lonesome larry came back one year we have
for fish come back
last year we had zero another year and then seven i mean that
a four year span and that's a complete generation one zero four and seven bring forward
learning populations i've saki salmon common backed redfish lake and idaho we took all those fish
of their natural habitat put a man on hatchery an eagle idaho and
expanded their genetics such that
we did not go into what's called inbreeding depression we used
every trick in the book and there were some really amazing tricks
our staff used now worse
ok millions of fish in their to try to build that population back up why we accept
and the population insufficient came from those fanatical may have bowed photos or whether it was yeah from those thirteen fish that we had dinner and right that's four five seven twelve fish
that we had to work with we now have a full blown hatchery operating
built with bp medication money and it was
expensive but we didn't we
start time trying
to produce them an answer
because the numbers were too small
numerically we couldn't get over hurdle well
you're different makes you can't go pull a hundred eggs otto caribou that
troops truth not win now we get four thousand eggs out of a soccer and consequently it is a different came from that standpoint but my my
point being as we have
make some of these hard decisions at some point in time not
spend money certain ways or human resources as the case may be at them and move forward that's conservation trio's or we make those
decisions versus everything's important we had a poor all the resources into it but there is not enough to take care of it when you of
even at this gave a long time in this business right yeah
and now you're in kind a pinnacle position when you look
like these these tough decisions do doom imagine that there are
on the wall
that will haunt you or that you'll have a sort of legacy is the guy who
think about that where do you feel like you saw sort of power
of a process right if it wasn't you would be someone else and that person would probably end up doing the same thing or do you feel like you put like the personal like
virgil more state
i have been things that are going to affect future generations and they'll look back and be like that was the guy
certainly mess it all up or or conversely the guy that made a perfect wound up
responsibility for the screw up because that's them
it works but the
successes are never that a single person
there there always a group but the successes that i've been part of that are most proud of our four
strong collaborators among
all of the users out there that can it
ray on how to move forward
and that's that's a challenge given the divisions in society today but the close
you get people
to the resource on the ground
easier it is for them to all focus on what they love saw it
talking about trying to manage yellowstone cut throat
its entire range
ash it's a big area across several states but
talk about managing yellowstone cutthroat in the south fork of the snake
i can bring osier together we
sit down and form a collaborative done it
on the clear water we ve done it in the why he's we done it on the company river we ve done it
in montana with the blackfoot initiative the ones and i'm familiar with and that
is the challenge is to find the right sizing of brain
people together they care about that place that lando
the and the races like the sort of the geographical geographic size that people can embrace sum of more massive like the wise it's a big geography but it's
it's a resource people can embrace
your mind around as they try to come up with solutions to
containing lifestyle and why
if resources and plant resources down there
and the alliance initiative was a huge success and stuff
and we ve
ranchers workin with conservation groups working with
other ngos to to keep
lifestyle on the ground because everybody cares about that sagebrush community down there we see it
the clear water basin people care about
that resource there in the lifestyle it has its heart
takes a lot of work that's what i'm most proud of air
three collaborative that i've ever been associated with that has been
successful is because everybody came together with that common value and
and it's really satisfying things and that isn't dependent on an individual them if that person leaves it
has momentum of its own
samuel asylum problems like if you look at that
through general it just to like it
as we approached on the micro level i think
the the management schemes for that level need to be
the issues associated with the south fork of the snake and maintaining the spawning tributaries there and dealing with the rain
trout integration are you
to that area require localised work
public by greater public giant the way why arming is doing at its different concerns geography is different
the way yellowstone park is doing it is different
and its own community up there with yellowstone cut throat montana has a slightly different approach on it but it's
getting at the same thing and its
its reliance on that now we have a tri state agreement on yellowstone cut throat that
put in place in the eighties and said here's the
things we all agree on our agenda
common definitions and common management concepts
we're gonna manage for purity of cut throat not purity is defined this way
and all by what proportion of integration is there and how we use those fish and transport em around we agreed on those basic concepts but then we went out
these management things on a localised basis i'm curious about if i get interrupt
something you said about the
collaborative efforts i mean if you had a pin point
something that made them work has been part of twenty collaboration that didn't work what we what would it
usually some big controversy
the one that i'm am i'm serious and sometimes we're right at the middle of it and that is where i take responsibility for being fought
and i'll do this on behalf of my agency more than anything but you're
the girl in the henry
work drainage we ve got our progress for my own part
one gets utah chubbs at that time
the biomass and our ability to grow hatchery fish in there for sport fifa yet a back up and at one blow argonauts dogma ok
i mean some people know about this well ok well anyway we get competition between fish species and non game species like you torture which is an exotic were in their eating
all of the zooplankton anne and food and tying it up in their bodies biomass i'm sorry i did get carried it also noticed like what the eu georgia was knows not tar job is a mental there's a great big men they got don't did there's a man i got in there behind her way through bait pockets and what have you but
