Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm Dirk Durham and to Dight, I have Justin Webb. He's the executive director for the Foundation for Wildlife Management. Welcome Justin.
Thanks Dirk. I appreciate you having me on.
Yeah, I've been I've been wanting to interview you for quite a while, even before I got on this podcast. I've found what you and your organization are doing very fascinating and I want I think it's important for people to know about it. So anyway, I wanted to. I wanted to get you on here. First off, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
A little about myself.
Well, I'm a fashionate outdoorsman. Grew up off the grid in the country in North Idaho. Spent most of my life hunting and fishing and camping, hike in the back country. I raised a family, My kids are grown now, and I have been able to kind of pour my heart and soul into what has become the Foundation for Wildlife Management and just feel blessed to be able to do something for a living that I would do for free given the free times. It's really near and dear to
my heart. The mission of the Foundation for Wildlife Management and watching the negative impacts of the over abundance of wolves transpire over a ten year time frame was really saddening to me.
And it's.
A travesty in some areas, some places that's not you know, nearly as impactful, but sometimes very passionate about. I spend countless hours tracking wolves, studying wolves, talking about wolves, seeking out knowledge about wolves. There's not a whole lot about my life anymore that doesn't doesn't involve wolves on some
you know, way, shape or form. But uh, I'll say, you know, prior to wolves, the majority of all my time was spent chasing giant meal deer bucks in the back country and hunting elk, and that passion has kind of been overrun with my passion for trying to save what ilk populations that we have in the back country, and that includes managing both populations.
And I love that if you can, can you give a kind of a rundown on for our listeners, maybe folks who are not from the West or the Northwest, and kind of give them a brief snapshot of, uh, what what's all the hubbub about wolves in Idaho? You know, I feel like if you get on social media or any kind of forums, you can get a lot of difference of opinion on the condition of how many wolves there are in Idaho and some of these other western states and how they've affected our elk and deer and
moose and other all the ungulets. Can you can you kind of discuss like where it all started with the wolves and kind of give everybody where it kind of started and where we're at now.
Yeah, you bet.
I mean I can share my own personal experience in my opinions.
That's great.
I can tell you.
I mean, I had a wolf as a pet when when I was growing up, we had a seven eights wolf from eighth husky and I absolutely love that dog. The the you know, the majority of my high school trips into the back country, she went with me. Her name was Dakota. Taught her how to pull a sled and drag me around ice fishing, and she spent all
sorts of time in the woods with me. But the problem was you couldn't control her, You couldn't keep her home, you couldn't you know, keep her contained, and eventually things just didn't work out there. Long story short, when I first heard that we had wolves coming to North Idaho. I was super excited about it. I thought wolves were the most amazing animal on the planet.
You know.
I grew up watching National Geographic just like everybody else, and had this huge, you know, just fascination with wolves and all that they quote unquote stood for. And there's all this messaging throughout my life that you know, I had kind of soaked in about, you know, wolves being not only an apex predator, but some I don't know, some resemblance of what humanity should have been or should be to some degree. And so I heard we were getting wolves, and I thought that was the greatest thing.
Couldn't wait to hear wolf howl in the back country, couldn't wait to see wolf.
Tracks on the mountain.
And then wolves showed up, and all of a sudden, everything I thought a wolf was I was questioning because everything that I'd been taught a wolf to be was not what I was witnessing in my backyard, in the back country around me, on my elk hunts, you know, on my excursions out picking up shed antlers. You know, they everybody talked about wolves being good for the ecosystem and the environment, and how only the alpha, male and female bread and they only killed the sick in the week,
and they helped keep game herds healthy well. When they first transplanted wolves to Yellowstone National Park and to the back country in North Idaho, again I was super excited about it. They set it. They established a goal of three hundred total wolves within what they call the Northern Rocky Mountain Distinct population Segment area. In that area, I wish I could show you a map. It encompasses all of Montana, all of Idaho, all of Wyoming eastern one
third of both Washington and Oregon, and the section of Utah. Well, as with anything these days, the wolf topic was litigated from all sides, all directions. It was explored, it was reviewed, it was peer reviewed.
It was.
You know, basically run through the ringer. What wolves are we supposed to have? How many are we supposed to have? What impact is there going to be on you know, our dear elk and moose herds? So many different topics and aspects. Well, while story short, after years of arguing about this stuff, they finally settled on three hundred total wolves as a recovery goal and a management objective of
eleven hundred total wolves within that entire system. Now, a lot of that management objective, all this data you can find it in the twenty ninety listing rule in the Federal Registry. But all of that data, the majority of that data was based on how much suitable habitat that we have four wolves within that in our MDPs area.
