Ep. 518: Trapping Lynx on the Home Range

This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't predict any of this. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T l I T E dot com. All right, we got more women in here than than normal.

By a law.

Normally it's just Krinn. Everybody knows how lame that is. Today we're joined by probably for the millionth time, Carmen van Bianki. How many times have you been on the show.

Maybe this is number five?

Okay, she's our resident wildlife biologist. We've tracked Carmen all through her career. Now she's she's a links researcher from Home Range. You guys founded Home.

Range Wildlife Research.

Yep.

We've participated in all kinds of projects trying to raise awareness for your project. We did that thing trying to raise up money for snowmobiles, yep. And now you're back to give us a report yep. On what's going on now? We've been doing a little trapping, but different.

Yeah, you got some beavers today.

We called a raccoon the likes of which man has never seen. I don't know what he's doing out in that cold weather too.

I don't know, he's just yeah, typically he'd be in a dentrey somewhere, but he was out in about last night.

There was a spot by there's a spot by this rancher's place and there's a hole in the fence where kylets are coming through in that raccoon coming through there. Uh any tutament, guys, I canna tell you something before I introduce all our other women. Uh, this rancher is telling us how. So we get down there by the river by his place, down the river bottom and there's dead sheep carcasses. You can't tell what's going on. It's

From When you say hidden and there, you mean like, yeah, it's.

Denn up in that log jam? I know, how do you know what bears what? That's what I'm saying. It's like, we're not going to get into that vigilanti justice, but I am going to go look into that log jam.

I can't believe you get curious enough to go looking there.

I'm gonna I'm looking tomorrow.

We wouldn't be here right now if we got to looking in there.

Yeah, we're already half hour later, we're looking in there. You might not ever heard from this.

Again, weird crunch for time.

I couldn't said if I was gonna put a thermal in there, but I don't think that's gonna work. I'm just gonna shine a light in there and see if he's in there, because I guess it's scared the hell out of this driftwood guy. I can imagine it was awake in there. Yeah, so I'm gonna see if he is. Well. It's kind

Yep?

How many? How many schools did you clean this year?

Probably around twenty or thirty?

Are you serious you did that many?

Yeah?

Ok, huh? You got interested in tax How old are you? First?

Off?

Seventeen seventeen? What got you interested in taxidermy?

Oh?

I show him my first dear. I walked into the text urmy shop and it just felt like home. I like creating or like saving other people's memories, so uh huh, I thought would be fun.

Oh wow, And what do you have done with your first dear?

Just a europe amount?

Oh and then you got it back and thought I could do that better.

Yep?

What are your your How are you cleaning them?

I just boil them and then bleach them.

Okay, and then but you did it, but you didn't. But here's why it was such a careful job you did, because the sinuses are still good.

Yeah.

I usually wind up taking a drill bit and just like I get yeah, I get a little burned out on the whole thing, and eventually I wind up running a drill up in there to get all that garbage out of there. Cut cussy that again, the job you did. So Brooklyn's holding the buck that I brought to her. This year old warrior a little a little war here, he broke his beam off. So how do you how'd you get that so clean? Boiling it? What'd you do to eventually get it out of there?

I sit with it for hours and hours, and I just pick on it with dental picks.

That's what you're using.

Yep.

Do you do any pressure washing every now and then? Yeah?

I try and pick off all the meat though it's nicer. Yep.

Well, gradient senior in high school? You're senior in high school? What are you gonna do when you finish high school? Tax ermy, you want to you want to go into taxi? Durm how much you're charging for a skull like that? Deer and one sixty for looks amazing?

Thank you?

That's a good price. See you're gonna think I'm lying if I told you I've never seen a uh like a boiled skull turn out like that. Really never Brody.

It's good, it's great.

I ring you Brody. I bring Brody because Brody boils up some skulls. That's the work art, Brody.

Yeah, it's it's really white, looks great.

Thank you.

Yeah. I did fifteen this year and I went four or five past my limit of patients.

You're not an aspiring skull cleaner, not an inspiring do.

You pressure wash yours?

I have, man, but I've seen that blow them apart. Yeah, especially like after they've been like if you really got to boil them.

For a while, so you pick all the meat too.

Yeah, but I mean, like she was saying, it's really just the nooks and crannies.

You do it the right way.

I have currently two deer skulls sitting in my garage, one one that my wife killed, one I killed, and it's like gotten to the point where all the ship is like dried on there.

It'll never look right.

Yeah, brook On, are people bringing you these with the hide on them or they skin in them?

That's what I want to ask.

Do you think do you think the ones that do you think they turn out better when they're unskinned or they've been skinned.

It depends. The ones that are unskinned do come out I think better. But the ones that are skin I can get it good too.

She just did a big ram, a big deadhead ram.

Are you serious? Yeah? From where I don't know.

The lady bought it from the FWP.

She bought it the auction Yeah huh, and brought it to you. What condition was it in Turkey? It was really all dried out? Yeah?

Oh, so you'll mess around with dried out stuff that's not You.

Charge more if they don't skin it. You're in luck.

Time to skin something.

So see, I always think I'm doing people to favor When I skin it and pluck the eyes.

Out, it's nice, but I don't wand skinning.

So they'll bring you a hair on head, lower jaw. Their eyes there all desiccated, dried out, and you charge them the same amount of money.

Yeah.

Do you have a paide set up for your business? No?

I just have Instagram and the Gmail.

How do people find you to bring you some business? So, so, folks that are listening, Jen Lewis and Paul Lewis Paulus has been on the podcast a number of times from that FHEF and this is their youngster. So how do people find your business?

Either on Instagram or word of mouth?

No? But how like what do they what do they type up?

Four h six bone Works?

Four h six bone Works? Do you ever think about getting a beetle room?

No? I don't want to mess with beetles.

That's that's a smelly business right there.

I want to get into.

You'd have to get your own house probably if you're gonna get in. The man, that is a smelly business.

I looked into it. You can order those beetles from Amazon.

Yeah, at you can find them on the roadside. I didn't know that Amazon sold them, but you find them on the road side. So you're gonna stay with boiling Yeah, but you're gonna go to taxa during me school?

I don't know. I like YouTube?

Oh you like doing it that way?

Okay? YouTube university? Are you going to get into like shoulder mounts or yeah? Nice? So you're going you're going all in?

Yeah?

So fours bone Works yep. And you'll clean people's skulls and do that immaculate. Did you do that nice job because you knew you were gonna use it as a piece of sales, and normally you just brutalize them.

That's how they all turn out.

They all turn out that nice. Yep, it's impressive.

That is impressive.

One hundred and twenty bucks.

Yep, that's a deal.

Have you done any elk?

Yeah?

What do you get for an ELK? Only forty dollars more? Three times as big?

Sort of? I don't like to think, so.

Though, how did you come up with your pricing strategy?

Just what pro paane costs? And then a bleach? And then my time?

How much are you making any money after all that?

A little bit?

Did you ever calculate what you make per hour?

No?

Do you want to or do you not even want to know?

Oh? I really want to know.

That's a pretty good skull. Now, Listen, I had a guy. You know what I paid this year? I hesitate to tell you know what I paid this year to get a moose cleaned?

What's that?

Take a guess?

Probably two twenty five higher.

That would have been nice, three twenty five higher, four twenty five higher, Oh my god, nine hundred and seventy five.

Listen, I had someone doing mo moose gold this year six hundred. Kylie dropped it off and I come back and there's an invoice for six hundred bucks on my desk. I'm like, I think they Oh I dropped it off. Oh you dropped it off. Yeah, I talked you, I talked your text. Everybody mind said, dude, you're third the way to his shoulder.

Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. I saw the invoice when I dropped it off, because he gave it to me, and I.

Was like, never seen anything like that. That was a big moose.

So I was like, I'm assuming cleaning the antlers.

I think I saw you that day because you were at the shop and.

He had a shock.

Yeah, I just assumed you knew what it was going to cost.

No, how much would you done that for the problem with those is the way they're shape. You can't dip them in the tank. Real good. Yeah, process, you'd have done it for three. I could have got two done.

Yeah.

What's it called again? Four or six bone works? Four or six bone works? Get your skulls clean. You can do it next year too.

Yep.

All right, thanks for coming on and plugging the biz. Yeah, you're supposed to be in school right now, I am. You're gonna hang tight though. Yeah, she's a links researcher. Maybe you can fill out when you when you're taxi during me slow, you can go chase links on a snow and bill for these guys. Sounds good, yeah, uh oh.

These kids in the car behind us passed and I just gripping the steering wheel and clenching my teeth for five minutes. After that, we get up to the top and there in the ditch.

I have I've two separate occasions while I was heading to a hunting spot. One this year and one couple of years ago. I've had Ryan Callahan passed me on shitty roads. It's the same situation, but I haven't found him in a ditch, but I've had him pass me on on bad roads.

Wait till you do, it's all worth it then.

Especially one was this year in the dark. He passed me on a just a normal road. Haul on the trailer kale. Yeah, I called him. I said, you're gonna end up in the ditch.

He doesn't seem like a reckless person.

He's just confident on snowy roads.

I guess so, Jen Lewis, you just said handed me. I'm not going to tell anybody what you just handed me. Be handing me a new backpack. I did that you're working on that I can put I'm not working on it that, y'all.

Paul is definitely working.

Paul's working on you guys invented the world's greatest duffel bag, which is not available like that. What's that called the pit devil?

Dude?

That is the best. Like, I'm sort of a Duffel bag connoisseur. That is the I used to think that the best Duffel bag ever made. PATTIGOONI had one called the Shuttle Duffel. I have one after they quit making it a million years ago. I used to go now and then on eBay trying to find a used one. Is how much I liked it. Yeah, this is the new best Duffel bag.

It's pretty sweet. I think you got the new one with the new fabric sailcloth, which is yeah, same fabric that they make sailboat sails out of. Oh really yeah, so highly durable.

Yeah. Paul was messing around with different ones over time. He gave me one and the baggage handlers would ruin them. Yeah, I'd send it back to him and be like, no baggage handlers ruined it. He finally got a fabric of the baggage.

Handlers should be like nearly indestructible.

Yea. Some of the material he was using was great in real waterproof, but it would get when it gets when things get stuck in the baggage carousel. It would have braid it because it was kind of catchy.

Yeah, we're gonna do a few sizes of that.

Well, I hope so, because that needs to be medium, right, Well he knows, okay, Well, I mean I told I told him that's what I think. I think it should be medium and there should be small and large.

I think that's the direction we're going.

Because that one's a little for carry on. It's a little it's a little sketchy.

Too big, too small.

No, no, you could carry it on, but it'd be like if you stuffed it two of the gills, you're not gonna be able to use it as a carry on bag. I'm afraid there's a smaller one and then and then a big giant Yeah, I mambo johnbo bag.

Because we had a different bag kind of in the works that I think you had, but I think this is replacing that, and so there will be a larger size.