the bottom line is we have periodically gone in there and poison
system with a poison called broken its exe
crackdown about a route from south america and it
walks the oxygen uptake at the cellular level in the brain and they just die giuliani have done some south american fish poisoning that's where we learned it from the natives down there yeah i dunno i haven't done that i'd like i'm telling you what it's fascinating and anyway in the process of doing the one that i the
one of these
we drew island park reservoir way down
we do that to limit the amount of poison
to be put in the system and then detox as it flows
out there and we usually closed the damn brought down
dump the in and do all tributaries twiddle kyoto try to kill the chubbs closer gates on the dam and fill back up
the process of trying to get the minimum pool possible to save money
true the pool down so low a cut through the sediment that adult
up in the reservoir and all at sediments rushed into the henry's fork and herman ranch the fly fish in mecca down there
and it accumulated terribly covered up all the habits and it did created some problems that create
such a public outcry about
the bureau reclamation and fish and game mismanaging this reservoir and having
facts on the wild trout fishery in the henry
what below that the henry's fork
coalition formed up
under the guidance of the henry's fork foundation
as well as the local irrigators there that were upset
and they formed one of the most successful collaborative we have today and included
everybody else but it was an answer that that created that and if
look around you ll find often there was an incident or an activity or were legal action that call
something that finally brought people
either because they now we got a fix us though this does not happen again and that
just one example
henry fork watershed council forming up
that was thirty years ago they had input from irrigators too there are big i want water and you boys nerve figure out efficient situation and tell it
fast forward
the dam was rebuilt
hydro project was put on a few years later
because of that collaborative the needs
the fish and the irrigators were worked out among the collaborative and
to the agencies so we could
implement them as trusted managers
for them and
that's why it should be too often we get put in a position of why did you make that decision
of implementing things that the community as a whole comes up with
i see
our agency and our staff as catalyst if
are possible
catalyzing that kind of community interaction
we can come up with these certainly out
when the commission me me making some of these decisions by trying to get people
the come together instead of us
standing in the middle of the circle getting shot at by all sides because
their dissatisfied with what we are proposing to try to balance everything out we're better
were part of the circle and
it comes up with an idea that some lamentable incomes
answers or as much as you can now
works until somebody doesn't concern when you get there
tangents out there but it is by and large working very well it's where the focus is right now i am natural resource management of our public plans especially in the resources on those public glance
you find areas where there is a lot of public apathy
in the surprises you by the lack input yes
i'm always amazed on
new issues that you think you're just gonna blow things up here will put a proposal for an idea out there we'll nothing will have
public meeting or a workshop three
people won't show up it does no
big event right what i think what we're doing right here though with a pie
cast what we can do with social media to try to get
this information out on a broader sense
because i'm old enough i still
like to sit down have a cup of coffee and read my paper okay
what i'm realizing now that my paper is only three pages long and if i'm going to really get any information i'm going to have to set down at least with my tablet and my cup of coffee and
and read through that and if i've got a tablet than i can hotline can to the
the next level of information if i desire and that might lead me then to some of these other discussion groups
information from folks like yourself that
can i help us
for we engage people in a day
manner of community as we were
forward with these thanks part of the reason these folks are here the two staff are to help us with that in terms of how do we get how do we do
how do we communicate better i came
during an era where we did a magazine and we had a tv show
no one does magazines and idea that that's get the public rest of them in newspaper articles i mean it was all print or media driven under an analog system
we need to end our transgressing getting into the digital stuff
the building wherein here right now is an example of that digital technology yeah we're at the or at the white the onyx world headquarters was just moved next door oh okay while we're at their annex the other thread the the annex one thing i was going to throw in there and you know you mentioned the apathy i've been to some of those meetings where two or three people in fact this summer i think i talked to you about this stuff the de
you was doing on the upper clark fork and
you know if you go down to the bar you go down to charlie bees everyone will talk about everybody every fishing guides got an opinion about it but
i think some of that apathy is derived from the fire
no one knows who really accountable for stubbornly tell a story about the
reservoir getting drawn down and this massive
i'm coming out
i would imagine i don't know that this for a fact that that
fishing community down there was pride on whose accountable for this whose whose megan up for
know this money that we're losing etc etc and i think some of that
the comes out of the fact that people
figure on the matter what things nuclear player right so far
i think that that's true because you hear somebody these issues some of the ones we ve touched on today you hear people
bottom and
passionate about it but the
if they open the mouth i'm like you know you're not equipped to talk about this brow just buy a handful of things you just said like you're behind you're not caught up yeah and i mean virgil you articulated that
that was collaborating so well and it sounds like when those
people come together there has to be some level of compromise in those different entities are
collaborative manage
by its nature is given take i mean it's but it
also builds on relationships and under
standing a core understanding that
mine need and value really isn't that much different example being
the rancher
has a piece of property but relies on the public sagebrush grasses
to have his