And one of my latest talking points, you can talk to an elementary school kid and share with them the concept that every living thing has to have a set amount of food, water, shelter in space to be able to thrive, and they can understand that. If you ask them what happens if you have more animals than what you have food, water, shelter in space, known to biologists as suitable habitat. Elementary school kid can tell you it's a bad thing and that only negative can come from that.
So fast forward, we've gone from meeting our recovery goal in the year two thousand in just four years. Basically it's time for states to take over management of wolves. Lawsuits start to rise up. Takes us nine years to get management of wolves into the hands of the states. In that time, wolf populations just exploded. Reproduction rates were extremely high, way higher than I think anybody really expected by the year two thousand and nine, and then they
delisted them within that rule. The US Facial Wildlife Service stated that should we maintain the fifteen hundred wolves that we had at that time, that that would deplete wolve's own prey base and cause chronic livestock depredation. A lot of people think that, well, I should say not think. A lot of people make this statement that nature will balance itself, and I one hundred percent believe that, But
what they don't understand is what that looks like. So for those that don't know, you have a prey base, and you have a predator base. As your predator populations grow and expand, eventually it outweighs your prey base, causing your prey base to collapse. Well, then all of your predators die from disease and starvation. In the case of wolves, the majority of them disperse. Most predators don't travel the
way wolves do or the distances that wolves do. You know, there's been numbers of wolves that have been documented with caller data having traveled more than forty five hundred miles before they take up residence somewhere. We've got wolves now that you know started here in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park that have expanded all the way across washing to the coast, all the way across to Oregon, all the way down into California. Two wolves have been shot in
Texas that came from the North Country. Wolves just travel
way farther and way faster than what people realize. So when we obtained the ability to manage wolves in two thousand and nine, we arrogantly thought, as passionate backcountry successful elk hunters, that we were going to go solve our problem as soon as we got a hunting season, And we hunted our casters off that entire first season, foregoing our dearn elk hunts afield just to target wolves, and at the end of the year we hadn't harvested any.
That's crazy, isn't it. That's very different than what some the different picture than some might paint. They kind of painted as a hunting seasons a slaughter of the wolves. But I've always had a kind of a standing bet that if anybody can, any wolf activist wants to bring me a really good, high quality picture that's in focus within you know archery range or even you know short rifle range out of the North Idaho country. If you can bring me a picture of that, I'd probably give
you a thousand dollars. And it's almost impossible. I mean, you could almost find anything that'd probably be easier to do than that.
It's pretty crazy.
You know, everybody talks about how we hunted and trapped wolves to extinction, they don't realize that there was a huge fear of wolves and so, you know, back when we first decimated their populations, there were a full time you know, local state and government employees that did nothing but pursue wolves. There was such a hatred of wolves
that everybody shot them on site. Those that didn't hate wolves feared them so much that everybody shot them on site, and that still wasn't enough to control their numbers, and so they actually poisoned them. That's what happened to the wolves. And they didn't poison them because they wanted to see the animals suffer. They poisoned them because they couldn't figure out what to do to control their numbers that would allow other populations a game and livestock to thrive.
Yeah. Yeah, well, if you take a if we look back in the you know, in history, for instance, the journals of Lewis and Clark. When they came across the Bitterroot Mountains, they nearly starved to death. They had to eat their saddles, they ate candlewacks, they ate their horses. They were on death's door by the time they were saved by the Nezpers Indians. And that country that they just traveled through back then, if you go there now,
it's very similar kind of country. I mean, there's not a lot of big game in those mountains anymore, because, in my opinion, I think because we let the wolves running unchecked up there for too long without any management practices, and they ate and displaced a lot of elk and deer and moose to where now it's pretty hard to hard to find any animals up in that country, you know. And some of the wolf advocates will say, well, you know, it's all about habitat for the deer and the elk
and the moose. But I think in two thousand and fourteen and maybe even a little earlier, we start getting a lot of forest fires up in that country, burn a lot of ground. It's fantastic habitat. It was great habitat before, but now it's even you know, it's everything an elk could want, but they still haven't came back.
Yeah, you bet. So you can have all the habitat that you want.
If your predator population is that way in your prey base, there's not a whole lot that you can do to, you know, to change that without controlling the predator numbers. Don't understand that, you know, as you mentioned Lewis and Clark testimonies, journals and what they went through, that's what nature balancing itself would look like. No, we spent one hundred and thirty years using the North American model wildlife conservation to maximize our dear elk and moose or ungulate
populations for both consumptive use and recreational enjoyment. And I absolutely love going out and watching the elk calve in the springtime, you know, glass and watching migrating herds looking for antlers in the spring. There's so much about wildlife that people think that because you're a hunter, that you obviously don't care about it, and it couldn't be further from the truth. You know, I don't want nature to
balance itself. I want to maintain the abundance of wildlife that I grew up with so that my kids and grandkids get to have the experiences that I've been blessed with.