Oh okay, good, good, big enough?

I mean the guy stuck me in it, so oh that big? It's big.

Wow, I've seen that. I have a cooler that two people can fit in.

Yeah, I don't know, how would you know?

That?

It's funny story. I had a buddy of mine who's a kind of a lawyer. He's like a lawyer, but he doesn't do any law dogging. So I'll try to do I don't you know, that's a great question. So he uh, I needed some paperwork drawn up for like a thing I owned with some other like our cabin. I need this paintwork drawn up. And he's like, I'll do it because you just gotta get me a cooler for my boat. And he tells me, what's that cooler I got sitting outside? Any racer Britney got in it? One time?

We were able to I don't know what side they I mean for those blue water boats that we'd have to look it up.

Takes two people to move it. It's like a four I don't know eight. I don't know. Two people can lay down length wise in it to shut the door. My body says, I'll do the legal work if you get me a cooler for my boat. And I'm like, that's fine. So he says, this is the cooler I want and it's a giant, the biggest yettie cool ever made. That's not a fit on your boat. Oh yeah, I'll fit. I get the cooler delared in my house. He comes over. It's not a fit on my boat. So I still

Yeah, just what it was designed for.

What it was designed for. What else is coming up? So that when will that Duffel bag be for sale?

June?

I think it'll be June. We've got just a couple of launches this year. So much New Year came out last year in the spring. The rest of our Apex Belt system, hydration pack that'll come out in February, and then the pit Defell and a couple other small items will be coming out in June that I can't talk about yet.

Yeah, it's no problem. Un Turkey's all spring in the Apex Belt.

Did you like it? Kind of a game changer that it's great.

So the Apex Belt is like what they like. Paul calls it like he hesitates to use the term, but it's similar to a battle belt. So that's kind of different words. I don't know what the help.

Yeah, make a tactical like load bearing belt or battle belt. Obviously years of Swat Team he had, you know, a similar belt. It's kind of actually what guy him sewing is he had to buy a battle belt and he was too cheap, so he said, I bet I could make one, and that's what got himself. Yeah, so that's how he got into sewing, but ended up making belts for a few different guys. Obviously we've come a long way. This is a three piece belt, so different than what

So yeah, you put well, like everything at FHF always fits together, so you put the belt on. There will be a hybridration bladder that goes on that functions as a backpack. There's a fanny pack thing. There's pockets for pot calls. There's what I call the morel bag.

Yeah, the dump pouch.

There's this dump pouch bag that rolls up to the size of like if you make the okay symbol. You can't really do that. For a long time, people thought you were making a mm hm. Now you remember this that this was real bad to do.

That's still that's still a thing. It's not listening.

Let me tell you something I don't want a name names. Let me tell you.

Something, the turkey call incident.

You can tell us the best story I've ever heard.

Now.

I witnessed it in the height of all the paranoia. Okay about don't say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. We're down in South Carolina and I we're turkey hunt and we're on a dirt road that crosses a railroad track. Okay, there's a stop sign because it's a rail track. I stop, and I see a dude stop coming my way in

Excited because it was a novel, fun thing to witness. I hope I was like.

That gentleman Fellas was holding a turkey call between his thumb and forefinger, and that is why he had to wave that way. During the height of that excitement, too, A dude won three. A dude won three, like, uh jeopardies mm hm. And so they're announcing that he won three jeopardies and instead of going like, when I want to do three, I do like, I guess thumb to pinky, how do you do three?

Yeah? Yeah, it's a whole plot pointing in Gloria's Bastards. The yeah, the three or the three.

Or so he throws a three like he's doing Okay. So they're announcing his name third time champion, and he does this next day in the news White Supremacist. He's like, no, I think it was I won three times? So what was I getting at? Why was I talking about that? There was uh the pouch. Oh yeah, that has nothing to do with that story.

Yeah, you're you're talking about the size of the pouch.

And you I don't know small that if you make a what was formerly known as an okay symbol. You know they still use this in diving. M hmm, some diving. Some his thumbs up, some is okay. So all day long and you're like, there's no white surface, white supremacy. So you make the okay symbol, and this pouch would fit like through the okay symbol, but it rolls out to be like a I don't know the size of an Algeaene bottle. So when you find Morel's, which is what I did, undid it and it's the perfect moral

Oh man, I've left calls laying on the ground, So many times.

I remember calling Doug Darren being like, hey man, you know that one tree way at the bat, Like, can you look onto their front? You go there and learn for my stuff. Uh So that's a good deal. And some of that's out now and some's coming out. It'll kind of roll out right, Yep.

Most of it's out now, just in a couple of colors, and then the rest of it will launch in February. We've got a box call pouch that's launching, the dump pouch that you just talked about, and then a couple other small accessories like suspenders. If you really want to load it up, you can buy suspenders. But the nice thing you can use everything independently.

Oh yeah, and you can tie it into your biny harness if you want. Yeah, absolutely no, it's a sweet system. I use a lot for too. Fishing in the summer, yeah, wading creeks.

That's definitely what I use it for. So we spend a lot of time this fall. We went down to Sedona and did flyfishing, and I worked the whole time. And it was great.

You did fly fishing, yep, went I went fly fishing. I did it. Did that? Anything else we should know about.

Lots of exciting stuff coming in twenty five, so we'll probably start leaking some of that out in the next six months.

Oh, I don't want to show this. Let's say I like this would be available, that'll.

Be out in twenty five, right.

Away, in the future. Yeah, all right, thank you for letting me try one out.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Do we want to get into this now, krin Does it take too long to get into I.

Mean, you can feel free to skip any of the things.

I'm gonna talk about this because we spent a bunch of time on this talk about already we got in a big old argument. Yeah, this will be the end, this will be We're gonna have to bring back that song, Kriinn, we've done beat this horse to death?

Are you going to bring Col's email? While you're at it?

Cal's email?

I remember he got all.

We're talking about this. So we got a little bit of a fight here in the studio one day about the Ornithological Society's decision to rename sixty birds. I felt was obsessive in a in a in a media grab. Nowadays, it's like you just give a quick recap. Nowadays, it's bad form. Have you ever named a species or been involved in naming a species. Carmen, No, no, well, but it's not like you think, like I know people that have got to name them because you know, they split

False?

Is that wild? He works on native bees and deals in which means he deals in the nomenclature of native bees. And he says, I want to start off by saying that the push to not name new species after people, even ones who aren't well known, like Stellar, etc. Is one that's very strongly felt in the scientific community at the moment. And I've been questioned a couple times on some of my species names by people who didn't like the fact I was naming them after folks, presumably not himself.

School.

What'd you say?

I would say, hitler reiah.

No, no, no, no no, the first word.

Oh, and of Thalmas.

Hitlerai Hitlarai. So here we are. He's got a beatle named after him. Uh, And he says, which stands as a testament that scientifically, we don't change names for any reason, no matter how offensive. It's worth noting this is him still talking. It's worth noting However, with this whole situation that the Ornithological Society is in trumpiann ot all Capital is not the authoritative body on nomenclatural acts of animals.

I read the article. It seemed legit.

You'll think pass doing that. No, he had a lot of cases of people trying to say bob kit. Pat does not like that one bit. This is up in your neck of the woods, Carmen, you're ready for this news item? Yeah, US government wants five hundred thousand barred owls. Cold cal told me this, and I thought that cannot be true. But I didn't know that bard owls aren't native to the Pacific Northwest. No, No, those dudes are everywhere now.

Yep. They're kind of like white tails. They can just creep on in and they they do better and can out compete spotted owls.

Yeah, remember the ones at the fish Act.

Yeah, I never ever at our fishack in Salt East Alaska. Never heard them. They're up there ripping all spring of there.

It makes some freaky noises.

Seth will show you do it, Seth, they do the Yeah, well do the main one.

There's a screechy, screaming one too, then.

Seth can rip it. They say.

They sound like a pack of monkeys sometimes, like up in the trees.

I had no idea they weren't from around. I mean, I feel like, like, just anecdotally, if you just said to me, do you hear more barred owls than you used to? I would have said, like, definitely, Yeah, But I never ever knew that they weren't from there.

Yeah, yeah, they're creepers.

So this is the news article from this was covered in Newsweek. I'm not sure where else was covered. The US Fish and wild They Service wants more than a half million barred owls to be shot dead lively language, not just shot my gunfire, not just shot, not just shot and wounded, shot dead in a coal to help protect other native species. These barred owls are an invasive an invasive species in the Pacific northwest from the east coast.

That's where I have a question.

Though.

If something makes its way there naturally.

It's not invasive.

It's not like we dumped them there.

Yeah, this brings up a really interesting language thing, and we've talked about this a million times. That'd be because if you move somewhere on your own, are you invasive? Because you would never say, like like, possums used to not extend outside of the Mason Dixon line, but they do now. But no one says possums are invasive. They just moved. Javelinas have gradually moved northward, but they're not invasive in the northern end of their range in Texas.

I think the spirit of it, though, is that these are species that have have moved into places because of changes in the habitat and the ecology that that humans have brought around.

Yeah.

I get that. That's a good point, indirectly indirect to human Yeah, meaning if a monkey hop down a plane, two monkeys who were in love hop down a plane and started a new population somewhere, you wouldn't go, well, they moved themselves around by hopping out of the plane, you would they would be very readily labeled invasive species. Yeah, so I guess if you're paving the way from them exactly like how white tailed, like how mild you are

I don't know the exact mechanism, but when you get bart owls out of there, if the habitat suitable, you're getting spotted owls back. And this is Yeah, this isn't a new Controlling bart owls isn't a completely new thing. I've got a wonderful friend and colleague and she's a great biologist, total badass, and she her job for a long time was going out hunting bart owls at night.

That's the question shooting to kill?

Yep, that's a quick question I had about this whole thing, because they're planned to kill half a million.

Over Actually we should point out here, Yeah, it's over thirty.

Years, right, because it's like gonna go out and shoot a couple of hundred of them at night. They're like what I read is they call them, they use you know whatever.

Theremore and Clay could have got four or five in Florida calling.

Right, but four or five a night.

Two dudes like going to take that good math. I know, if we get to five hundred thousand, it just yeah, do you know who's who's going to do it? They're going to do it.

Themselves, the government.

Like citizen shooters.

I have no idea. I have no idea. I mean, you you know, you want to trust somebody that they're good at their owl id Right, they're.

About horns, got the northern spots like every owl I saw.

It's a it's a careful operation.

Uh. Long time ago we were having uh we were covering this thing in the news it was it the this involves Dirk and has to do with like whether you could ever give someone You could ever say to someone, kill bar owls, but don't kill all the other owls. But think about what you're saying. Though we were laughing

Yeah, I think that. I mean, I got I have lots of thoughts about invasive species control and all that, and I think it's I'm not an invasive species manager, but I can appreciate what a difficult job that is because on the one hand, you know, crowdsourcing this or using you know, the community to help out, I mean, that's that's an obvious way to get more shit done.

