Ep. 326: Cuddle the Scimitar

acres well that yeah, that pass is about a square mile. No, that pasture is part of the six it's probably about acres, you got it? And how many scimitar horned orcs are in there? Uh? In that group there are twenty two adult females. UM, and I want to say, there's eleven newborn kids. And there's nothing special about that rooster's playing out over there. I'm interested. And to the right is a bunch of orcs quest friends. Okay, So to interview, Uh, let me hear what you guys all, what your role

is here and what you guys do. Okay, I'll start out. Uh, my name is Stephen Fulton. I'm the manager of the Bamburger ranch. UM I've been I've worked here for about eighteen and a half years. UM. I've worked with the scimitar horned orcs UH for about ten years now. They've been under my my purview. So other than that, when it comes to ranch management, everything's up for grabs, every job his mind. If I'm if I'm available, I'm Lee Burton.

I'm the acting director and programs Manager for Conservation Centers for Species Survival and based in Austin, Texas and Bamburger Ranches. One of our first members. And as a great story and UM the scimitar horned ORIX and the founding of the Source Population Alliance, which is a consortium model that helped bring these animals back and ultimately led to their reintroduction and in the wild and chat when do you

say back? It's not back to Texas. No, that gets into the whole topic of these animals are part of a metapopulation that are spread out in x c QU environments. So we have in in that particular program, the Source Population Alliance, there's ten different species UH, most all ungulates to cattle species, and the idea was to pick species

that were endangered or even extinct in the wild. Put them in ex c two settings over here, repopulate them, do genomics testing on them to ensure you don't get in breeding, ETCeteras, that they're sustainable, build up their numbers within the hope that one day you can do things like have happened in chat reintroduced them and we've had three of our species have now been either put back or supplemented in the wild. Um. Some of the other

ones it's not ripe yet. And so the ideas the settings here on a ranch like Bamburger are ideal conditions as close as you can get to matching what they have back at home in sub Sahara, the weather in Texas,

the terrain, etcetera. UM. And additionally that the other big benefit of it is these animals were mostly in Steve will tell you the whole story of how it started, but we're mostly in zoos, and a lot of them weren't faring well, not because the zoos are do anything wrong, but just because of space constraints, just not having the normal social dynamic that you have when you know breeding, etcetera.

And so putting them back out here has been UM an incredible benefit to the species and has helped these populations grow where we can do things like that today, and you know, look at the future of doing reintroductions. The models interesting and you know, I'm sure you heard, you know, the story when they started trying to repopulate American bison on the Great Plains. One of the places they found them was in the Bronx, you know, and

sent him. So there's sort of like this irony of like loading them up in the Bronx and bringing them back up west, you know. And this is like on a much much larger scale, right it is. There's some other famous stories. There's a which is not one of our species, but the Mexican wolf. Um. And I'm not a geneticist, but um, I think you need three lines at least to be able to not have in breeding. And so when they were doing that program back in

the Southwest, they had two lines. And then it was a Canadian guy who had just on vacation, was driving through Tucson, saw an ad in the paper to pick up a wolf pup. Yes, put it up, put it into saddle bag, got about an hour north or something, thought better of it. I don't know if he's pissing all over his bike or whatever. The you know, Hill was doing anyway, and so he stopped turned it over to like some sort of animal shelter turned out to

be the third line. So yeah, So Dave Parsons, who led that reintroduction effort on l fishing wildife, told me that story, and so yeah, that's why they didn't have to bring in the northern subspecies in Yellowstone. So yeah, there's a lot of strange stories like that. And Warren saw I'm Warren Bluntser own and operak Warren blunts Or while off consulting services and work uh all over the

US and then several foreign countries. And part of my business is wildlife capture and we specialized in that, but basically we worked with anything to do with land, water and wilife. But I'm very very deep be involved with exotics and humane treatment, um, the stocking of ranches, rebuilding of these animals, and and so we have a we

have a company that does extensive wildlife captures. So I've I've been privileged enough to be on a lot of these ranches like the Bamburger Ranch and get to see firsthand what's really done and and help bring some of those animals back and and and help advise on their welfare and their their general well being. So Warrant was

also retired to game Warden Parks and Wildlife. Oh really, Okay, So I was a conservation officer as y'all know them, and state game Warden for Texas for twenty five years and sit on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Whitetail UH Advisory Board. And I sit on several disease boards that helped formulate and I testify quite a bit to wilife disease issues and try to get to try to educate.

That's the biggest issue that I see in this wildlife world now is the the separation between what the general public understands about wildlife management and what it really means and and how many benefits a person that that took a ranch like this and brought it back to the state. It's end because they're shrinking fast. It's getting more and more of a challenge for generations to hold onto these

ranches and these these are really special places. Okay, So we're gonna jump in this pickup, go through the gate marked Sahara Desert, and then we're gonna go find a female that just dropped a calf within the last forty eight hours and try to convince her to let us handle the calf and put the ear tag into it so they keep track of it. Whoa, here's serious horns. So to see a few of those up about two

weeks old. Let can see the color of them, howethery or not white like the females they're they're more of a tan, a baby color, which with this dry grass they blend in very well. I'm still to tell the males and females on these things. Man, it's like they has to the hook of the horn is one of the things. This is an all female herd. Oh so that makes me so yeah, well hard to find a male. The metals of mis do the feeding out of this track? Absolutely? Yeah,

they're pretty well feeds. So what's the what's the orcs that they you know, I've done that. I drew a tag to hunt the you know, the off range New Mexico or that's gems box, that's but Gemsbock orcs. Yeah, there's four kinds. And who they are too, Arabians, Yeah, Cementars, Gemsbock and what's the other I'll stable out of the other three, I mean the other three besides these foreign country you know, stable isn't pretty good shape. It's the least threatened. Um. I think all the other ones are

a greater concerned. So the gams boxes hurting non native ranch um some you don't see him as much as these guys. But yeah they are. I'm not what I'm saying, like where they come from? Are they stable? It depends on what part of the country you're looking at. Some of them, the poaching is horrible on them, and uh, you know that those people are starting this, so obviously they're gonna eat some of them. But where they're really protected.

A lot of a lot of the game ranches now in in Africa were in their concessions are are game ranches, so they can protect them down. They've got some good herds over there. The games Boc is in much better shape than the Semitar. Yeah. You know, uh, if there's some males in here, would you see a lot more broken arms on everybody? It seems like some pretty quiz a horn length on those? Yeah? Yeah, I mean again, these are these are this is my oldest herd of

females um. So these these animals are nine years old, so a lot of them are uh. And then with with that freeze two februaries ago, we've we've lost quite a few horns on these older females. But in most of the most cases, the females don't fight much, so they don't really have much use to battle and and break off horns. But when you when the male's got a broken horn, that's is it more from fighting or freezing for us fighting? Okay, so they do do that. Oh yeah, I don't know if that is to miss.

But the rule of that exception is that we've never been tim below zero. It's something this country. So we had some of these these true horns two or three months later just fall off of our ear damage the ears froze off of and so we had a we had if we see this female separate, yeah, that's from freezing. No, no, she's separate because this is the one we're coming to look at. You tell what I'm saying. She got one horn? Oh yeah, I know, but the one horn yet that

froze off. Do you guys go with bull calf or bull kid? Male kid? So there's a calf, yeah, he said. She's she's super protective, so she's basically standing over it. So this this will be interesting. How long How long is that calf born? Uh? I think yesterday afternoon or evening so hard. Yeah, and we're not sure if it's a male or female calfolic again because she's been super protective. Um so I'm gonna get out. I would yeah, I would know, I would. I would be korean. I'd be careful,

keep keep the truck between you and it. Yeah, yeah they are okay, So yeah you got you got a bench. She's growling at you. Yeah, they're been. It's very vocal. Let they get I just so do you want some distraction though? Ah? Yeah, this one y'all want. Haven't letting me in? Finch'll tink? Wow. Yeah, I'm a good volunteer. I would hate for you to get I have gove into the front of the truck before with one of

these narrows narrowly missed me. Um so how do how do they get how do they get the hook in you? When they're there horns helping, They'll put their hand the forehead all the way down there. That's what they do. They come in. Also, they also use that horn like a club. Oh the dear, so they'll they'll hit you with it um, then the hookie with a harn as those far as we're made out of elements, how they

feel a line. If they don't get a good line, just the horn itself coming out of we'll lose a filament inside the flesh on bad something distracted about that thing stuck with them. These are serious business to get taken care of, or you can lose your arm, your leg. But what we're saying about with lines, so when they get a hit on the line or whatever, the predator is after him, if they don't kill them a lot of times just the horn itself see the film, it's

hanging off that horn right there. It'll stay inside that wound. It'll get infected and they'll die. You ask him like like like splintered, like splinter it that cast only about two days olmy yesterday. Every year, this one is very protective. How many calves that she produced every year for at least last ten years? Just a year and there somewhere do a natural breathing or natural except for it's rased. I've got I've got a herd bull that I want, you know, pass the jeans along and he'll get it.