Absolutely, So fast forward to modern day, and since we kind of talked a little earlier about how hunting wolves is just not a very good tool to manage their numbers, but folks have found success trapping wolves and that's been used as a really good tool to try to keep their numbers in check. Why is it so important that is? Why is trapping such an effective method versus hunting?
Well, I think to understand the gravity of that statement that trapping is so much more of an effective method than hunting, it's important to look at the data. So in twenty twenty one, I went back in DIOD a bunch of research and looking at tag sales and different things. Seventy four thousand, forty one wolf tags were sold in Idaho and Montana in twenty twenty one. Of that, four hundred and eleven people actually used their tags, and forty
two guys took more than two wolves. The majority of those were trappers.
Wow.
So you know, when you look and compare let's say a thirty or thirty five percent success rate on an l hunt, this we're talking about less than one half of one percent success.
Rate on wolves.
Now, when I say that, a lot of people think, oh, well, wolves must not get shot, and that's also not true because approximately half of the state's harvest is via hunting. The difference there being the majority of those wolves that are taken while the guy is out deer el hunting is from just that they're out deer elk hunting and the wolves bump into them. It's not that there's you know, a lot of people who have successfully identified the means to get themselves within rifle range of a wolf and
be successful harvesting them with a rifle. It's that there's so many people in the woods during the fall hunting season that wolves end up bumping into people. And so I think that that's one aspect that's important to realize. And the other part of it is folks don't realize how far and fast wolves travel, and more recently, I you know, it's almost a daily occurrence. If you follow social media at all, somebody will be on a wolf hunting page or something and they'll say, oh, we'll just
go find the elk and you'll find the wolves. And I wish that that was the case, but that's just simply not how it works. You know, wolves are are wolves. Specifically, in Idaho, we've got an average pack size of six, each having an average litter size of seven. Thirty percent of our packs are having more than one litter because more than one female gets bred. And you know, on that data actually aligns right with Yellowstones Wolf report as well. I was shocked the first time I saw multiple size
pup tracks within one pack. I did not believe that more than one female would be bred. And you know, again, I guess that kind of takes me back to the the reason that when some people get frustrated by folks who are standing up for what they believe in, but they're bashing hunters for harvesting wolves, it's a lot easier for me to have an open conversation and dialogue with those people, you know, and give them some grace because just like them, I believed everything they believed before wolves
were in my backyard. So kind of getting sidetracked. But bottom line, you know, wolves are running a two hundred and fifty square mile home range, often on a three to five week cycle, and though it's real common for them to run ten or twenty miles in a night. So, you know, a guy will call me and they'll say, you know, I'm going up Johnson Creek and I'm you know, I heard there were some wolf tracks up there this last week, and I'm going to go hunt some wolves
and you know, I'm so excited. I'm gonna go kill and I you know, it's hard for me to help them understand that Johnson Creek is ten miles long and five miles across, and the evening those wolves passed through there, those wolves hunted ten or fifteen basins of that size, and you know, and now they're seventy five miles from there. It's you know, it's difficult for people to really grasp how far and how fast wolves travel. So that brings me to, you know, back to the topic in your question,
why is trapping so effective? Well, if I know a wolf's going to come through here, somewhere in this two mile stretch at some point in the next three to five weeks, I can set a trap in the most likely location using their instincts against them, namely their territorial instincts. Wolves consistently mark the borders of their pack boundary lines. So if you can find one of their peposts and
set a trap on it. You know that at some point in the next month, the wolf pack's going to come back through there, and one of the mature wolves is going to go over and mark that peace post if they show up at one o'clock in the morning. Different than hunting, I have a trap there that's still working. There's still a trap there waiting for them when they
pass by. If I go out and try to hunt a wolf, I'm trying desperately to identify what part of their two hundred and fifty square miles they happen to be in on that day. Hopefully they're not traveling that day, and I can, you know, try to howl to locate them and then getting close enough to capture their attention and try to call them in. But the odds of
that are extremely low. Wose are the smartest animal I have ever been around, and I have been actually putting quite a few trail cameras out over the last several years, and this year I finally got some just incredible video footage of them, and it's it's just been such a learning experience watching them learn from interacting with where my sign and scent is in the woods. They're just such
an amazing animal. But yeah, you know, bar none trapping is the most effective method that we have to manage wolf combers.