How big is the spotted owl? Same size?

Not the same size? Yeah, I mean, they're not wildly different creatures, you know, it's it's a that's a higher risk, and when you've got a population of owls that is is really low like spotted owls. You want to make sure people are getting it right.

Got it. You're pro big government. Here's a good SEGUEU. What's the most ready way can you be? In a links researcher, you have to have a lot of people who tell you they saw links. Yes, and it's a bobcat.

Yeah.

I was dogging on my sister. I was dogging on camera guys a minute ago about that dude holding the turkey call. So I don't want to dog on them again. So I'll tell you that I can't remember what type of person does happened to. There's one of these types of people. I can't tell you what type. Swear always swears me up and down about the links he saw and just by where it was. I'm like, no, you just didn't. It had toughs on its ears. I'm like it did, but not that kind.

The way I handle that is I hate bursting people's bubbles, and so I try to do it pretty gentle. Plus, links go weird places, and when there's invasions of links, or one has gotten kicked out of its its own home range because it's an old links or whatever, they end up in strange.

But they do. Oh yeah, so maybe this guy's right.

There's always a chance, And so I will usually say something.

Like, I know you're out there. If you took offence, i'd take it back.

I would say something like for where that was, I would be very surprised. But links go weird places, you never know. So that's pretty.

Cool, that's what you'll say. Yeah, you'll throw them a little bone.

Yeah, yeah, And because I keep the dream alive exactly, Yes, I don't want to be a dream smasher.

I've laided my eyes on one LINX. I know it was a link because it was in the Arctic.

Yes, that's pretty solid.

It was just on the south slope of the Brooks Range. It stepped out into the pipeline road and twenty feet off the bumper, and it was like looking into another planet. It was the first links I saw. I'm convinced I was the first person it saw. It looked at me with like uttered, like disinterest, but also no sort of preconceived notion of what that I might be trouble as I opened the door and then he just walked off. Never that has on another one.

That's pretty special.

How many people for the one?

Yeah?

I don't know if I'll get to see another one, but that was the one I saw, and it was it was like they have a face like it's like they have a human baby face.

That's funny. I always say they have an old man face the same.

You know, Phil lost it. It was one of my favorite things I owned. Phil lost it. I used to have responsibility. I used to have this quote. It was framed in our old studio. You might have read it. It was a guy talking about on seeing his children born. It was an Irish writer talking about and seeing his children born that when they come out, how ancient they are.

The same page.

Human babies come out, they look like crazy old men for a couple of seconds. What else are you looking at when you're looking, Just to verify, when someone says, oh my.

God, a Lynx, the feet they got kind of a jacked up back end, meaning that their their butts are a little higher than.

Their Now you say that, that's a good point.

Yeah, and then they're there are tails, so bobcats. The tip of the of a bobcat tail is black on top and the sides and then white underneath, whereas a bobcat it's like their tail was back or sorry, a lynx is dipped in ink like it's black all the way around on the tip yet white. Okay, bobcat white on the bottom links the end of their tail completely black all the way around. No white on the bottom.

Oh, I mean if he turned his tail up, yeah.

Or if you can you can see it from the side, even on a bobcat, that's that's one of the.

Under So the underside of a lynx's tail.

Okay, yeah, if you're saying about a lynx's tail and there's the tip of it and the top of it and sides are are black there, but on the bottom.

Is white on a lynx.

Nope, bobcat, you'll get it. You'll get it.

No, I'll get there. Okay, let's start with a bobcat. Tell me about a bobcat's tail. Bobcat's tail and people know, just so you know, people, this is helpful people that send us in photos wondering what they're looking at.

This is a good one for photos.

Bobcat, it has a It means it's a cat with Bob's tail.

Yes, which a links also has a.

Has a bobtail. So Bobcat's tail looks like this.

Looks like this black. Okay, we're talking about the end of the tail, a tip of the tail. It's black on top, white on the bottom.

And I wouldn't have been able to tell you that that mean I've handled him, and I wouldn't be able to tell you that's true. I believe I just never looked.

At Yeah, and so even from the side, So if you're looking at trail camera pictures and you can see the tail, this is really really helpful because you'll see some white on a bobcat. Even from the side, you can you can see that the bottom is white, whereas a lynx, the entire end of the tail looks like it was dipped into black ink.

No kidding, Yeah, just funny about links is I want you to talk about the range of links. But are you familiar with the comedian Jerry Klower. He's dead. No, he was a storytelling He used to get up at the Grand Old Opry between musical acts and tell hunting stories. Different time. He has a story about a guy that uh, he has a story about Some of his characters are out raccoon hunting that night in Mississippi, Okay, and there's a guy they're hunting with who won't let anyone shoot.

Okay, I'm gonna say no, But here's the name.

That always bothered me because everything with Klour is so precise. I think he meant to say a mountain lion.

You know what. I bet you wasn't because in Durkin's article he lists a bunch of common names, like semi common names for bobcats, and there was a couple of different versions of Lincoln.

But Clower says this, but it wasn't no coon. This is a quote, but it wasn't no coon. It was a lynx, a souped up wildcat.

I'm just telling you. They had like some Southern Yeah, it was like vernacular kind of names for that's God.

This was all my faith back into Clower.

Yeah, you can have that back, because that's one of the difficult things about figuring out the historic range of Links in the lower forty eight We're relying on trapping records, and people were not consistent with calling bobcats bobcats and links links. There'd be Linx cat and you know, yeah.

You'll sometimes look at Mark Ferbear market reports and I'll see links cat. Yeah, that means a bobcat or lynx.

I'm not sure. People, it's this common name thing, right, people can call them whatever they want.

Kind of what's the most southern links that's like confirmed that you're aware of.

Now, Yeah, Colorado maybe down into Utah every once in a while, but like as a resident population Colorado.

Let's say European contact. Huh, let's say a good stab where Oh yeah, like give me a good stab. Okay, Yeah, so the distribution is it isn't changed.

Remarkably, right, Yeah, we don't think the distribution has changed much. It's just how many animals are in those spots.

Density has changed. Yeah, got it. So they'll follow the rock he's down into Colorado, maybe Utah. By the time you get into how far into Canada are they across the whole top of Canada.

Not much further north than the border. Oh, across all of Canada.

Yeah, you gotta get way up or.

I no, you don't have to get well wherever there's boreal forest, that's what they are. So you know in places like Alberta, where there's there's more prairie and stuff like that, they're not going to be down in that. But they get pretty ubiquitous in the boreal forest.

Yep.

I've read that the boreal forest is the largest biome on Earth.

Yep. It's a cool space.

Yeah. Uh, lay out the work you work layout where in what work you're doing right now currently?

Okay, with just a LYNX project. Okay, So let's see, we're starting on year two of of our field effort, uh for our LINX and wildfire project. So in in the lower forty eight we were just talking about their distribution. There's five resident populations of Links. There's Washington, there's Idaho, Montana, there's Minnesota and Maine, and then Colorado.

Minnesota has lynks. Yeah you know that Brony I did not You got that wrong.

Yeah, are to have the NBA team, isn't it the Minnesota Lynx?

Yeah? But the Michigan Wolverines.

Dude, but it makes I mean you think about that North Country stead They got fishers and Martin not a spruce forest, and they got links there.

Yeah.

So in Minnesota, don't lie, no, doctor, Ana. I didn't even know Maine had them.

Yeah, good population.

Maine had Caribo until the nineteen twenties.

There's a I think the furthest North City or town Town in Maine is called Caribou. It could be wrong.

Mm hm, anyway, I don't know that good job.

I want to hear some common Bobcat names.

Bobcat or Lynx names.

Bobcat well like vernacular names Lynx Rufus.

Well Link Rufus, scientific.

Include bay Linx Bard, Bobcat, Catamount, Cat of the Mount, Lynx Cat, Pallid, Bobcat, red Linx Wildcat, and shot Savage.

When they get into those lists, I feel like they're starting to throw in stuff that some dude said once.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm just saying Klower was.

Yeah, I'm back to love and clour. Anyone interested in Jerry Klower? Besides listening to Jerry Klower, you could go listen to the Bear Grease episodes about Jerry Klower. He's one of my favorite people. My kids like Jerryklower. You never heard Jerry Klower? Go type up? Will you promise me something? Type up? Jerry Klower A coon hunting story that's the one that has the Lynx cat in it. All right, Brooklyn track and all this. Yeah, how would you get how would you if you had one on

It like six?

All right?

That's that's a reliable That's what you need around man, someone that gets it to you straight. Yeah, because you can see her being yeah, you can see her being like oh yeah nine and being in your head like yeah right, she might have been like three, but I can't say that. No, it's encouraging. There's room for improvement, but we're not as bad as it could be. Yeah right, Okay, I didn't know that. I mean it's like, like, do you have rough ideas? Oh, you were doing the five

So in Washington, our our links range is is interesting because we've got the North Cascades. Yeah, and they quickly start to transition into more southerly forest types. Links rely on snowshe hears, there's predator. Eighty five to ninety percent of their diet is snowshoe hairs. That's what they're built for. That's that's what makes them different from from bobcats. And big part is there.

You sent me the coolest photo of brand new snowshoe hair tracks. Oh yeah, both of them run.

Yeah, that is that is their thing is there. They rely on snowshoe hairs, and they've snowshoe hairs. Obviously because of their name. Uh, we all know that they've got those big feet and that makes them able to get around in these deep snow environments. Links same thing. It's like the armswar thing. They've they've evolved with big giant muppet feet and they're they're really light framed and they can just walk on the snow same way, so they they're like built to pursue snowshoe hairs and live in

Oh?

Absolutely, How many links are in Washington there? I mean, no one knows, nobody in thousands?

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, around sixty maybe, yeah, it's bad, it's really really bad.

Sixty in the state. And then and I know we're a lot of secret, but I when to revisit something Washington, and you said Idaho, Montana, Okay, and that that's what not thousands?

Hundreds, maybe hundreds in Minnesota. I don't. I don't know about Minnesota. Main is hundreds as well, hundreds. But all you know, all.

Of these you're the population you're toying with. Is it's sub one hundred?

Yes, it's We're.

How certain are you that it's sub one hundred?

Mmmm?

On a scale of one to five.

Four and a half. But I like to be optimistic. Maybe we've got one hundred.

But you don't have three hundred.

We don't have three hundred.

No, no, And if you go back twenty five years, how many are you talking about, Like, what's the.

Reasons get really sketchy on estimates. Yeah, it's not a lot, it's maybe, Oh, I know, I've read this summer somewhere maybe maybe between one hundred and fifteen two hundred.

Sure, So.