lifestyle his ranching lifestyle me he's got arrays bohemia's graze cattle arrive communist graze another glance rare and and
the values that environment because its home
he knows it
as well as anybody because he's lived therefore maybe three or four generations
in his family and we can't
exclude their needs and be successful
example being sage grouse sage
need water for an important part of their brood rearing
even in idaho with all the public lands we have which is sixty three percent federal another five percent of state i mean it's huge
almost all the waters on private land that's what was homestead it and so
if you put a rancher out of business because you're saying you can't graze up here because of endangered species and
pull their whole operation into their little piece of land that has all the water and they
it began to feed their and utilise all the habitat up the sage grouse suffer in the long run because its disconnect
we need the community now they get there what's
good further heard is good for the bird is the cat
phrase that we use now calls not condos right right and an that's exactly right we want these operational ranches out there
that are part of the landscape and can be managed in
in conjunction with the other resources we value they ve seen it
in the past they know what can be done
we ve seen it
and so now it's just a matter of being sure we not restrict any of our activities
the point that everybody is gives up goes home and that's that's cool
that's had that's thing i worried about all time think about
one thing about wildlife issues is what happens when you create the damage
it's done when you create a spotted owl
despite our conversation round spot allow the spotted owl like ceased to be a bird and it became like
is this symbol of something and it became a thing of animosity and it became a symbol of divisiveness then when you allow some of these conflicts to go to faster in
strive for some compromise and like people coming to a mutual understanding of what they need to go
haven't he's like these like wild
fatalities in terms of like what the species stands for it is painful to watch it happen if you ve heard of a wolf rise beautiful
people want to have more people like when i hear that noise i think about like my needs napping listen to man and that's the only thing i'm hearing right there socks to see that happen to twelve
i think the way they had that off is usually you these ways like
like what you need but also giving room to other people to also live their lives and have their needs be met and it's like it's hard do
i do not look at these issues that way when i was younger i looked at him in a very rigid way we're like i was right you were wrong and you were stupid
i was real smart knows it then do you know
the more you round a watch successes and failures around some stuff timor you realize man is never going to
there are the attitude that's correct i
we never got to the question what are some like big fit
what an efficient gave great this game not they're talking about
figured out like the the ones their legitimate right
we want more big fish
that will be on holding out there's no bakers simplistically but certainly
if the legitimate complaint you ask what the legitimate complaint is
and it would be that we
don't know everything about the spot you hunt
don't you come to me and you said you know how many dear or what the
dull ratio is an
i'll timber creak of unit five
i'm gonna go now but i can tell you what the backdoor ratio is in units three four and five
overall from the combined survey work we ve done but no we don't know
and it is a legitimate complaint that we have set
management goals based on larger survey units
this person it's coming
point is you don't know what you're talking about relative to timber creek cause i sat the same blind for twenty five years and i always see acts and this year i saw why and it's legitimate from
the standpoint of what they see we talked about that earlier and why
we're trying to do now is look different ways of censuses wildlife under
standing what's out there go
from a traditional
site bay
survey work where we have to see them count them
kill them aside
some whatever the case may be
one thing that provides a different level of that i mean remote cameras is still kind of seeing but we can get a lot more of them out there i mean i just saw him bring an truckload a remote cameras and our office that we be
stop sent out all the regions hundreds of these things that were put now
in matrix to try to get better understanding of what in timber creek as an example
the verses just the larger units based on aerial flights
were using
her snags and scott analysis pulling dna out of these animals so that we
track families we
and tell you by looking at
dna from wolf scat whether in
that represent
the family unit
whether or not they were successful with getting
a pair getting a brood off
by giving proper sampling of pieces in part because we can type those are
nobody today worth advanced
peter analysis and the speed at which we can do
things from when i started my career is i can't even fathom
i mean dna analysis is a good example we have
the dna make up of every hatchery fish we stuck out
an m it's it's amazing that we are parental based stock analysis
you take a fish in the ocean i can take offense
after a swab off of that fish and analysis and i can tell you which hatchery came out of them which female produced it and and that and i can do it darn near in a couple of days
i mean it would have taken you months to pull
something like that off before and not with that specificity
but i got a lab full of people that are krink in this stuff out and it's gone on all over the place and and
were advancing and trying to push the limit
that's the science that's a science fiction almost of wildlife management as we move forward
it does not eliminate the hands on stuff
trapping of animals to put collars on i'm so we can go in and assess how they died weather
it was predation natural whatever
better at that
we still have a lot of that the fun stuff jumping out of a helicopter honour on a calf
open welcome and wrestling
to the ground catching fish in a trap and important tags on that's just fine handling wildlife is really a kick its
got me into this business
and learning from them but
were were trying to get better at this and
in a drone technology and infrared technology isn't quite area
i mean these satellite collars we put on out now
up to a satellite back down computer there instantly on a map and we can program to do it
five minutes
our every ten hours depending on what we want and were able to use that to help landowners understand where an l kurdish relative depredation on their hasty