Now I've heard you say this before. The average cost out of pocket you have to spend per wolf to trap one, And I'm gonna go ahead and let you talk about that, but it's it's a lot more than the average person that hasn't heard that number may think.
Yeah, you bad. So you know, I'll start off, I guess just in trapping similar to everyone else. When I first started looking at wolf trapping, I i you know, saw it out. What is the cheapest trap that's big enough to hold a wolf that's on the market that I can get my hands on. And I went out and I bought a specific trap, and I bought three dozen of them. And I went out and I put in a whole lot of effort. I didn't catch anything that year, but I put in a whole lot of effort.
I thought, well, you know, cost wise, I can make snares for relatively cheap. I'll buy the cable, I'll buy the walks, I'll buy the wire, I'll buy the stops and the Farrells and the Suager and all these different things to make snares and I'll try that.
It didn't do me any good.
I felt like I was chasing my tail for a long time. Learned some hard lessons the first couple of years. But you know, one of the best traps out of the box on the market today is it's called an Nobs wolf trap. And by the time you get chain and swivels and everything on it set up to go in the field, you're looking at about seventy eight dollars
probably a piece. And then all of my traps, I actually get a powder codd which is another fifteen dollars on top of that, so you're you know, you're pushing the hundred dollar mark by the time you try to put a drag on the end of it, or even by cheap earth anchor for it, so you're looking about a hundred bucks a trap really realistically, by the time you get done, you know you have to have bacon soda to boil them in, to descent them, all these things.
So let's just say one hundred dollars a trap. Right now, I've got one hundred and nine traps. I think that I'm running, so that in itself is a pretty pretty big expense. So in addition to that, fuel is by far the number one expense out there, and one of the biggest reasons is knowing that wolves travel a two
hundred and fifty square mile home range. My best odds of having wolves near a trap are to get on the boundary lines of multiple packs, and so my trap line consists of about seventy five to eighty miles of backcountry. The majority of that is now run on my snowmobile, but even when I can drive it in the early season, that's a long ways in the mountains. You know you're and you're not going to be getting twenty five miles
to the gallon by any means. So by law in Idaho, I have to be at every trap every seventy two hours during the hunting season. When there's this huge influx of people in the woods, it's really difficult, I'll say, not to go at least every other day. And the biggest reason is because people don't seem to understand the importance of trapping, and so they've been tampering with traps. They you know, bump into them in the woods and
they're afraid of them. They don't understand how they operate, and so we've ended up with, you know, a little bit of conflict, people sticking sticks and traps or I've had don't know thirty five hundred dollars worth of worth of traps stolen over the last five years or so. But just the fuel bill alone, you know, I calculated it up and for each of the forty two wolves I've got, it's still pushing the fifteen hundred dollars mark just for fuel because I have to be in every
trap set every seventy two hours. Well, when that pack comes through and they're not going to be back for three to five weeks, sometimes eight weeks, I still have to be there every third day, regardless of what the pack's doing. And so, you know, a guy that really puts some effort in, if you trap really hard from the opener in September all the way through the end of March, you're doing really good. If you pick up
five or six wolves. You know, there's guys out there that are really good at this, but those people are very few and far between. So you know, the expensive fuel alone is very extravagant, and a lot of people.
Don't understand that.
Wow, that's crazy. Now I've seen some of your posts on social media about folks tampering with traps, stealing traps, taking wolves out of your trap, shooting the wolf in your trap. That's just not acceptable, is it?
Well, you know, everybody, it's kind of an interesting, interesting dynamic that we're in right now, with how bad everybody wants a wolf and how extremely difficult they are to come by.
I genuinely believe that.