He'll get a herd of females, and then the other herd of females has a different genetic background, so or it'll get a different bull. Maybe you'll you'll, let's put that's how you got your university. Make much closely? Maybe m window okay, Chris Stee if you want us to move off, it's easier just with no, No, it's not gonna be easy anyway anyway, or for him, I've been there. I just formulated a plan. Drive over it, Drive over it, and it's just under the trump there it is. It's

a little boy. I think, Yeah, I'm good. Feels like it. So it feels like future ball, all right. So this is just a tag daughter. This is basically the same thing. This is the only male when we'll keep this year, just because, as I said earlier, the geneticist that's doing the work on these animals, I thought this female was

a particular interest genetically. So a lot of times we'll take and we'll take the tag and we'll pull the tag out like that to get air behind it, and they'll prevent it from getting sometimes since but they're not bad about getting infected at all. Yeah, it was a healthy, strong, young BULLI you want fasten the room, so you'll were you were you guys like my kids are all grown up, I'll hand it to you that way. And my nap all the all the all the kids, whether it's bull

kids or a little fellas kids. I sell them as he is of course once they're older. So I feel it right now like we're snuggling and he's loving this is his heart rate like way up because heart right up the scary so we can and we also want to take turn. You know, you want one of these that this there's really only two times a year that we have this kind of contact with them, and that's

this time of year. And it's usually only about six weeks, a six week period um where they're where they're burthen because I put the put both males in with each one of the herds um at the same time of the year. So well, how do you know the how do you get all the females cycle at the same time. They tend to cycle together once you put them in. Once you if you if you don't have them reproducing constantly, um, they tend to cycle together. So in that six week period,

they'll all cycle and they'll all get pregnant. That's been my experience now in in in a wild population um where you got the bulls with them constantly. Yeah, I'm sure the cycle their cycles are are are off set. Quite a lot of their past ranges were all they're breeding cycles to evolutionary were synchronized with vegetation range, and that that was their biological signal that what they were gonna do, they're gonna do. And so it's kind of

the evolution has taken it different. This is a different country, but they're still, like you said, they're still evolutionary. They're still locked in on it, and it's amazing. That's why you see all those animals giving birth on that grass. It's a hell of a feat. I mean from four years ago there being none in their native range and now there's a hunderfitted there and they're having kids. Those kids are considered you know, of native stock, so they're

no longer considered endangered. This baby calf, let's just say that he individually is tested or there's a sense of what his genetics is. Is it possible that he would be a chosen one time and these animals I tagged him for that purpose because again that that side, that damn was was told to me that of particular interest genetically. So my plan is to keep all of her all

springs is for as long as she reproduces. I wish I'd known that, you know, four or five years ago, because I've had a lot more of her all free representation on the range. The other aspect of having animals out in a facility like this and multiple facilities and this idea, this meta population, is that we've had to rethink the number of individuals that you have to have

to keep your genetic variability um. And the goal is in this program over the next hundred years to maintain at least ninety and in the zoo world if you keep them only in zoos, just because they don't have the space to do that. I mean they there's something like a total of a hundred and fifty eight of the a zoos, they had roughly about eleven thousand acres, and and just within our program it's closer to a

hundred thousand acres. And so the number of animals you can get, you know, they used to think maybe you need a few hundred, a couple undred, you know, now they know you need well over a thousand, even two thousand maybe or more. So that that is another aspect of it that you know, having them in places like this beyond just individual genes, you don't want to lose variability at all, as you can and a lot of times zoos running to breeding problems just some species just

don't want breading a zoo. You know, they they will, but they don't like it, and so they missed times and times or years and years or decades, and so you can get behind quick. So when you have a free range situation and and individuals like he's keeping track of and and and switching out to keep that variability

in there. They that's there's where the truth the true herds do well, and they're they're much more likely to do better when they go back into the wild, being in a wild or semi wild setting like this, you know, and and having those traits. Yeah, there's gonna be some fighting sometimes whatever, but obviously that serves them well, you know, when they go back in versus a more docile animal.

That's you know, several generations removed in a a zoo environment and whatever the appo genetics is, however, all that works or you know, just um, just train and behavior, not being passed on. So these animals are are likely to do well and they have so far. All right, now that we've visited the the young do you guys go by calf? What do you there's a bull cow calf? What is it in orcs? Really? Is that universally accepted

bull cow calf? All right, now that we've visited the cow calfe unit of the scimitar horned ORCS, it's like, walk me through, um, how that like, walk me through how that animal fits into the broader picture of what happens with the Conservation Centers for Species Survival, Like like

where it fits into the hierarchy of activities. Sure, So the scimitar horned Orix is one of the ten species and what's known as the Source Population Alliance, and that's one of the programs under Conservation Centers for Species Survival or C two S two for short. And we have a number of different programs. Um, that one is focused so other species um including cheetah, red wolf, southern black rhino.

The Source Population Alliance folcus is just on ungulate species and it was originally four species, which were the ones that we kind of discussed earlier and were the most critically endangered or in the case of the scimitar horned Orix, was extinct in the wild. It also included the addicts and doma gazelle. Uh. And then the four species was the sable antelope, which is not that's actually doing fairly well. They were the original four and the concept was created

back in two thousand and five. There was an out scientists named David Wilt Smithsonian. He was a reproductive physiologist and did some great work including artificial insemination, etcetera. He noticed, among others, that these animals, these angular species, were just not doing as well in a zoo environment as they hoped. So they looked at that. They were concerned because of

the space constraints, uh, not having normal social dynamics. This idea of you needed to have if you wanted to keep them alive in these ex C two settings, having a meta population explained x C two an n C T. Yeah that's from archaeology, but it's yeah, it's one of these sort of terms. It sounds fancy, it's pretty simple. So n C two is just their native range, their

native habitat where they live. So again with with these guys, the three we just mentioned, the scimitar, addicts and doma gazelle that's sub Sahara Africa, okay, and so um that would be n C two XC two is in were removed out of that it's not their home range, okay. And so the idea was we wanted to have you know, the zoo world was set up for way back when

for a lot of reasons. Um, but the conservation aspects several decades ago was there was I guess you'd say re energized, refocused, and so these species survival plans were created to try to maintain these populations and an ex C two environment for a lot of reasons. And one of the reasons was to have an assurance population if something happened to the animals in their n C two and the scimitar is a great example of that if they go extinct. You don't want to lose the species

altogether if they get extirpated in that case. So these species survival plans were set up and these animals were bred for several decades in the zoo world, and they did a great job. Again, they had the stud books, they knew the lineages, you know, they knew, Hey, I'm gonna take this bull and breed it with this female over here. But they were space constrained. And also again it removed the natural conditions. It just take place and how these species interact and compete, right and you know,

survival to fitnest, all that stuff. So David Wilton noticed this, and so he and some other scientists got together and some of our facilities and said, hey, let's take some of these animals. Let's put them in you know, places like in Bamberg already had simitar horned orcs, which is a great story in and of itself that predates this. But let's put them in these facilities where they have you know, big ranges that are not truly they're not in C. Two, but there they closely mimic where they

come from. And and so you know, if we put them in there, we think they're gonna do a lot better. You know, they're gonna breathe, their numbers are gonna build up um and and our motto at C. TOWS two is grow optimized return, So you know, grow the herd, optimize the genetics, and then hopefully, you know, when possible, return them into their native habitats. Do you guys feel the last part of that, the return part, uh, the

strikes me as being immensely important. But you hear people offen like you hear people hold the belief that, like, well, it can't be like let's let's say we take the scimitar horned orcs, which which effectively, if I'm not mistaken, like it went extinct in the wild. Yeah, in the nineteen nineties was when they think that the last ones in the wild gone ceased to be a wild animal, Like I feel that you couldn't then say like, well, yeah, but we have them in Texas, so that's good enough.

I completely agree. That seems like a sentiment you hear a lot. Well, um, I think maybe you hear that among some people they just like to have them as I hate to say, ornaments or just property. We clearly don't view it that way because we're a conservation organ You rolled the return into it exactly. So when when this who's the guy you're talking about, the geneticist or David Willed, He was reproductive biologists. His interest was in things that his interest was in species that were imperiled.