When a fire happens in one of the like the snowshoe hair population just gets nuked, is it like an immediate precipitous decline for the bobcat, I mean for the Lynx or like are they such specialists they can't like adjust and be like I'm going to go after squirrels or I'm going to go after birds or whatever.

Yeah, So the the I think the answer is it kind of depends. So when a fire burns. So for example, two thousand and six was our first big burn. It was called the Tripod Burn, and it burned most of what was considered the best links habitat that we had in Washington and that let's see, the winter following that burn, we started or a Lynx project started, and we got callers out on cats that were living right adjacent to that burn. And what we found was that it's just

Presume a lot burn up, right, I.

Think less animals burn up than we think, really. I mean, yeah, I mean you were able to.

But like take something like pine squirrels, there's no way pine squirrels are getting away from a fire.

I think they've got some time. I have found burned up pine squirrel so, but I.

Think links are just moving ahead of it instead.

Yeah, I think so. I think they'd have to get cornered or trapped.

That's interesting.

Yeah. I did have a friend find a how he described it was barbecued cougar after a big fire that we had. It got trapped in a little canyon. But I don't think they're burning up. I think they're getting out of there. They've they've evolved with fire.

Have you found like other things links have killed, like deer or do they feed on they cannibalize themselves or like, have you found anything that was surprising?

Right, I haven't found anything surprising. They'll eat so Litstene. Let me back up. They rely on snowshoe hairs to the point where there's this sort of classic ecology lesson that in the northern part of their their range, where there's lots of snowshoe hairs and lots of links, there's a cycle where links slightly lagging behind snowshoe hairs. Population numbers will increase as snowshoe hairs increase, and then as snowshoe hairs start to decrease, links start decreasing. And so

Great friends friends in Alaska to have told me who trap links have told me that it's almost immediate the boom buss that goes along with snow because like down here we don't have the snowshoe hair cycles.

Right, they're they're either you know, just we're kind of at a constant low or just really dampened amplitude.

We don't have those like the insane swings, right, have you ever seen that stuff where they went through Hudson Bay Company links records and they're able to see a seven your swing on how many links pelts the Hudson Bay Company was dealing with, like in the seventeen hundreds, eighteen hundreds whatever, and they're able to kind of correlate that to the to the calculating population yep.

Yeah, And so that's those fur records are where sort you know, people started to notice, oh, this isn't like a steady, perfectly balanced ecology here. You know, things things fluctuate, and so the yeah, the cycles about every tennis years booms and bus and so anyway, that's just to illustrate how reliant on snowshoe hair's links are and.

They're chasing them in the summer when there's no snow. Yeah, they still the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. When there's a low, they will rely more on red squirrels. And so there is some of that, but it's it's it's rarely a significant part of their area.

I've seen that. It was a fairly viral video of a links killing a caribou.

It's wild.

Oh, it's cool. I think it might be in Europe though.

There's a there's a record of one killing a there's a record of a lynx killing a doll sheet. Oh really, yeah, a witness.

In North America in Alaska.

It was in a book by a bilegist from fair who's at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks for a book. And then there's a person watched it happen.

Oh, that's cool. There's I've never seen it, but there are records of you know, a big links, which when I say big, I mean like thirty thirty one pounds taking down a deer if it's you know, mired and snow or something like that, held back by the snow, but really it's snowshoe hairs or where it's at for them.

Yeah, everybody knows, like bears eat honey dying now and then besides honey, yeah no, no, no, eat your buck sheet, they like honey.

Yeah. Yeah.

So back to the fires. Links are listed as threatened all across the lower forty eight. In Washington, they're listed by the state is endangered, and that's in large part because of this blow up of fires that we've had, and so what we're trying to do because it's really it's a whole paradigm shift of what we think we

That, can you describe bore So it's.

More ubiquitous up in Canada and Alaska. It's that that spruce and fir lodge pole pine forest that's you know, in mountains. It's sort of that that sub alpine right before you get at a tree line. Yeah, it's it's that ecosystem that spruce f like you'd see up in Alaska or Canada.

Here and there you'll see aspens, which doesn't rule out sure, yeah, it doesn't rule out it being boreal forests.

Right right right? Where was I going with that? Oh, boreal forest we think about, Okay, a forest, we can picture a forest, but with we can think a little more thoughtfully about that and realize that there's all different structure types within that. So what I mean by that is there's little short regenerating forests, there's you know, older

So in your time out there, you've seen a difference.

Oh yeah, big time. Yeah, yeah, Okay. One of the cool things we're seeing now is right after the burn, when we had those GPS callers on cats back in two thousand and six, seven eight, there were cats that were living right next to the burn, and if there were nice places in that burn that had skipped fire skips, so places where the burn went around for whatever reason,

They'll find those spots.

They'll find those spots. But those spots in the immediate aftermath of a fire where were places like fire skips, and they'd they'd preferentially use lighter area burns, you know, where there was still some live tree, just a little bit of cover to get to those spots. I mean you've probably tried.

You like to have overhead cover.

They like to have something. If you've ever followed any kind of cat tracks, they are so meticulous about hugging cover. They'd really rather not be out in the open. I think that's I mean, I don't know what a cat's thinking.

How big is their home range?

That really varies.

Probably like how much food is around exactly.

So in Washington from our previous collaring, we had home ranges that were as small as like seven square miles all the way up to you know, ninety or one hundred square miles.

They can be bigger. I mean that that a male female thing. Largely the personalities.

Males tend to be have larger because I want to overlap several females. But it's also what how much space, how much habitat do I need to make a living? So the you know, the theory is if the habitat is less PRODUCTI if you're gonna need more of it, you're gonna have to cover more ground.

So one snowshoe hair paradise, he doesn't need to.

Go right, It could be a really small home range.

Did you see that study years ago, maybe five or six years ago, I don't know if you call it a study, but this observation from some years ago where there's guys looking at They used to these researchers used to wonder about rivers and how links related to rivers, thinking that big rivers like the Tannana right in Alaska, that the tan and aw would be an obvious barrier for links. But they'll swim back and forth across that thing. There's not much that they had come up in those areas, dudes.

Yeah, they those things scooped. They will go long distances, they'll disperse long distances.

And no one ever sees them.

Well now I'm about callers on those.

No I'm saying, but it's like when you see that, like how could you never see? What I mean? I think of them always tolled up with some little thicket because you just go your whole life and don't lay eyes on sure.

Sure, yeah, I mean they when they in my experience, unless you, you know, sort of come up right on them and you jump them, they'll just stand there and kind of look at you and hunker down. And it's it's really easy to miss.

Them, so you you've approached them wearing the collar. When you've approached your collared cats.

Not the ones that we have collared right now, but just being out there so much, have come across a lot of links, I mean a lot for seeing a link.

So you okay, this is outside of ones that you've caught, and outside the ones that you were guided to because you knew where they were because they have a collar on. You've bumped into links?

Yeah?

How many times?

I don't know a handful of times I bumped into them? Yeah, I bumped into collared links, not using the telemetry, not trying to, but bumped into them. I summer before last, I had a cool sighting where I was. I was hiking into the wilderness to scout for deer season, and I got to our camp and looked up and there was a links jumped away. Yeah. It was very cool and it was actually no, no, it was actually special too because this was in I was in a new Burn area, but I was in a fire skip and.

Scouting for deer and there you saw one. Nothing to do with your research, no, No, yeah yet.

Positive, I got I got the rear view and I saw that tale.

Yeah, so you know what you're looking at in an area where they got plenty of food, Like, what's a good lifespan? Like if they don't have some unfortunate thing.

Yeah, maybe seven years, seven or eight years.

Yeah, how are you guys trapping them?

This is good?

Yeah, so this is this is what I like.

Can you put in whether Mercer Longing ever told you anything helpful?

We've been talking a lot.

Yeah, he gets excited about catching cat.

Oh yeah, no, Yeah, it's fun to talk with him because we both do.

Yeah, lay it out how you catch one?

Okay, let's see. So, like I said, there are maybe sixty in Washington. Our study area is I don't know, maybe one hundred thousand acres. So that's a lot of space.

How many are in that study area? If you had to take a ballpark.

If I had to take a ballpark, I mean last year this time when I was on the podcast, we hadn't started trapping, and I would have been hopeful that there were maybe four.

Or five in one hundred thousand acres.

Yeah. Now that we've got some links on air and spent you know, I've spent three months tracking them out in that landscape. We know our collared links are content tray to what we thought might be happening, making their

God instead of just ducking in there now and then exactly, So one hundred thousand acres. Yeah, and you're going to take a You're going to take a like, do you can do this too? You can be I'd be surprised if it was more than what.

Okay, I'd be surprised if it was more than sixteen, but I'd be surprised if it was less than.

Nine, because you guys trapped your asses off from collegn trapped.

We caught four in two months, and then we got a bonus cat this fall, which was super exciting. Well, okay, so I'll explain how we normally trap. So this is what we're doing to our official season, and this was how I was tied to traplinks and have how I've always done it. It's snowmobiling. Every single day we're out there, we're riding around one hundred miles a day. We're covering ground and we're we're looking for tracks. You get really

You know what you want to.

See exactly, and you start getting you know, an idea of all right, I see tracks here regularly, or I see and and they're crossing you know, a saddle here, or crossing down a drainage here, crossing the road here, or they're just using this road as a corridor, or maybe this is good habitat, and you can see where they're hunting along. They like to use roads, and then they'll they'll sort of pop over to the edge of

Yeah, glue to the mouse trap bail.

It's not quite that bad. The loop goes over the arm of the mouse trap so that when you set the trap, it's it. It doesn't make it go off. The the the door is being held up by the rope that is being held in place by the set trap, and when linx or a bird or anything hits that that trip line, it pulls the cheese down. Trap goes off, releasing the door and it drops.

Is that door weighted so it drops quick?

It weighs enough just because it's got that metal frame. Okay, Yeah, Everything in the design of our trap is also geared towards really making sure our animals are safe. So we don't want a super heavy door that should it go off early, it could. Yeah.

Yeah, what what what are you baiting and luring with?

Oh, we're using all kinds of different lures, but I like to have Well, let's see, we're using road killed deer. And the reason we're using road killed deer is that it's usually readily available right now we're hurting for bait. We are desperate.

Well, not beaver meat.

I've used that in the past, and I love using that because it's got a nice smell, but our state vet advises not to just in case of disease transfer.

And so we're we're using We're going to get in and eat that bait.

Exactly, and so yeah, so I use that for yeah, deer meat. So we're constantly on the lookout for roadkill. We've got a whole routine.

I think every better roadkill.

Oh yeah, well we've but we've got our whole community is looking out for us because we're we posted it everywhere. We're desperate because like here in Bozeman, we haven't gotten a ton of snow, so the deer haven't all pushed down to the valley bottom.

You ever find anyone who's a little too good at getting meat I have, I don't know. I just let the other one jumped out in front of my truck.