and that's real time management while we track some stuff around so
working toward tardiness telled i gotta go on from his blood that's the legitimate complaint we ve heard it we're working
using technology and triumph
put more resources into it
fortunately in idaho our finances are secure
for the time being we went through a low like everybody else when the economy tanked
our revenues dropped by twenty five percent rule
why you tied to the economy because people
that's good question steve were tied to the economy because
half of our licence revenue
for non resident oscar but their only ten percent of our hunters
and in the past so
i want you to hear this
half of our revenue are licensed revenue which is around forty four million dollars a year half of it
little over half of it comes from non resident hunters who comprise ten percent
now we have a lot of non resident fisherman but the
don't generate
nearly the same money cause are buying one day presents it's it's a high volume low cost proud of the economy goes south people are like i can't i can't go to idaho hunting this year and we did not realize how sensitive it was we'd never seen it before but when the economy tanked in two thousand and nine we have a
on non resident hunting permits in idaho it's
thirteen thousand five hundred
i'll tags fifteen
thousand five hundred dear tax when though
you're gone for gender
hunting they're gone
we never sold we ve never not sold those out up until two thousand and nine
good now can we always solemn out so half of our revenue was guaranteed that you did in ghana and we we did three things we raise the price
of non resident fees so we didn't have to on resident r l kurds tank
because a predation and other habitat related issues and the economy tank
all three of those things combined over a four year period drive our revenues
down by nine million dollars
it was huge here who is huge and
what we found is now non residents are elastic
they're coming here
the further analysis showed that was partially the perception that r l kurds had collapsed and it was worth it
their part was
portion of those people who stayed away were skilled trades folks construction
construction got hit hardest
those guys were selling their trucks to
the family they were they were not working because the housing market collapsed nan
was the economy start coming up about a year behind that
then people got over the provided creases and land we we discounted non resident products we marketed to them but the last two years we sold online or non resident product out again does this state keep track
i'm sure they do but i know the montana guides and outfitters association just put out a reported
at the door recreation industry in montana brings in lakes
seven point one billion annually
we have those numbers for hunting
and fishing in idaho
i believe the direct economic benefit is one
point four billion for i don't
has an economy of about sixty six billion so there
gives you some sense of where it fits it's pretty sizeable number
and then wildlife viewing
adds about another six hundred million to that's we're about a two billion dollar
omg activity and the state on a while my based economic activity all out
were based recreation is i think
six billion yards
it's at that six billion dollar figure so now just
your ten percent of the economy of the state is outdoor based and
a third of that
based on what life so it's
yeah yeah it's important and we can drill that down we've done the surveys if you want to know how much people what the economic benefits are of somebody fishing henry's lake and go to
i'll pull information up until your may fish they cod how much minus
how much money spent on groceries and housing weed
that information from serve asian we can give it to me
the commissioners will give local working group and especially its big so tell me
classification of gripe that you feel is illogical
like what the thing you guys in your business people
i got a fish and game
and you like maybe just isn't fair
to one is never listen
you never listened to less you never do what i want them an end
i get it but it's not a legitimate complaint given the amount
of public input that are
can see seeks
the requirements for public input of a state agency are minimal i mean it
like one public meeting before the commission makes decision cash we have
dozens if not hundreds of public meetings over a year
dance of regulation setting opportunities for input electronically and other ways so i dont
consider those to be legitimate complaints because
there are so many opportunities what that might mean is i told my opinion and it wasn't reflected in what ultimately happened so the other one is you don't
know what you're talking about in other words will do a survey by them
a social survey that asked for
steve you get a survey from us and i says
are you satisfied with deer hunting
would you be satisfied worth
fewer large box but more hunting
returning
bunch of social science questions that we work with the university design and they go
act and they go we don't believe any of this
doesn't conform with my opinion was so we don't believe it ends
and we see the same thing from deer and elk population surveys they go
because they didn't see it we don't believe that
you do not know what you're talking about
that is not a legitimate complaint
we are a science based organisation weather
its social science with
its biological science
stand on our science and i can tell you having been
a leadership role in a state agency for over a decade and
working nationally among my peers and other state agencies i can tell you that in the intermountain west we have some of the finest
fish wildlife scientist in the world
in idaho
we know more about predation management and argument management than just about anybody in the work
we're on top of the game
and i'm proud of them
do we have things we dont know absolutely do we have more to learn and work to do absolutely
i dont say we don't know what we're no one just
understand we don't know everything and we're still trying to get that so
that would be
what i would consider the other thing that really bothers me that i consider is when people personalized interaction with department staff i dont like steve
steve didn't approached me properly
that very well could be and every complaint i get
a negative interaction with staff is for
we investigated and responded to and so i
and up knowing that most of these are not legitimate in fact
it's very seldom than i thought
one time that i've spent investigating these over the last twenty years that you find it
quite
that's usually because the individual didn't get the outcome