Absolutely on their name like that that was sort of the that was sort of the thing that they had to that had to be there for him to want to absolutely, and and he was from Smithsonian and they've done a lot of great work. They do our genomics testing right now. Um and you know they did the first AI on a cheetah a couple of years ago. And so you guys have what we should have gone looked at the cheetahs. Crint We Well they're running around out here somewhere Steve can find. Um. Uh, they're a

variety of facilities. Yeah, yeah, there's and they're spread all over. So we're we're mostly North America and with a heavy emphasis and Texas again because climate would have you ranch ran. Yeah, absolutely, and and breeding him and that that was another program that was his success. Uh. That was about ten years ago again kind of the same story. Cheat is definitely smaller gene pool. Correct, that's correct because there were two founder events with the cheetah. One was about a hundred

thousand years ago. They don't know for sure what had happened, but you know, population got very small, and then about twelve thousand years ago it happened again. Which is why you can take in Africa in Africa, which is why you can take um, you know, skin from one cheetah and grafted on to another one. That's you know, two countries over, and it'll take it. They're that closely related. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy when they went through a major bottleneck, yes, twice,

and so that's why are just insane to think about. Yeah, I mean in geologic terms, that's recent, right exactly. And um is there is there an estimate how tight the bottleneck was? Uh, in terms of a number of individuals, I don't know off top of my head. I've heard some I don't know if they know exactly. I mean even humans went through that, you know, seventy humans exactly exactly. So, um,

so cheetahs are already in a bad state. And then of course what's happened in the wild, and so this idea of you know, breeding them and the North American population it was, I want to say it was strug glean but not doing as well as they needed it to do. So we came up this idea we collectively, um scientists and our facilities about hey, let's set up these breeding centers, share best practices, you know, do all

these things. And and cheetah's successfully bred. Their numbers shot way up in just five years, population I think nearly doubled from the North American population. So that was a success, and so we saw this model replicating UM over and over and over again. Now every species is different, right, but sorry, could you explain what constitutes the North American cheetah population? UM? Well, that gets complicated, but historically they were in a Z A Zoos um so Association Zoos

and Aquariums. That's the big organization. UM. It used to be almost all zoos that were a credit or part of that. There's another organization which is z A A which is kind of a splinter group. UM. But in any case, all there there's cheetahs who are in that. We have stud books on them, and it's UM I think it's several hundred. I think it's over five hundred now, between those those two groups. But then you have all of the illegal wildlife trade and depending on what the

laws are, you know, for each individual species. So there's more cats obviously out there than that. UM. We're actually on that. We're trying to assist with an effort to what's called integrate these stud books between the various organizations and international in the hopes of getting a better model to manage these animals right, and and make breeding recommendations. We've done some genomics testing already, and to do more

of it because for for them it's especially important. You know, like Steve was saying, he's got this special scimitar, right, Well, if you find one or two cheetahs, you know, you may not be able to find those genes almost anywhere else, and you don't want to lose those. Yeah, that's a question. That's what I need to understand before I could really go much fur other here is h are you guys with the Sika deer in Maryland? Okay? So they got now and the Delmarva Peninsula, so the east shore of

Chesapeake Bay. I mean I think got what ten thousand of them now or something. They have an absolutely unknown amount of deer because there's no way to there's no way to measure them. But what they're able. Yeah, they gotta pile them and they're able to go to there. You could I have had a guy take me out the boat. The islands barely there anymore, but he's able to be Like you know, Bob Johnson had six on

that island and that's it. He got him, and he got him from some guy in England, and the guy in England got him from some guy there, and no six swam to the beach and not the ten thousand of them. There's no like and then some other guy let some go. Right, it's just like you know where they came from. But how many people how many people

cut loosa cheetah or cut loose's? I mean, how many people go to Africa and bring home a scimitar horned works the Ohio Zoo were at well or the private collection rather that all of a sudden, well close to twenty years ago, the the importation of these animals was um basically cut off, I think primarily because of disease considerations. So how many years ago I think it was close to twenty now. Yeah, so it's actually a problem in some like for instance, uh, there's about a little bit

less than forty Southern black rhinos in North America. We manage that population conjunction with the International Rhino Foundation, and we need some more bloodlines. But importing them is almost impossible now because the political situation. But on the ungulate side, um, it's it's just as difficult because you can't get them in so you kind of have what you have now. But yeah, that's that's what I'm trying to get at, is do you now know? Let me give you no

let me give you no. Example. Um, in the late eighteen hundreds, when people were thinking themselves, holy ship, like the American bison is going to go extinct, they would write letters to each other and be like he has four, he has three, right, and you kind of knew like, well he got his that way, he got his that way. Uh,

how is it is? There is there like in Texas an unknown number of times when someone managed to try ship uh scimitar horned orcs to Texas or can you be like, oh no, there was that event, that event and that event that led them to be dispersed around the state. Well, population dynamics change some of that in itself. Unbeknowing, dush, it's a population dynamics. So these areas were changing. You had, you had perilous storms hit, you had equipment failures where

they escaped like you're talking about on the island. So so as as time moved forward with the escapes and the evolution of wildlife diseases, a lot of these endeavors got more and more complicated. What endeavors. Uh, where you had someone had a pin failure, a pasture failure, or a ranch failure, fence, water gap, whatever, and they escaped. And in that period of time, population was growing. But at the same time, evolution of wildlife diseases for changing

right in front of our our eyes. Now, I gotta let me, I gotta re ask my question. Well, I think I know I'm not explaining the question. Let me. I think I know you may be going with this, so I have a really clean way to do it. How many times that the human being How many times did human beings collect orcs in the Sahara desert and dry and fly them, ship, sail them whatever, and caught them loose in Texas once? Um, I don't know the exact Do you know the answer to that? It was enough? Well,

here's the thing. It depends on the species, right, So if there weren't on the e s A prior to this importation, man, if they were on the s A, then yeah, you can import kind of whatever back in the day in Texas. So I don't think they were tracked. Now, the zoos tracked them very closely because they had stud books and if they were in a species survival plan they know exactly and you know they exchange them and

you know, bringing reasons all that. But the other species that came in prior to you know, this band, Yeah, we don't really know. But they weren't thousands and thousands of events like this. These were these were very well founded connections in a lot of cases and and limited numbers of imports. They weren't. They weren't just across the country importing them like you, like you one may have think.

But what happened is is if you if you look at the habitat, the terrain and topography via Texas, if you spend someone around and you can put them in a certain part of Texas, they can't hardly tell if they're in Africa Texas. So what happened the synonymous habitat the weather belts were very conducive to those animals, making it so boom boom boom. The stool went from three legs to five legs, to ten legs to twelve legs.

So it wasn't hundreds of events, it was the responsibility are the preclude however you want to look at it of a group of ranchers that started this from from from a from a limited number of individuals. They sold them, they trade them, and then you throw in the escapes the other things that perpetuate them. Because we've got in some of these counties we've got free range and exotics.

No one really owns them. But do you know, I'll put it to rest, like I understand that the answer is not as clean as I'd like it to be. But what was the first year that that someone What was the first year that someone delivered an or a scimitar horned orcs to the United States of America. I don't know that. I don't know that. I do know. Then in the nineteen thirties, thing was the San Antonio Zoo.

UM I forget his first name, Mr Friederick. He got some surplus animals they they had and put them on a couple of ranches around here. And then it wasn't too long after that. I'm sure you're familiar with the King Ranch, right, They got some exotics down here as well. And there were a couple of other famous um exotic

ranches in Texas. There's one in the hill country called the Yo Ranch, and so a lot of these animals just came, you know, they were there and so that that was around when yes, and then you had maybe some surplus animals from zoos or whatever happened way back, and you know they were, however, put to pasture any certain places. The scimitar is a different story though, because there was only a smattering of those animals, and I'll let Steve tell the whole story. But zoos, a few

zoos around the country had them in. Basically almost the entire world's population was gathered up. And so uh here on the ranch it was in uh n UM that don't quote me on that. It might have been eighty five UM. But Mr Barenberger was a board member for the Santonio Zoo UM and they they had the grand meeting to discuss the plight of the scimitar armed rics and a couple of the other ungulates that we worked

with with the Source Population Alliance UM. And he was privy to that as a board member UM, and he volunteered, basically volunteered UH to offer his ranch up as a place where they can bring bring all the known genetics to one spot to begin this species survival program UM. So at that time or short after that meeting, UM, they brought in this as as a member of the

a z A UH. They brought uh twenty eight animals and those twenty animals representing thirty one different bloodlines to begin the species of survival program right here on the ranch. And it was that that sort of was that like the Texas bottleneck of that species. There was there probably quite a bit more that weren't included in that initial round up. Well, they're likely were other animals that were not as a animals, but not many. I mean, that

was pretty much it. I mean, he he literally saved the scimitar, horned or x. But that seems incredibly diverse for such a you know, very few animals. But but they but they were very successful at breeding and perpetuating. Whereas in the zoo environment they were there, We knew

they were there. We had genetics going on that that you could see and touch, but not to the extent of what they did when they put them on a on an open range, quote ranch, whether high finch or low finch, most of them are behind high fench because they'll get a wipe from you. But but the the perpetuation of them was astounding, how well they did. And that's almost exactly right. We were fortunate because there are that many bloodlines and they had come from different places.

There was some risks there because you know, what if we had had a disease outbreak or something and you know, you got your eggs in one basket. Which is why this idea and why we use the term meta population is that you've got a population here, over here, over here, and together they make up this greater population, which is

in a reservoir, if you will, an assurance population. Um. But but you know, thank goodness that they did that because it's you know, im possible as animal would not be around if that were not the case, not be around period. Not just in Texas, correct, And I think there were some other individuals um maybe in Europe and some other places, but uh, this was certainly North America and and may have been I don't know, see if you know, the largest and only sizeable population in the world.