No, we're getting so desperate that I'm like, good people, they need to drive faster something. Yeah, so we're we get calls right now and right now we're doing We're desperate. We're going at any time of the day because it is cut throat right now.

We've had competition.

Oh my god, we've had calls where somebody's like fresh road killed corner of blah blah blah, this creek. We zoom down there and it's gone. People are salvaging for the meat.

And so there's so few of the researchers out there.

Well, there are some other researchers that we're that we're competing with. They're a wolverine project. We've got to compromise though. They can have the head because that's not super meaty. But they like that for the wolverines because they can't just a little more of a puzzle and they have to work harder to get it that so it lasts longer.

I was going to ask that, like what other predators are in the area that might be attractor of those like wolverines.

Yeah, bye, catch for sure, but let her finish the bait. And I want to get the bobcatch by caatch using flagging. Oh yeah, CDs wings, what do you use?

Let's see, so we always do a little a little eye catch. I've used CDs. I like what we usually use now just because it's super easy. Is that flashing bird tape for like you put up in an orchard. You just hang a little of that. It flutters in the breeze. Really nice.

You know someone told me recently drives them crazy, bobcats crazy? Is uh. He takes peacock feathers. This guy lives in a state where you can't use game bird parts. He takes peacock feathers and sticks them just in because it's got that iridescence and the way they blow, he says, like a magnet. You picture that little eye, that eye shape on a peacock feather, just flickering in the breeze. Says, it's like irresistance. They got to come. What they wonder what that thing is?

Well, we got new this year some little I think there must be Christmas decorations or something. But it's shaped like an icicle, but it spins, so it's flashy and it spins.

Try those turn you on to a new product, you might like, Oh please do are you aware? Tom Miranda and someone else they make this thing that you're not they're not legal here. It's a mouse emitter, a mouse noise squeaker. Have you tried squeak?

Got squeakers? Got squawkers? When you've got nine maybe ten links some ten thousand acres that you're trying to catch. Oh yeah, big time.

Do you ever worry that gets a little too busy around your set?

Yeah, yeah I do.

Are using a commercial lure too, Yep.

We buy lures so the because to use for lure. We've got all kinds of stuff because but but I always like to have because we're using deer, I like to have some castor in there. And then to appeal to you know, territory reality or breeding. We've got you know, squeez bottles of Lynx p cat nippy stuff. We've got

But huh, it can be. You're all you're like, you're like all checked out. Oh my god, there's nothing you know all the like all the I just hear all like I'll talk to cat trap bobcat trappers and this is all stuff they bring up. So it's funny that you're like, onto all these.

Oh yeah, a little a little skunk is good.

But we.

That you can just you can order all these things online and it's usually not a problem. But the gusto you can smell. And I did have the post office once. Be like, hm, next time you order that, it'll be on the back porch. You're gonna have to go around for.

That if you want. I have it here in the parking lot, and I'll happily give it to you. I have a bottle of skunk essence and beaver castor blank together to fly or drive.

I flew, Yeah, we had. We get so used to the smell that we don't smell it.

But oh, you know what, can I can I tell you something real quick that I didn't mention? How do I miss this? Krinn? We were recently telling a story about the world's greatest tsa agent who instead to stealing people's knives, we couldn't tell where what states happens in. Instead of stealing people's knives, she instructs them to put them in the drop ceiling of the bathroom. And someone went up there to get their knife back and there

You find yourself just standing around.

Watching us for a while. I mean, I'm annoyed. But there used to be this person called like Eva Menendez or something. I should tell you how to make like get like a jar and put some marbles in there for decoration or whatever, and then or how to not be so stressed out. But today it was some dude telling happy news. It's called good news.

I've just never noticed that there was a I've never paid enough attention to notice that it's.

All good news. It's called good news.

I've just never paid enough attention.

We scooped him because this would be good news about the guy's ammo, that's all. Yeah, this reminds me of that sure you taking my skunk sent home?

Yeah, it could be probably remind me of that.

You don't want to do that. Well, I mean, you know that thing that happened in the Laska Airlines flight there night.

I heard about that as I was.

They have to ground all them planes.

Yeah, we we have an official office now right in downtown. Winthrop was just the town we live in, and we were told we needed to put the the gusto outside because you walk in and it smells like straight up a hot box.

How do you get links? You're in F and T or so it must be trappers up in the far North.

So yeah, I guess.

So we got all as a bottle of links. You're in really expensive.

It's not well in the mounts that we're using it. It adds up.

It's gonna be like a really limited supply.

I don't know how limited is. Yeah, I don't know.

See, buy it comes in a bottle.

Comes in a bottle. Gotta make sure. They often don't have good lids, and so we everything usually smells.

Like the piece here, uh huh.

And yeah, so we've got score bottles of that. Mix a little glitcering so it doesn't freeze.

You need to do that.

Yeah that's good.

I got some glitier on my counter.

Keeps freezing, Yeah, it does.

It keeps it from freezing. Yeah. Yeah.

Like let's say you got you know how they sell that. Your pea comes in those bottles like, yeah, ten ounces? How much glister are you putting there?

I don't know. No, No, you just buy it and you can mix it up.

I'm saying, how much glister do you shoot in there?

Oh?

I have a tablespoon.

No more than that, I don't Yeah, just depend you just yeah, I don't know the other.

So you go to a trappers supply house and buy glitcering too?

You can, Yeah, you can order it.

I have a bottle. I'm just curious how you guys do.

Oh yeah, we just order it.

Do they ever wonder what you guys are doing when you're ordering all this equipment?

No, but we order enough that they write us nice notes and give us free hats.

And stuff, and they're never like why are you do you know you're not? Did they never let you know? Like you know you're not allowed to trap links where you're at?

Like, does you know we're trapping links? I mean they do you use F and T or Minnesota trap line?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah. We just go on there and try new things and all those I'm such a sucker, all those descriptions, you're like, this is the magic bullet they make them.

You'll read those lure descriptions.

Oh yeah, and they all feel like this is the one. I'm a total sucker. So we got all kinds of yeah, exactly, I'm like, great, that's what I need. So we've got all of our lures and we try to change those up. But yeah, always a caster, some pe or links.

Glands are using cameras on your traps too.

We uh, sometimes not very often. We're just beating cheeks and running a gun and so much out there that we it would the camera to Yeah, and.

You probably don't have cell service anyway, so you can sell you their cas and do you get links that work the set? But just never committed.

Oh that's the norm.

Really, Oh my god, what do they want to do?

Not go in the cave?

They'll circle down wind or they'll even come up to the door or what like, what's the hang up for him?

Various things? I mean, they'll let's see, for example, we had a cat last year that we could not catch. We tried everything, We threw all sorts of things at him. We you know, just just different variations in our sets. And he would often twice a day, so we'd come on the line in the morning, there'd be fresh tracks of him walking by the traps. You could tell he was spending enough time around there that he was checking them,

So he knew that that thing was bad news.

Yeah, And I like to so when we we we put our trap in the snow, we s you know, we pack snow around it. I like to make sure there's plenty of snow in the bottom so they're not feeling that chicken wire or anything funky. And then we put boughs along the side just to give that sort of tunnel look kind of you know, like a cat likes a paper bag or something that's gonna be sort of exciting, but it also just keeps snow from blowing in and piling up in your trap, gives them a

We not even stopping. He just comes through but then takes off.

Yeah, like he's just walking by, maybe looks at it, but keeps going. And he was driving us nuts. I got a little obsessed. And he would. Then we'd go out to the rest of our line, be out all day, be coming back, and there'd be fresh tracks. One of our a couple, oh yeah, a couple of our trappers saw him just sauntering down the road right by one of our traps. Never could get him. That brings me to our bonus cat. This fall, we had maybe a little bit of a vanditta and we were like Moby Dick.

Cable it through the bone.

Yeah, I didn't want because bears were still out. I didn't want somebody dragging it off. So I staked that sucker down. Then I set a trap maybe six feet away. Not the door was tied open, it was just there and ready to go. So the idea was a Links could come start nibbling on that bait, get a little taste for what we've got, and get used to the trapp being there. And we had a camera on it. So I set four of those stations in this area

Mature cat.

Oh, beautiful, biggest cat we've caught in Washington.

He was thirty one.

No, he was a beautiful, just really nice cat. I mean, just holding him, he wasn't that old, maybe three to five. It's really hard. We age him just based on how much where they have on their teeth, but it's it's rough. It's really hard to tell. But he wasn't an old grandpa by any means. Put a collar on him and he's out and about.

Did he just get the hell out of town when you let him go?

No?

No, he So we let him go. He jumped out of the trap and then just stopped and then just sauntered off.

But his ass is never going back in a trap.

Now, well, here's the thing. The first links will and and other animals too, will get trap happy where they realize, Okay, I can yeah, exactly, I can go in that trap, get a pound or two of free meat. They'll come and let me go in the morning. So we had the first no they I mean, it's it makes sense. The first hat that we caught.

I imagine how scary it's got to be. A person shows up.

It's worth it, apparently. I mean, that's a lot of meat, and it's there every night, and if you let them out early, they can go to another trap for that afternoon. We've had that happen.

Like that.

That cat was real hard to catch. Is there are other cats you've just caught over and over again.

Right, So the first one you can't keep away, right right.

The first links that we caught last winter, he was like that. He he was his personality was such that he was just not as cautious and he went right in the trap. I think probably the first time he saw one of our traps, he went in. He ate the bait. We came the next morning, we processed him, We let him go and I don't remember how long later, but he figured it out and then from then on, it was almost every morning he'd be in a trap

It was something might happen to him eventually.

Right, Well, I guess there's could be some risk of that, but we're really careful. But he was, I mean, he was just banging up our trap line and because he's collecting data now, so he was he was ruining his data. Yeah, if we run an analysis, would be like, well link

We know he's just going to be, oh, he'll just plug it all up.

Yeah, exactly.

Have you ever Okay, there's by there's bycatch, So I want you to do bycatch, I want you to do what the different says you see and how these things move and what they're doing once you get a collar on them. There's a thing I want to ask.

I want to know what they got to worry about, like as far as oh.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. So bycatch, how they're acting. And then when you get them, when you get a collar on, they die. Where are they dying from?

Yeah?

Do you have collared right now?

We have three on air?

Okay, on air collared.

Collared callers are functioning. They're giving us data. Yeah, so where did you get the first one?

By catchy catch, it all turns up in your traps.

We get a lot of Grade.

J's still walking area.

Oh yeah. And then once they find a trap, they can be kind of a pest. But that that is one of the drawbacks of our trigger system, that mouse trap system, is that it's so sensitive that uh, you know, a Grade J goes in there and they're setting the trap off. Weasels go in there, certainly, but they can get out. There's enough, you know, they can just squeeze out.

They throw the door first.

Sometimes they're also so short they often go under under the trip line. We got ssh hairs I've.

Had after just whatever.