Most sportsmen go into the woods with a moral code and some form of ethical belief. And I don't believe that anybody out there, Darren l cunting or hunting anything else for that matter, would intentionally steal from somebody if they had any idea how much time and how many hours and how much effort was put into establishing a trap, set a trap line, identifying a legal place that you can set a trap for a wolf back, that you can convince a wolf to put his foot out of
his two hundred and fifty square mile home range. You're convincing him to put his foot on a silver dollar. And those spots are few and far between. Now, as a trapper, I go out and I spend all summer running trail cameras, scouting, hiking, howling to locate GPS and scout GPS and scratch marks, taking my dogs and hiking them through the territory so that they can show me where their territorial pe posts are. There's a tremendous amount
of scouting time that goes into wolf trapping. I used to think that I put a ton of time scouting meal, deer and elk, because that was my passion for a lot of years. I had no idea what a lot of time was until I started trapping wolves. So you put all this time and effort energy into it. You find the one spot that you can access with all that heavy equipment and get in and out of there every third day when rain, hail, snow, blizzard trees down. I had to cut four hundred and eight trees one
time to be able to get to my traps. Wow, by wah, I still have to be there every seventy two hours. You find that one spot, You go in there, you scattered out, you put cameras up, You get the wolves coming through, You learn when they're coming when they're not, You learn when they're using that terrain. You go in there, you set up. You have descented all your clothes, you've descented all your tools, you've descented all your traps, You've done all of this prep work. You get everything set
up just right. You go in, you set up, you back out, you go back up, and you check every third day, every second day while there's people in the woods. And one day you show up and there's a big blood mark, and it's obviously you've caught a wolf. Somebody has very often shot it. There's boot tracks right there in the little bit of snow that's there, there's blood
and hair blown all over the ground. What that person when they came around the corner and saw that wolf in a trap and freaked out and was so excited to shoot a wolf. What they don't understand is that they just saved the entire rest of the pack. And this is why if you get a wolf in a foot trap and it's alive, the last thing the entire pack knew was their buddy was standing right here, and that night and or the next night, they're going to
be right there again. The hardest part about trapping wolves is getting them to a set that's still operable. While it's still operable, because the snow, the freeze, thaw, the you know, whatevery different conditions and issues that we run into. So if I get in there and I'm able to dispatch that wolf quick clean, without scent, without blood, I reset the trap and I back out of there as
fast as I can and leave that area alone. That night, when the pack comes down, they're going to wander around and I'm going to catch another one, and I'm going to go back and repeat the process and I'll catch another one. The most I've ever caught back to back was six in a row.
Wow.
This year, I'm on a pack that's extremely educated. They know my sin personally. I've caught numbers of wolves out of this pack. They've learned to dig up anything where I'm using wax dirt, which is kind of a new challenge, but it's extremely difficult. So when I show up and somebody has not only taken this wolf that I've busted my butt for all year to try to get to harvest, they've taken all of that work away from me, and now I have to start over completely from scratch because
the pack's not coming back there. Once there's a bunch of wolf blood all over the place, or the pack has come in and seen a wolf dead there. A lot of people think they're doing you a favor. They come up, they see a wolf bouncing in a trap, they get all I did, they shoot it. Then they feel bad because then they realize, well, you know, I probably shouldn't have done that. Well I'll just I'll leave it here for the guy. I was trying to do him a favor, so the wolf wouldn't get away, is
what they tell themselves, and they drive off. Well that's just as bad, because then if that's not the night, then I'm going to be back there. The pack comes in, sees that dead wolf, and they leave, and they won't come back to that spot. They now associate that area to the dead wolf, and it's just eliminating my chance of catching the rest of the pack.
Wow.
So you know there's a lot that goes into that, and you know, I'm not gonna lie. There's a there's also a I mean, there's a sense of accomplishment and an award of such you do all of that work, and that's not the reason that I'm trapping wolves. I'm not trapping it to say look at me, I'm not trapping it. To have a wolf pelt on the wall. I donate most of my wolf pelts to generate funding for the program.
But when the little bit of reward.
And satisfaction that comes out of all of the effort that goes into it gets taken from you by somebody that you're trying to help by doing all that work, it kind of breaks your heart.
Oh yeah, yeah, that would be heartbreaking. So much work and then finally you get one and somebody took it, dang it or yeah, yeah, oh that's that's brutal. So for our listeners that this that love a good challenge and they're like, you know this, this sounds like something I would really love to do. What's the first step in getting set up to start trapping wolves? Do you have to take any courses with the fishing game? Do you have you know what square one?
You do? Yeah?
So step one would be to get on the IDO Fishing Game websites. Click click the education link, find the Trapper education link. You have to have completed a trapper education course and you have to have completed the Wolf Trapper Education course. So go get on their website and sign up. I believe the way that that system typically works is once they have enough participants interested in a class at a set area, then they hold the class. So you definitely want to go talk to them at
the regional office and get yourself signed up. Second, start saving all of your receipts for anything that is related to your targeting of wolves. You'll need that for your wolf harvest expense reimbursement through the Foundation of Wildlife Management. Then I would do a little bit of research not only into wolves in the wolves in the area that you intend to trap, but into gear and supplies, the
things that you really need. There's sneering and foot trapping, and there's a time and place for each where they're each most efficient and effective. I personally prefer foot trapping, and you know, for that very reason, if I get one caught in a trap, the last thing the wolves new, even if I drive in there and it spook to them when they leave, is that their buddy was standing right there, and so they're going to come back and
look for them. If I snare one, I better snare all that I can the very first time that they're there, because if I don't, odds are they're going to spook and not come back to that location, so I would start doing some research on what you want to be, you know, what your preferred method might be. I can tell you that it's a whole lot more fun than exciting to walk up on a live wolf that's looking you in the eye, then it is to walk up on a dead wolf that's frozen to the ground in
a snare. And so you know, for that reason, I typically try to foot trap everywhere.