I mean, it was certainly a cornerstone of it. So it's very important to what you were talking about, the return aspect, because you know that very possibly, if not likely, would not have occurred with without someone like Mr Bamburger's vision to do that. And and some of this was

not just chance. These these these group of individuals, they they knew of the sononymunity of Texas versus Africa, and they theorize if they could just get them here, they would they would perpetuate because of the synonymous of the two countries, the habitat, the temperatures and all that. And

of course they were right. You know how it seems like you hear more and more about these, particularly over the last decades, Like the idea of a seed bank right where you have where they built that one in Northon, I don't know, I think that's right, nor somewhere where they have this they built this perfectly, that's right, stable underground climate and they just store seeds there right that there would be some global catastrophe and then you start

from scratch, right, plant stuff in the ground. Um that with with mammals, I'm guessing that doesn't work to go and uh have like a bank of frozen embryos that you can't do that they don't like lose, you know, I mean, like without sort of a continuity of like we watched today, Right, we go out and there's a mother and she you know you you wanna get her calf,

put it your tag in it. She doesn't want you to do that, right, she presumably picked where she was gonna give birth, Like, this is stuff she is exposed to, has done it before, learned from it. Um, I imagine you thaw that stuff out and do it like you probably you have to lose something like a herd, like a sort of like her dynamic knowledge base or something

that's done. So yeah, that's what I mean. Like you know what I mean, like how important is it to have because like appartially, if you look like I'd never give animals and zoos any I don't give me any credit. You know, I'm like, Okay, there it is, but it's not right. It is, but it's not. It's species specific. It is, and it's a different it's it's all a

different theater versus what there's. There's great merit to zoos, but they have their limits and the the the the issues with the property having the propensity to look like act like ce like function like the open range. There's no substitute for him because they do a lot of different things out there they don't do in a captive situation.

Yeah that's what. Yeah, that's the thing. Maybe it's probably not easily answered, but well, there's some species like wolves where it's far and I'm you know, I'm not wolf biologists, but if you turn them loose, they just kind of know it to do, right, That's that's not necessarily the case. The mother has to teach them how to hunt and talk about big cats in a way. Right. So but to your point, I mean, that's that's relevant. But yeah, we we do do UM. There's an O site capture

you know, certain species and sperm banking UM. And even if the species doesn't go extinct, you want to keep some of those genetic traits. Like for example, we have some rhinos that you know are have reproductive pathologies or you know, old or whatever, but they might have some valuable traits. Well we can't breed them, but um as

AI techniques artificial insemination get developed. Having a sperm bank that becomes very useful in the future, right to reintroduce those genetics so that animal, the line of that animal is not lost. So even if this species doesn't go extinct, that's still important. But yeah, obviously there you know, there's some other dynamics in there about behavior and training, and you know, some of these species you you have to maintain animals on the around doing what they do in

order to make that egg bank seed bank. Let's try an actual resource. Well yeah, although even with the newer techniques, there's some new organizations that are foreigned about talking about trying to bring back the wooly mammoth. It's yeah, so are you guys into that or is that annoy you guys? Um, let me put it this way, It's not what we do, okay. Um. However, there are maybe some advantages of the in terms of what you learn and some applications genetically. Yeah, because they're

not bringing back the woe mammoth. Well, they're they're messing with an age and el to eventually accumulate a bunch of traits where you can be like, that's probably a little bit what it looked like. So but although you never know it happened in the future, it is a little annoying because but the stuff blinking out right now, it's like, we have a thing we don't even you know, we have a thing that went extinct, I don't know,

thirteen twenty thousand years ago for unknown causes. But meanwhile, the you know, the mammals on the planet have a sort of viable pathway to extinction and we're in and now you've got all these like celebrity investors in this whole mammoth project, or even we haven't we haven't sequenced all of our animals yet in the SPA, so there's an a neat immediate need, you know, for that. And you know they're still alive and most of them are

still in the wild, so absolutely. Um. You know, again, there are some techniques that I think will be very important that they're going to learn from. Yeah, it's like the argument like, if it wasn't for NASA, we wouldn't have tough lin Yeah, exactly, Like, but but they put all that money into pan codings, Yeah, hell of pand coding. Well, I mean we we read about stuff every single day. Right, It's like, and this got collected a hundred hundred years ago.

It's been sitting in this categorize shelf, and then all of a sudden, somebody's well, we have this new thing. Let me take a look at that old copper light. Oh my god, there's a rattlesnake in there. Uh. But it's like, I'd love to know the hierarchy of needs of the preservation of species, right, because you take an animal that has this very known uh system of learned behavior, like I have to teach my young how to build the nest, I have to nurture a bunch of eggs

to get some to hatch. I have to then teach these little baby birds how to fly and and we know that doesn't happen. But but also things that are just so much like if there's not water here, go look over there. Yeah, like that's not carried in the egg, right, yeah, but hopefully that that's a smell thing it goes right. I mean there's some species that we know, right, like the sandhill crane, right is like that thing wants to do everything but lift. I just was I said sandhill

crane instead of whooping crane. Some of those behaviors can be taught I think by animal caretakers. You know, uh, there's probably a limit there, so um, you know, any anytime you alter their their natural learning ability, your influence and possibility what they're gonna do in the future is

far survivability. There's a lot of belief that if they if they can't do it on their own, they can't do it, and maybe maybe their their history is uh is dictated but but the thing that we do know now, and I'll go back to the zoos versus the free range.

Both of those places have have great purpose, but that the free range situation like we were in today, even though it's an enclosure, it's it's so much closer to what they're supposed to be doing, and they know it, and they do well, and they respond well from it, and that's reflected by like a very tangible result, right, which is off for well. And look at the ages of those animals where we were at today that that

have we influenced That obviously we have. But but again, when when you have that scenario and they're not in cages or pens and cages in the fair term for an ungulent like that, they're just gonna do better. But but some of this was not by accident. On the scimitars, there were people that knew if they could get them to Texas, they felt like they were going to propagate and do well. And those those few individuals with some

other carrying individuals were right. And this this is really a success story as he as he pointed out early because these things were they were gone. Basically, Now the next species might not do exactly what this species did because they're they're all different biologically and they're different sociologically how they roam and how they how they they do. So answer, it's always better obviously if you have the species and they can learn from their own. But we

have gotten a lot better. And I teach a couple of animal behavior classes at a couple of universities, and like in the bird world, they've learned this like a navy ecologists I work with training these birds, you know, how to look for threats, right, Oh, yeah, it's amazing what they've done is that now you know you hear this, you know, alarm, this is this it means it's an owl or this kind of hawk. Um. And there's a

famous example. They tried to introduce thick billed parents. I think it was in the eighties back into the uh southeastern Arizona and um, I think you've been hunting down their cou's here, right, And they put him in there and they were great. They had done great, except they had no idea that hawks were a threat. They all got wiped out. That was That's like I'm sort of like pulling all these little snippets from things I know from native wildlife in the US and trying to like

interject them here. But when you talk to people who are involved in the recovery of the American wild turkey, sort of the the aha moment was, you can't put pen raised turkeys down up exactly. They're all dead just they get annihilated. And you had to put you had to put like wild reared. You had to put wild reared birds on the ground if they're gonna have any chance they had, you know, having any idea about how

to avoid predators. And another iconic thing about the simitars that I find very interesting is sometimes we're our worst on enemies. We have carrying individuals, knowledgeable individuals. They bring them over here, they do good and lo and behole. We get a regulation that almost sent them backwards again. Yeah, I wanted to have you tell that story, but let me hold that because that's important to hear um. But

I got one more. I got another question, just like particular to the scimitar and horned orcs and how like like let's let's say here in the US, you have people who are globally aware, right they and globally ecologically aware. They understand that this species is imperiled on its native range.