Well, they'll eat the boughs off of our traps, but they also just it's a little hiding spot, so they'll go in there. I've caught a snowshoe hair in a trap and then it was just being circled by a lynx trying to get it. Yeah, so that is that makes me want to vomit.

Yeah, that's a rough night, man. Yeah, so did you add him to the bait pile? Did you let him go?

We let him go? Yeah, let's see. But more exciting by catch. We caught a bobcat last year, which I was surprised it didn't break out of that trap because.

They're That was what Mercer was saying, because he's used to bobcats. I remember he was saying when I first connected you guys, he was saying that he was worried that that wouldn't hold them, and you were saying, well, links are chill compared, like they don't fight the trap.

Right, Yeah, and I so bombcats and links are pretty pretty different personalities for lack of a better word, where bobcats are just like go them flying demons, because especially in like a foothold, they are just going nuts. Their stress response is the fight or flight, and in a box trap, you know, they're all over the place and they'll I've had a bust out of you know, manufactured all metal traps.

They put a collar on the bobcat you caught, no want that.

Links tend to go into freeze as their stress response. They'll they'll test the walls of the trap a little bit, but they're not they're not working hard on getting out, and so they'll tend to just sort of hunker down a little bit more in the trap. So that's why we can use these traps. I would not use them for any other type of cat.

Wolverine's gonna be out of there in a second.

Yeah, a fisher would be out of there in a second.

Have you caught those?

We actually did so we you know.

We're almost caught one or whatever.

Well, I've caught them a lot links trapping in other areas in Maine. Here very surprising because we don't have technically on the east slope of the Cascades in our area a population of fisher. But we did catch one. Luckily it wasn't in one of our chicken wire traps. We were borrowing some some manufactured traps and it was in one of those, so that was pretty exciting.

Definitely, Not what about Martin.

I have caught lots of Martin. Either we're not catching Martin in our traps or they're getting out. I think we're not catching them because again we're in a burned area, so there's not a ton of Martin.

Got you.

Yeah, Yeah, let's see other by catch that's red foxes. Nope, we also barely if any have those no coyotes, no a cane, it is going to be they're not They do not want to go into a box trap. They're way too wary.

They might pass through, but they're not going to put their head in there.

Yeah. Yeah, I've had now bobcat trapping I've had I've had cougars go into the traps, but they're so big that the doorge just falls on their butt. Yeah, and they just back out. But they can be a problem.

And you're doing most of you're trapping after the bears have denned up, so they're not trash in your traps.

Yeah, that's a big part of why we trap in winter, so we're not having to deal with that now this fall. I was willing to sacrifice a trap or two if if we were going to catch this, We're going to catch this links.

So what are you seeing on like anything surprising and how they're used, how far they're going, or like that you let them go and they kind of hang out in the immediate vicinity, they go to the next state, or what do they do.

I mean, what's been surprising to me is like I said that they're not moving that far, that they're making home ranges entirely within this burn and so far, I mean it's we only have three you know cats on air, but so far they are not giant home ranges, which could indicate that it's decent habitat. They're not having to go super far. This this burn is big enough that as we sort of move our trap line north, maybe the conditions are different up there and maybe it won't

When do they rout what's their previous season.

Uh, March February and then they have kittens May June.

Have you maybe probably doesn't work. If you had a female and then at that time and you knew where they were, it might be plausible that there'd be like multi like more males in that area. Or is that not that that's not something really factors in.

Oh, like if we see she's like a.

Jewdas, she winds up being like a Judas animal, right like that with her, you know that in her zone there's gonna be cats coming through.

Yeah, I mean they all move so much. If I knew where a female was, I'd certainly be setting traps there anyway, because we want to get female cats on air.

You want to have males, all males on air right now?

Yeah, yeah, right now. The males are more apt to go in a trap in general.

In general, So, have you had any cats get immortality signal? Have you had any cats die while while collared?

Yeah? And that was a bummer because it was the one female that we caught last year. So we caught a female and it was a really cool handling. It was just you know how some times when you're hunting, there's there's a deer you get that just feels special because of everything around it, the scenery, the day, the whatever. This was kind of one of those those moments with this cat. We we caught this female lynx and she had a kitten with her, and this was in March.

It's almost the kittens outside of the trap.

It's outside of the females in Yeah. And so I was right in my snowmobile checking the line, checking the line, and I'm looking up at the next trap and I just see it wiggle a little bit, and I just jam on the brakes and I go up there and there's this female links in the trap and I can see kitten footprints around it where he's been, you know,

This making what noise.

It's like a little sort of bird, little.

Make the noise. I'll do it till I get it.

Right, Okay, No more like uh, we're like yeah, got it now. They make some real ugly noises. This was probably one of the cuter noises they make, but in general, no, in general, they sound like they're throwing up or something. They kind of make this yowling demon noise, the cornered Nope, just talking to each other.

You hear it?

Yeah, okay, yeah, anyway.

So hit me with the demon noise. It's like that, oh is that right? Like that that weird?

It's weird. It's not. It's not a cute cat noise.

Like someone wouldn't be like that must be a lynx.

No, you'd be like, what was that. There's some some cool YouTube where you can hear them.

Okay, yeah, uh.

Anyway, So I'm sitting there, I'm alone with this, with this cat. I'm at a distance. We like to try and keep them as calm as we can because it just it's a better experience for them. The drugs works better, everything just goes better if they're calm. So I'm a distance away. But it's this cold, beautiful, snowy high mountain day, this sort of meadow with a creek in it, and then these you know, trees and burnt trees along the

You just for the audience, can you go like quick rundown of what processing is?

Stretchy.

So, when we're handling any wildlife species, it's our professional responsibility and our our ethics to do it in the most humane way possible.

And you're dealing with you're dealing with a feederally, yeah, threatened.

Speed exactly, And so we baseline whenever, no matter what species we're trapping, we have a really high bar for how we do things and how we try to minimize stress and obviously minimize risk and all of that because it's I.

Interrupted real quest. A friend of mine was doing doc banding, and I don't want to tell you who said this, but he was doing doc banding and his boss told him, if you're not killing birds, you ain't working hard enough. That's doc I was going to tell you that in

To be some Yeah, I mean I think I get the gist of what he was saying. But I think there's a little bit of a tide change.

No, no, I'm not giving you professional advice, was I was just observing that.

I was just remarking on that and standing up for the wildlife profession. I think that we're getting a little as we're getting more thoughtful yeah about these things and refining techniques. So anyway, we have a really high bar of how we do things and animal safety and all this. So everything we do is geared around minimizing stress. So when we do a handling, it's it's all whispering, it's it's all reading the cat's body language, using our body

That when you a little bit yep.

You you wait until the cat's in the right position. You want to get it ideally in the it's butt right and it's haunched and that meat there, and you just you slowly bring it in the trap and you just poke it in the butt and just push a little bit and that's it.

And what's that drug.

We are using a mix of ketamine and metatomitine. So what that does is the but you don't want to use your straight ketamine because it's a really it makes them really rigid. There's risk of seizure and different side effects. It's it's a very safe drug. But we can do a little bit better and give them a more relaxed sedation.

They out or just grog.

They are out out. You want them out out. I mean think about if if you're going to get an ear tag and be handled by you know, this alien species, you'd want to be out out, no memory, Yeah, you want to be out. So we we drug them and they are unresponsive. You know you could you could you know, do surgery on them if that's what you were doing. Obviously we're not. You drug them, you bring them out of the trap once they're ready. Again, it's always just

But and that thing eventually falls off or what.

Yeah, they have a little release mechanism that you can program that does a tiny, tiny, little explosion, but on a micro scale, and it just parts the piece SIT's holding it together and it'll drop off. Really yeah, So February you could go grab it if you want to, exactly. Yeah, so February second, hopefully that's what we'll be doing. That's when our our colls will drop off.

Really coming right up, coming right up.

Yeah, So it's getting the collar on, but you're also you're you're you've got this cat that needs you know, it doesn't that the drugs can depress their respiration and temperature and things like this, and so you're having to regulate and make sure that that the cat's safe.

And so is that collar valuable? You need to go get it because it's valuable, or you just go get it because of.

We will theoretically have had all the data on it. But it's just another way to get it. You can have them refurbished, doesn't save you that much money, but yeah, they are expensive.

But but going and getting it doesn't. It's not like a financial reason to go get it, not really.

Okay, Yeah, anyway, so during the handling, a really important job is to be monitoring temperature, respiration, heart rate, you know, these sorts of things, so that if things start to drift out of you know, a the correct zone of temperature, heart rate, and respiration, we can correct that.

And you have a drug that helps with that. Like let's say you oded it on an.

Accident, that's really unlikely. The drugs we use have a they have a huge safety margin. We're not gonna do it, yeah, but there are drugs it. You know, there's there's different things that could happen. For example, I had a bear and this is more common embarrassed for whatever reason with some drugs where the breathing got a little too shallow and interrupted for my comfort. I had a drug with that just gave it a little bit of that boom started breathing well. So we have tools for these common

Are you also taking samples for like DNA, genetics, disease, stuff.

Like that, or we're not taking blood. We're not, we're not looking at disease. If we had a cat that something seemed wrong, we'd certainly take a lot of notes about that. If it had an unusual parasite load, we'd probably collect that.

We just know that from scat analysis. Like, how would you know if we had a parasite load, Well.

If you see them they sometimes have tapeworms, or if they had an exorminant amount of ticks or fleas or lice or something like that, we'd probably collect that. Right, We do collect DNA, So when we give them a ear tag, we first rather than just jamming the ear tag through, you take a little biopsy punch and it makes a little hole and then we've got that little tissue sample. So call her a couple of DNA samples. No tattoos, no tattoos, no need for that. We're not pit tagging.

What's the ear tag for?

The ear tag is so that if it shows up on a camera, you might be able to read that number. It's also got my phone number on it, so if somebody finds its carcass, they could call us and we'd know what was going on years down the road. You know, if it's the callers come off and we retrap it, we know who it is.

Well, you never finished what you were saying the female Oh yeah, you don't have on it's no longer on air.

Right right, so right, yeah, So I was describing what a cool handling that was, and we let her go and there was this just incredible moment of getting to watch her and her kitten reunite and and you know, go off. And we're ecstatic about this because now we've got a female links using the burned area, and to know what habitat of female links is you us is

What's the subject line?

It might have been the number and mortality or something. Something comes in an email and just makes your Yeah, it's a right, yeah, it's not when you want. I mean, mortalities are fascinating.

Just the delivery mechanism of an email.

Yeah, yeah, they don't. They don't sugarcoat it or pack no. No, So I I shoot out there. Our season has ended, but there's still a ton of snow, and I went out there with a biologist colleague and friend and it was this kind of a harrowing adventure to get to this spot. But once we got there, we were a little bit hamstringed because her caller was not transmitting a v h F, which that's the little radio beep beep that you can hone in on. It wasn't it's not

She is ish and how big How big is this.