That I can.
Snares definitely play a big role, especially once a wolf pack is educator. A certain wolf educated to foot traps. But and then if I had one tip to give somebody new that's interested in targeting wolves, that's buy enough trap. I you know, I started out with the cheapest traps I could get my hands on that everybody said was a good wolf trap. And those traps are. They're great
for specific instances. Some are trapping being one of those when you don't have to deal with freeze and thought conditions where you end up with six inches of snow and then it rains on it and then it freezes. Those lighter traps with less spring tension or a whole lot more usable. They don't they they won't freeze to the ground. If you're not dealing with freeze thaw issues that nobs. Wolf Extreme trap is my go to personally. There's lots of traps on the market. Alaska Number nine
is another one that that I'm very confident in. Those are a little on the spin to your side. There's a new trap made by Duke Kate fifty Wolf Trap that now that they've got some adjustable pain tension on the new version of that trap, I really think for cost efficiency, that's going to be a really good trap for GAD to buy. But I'd say, you know, start out with no less than a couple of dozen traps. I tell myself to never set just one wolf trap.
If I set one in the ground, I'm putting at least three in that area because wolves are packing animals, and although they may be a mile apart when they come hunt through a basin, oftentimes they're traveling together. And if you catch one, odds are there's going to be others roaming around investigating around that wolf that's caught. And so I've caught doubles numerous times just from having more
than one trap there. So by the most trap you can afford, by enough trap, you know something that's that's beefy and gonna break through freestyle conditions, crusts, and then I'd say take your dog into the mountains and start watching their behavior. Anything your dog peas on, stop and investigate it. My dogs are invaluable on my trapline. I wouldn't I wouldn't know half of my set locations without watching my dog's behavior.
GPS.
I started GPS and wolf scat and road systems, and it sounds silly at first, but once you have covered enough territory and you start identifying these crossing points where a wolf is actually close to a road, close enough for you to be able to access it with these big, heavy, bulky traps, you'll start noticing a pattern if you put it on a GPS round a map. And that's been real valuable too. So those are the things I would
suggest doing. You know, to get started, Go get your class done, Start researching what style of trapping you prefer or would like to do. Talk to some trappers, take
a trapping course. We have at for W started putting on a Wolfer's summit we had when this last July was our first one and we had sixteen of our top producing wolfers from our program come and give instruction on how to be productive and on you know, mistakes that they've made, sharing the ins and outs and dues and don'ts, and what they believe to have helped them be successful in the woods. And had over one hundred people attend last summer in our next next one next July.
It's the weekend of the nineteenth and twentieth, I believe. But you know, you can look into that and come join us for that. I learned a lot from YouTube channels. There's a lot of really good YouTube videos out there to start familiarizing yourself. But I would have to say probably the largest thing is prepare yourself mentally. The patients and persistence. There's nothing that's ever challenged me in the
woods the way wolf trapping does. And most people after a month of not seeing sign of life where they put wolf traps out, give up and throw.
In the towel.
So I would I would also say, you know, prepare yourself for for the long game mentally, because it's it's it's brutal out there.
I'm glad you said that, because sometimes folks they have this idea what it's going to be, and maybe they think of some instant gratification, like Oh, I'm just gonna go out and set some traps and I'll probably catch one because I've seen wolf tracks here a lot. But it doesn't sound like that's always the case, and it more often than not it's going to be the long haul, like you said, So don't get discouraged. You know, that's
the nature of the beast. Enjoy the process, like enjoy figuring out you know, the wolf, like like like what you've been saying. You've been studying wolves. You've been learning everything you can about wolves. Even when you're not catching them, you're still learning and understanding the process. And I can only assume you love the whole process.
I you know it's work. I'll see that.
You know how. You know how when when you and your buddies are young and you're gung ho and you found this basin on a map that nobody, you swear nobody, there's no way any person in his right mind has ever gone there to hunt elk. And you go there and you love the trip, and some idiot, usually me, shoots a bull in this backcountry basin that's five days hike from anywhere, and by the time you get that
last load to the truck. You just looking at each other like you're a bunch of idiots and asking why did I do this? Wolf trappens very.
Similar, question your sanity a lot.
But yeah, you definitely do It's it's just a lot of work.
You know.