It's to candidate for extinction. Right. Um, at what point do do those individuals or like your organization, at what point do you wind up forming some form of contact with the government or the the the the proper agency in one of these countries where the country is perhaps almost a failed state. Right, Like if you were to right now recognize that there's a species in Afghanistan, I'm sure there are many. Um. Yeah, so you're like, okay,

the snow leopard ranges in Afghanistan. You know, at what point does someone go and and introduce themselves to the Taliban to say, we understand you have a problem, we'd like to help. Yeah, that's got to be like a tricky It's very tricky. And so because you've already got

so much money into it. Yeah, and so I asked this question a while back with the cheetah with some scientists, and it gets into politics, It gets into you know, these species off and times, particularly animal like a cat like that that will you know, in some cases have very large territories, make cross boundaries. You've got different laws and some of them it's like, well, we're doing reintroductions. No, we only want native you know, born animals here. So

there's all kinds of things. So typically what ends up happening is you have to have multiple organizations involved who are working together and clearly one or two on the ground. So in Chad where the scimitars were reintroduced, there's Sahara Conservation Fund. Really was were the guys on the ground who put this together, but they had to have financial backing. And the whole program was a success because of the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi, you know, and they helped

lead this, put the resources in. You know, they kept they had their own stock of scimitars, so you have to have buying, and then they had to go get buy in from the locals, you know, because these are on pastoral lands, there's domestic livestock running around, so yeah, it is tricky and so you have to have a lot of buying and you know, we found this out here as you well know, from reintroducing like the wolf

here and the learnings they got from that. The first ones, the red wolf was the first one they did was and then the you know, the gray wolf of Mexican wolf is that you've got to have buy in from the state agencies and then from local landowners, people are gonna have to deal with that, and you have to have a comprehensive plan to make it all work. And if you don't have that, you're gonna run into problems. So I think we know a lot more about that

than we used to. But this is why, even though we may have enough numbers of a lot of these species, if the conditions aren't right on the ground, then you know, there's no point you're reintroducing. At that point, do you have can you think of examples of of animals were, uh, you're poised to do a reintroduction, but the situation on the ground is just not like you're in a holding

pattern because of the political climate. Um yeah, sure, yeah, Well in terms of numbers of animals, yeah, um, there's several I mean, you know, the cheetah is one example where certainly there's some possibilities there, but again given the political situation and different laws, and and again we're not the ones my organization is not the one that does the reintroduction. To be clear about that, right, you'll just show up and no, no, but um, but yeah, there's

there's several species. Cheetah would be one of them. You know, and then the and then the other element that we haven't talked about, but it's a major element, is conflict with people. Some of these species are not viewed as we're saving the species. The classic example of that was the reintroduction of the wolf. There were big support to do that until the public, the ranchers got into it, and it got in conflict, and and it and its remained in conflict ever since. And uh, the dynamics of

the population swelling and growing. We're talking about Montana, Texas is going through it all. All these western states are going through this. So some of these species there are other lines to walk and they may not get that chance because of that. Well, it doesn't doesn't even need to be a unulate versus a predator. At the Rocky Mountain, elk is a big issue with a lot of ranching communities. So we're buffalo if you talk to those, Yeah, it's

not even um competition. That's like recovering your own that's what they're recovering your own native wildlife where you have the animals. We just don't have the public willpower and and the real truth maybe there are just some species that aren't going to have the gracious because of because of these issues we're talking about right now, and then you get in even other issues like you brought in the bison. We've looked at that is you have domesticated bison,

they've got cattle jeans. Well, you don't want those in a wild population, you know, for a lot of reasons. And so how do you manage that? I don't want to straight too far by totally disagreement. I think it looks like one. I think that people make that all at this point. If it looks like one, let's go with it. So then you'd want the William mammoth brought back because it looks, well, here looks like I don't.

But I'm saying you wind up being that. You wind up you have like verma So they have genetically pure ones, Yellowstone, they got genetically pure ones Vermaho. It's just not that many of them. Meanwhile, you got well here's the one half a million of them. You got half a million of them on the contin but here's the one seven thousand or up to snuff the real truth. Maybe you can't get them back here again. And and Buffalo is

a perfect clash of that example of that. You start looking at how many of these buffalo have cattle jeans and them lots of them do. But can you look at him and tail? No, not not every time. And if I was anti if I was anti bis and recovery, which I'm not, if I was anti bias recovery, I would be like, you know what I'm gonna do, like like a totally mock a Machiavellian move, and that would be like, oh no, no, no, I'm all for it. But they have to be genetically pure. That's how I

would win my fight. Yeah, which I didn't want it to have. The one caveat to that is that um, in some places they are selecting bison to be more domesticated, and so you can imagine and so over a long period of time, you know, if that gets into um Daylor when I think was his name, He was the U. C. Davis professor who was like the foremost bison expert. That was his concern. Yeah, that It wasn't that. It was like it was like my comment about so I understand

what you're In fact, that doma gazelle. Actually there's a they thought for a while it was a subspecies. There's two colors there's one that's a predominantly kind of burnt orange looking and there's once pure white, and they thought, well, it's you know, different gene or the subs. It's not, it's a phenotype. Right. So but had that been the case, I da mix those, do you not? You know? And so I understand where you're coming from on that um.

And unfortunately, because the more we learned about genetics and genomics, like there used to just be one species of black rhino, and then they realize, well, no, there's a Eastern, there's a southern. Well, actually there's a southwestern, when now there's a western. Several of them have gone extinct, right, So where do you draw the line? You know, it's a good point. I guess you have to weigh someone's motivations and then and then help trust it. Okay, let's I

know the basic outline of the story. Someone the scimitar horned orcs it's going extinct. Someone's like, hey, there's a bunch of in Texas, thank god, and then they want to say, okay, no one in Texas touch one. And people didn't like that and it was counterproductive. How close is that's the reality? The story I just told well, I I think the word they is is probably begs to be defined so well meaning probably people that thought they shouldn't be commercialized because of other things in other

places and other issues that were going on. But but those particular group of people weren't looking at the perpetuation of that species and what was going on. And the minute they came in and they put those regulations on them, what was the regulation, Well, it had to do with movement, hunting and barter cell exchange and trade. They hadn't it. They were on the SA, but there was an exemption. Then they removed the exemption. This has been two thousand twelve,

I think. Okay, And who's the essay? How are they on the US listed species because it's global, Because it's global, it's not just US species. They don't look at Texas and make the law for the world. It's a global view of that species. And of course I know governor like was is that the i c U N Like who's the governing like, who's the governing body that would

say like they're imperiled there, don't mess with them in Texas. Well. Ultimately, I think it was our decision for the E s A. But It's like if a species is imperiled, you know, wherever its native habitat is, right, then it's it's considered under the umbrella of the s A. I mean, it's endangered, So any of those protocols can come into play in

terms of what you can and can't do. So once it's endangered, then there's criteria under that endangered title, and that criteria may say barter, cell, exchange, hunt, transport, all those things can be under there. And what happened is that happened to that species of animal. And when it did that thing, that that plan that was going on right before our eyes came to our crashing halt in Texas. And I'm gonna speak for Texas because I'm more familiar

with the plan being people distributing, allowing to breathe. Yes, because commercialization was predicating those numbers, and and commercialization was the mother. It was pushing the numbers out, and because there was a market for animals in the state, and a byproduct of that market was creating more of them

and then you couldn't hunt them. Of course, you know, the market was dictating that people wanted to trade them and all whatever people's view of that is that's the reality of it, right, and so you know the market crash and then furthermore, if you had them on your ray. I mean this is an exception, and all of our facilities are like that. We're conservation, so we don't actually hunt them here because we're trying to increase their numbers. But then you couldn't even hunt your own, So what

do you do with them at that point? And here they go. They're perpetuating, right, So there you're saying, there's some and and listen, it's for every listener out there. Um, I'm not sure if the folks in this room like it or not. The very first thing that we did today was get a ci entire horn oracs and put in your tag in it. So if you think about it with along the lines of every animal out there that have your tags and are run around in past years,

that's what we're talking about in the commercialization right now. So, um, there were individuals out there who had purchased scimitar horned orcs during this period where all of a sudden they're on. So if we we tag him for a slightly different reason, because we track and we do a census count every year of you know, how many offspring, how many die, etcetera, And so he needs to track them. And for genetics reasons as well. You know we oh that's animal number

twenty eight whatever. So that's the reason primary that we do that. So, but there's other folks out there who are like, I'm gonna buy some of these, I'm gonna have them specifically for the reason that I'm gonna hunt them on my ranch. But then when that regulation came down, they just became animals that were competing against the other animals that had all of a sudden had more value. Yeah,

and they can't do anything with them. They can't hunt him, you can't trade him, and so they're just paying to feed them. So what did happen to him? Like the numbers went down? Solution people shot him out of spite. Well you're not supposed to, but you know, I'm sure some of that happened. They did. Let's let's let's be frank. They the numbers dwintals for whatever reason, because the value now was not on the animal. The value is what

brought the incentive to perpetuate the animal. And we were in Texas probably well I know, so we got more than anybody, and and and he was selling them to a rancher. We were capturing them, we were moving him over here. We were moving him for this reason, this reason. But everybody had a reason to perpetuate that animal. And when those reggs came down, all of a sudden, it disant it disincentivized us and ranchers. This is speculation, but was the was the first off? What you're are we

talking about, um? Is it that it was risk the exemption was put back in. Okay, so there was. So there's a two year window when this this was going on, when this this sort of the prohibition on hunting, prohibition on moving. Whether it's like an exemption that was lifted or not, let's just describe it as like a prohibition on these activities, was a two year window that the number of animals during that two year window actually go down? Yeah, they have, but they so what I'm saying is they

weren't dying an old age. I mean there's like a little bit of spite, right, Well, if I had to venture, guess, like, you saw how defensive that mother was. We talked about how aggressive the bulls are in fighting. I'm sure they can be detrimental on other animals inside your pastory there too, or they're just beating themselves to death. Sometimes I can speak on on the ranches behalf. But for those two

years we had no breeding. I kept the males completely separate from the females again, because what what were we gonna do with them? We had We had our own We have our own carrying capacity, which is top on a good year of sixty animals. Right now, I got forty five animals um with with addition of a bunch of young. Um. If this year continues to be as dry as it is now, I'm likely gonna have to downstop. I'm gonna run the grass. So we could we could.