Maybe a two hundred meter radius, But if there's snow on top of her or if she's in a hole or something. Those GPS points that that she was spitting could be pretty off. Plus it has just snowed that night into the morning, and so we get to this spot. We'd had a hike a bunch on the snowmobile trail. She's not very far from the snowmobile trail, but she's down in a little metal with a creek in this

Could not got hit by not bit.

There are no puncture wines, no puncture winds. I don't know, snow corn is broke that it was standing on and it fell on a rock or I don't know, kicked by a moose, which seems really unlikely to me. But that's been floated.

That's not that wild.

Some people, well, I don't know, I don't know.

I just you know one time we uh killed a meal deer and its whole underside was totally infected and it was full of porcupine quills. Oh yeah, like what is the scenario? It was jumped, it walked over porcupine and the portpine fo Yeah. Probably, so just weird, you know, I mean, yeah, weird to only being that, like who knows Mayne, Yeah, I mean.

I've seen some weird stuff out there, So yeah, you don't it could have been anything. But anyway, that's all we'll know. So she so we got a month of data from her and that was it. Unfortunately, I'm hoping. Let's see. Later that season, we caught a Lynx kitten. And when I say kitten, you know, it was almost a year old. But it was. It was too small to call her, so we gave it an ear tag and sent it on its way. I don't know for sure, we don't have the DNA yet, but it was in

Yeah, we'll see, man, I could see that having a female and finding out what she does around danding season be cool as hell.

Yeah, dens are Linkstons are really cool and that's what.

They like, cracks and rocks or.

They will use a lot of different things. They often are in mature forests where there's lots of down logs, just total jackstraw, and they'll find a gnarly spot in there because that's going to protect him from cougar or probably not cougar's but wolves. And so they'll find a gnarly spot in these just giant piles of logs and going to there. I've seen them in hollowed out stump rock crevices, slash piles in cut areas, upturned Well, they just they need a nice bit of cover.

Yeah, cool to have that.

Yeah, how much do they got to worry about cougars and wolves?

They have to worry about cougars. Ye, they have to worry about cougars places where there's lots of fishers. That's been the mature ones I've been.

Fisher can outduk.

They can, I mean, come on, Yeah, they're reasels.

Man losing a lot of respect for links. Here a fisher, a fisher can whoop a Lynx.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been to several more links mortalities where it was a fisher and one I can remember in particular.

They can whoop porcupine.

Yep, so can the links or a bobcat.

The links will be all to do it.

Yeah, that's not a normal prey item, but they can do it. Yeah. I've seen where Lynx was curled up in the snow and then you see the fisher tracks come and it basically just jumped it in its bed.

Huh.

They are when you see them and they see links look big. A lot of that's just linky ness and there they're so fuzzy, especially in the summer. Their average weight is the same as a bobcat pretty much.

They're just lankier.

There's lankier and fuzzier.

They look like something if it got a little bit of blunt force trauma, it's not gonna live. Yeah, cause it's just like they're like they're just so spread out and slender.

And yeah, they're they're they're not meant to take a hit. Yeah, when you pick one up, it's like, whoa, this is like a little bird. I mean, they're meant to float on the snow.

Yeah, they're not climbers, Like, they don't go into trees much, right.

Don't go into trees. But it's not like a daily thing by any means. Yeah, Yeah, they're more of they'll just bed right in the snow and some cover and.

They don't throw it. They don't throw any claw mark on a track, right, it's just like a regular cougar bobcat. Like their claws are retracted.

Well I mean like any feelid. Yeah, they're their claws retract and so often most often probably you're not going to see their their claws register. But if they're in slippery substrate and they need an.

Electra grip, they'll pull see it come out.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. In fact, that that track, that picture you were talking about earlier, where there was a snowshoe, hair tracks and the links going after it. It was going up a steep bank and you can see it's it's closed.

Click them out.

Yeah, it's like that guy in his toils climbing up John new Banks.

Yeah.

You use them when you need them.

So what, uh? Where? Tell me where Home Range Wildlife is? Right now? So you have a nonprofit and this is all done as a nonprofit. The nonprofit has employees. You're one of the employees of nonprofit. Yeah, what is uh? You know, we've kind of followed you through your career a little bit. Yeah, are you guys like in in We're gonna make it? Is it? You don't know what you're gonna be doing in five years?

We know what we want to be doing in five years. We've got, you know, all sorts of plans.

I mean, is Home Range Wildlife viable?

We are according to the little like non start you're starting a nonprofit. Take this quiz with your board to see where you're at you're starting. Yeah, yeah, we are still in the struggle phase, which basically means we are I mean, it's hard work. We are having to hustle big time. Yeah, oh yeah, big time. So we're it's not like we're just cruising financially. We're in the hustle phase,

Yeah, you explain that backtracking because you don't want to bump them exactly. Backtracking ain't as fun as forward track.

Well, if you're less likely to see the animal, it is still fun.

Picture, but you know you kind of want to be like, let's just go after it.

Yeah, well, but then we're messing up the data, right, and then you spook it exactly.

It starts evading you, right.

And so part of what we're looking at also is from reading the tracks what they're doing behaviorally, because that can help us figure out, Okay, of the habitats that they'll use for various things. Where are they hunting, where they trying to hunt, where they're actually making kills, where they're hunting and they're successful. That is like the best of the best.

When they kill a snow issue, do they mop that whole thing up or do they leave something behind?

They will usually mop it up, except maybe a foot or two the guts and for whatever reason, a patch of the of the hide from the back. And then I'll often have like hemorrhaging in it. You'll see where it was I see. Sometimes usually they'll eat it, especially if there's not a lot of snowshoe hairs around. They may cash it to save something for later, but usually they're just eating it.

When you find a link scat and the winter, is it white because the snowshoe hair hair.

Yeah, it has white hair in it, but it's not like it's still yeah still dark. Yeah, that meat, the meat makes a really dark scat, especially the organ.

You'll be on the tofts. You'll see that it's white.

Yeah, you can. If you picked it up and looked at it, you'd see it was white hair.

White hair inside there.

Yeah, a little chunks of bone, little chunks of bone toenails and stuff.

So explain again where you guys are at on like the long term viability. You're struggling the struggle phase results kick out struggle.

But I would say it's clear that we're We've got a lot of momentum and a lot of support from agencies, our community. We're partnering with the university on the project, so we've got a master's student on the project. But it's just it's hard to raise money for a nonprofit and we're not like the normal This isn't the normal path.

Who's using all the data you're collect Are you turning it over to the US Fish and Wildlife so's.

Yeah, So that's a huge part of our mission is to be doing research that is address seeing what we see is really urgent conservation issues in our area. And so this whole project is geared towards having results that can inform land management and LINKS conservation because for LINKS, a large part of LINKS conservation is habitat conservation.

But can home range wildlife exists as just a LINKS research org or at some point you're gonna have to jump into something else.

I could. I would love to make this a really long term project because there's a lot of value in those long term data data sets. And that's also another one. A part another part of our values is to be an organization that is really boots on the ground and have our research and biology be really based in the

Well, the model with without your work, the model is the modelers don't have anything to do. I mean, your work is what's going to tell them is the home range.

Of a female It compliments, right, It compliments, but there's.

Also like they have to have something to plug in.

They have to have something to plug in. But there's a lot out there that can plug plug in, and there's a lot out there like right now, like I was saying, this is sort of this whole new habitat habitat paradigm with all the burns, and so it is so important that we're not only building models based on what we think we already know, but we're going back to the drawing board and learning from the landscape and the links and again long term, that's that's a I

You know what I could use some help with. I was telling you, Mike Gright before we started recording. They have everything south of us. They have as this Lynx recovery area, okay, and there's all these separate trapping regulations in the Links recovery area. Now, I've had furbear biologists tell me that most of the stuff in the Lynx recovery area has never had a lynx and never will have a lynx. It's completely wrong. Habitat.

Are you talking about like Yellowstone that area that well, no, it's everything around that.

It's huge, everything south of town everything, Okay. A friend of mine in the four Service who's doing a lot of Links work, he even said, you know, our understanding of what Link's habitat is has gotten very refined since that went into effect. He pictures sometimes down the road that could be eased up because it's just not representative of Link's habitat. He said. If they go to do that, that'll get the hell litigated out of it. When they come out and say, you know what, we were wrong.

I mean, let me explain that with a little more nuance.

So links, we'll, kay, I give you one more tidbit, let's get it. I have a friend who's a lion hunter. He's been hunting lions here twenty years. Okay, hunts all over the state in twenty years. He's yet to cut a LINKS track in this area.

Yeah.

Now, unless you think he doesn't think there's any links. When he goes to Region one, he sees more LINKS tracks than bobcats and mountain lions. Combined. So this is not a guy that doesn't say there's no links tracks. He's like, the Links Recovery area ain't got links.

Yeah.

So I was talking earlier that there's five populations. There's six areas that have been designated as by Vision wild Life Services critical habitat, and that one is not. There's not a known population there. Now there have been intermittent sightings, you know, but there's not a known breeding population there. It's possible that in the future there could be. It's possible. The other thing is that wild links are fairly specialized in their habitat, meaning boreal forest. They move so much

Could say this. I could say, Hey, you shouldn't be able to set certain kind of traps because little children generally aren't lost. But a little child could get lost anywhere, and you shouldn't have that set because how can we say that a little child wouldn't get lost and get caught in that set. I don't know. Maybe I've heard of little children getting lost.

Yeah, I don't know. You have to take it up with fish and wildlife.

That's no, I'm taking that with you because you got to go collar some links and even though there aren't you there, maybe cut one loose and see what it does.

All right, I'll try trapping anywhere.

That's all, Okay, good? This is I have a huge list of gripes that I'd like to get addressed. This is like low you know. My first one is Universal Hunter's orange policy. Just a hat somewhere below that is his links for covering unit issue. But it's some day. I'm going to get to all this. All right, I'm going to take it up.

Look for your letter.

I have a problem. I think I know where that letter is going to wind up. Where's the recycling been?

No?

How do people find you and support your organization? I love I love what you guys doing. You know, it's like and it really resonates with listeners who love it that people are out on the land, find it out studying wildlife. Right, everybody's got their like myths about stuff and what lives were and what don't live where, and to have someone come and say here's what lives there here's how many, here's what they do. It's valuable. Yeah, I mean it's information, right, yeah, like real.

Information exactly, and it's well. Yeah, So the work that we do is research, and so that I think sometimes is hard for the broader public to connect with because it doesn't feel like I'm directly this organization is directly helping that animal. We're doing the research. That's one step, but a really important step in knowing how to manage

Is.

That just gives me a lot of hope that there's there's this audience that really understands that.