whether it was he got a citation where he got information he didn't want or whatever the case may be an all
certainly when you go back through an end
the facts it's it's not there and
that doesn't mean that the person didn't feel that way but that didn't actually happen
that way it's one of the advantages of taper quarters and video camera
it pretty much takes care of
we i've actually seen people look at those and go oh
i have no idea i did that they don't remember that part of it you know it's it's we have selective memory of humans and it's just the way it happens sometimes
as a ban on what we miss
readers will say anything you're dying to get into that we didn't get as well i will say one of the other things that i think is important and important to all you guys around the table is public access
certainly in a public lance state we tend to think of it and take our public access but
we also have a huge amount of private land
in a night all we had out of state person from texas commanded by up hundred thousand
plus acres of timber lamp and immediately fenced end quote
that all the public access where the
for timber company had allowed pub
access on it before
was a huge eye opener
two sportsmen and us
to suddenly have lost a big chunk
of a hunting unit that was very important folks and
it caused us to really start thinking about how to
we enhance our ability to protect these large corporate lands from being closed so that the pub
can continue to enjoy the wildlife that they own
that we manage for them on those
lands as well
so two years ago the legislature gave us some additional funds with a fee increase we ask for part of it
want to pay for depredation damaged if you increase mean the license in greek licence fee and creation as they what you do with that money what we're done
and a part of it was to enhance what we call access yes
it's a problem with had furlano lahti years but it was a bubble and along with three to four hundred thousand dollars most of a coming in from are
lottery the game tag super hunt
people would by those chances mouse funding our access programme now you pay
money
on every licence sold whether its hunting fishing it's five dollar fee
portion of that five dollars about half of it goes into the access account
now we're we've added about one point four million
to that account so
probably tripling what we ve got available for access yes
that money goes toward making private lives be they corporate or just private deeded properties
public access to the right are eager to that land to hunt and fish or through
land to get to public glance either way we can do at either way
we have real success for upland bird hunting and stuff like that around the boise areas some of the southern part of the state we
had a lot of success in the large corporate lands in the centre and
and part of the state
we also had a threat to statements
statements are about four million are about two point four million acres
and they were under threat of least four x
subunits had some people saying i want a lease this
state section that's next
private land for explosives
for hunting and fishing
so far we ve been able to sidestep that but state law
requires
the department of lands to generate maximum revenue for schools for the school trust fund is some guys willing to pay more than what the public right can pay we don't have any choice so we just signed an agreement with
lands approved by the landlord and
commission that
use a portion of that access yes money we're paying
weren't mental lands for all
so ass to their lands on every bit of it
for hunting fishing and wildlife base recreation so
if preserved the opportunity now and demand
the likelihood of an adverse exclusive use agreement on those lines
that's gonna cost us about three thousand dollars a year
do you feel all you guys are right now every year adding
accessible acreage they got a net loss when it went off
he considered
ah
hope to announce shortly
we have an agreement on private timberland that
secure access to another million acres
of of land in the next couple of weeks and
that agreement we will
in that game itself so we're using that additional money and we went out for proposals
for what we call large corporate land handlers
would you propose to us for a fee
we could pay you to gain access for hunting and fishing to your large corporate lands
we have those proposals were evaluating those proposals
were very close to a
worrying to some of those proposals at this point in time that will add in excess of a million acres congratulations yeah i'm i'm really proud of that and the staff work that went into it i my hats off to our legislature for allowing that increase
to be dedicated to that purpose as well but
it's a big and i see that
as giving us the annual finance
more resources
needed to secure this ended the future so
i just wanted to get that in their steve that were that of all the things we hear from sportsmen even in a public state is access they want
we're access or i lost my access which you said it's somebody
down a private entity bought that for
he acres a hundred and twenty are three sixty or whatever it is it's now posted
it's it's important that were actually meeting here at the annex place because
this idea of where are you add and
pass is very important
private landowners are very sensitive to trespass
how do you know
there's some posting requirements but it's still in a big open state like this where you wander up one side of the mountain down the other and you come in on the backside and you walk up to a fence it's next to the road and it's posted
and you didn't say anything when you came down the other side
where is it your research
once melded you know europe versus the landowners responsibility to post and we're moving that you have a high responsibility to know i agree and i know how there is some posting responsibilities of the private landowner on non
agricultural land basically timber and range lamp but i think we're
very quickly moving to the point where
you gotta know where you're out all the time
near its your responsibility and not the land on urgent annoy the easier it is but again does everybody carry our a smartphone orgy ps around with them no
most of us do that or avid but not everybody else does and so part of it is getting the mapping getting the information out there and again
technology to do that and are certainly
talking about letting people know that
in idaho you go on our website we have a hunt planet
you say i want to go hot white tailed dear and i want a hamlet in timber creating game i use my example again it will pay