We couldn't breed because you had no outlet. Yeah, I couldn't get rid of them. You have no outlet for the ones that weren't essential for your program. And and and one thing that we that we haven't mentioned, but but I participated in this. When that was lifted. We we had people that reached out and said, I want to multifacet my operation. Um, I don't want cattle anymore.

I want something that has multi value to it. So we in the lot of cases we had Semitars, we had Neil Guy, We had other undulus that were that were exotics that were also used to manage grass pastures just like cattle, but we had a multi value for them. We could breed them, we could sell them, we could hunt them, we could manage grass communities with him. So now now we've got an incentive on them, and that's where we're at today, and that's why the numbers are

here like they are. But they wouldn't have been had they not lifted that and we had not organized and fought like we did, we would be down more so than we were at half at the time that thing would happen. And I just say this, and there's a lot talked about the exotics industry and especially in Texas, but that way that was handled for conservation purposes, you know, was not a good thing. And when it was, when it was rescinded, was it rescinded with a man? You

were right? That was the horrible idea. I can answer that. I can. I don't even need to think of that. It was it was rescinded because of political cloud and pressure, and that's the honest truth, or we'd still be right where we were Texas spent thousands and thousands of dollars lobbying in Washington. It's funny because just in my circle I have heard and people not from the conservation biology world,

I have heard people still grumbling about that. Well as in their mind like just like you know, oh, you want to talk about idiocy because everyone and they and they opened a book and there in the book says there almost are close to being extinct in another country, and these people in Texas are shooting them and commercializing them. What in the world is going on here? Well, what's going on here is we're perpetuating these animals because they have a value. No, I can see, like, it's not

it's not a stretch. I don't mean to run around, you know, I don't want to sound like, oh, they're so stupid. I mean, you can see how someone would draw that conclusion if they weren't really if they weren't like acutely aware of like all the dynamics in place and the motivations of people involved. If you went and wrote like some goofy you know, newspaper headline Texans killing endangered species, right, A lot of articles written like that. Some of us did interviews on those and they were

tough interviews. Um, there there's some folks out there who at that time and still today would rather these species not be here at all, that any of them are hunted. No, that's a yeah, I think that's a that's a that's a sentiment. Um. I think it's a widely held sentiment among people who would that. I would be like the radical animal rights agenda would put a very strong emphasis emphasis on individual animal experiences and that that would actually

matter more to them than population level. Because that's just I can't have the argument, you know what I mean, It's like I would I would be hard for me to sit with someone and have the argument. I wouldn't even know where to begin. It's um, it all happened when people I didn't know what luck nuts where anymore. M that's test. It's a good one. I heard someone else bring up recently, like how did it go to it just all of a sudden, No one knows how

to change a tiger. Well we're close. I'm usually luck Nutch but but but really, um, as time goes on, that these challenges, these bicycles will have multiple riders on them that we that we have to defend um, to perpetuate an animal, to to to make it UH, to be beneficial again, to have a value, because they're just people that don't know what luck nuts are. And when you have that, it's a In my world, I deal with it every other day and I have to educate

as hard as I can. But I also have to be a good mediator and understand how people think UM. And that's why I'm so sensitive about UM. The merit of every good story and every good scenario is to preside proceed both sides of the issue you have do You can't hold it back, and it's tough sometimes to sit in a room and talk to people about why this animal's doing good. We got to start with the nest.

There's also a lot of crossover too because of you know, obviously, as you well know, hunting brings in a lot of conservation dollars. Right to go to that, but particularly here with with the whole land rush UM, and he deals with it very closely that you know, if you didn't have this, you would have even more fragmentation and development and what have you. So you know, we try and

incur ch people in bamburgers. The best example of it of you know, you can have an exotic species, but you can manage it sustainably and still you know, create great habitat for native wildlife as well. Yeah. Now not everybody can do what they've done here because it's fantastic, but you know you can still do that, and you know Warren is a specialist in that, and so that's that's the other message that we're trying to get across.

What percent of the species that your organization is involved with our native North American animals and what present are Africa Asia? Um, most of them are Africa Asia, but we have a couple of grassland bird species, so uh, the loggerhead shrike which you know, Texas sill has quite a few of them, but their native grassland prairie habitat as you you know well now is shrinking and they've largely disappeared, you know, up in all the way up

into Canada. So um, you know, we support that and doing some releases up there or they do genetics testing to try to you know, help the viability. A couple other grasslands species, um, even like the whooping crane. The red wolf um is another one, and then most of the rest of them are anxietic. So probably as a percentage. I don't know exact number, but you know it's probably in native is probably you know or something they're they're about to what to what degree if you compare let's

say you're gonna compare the Sahara. Um, and just I know it's hard, but the U s in general. Um, if you look at something like like it takes something like the Pacific salmon for instance. Um, it's not an animal problem. It's a habitat problem. Right. It's like if if you took all the dams out of the Columbia Watershed, your problems right, um in in in Chad and the Sahara with the simitar horned orcs. I gather that it was it became like an animal problem. It's multifaceted, if

I understand you correctly. So it's um, it's a bush meat problem. UM. A lot of these areas you know historically or you know at least last hundred years, war zone problem. It's a human footprint expanding problem. UM, a disease problem as well, you know, again having to cohabitate with domestic livestock. And then when you get down another aspect of what we do is that when we're looking at something like this, we enlist the help of UM.

There's an offshoot of a U see in called cps G and UH they do great work like population modeling and you know, figuring out you know, you have this many animals and you know you're gonna add this MANI to it. And here's how often drought happens, here's how much poaching. You know, you can kind of pretty well predict what's gonna happen. UM, And when you get down below a certain number, you know, it becomes unsustainable. So

you know they're species out there right now. You were alluding to it earlier that if it's just left to their own over time, they're probably not gonna make it, you know. And fragmentation is another huge issue, right you know, corridors are cut off, you know, so you don't get not only genetics crossing, but just being able to connect populations have more room for them to disperse, you know, drought over here versus you know, it's better range over here.

So all those problems factor into it. I thought of another more extreme, uh visual way of putting it. Let's say you just started flying sea one thirties into Chad and offloading thousands of scimitar horned orcs at this moment in time, you would find that, like in some number of years, you're probably gonna be right back in the same situation. A lot of the habits prepped. Yeah, because

it's localized. It's local age where they can not at the they can't make it somewhere else, but they the extruding factors on it will only let it make it in that particular area or where they have that protection. A lot of it's been converted to agriculture. That's another crash lands. And how many do they have? So how

many do they have on the ground now? And it's sort of like semi wildish state simitars ch about a hundred and fifty And what size like on what is it of size of ground comparable to where we're sitting right now. No, it's much larger. It's a huge area. I don't have the exact number, but it's it is. It's a big area. And Steve do you know And it's like I thought I heard it was the same

size as like West Virginia. Yeah, it's like hundreds of thousands of millions of acres and they and they need to they're actively they need to be actively defending the animals from poaching. And I don't know about defending, but you know, there's been a lot of education that's going on about it, and you know they monitor it closely. Of course, you know, they're collared right UM, and the

animals will disperse a lot. I think the biggest thing, or one of the biggest things they've done is just education with UM, the herders, the shepherders, you know, and I think so far that's going pretty well. Uh but again, we're only talking a hundred fifty animals, so it's hard to gauge. You know, it's not like there's fifteen thousand now. Is that number growing? It is? Yeah, They've they've had they've had offspring, and they keep actually uh there, I

think doing another release right now as we speak. So yeah, there's definitely plans to add on too. And I don't know if there's a total number UM that they're trying to get to UM, but yeah, they definitely want to grow. I mean, obviously a hundred fifty of a herd animals not you know, sufficient to you know, you need to grow that ye that Yeah, it's still ever changing. But but the only way probably to get it to where they someday will say we have a stable population is help.

Uh that they won't do it on their own. Probably if they, it would be so eons out um that that it just you couldn't monitor it. So the the influx that that that groups like this can help is what's gonna make it. Somedays, say we have a in this area, we have a standardized herd, I mean just off tope of my head. Again, I'm not a population biologist disclaimers, so but you know, I would think you'd have to have at least several hundred animals ultimately not

several thousand. But whatever that number is, unless it's into the thousands, you're gonna need to supplement from time to time.