Can I tell you something. My brother, who's a he's a fisheries researcher in Alaska told me he was one time describing me the difference between Alaska and the Lower forty eight, as he said, in the Lower forty eight, you're kind of you're in conservation phase, preservation phase, right, he said. One of the things that makes me in research and Alaska different is we're still in how discovery phase in a lot of ways, like where are sam you know, you know, like where are salmon? How many

Yeah?

And what's cool is you're in a case of you're facilitating discovery. Right. It's like there's this thing, there's this cat that lives here. How many I don't know, where do they live? I don't know, how do they use a landscape? I don't know. It's like discovery science, right, it's not sort of you know, it's not specifically saving something. It's just trying to like understand our world, you know.

But I would I mean, I would say, especially in this case, it is how do we save this species?

It leads to that. Yeah, it leads to that. Granted I'm not trying to blittle it, but I'm saying it's like you're discovering things about right, You're discovering about how animals relate to their environment.

Yeah, that's true.

It is. It's this.

Yeah, things have changed out there in the last twenty years, and so we're trying to catch up and learn that.

As far as saving them goes, if you had to make a prediction like state of the links in the lower forty eight whatever, like twenty years or fifty years, like what would you be comfortable saying like.

They needed to burn more stuff in two thousand and six.

Like are they gonna? Are they doing well? Is it bad news?

Is it good news?

It all depends on what we do. If we do nothing, it's not looking great. Especially for Washington, it is not looking great. Yeah, because of these I mean these just sweeping fires are just The worry is that they burn enough in a short enough time frame. Then that's skewing the landscape towards that recently burned there's not much of

Yeah.

Uh. Back to how people can find out information and be supportive. We got the traffic cat thing.

Well hell yeah yeah. Well so if you want to find out more just about home range in general, and like I said, we've got we've got this research, but we also want to help address the issue in wildlife research where young, you know, new biologists are sort of a lot of the culture of this field is that you just sort of get thrown out there and you're having to learn on the job, and that does a

One of our guys of visual identification of no any just animals.

Animals. We're starting there. Okay, that's doable, and then that that session culminates with we get road killed deer and we mock up mortality sites from different predators. Because a lot of mammals, there's a lot of work in research that involves being able to go to a mortality site or kill site and know what happened, who killed it, all that sort of stuff.

Do you guys do snowmobile recovery and stuff like that too.

We've done a winter skills course that had snowmobiling, trailering, avalanche awareness, that sort of thing really, and then we're doing a a trapping course coupled with a chemical immobilization, so all that drug stuff that we were talking about.

Yeah, yeah, small classes, I'm going.

Yeah, yeah about you know, ten to twenty people. So those those are a way that people can learn those skills before they're on the job.

And have you had agencies send out students ever.

Yeah really yeah, yeah, we've had everything from you.

Guys, probably got a lot to teach. When it comes to the wintertime, like time trapping, winter time, snowmobiling, when time survival. Yeah, it's just it's like an arena of consequence in the mountains.

Yeah, it really is. Yeah.

Yeah, stuff can go bad.

Oh yeah quick, yep, real quick. So anyway, so there's that sort of education part, and then we've also got our community science angle, which is sort of built around the knowledge that we can do all this research, but if we're not communicating it to the public, especially the communities that are going to be impacted by any possible management outcomes, If people don't understand and support it, then that's going to really decrease what you can do out

Range Wildlife you'll find it. Yeah, and then are you to explain for the last thing, explain traffic Cat And yeah, So.

I eluded it because I'm it was. It saved our asses last year, and I am so grateful that this community gets it. So we've got a fundraiser and we're doing it again. A because it's super fun and b because we find ourselves again with some desperate needs. People who hunt and fish know how important equipment is and how fast it can break down when you're using it hard, and we use our equipment really hard. Just as an example, we, because of traffic Cat, bought two new snowmobiles last year.

Oh and I'll send you a video. It'd be like, what's that service that they have where you send videos? You buy them?

Cameo?

Cameo. Yeah, you know, dude, the guy what's the name for New York Congress Santos? Santos got voted out and the next day it turns up on Cameo. It's a good it's a good grift if you can get it. I'm not on Cameo, but I'll send them a video. I'll be like, hey, thanks someone that.

Okay, there you go, folks. How cool is that?

Soethill record perfect.

The other cool thing we've got this year, we've got little in pats that we can make a pop print from the from the.

Oh really yeah you can?

Yeah that's great, man, which is mostly just gonna look like a fuzzy mitten.

But Spencer can get that tattooed on him, then there we go. He's like looking for something to get tattooed.

Yeah, I get a links pop friend. Yeah. So winning's fun. It makes a really cool gift. We had a lot of people getting it for their kids and it just it It means so much for our project, and it's yeah, we we rely heavily on this fundraiser and so yeah, we just appreciate everybody.

So people don't want to get involved in Trappic Cat, go where same home range.

Go to home range dot org and there's a banner up on the top of the website. You just click that and it'll give you a little more information and you can donate there and you'll get put into the trap cat system and start getting videos and stuff like that.

Excellent.

Yeah, it's pretty fun.

This is the fifth time you've been on Yeah, okay, Yeah, better have some adventures for the sixth time. Yeah, okay, when you come back next year, Yeah, let's do it. And then we'll start talking about my little problem south here, which might not be a problem. If you go and find that there's all that, you know, it's all habitat, I'll be like, cool, I understand. I'm all for it, But if it winds up being that it was a little willy nilly, a little reflexive, then that then then

Maybe I think willy nilly is probably not it.

Maybe over ambitious over or or just.

Overlate, more cautious than you would do. Not sure, not willing nilly, though, I don't think they're willing nilly.

Okay, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Sentiment, Yeah you are, uh you love them links?

Yeah, I mean I do.

I do.

I just sometimes for you know, for women in wildlife, the stereotype is, oh they love wolves, they're obsessed with wolves, or they.

Love links, and you know, is that a stereotype.

Yeah, I think so.

Like that you're not able to look at it like a cold meanness.

I guess a little bit. Not not that anybody wants to be looking them with a cold meanness, but I think for women sometimes that is seen as the inspiration behind Yeah, I've had it. I've sort of experienced that myself or somebody they hear, oh you're working with wolves, Oh you love like you know they're picturing you as a little girl drawing wolves on your binder at school and stuff. I would say that links are cool animal. It's also they're a hard animal to study, and that's

Thank you for coming in, Thanks for having me home Range.

I really appreciate it.

Wildlife Traffic Cat program, get into it. We're gonna do big announcements about who wins the traffic Cat Okay.

Will you still do a video?

If it's my kids, Oh yeah, I'll t to tell them. Let's tell him. At first, they'll be like, what really is you only got to send me a video? Brooklyn Nicks coming down? You're still gonna make it back to school or did you get some bag it for the day?

Now I can make it back.

Yeah, well, class, you gotta get.

Early grad English early what early grad English. It's like my other English classes. I'm graduating early.

Why are graduating early?

Is it all like school?

Oh? They're letting you the cutting you loose early? How early?

I get out in five days for good?

Really? Whoa, that's graduations fantastic. Oh that's cool.

Then you go right into taxi army full time.

So you need these schools kind of Yeah, you should have put that into your pitch. Oh, okay, that's cool. So you're gonna enter the workforce? Yep, congratulations, good all right, Well thanks for coming down. Four six bone works. Yep, all right, thanks, good luck. Keep us posted on what's going on. I got another skull hanging in a cherry tree in my yard. You'll see it by the front door if you get by there and needs a good cleaning. I skinned it. Unfortunately it's okoduse.

I'm not gonna here's a question before we leave, will we do any skull like coyotes? Beaver's yeah, Pine Martins, lynx links.

I'm a joking. I want When Karma was on before I was talking at how bad I wanted a Lynk skull, and someone from Canada sent me a link. Skoo. I'm trying to give it to Carmena for her collection.

Cool.

Cool, I don't want to. Uh, it would take a very trained, astute observer to tell that from a Bobcats. Yeah, like you could just say it's whatever. Yeah. I sent my buddy has he's a science teacher in Michigan. I send him a huge box of schools and he had his kids do the what do you call it? You know, like the there's a the idea. Yeah, but there's like a thing you what's the term, man, you key it or something?

Oh?

Yeah, like using a key to to figure out which school is which.

Yeah, And then we did where the ones that got it right got a prize. They were fun. Oh, they were phenomenal. He had like twenty some students and like I don't know everyone it was toms of them got it right, like a whole box of schools by using the key. Like I would just look at like, I don't know, it looks like a.

Well if it's a good key.

Yeah.

No.

I was impressed. Man, I'm gonna so I'm going to keep supplying little schools or to his students so they can check them out, all right, So you'll do any kind of school ye, all right, Okay, thank you very much for coming down.

Thank you.

Good luck with your business. I'm going to keep sending your business. I'm not using Brody services anymore. Nothing not hacking Brody. I just want to support. I want to support the business over here.

I might start sending to her. I think you should raise your prices just a little bit.

Also, yeah, it sounds like it, but I don't know. I like that. I like that price right there. Now, how do you how do you envoys? Are you going to send? Uh? You know you could do? That's really convenient. I had someone I bought something near day from someone that sends you a a like a little scan code, and then that scan code pulls up Venmo. Have you tried something like that?

No, if I use Venmo, you need.

To get this whatever the hell he's got. I don't know what it is. It made it so easy.

I think she's waiting for her business manager.

Yeah, yeah, it was just like, man, I don't have vembo. By grabbed my wife's phone and open that code up and was able to just hit a couple of things and payment over. Super easy, super convenient. I don't know what it is, but trust me, just the thing out there that makes payment a breeze.

Okay, it's probably Venmo.

No, it is out yeah it is. But I don't know how they did this thing. It was great because I don't have them much of my wife's annoyance I had not. All right, thanks, everybody, talk you soon.

It's a story of a man the steward of the land fixed on griev So I'll try to be brief. He's written Forefield and streaming all the other magazines. Kids more about truth than common believe about already know this buddy Astricken noses from beating the meat of a uncooked bear about already know. Then you can find him and Bozeman or hunting some mountains somewhere here. That's Seemingnella. He's a fine fella. It's dreading middle of like a shaggy

He's got some.

Good folks under them media the umbrella. He's a fine fella that he's written half a dozen bucks. He's a pretty good cook, married to a fence that won't seem to mope. Loves his home, steak tails, from Twins Lake, Michigan, where they picked up those quoats in Alaska on a skiff for with Doug and the Drifts with his main man Gianni's food tellers on the mountain, trying to score in a double Remy Warren or Old Chalcey and Lady Bears Smellings. That's Steven mmella. He's a fine fellaw's dreading

That's Deephen Mellow.

He's a fine fellows spreading a little love like us shagging fans the mellow. He's not afraid to sing.

Got the fella.

His lif fit reads like I can no time, no fella. He's got some good books under them umbrella he's Vambela, that HeLa. He's Fambelddela Doo doo doo

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