what the maps show you yet is an excellent spot is that is that is gives dry yeah right it looks better and it'll tell you the land ownership it'll tell you the regulations it'll tell you everything about that piece of land however you want to scale it to look at what
can do in that area and
couple that with these machines and and some other third party software so you know where you're out all the time you're gonna go and and i still got
i would have to say dozens that's probably hundreds of quiet maps
there are followed up and in the under the ceiling on ice or canada the sea to my truck and i am i pull those things out and jam in my backpack i still carry a real compass with me because these
are reliable the batteries go did you don't have access i
the download that's all it was on resident so i still value paper maths i think this will have a role i agree and i think it's something that we as mentors
hunters should be teaching them
my if there's a last thing i want to say about idaho being the opportunity state
and the need for us as hunters and anglers mentor people in
to teach them the ethics and responsible interaction with wildlife the
respect for that wildlife live or dead that needs
to be there as we utilise consumer
well yeah i revel in the experiences around the campfire which we all do
those are important
proud to say that in idaho we have a thing called the passport if you're a hunter
and you know somebody that's never hunted and then making
no whether there a kid or an adult
somebody moves into town and sees that you're a hunter i would really like to go up but they don't have hunter red or anything else
you go down to the to the rice and splendor
as a hunter you can sponsor that person and get a passport
that is what the cost of three
we find a dollar seventy five then you can
if you want to think directly via dear technical with it
shoot birds for i love that year and then that
there is no good together go to ninety one time opportunity the men are somebody but it's great it it
gets this obstacle
cash i'd really like to go with you but i dont have for delay
get that for you now ready to go up again we came up against over thanks weekend weaker
we're all gonna have dna giving family stuff we're all gonna have hot enemy
not to do tat we start looking up he wouldn't have a tag be like
this person licence died
and this is the way you can do it if you had a movie that it now
hunted before just
they come down and get it and they gotta be
company by a licence hunter that it
me and you can take kids as young as eight that payment
had a chance to read if you're a parent or
a guardian or whatever that word isn't idaho kick put dear what i re use of age they can
small game and birds they can
dear until there ten
break off that's what that's what i thought yeah
no just broke the silence but what else is undermined moment
kind of on the opportunity theme
i owe does trophy species weak only apply from one of them there
three right you re you go sheep and moose
were you around one that was the place that
system and then just what are your general thoughts on cars that we really like it i mean i i liked the way this setup that you guys don't do the bonus points and preference points and all that to deal with that big mess and
they put the once in a lifetime back in the once in a lifetime that's correct we
longer column trophy species there once in a lifetime again getting at that perceptual mean you can really never draw again not now
for once in a lifetime example
of that and the answer he i was brown and our commission has the authority to do bonus points
they look at it about every five to six years it comes back up
and every time we provide them
the the information about what it means they always have backed away from it in idaho
but you make a lot of money do bonds points from a financial standpoint i will tell you the last
this came up about seven years ago when we were tanking financially it was
looking pretty darn good to me as a director trying to figure out how to keep for deeper into the whole but it
a pyramid scheme from a sportsman standpoint i'll be honest with depending on which method you use are so many different ways to do it but
if you keep getting
opportunity to use your points if it goes up sequentially every year because more people are getting into it if create
the pyramid scheme that those who get in first or near the bottom are okay but though
come commander the bottom may have
four five six years before they even get to that point
depending on how many jam into it it may not go
therefore some species and that
what we look tat is for
very hard to draw species bighorn sheep mountain goat
you may not get their even with bonus points
for europe both boys i'm going into the montana bighorn sheep draw this year
square i'm here not enough no gone with three hundred and forty four points and five lifetimes where the bonus points that i still run into sub one percent chance drawing the tag and that's what you get into is the squaring thing the other methods of trying to make sure everybody in there eventually gets one and
but the commission has chosen are commission and this is
back as far as
five years ago when it first
came up i remember i was fisheries guy at the time when i heard the first discussion with
continue to give that presentation over the years to new commission says they come on
the presentation is by the way online on our website so really ever want to look at it it has some gaming stuff in there that helps you understand how the various techniques work and what
the end result is it does
ok for moderate level controlled hans
what does that have under twenty one odds
if it's less than five one aren't you don't need it anyway you're gonna get one in a couple years without that but in
in intermediate range works really lead to guarantee if you'll stand there for three to five years she'll can attack
on the higher than twenty the one it falls part in that
part of the problem is where do you use it and how do you apply had relatives
so
our commission is just chosen to stay away from it
but there's no guaranteed or stay like that no none whatsoever and active change overall are the constituents have
this is where we have what i would consider a mobile group or hunters that moves around multiple states and hans
we have a lot of our majority of our hunters just now
the folks who move around by other states like points because they can piling up in all the different states and they spend a lot of money accumulating that mine tags and whatever so they can accumulate there
they seem to like that because they ve covered their board
of the residence don't necessarily
there there more place oriented with the way
do things and i just want to know but they ve got it