I've been really blessed in my hunting career, and uh, you know, I've taken some some real unique specimens. Dear Elk bears. Uh you know for what our ground has to offer. And I'll tell you there is nothing in our mountains that have ever challenged me the way wolves do. And so you know when I say prepare yourself mentally, you know I don't take it lightly. There's a lot of guys they you know. The phone call goes the
same every year. Man, justin I'm so excited. I got some I got my classes out of the way, and I got myself some traps. And I've had wolves in my oat ground every year. We see them every year. I'm gonna go catch me some wolves. And I tell them, rob Robberie, you go get them. I'm so excited for you. And they called me a couple of weeks later and they say, you know, I'm so excited. I went out and I put all this gear in. Oh you just there was wolf tracks there. I can't wait when those
wolves come back. Boy, I'm gonna get them. And I tell them ra Rari, go get them. I'm so proud of you.
A good job.
And then two weeks later they call me and they say, I don't know what happened. What do you mean, Well, you know I bought all those traps, and I spent all that money, and you know I've had to wax everything, and now my garage is all covered in wax and die and all this stuff. And I got all this money. My wife's mad at me. I didn't go hunting. You know, I missed my hunting time with my buddies. I just I don't know what I did wrong. The wolves didn't come back. And I said, well, how long has it
been since since you said? Well, you know it's been it's been four weeks since.
I said.
I'm like, okay, Well, you know they run a three to five week cycle. That just means your dude their due back any day.
Whatever you do, don't go.
Pull your gear. Well, I don't know if this is for me. I tell them, just don't pull your gear. Be patient. They'll show up by the next week. It's the same, the same phone call. It's Oh, I don't know, man, I'm gonna go pull that gear out of there. I got to get back to work. I know, I've been going up there every second day and amount of gas money, and I just don't know what to do. And I'm just bigging man. If you've waited five weeks, now is the time you're about to catch a wolf?
Do not give up, you.
Know, hang in there, hang in there.
And then that night I'll get.
A phone call and he'll say, you'll never know what You'll never guess what happened. I drove up the mountain and there's a wolf standing there in my trap. And it's you know, it's the guys that that pushed through that that stick it out through the long haul, that produce every single year consistently, most guys, by the time they get to that fifth week throwing the towel.
Yeah, I can see it's it's a pretty dawning task. Really. Yeah. Wow, So I have to ask it big buzz. Today on social media, Colorado released wolves. What's your take on that?
Well, there's several different thoughts that go along with that topic. First and foremost, we've got caller data that shows wolves being in Colorado for years. Sure, you know, there's ample amounts of information showing that Colorado.
Already has wolves.
So this whole ballot box biology concept, it just blows my mind.
You know.
I genuinely think that these people that vote on stuff like this that they're they're the ones that haven't stuck in their head that nature needs to balance itself. Those people don't realize that Colorado has three times the old population that Idaho had when wolves came here, right, And they don't realize that unchecked, act, unmanaged, that wolf population, once it really gets established, is going to explode and
it's going to destroy that elk population. And I don't think that they recognize the gravity of that, you know, or what that actually looks like. It's it's really sad.
I know.
I was at the NASK summit last year in December, and there's overembozement. And for those that don't know the nasksim it's the National Association of Sportsman's Caucuses. Basically, state game management agencies and the legislators that deal with natural resources all come together once a year two a hash out and discuss, you know, natural resource topics. So I'm at this event and I'm waiting in line for for our dinner, and I've been talking with the gentleman standing
next to me for quite some time. It's a long line. And I get up there and there's the guys getting this food. After I've been spewing all this information about wolves and wolf issues and the things we've been doing in Idaho and all this stuff, I find out the guy is actually the assistant director for Colorado Fish Wildlife in Parks and he's in charge of the wold transplant program.
Oh wow, And you know, it was it was interesting just listening to his perception and kind of the somberness in his voice when I asked him what he was going to do and it you know, it was kind of an eye opener for me at that point.
You know.
And again, this was a year ago. I didn't honestly expect this to transpire. I figured that with the devastation that's taken place and the complications with managing wolves in Idaho and Montana, that they would have paid a little better attention to what's taking place here and how difficult and how much of a task it's been to try to manage wolves, and that they would have stopped the transplant program and let them just naturally, you know.
Become part of it.
What Colorado does not have that we're blessed with is the right to trap. And Colorado does not have a mechanism to control wolf populations.
Wow, they didn't put it. They didn't. They didn't get all that stuff figured out beforehand.
So well, they lost their trapping years ago, so it's not legal to set a foot trap there.
Wow.
And you know, for those that don't know, you, you think getting the coyote into a gage trap is is complicated. A wolf is not going in a box. They're they're extremely smart and extremely cagy and without trapping, there is no mechanism to control their numbers.
And what will have and is.