What what is the stable number? Like, do we have an idea what that that herd stability sizes self Sustama Because that country is so different, it's it's hard to classify it animals per acre um, And I don't I don't know the dynamics to that number, but I would say that they're they're they're people over there know what they're what they need to do to where they could finally say we do have a stable herd, they move a lot their their micah, they're they're they're the larger

the herd, the larger the range needs to be their nomadic and it's more it's more sparse than you know, Steve has this fantastic grass here and it'll rain in one area of this of this area where they've got them, and they'll move to that area because a lot of their all their ecologies is steered around perpetuation, so they know to go to that area. Uh, and it's timed with all their parturations and all the things they do, and so it will take time, um years before they'll

ever be able to say that's a standardized herd. And we're comfortable. I mean, this is ideal for him here in terms of what we're trying to do. And you know, these guys have done such a great job and you know burns and you know not you know, they don't graze the rest of it and they're not and had a history of overgrazing all those kind of things. So it's ideal habitat you know. Yeah, I mean driving through here, this country probably never looked like this prior to folks

putting up fences, right. I mean, you guys don't have a natural competition out here because you're you're managing it. You're seeing fifty years of intensive management. Yeah, maybe this is how it looks like two hundred years ago, as long as the bison weren't traveling through. He's being pretty humble because I do what he does. He's worked his rear end off and and he's got he's got the backing, and he's got the knowledge. And that's why you see the garden growing like it is, and it's a and

you know, to the neck and eye. It's hard to understand what he sees and what I see on these properties because this is years and years of our lives to get these grass communities back to where they're at. It just doesn't happen. I mean, this land has transformed so much. I grew up around here, and it's you know, uh, Native Americans kept this burned off to a large degree with natural fire. Uh. But you know, I'm sure you've been around here. Now. It's changed tremendously. That juniper choked,

you know, and so he's done restored it. Whatever you want to call natural. If you want to call that natural, you know, you see, but certainly from a wildlife perspective, it's see what'd your bird count go from? Uh? The first the first counts done in like nineteen seventy nine, seventy one. UM, they found forty eight species. These are year round surveys and today we're over two and twenty. Really God, that's incredible man. So well, if you had to boil that down, that's like is it? It's water,

water and grass, diversity of habitat. So when Mr mambur way more than just more grass. Absolutely. When Mr Member first bought this property, it was in nineteen six or nine, it was basically a cedar a cedar forest, a cedar break. It was very much clad with cedar like you see a lot of the hill country today from fire suppress and sproach it seed down, overgrazing. Overgrazing led to that

a lot um. So yeah, in early seventies is said about restoring the place, and that basically removing a lot of the juniper, not all of it, because this is a native tree. UM. Restoring the grasslands also given our native deciduous hardwoods a chance to become a hardwood forest again. Um. And then with that came back water was one of the first things that came back to the ranch that

wasn't here. Um, we have quite a bit of water here. Um. And then with you get that's such a diversitive habitat, and especially that edge habitat, you know, that transition between forest of grass or water's edge, that sort of thing. I mean, I imagine some of that, some of those numbers. I mean, it wouldn't account for significant number, but some

of those are sort of things on a more national scale. Absolutely, like like some raptors right, actually got a paragraph in your thing, but it could be because of a green activities happening hundreds of months, an impressive increase and improved habitat, as Steve said, uh brings uh diversity of wildlife. So a lot of these ranches now that that have the finances and the skills to do all this, they're not only benefiting exotics, um dear there, it's it's all species, mammals, reptiles,

bird life, avian life. All this is is benefiting for people batcav Yeah, we're not talking. And that's what happens when you get a commitment because we've done it and restored it. Uh. Not I'm not talking about here. I've done it on other ranches like Steve's done, but we

see the benefits. And this bird life is a classic example of responding to improved habitat that doesn't happen by accident because now they have these levels, they can live in, edge effect, hardwood for arrest, all the things that they've done out here. So yeah, I mean Bamburger is like a modern day example. And if you've ever seen Tending the wild looking California about Native Americans managed the landscape

over there, this is an example of that. I mean literally, I saw a study recently where, um, I don't know how they came to this conclusion, but researcher figured out that, um, this part of the world anyway, of the fires were set here by Native Americans. Now it only burned the landscape because you know, lightning fires would just go right. So they had controlled burns and they were managing it for wildlife, you know, to bring back you know whatever,

you know, the Coron's walnuts, yeah, track wildlife whatever. And so he's actually kind of gone back, even though this is a modern he's gone back to much more the way it was in terms of managing the land for wildlife. Got it? Uh, I got two more big questions for you. Once once pretty concrete, once theoretical. Uh. The the scimitar horned orcs. Uh. They came full circle. Okay, they were

in the Sahara. They were for whatever reason, lost to you know, lost to us uh collectors, whatever brought him here. They were captain Zoo's they went extinct in the wild. They went back. Um, what's the next Like, who who's in line to have that happened again? Most immediately? Like what like what species is that that you're working on? Is like you have the clearest path exists to being

like they're gonna go back on the ground. Well, the two other ones that um of our species that are being worked with right now actually in the same preserve are the Domina gazelle um and the attics. And there were some remnant populations there somewhere between a hundred and three hundred animals but scattered about this. This is in the same area Chad, yeah, and Niger. They so they were they've translocated some. But yeah, they're they're releasing I

think right now actually some Doma gazelle. They it's already happened and it's well, it's again, it's this multi step process, right where maybe some of them came here historically and then they went over there, announced two or three generations. There in the third generation got habituated, you know, and then they let him go, right yeah, Like you can't, like it's not really practical to track the individual exactly.

It's it's bloodline or exactly. And that that's why the genomics is so important and why we want to keep sequencing and testing these these animals, because we want to know if we have valuable traits or whatever. Like Steve, you know, got his report on his his female scimitar that hey, in the future, you know, that bloodline maybe not that particular animal, but that bloodline we want going over there, right um. And and so that that's kind of the future, so that when the conditions are ripe

to do more of these were ready to do it. Um. Remember early on in our conversation we talked about the idea that if it's not where, if an animal is not where it's from, like it doesn't count. Now, well, well, no, I don't mean that, because that's gonna sound wrong, because I am a very avid wild turkey hunter. Okay, I hunt wild turkeys in the state that turkeys aren't from. I mean, they're not that far down. I could drive in a day, I could drive in a data where

they're from, but they're not from there. Okay, So I love them like my children. Um so I got you know, well, not quiet in some ways more yess, some ways less, but so so I get it. It's like, there's not like it's not a black and white issue in terms of native you know, native animals and non native animals. But what's your sort of like, like, what's your take if if we looked at that, that you determine that for whatever reason we determine the Sahara Okay, since we

talked about that a bunch. It's just like you get to a point where like, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. It's divided up, it's war torn, not getting any better. It just is gonna happen. Do you then lose interest in the orcs or do you go, like, okay, plan B is this part of Texas is Africa and there's no and you know that it's not ever going to be a reintroduction issue. Well, I guess there's two things.

That's a loaded question, Um it is. Yeah, I mean one, I think you know, there's a difference between like I say, this part of Texas or letting them run rampant and just keeping the species alive, not let them go extinct. For and you could have a still philosophical debate about that. A lot of reasons, right, you know, they deserve to live, you know, value in them, about what we discover about their genes, or you know, it could be use of

other animals, you know, all kinds of right, yeah. Yeah, But then also you know, in terms of these assurance populations, well, what do things look like a hundred fifty years from now? I don't know. Yeah, I can see what you're saying. It'd be a pretty cocky decision. Yeah, ain't gonna happen. Right, So it's kind of like, if we're gonna keep them, then we might as well keep them in a setting where they can do well, right, and in sufficient numbers,

with enough diversity. So when there's an opportunity, you know, we can We're ready, you know, we can put them back up. And I say we, I mean collective, not just my organization. Right, So that that's one of the things. And you know there's also I think an educational component. Um,

there's even these guys have done it. We've actually partnered I know it sounds bizarre, but uh, with a virtual reality organization to kind of create some environments where people can see what these animals look like, you know, in their native habitats or I hear you. Hey, that was my initial reaction. I got kids want to do it. You can do that. But from the standpoint of does that raise awareness and does that get them interested and

you know, generate some moment. I mean, as we know, we're becoming a more urban world and people moving cities. And I'm a big believer that if if you don't have your feet on the ground, if you're not out doing stuff, then you just don't have the same attachment or connection to it. So in lieu of that, do these do something like that help And if it does, then maybe there are opportunities in the future. So I

think those are some of the arguments. I know, it's not black and white, um, And you know it is a little odds. Sometimes you drive around you see something looks like Africa, and you know, you see more and more of it, but you know we're focused really on the conservation aspect, and I think you can make a strong case for, regardless of what's happening on the ground, that we at least want to keep these remnant populations,

you know, going for the future, whatever the future is. Someday, it just hit me, someday I'm gonna write a dystopian novel. It will be that humans are all gone, virtually all gone, and it'll be like some small group of people trying to put all the animals back where they belong. Well,

I think Jeff Visa has had that idea. One day we'll be living, orbiting the planet and repopulation and I'll be like, Okay, before I die, I gotta make sure to put these things back and sudden, so I'll we're coming around the table, so I'll put my two cents in. It'll be sharp. I think the limiting factors besides population dynamics will probably be evolving wildlife diseesus. Oh go on, I knew you were gonna ask me that, and I and that's my summary. We gotta do another show, now,

are you gonna get it out of it? Well? No, give me give a little more there. Well, so I I think it's like a like a like a conservation challenge. I think that absolutely. But but zoo gnosis. If you look at what we don't know about wildlife reservoirs and human interaction with diseases, we're on the pioneering edge where

all these lay. And I think as time goes by, we're going to find more and more reservoirs that might mutate and affect humans are vi subversa, and so I believe that that as time goes by, the science will develop that there might be a species you can't do anything with because of evolving wildlife diseases that may affect populations. And guess what if it affects a human, who's going to be first? I mean, this gets into strange territory. But what if there's a few species that are resistant?