equal chance with everybody else and let her kid or grandkid has side equal chance
like everybody else so yeah
back to the once in a lifetime just kill the most last year my nice bull on the south fork of the snake drew day i drew a tag after seven years now it took me seven ers delicate time better right it doesn't work that way unfortunately
seven years any drew i drew one killed a nice boy last year i'm done now
and put in for a cow tag if we ve got a population and is growing too fast we're gonna take some cows out that's it
women
i'm gonna move i'm done almost an idle
i had a friend who drew she must be what friday the thirties right yeah i'd say early it'll be done you're just done
so big horn sheep we have to
species so you get one for each the desert bighorn and right rocky mountain bighorn so
you can have two opportunities there but mountain
one in your done he knows
the terrible
stay they made you can you can buy
all points now whether in the banana so even though my kids are old enough to actually hunt i can get
we're not gonna middle i got him all numbers biggest are
by and they take their allowance or the decks
your form by
the bonus points someone there like twenty
don't kick of seventeen bonus points that's horrible
i'll take advantage of it because it's there it's it's horrible
guilty doing its work
just a behavioral latest gains the system and blows it is because they are being managed let they should let people let me do stuff myself
you're part of the problem you're going to go ahead and do it anyway yeah you're in this state like they assign
so when you go to ale at that there's a good customer number
your customer number is your
day and then the number after is how many people with
your birth they have so many
when they were the ale s system came in out my ill as numbers number three meals a third guy with my birthday to get to apply for a number now they're assigning numbers of europe in the hundreds right but
my little kids who are three five and eight i would
did them ass numbers in there all number one
the swamp i without some i the game because noel with is nor with that birthday has gone down so they're gonna kill it
i just can't decide how far i'm going to run with this but i do feel guilty about it now i might even not do i case decide well you'll get life
may at some say it you have to do that with your grandchildren
it comes as they get expense how right there's a multiplication
question
when you're when
economy tanked and you're trying to figure out a way to get some more money the dedicated sales tax ever come up cause there's
couple days have done very well with that we ve looked at it
how gosh five years ago we did a thing called the wildlife summit and
is trying to bring
folks together talk about one life on a state wide basis and and
outcome of that was trying to build understanding of the needs of all wildlife and that we worked
able to generate enough revenue
take her the needs of the eighty percent of non and other wildlife that was out there a
what i call a loose coffee cups
of conservation groups after that
was done we did a survey of
the whole ones
to see whether or not they would support an initiative that
either dedicate a portion of the sales tax or support an increase
the increase was less than fifty percent people just want willing to do that it was
lightly over fifty percent of the folks were willing to sell
port a dedicated portion of the existing sales ok so
well the the the folks that know the politics of initiatives and everything said that given where we were at in the political cycle with elections and everything else that
that was not
probably they could
at the signatures to get it on the ballot but they weren't sure whether they would make it and it depends
on whether or not you have an entity
well funded that will oppose it if you don't have any well funded opposition you can run
thanks through that
we're getting at sales tax whether its and
increase or a piece of the existing
physician was gonna be huge yet and so
that puts
killer loose coffee clash folks backed away
from that at this point in time for the state of ida hope the beautiful people missouri pulled it off they did and being a missouri and i was in college during the time that that stuff was going forward net took them
twelve years of trying different
did well over me i tell the story like yours they rallied around right because when it passed it passes i mean
quite unanimous but but it was a high support and and years it did they they want with a pop tax and a beer tax and failed on that they tried all kinds of things before they came up with some one eighth
one percent
sales tax increase which has been the gold standard
florida does a real estate transfer tax every time a piece a real estate cells there's a piece of that feed
in almost four you should pay when you buy a piece property while there's a little piece of land in there now it goes to the while my fun and that's working for them down there they went down when one thinks tanked but it went back up
our concern iowa want with a similar sales tax system as missouri and arkansas
got theirs through iowa got there through but they didn't fund it so in on the mechanisms air but they didn't initiate it says most everybody that dips likes to hunt fish they just have a tip that i'm with you on that so that there is a solution though i don't want to leave this before i speak to a solution that's live in congress right now
it's called restoring america's while my fact
following a word it would take the
on royalties from
oil and gas and mining mining onshore and the onshore offshore its all of that royalties and and that royalty package is around twelve fourteen billion a year right now
dedicate one point three billion of that end
the pitman robertson fund a subset of it was a double the phone it would double the fun and it would
then that money would come back to the states based on the size of the state and the population very similar to the way we do pr for hunting which is a number hunting licences and the size of the state comes
the state to manage
a very familiar mechanism for the south
to get financial resources to manage all while by that's a reallocation is that a new tax nets as reallocation of of a fund it is the fund that the land and water conservation fund taps
two right now
and so there is legislation our own senator russian state abide with sponsoring it on the senate site it's
at over one hundred co sponsors on the house side right now they've got good bipartisan support it does the the house supporters and one hundred and five and it's split almost equally down the middle
close bunch sponsorship on the senate site i'm not sure of that