Their population will grow and expand until which time their prey based collapses and those wolves will end up dying from disease and starvation or they'll disperse to new ground. So, you know, to answer your question, what's my thoughts, I think that it's horribly sad that ballot box biology is destroying wildlife as we know it. Ballot box biology is destroying one hundred and thirty years and billions of dollars that sportsmen have spent creating the wildlife that we now
have through the North American model of wildlife conservation. It's devastating that preservation extremist groups have taken our label of conservationists and turned it into what the media presents a conservation group to be. To day, you and I are conservationists. That's preservation extremism.
Ma'am.
Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on here today. I want to see if you can connect our listeners who care about wildlife. They're interested in help helping management manage wolf populations. How do they get involved with the Foundation for Wildlife Management?
So first thing if they just go to f the number four WM dot org stands for a Foundation for Wildlife Management. At four WM dot org. Hop on there, you can join, you can donate. We've got five chapters in Idaho. We've got a chapter in Sandpoint, one in Cordelane, one in the Clearwater region based in Lewiston, that's where
our banquet is. Anyhow, we've got one in Salmon. We've got one in the Treasure Treasure Valley that banquet's in Caldwell, and we also have four in Montana, one in the Flathead Valley there in Kalispell, one in Libby, Montana, one in Trout Creek, the Sanders County chapter, and then we just have a new one that's just started up down on the Bitter Route there in Hamilton. Each of those
chapters has a fundraiser banquet. Our first one is January twenty seventh up in Kalispell, Sandpoints February tenth, we've got a couple in March, and all the way through to I think our last banquet of the years, Libby's May eighteenth. Always looking for donors, supporters, assistants, help gathering donations, constantly looking for volunteers. For each chapter, we challenge all of our chapters to do one of a few different things.
First and foremost, the fundraiser banquet is where the majority of the membership comes from. That's where the majority of the income comes from. It also gives us an, you know, an excuse to advertise, kind of gets us out there in the public eye, gives us a great opportunity to We always get up on the stage and give a little bit of educational speech during those fundraiser banquet events so that people can come to better understand the wolf
problem and what's really taking place out there. And then we also have a trade show booths eats chapter. I challenge each of them to attend a trade show booth, whether it's at the fair or you know, their local sportsman show or whatever it happens to be. We last year we went to Grand Slam Club Ovist, the Sheep Show the Western Hunt Expo. This year we're doing Cheap Show in Western Hunt Expo. But look us up online join donate our contact informations on there if you click
the about section all of our boards. We've got a board of nine people. The contact information for each of those board members is in there as well. If you have other questions and don't want to listen to Justin's voice, I think a lot of people get tired of listen to me talk about wolves once I get started. But uh, you know, we'd we'd love to have you be part of a chapter. Like like I said, we're always looking
for for help. It's a pretty amazing program. I you know, when I go give a presentation to people that are wanting to start a chapter, I always tell them you know, share your why. What is the reason that this is important to you? And I'll just tell you and the listeners. You know, Barna and my my favorite experience in my life is you know, hiking in in the dark upper ridgeline during elk season and sitting and watching the sun come up with elk bugling in the basins below me.
And I firmly believe if we don't control our wolf populations that your kids in mine and their kids will not get to expe experience that, and that I think it would be just devastating. You know, it's our wildlife is a big part of what makes Idaho and Montana. You know what it is and the reason that I that I love it so much. I think I speak for a lot of sportsmen that are passionate about wildlife.
Yep, yep, I agree one hundred percent. I need that. That reminds me I need to re up my membership, so.
Super if you if you just hop on online there at f the number four WM dot org, click the join button or the renew button, either one that I think it'll take you the same place, but we can get you taken care of on there. But appreciate your support. And you know a lot of people don't don't realize
we've removed I don't know. We started this in twenty eleven, we got our five oh one c three and twenty twelve, funded our first wolf in twenty twelve, and we've now removed more than two thousand, one hundred wolves MIIDO in
Montana with roughly one point nine something million dollars. We're just shy two million dollars that we've generated through memberships and fundraiser banquets, you know, just creating a mechanism that a guy that doesn't have the means to get out there and chase wolves can still be part of the solution. While you and I are sitting on our couch with our kids watching football, somebody is out there married to a trap line through rain, snow, sleet, hail, miserableness.
You know it.
Those guys need our help and covering their expenses is the least that we can do.
Absolutely well, thanks so much for what you do and your organization. Appreciate everything they put back into the the outdoor community to manage these wolves. And and maybe I'll get to see you at Western Hunt. I'll be on there at the Phelips Booth super yeah, you bet all right. Thanks again, Justin you bet Her appreciate you having me on