It doesn't? Yeah, it does exactly what was it? What was the question? Well, I mean back to your the questions. I what if you find, you know, some traits and a few of these species are closely related one or two that are beneficial and disease resistant. You know, could that keeping those alive? Could that be useful? I mean that gets into strange territory and it can. It can. But where the bridge starts getting weak is where is where they're the possibility exists to jump from wildlife reservoirs

to humans, and typically that's from a mutation. And so if you really look at a lot of things that are happening with humans now, with the illnesses and things, and look back at wildlife reservoirs, you don't have to be a rocket side just to figure out what's happening.

It's coming. Yeah, I think that that's that's entering sort of the public consciousness more as we have this like pretty spirited debate about you know, bats while the markets, and then these new strains of of COVID that seemed to and then you know, like this six of the white tails of the white tailed the year taking out to think Indiana um I had been exposed to COVID back we just we just just have this right, like the COVID nineteen into the deer herd, that deer herd

spit it back out into the human population, and it's very very close to COVID nineteen, but it's not quite the same, right. I mean that, and I don't care what you think of COVID, but that's something to pay attention to. And when you sail across the sea. And I'm not being a pessimist because I'm a biologist just what I do for a living. But when you sail across the seed to take a reservoir out to bring it somewhere else to do something else with, there's always

a chance. But but I but I think we're on the very infancy of of where this is gonna go. And also, just I want to add on the thing you're saying, because you talk like there's organizations like the Rocky Mountain Olk Foundation. Okay, there their business for for well that you know, I hate to oversimplify it. Their business have been twofold. It was habitat right and then restoration. It hurts with c w D right now moving herds around. That's not happening, man. I mean, like the appetite for

that stuff is it's just not happening. And it's like it's because of this understanding of disease transmission that we weren't talking about. He's ground zero for that. Okay, yeah, so so I mean we could We'll be here at two o'clock in the morning. But but but I think my message is it's not as easy as the wishes and the money to save an animal. Now there's more, there's more to look and see to the fish bowl,

and I'll end mine. I'll pass it to Steve. Now. Well, now as you said that, I would say, short of disease, uh here here at the Bamburg Ranch, our philosophy is um, it's our responsibility as long as we can afford to do it. As long as that species is not detriment to our native species and our landscape, our land, we should do it. So that's something that's something you look at that you're like trumping, this is native wildlife, but right,

novels things can be harmonious. How do you guys get funded? I mean, I'm assuming your funding doesn't come from the residents of Chad No, so our membership institutions UH fundus and primarily and then UM of course, and they're they're great and they really are good at supporting our work. UM. And then we get some small fees from other program members as well. And then of course you know individual donors, UM benefactors, so UM, you know, we it's obviously been

tough the last couple of years. You know, the pandemic and would have you so fundraising? Yeah, you know, and and it's we need to do a lot more things like genomics testing, um, and so you know funding helps for that. So if anybody wants to go to our website Conservation Centers dot org, we have a donated it's certainly appreciated. The one good thing is that, uh genomics testing has come way down in price. It's only gonna

get cheaper. So um. But you know, conservation work is Warren was saying earlier and uh testing to Steve Donne has done all the work he's done, is that it's not cheap. You know, it takes a lot of effort, as a lot of science involved. It's not just turning the animals loose, you know, transport, you know, breeding the whole nine yards. UM. So you know we're we need support just like every other conservation organization out there. Do you guys accept volunteers. I feel like you might get

some volunteer requests. Um, we get some. Um, it's more for things we need in office because we're science based. UM. You know, we really leverage it's our facilities and are our ranches like Steve you know, they really do the work. You know, I feel like people are gonna be like a come out and raffle that works. Yeah, and that's that's also why for this model to work, this consortium model.

I just mentioned one other thing that there's over five hundred species survival plans um in in the the A C. A. The zoo world. It's estimated in the next few years for variety of reasons um both financial practicality, that half of those may go away. And so this model is consortium is going to be very important to picking those species up and and they'd go away for what reason? Funding issues, funding viability, you know, just hey, this isn't you know, I don't want to say it's not working,

but you know it may not be sustainable. Yeah, you know, habitat all kinds of things, right, and so so so there's like a plan. It's more than just a piece of paper. Yeah, I mean, it's it's en developed and this is all happening right now you know as we speak. So we're looking at how can we leverage this existing model which has been very successful and you know, we have a great end to end result case right here and do that with other species. But as these species

become available so to speak. Um, you know, we we need uh support to you know, help get people involved. And and that ties back into the earlier discussion, which is, you know, from a market standpoint, uh, bamburger is a little different. But you know, these other facilities, the private ones and even some of the public ones, they have to make a living, so to speak. You know, so, um, you know, they have to be able to move these animals,

you know, and make it work for them. And if they can't there, you know, it's not that they wouldn't have an interest in helping conservation, but it just won't work for them. I'm with you. What is the liability? He said liability earlier, Like when it's like, oh, I want to have some entire horned or X on my place. I'll give you a really good example. Please do. Because the only people that will enture my companies lords of London.

Oh oh my gosh, my my, My farms are from here to that canyon over there that I have to fell out. But um, like, well we go up in helicopters. So here's a good example of liability. You take what he's willing to do today because his his whole approach is about education. And helping. Look at what they do out here to educate the public. We got in a pickup truck. We had a lady that was sitting on the tailgate. We had a calf on the ground with a mother that's not bluffing. We had a driver of

a pickup truck. So all those things come into play about liability. It was like two minutes into our trip, that's right, and so so the liability to include people in what we've done. It is absolute um almost impossible at times for a guy like me to include the public and what I do because of the dangerous He's very organized, very but don't think he doesn't have uh risk. Sitting in that pickup truck's a risk and so uh if you if you turn a cemitar out just he's

going to be on his own. What if somebody walked up on that calf? So this is all about this, this just this just doesn't happen by accident. There's a lot of responsibility and a lot of things you have to do. You can see a liability because there's like a there's an actual like ownership path. I mean, if you get God, it's just the lands dear it belongs to the state, but be like no, yeah, and it's already happened. There's also the whole animal care ass man.

We have all kinds of experts that we draw from, you know, veterinarian disease experts. I mean, these people are specialists. They've been doing this for you know, decades, right and you know someone like Steve that's been doing this for a long time. So it's not just anybody can show up, um, you know and do this. And so we always have

a vatting process that we go through. We have an ethics document when they want to join a program, and you know, we we do a whole check on them to make sure they know what they're getting into, their capable they have experience, you know, and and every there's a lot that goes into it. Not just anybody can get in the black Rhino game exactly, that's exactly right, Yeah, for a number of reasons. Yeah, so uh help so people can come visit this. So tell people how to

come visit this place. Oh the Bamburger Ranch. Uh we're not open to the public. Uh, it's all by reservation. Uh. But yeah, look on our website Bamburger Ranch dot org. Um, we do we do a multitude of things. We uh, we see a lot of kids, about kids a year. Now, it doesn't sound like a lot, but um, you've met it sounds like a lot of time. Have zero That sounds five hundred times more than how many you've met.

You met a quarter of the staff. Uh, we we've when we got really four people here that deal with the people ranching or the eco tourism asspect. So yeah, they can visit the website and come out for a tour. We do also all for a whole series of workshops and landowner workshops, uh, to just give people new landowners in the area and the idea of how to manage. That's great. That's cool man. So someone if someone bought some property in the vicinity, they might come out to

be like, what's possible. You could come here and see what's possible. We show you how to get on a smaller scale what we have here. That's awesome, that's nice. He has some really interesting demonstrations like what happens when you chopped the juniper and looking at the water retention of grasses versus you know, cedar, and how that helps your water table, etcetera. It's it's really good stuff and then your inner child you might be missing out. We

do have dinosaur footprints on the police. We have places where we collect fossils. Oh man, you've got to wrangle in work. So that's what I got to call it wrangled one. I called it special. And then how do people go find Like, if they want to get the broader picture of the organization, what's the best place to go? Look? Yeah, just Conservation Centers dot org. It's plural. And then go on there you can see our programs and find out just a wealth of information and our member institutions who

we work with, etcetera. How to make a donation, Yeah, right there on the home page. All right, Well, thank you guys, appreciate it, Thank you. Pleasure. It's privileged to be here with you. Prof. Arter