sponsors the four i'm familiar with a bipartisan so sir
the senate which different than the house on that stuff anyway
so we're hoping that they'll get
to get a major hearing on this we ve had some smaller hearings
it's moving forward i
what's it was classified as a moon shot to get
through this congress with between
the time they adjourn in december but it's still live
and senator russia's trying to get a hearing going on it
this would be huge first
like i to home if we got
allocation would be on the
fifteen to seventeen million dollars annually
so you and i'll take that our total to eat d j p r
allocation is about that much so it
the the
wildlife diversity nongame program on the same footing and allows us to have the resources to manage all wildlife populations the fear
lotta hunters and anglers fear
loss of control of their commissions and departments man ass yours and and
not a legitimate fear but i go back to my home state of missouri
and see what happened there i mean they pumped hunt
and ten million dollars a year into their budget
it's the majority of their budget they got about another sixty million i thank and licence sales
other money
in their thereabout twice ass big budget wisest state of idaho with with what they ve got back there but hunting and fishing
is better and stronger there now
as a result of having that
collaborative of all users
in things done and so when you look at the case histories of states
have had this additional money florida being the other example honey
fishing there is action
a booming
if those additional resources
it will mean some changes and in how we go about interacting with the public on allocation of budget but certainly idle
thanks to be feared it's to be managed
i have respect but i understand how i understand the viewpoint of people being leery about new voices right sitting around the table new voices at the table and i get that
still think that
is better than to go
with the money and in
ill play the game however you need to play it but to put to go with the extra funding and then sort the rest out after the fact or at least go into it with the right kind of mind frame and while our track
record but where we have financial resources and focus
if there's a sensitive species out there i can keep
off the list or an get em off the list
with that kind of financial resources i know we can do it because we ve done it
and now and i'm i would be anxious to
see that pulled off
we'll see again it's a moonshot but it's live and it's moving forward we've been two years moving us forward the group that put it together was a group called the blue ribbon panel and i'm johnny morris from bass pro now cabello
two was the culture along with governor of a former governor frieden for all from wyoming and most everybody on that panel were
ngos and
private business it wasn't it
government folks they're the ones and looked at this and said yeah and
that their first recommendation was this one point three billion that's where we focused the second
is increasing our relevancy to all people about my life management
money goes a long way to helping that but certainly
how do we as hunters and anglers show that
the use of hunting fishing and trapping for wildlife management is relevant to everybody
i think that's a big part of the challenge that we have in the future is hunters and anguish
to maintain relevancy we ve got the support we ve got
that mid seventy support for traditional hunting even higher for fishing
we're just gonna hang onto it and we do it by doing
what we know what's hunters and anguish we are
conservation is first
and we lead the way with our own
actions and activities to get the stuff them
final thoughts gross man a virgil
school meals arise fantastic virgil fur department of interior
something right half a day means dc a great place i've learned a tough one
they are going to ask you maybe with some so you're
says yes programme is
efficient game the only state
the in charge of
curing more public access
we have the ita home department of
and recreation then has
responsibility for trail access for both motorized and foot travel and we were
very closely with them they also have responsibility for some boating access we have our own boating access programme they have theirs
counties have some responsibility because they get a piece of the dj angle johnson funds
but as far
as
ah
and based hunting and fishing
and trapping worry it right
the others are directed at more generalised recreation or motorized or power boat recreation in that particular case
and compared to what were put on the table
financially it's a very small piece of
it seems like and i in montana as well the public the economy better
so much from yes our public landed that in
more entities should be putting chips on the table to procure
i think some of the ngos are huge player sir rocky mountain help foundation has they do atone for they do and may they ve been very cooperative collaborative there
money to bring to the table that match with anything you ve got
and a mule dear foundation to a lesser degree as is part of that
those are the two primary players trout unlimited does some four stream access for free for fishing
and we ve got some
some other players in there but
i dont want to dismiss some of those ngos that have been very focused and effective particularly
came out and help with their initiative to get access through private land to public lamb they ve been able to
really i do some good things are thank you thank you
we did it we did a deep dive me a lot of fun i enjoy this stuff
fresh eggs to dingle johnson
you got it all give me some more time will give you more you own a heavy bag how long are you retiring right i am i'll i'll be retiring in january to come back for big shit talk and says i can i can better yet i'll come over and i dunno if this stuff works on the back of a jet boat while wonder if trolling for steelhead we can we can plug it all into an inverter and we'll make this stuff work and live fish and we can do a live fish and she did alive ice fishing show one time i can do that too i've got a place on cascade reservoir and we can scoot right out on the ice
and kept some of those trophy perch that we ve got their yellow
yellow perch i saw i'm going well versed were pushing eighteen inches eighteen and a half we met and it states still got to
three year classes in there that are grown into that so it's a fish in us
story i gotta get this right now they are like while i these things are huge i mean now
fourteen and sixteen and perch our routine
their yeah you catch three of those new got dinner that's great it is it was great
stay tuned in thank you good thinking
Transcript generated on 2023-03-14.